Mat. Bright and refulgent lady, deign your ear: 190
You see this blade,—had it a courtly lip,
It would divulge my valour, plead my love,
Justle that skipping feeble amorist
Out of your love’s seat; I am Matzagent.
Gal. Hark thee; I pray thee, taint not thy sweet ear
With that sot’s gabble; by thy beauteous cheek,
He is the flagging’st bulrush that e’er droop’d
With each slight mist of rain. But with pleased eye
Smile on my courtship.
Mel. What said you, sir? alas my thought was fix’d 200
Upon another object. Good, forbear:
I shall but weep. Ay me, what boots a tear!
Come, come, let’s dance. O music, thou distill’st
More sweetness in us than this jarring world:
Both time and measure from thy strains do breathe,
Whilst from the channel of this dirt doth flow
Nothing but timeless grief, unmeasured woe.
Ant. O how impatience cramps my crackèd veins
And cruddles thick my blood, with boiling rage!
O eyes, why leap you not like thunderbolts,
210 Or cannon bullets in my rival’s face!
Ohime infeliche misero, O lamentevol fato!
Alb. What means the lady fall upon the ground?
Ros. Belike the falling sickness.
Ant. I cannot brook this sight, my thoughts grow wild:
Here lies a wretch, on whom heaven never smiled.
Ros. What, servant, ne’er a word, and I here man?
I would shoot some speech forth, to strike the time
With pleasing touch of amorous compliment.
Say, sweet, what keeps thy mind, what think’st thou on? 220
Alb. Nothing.
Ros. What’s that nothing?