Tib. Astonishment and wonder! what means this?
Is the duke sober?
Herc. Why, ha’ not you endeavour’d 572
Courses that only[202] seconded appetite,
And not your honour, or your trust of place?
Do you not court the lady for yourself?
Tib. Fawn, thou dost love me. If I ha’ done so,
’Tis past my knowledge; and I prithee, Fawn,
If thou observ’st I do I know not what,
Make me to know it; for by the dear light,
I ha’ not found a thought that way. I apt for love?
Let lazy idleness, fill’d full of wine, 581
Heated with meats, high fed, with lustful ease,
Go dote on colour. As for me, why, death[203] o’ sense!
I court the lady? I was not born in Cyprus.
I love! when?—how?—whom? Think, let us yet keep
Our reason sound. I’ll think, and think, and sleep.
[Exit.
Herc. Amazed! even lost in wond’ring! I rest full
Of covetous expectation. I am left
As on a rock, from whence I may discern
The giddy sea of humour flow beneath, 590
Upon whose back the vainer bubbles float,
And forthwith break. O mighty flattery!
Thou easiest, common’st, and most grateful venom,
That poisons courts and all societies,
How grateful dost thou make me? Should one rail,
And come to fear[204] a vice, beware leg-rings
And the turn’d key on thee, when, if softer hand
Suppling a sore that itches (which should smart)—
Free speech gains foes, base fawnings steal the heart.
Swell, you imposthum’d members, till you burst, 600
Since ’tis in vain to hinder, on I’ll thrust;
And when in shame you fall, I’ll laugh from hence,
And cry, “So end all desperate impudence!”
Another’s court shall show me where and how
Vice may be cured, for now beside myself,
Possess’d with almost frenzy, from strong fervour
I know I shall produce things mere divine:
Without immoderate heat, no virtues shine.
For I speak strong, tho’ strange,—the dews that steep
Our souls in deepest thoughts are fury and sleep. 610
[Exit.
[161] The officer who set on the dishes and removed them at a banquet.
[162] Ed. 3. “overflowing.” The italicised words seem to be a quotation.
[163] So the old eds.; but probably “Danae’s” is a misprint for “the Danaides’.” Later we have “Danau’s tubbe.”