Free. What, to affect that which thy friend affected? By Heaven, I resign her freely; the creature and I must grow off; by this time she has assure[d]ly heard of my resolved marriage, and no question swears “God’s sacrament, ten towsand divells.” I’ll resign, i’faith.
Mal. I would but embrace her, hear her speak, and at the most, but kiss her.
Free. O friend, he that could live with the smoke of roast-meat might live at a cheap rate! 111
Mal. I shall ne’er prove heartily received;
A kind of flat ungracious modesty,
An insufficient dulness stains my ’haviour.
Free. No matter, sir; insufficiency and sottishness are much commendable in a most discommendable
action: now could I swallow thee, thou hadst wont to be so harsh and cold: I’ll tell thee,—hell and the prodigies of angry Jove are not so fearful to a thinking mind as a man without affection. Why, friend, philosophy and nature are all one; love is the centre in which all lines close, the common bond of being. 122
Mal. O but a chaste reservèd privateness,
A modest continence!
Free. I’ll tell thee what, take this as firmest sense:—
Incontinence will force a continence;
Heat wasteth heat, light defaceth light,
Nothing is spoiled but by his proper might.
This is something too weighty for thy floor.
Mal. But howsoe’er you shade it, the world’s eye 130
Shines hot and open on’t;
Lying, malice, envy, are held but slidings,
Errors of rage, when custom and the world
Calls lust a crime spotted with blackest terrors.
Free. Where errors are held crimes, crimes are but errors.