Miz.[141] Marry, amen. I say; madam, are you that were in for all day, now come to be in for all night? How now, Count Arsena?
Gui.[142] Faith, signior, not unlike the condemn’d malefactor,
That hears his judgment openly pronounced;
But I ascribe to fate. Joy swell your love;
Cypress and willow grace my drooping crest.
Rob. We do intend our hymeneal rites
With the next rising sun. Count Arsena,[143]
Next to our bride, the welcom’st to our feast. 120
[Exeunt Isabella and Roberto.
Gui. Sancta Maria! what think’st thou of this change?
A player’s passion I’ll believe hereafter,
And in a tragic scene weep for old Priam,[144]
When fell-revenging Pyrrhus with supposed
And artificial wounds mangles his breast,
And think it a more worthy act to me,
Than trust a female mourning o’er her love.
Naught that is done of woman shall me please,
Nature’s step-children, rather her disease.[145]
Miz. Learn of a well-composèd epigram 130
A woman’s love, and thus ’twas sung unto us;
The[146] tapers that stood on her husband’s hearse,
Isabel advances to a second bed:
Is it not wondrous strange for to rehearse
She should so soon forget her husband, dead
One hour? for if the husband’s life once fade,
Both love and husband in one grave are laid.
But we forget ourselves: I am for the marriage
Of Signior Claridiana and the fine Mistress Abigail. 139
Gui. I for his arch-foe’s wedding, Signior Rogero, and the spruce Mistress Thais: but see, the solemn rites are ended, and from their several temples they are come.