Rog. Signior, sir? O devil!
Tha. Good husband, show yourself a temperate man!
Your mother was a woman, I dare swear—
No tiger got you, nor no bear was rival
In your conception—you seem like the issue
The painters limn leaping from Envy’s mouth, 340
That devours all he meets.
Rog. Had the last, or the least syllable
Of this more than immortal eloquence
Commenced to me when rage had been so high
Within my blood that it o’er-topt my soul,
Like to the lion when he hears the sound
Of Dian’s bowstring in some shady wood,
I should have couch’d my lowly limb on earth
And held my silence a proud sacrifice.
Clar. Slave, I will fight with thee at any odds; 350
Or name an instrument fit for destruction,
That e’er[167] was made to make away a man,
I’ll meet thee on the ridges of the Alps,[168]
Or some inhospitable wilderness,
Stark-naked, at push of pike, or keen curtle-axe,
At Turkish sickle, Babylonian saw,
The ancient hooks of great Cadwallader,
Or any other heathen invention!
Tha. O God bless the man!
Lady Len. Counsel him, good my lord! 360
Men. Our tongues are weary, and he desperate.
He does refuse to hear. What shall we do?
Clar. I am not mad—I can hear, I can see, I can feel!
But a wise rage in man, wrong’d[169] past compare,
Should be well nourish’d, as his virtues are.
I’d have it known unto each valiant sprite,[170]
He wrongs no man that to himself does right.
Catzo,[171] I ha’ done; Signior Rogero, I ha’ done!
Gui. By heaven!
This voluntary reconciliation, made 370
Freely and of itself, argues unfeign’d
And virtuous knot of love. So, sirs, embrace!