Gni. Wrong not yourself, me, and your dearest friend;
Your love is violent, and soon will end.
Love is not love unless love doth persever;
That love is perfect love that loves for ever.
Isa. Such love is mine; believe it, well-shaped youth,
Though women use to lie, yet I speak truth.
Give sentence for my life, or speedy death.
Can you affect me?
Gni. I should belie my thoughts to give denial;
But then to friendship I must turn disloyal. 90
I will not wrong my friend; let that suffice.
Isa. I’ll be a miracle; for love a woman dies.
[Offers to stab herself.
Gni. Hold, madam; these are soul-killing passions.
I’d rather wrong my friend than you yourself.
Isa. Love me, or else, by Jove, death’s but delay’d.
My vow is fix’d in heaven; fear shall not move me;
My life is death with tortures ’less you love me.
Gni. Give me some respite, and I will resolve you.
Isa. My heart denies it;
My blood is violent; now or else never. 100
Love me! and like love’s queen I’ll fall before thee,
Enticing dalliance from thee with my smiles,
And steal thy heart with my delicious kisses.
I’ll study art in love, that in a rapture[248]
Thy soul shall taste pleasure’s excelling nature.
Love me!
Both art and nature in large recompense
Shall be profuse in ravishing thy sense.
Gni. You have prevail’d; I am yours from all the world;
Thy wit and beauty have entranced my soul; 110
I long for dalliance, my blood burns like fire.
Hell’s pain on earth is to delay desire!