Enter Charalois with a casket, Beaumelle, Baumont.
[A Room in Charalois’ House]
Cha. Pray beare this to my father, at his leasure
He may peruse it: but with your best language
Intreat his instant presence: you haue sworne
Not to reueale what I haue done.
Bau. Nor will I—
But—
Cha. Doubt me not, by Heauen, I will doe nothing [5]
But what may stand with honour: Pray you leaue me
To my owne thoughts. If this be to me, rise;
I am not worthy the looking on, but onely
To feed contempt and scorne, and that from you
Who with the losse of your faire name haue caus’d it, [10]
Were too much cruelty.
Beau. I dare not moue you
To heare me speake. I know my fault is farre
Beyond qualification, or excuse,
That ’tis not fit for me to hope, or you
To thinke of mercy; onely I presume [15]
To intreate, you would be pleas’d to looke vpon
My sorrow for it, and beleeue, these teares
Are the true children of my griefe and not
A womans cunning.
Cha. Can you Beaumelle,
Hauing deceiued so great a trust as mine, [20]
Though I were all credulity, hope againe
To get beleefe? no, no, if you looke on me
With pity or dare practise any meanes
To make my sufferings lesse, or giue iust cause
To all the world, to thinke what I must doe [25]
Was cal’d vpon by you, vse other waies,
Deny what I haue seene, or iustifie
What you haue done, and as you desperately
Made shipwracke of your fayth to be a whore,
Vse th’ armes of such a one, and such defence, [30]
And multiply the sinne, with impudence,
Stand boldly vp, and tell me to my teeth,
You haue done but what’s warranted,
By great examples, in all places, where
Women inhabit, vrge your owne deserts, [35]
Or want of me in merit; tell me how,
Your dowre from the lowe gulfe of pouerty,
Weighed vp my fortunes, to what now they are:
That I was purchas’d by your choyse and practise
To shelter you from shame: that you might sinne [40]
As boldly as securely, that poore men
Are married to those wiues that bring them wealth,
One day their husbands, but obseruers euer:
That when by this prou’d vsage you haue blowne
The fire of my iust vengeance to the height, [45]
I then may kill you: and yet say ’twas done
In heate of blood, and after die my selfe,
To witnesse my repentance.
Beau. O my fate,
That neuer would consent that I should see,
How worthy thou wert both of loue and duty [50]
Before I lost you; and my misery made
The glasse, in which I now behold your vertue:
While I was good, I was a part of you,
And of two, by the vertuous harmony
Of our faire minds, made one; but since I wandred [55]
In the forbidden Labyrinth of lust,
What was inseparable, is by me diuided.
With iustice therefore you may cut me off,
And from your memory, wash the remembrance
That ere I was like to some vicious purpose [60]
Within your better iudgement, you repent of
And study to forget.
Cha. O Beaumelle,
That you can speake so well, and doe so ill!
But you had been too great a blessing, if
You had continued chast: see how you force me [65]
To this, because my honour will not yeeld
That I againe should loue you.
Beau. In this life
It is not fit you should: yet you shall finde,
Though I was bold enough to be a strumpet,
I dare not yet liue one: let those fam’d matrones [70]
That are canoniz’d worthy of our sex,
Transcend me in their sanctity of life,
I yet will equall them in dying nobly,
Ambitious of no honour after life,
But that when I am dead, you will forgiue me. [75]