Asc. And if you break your grant, I will hereafter
Scorn all your sex, since the most excellent
Is cruel and inconstant.
Queen. Pray, my lord,
Go recollect your reason, which your passion
Hath too much scatter'd. Make me not have cause
To hate whom I would ever strive to honour.
Asc. Madam, you haply scorn the vulgar earth,
Of which I stand compacted: and because
I cannot add a splendour to my name,
Reflective from a royal pedigree,
You interdict my language: but be pleas'd
To know, the ashes of my ancestors,
If intermingled in the tomb with kings,
Could hardly be distinguished. The stars shoot
An equal influence on the open cottage,
Where the poor shepherd's child is rudely nurs'd,
And on the cradle, where the prince is rock'd
With care and whisper.
Queen. And what hence infer you?
Asc. That no distinction is 'tween man and man,
But as his virtues add to him a glory,
Or vices cloud him.
Queen. But yet Heaven hath made
Subordination and degrees of men,
And even religion doth authorise us
To rule, and tells the subject 'tis a crime,
And shall meet death, if he disdain obedience.
Asc. Kind Heaven made us all equal, till rude strength
Or wicked policy usurp'd a power:
And for religion, that exhorts t' obey
Only for its own ease.
Queen. I must not hear
Such insolence 'gainst majesty; and yet
This less offends than love.
Asc. If reason bends
You not to mercy, let my passion plead,
And not meet death from her, in whose fair quarrel
I could each moment bring a life to th' hazard.
Philosophy hath taught me that content
Lives under the coarse thatch of labourers
With much more quiet than where the fam'd hand
Of artists to the life have richly drawn
Upon the roofs the fictions of the gods.
How happy then might I lengthen my life,
With some fair country girl, so ignorant
She knew not her own beauties, rather than
Endanger death and scorn in your denial,
And in your grant nothing but pomp and envy!
Queen. My lord, be wise, and study that best content.
This bold presumptuous love hath cancell'd all
The bonds I owed your valour: henceforth hope
Not for that usual favour I show strangers,
Since you have thus abus'd it. Would I might
With safety have appear'd more grateful. [Exit.