Enter Aurelio and Musicians.
Aur. This is the window. Now, my noble Orpheus,
As thou affect'st the name of rarity,
Strike with the soul of music, that the sound
May bear my love on his bedewed wing,
To charm her ear: as when a sacrifice
With his perfumed steam flies up to heaven
Into Jove's nostrils, and there throws a mist
On his enraged brow. O, how my fancy
Labours with the success! [Song above.
Enter Lucretia.
Luc. Cease your fool's note there; I am not in tune
To dance after your fiddle. Who are you?
What saucy groom, that dares so near intrude,
And with offensive noise grate on my ears?
Aur. What more than earthly light breaks through that window?
Brighter than all the glittering train of nymphs
That wait on Cynthia, when she takes her progress
In pursuit of the swift enchased deer
Over the Cretan or Athenian hills;
Or when, attended with those lesser stars,
She treads the azure circle of the heavens.
Luc. Heyday, this is excellent! What voice is that?
O, is it you? I cry you mercy, sir:
I thought as much; these are your tricks still with me:
You have been sotting on't all night with wine,
And here you come to finish out your revels.
I shall be, one day, able to live private,
I shall, and not be made the epilogue
Of all your drunken meetings. For shame, away!
The rosy morning blushes at thy baseness.
Julia, go throw the music a reward,
And set them hence.
Aur. Divine Lucretia,
Do not receive with scorn my proffer'd service:
O, turn again, though from your arched brow,
Stung with disdain, and bent down to your eyen,
You shoot me through with darts of cruelty.
Ah, foolish man, to court the flame that burns him!
Luc. What would this fellow have?
Aur. Shine still, fair mistress;
And though in silence, yet still look upon me.
Your eye discourses[310] with more rhetoric
Than all the gilded tongues of orators.
Luc. Out of my pity, not my love, I'll answer.
You come to woo me, and speak fair; 'tis well.
You think to win me too: you are deceiv'd.
For when I hate a person, all his actions,
Though ne'er so good, prove but his prejudice:
For flatteries are like sweet pills—though sweet,
Yet if they work not straight, invert to poison.