Blan. Come, leave your fooling, and speak soberly.
Fran. Why then, in sober sadness, you're i' th' wrong—
I do not say in being angry with him,
And nettled at the thing—that's natural.
We love no partners, even in what we know
We cannot keep all to ourselves: but, madam,
To think the worse of him for it: or resolve
A breach of friendship for a slight excursion,
That were a greater fault than his, who has
For one excuse long absence; and in truth
Another you'd be sorry he wanted—youth.
Blan. You talk as if——
Fran. [interrupting her.] Stay, madam, I beseech you,
And let me make an end: I have not yet
Touch'd the main point in his excuse, a suit
At court, enough I trow for any dog-trick.
Blan. How like a goose you talk! a court pretension!
What has that to do, one way or other,
With his faith to me?
Fran. So one, displeased to find his crawfishes
Shrivell'd within and empty, said to his cook
(Who laid the fault upon the wane o' th' moon):
What has the moon to do with crawfishes?
Marry, she has, 'tis she that governs shell-fish;
And 'tis as true, in courts that love rules business
By as preposterous an influence.
Blan. I prythee, make an end, or come to th' point.
Fran. Why, then, I'll tell you: you may believe me
(Having been train'd up in my youth, you know,
In the best school to learn court mysteries,
An aunt of mine being mother of the maids),
Love holds the rudder, and steers in all courts.
How oft, when great affairs perplex the brains
Of mighty politicians to conjecture,
From whence sprung such designs, such revolutions:
Such exaltations, madam, such depressions,
Against the rules of their mysterious art;
And when, as in surprising works of nature,
Reason's confounded, men cry those are secrets
Of the high pow'rs above, that govern all
Grave lookers on, stroking their beards, would say,
What a transcendent fetch of state is this!
These are the things that wisdom hides and hatches
Under black cap of weighty jobbernowl;
I mean Count Olivarez. All the while,
We female Machiavels would smile to think,
How closely lurking lay the nick of all
Under our daughter Doll's white petticoat.
Blan. All this, I grant you, may be true, and yet
Ne'er make a jot for his excuse, Francisca.
His suit had no relation to such matters.
Fran. Whate'er the thing be, 'tis all one. D' you think
Suits, be they what they will, can be obtain'd
By such as pass for fops, as all young men
Without a mistress or a confidant
Are sure to do there? A sharp-pointed hat
(Now that you see the gallants all flat-headed)
Appears not so ridiculous as a younker
Without a love-intrigue to introduce
And sparkify him there. Madam, in short,
Allow me once to be sententious:
It is a thing that always was, and is,
And ever will be, true to the world's end:
That, as in courts of justice, none can carry
On business well without a procurator,
So none in princes' courts their suits make surer,
Than those that work them by the best procurer.