Mat. How’s this?
Bell. Indeed, I love you not: but hate you worse
Than any man, because you were the first
Gave money for my soul: you brake the ice,
Which after turned a puddle; I was led
By your temptation to be miserable:
I pray, seek out some other that will fall,
Or rather, I pray seek out none at all.
Mat. Is’t possible to be impossible! an honest whore! I have heard many honest wenches turn strumpets with a wet finger,[193] but for a harlot to turn honest is one of Hercules’ labours. It was more easy for him in one night to make fifty queans, than to make one of them honest again in fifty years. Come, I hope thou dost but jest.
Bell. ’Tis time to leave off jesting, I had almost
Jested away salvation: I shall love you,
If you will soon forsake me.
Mat. God be with thee!
Bell. O tempt no more women! shun their weighty curse;
Women, at best, are bad, make them not worse.
You gladly seek our sex’s overthrow:
But not to raise our states. For all your wrongs,
Will you vouchsafe me but due recompense,
To marry with me?
Mat. How! marry with a punk, a cockatrice, a harlot? maarr, faugh, I’ll be burnt through the nose first.
Bell. Why, la, these are your oaths! you love to undo us,
To put Heaven from us, whilst our best hours waste;
You love to make us lewd, but never chaste.
Mat. I’ll hear no more of this, this ground upon,
Thou’rt damned for altering thy religion. [Exit.
Bell. Thy lust and sin speak so much: go thou, my ruin,
The first fall my soul took! By my example
I hope few maidens now will put their heads
Under men’s girdles; who least trusts is most wise:
Men’s oaths do cast a mist before our eyes.
My best of wit, be ready! Now I go,
By some device to greet Hippolito.