Orl. O my lord! this old tree had one branch, and but one branch growing out of it. It was young, it was fair, it was straight; I pruned it daily, dressed it carefully, kept it from the wind, helped it to the sun, yet for all my skill in planting, it grew crooked, it bore crabs; I hewed it down; what’s become of it, I neither know, nor care.
Hip. Then I can tell you what’s become of it;
That branch is withered.
Orl. So ’twas long ago.
Hip. Her name I think was Bellafront, she’s dead.
Orl. Ha? dead?
Hip. Yes; what of her was left, not worth the keeping,
Even in my sight was thrown into a grave.
Orl. Dead! my last and best peace go with her! I see Death’s a good trencherman, he can eat coarse homely meat, as well as the daintiest.
Hip. Why, Friscobaldo, was she homely?
Orl. O my lord! a strumpet is one of the devil’s vines; all the sins, like so many poles, are stuck upright out of hell, to be her props, that she may spread upon them. And when she’s ripe, every slave has a pull at her, then must she be pressed. The young beautiful grape sets the teeth of lust on edge, yet to taste that liquorish wine, is to drink a man’s own damnation. Is she dead?
Hip. She’s turned to earth.