Hip. Faith on both.
He may by knavery spoil them, we by sloth.
But why talk you all riddle thus? I read
Strange comments in those margins of your looks:
Your cheeks of late are like bad printed books,
So dimly charactered, I scarce can spell
One line of love in them. Sure all’s not well.
Inf. All is not well indeed, my dearest lord;
Lock up thy gates of hearing, that no sound
Of what I speak may enter.
Hip. What means this?
Inf. Or if my own tongue must myself betray,
Count it a dream, or turn thine eyes away,
And think me not thy wife. [Kneels.
Hip. Why do you kneel?
Inf. Earth is sin’s cushion: when the sick soul feels
Herself growing poor, then she turns beggar, cries,
And kneels for help: Hippolito, for husband
I dare not call thee, I have stolen that jewel
Of my chaste honour, which was only thine,
And given it to a slave.
Hip. Ha?
Inf. On thy pillow
Adultery and lust have slept, thy groom
Hath climbed the unlawful tree, and plucked the sweets,
A villain hath usurped a husband’s sheets.
Hip. S’death, who?—a cuckold!—who?
Inf. This Irish footman.