Orle. Then a speedy death would end a speeding misery. But to love a lady and never enjoy her, oh it is not death, but worse than damnation; ’tis hell, ’tis——
Agrip. No more, no more, good Orleans; nay then, I see my prisoner is in love too.
Cypr. Methinks, soldiers cannot fall into the fashion of love.
Agrip. Methinks a soldier is the most faithful lover of all men else; for his affection stands not upon compliment. His wooing is plain home-spun stuff; there’s no outlandish thread in it, no rhetoric. A soldier casts no figures to get his mistress’ heart; his love is like his valour in the field, when he pays downright blows.
Gall. True, madam, but would you receive such payment?
Agrip. No, but I mean, I love a soldier best for his plain dealing.
Cypr. That’s as good as the first.
Agrip. Be it so, that goodness I like: for what lady can abide to love a spruce silken-face courtier, that stands every morning two or three hours learning how to look by his glass, how to speak by his glass, how to sigh by his glass, how to court his mistress by his glass? I would wish him no other plague, but to have a mistress as brittle as glass.
Gall. And that were as bad as the horn plague.