Jaff. By all our loves!
Belv. 'Tis hard to part:
But sure no falsehood ever looked so fairly.
Farewell—remember twelve. [Exit.
Jaff. Let Heaven forget me
When I remember not thy truth, thy love.
How cursed is my condition! tossed and justled
From every corner; fortune's common fool,
The jest of rogues, an instrumental ass
For villains to lay loads of shame upon,
And drive about just for their ease and scorn.
Enter Pierre.
Pier. Jaffier!
Jaff. Who calls?
Pier. A friend, that could have wished
To have found thee otherwise employed: what, hunt
A wife on the dull foil! sure a staunch husband
Of all hounds is the dullest. Wilt thou never,
Never be weaned from caudles and confections?
What feminine tale hast thou been listening to
Of unaired shirts, catarrhs and toothache got
By thin-soled shoes? Damnation! that a fellow,
Chosen to be a sharer in the destruction
Of a whole people, should sneak thus in corners
To ease his fulsome lusts, and fool his mind!
Jaff. May not a man then trifle out an hour
With a kind woman, and not wrong his calling?
Pier. Not in a cause like ours.
Jaff. Then, friend, our cause
Is in a damned condition: for I'll tell thee,
That canker-worm called lechery has touched it;
'Tis tainted vilely. Wouldst thou think it, Renault.
(That mortified, old, withered, winter-rogue)
Loves simple fornication like a priest?
I found him out for watering at my wife:
He visited her last night, like a kind guardian.
Faith, she has some temptations, that's the truth on't.