[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
The Street.
Enter ANSELM and FULLER.
FUL. Speak: in what cue, sir, do you find your heart,
Now thou hast slept a little on thy love?
ANS. Like one that strives to shun a little plash
Of shallow water, and (avoiding it)
Plunges into a river past his depth:
Like one that from a small spark steps aside,
And falls in headlong to a greater flame.
FUL. But in such fires scorch not thyself, for shame!
If she be fire, thou art so far from burning,
That thou hast scarce yet warm'd thee at her face;
But list to me, I'll turn thy heart from love,
And make thee loathe all of the feminine sex.
They that have known me, knew me once of name
To be a perfect wencher: I have tried
All sorts, all sects, all states, and find them still
Inconstant, fickle, always variable.
Attend me, man! I will prescribe a method,
How thou shalt win her without all peradventure.
ANS. That would I gladly hear.
FUL. I was once like thee,
A sigher, melancholy humorist,
Crosser of arms, a goer without garters,
A hatband-hater, and a busk-point[4] wearer,
One that did use much bracelets made of hair,
Rings on my fingers, jewels in mine ears,
And now and then a wench's carcanet,
Scarfs, garters, bands, wrought waistcoats, gold-stitch'd caps,
A thousand of those female fooleries; but when
I look'd into the glass of reason, straight
I began to loathe that female bravery,
And henceforth studied[5] to cry
Peccavi to the world.
ANS. I pray you, to your former argument:
Prescribe a means to win my best-belov'd.