NURSE. 'Faith, mistress, he speaks like a gentleman. Let me persuade you; be not hard-hearted. Sophos? Why, what's he? If he had loved you but half so well, he would ha' come through stone walls, but he would have come to you ere this.
LELIA.
I must confess, I once lov'd Sophos well;
But now I cannot love him, whom
All the world knows to be a dissembler.
CHURMS.
Ere I would wrong my love with one day's absence,
I would pass the boiling Hellespont,
As once Leander did for Hero's love,
Or undertake a greater task than that,
Ere I would be disloyal to my love.
And if that Lelia give her free consent,
That both our loves may sympathise in one,
My hand, my heart, my love, my life, and all,
Shall ever tend on Lelia's fair command.
LELIA.
Master Churms,
Methinks 'tis strange you should make such a motion:
Say, I should yield and grant you love,
When most you did expect a sunshine day,
My father's will would mar your hop'd-for hay;
And when you thought to reap the fruits of love,
His hard constraint would blast it in the bloom:
For he so doats on Peter Plod-all's pelf,
That none but he forsooth must be the man:
And I will rather match myself
Unto a groom of Pluto's grisly den,
Than unto such a silly golden ass.
CHURMS.
Bravely resolved, i' faith!
LELIA.
But, to be short—
I have a secret friend, that dwells from hence
Some two days' journey, that's the most;
And if you can, as well I know you may,
Convey me thither secretly—
For company I desire no other than your own—
Here take my hand:
That once perform'd, my heart is next.
CHURMS.
If on th'adventure all the dangers lay,
That Europe or the western world affords;
Were it to combat Cerberus himself,
Or scale the brazen walls of Pluto's court,
When as there is so fair a prize propos'd;
If I shrink back, or leave it unperform'd,
Let the world canonise me for a coward:
Appoint the time, and leave the rest to me.
LELIA.
When night's black mantle overspreads the sky,
And day's bright lamp is drenched in the west—
To-morrow night I think the fittest time,
That silent shade may give us[159] safe convoy
Unto our wished hopes, unseen of living eye.
CHURMS.
And at that time I will not fail
In that, or ought may make for our avail.
NURSE. But what if Sophos should meet you by the forest-side, and encounter you with his single rapier?