Y. ART. My reason is my mind, my ground my will;
I will not love her: if you ask me why,
I cannot love her. Let that answer you.
Y. LUS. Be judge, all eyes, her face deserves it not;
Then on what root grows this high branch of hate?
Is she not loyal, constant, loving, chaste:
Obedient, apt to please, loath to displease:
Careful to live, chary of her good name,
And jealous of your reputation?
Is she not virtuous, wise, religious?
How should you wrong her to deny all this?
Good Master Arthur, let me argue with you.
[They walk aside.
Enter MASTER ANSELM and MASTER FULLER.
FUL. O Master Anselm! grown a lover, fie!
What might she be, on whom your hopes rely?
ANS. What fools they are that seem most wise in love,
How wise they are that are but fools in love!
Before I was a lover, I had reason
To judge of matters, censure of all sorts,
Nay, I had wit to call a lover fool,
And look into his folly with bright eyes.
But now intruding love dwells in my brain,
And franticly hath shoulder'd reason thence:
I am not old, and yet, alas! I doat;
I have not lost my sight, and yet am blind;
No bondman, yet have lost my liberty;
No natural fool, and yet I want my wit.
What am I, then? let me define myself:
A dotard young, a blind man that can see,
A witty fool, a bondman that is free.
FUL. Good aged youth, blind seer, and wise fool,
Loose your free bonds, and set your thoughts to school.
Enter OLD MASTER ARTHUR and OLD MASTER LUSAM.
O. ART. 'Tis told me, Master Lusam, that my son
And your chaste daughter, whom we match'd together,
Wrangle and fall at odds, and brawl and chide.
O. LUS. Nay, I think so, I never look'd for better:
This 'tis to marry children when they're young.
I said as much at first, that such young brats
Would 'gree together e'en like dogs and cats.