Hip. 'Tis done.
Ven. I'faith, 'tis a sweet shower, it does much good.
The fruitful grounds and meadows of her soul
Have been long dry: pour down, thou blessed dew!
Rise, mother; troth, this shower has made you higher!
Gra. O you heavens! take this infectious spot out of my soul,
I'll rinse it in seven waters of mine eyes!
Make my tears salt enough to taste of grace.
To weep is to our sex naturally given:
But to weep truly, that's a gift from heaven.
Ven. Nay, I'll kiss you now. Kiss her, brother:
Let's marry her to our souls, wherein's no lust,
And honourably love her.
Hip. Let it be.
Ven. For honest women are so seld[98] and rare,
'Tis good to cherish those poor few that are.
O you of easy wax! do but imagine
Now the disease has left you, how leprously
That office would have cling'd unto your forehead!
All mothers that had any graceful hue
Would have worn masks to hide their face at you:
It would have grown to this—at your foul name,
Green-colour'd maids would have turned red with shame.
Hip. And then our sister, full of hireling[99] baseness——
Ven. There had been boiling lead again,
The duke's son's great concubine!
A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail i' th' dirt![100]
Hip. Great, to be miserably great; rich, to be eternally wretched.
Ven. O common madness!
Ask but the thrivingest harlot in cold blood,
She'd give the world to make her honour good.
Perhaps you'll say, but only to the duke's son
In private; why she first begins with one,
Who afterward to thousands proves a whore:
"Break ice in one place, it will crack in more."