Sub. If I do feign in ought, ne'er may I purchase
The grace I hope for! and, fair mistress,
If you have any spirit, or wit, or sense,
You will be even with such a wretched slave.
Heaven knows I love you as the air I draw!
Think but how finely you may cuckold him,
And safely, too, with me, who will report
To him, that you are most invincible,
Your chastity not to be subdu'd by man.
Wife. When you know I'm a whore?
Sub. A whore? fie! no;
That you have been kind, or so: your whore doth live
In Pickt-hatch,[92] Turnbull Street.
Wife. Your whore lives there!
[Aside.]
Well, servant, leave me to myself awhile:
Return anon; but bear this hope away,
'T shall be with you, if I at all do stray.
[Exit Subtle.
Why, here's right wordly[93] friendship! ye're well-met.
O men! what are you? why is our poor sex
Still made the disgrac'd subjects in these plays
For vices, folly, and inconstancy:
When, were men look'd into with such critical eyes
Of observation, many would be found
So full of gross and base corruption,
That none (unless the devil himself turn'd writer)
Could feign so badly to express them truly?
Some wives that had a husband now, like mine,
Would yield their honours up to any man:
Far be it from my thoughts! O, let me stand,
Thou God of marriage and chastity,
An honour to my sex! no injury
Compel the virtue of my breast to yield!
It's not revenge for any wife to stain
The nuptial bed, although she be yok'd ill.
Who falls, because her husband so hath done,
Cures not his wound, but in herself makes one.
[Exit Wife.
SCENE III.
Enter Ingen, reading a letter; sits down in a chair, and stamps with his foot; to him a Servant.
Ingen. Who brought this letter?