Ingen. Alas! it cannot be for love to me.
When last I saw her, she revil'd me, boy,
With bitterest words, and wish'd me never more
To approach her sight; and for my marriage now
I do sustain it as a penance due
To the desert that made her banish me.
Maid. Sir, I dare swear, she did presume no words,
Nor dangers had been powerful to restrain
Your coming to her, when she gave the charge—
But are you married truly?
Ingen. Why, my boy,
Dost think I mock myself? I sent her gloves.
Maid. The gloves she has return'd you, sir, by me,
And prays you give them to some other lady,
That you'll deceive next, and be perjured to.
Sure, you have wrong'd her: sir, she bad me tell you,
She ne'er thought goodness dwelt in many men,
But what there was of goodness in the world,
She thought you had it all; but now she sees
The jewel she esteem'd is counterfeit;
That you are but a common man yourself—
A traitor to her and her virtuous love;
That all men are betrayers, and their breasts
As full of dangerous gulfs as is the sea,
Where any woman, thinking to find harbour,
She and her honour are precipitated,
And never to be brought with safety off.
Alas, my hapless lady desolate!
Distress'd, forsaken virgin!
Ingen. Sure, this boy
Is of an excellent nature who, so newly
Ta'en to her service, feels his mistress' grief,
As he and they were old familiar friends.
Why weep'st thou, gentle lad?
Maid. Who hath one tear,
And would not save't from all occasions,
From brothers' slaughters and from mothers' deaths,
To spend it here for my distressed lady?
But, sir, my lady did command me beg
To see your wife, that I may bear to her
The sad report. What creature could make you
Untie the hand fast pledged unto her?
Ingen. Wife, wife, come forth! now, gentle boy, be judge,
Enter Ingen's Brother, like a woman, masked. Ingen kisses her.
If such a face as this, being paid with scorn
By her I did adore, had not full power
To make me marry.
Maid. By the God of love,
She's a fair creature, but faith, should be fairer.
My lady, gentle mistress, one that thought
She had some interest in this gentleman,
(Who now is only yours) commanded me
To kiss your white hand, and to sigh and weep,
And wish you that content she should have had
In the fruition of her love you hold.
She bad me say, God give you joy, to both;
Yet this withal (if ye were married):
No one her footsteps ever more should meet,
Nor see her face but in a winding-sheet.