Ino. Why, this were handsome in some country-fellow,
Whose soul is dirty as the thing he's mad for:
'Twere pretty in a lady that had lost her dog;
[Her dog;] but——
Plan. I know what thou wouldst say—
But for Plangus. O, 'tis for none but him to
Be so. Those that have injur'd me are persons
I once held dearer than my eyes; but how much
Greater was my love, so much more is th' offence;
Wounds from our friends are deepest.
Had any but my father—and yet methinks
That name should have protected me; or was it
Made only to secure offenders?
My life was his, he gave it me: my honour, too,
I could have parted with; but, 'las, my love
Was none of mine, no more than vows made to
A deity and not perform'd. And for that creature,
Who must be lost for ills, through which I must
Make way to my revenge—
Had she betray'd my honour to anything
But him that gave me being, she had made
Me half amends, in that my way to vengeance
Had been open. Now I am spurr'd forward
To revenge by fury, and yet held in by the rein
Of a foolish piety, that doth no man good
But them that use it not.
'Tis like the miser's idol, it yielded him
No gold till he had broke the head off.
Nay, Inophilus, one secret more,
And the horror of it blow thee from earth to heaven,
Where there are no such things as women:
'Twill turn thy soul the inside outward:
I cannot get it out. Prythee what is't, Inophilus?
Ino. Alas, I know not, sir.
Plan. Do but imagine the worst of ills
Earth ever groan'd under; a sin nothing but woman,
Nay, such a woman as Andromana, durst think on;
And it is that.
Ino. How revenge transports you!
Princes have lost their mistresses before,
Nay, and to those have not such right to them,
As hath Ephorbas to what Plangus hath.
Who could command her, if not Ephorbas?
Plan. But I have—O Inophilus, I burst—
Yet it will out—dost thou not see it here?
[Unbuttons his doublet.
O, I have known Andromana as
Ephorbas did last night.——
Ino. Why, sir,
The sin done by your father is not yours,
If you could not help it.——
Plan. Why, there it is:
'Tis that which gnaws me here.
But I swore by all the gods that she was
As innocent from my unclean embraces as is
The new-fall'n snow, or ermines that will meet
Ten deaths before one spot: I made my father think
The thoughts of angels were less innocent than she.
No, it was I betray'd him; his virtue was too great
To[90] have suspected it. How do I look, Inophilus?