Doubt.
Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy,
Two passions which to reason give the lye;
For fear torments, and never doth assist;
And jealousy is love lost in a mist.
Both hood-wink truth, and go to blind-man’s-buff,
Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough,
But all the while shift place; making the mind,
As it goes out of breath, despair to find;
And, if at last something it stumbles on,
Perhaps it calls it false, and then ’tis gone.
If true, what’s gain’d? only just time to see
A breachless[435] play, a game at liberty;
That has no other end than this, that men
Run to be tired, just to set down again.
Owl.
———— hark how the owl
Summons their souls to take a flight with her,
Where they shall be eternally benighted.—
[From the “Traitor,” a Tragedy, by J Shirley: by some said to have been written by one Rivers, a Jesuit: 1635.]
Sciarrah, whose life is forfeited, has offer of pardon, conditionally, that he bring his sister Amidea to consent to the Prince’s unlawful suit. He jestingly tries her affection.
Sci.—if thou could’st redeem me
With anything but death, I think I should
Consent to live.
Amid. Nothing can be too precious
To save a brother, such a loving brother
As you have been.
Sci. Death’s a devouring gamester,
And sweeps up all;—what think’st thou of an eye?
Could’st thou spare one, and think the blemish recompenced
To see me safe with the other? or a hand—
This white hand, that has so often
With admiration trembled on the lute,
Till we have pray’d thee leave the strings awhile,
And laid our ears close to thy ivory fingers,
Suspecting all the harmony proceeded
From their own motions without the need
Of any dull or passive instrument.—
No, Amidea; thou shalt not bear one scar,
To buy my life; the sickle shall not touch
A flower, that grows so fair upon his stalk:
I would live, and owe my life to thee,
So ’twere not bought too dear.
Amid. Do you believe, I should not find
The way to heav’n, were both mine eyes thy ransom
I shall climb up those high and ragged cliffs
Without a hand.[436]
[From the “Huntingdon Divertisement,” an Interlude, “for the general entertainment at the County Feast, held at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, June 20th, 1678, by W. M.”]