Vio. By your leave, sweet Beauty, pardon my excuse, which sought entrance into this house: good Sweetness, have you not a Property here, improper to your house; my husband?
Imp. Hah! your husband here?
Vio. Nay, be as you seem to be, White Dove, without gall. Do not mock me, fairest Venetian. Come, I know he is here. I do not blame him, for your beauty gilds over his error. ’Troth, I am right glad that you, my Countrywoman, have received the pawn of his affections. You cannot be hardhearted, loving him; nor hate me, for I love him too. Since we both love him, let us not leave him, till we have called home the ill husbandry of a sweet Straggler. Prithee, good wench, use him well.
Imp. So, so, so—
Vio. If he deserve not to be used well (as I’d be loth he should deserve it), I’ll engage myself, dear Beauty, to thine honest heart: give me leave to love him, and I’ll give him a kind of leave to love thee. I know he hears me. I prithee try my eyes, if they know him; that have almost drowned themselves in their own saltwater, because they cannot see him. In troth, I’ll not chide him. If I speak words rougher than soft kisses, my penance shall be to see him kiss thee, yet to hold my peace.
Good Partner, lodge me in thy private bed;
Where, in supposed folly, he may end
Determin’d Sin. Thou smilest. I know thou wilt.
What looseness may term dotage,—truly read,
Is Love ripe-gather’d, not soon withered.
Imp. Good troth, pretty Wedlock, thou makest my little eyes smart with washing themselves in brine. I mar such a sweet face!—and wipe off that dainty red! and make Cupid toll the bell for your love-sick heart!—no, no, no—if he were Jove’s own ingle Ganymede—fie, fie, fie—I’ll none. Your Chamber-fellow is within. Thou shalt enjoy him.
Vio. Star of Venetian Beauty, thanks!
[From “Hoffman’s Tragedy, or Revenge for a Father,” 1631. Author Unknown.]