FREEWIT

Save you gentlemen, belong you to this house? Mistress Know-worth, the Lady Yellows sister, she is not stirring? Your wit is very scurvy Sir: if you serve a Creature here to carry messages; pray deliver one to her. Prithee good friend let him; isle doe't my self. Oh thou wouldst have money; there's for thee, prithee Entreat her presence. Why should she lodge here? all similitude Explains this house for vicious, and this Doctor For and impostor: Though she have been sick, She might have found to remedy her disease, Another, and more famed Physician Than this: She stays perhaps to bear Her sister company. Whatsoever's the cause, Who dare deprave her innocence, or cast A thought of blemish on her virtues? Light Diffused through air (although some thick-browed fog, Or sickly vapour do invade airs sweetness) Suffers no loathed corruption. Thomes may gore With envious pricking, the discoloured leaves Of the chaste woodbind, but can never blast Their unstained freshness. What if I be sir. Good Go comb hold thy prattling. How Sir? A new Order of Knighthood, that may I know the in stitution. I hope you grow to perfect health, The Native beauty that once sild your cheeks, Like to the budding Rose puts forth again, After cold winter's violence: and your lips On whose soft touch, had it been possible, Death would have died himself, begin to show Like untouched Cherries, pale with Morning Due, Which once shak't off, the purple fruit aspires With amorous blushes to entice the small Linnet and wanton Sparrow from their Lays, To dote on its pure tincture, till they eat What they admired. Truly, fair one, It is a sweetness in you, I could wish Were tempered with less passion: (Your much care Of my unworthy self;) 'tis but a fortnight, Since last my eyes enriched their needy sighed, By the reflection of these stars, and had The least ill seized me, you had been the first Whose ears would have received it; harms are aptest To be reported where they are least welcome. —I feel No inclination in my faculties Tending to sickness: I have never yet By nightly sursets forced my youthful blood To a distemper. Would: how mean you Lady? By just truth. My resolution staggers a tall Oak, Whose weighty top has discomposed his roots) When whirlwinds do assault it, fits unmoved, Balanced with me, to recollect the strength Of impudence, and deeply contradict Her mightiest affirmation, were to wage A feeble war with truth. Say I did Mistress; It ere a thought reciprocal enjoined me A serious duty to you and your mercy, In which you do approach as near heavens goodness, As heaven does blessed eternity, will pardon that wit less error in me. She weeps: so choice flowers, when extracting fire, Enforces their lost leaves to a mild warmness, Do through the Lymbecke temperately distil Their odoriferous tears. But 'tis most just To loose a chaste love, when distained with lust. Yet I cannot With my laborious industry invent A reason why it should do this, and therefore Transcending natural causes, I conclude The use unlawful. Cause Conscience and religion disallow In the recovery of our impaired healths, The assistance of a medicine made by charms, Or subtle spells of witchcraft. I'll prove it master Doctor. Yet to avoid a tedious argument, Since our contention's only for discourse, And to instruct my knowledge, pray tell me, A you not than this same salve will cure At any distance (as if the person hurt Should be at York) the weapon, dressed at London, On which his blood is. Out of your words sir I'll prove it Diabolical, no cause Natural; begets the most contemned effect, Without a passage through the means, the fire cannot produce another fire until it be applied to subject apt to take Its flaming form, nor can a natural cause, Work at incompetent space: how then can this Neither consigned to the matter upon which Its operation is to cause effect; Nay at so far a distance, work so great And admirable a cure beyond the reach And law of nature; yet by you maintained, A natural lawful agent, what dull sense can credit it. This, Mr. Doctor, is A weak evasion, and your purities Have small affinity; the glorious Sun As 'tis a general instrument of heaven, In all its great productions, and the Air And Elemental agent, naturally Engender Metals in the earth, and Ice On the self waters: The Loadstone As 'tis a simple body, may afford That virtue to the steel by secret power Of all-commanding nature. But that this, This weapon lve, a compound, should affect More than the purest bodies can, by ways More wonderful than they do, as applied Unto a sword a body void of life, Yet it must give life, or at least preserve it. You may as well Report a real sympathy between The nimble soul in its swift light to heaven And the cold carcase it has lately left, As a loathed habitation: blood, when Like The sap of Trees, which weeps upon the Axe Whose cruel edge does from the aged Trunk Dissever the green Branches from the Veins, Ravished, foregoes his Native heat, and has No more relation to the rest, than some Desertless servant, whom his Lord casts off, Has to his virtuous fellows. Truly Mistress, had she been worthy the seeking, your Command should not have been protracted, but 'Twere a stain to my own honour to be inquisitive After a prostitute, and a blot to your Discretion, should nice judgements know you enjoined me So manifest a folly. Could I slight her more, 'Twere a endue justice which I owe my self, (In hazarding the forfeit of your love) Undone by her, but your most serious thoughts Will sure convert your soul from the intent Of my most certain ruin, which your last Discourse perhaps, for trial of my faith, Seemed to invert upon me. Oh reserve that breath, Which ought Like sacred incense to be spent Only on heaven, or in delivering notes May charm the world to peace, when raging wars Or Earth quakes have affrighted it. Confirm't On no such use, horrid and ominous, As if it threatened thunder to the earth, Or would infect the genius of the air With Mists contagious (as if composed Of Viper steam) Oh had you were wont To be so good, that virtue would have sighed (At the unwelcome spectacle) if you Had appeared woman in a passion, (Though of the slightest consequence) Oh do not Renounce that Saintlike temper, it will be A change hereafter burdenous to your soul, As sin to one, who all his life time blessed With peace of Conscience, at his dying minute, Falls into mortal enmity with heaven, And perishes eternally. This is too severe a Justice, and extends To cruelty, had some intemperate rage Purpled my hand in murder (though the gilded Would have been written in a larger Text In Conscience black book; yet the punishment Had not been half so hideous. I should for that Have suffered but a temporary pain At worst; and my truly repentant soul Perhaps have had free entrance to the place consigned to penitents, when now, Like so me Manacled Captive, or diseased wretch, On whom each minute does beget a death: I Like a slow fire by my own soft flames, With Tortoise speed extinguish. Had a frost, sharp as a tedious winter's Northern blasts, Congealed your mercy, my unfeigned tears Should with moist warmth dissolve it, mistress you Approach so near the attributes of heaven, That had you lived ith' superstitious age, More precious gums had fumed upon your altars, Then on all female deities. Oh forgive me, A rigorous tyrants breath will scarce pronounce For one and the first crime, so strict a sentence: You shall not go yet if you will recall it, Lovers will bless your piety, and sub scribe to your Superlative goodness. Yet reclaim it; some devils spleen has lately fraught Your breast, and banished thence mild de pity, (bostrous winds, Force so the gentle and untroubled seas, To swallow up some ships, its natural calmness Would have transported safely with their wealth To their desired harbors) were my thoughts, Not fixed with that religion upon you That are my prayers (when I repent) on heaven, I should not thus transcend the laws and strength Of manhood, and Like some distressed babe Left by its parent to the desolate woods, Or airs cold charity, so long implore A new and holier union betwixt our souls, Then ere had linked them which when you have tied, Time shall depend Like summer on your brow, And your whole life be one continued youth, (Such were the springs in paradise) and when You pass to be a sharer in heavens bliss, Virgins and innocent lovers spotless tears, Hardened to pearl by the strong heat of sighs Shall be your monument. How I adore This constancy of worth in her, though It make against myself, well I must to my task, That labour's richest that most pains does ask. You'll please to afford my manners and indulgent pardon, For pressing to your presence thus: but 'tis Perhaps our extremest interview, and so May challenge the prerogative of excuse, For the audacious error. My thanks, are humble debtors to you for it, Mistress, The nimble minutes have with crafty theft, Stolen time away, reduced your limited hour To and unwelcome perjod: I have sought With the same diligence good men seek heaven, What you enjoined me, but the rain that falls In Summer time upon the parched dust, May easier be restored to the moist Clouds, Then she to my discovery. Wherefore since Her lose is certain, and the lose of you Depends on her, to satisfy your soul That I have man about me, I am come With the same confidence your scorn has taught me, To tell you, I as lightly prize your love, As you have valued mine nor can you blame me, since 'twas your own desire. Neither: This branch of forsaken Willow I resign To your own wearing, that when after times Shall know our tuall parting; it may report, That we were both forsaken, though we sever With the unwillingness that flourishing rees, Divest themselves of greenness, yet no blemish Of harsh unkindness shall defile our thoughts: We'll partly fair, though for ever. This Laurel wreathe, that circles My uncaptiv'd brow, I do justly challenge, Since I have conquered the greatest enemy, Mankind can combat (passion) yet the Due (That on the read lips of the blushing Rose Bestows a weeping kiss) leaves not so sadly The amorous flower, that curls its purple leaves, To hide it from the Suns enforcing Rays, As do my thoughts your memory, which did once Preserve it as inviolable, as heaven Does the bright souls of innocents. Why, good Madam? can you condemn my too officious truth, Of a conceit of falsehood, when the spring Of my Revolt, derives its head from yours. You for a trivial, and scarce known offence, Could without scruple banish me your heart, When Angels should, for a desertless kiss From and impure lip, have renounced their bliss, Ere the most urgent reason of suspect, Should upon me have practised a contempt Of you: Had not your breath e posed a missed Of infidelity before the eyes Of my clear seeing soul, and left it blind As the black Mole, that Like a Pioneer digs A winding Labyrinth through the earth to find A passage to the comfortable light, He never has fruition of. Madam ever. The Cedars juice, whose bitter poison gives The most strong body unavoided death, Preserves the Carcase by its dying force, Void of corruption: so has dealt her love With me; its reclamation struck me dead, And since my Exequies has kept my heart From entertaining a corrupt regard Of future slavery, In this one act She only appears woman, all her Saint, Speak her a Saint. I did not think her heart Could have resumed (though than rejected me) A baser choice, Sir you've good Fortune: Mris I will not wish you ill success in your So sudden Love: but it was eruell in you To give away your soul, (as in despite) In my loathed presence: yet to show how much I prize your satisfaction, I resign My interest in you to him, and thus freely Bestow him on you: will you have him Lady Nay, be not amazed Mistress it is she: You had best call her to a strict account How long 'tis since I lay with her. Freewit, what means this mad delusion? Now let heaven, and all that can be titled good beneath Divinity, conjoin to frame a piece Of virtue great as this; yet be deficient In the achievement for some c king Artist To draw her in this posture (to be placed (In Alabaster, white as her own figure) Or some green mead or flowery valley, where Posterity of Virgins yearly might Offer a tear to the blessed memory Of perfect feminine goodness. Let me die, Gazing on you and I shall fly to heaven Through your bright eyes. I'll tell you, and Mrs trust each word As the just accent of Oraculous truth: Knowing your and e to love to me, I feared It might embrace a change, and therefore shaped this woman In the habit of a man God her unknown to you, Preferred to serve you: (which she could not have been without Discovery, in her own shape) not too' -look your life. Or watch your actions, but to raise report That I had been false: so to try if that Would stagger your resolve, which I have found So noble, that the happiness of Fates, Can give no more addition to my bliss. Madam beg you my pardon. I knew she was too honest, and beside, I put her to the acting of't because She being the accuser of me for her self Might without the least seruple of Free me from her own calumny, nay here's another, Can witness this for truth. Madam I hope we shall keepeour nuptial feast with Master Doctor. I have seen experience of this weapon salve, and by its most mysterious working known some men hurt, passed the help of surgery recovered.