Passages from this character's speech that contain the most distinguishing words for Cluster 12 (signor, sal, zelmane, handkerchief, absolon, dissemble…). Matches are highlighted.
Enter Rogero, Anna, Doctor. But see here comes my friend, fear makes him tremble. Thou creature made by Love, composed of pleasure, That makest true use of thy creation, In thee both wit and beauty's resident; Delightful pleasure, unpeered excellence. This is the fate fixed fast unto thy birth, That thou alone shouldst be men heaven
still keep with thee: go in. Put up your weapon, I dare here you further, Insatiate lust is Sire still to murder. Fear whispers in my breast, I have a soul That blushes read, for tending bloody facts, Forgive me friend, if I can be forgiven, Thy counsel is the path leads me to heaven. Thy speech deserve's it there's gold, gives
Full speech
Welcome to Pavy, welcome fairest Lady: Your sighed deer friend, is life's restorative; This day's the perjod of long-wished content, More welcome to me then day to the world, Night to the wearied, or gold to a Mizer; Such joy feels Friendship in Society. Relate some news. Hark you, what Lady's that Be open breasted, so will I to thee. They whisper. Wrong not your self, me, and your dearest friend, Your love is violent, and soon will end. Love is not Love unless Love does persever, That love is perfect love, that loves for ever. I should belie my thoughts to give denial, But then to friendship I must turn disloyal: I will not wrong my friend, let that suffice. I condescend to what thy will implores me; He that but now neglected thee, adores thee: Enter Rogero, Anna, Doctor. But see here comes my friend, fear makes him tremble. Thou creature made by Love, composed of pleasure, That makest true use of thy creation, In thee both wit and beauty's resident; Delightful pleasure, unpeered excellence. This is the fate fixed fast unto thy birth, That thou alone shouldst be men heaven on earth: If I alone may but enjoy thy love, I'll not change earthly joy to be heavens Jove : For though that women haters now are common, They all shall know earth's joy consists in woman. Thy words are able to stir cold desire, Into his flesh that lies emtomb'd in Ice, Having lost the feeling use of warmth in blood, Then how much more in me, whose youthful veins, Like a proud River, overflow their bounds? Pleasures Ambrosia, or loves nourisher, I long for privacy; come, let us in, It's custom, and not reason makes love sin. Still I am thy captive, yet thy thoughts are free: To be Loves bondman is true liberty. I have swom in seas of pleasure without ground, Venturous desire passed depth it self hath drowned. Such skill has beauty's Art in a true lover, That dead desire to life it can recover. Thus beauty our desire can soon advance, Then straight again kill it with dalliance. Divinest women, your enchanting breathes Give Lovers many life's and many death's. You counsel well, deer, learn it then; For change is given more to you then men. Lust makes me wrong my friend. Exit Gniaca. On whom would my Isabella be revenged? I'll be thy champion sweet gainst all the world, Name but the villain that defames thee thus. By my dead father's soul, my mother's virtues, And by my knight hood and gentility; I'll be revenged On all the Authors of your Obloquy: Name him. Would. Love Arms my hand, makes my soul valiant, Isabella's wrongs now sits upon my sword, To fallen more heavy to thy cowards head, Then thunderbolts upon Jove's rifted Oaks: Deny thy scandal, or defend thy life. I come not to dispute but execute: And thus comes death. Another pass. It's missed: here's at thy heart, stay, let us breath. Thou hast wronged the Phoenix of all women rarest, She that's most wise, most loving, chaste and fairest. What's this to my Isabella, my sins mine own, Her faults were none, until thou madest they known. That death or danger, now shall never remove, Go tell thy Insaciate Countess Anna, We have escaped the snares of her false Love, Vowing for ever to abandon her. Now I am God out of lustest Labyrinth, I will to Venice, for a certain time, To recreate my much abused spirits And then revisit Pani and my friend, Stay my Isabella, were he my father's son, Composed of me, he die, Delight still keep with thee: go in. Put up your weapon, I dare here you further, Insatiate lust is Sire still to murder. Fear whispers in my breast, I have a soul That blushes read, for tending bloody facts, Forgive me friend, if I can be forgiven, Thy counsel is the path leads me to heaven. Thy speech deserve's it there's gold, gives her gold. Be honest now, and not loves Noddy, Turned up and played on whilst thou keepest the stock, Prethe formally let's would thy absence. I crave your Honours pardon my Ignorance Of what you were, may gain a courteous pardon. We'll hawk and hunt to day, as for to morrow Variety shall feed variety. Give me some respite, and I will resolve you. Desire in women is the life of wit. Exeunt Omnes. I do confess the truth, and must admire That women can command rare men desire. Sing notes of pleasure to elate our blood: Why should heaven frown on joys that do us good? I come Isabella keeper of loves treasure, To force thy blood to lust, and ravish pleasure. Exit. You have prevailed, I am yours from all the world, Thy wit and beauty have entranced my soul: I long for dalliance, my blood burns Like fire, Hels pain on earth is to delay desire. Hold madame, these are soul killing passion. Idem rather wrong my friend then you your self. Lady, by heaven, me thinks, this fit is strange.
Plot summary
Plot — The Insatiate Countess
Suitors visit Isabella, who is in open mourning for her dead husband, but secretly glad to be free of his jealousy and restrictions. She accepts Count Roberto’s suit and they are married the following day; but when she dances with Count Rogero in the wedding masque, her affections turn. She woos Rogero by letter and elopes with him to Pavia; Roberto enters holy orders. At Pavia, Rogero is visited by his friend Gniaca; Isabella falls in love with the newcomer, and feigns illness to give herself an opportunity to seduce him. After bedding Gniaca, she then feigns penitence to free herself from Rogero. The spurned lover takes his revenge by circulating bitter satires on Isabella’s promiscuity, so she sets on Gniaca to kill him. In the attempt, Gniaca is reconciled with his former friend, so Isabella seduces Don Sago, colonel in the Spanish power occupying Pavia, to murder both Rogero and Gniaca. Sago kills Rogero, and is arrested, but pardoned by the Duke of Medina. Isabella’s attempt to bribe the Duke fails to secure her freedom, and she is beheaded after a scaffold reconciliation with Roberto. In the sub-plot, the enemies Claridiana and Mizaldus are both married on the same day. They quarrel when they meet, and Mizaldus’s wife Abigail and Lady Lentulus, who are close friends, compare notes and swap places: each receives her own husband in the other’s bedroom. Meanwhile their friends Mendosa and Lady Lentulus, attracted to one another, try to circumvent the latter’s vow not to admit a man through her front door: he climbs up to her window by rope ladder, but falls into the street, where the watch find him injured and send him to a surgeon. Claridiana and Mizaldus are arrested in each other’s house; appalled at the thought of being cuckolded, they both confess to murdering Mendosa. Mendosa in turn tries to save Lady Lentulus’s honour with a false confession that he was attempting to burgle her house. In court, the Duke establishes that Claridiana and Mizaldus are telling incompatible stories about the ‘murder’, and they are sentenced to death in jest; in Mendosa’s case, however, the sentence is genuine. Claridiana and Mizaldus are determined to die until confronted with evidence of their wives’ chastity; with reconciliation comes reprieve.