DOROTHY

Yonder Gentlemen observe us: let's be gone. You have fallen my glove. Sure Mris. Tongall your friend would make and excellent midwife; he can keep secrets. By no means Sir. Wrong not your judgement, which must needs be ab solute. The choice of me Is too inferior to your richer valve. The Cyprian Queen had she but seen your face, Would never have died the roses with her blood, Wept on their paleness for Adonis lose: But circled in a ring of all her graces Court your celestial form upon the bosom Of some more fragrant Tempe. My Father, and my Brother. My lip being too unworthy. Brother, you may pretend your love In this distrust; but it's and ill expression. Think not my judgement subject to such weakness, That I can built a faith on Compliments, Or (with rash passion) run into and error. Nothing but known desert shall tie my thoughts To a stayed liking, if I may distinguish it. And when my choice is fixed, it shall be such As your fraternal love must not dispute. Dishonour Brother, I have a spirit too, That scorns as much and Act of foul dishonour, As you, or any Masculine pretender To noble Virtues. Gilded is aptest still To be suspicious. If a maid be free In her discourse, and courteous entertainment, She straight is censured. But let a man appear Stuck fu l of apish Courtship; light, inconstant, As talkative as Parrats, that are taught A voices imitation; one that courts Every tamed beauty with a seeming zeal; As if his souls devotion were restrained Only to her Divinity; this man's called A wellbred complemental Gentleman. Men's greatest follies, if compared with ours, Are virtues, fit for our imitation. They are but suppositions Brother. And pray suppose the Gentleman that seemed To court my beauty, were indeed a man, Not guilded imperfections; one whose words Were full of weighty judgement, not mere found; Whose real virtues did beget and envy, Perhaps and emulation in all others; And from the freedom of his richer mind He gave himself and them to be my servants; What gratitude in me might equal this? Brother, did not the ties Of love and nature check my forward aptness, I'de tell you you're not noble, and suspect Whither your mind hold that derivative goodness Which generous blood communicates, to suspect Her re olute constancy whom you call Sister. Think not your being a man prerogative To be the only Counsellor in manners Brother, though to your person I am partial. Through confidence of your appearing virtue; The general vices noted in your sex, Such as with public ostentation You glory to be guilty of, which in Our very thoughts raise blushes— How is our weakness trodden and insulted on By these imperious men! Aid me resolves Against their threats and counsels, unless grounded On stronger reasons then suspicion. As the pure Oar refined exceeds in valve Triple proportions of the courser dross; So true desert in Man and outward gloss. But it's not so healthful The night infects the air with unwholesome vapours. Fie upon thee. But will not you prevent them? And what's their quarrel? Your self perhaps. Fie; now you forget your self. He is now in some deep meditation of your beauty. They go contrary ways. We shall not see the fight. They mean to meet and end it at the And tipodes. Why, they are fixed. Hath not fear congealed them into stones? Will you talk to strangers in the street? I am weary; we'll imagine the rest done. I'll send my Brother forth to make them friends. Brother, without mature consideration I dare not do and act; on which depends Such dangerous events. We have a father (Brother) to whose care We owe another duty, then that only Which Nature hath enjoined us for receiving Our beings from him. Let not our rash wills Swayed only by desire, run any course Agrees not with his liking: Yet I'll tell The Gentleman how much he owes your love For thus commending him. I thank you Sir, and could mine own eyes see But half that worth my Brother says is in you, My equal thoughts should answer. How! defective! Brother, my judgement hath as searching eyes Can see the fullness of his manly worth Through all the vails of your detraction. And now to show how much I do prefer The freedom of my will before your counsel; I'll tell him I do love him. As earnest as my love; Which since I first beheld him took possession Of all my though S, though customary niceness Restrained me from discovering them; but now— I hope to your kind judgement it'll appear A virtuous truth. Mother, the duty which I owe my Father You (being his) must share: and this expression Of more then common love, I must repay With more then common gratitude. There is a power Called Fate, which does necessitate the will, And makes desire obedient to it's rule. All the resisting faculties of reason, Prevention, fear and jealousy are weak To disannul what in it's firm decrees Is once determined. Yet my heart is free; Unbounded by the stricter limits of Particular affection: so I'll keep it. No proud ingrateful man shall ever triumph Over the captived sweets of my Virgin love. Nor a vainglorious gull that offers service To every noted beauty, boast my favour. I'll cloth my thoughts in humorous observation; And if on any that solicits love I fix a liking, I'll refer my self To what is destined for me. Shall I have another dumb servant! Are you not well Sir? What mean you (Brother) by this intro duction? Some wanton humour. You have worser unke a cup of Sack, and want a handsome Ge leman to be in love with. Bless me; betwixt whom? They are unequally weaponed. Mr. Spruce, though he be a Tailor wears a—the foolish rhyme runs in my head. I had almost said a dagger, but it's a sword; and my Father's Clerk hath only his inkhorn. Not with much earnestness: I have as yet No passionate desires; as yet no breath Poisoned with Hyperbolical flatteries Hath courted my poor beauty; no deep vows Have paid idolatrous sacrifice of service To my fair hand, whose whiteness if but kissed Can purify a soul. Believe me yet The ma is a stranger to my knowing memory That ever said he loved me. Pray you Mris. Tongall, what wages takes he? That's a cold reward; a Livery would keep him warmer. Both affecting the Lady of the Closet. But Mris. Secretary, what if my Lady Mother's Chambermaid and Joan in the Kitchen were here? You too much flatter my unworthiness: And in that likewise derogate From your own fullness of admired merit. the vnskilful'st Physiognomist may read In your bright forehead, and your forms exactness, A man repleat with all perfections. Whose very superfluities might be Additions to the barren worths of others. Did Sire's hear your voice they would give over Their own malicious charms: and through the witchcraft Of it's more powerful music, rage with madness: Leaving their proper element to die In the pursuit of sweeter melody.