LEONORA

Sir, you are nobly welcome, and presume You are in a place that's wholly dedicated To your service. Sir, your fame renders you most worthy of it. You have been strange a long time, you are weary Of our unseasonable time of feeding: Indeed the Exchange Bell makes us dine so late; I think the Ladies of the Court from us Learn to lie so long a bed. I would not have you valve it the less, If I say, 'Tis granted already. O sir, shadows, are coveted in Summer, And with me, 'tis Fallen o'th Leaf. Indeed Sir, I dare tell you, My Lookingglass is a true one, and as yet It does not terrify me. Must you have my Picture? You will enjoin me to a strange punishment: With what a compelled face a woman sits While she is drawing? I have noted diverse, Either to feign smiles, or suck in the lips, To have a little mouth; ruffle the cheeks, To have the dimple seen, and so disorder The face with affectation, at next sitting It has not been the same; I have known others Have lost the entire fashion of their face, In half and hours sitting. In hight weather, The painting on their face has been so mellow, They have left the poor man harder work by half, To mend the Copy h wrought by but indeed, If ever I would have mine drawn to'th life, I would have a Painter steal it, at such a time, I were devoutly kneeling at my prayers, There is then a heavenly beauty in't, the Soul Moons in the Superficies. Indeed Sir, I am a Widow, And want the addition to make it so: For men Experience has still been held Woman's best eyesight. I pray sir tell me, You are about to fell a piece of Land To my son, I hear. Now I could rather wish, That Noble men would ever live ith Country, Rather then make their visit's up to'th City About such business: O Sir, Noble Houses Have no such goodly Prospects any way, As into their own Land: the decay of that, Next to their begging Churchland, is a ruin Worth all men's pity. Sir, I have forty thousand crowns Sleep in my Chest, shall waken when you please, And sly to your commands, Will you stay supper? I would not have you come hither sir, to fell, But to settle your Estate. I hope you understand Wherefore I make this proffer: so I leave you. Contarino Were you talking of? he lost last night at Diee Five thousand Ducats; and when that was gone, Set at one throw a Lordship, that twice trebled The former lose. And most carefully Carried the Gentleman in his Carroch To a Lawyers Chamber, there most Legally To put him in possession: was this wisdom? Yowl be advised I hope: Know for your sakes I married, that I might have children; And for your sakes, if yowl be ruled by me, I will never marry again. Here's a Gentleman Is noble, rich, well featured, but above all, He loves you entirely; his intents are aimed For and Expedition against the Turk, Which makes the Contract cannot be delayed. Hear me, if thou dost marry Contarino, All the misfortune that did ever dwell. In a parents curse, light on thee. She is yours. To be contracted in tears, is but fashionable. Virgins must seem unwilling. Great persons do not ever come together. And truly I have herd say, To be a little strange to one another, Will keep your longing fresh. This is the happiest hour that I ever arrived at. What a dismal noise yond bell makes, Sure some great person's dead. Why do they ring before my gate thus? Let them into'th Court, I cannot understand What they say. What Noble men I pray sir? Yet I would have him live To satisfy public Justice for the death Of Ercole: o go visit him for heavens sake. I have within my Closet a choice Relic, Preservative against swooning, and some earth, Brought from the Holy Land, right sovereign To staunch blood: has he skilful Surgeons, think you? I am twenty years elder since you last opened your lips. You have given him the wound you speak of, Quite thorough your mother's heart. O, may you live To win many souls to heaven, worthy sir, That your crown may be the greater. Why my son made me believe he stole into his chamber, And ended that which Ercole began By a deadly stab in's heart. A most noble fellow in his loyalty. I read what worthy comforts I have lost In my deer Contarino, and all adds To my despair.—Within there. Fetch the picture hangs in my inner closet. I remember, I let a word slip of Romelio's practice At the Surgeons: no matter I can salve it, I have deeper vengeance that's preparing for him, To let him live and kill him that's revenge I meditate upon. Sure the old man's frantic. It is the fruit of a most hearty penitence. To my shame I speak it, never. Indeed I might have confessed it, Privately tooth Church, I grant; but you know repentance Is nothing without satisfaction. Contarino living? Hold, hold, for heavens sake hold. O here's one between, Claims to be nearer. Cease here all further scruteny, this paper Shall give unto the Court each circumstance, Of all these passages. Oh, I am lost for ever. The worse: I do protest it is the best, That ever came to disturb my prayers. I have some skill this way: The second or third dressing will show clearly, Whither there be hope of life: I pray be near him, If there be any soul can bring me word, That there is hope of life. That he may live; I mean to come to his try all, to satisfy the Law. O, I am very sick. I am rapt with the Mother indeed, That I ever boar such a son. I will make you chief mourner, believe it. Never was woe Like mine: o that my care, And absolute study to preserve his life, Should be his absolute ruin. Is he gone then? There is no plague i'th world can be compared To impossible desire; for they are plagued In the desire it self: never, o never Shall I behold him living, in whose life I lived far sweetlier then in mine own. A precise curiosity has undone me; why, did I not Make my love known directly? had not been Beyond example, for a Matron To affect i'th honourable way of Marriage, So youthfall a person: o I shall run mad, For as we love our youngest children best: So the last fruit of our affection, Where ever we bestow it, is most strong, Most violent, most unresistable, Since 'tis indeed our latest Hardest-home, Last merriment Before Winter; and we widows, As men report, of our best Picture-makers, We love the piece we are in hand with better, Then all the excellent work we have done before, And my son has deprived me of all this. Would my son, I'll be a fury to him, Like and Amazon Lady, Idem cut off his right pap, that gave him suck, To shoot him dead. I'll no more tender him, Then had a Wolf stolen to my tear i'th night, And robbed me of my milk: nay, such a creature I should love better far. -Would, would, what say you? I do talk to somewhat, me thinks; it may be My evil Genius. Do not the Bells' ring? I have a strange noise in my head: o, fly in pieces, Come age, and wither me into the malice Of those that have been happy, let me have One property more then the Devil of Hell, Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily, Let me in this life fear no kind of ill, That have no good to hope for: let me die In the distraction of that worthy Princess, Who loathed food, and sleep, and ceremony, For thought of losing that brave Gentleman, She would feign have saved, had not a false countenance, Let me sink, where neither man, Nor memory may ever find me. Would? I am whispering to a dead friend. Say sir. Heaven will not suffer me utterly to be lost. Where, o where shall I meet this comfort? O I am dead again, instead of the man, you pre sent me the graven swallowed him. Sir, you do only live, To redeem another ill you have committed, That my poor innocent daughter perish not, By your vild sin, whom you have God with child. So, hang it up. I was enjoined by thepartie ought that picture, Forty years since, ever when I was vexed, To look upon that: what was his meaning in't, I know not, but me thinkesvpon the sudden, It has furnished me with mischief such a plot, As never mother dreamed of Here begins My partly i'th play: my sons estate is sunk, By lose at sea and he has nothing left, But the Land his father left him. I is concluded, The Law shall undo him Come hither, I have a weighty secret to impart, But I would have thee first confirm to me, How I may trust, that thou canst keep my counsel, Beyond death. Thou instru'st me Most ingenuously, for indeed it is not fit, Where any act is plotted, that is nought, Any of counsel to it should be good, And in a thousand ils have happened i'th world, The intelligence of one another's shame, Have wrought far more effectually then the tie Of Conscience, or Religion. But he cannot live four days to enjoy them. No, the poison is yet but brewing. Privacy? It shall be given him In open Court, I'll make him swallow it Before the Judges face: if he be Master Of poor ten arpines of land forty hours longer, Let the world repute me and honest woman. O thou canst not conceive My unimitable plot; let's to my ghostly Father, Were first I will have thee make a promise To keep my counsel, and then I will employ thee In such a subtle combination, Which will require to make the practice fit, Four Devils, five Advocates to a woman's wit. You make bold with me sir. You must urge the business against him As spitefully as may be. May it please your Lordship's, To him I was, but he was not his father. While my husband lived, my Lord, I durst not. Never. On my soul, never. I preserve it still my Lord. Fetch it. O, I am confounded. this is Crispiano. Whatsoever I have attempted, Gainst my own fame, or the reputation Of that Gentleman my son, the Lord Contarino Was cause of it. More then I have said already, all the world Shall never extract from me; I entreat from both, Your equal pardons. And now my Lords, I do most voluntarily Confine my self unto a stricter prison, And a severer penance, then this Court can impose, I am entered into Religion. Such a thing I did utter out of my distraction: But how the Court will censure that report, I leave to their wisdoms. I beseech the Court, I may retire my self to my place of penance, I have vowed my self and my woman. Why has he locked us up thus? O the saving Contarino's, His is worth nothing: for heavens sake call louder. I will leap these Battlements, And may I be found dead time enough, To hinder the combat. O they must not be lost thus; some good christian come within our hearing: open the other casement that looks into the city. I shall be the happiest woman. I do look now for some great misfortunes To follow: for indeed mischiefs, Are Like the Visits of Franciscan Friars, They never come to pray upon us single. In what estate left you Contarino? Stay you will mourn for Contarino. Thou hast lived with me That see forty years; we have grown old together, As many Ladies and their women do, With talking nothing, and with doing less: We have spent our life in that which least concerns life, Only in putting on our clothes: and now I think on't, I have been a very courtly Mistress to thee, (time, I have given thee good words, but no deeds, now's the To requite all; my son has six Lordship's left him. Sir, you do forget your gravity, me thinks. Because my Lord, I loathed that such a sin Should lie smothered with me in my graven; my penitence, Though to my shame, prefers the revealing of it Above worldly reputation. The greatest satisfaction in the world, my Lord, To restore the land tooth right heir, & thats my daughter. You trouble him.