MARGARET

I, and to much end: I am exceeding found to humour him. Captive to me a subject. What Madam, shall I arrogate so much? Too wor High I confess my Lord for me, If it were serious: but it is in sport, And women are fit Actors for such pageants. My Lord, I only come to say, you're welcome And so must say, farewell. Whats that? My father's Usher, none so fit, If you can work him well: and so farewell, With thanks my good Lord Strozza for your speech. My Lord; but to obey your earnest will, And not make serious scruple of a oy, I scarce durst have pres de this minute height. Now I resign this borrowed majesty, Which ate unseemly on my worthless head, With humble service to your Highness hands. Good Madame be ruled. Welcome good madam; maids wait on my Lady. Fit sir, why so? For me sir? I beseech you what are they? Lord with what Rhetoric you prepare your news Whence is it? King of heaven! Is the man mad? Oh heaven, I muse a man of your importance, Will offer to bring me a letter thus? I, but you should not do it: Gods my life, You shall answer it. I answer it! are you the man I trusted? And will betray me to a stranger thus? Now was there ever woman overseen so, In a wise men discretion? How dare you say so? when you know so well How much I am engaged to the duke? Take it si ? A I common taker of lo e letters? ome, 'tis no matter; I had thought your care Of my bestowing, would not tempt me thus To one I know not; but it is because You know I dote so much on y ur direction. No sir, Not on yours. 'Tis strange, I wonder the coy gentleman, That seeing me so oft, would never speak, Is on the so far wrapped to write. Come, you have such another plaguy tongue, And yet yfayth I will not. I wonder how the devil, he found you ou To be his spokesman,—Oh the duke would thank you, If he knew how you vrgde me for his son. Oh here's good stuff. Hold, pray take it for your pains to bring it. Nay then i'faith, t'were best you brought a Priest; And then your client; and then keep the door. God me I never knew so rude a man. Poor Usher, how Wertenberg thou wrought to this brake? Men work on one another for we women, Nay each man on himself; and all in one Say; No man is content that lies alone. Here comes our gulled Squire. What should I write? Why sir, I see no cause of answer in it, But if you needs will show how much you rule me, Fit down; and answer it, as you please your self, Here is your paper, lay it fair afore you. I fit him in this task; he thiukes his pen The Shaft of Cupid, in and amorous letter. So much the more unfit for me to answer, And therefore let your Style and it contend. Oh, a good Scribe must write, though twenty talk, and he talk to hem too. A proper piece of Scribeship theres no doub ; Some words, pic to out of Procl mations, Or great men's Speeches; or well S lling Pamphlets: See how he rubs his emples His Muse lies in the back- , Which thick and gross, is hard to be brought forward, What? is it loath to come? He sweats, with bringing on his heavy style, I'll ply him still, till he sweat all his wit out, What man, not yet? Oh fie vpon't. Worse and worse. Well sir, write what you please. Put them together I pray. See, see, see, now it comes powering down. Out vpon't, that phrase is so run out of breath in trifles, that we shall have no belief at all in earnest shortly. Believe it 'tis a pretty feather; believe it a dainty Rush; believe it and excellent Coxcomb. By my soul, if you can tell what you write now, you write very readily. But do you not write that you speak now? Gods my life, stay man; yowl make it too long. But I will not have it so long. Oh me; how it comes upon him? pre thee be short. No more: no more; fie upon this. But 'tis so good, will not be thought to come from a woman's brain. Come, I will write my self. How spell you foolish? How spell you Usher? No, not together. Ass the. Nay then you are so jealous of your wit: now read all I have written I pray. Why sir, in willing me to believe he loved me so well, being so mere a stranger. Cry mercy sir, and I will write so too, & yet my hand is so vile, Pray thee fit thee down and write as I bid thee. You shall wri e this sir, I am not so foolish to think you love me, being so mere a stranger. And yet I know, love works strangely. And therefore take heed, by whom you speak for love. For he may speak for himself. Not that I desire it, But if he do you may speed, I confess. But let that p sse, I do not love to discourage any bo die. Do you or he icke out what you can; & so farewell. I, and he may thank your Sire's tongue that it is so much. Well sir, though it be not so proper as the writer; yet 'tis as proper as the diter; Every woe and cannot be a g n tleman Usher; they that cannot go be over, must come behind. Pitiful Usher, what a pretty sle ght, Goes to the work ng up of every thing? What swe to variety see ves a woman's wit? W make men fue to us for that we with h. Poor men; hold oh to a while; and do not sue, And spite of Custom we will S e to ou. Vince? Oh monstrous jest! What villainous stuff is here? Oh horrible hearing, does he call you ? But wherefore did you court me so absurdly? Oh fie vpon't, could you for pity make him Such a poor creature? abuse enough To make him take on him such saucy friendship; And yet his place is great; for he's not only My father's Usher, but the world's beside, Because he goes before it all in folly. But is there no mean to dissolve that power, And to prevent all further wrong to us, Which it may work, by forcing Marriage rites, Betwixt me and the Duke? That shall they never do; may not we now Our contract make, and marry before heaven? Are not the laws of God and Nature, more Than formal laws of men? are outward rites, More virtuous then the very substance is Of holy nuptials solemnizde within? Or shall laws made to curb the common world, That would not be contained in form without them, Hurt them that aream law unto themselves? My princely love, 'tis not a Priest shall let us: since th'eternall acts of our pure souls, Knit us with God, the soul of all the world, He shall be Priest to us; and with such rites As we can here devise, we will express, And strongly ratify hearts true vows, Which no external violence shall dissolve. W that Like conceit only our arm this I tie, And here in sighed of heaven, by it I swear, By my love to you, which commands my life, By the deer price of such a constant husband, As you have vowed to be: and by the joy I shall embrace by all means to requite you: e be as apt to govern as this silk, As private as my face is to this veil, And as far from offence, as this from blackness. I will be courted of no man but you, In, and for you shall be my joys and woes: If you be sick, I will be sick, though well: If you be well, I will be well, though sick: Your self alone my complete world shall be, en from this hour, to all eternity. What I have vowed keep ven passed my death. Remember love. I have small Hope's, my Lord; but a desire To make my nuptial choice of one I love, And as I would be loath impair my state; So I, affect not honours that exceed it. Poor craft indeed, That I, or any others use, form. Our Squire I think is star ed. Oh sir, now, You're true too late. Out servile coward, shall a light suspect, That hath no slenderest proof of what we do, Infringe the weigh e faith that thou hast sworn, To thy deer friend the Prince that dotes on thee; And will in pieces cut thee for thy falsehood; Do if thou darest, Even for thy scrapped up living, and thy life, I'll tell my father then, how thou didst woo To love the young Prince; and didst force me too, To take his Letter ; I was well inclined, I will be sworn. before, to love the Duke, But thy vile railing at him, made me hate him. I marry did you sir, And said he was a pattern for a Potter, Fit to-have his picture stamped on a stone Jug, To keep Ale-knights in memory of Sobriety. I could have loved him else; nay, I did love him, Though I dissembled it, to bring him on, And I by this time might have been a Duchess: And now I think on't better: for revenge, I'll have the Duke, and he shall have thy head, For thy false wit within it, to his love. Now go and tell my Father, pray be gone. Go, for Gods sake go, are you here yet? Good sir, say your worst, For I will meet him, and that presently. No, no sir, no, 'tis you must fetch him to me, And you shall fetch him, or I'll do your errand. Oh 'tis most good; thus you may play on me; You cannot be content to make me love A man I hated till you spoke for him, such nchanting speeches, as no friend Could possi lie resist: but you must use Your villainous wit, to driven me from my wits: A plague of that bewitching tongue of yours; Would I had never herd your scurvy words. S worser Like a friend; Oh let me comb the cokscombe. Oh, you have made him a sweet beagle, ha'y not? And very timely used. Direct you then my Lord, what we shall do, For I am at your will, and will endure With you, the cruelest absence, from the state We both were born too, that can be supposed. How can your Lordship wrong my love so much, To think the more woe I sustain for the , Breeds not the more my comfort? I alas Have no mean else, to make my merit even In any measure, with your eniment worth. Was ever such and Ingle? would to God, (If it not for our selves) my father saw him. Let me go into exile with my Lord, I will not live, if I be left behind. He is my husband, whom lse should I follow? I have a husband, and must love none else. If this be justice, let it be our dooms: If free and spotless love in equal years, With honours unimpaired deserve such ends, Let us approve what justice is in friends. Heaven save my love, and I will suffer gladly. It is not possible; it cannot be That heaven should suffer such impi tie. I would not S ape; And certainly I think the death is easy. I will kill my self With running on some sword; or drink strong poison; Which worser h is e est I would feign endure. Wretch that I am; my heart is soft and faint; And trembles at the very hought of death, Though thoughts tenfold more gre vous do torment it; I'll f le death by degrees; and first deform This my accursed face with ugly wounds, That was the first cause of my deer loves death. Fie on my faint hear , It will not give my hand the wished strength; Behold the joust plague of a sensual life, That to preserve it self in Reasons spite, And shun death's horror, feels it ten times more. Unworthy women, why do men adore Our fading Beauty's, when that ir worthiest lives, Being lost for us, we dare not die for them? Hence hapless Ornaments that adorned this head: Disorder ever these entering carls And leave my beauty Like a wilderness, That never men more e may dare invade. Oh G e me that Aunt. None (of my faith) shall know it: gentle Aunt, Bestow it on me, and I'll ever love you. I will not then indeed. No, I swe re. plesse b autie, turn the ugliest face That ever Ethiop, or affrightful fiend Showed in th'amaz'd eye of profaned light: See precious Love, if thou be it in air, And canst break darkness, and the strongest Towers, With thy dissolved intellectual powers, See a woe e tormen S ffered for thy death, Then ifit had extended his black force, In seuenfolded horror to my hated life. Smart precious ointment. smart. and to my brain Sweat thy enu nom'd fury, make my eyes Burn with thy sulphre Like the Lake's of hell, That fear of me may sh er him to dust, That eat his own child with the jaws of lust— Tyrant! beho worser how thou hast used thy love, See, thief to N ure, thou hast killed and robbed, Killed what my self killed, robbed what makes thee poor Beauty (a Lovers treasure) thou hast lost Where none can find it; all a poor Maids dow Thou hast forced from me: all my joy and hope. No man will love me more; all Dams excel me, This ugly thing is now no more a face, Nor any vile form in all Earth resembled, But thy fowl tyranny; for which all the pains Two faithful Lovers feel, that thus are parted, All joys they might have felt, turn all to pains; All a young virgin thinks she does endure, To lose her love and beauty; on thy heart Be heaped and pressed down till thy soul depart. I know your honourable mind my Lord, And will not do it that unworthy wrong, To let it spend her forces in contending (Spite of your sense) to love me thus deformed: Love must have outward objects to delight him, Else his content will be too graven and sour. It is enough for me my Lord, you love, And that my beauty's sacrifice redeemde My sad fear of your slaughter. You first loved me Closely for beauty; which being withered thus, Your love must fade; when the most needful rights Of Fate, and Nature, have dissolved your life, And that your love must needs be all in soul, Then will we meet again: and then (deer Love) Love me again; for then will beauty be Of no respect with loves eternity. All S, that title is of little force To stir up men's affectious: when wives want Outward excitements, husbands loves grow skant. What, in a letter? Collaterally? theres a fine word now; wrest in that if you can by any means. Oh God sir, pray away, this man talks idly. 'Tis bravely done, farewell: but do you hear sir? Ta e this with you beside; the young Prince keeps A certain letter you had writ for me, (Endearing, and Condoling, and Mature) And if you should deny things, that I hope Will stop your I pudent mouth: but go your ways, If you can answer all this, why 'tis well. Oh most unjust truth I'll cast my self down headlong from this Tower, And force and inst pass ge for my soul, To seek the wandering spirit of my Lord.