Act 3 — Scene II.[38]
Reading edition
Scene II.[38]
[Enter] Corsites and Tellus.
Cors. Here is the castle, fair Tellus, in which you must weave, till either time end your days, or Cynthia her displeasure. I am sorry so fair a face should be subject to so hard a fortune, and that the flower of beauty, which is honoured 5 in courts, should here wither in prison.
Tellus. Corsites, Cynthia may restrain the liberty of my body, of my thoughts she cannot; and therefore do I esteem myself most free, though I am in greatest bondage. 10
Cors. Can you then feed on fancy, and subdue the malice of envy by the sweetness of imagination?
Tellus. Corsites, there is no sweeter music to the miserable than despair; and therefore 15 the more bitterness I feel, the more sweetness I find; for so vain were liberty, and so unwelcome the following of higher fortune, that I choose rather to pine in this castle than to be a prince in any other court. 20
Cors. A humour contrary to your years and nothing agreeable to your sex; the one commonly allured with delights, the other always with sovereignty.
Tellus. I marvel, Corsites, that you being 25 a captain, who should sound nothing but terror and suck nothing but blood, can find in your heart to talk such smooth words, for that it agreeth not with your calling to use words so soft as that of love. 30
Cors. Lady, it were unfit of wars to discourse with women, into whose minds nothing can sink but smoothness; besides, you must not think that soldiers be so rough-hewn, or of such knotty mettle, that beauty cannot allure, 35 and you, being beyond perfection, enchant.
Tellus. Good Corsites, talk not of love, but let me to my labour. The little beauty I have shall be bestowed on my loom, which I now mean to make my lover. 40
Cors. Let us in, and what favor Corsites can show, Tellus shall command.
Tellus. The only favour I desire is now and then to walk.
Exeunt.