Act 3 — ACT III. SCENE I.
Reading edition
A Street; before Hippolito’s House.
Enter Hippolito and Frisco.
Fris. The wooden picture you sent her hath set her on fire; and she desires you, as you pity the case of a poor desperate gentlewoman, to serve that Monsieur in at supper to her.
Enter Camillo with Musicians.
Hip. The Frenchman? Saint Denis, let her carve him up. Stay, here’s Camillo. Now, my fool in fashion, my sage idiot, up with these brims,[661] down with this devil, Melancholy! Are you decayed, concupiscentious innamorato? News, news; Imperia doats on Fontinelle.
Cam. What comfort speaks her love to my sick
heart?
Hip. Marry, this, sir. Here’s a yellow-hammer flew to me with thy water; and I cast it, and find that his mistress being given to this new falling sickness, will cure thee. The Frenchman, 267you see, has a soft marmalady heart, and shall no sooner feel Imperia’s liquorish desire to lick at him, but straight he’ll stick the brooch of her longing in it. Then, sir, may you, sir, come upon my sister, sir, with a fresh charge, sir; sa, sa, sa, sa! once giving back, and thrice coming forward; she yield, and the town of Brest[662] is taken.
Cam. This hath some taste of hope. Is that the Mercury
Who brings you notice of his mistress’ love?
Fris. I may be her Mercury, for my running of errands; but troth is, sir, I am Cerberus, for I am porter to hell.
Cam. Then, Cerberus, play thy part: here, search that hell;
[Gives him a key.
There find and bring forth that false Fontinelle. [Exit Frisco.
If I can win his stray’d thoughts to retire
From her encounter’d eyes, whom I have singled
In Hymen’s holy battle, he shall pass
From hence to France, in company and guard
Of mine own heart:—he comes, Hippolito.
Enter Fontinelle, talking with Frisco.
Still looks he like a lover: poor gentleman,
Love is the mind’s strong physic, and the pill
That leaves the heart sick and o’erturns the will.
Font. O happy persecution, I embrace thee
With an unfetter’d soul! So sweet a thing
Is it to sigh upon the rack of love,
Where each calamity is groaning witness
Of the poor martyr’s faith. I never heard
Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
268The leaves off the spring’s sweetest book, the rose.
Love bred on earth, is often nurs’d in hell;
By rote it reads woe, ere it learn to spell.
Cam. Good morrow, French lord.
Hip. Bon jour, Monsieur.
Font. To your secure and more than happy self
I tender thanks, for you have honour’d me.
You are my jailor, and have penn’d me up,
Lest the poor fly, your prisoner, should alight
Upon your mistress’ lip, and thence derive
The dimpled print of an infective touch.
Thou secure tyrant, yet unhappy lover,
Couldst thou chain mountains to my captive feet,
Yet Violetta’s heart and mine should meet.
Hip. Hark, swaggerer, there’s a little dapple-coloured rascal; ho, a bona-roba;[663] her name’s Imperia; a gentlewoman, by my faith, of an ancient house, and has goodly rents and comings in of her own; and this ape would fain have thee chained to her in the holy state. Sirrah, she’s fallen in love with thy picture; yes, faith. To her, woo her, and win her; leave my sister, and thy ransom’s paid; all’s paid, gentlemen: by th’ Lord, Imperia is as good a girl as any is in Venice.
Cam. Upon mine honour, Fontinelle, ’tis true;
The lady doats on thy perfections:
Therefore resign my Violetta’s heart
To me, the lord of it; and I will send thee—
Font. O, whither? to damnation, wilt thou not?
Think’st thou the purity of my true soul
Can taste your leperous counsel? no, I defy you.
Incestancy[664] dwell on his rivell’d brow
That weds for dirt; or on th’ enforced heart
269That lags in rearward of his father’s charge,
When to some negro-guelderling he’s clogg’d
By the injunction of a golden fee!
When I call back my vows to Violetta,
May I then slip into an obscure grave,
Whose mould, imprest with stony monument,
Dwelling in open air, may drink the tears
Of the inconstant clouds, to rot me soon
Out of my private linen sepulchre!
Cam. Ay!
Is this your settled resolution?
Font. By my love’s best divinity, it is.
Cam. Then bear him to his prison back again.—
This tune must alter ere thy lodging mend:
To death, fond[665] Frenchman, thy slight love doth tend.
Font. Then, constant heart, thy fate with joy pursue;
Draw wonder to thy death, expiring true. [Exit.
Hip. After him, Frisco; enforce thy mistress’s passion. Thou shalt have access to him, to bring him love-tokens: if they prevail not, yet thou shalt still be in presence, be’t but to spite him. In, honest Frisco.
Fris. I’ll vex him to the heart, sir; fear not me.
Yet here’s a trick perchance may set him free.
[Aside and exit.
Hip. Come, wilt thou go laugh and lie down?[666] Now sure there be some rebels in thy belly, for thine eyes do nothing but watch and ward: thou’st not slept these three nights.
Cam. Alas, how can I? he that truly loves
Burns out the day in idle fantasies;
270And when the lamb bleating doth bid good night
Unto the closing day, then tears begin
To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice
Shrieks like the belman[667] in the lover’s ears:
Love’s eye the jewel of sleep, O, seldom wears!
The early lark is waken’d from her bed,
Being only by love’s plaints disquieted,
And, singing in the morning’s ear, she weeps,
Being deep in love, at lovers’ broken sleeps:
But say a golden slumber chance to tie,
With silken strings, the cover of love’s eye,
Then dreams, magician-like, mocking present
Pleasures, whose fading leaves more discontent.
Have you these golden charms?
Mus. We have, my lord.
Cam. Bestow them sweetly; think a lover’s heart
Dwells in each instrument, and let it melt
In weeping strains. Yonder direct your faces,
That the soft summons of a frightless parley
May creep into the casement. So, begin:
Music, speak movingly; assume my part;
For thou must now plead to a stony heart.
SONG.
Pity, pity, pity!
Pity, pity, pity!
That word begins that ends a true-love ditty.
Your blessed eyes, like a pair of suns,
Shine in the sphere of smiling;
Your pretty lips, like a pair of doves,
Are kisses still compiling.
271Mercy hangs upon your brow, like a precious jewel:
O, let not then,
Most lovely maid, best to be lov’d of men,
Marble lie upon your heart, that will make you cruel!
Pity, pity, pity!
Pity, pity, pity!
That word begins that ends a true-love ditty.
[Violetta appears above.
Viol. Who owes[668] this salutation?
Cam. Thy Camillo.
Viol. Is not your shadow there too, my sweet brother?
Hip. Here, sweet sister.
Viol. I dreamt so. O, I am much bound to you!
For you, my lord, have us’d my love with honour.
Cam. Ever with honour.
Viol. Indeed, indeed, you have.
Hip. ’S light, she means her French garçon.
Viol. The same. Good night; trust me, ’tis somewhat late,
And this bleak wind nips dead all idle prate.
I must to bed: good night.
Cam. The god of rest
Play music to thine eyes! whilst on my breast
The Furies sit and beat, and keep care waking.
Hip. You will not leave my friend in this poor taking?
Viol. Yes, by the velvet brow of darkness!
Hip. You scurvy tit,—’s foot, scurvy any thing! Do you hear, Susanna? you punk, if I geld not your musk-cat! I’ll do’t, by Jesu. Let’s go, Camillo.
Viol. Nay but, pure swaggerer, ruffian, do you think
To fright me with your bugbear threats? go by!
272Hark, toss-pot, in your ear; the Frenchman’s mine,
And by these hands I’ll have him!
Hip. Rare rogue, fine!
Viol. He is my prisoner, by a deed of gift;
Therefore, Camillo, you have wrong’d me much
To wrong my prisoner. By my troth, I love him
The rather for the baseness he endures
For my unworthy self. I’ll tell you what;
Release him, let him plead your love for you;
I love a’ life[669] to hear a man speak French
Of his complexion; I would undergo
The instruction of that language rather far
Than be two weeks unmarried. By my life,
Because I’ll speak true French, I’ll be his wife.
Cam. O, scorn to my chaste love! burst, heart.
Hip. ’S wounds, hold!
Cam. Come, gentle friends, tie your most solemn tunes
By silver strings unto a leaden pace.
False fair, enjoy thy base belov’d: adieu:
He’s far less noble, and shall prove less true.
[Exeunt Camillo, Hippolito, and Musicians.
Enter Truepenny above with a letter.
True. Lady, Imperia the courtesan’s zany[670] hath brought you this letter from the poor gentleman in the deep dungeon, but would not stay till he had an answer.
Viol. Her groom employed by Fontinelle? O, strange!
I wonder how he got access to him.
I’ll read, and reading my poor heart shall ache:
True love is jealous; fears the best love shake.
[Reads.
ᚤMeet me at the end of the old chapel, next Saint Lorenzo’s 273monastery. Furnish your company with a friar, that there he may consummate our holy vows. Till midnight, farewell. Thine, Fontinelle.
Hath he got opportunity to ’scape?
O happy period of our separation!
Blest night, wrap Cynthia in a sable sheet,
That fearful lovers may securely meet! [Exeunt.