Act 1 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
An Apartment in Katherine’s House.
Enter Katherine and Fitsgrave.
Fit. You do your beauties injury, sweet virgin,
To lose the time they must rejoice in youth:
There’s no perfection in a woman plac’d
But wastes itself though it be never wasted;
Then judge your wrongs[476] yourself.
Kat. Good master Fitsgrave,
Through sorrow for the knight my father’s death,
(Whose being was the perfection[477] of my joy
And crown of my desires), I cannot yet
But forcedly on marriage fix my heart:
Yet heaven forbid I should deject your hopes!
Conceive not of me so uncharitably;
I should belie my soul if I should say
You are the man I never should affect.
I understand you thus far, you’re a gentleman,
Whom your estate and virtues may commend[478]
To a far worthier breast than this of mine.
229Fit. O cease! I dare not hear such blasphemy.
What is without you worthy I neglect;
In you is plac’d the worth that I respect.
Vouchsafe,[479] unequall’d virgin, [to] accept
This worthless favour from your servant’s arm,
The hallow’d beads, whereon I justly kept
The true and perfect number of my sighs.
[Gives a chain of pearl.
Kat. Mine cannot equal yours, yet in exchange
Accept and wear it for my sake. [Gives a jewel.
Fit. Even as my [life] I’ll rate it.
Enter Goldstone, Pursenet, Tailby, Frippery, Primero, and Boy, at the farther door.
Gol. Heart! Fitsgrave in such bosom single-loves?
Pur. So close and private with her!
Tai. Observe ’em; he grows proud and bold.
Fri. Why, was not this a general meeting?
Pri. By her own consent. Death, how I could taste his blood!
Kat. See, the gentlemen,
At my request, do all present themselves.
Gol. Manifold blisses wait on her desire,
Whose beauty and whose mind so many honour!
Kat. I take your wishes thankfully, kind gentlemen,
All here assembled, over whose long suits
I ne’er insulted;
Nor, like that common sickness of our sex,
Grew proud in the abundance of my suitors,
230Or number of the days they sued unto me.
Dutiful sorrow for my father’s death,
Not wilful coyness, hath my hours detain’d
So long in silence.
I’m left to mine own choice: so much the more
My care calls on me: if I err through love,
’Tis I must chide myself; I cannot shift
The fault unto my parents, they’re at rest;
And I shall sooner err through love than wealth.
Gol. Good!
Pur. Excellent!
Tai. That likes[480] me well.
Pri. Hope still.
Kat. And my affections do pronounce you all
Worthy their pure and most entire deserts:
Yet they can choose but one;
Nor do I dissuade any of his hopes,
Because my heart is not yet throughly fix’d
On marriage or the man,
But crave the quiet respite of one month,
The month unto this night; against which time
I do invite you all to that election,
Which, on my unstain’d faith and virgin promise,
Shall light amongst no strangers, but yourselves.
May this content you?
[While she is speaking, the Boy steals from her
the chain of pearl.
All. Glad and content!
Kat. ’Tis a good time to leave:
Till then commend us to your gentlest thoughts.
[Exit.
All. Enough.
Fit. Ough!
231[The gallants look scurvily upon Fitsgrave, and he upon them. Exeunt Goldstone, Tailby, Frippery, and Primero. As Pursenet is going out, the Boy takes him into a corner.
Boy. Hist, master, hist!
Pur. Boy, how now?
Boy. Look you, sir.
Pur. Her chain of pearl?
Boy. I sneckt it away finely.
Pur. Active boy,
Thy master’s best revenue, his life and soul!
Thou keep’st ’em both together: whip, away.
[Exit Boy.
Fall back, fall belly, I must be maintain’d:
Hope is no purchase;[481]
Nor care I if I miss her. Why I rank
In this design with gallants, there’s full cause;
Policy invites me to it:
’Tis not for love, or for her sake alone;
It keeps my state suspectless and unknown.
[Aside, and exit.
Fit. Their looks run through and through me, and the stings
Of their snake-hissing whispers pierc’d my hearing.
They’re mad she grac’d me with one private minute
Above their fortunes: I’ve[482] observed ’em often
Most spitefully aspécted toward my happiness,
Beyond all others; but the cause I know not.
A quiet month the virgin has enclos’d
Unto herself; suitors stand without till then:
In which space cunningly I’ll wind myself
Into their bosoms. I’ve bethought the shape;
Some credulous scholar, easily infected
With fashion, time, and humour: unto such
232Their deepest thoughts will, like to wanton fishes,
Play above water, and be all parts seen:
For since at me their envy pines, I’ll see
Whether their lives from touch of blame sit free.
[Exit.