Act 3 — ACT III. SCENE I.

Maria’s Apartment.

Enter Gerardine and Maria.

Ger. The coast is clear, and Argus’ wakeful eyes

Securely sleep: time turns to us his front.

Come, sweet Maria, of th’ auspicious hours

Let’s take advantage.

Mar. With all my heart;

I do embrace the motion with thyself:

Welcome, sweet friend, to liberty of air,

145Which now, methinks, doth promp[t] our breaths to move

Sweet accents of delight, the joys of love.

How dost thou brook thy little-ease,^[268] thy trunk?

Ger. That trunk confines this chest; this chest contains

Th’ unbounded speculation of our love,

Incomprehensible grief, joy, hope, and fears;

Th’ affections of my mind are like the spheres,

Which in their jarring motions do agree,

Through th’ influence of love’s sweet harmony.

Mar. Are not inferior bodies here on earth

Produc’d and govern’d by those heavenly ones?

Ger. They are.

Mar. They jar, you say; yet in that strife maintain

Perpetual league: why should their influence

In rational souls be check’d by erring sense?

Or why should mutual love, confirm’d by heaven,

B’ infring’d by men? methinks ’tis most uneven.^[269]

Ger. Thou argu’st well, Maria; and this withal,

That brutes nor animals do prove a thrall

To such servility: souls that are wards

To gold, opinion, or th’ undue regards

Of broking men, wolves that in sheep-skin bands

Prey on the hearts to join th’ unwilling hands,

Ruin fair stocks, when generous houses die,

Or propagate their name with bastardy.

146Mar. Sterility and barrenness ensue

Such forced love; nor shall erroneous men

Pervert my settled thoughts, or turn mine eye

From thy fair object, which I will pursue,

Rich in thy love, proud of this interview.

Ger. I’ll suck these accents: let our breaths engender

A generation of such pleasing sounds,

To interchange delights. O, my blood’s on fire!

Sweet, let me give more scope to true desire.

Mar. What wouldst thou more than our minds’ firm contract?

Ger. Tut, words are wind; thought unreduct^[270] to act^[271]

Is but an embryon in the truest sense.

Mar. I am beleague[r]’d; I had need of sense:

You make me blush: play fair yet above board.

Ger. Hear me exemplify love’s Latin word

Together with thyself:

As thus:—hearts join’d, Amore: take A from thence,

Then more is the perfect moral sense,

Plural in manners, which in thee do shine

Saint-like, immortal, spotless, and divine:

Take M away, ore in beauty’s name

Craves an eternal trophy to thy fame:

Lastly, take O, in re stands all my rest,

Which I, in Chaucer-style, do term a jest.

Mar. You break all modest bounds; away, away!

Ger. So when men come behind do women say.

Mar. Come, come, I say—

Ger. Ay, that’s the word indeed:

Men that come bold before are like to speed.

147But who comes here?^[272] Monstrum horrendum! my nostrils have the rank scent of knavery. Maria, let’s remove ourselves to the window, and observe this piece of man’s flesh. [Scene closes.