Act 4 — SCENE III.

Before the Duke’s Palace.

Hautboys. Enter the Duke and Bianca richly attired, attended by Lords, Cardinals, Ladies, and others: as they are passing in great state over the stage, enter the Cardinal meeting them.

Car. Cease, cease! religious honours done to sin

Disparage virtue’s reverence, and will pull

Heaven’s thunder upon Florence: holy ceremonies

Were made for sacred uses, not for sinful.

Are these the fruits of your repentance, brother?

Better it had been you had never sorrow’d,

Than to abuse the benefit, and return

To worse than where sin left you.

Vow’d you then never to keep strumpet more,

And are you now so swift in your desires

To knit your honours and your life fast to her?

Is not sin sure enough to wretched man,

But he must bind himself in chains to’t? worse;

Must marriage, that immaculate robe of honour,

621That renders virtue glorious, fair, and fruitful

To her great master, be now made the garment

Of leprosy and foulness? Is this penitence

To sanctify hot lust? what is it otherwise

Than worship done to devils? Is this the best

Amends that sin can make after her riots?

As if a drunkard, to appease heaven’s wrath,

Should offer up his surfeit for a sacrifice:

If that be comely, then lust’s offerings are

On wedlock’s sacred altar.

Duke. Here you’re bitter

Without cause, brother; what I vow’d I keep,

As safe as you your conscience; and this needs not;

I taste more wrath in’t than I do religion,

And envy more than goodness: the path now

I tread is honest, leads to lawful love,

Which virtue in her strictness would not check:

I vow’d no more to keep a sensual woman;

’Tis done, I mean to make a lawful wife of her.

Car. He that taught you that craft,

Call him not master long, he will undo you;

Grow not too cunning for your soul, good brother:

Is it enough to use adulterous thefts,

And then take sanctuary in marriage?

I grant, so long as an offender keeps

Close in a privileg’d temple, his life’s safe;

But if he ever venture to come out,

And so be taken, then he surely dies for’t:

So now you’re safe; but when you leave this body,

Man’s only privileg’d temple upon earth,

In which the guilty soul takes sanctuary,

Then you’ll perceive what wrongs chaste vows endure

When lust usurps the bed that should be pure.

Bian. Sir, I have read you over all this while

In silence, and I find great knowledge in you

622And severe learning; yet, ’mongst all your virtues

I see not charity written, which some call

The first-born of religion, and I wonder

I cannot see’t in yours: believe it, sir,

There is no virtue can be sooner miss’d,

Or later welcom’d; it begins the rest,

And sets ’em all in order:^[1109] heaven and angels

Take great delight in a converted sinner;

Why should you then, a servant and professor,

Differ so much from them? If every woman

That commits evil should be therefore kept

Back in desires of goodness, how should virtue

Be known and honour’d? From a man that’s blind,

To take a burning taper ’tis no wrong,

He never misses it; but to take light

From one that sees, that’s injury and spite.

Pray, whether is religion better serv’d,

When lives that are licentious are made honest,

Than when they still run through a sinful blood?

’Tis nothing virtue’s temples to deface;

But build the ruins, there’s a work of grace!

Duke. I kiss thee for that spirit; thou’st prais’d thy wit

A modest way.—On, on, there!

[Hautboys. Exeunt all except the Cardinal.

Car. Lust is bold,

And will have vengeance speak ere’t be controll’d. [Exit.

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