• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Henr. Why, Violante?

Viol. Alas! Sir, there are Reasons numberless

To bar your Aims. Be warn’d to Hours more wholesom;

For, These you watch in vain. I have read Stories,

(I fear, too true ones;) how young Lords, like you,

Have thus besung mean Windows, rhymed their Sufferings

Ev’n to th’Abuse of Things Divine, set up

Plain Girls, like me, the Idols of their Worship,

Then left them to bewail their easie Faith,

And stand the World’s Contempt.

Henr. Your Memory,

Too faithful to the Wrongs of few lost Maids,

Makes Fear too general.

Viol. Let us be homely,

And let us too be chast, doing you Lords no Wrong;

But crediting your Oaths with such a Spirit,

As you profess them: so no Party trusted

Shall make a losing Bargain. Home, my Lord,

What you can say, is most unseasonable; what sing,

Most absonant and harsh: Nay, your Perfume,

Which I smell hither, cheers not my Sense

Like our Field-violet’s Breath.

Henr. Why this Dismission

Does more invite my Staying.

Viol.Men of your Temper

Make ev’ry Thing their Bramble. But I wrong

That which I am preserving, my Maid’s Name,

To hold so long Discourse. Your Virtues guide you

T’effect some nobler Purpose![Ex. Violante.

Henr. Stay, bright Maid!

Come back, and leave me with a fairer Hope.

She’s gone:— Who am I, that am thus contemn’d?

The second Son to a Prince? — Yes; well; What then?

Why, your great Birth forbids you to descend

To a low Alliance: — Her’s is the self-same Stuff,

Whereof we Dukes are made; but Clay more pure!

And take away my Title, which is acquir’d

Not by my self, but thrown by Fortune on Me,

Or by the Merit of some Ancestour

Of singular Quality, She doth inherit

Deserts t’outweigh me. — I must stoop to gain her;

Throw all my gay Comparisons aside,

And turn my proud Additions out of Service,

Rather than keep them to become my Masters.

The Dignities we wear, are Gifts of Pride;

And laugh’d at by the Wise, as meer Outside.

[Exit.

End of the First Act.

Act II. Scene I.

Scene, The Prospect of a Village.

Enter Fabian and Lopez; Henriquez on the Opposite Side.

Lop. Soft,

Henr. Ha! Is it come to this? Oh the Devil, the Devil, the Devil!

Fab. Lo you now! for Want of the discreet Ladle of a cool Understanding, will this Fellow’s Brains boil over.

Henr. To have enjoy’d her, I would have given — What?

All that at present I could boast my own,

And the Reversion of the World to boot,

Had the Inheritance been mine: — And now,

(Just Doom of guilty Joys!) I grieve as much

That I have rifled all the Stores of Beauty,

Those Charms of Innocence and artless Love,

As just before I was devour’d with Sorrow,

That she refus’d my Vows, and shut the Door

Upon my ardent Longings.

Lop. Love! Love! — Downright Love! I see by the Foolishness of it.

Henr. Now then to Recollection — Was’t not so? A Promise first of Marriage — Not a Promise only, for ’twas bound with Surety of a thousand Oaths; — and those not light ones neither. — Yet I remember too, those Oaths could not prevail; th’ unpractis’d Maid trembled to meet my Love: By Force alone I snatch’d th’ imperfect Joy, which now torments my Memory. Not Love, but brutal Violence prevail’d; to which the Time, and Place, and Opportunity, were Accessaries most dishonourable. Shame, Shame upon it!

Fab. What a Heap of Stuff’s this — I fancy, this Fellow’s Head would make a good Pedlar’s Pack, Neighbour.

Henr. Hold, let me be severe to my Self, but not unjust. — Was it a Rape then? No. Her Shrieks, her Exclamations then had drove me from her. True, she did not consent; as true, she did resist; but still in Silence all. — ’Twas but the Coyness of a modest Bride, not the Resentment of a ravisht Maid. And is the Man yet born, who would not risque the Guilt, to meet the Joy? — The Guilt! that’s true — but then the Danger; the Tears, the Clamours of the ruin’d Maid, pursuing me to Court. That, that, I fear will (as it already does my Conscience) something shatter my Honour. What’s to be done? But now I have no Choice. Fair Leonora reigns confest the Tyrant