Maria’s room.
Enter Gerardine and Maria.
GERARDINE
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.
MARIA
With all my heart;
I do embrace the motion with thyself.
Welcome sweet friend to liberty of air,
Which now, methinks, doth promp[t] our breaths to move
Sweet accents of delight, the joys of love.
How dost thou brook thy little-ease, thy trunk?
GERARDINE
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.
MARIA
Are not inferior bodies here on earth
Produc’d and govern’d by those heavenly ones?
GERARDINE
They are.
MARIA
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.
GERARDINE
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 sheepskin bands
Prey on the hearts to join th’ unwilling hands,
Ruin fair stocks, when generous houses die,
Or propagate their name with bastardy.
MARIA
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.
GERARDINE
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.
MARIA
What wouldst thou more than our minds’ firm contract?
GERARDINE
Tut, words are wind; thought unreduced to [act]
Is but an embryon in the truest sense.
MARIA
I am [beleaguer’d], I had need of sense;
You make me blush: play fair, yet above board.
GERARDINE
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.
MARIA
You break all modest bounds; away, away!
GERARDINE
So when men come behind do women say.
MARIA
Come, come, I say —
GERARDINE
Ay, that’s the word indeed;
Men that come bold before are like to speed.
Enter Lipsalve [disguised as Gerardine,] with Shrimp, his page.
But who comes here? 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.
Exit with Maria.
LIPSALVE
Now Mistress Maria, ward yourself; if my strong hope fail not, I shall be with you to bring —
SHRIMP
To bring what, sir? Some more o’ your kind?
LIPSALVE
Faith, boy, that’s mine aim.
SHRIMP
I’ll be sworn, sir, you have a good loose; you let fly at ‘em apace.
LIPSALVE
I have shot fair and far off; but now I hope to hit the mark indeed.
SHRIMP
God save it.
LIPSALVE
But where’s the sign?
SHRIMP
Why, there.
LIPSALVE
That’s a special thing to be observed.
SHRIMP
I have heard talk of the Gemini; methinks that should be a star favourable to your proceeding.
LIPSALVE
The Gemini? O, I apprehend thee: that’s because I am so like Gerardine; ha, is’t not so, boy?
SHRIMP
As if you were spit out on’s mouth, sir; you must needs be like him, for you are both cut out of a piece. But lord, sir, how you hunt this chase of love; are you not weary?
LIPSALVE
Indefatigable, boy, indefatigable.
SHRIMP
Fatigable, quoth you? You may call it leanable well enough, for I am sure it is able to make a man lean.
LIPSALVE
’Tis my vocation, boy; we must never be weary of well-doing: love’s as proper to a courtier as preciseness to a puritan.
Enter Gerardine and Maria above.
SHRIMP
[Aside] Love, subaudi lust; a punk in this place subintelligitur.
LIPSALVE
Boy, I have spied my saint.
SHRIMP
Then down on your knees.
LIPSALVE
Fly off, lest she take thee for my familiar.
[Shrimp hides himself.]
Save thee, sweet Maria!
Nay wonder not (for thou thyself art wonder)
To see this unexpected gratulation.
MARIA
Whom do I see? O, how my senses wander!
Am not I Hero? Art not thou Leander?
GERARDINE
[Aside] Th’ art in the right, sweet wench; more of that vein.
LIPSALVE
[Aside to Shrimp] Her passion overcomes her; ’tis the kindest soul! O excellent device; it works, it works, boy.
SHRIMP
It does indeed, sir, like the suds of an ale-fat or a washing-bowl.
LIPSALVE
Joy not too much; extremes are perilous.
MARIA
O weather-beaten love! Cisley, go make a fire;
Go fetch my ladder of ropes, Leander’s come.
LIPSALVE
[Aside] Mark, how prettily in her rapture she harps upon Gerardine’s travel. — Let th’ ecstasy have end, for I am Gerardine.
GERARDINE
[Aside] The devil you are.
MARIA
Ha? let me see; my love so soon return’d?
LIPSALVE
I never travell’d farther than thine eyes;
My bruited journey was a happy project
To cast a mist before thy jealous guardian,
Who now suspectless gives some hope t’ attain
My wish’d delight, before pursu’d in vain.
GERARDINE
[Aside to Maria] Ask if he strain’d not hard for that same project.
MARIA
Has not that project overrack’d thy brain,
And spent more wit than thou hast left behind?
SHRIMP
[Aside] By this light, she flouts him.
LIPSALVE
No, wit is infinite: I spent some brain;
Thy love did stretch my wit upon the tenters.
GERARDINE
[Aside to Maria] Then is’t like to shrink in the wetting.
MARIA
It cottons well; it cannot choose but bear
A pretty nap. I tender thy capacity;
A comfortable caudle cherish it.
But where’s my favour that I bid thee wear
As pledge of love?
GERARDINE
[Aside] Now dost thou put him to’t;
More tenters for his wit; he’s non plus quite.
LIPSALVE
I wear it, sweet Maria, but on high days,
Preserve it from the tainting of the air —
[Aside] What should I say?— ’Tis in my t’other hose.
MARIA
How? In your t’other hose? He that I love
Shall wear my favour in those hose he has on.
LIPSALVE
[Aside] Fiends and furies! Block that I am!
SHRIMP
[Aside to Lipsalve] In your t’other hose? [Aside] She talked of a ladder of ropes; if she would let it down, for my life he would hang himself in’t. — In your t’other hose? Why, those hose are in lavender; besides, they have never a codpiece: but indeed there needs no ivy where the wine is good. In your t’other hose?
MARIA
I said you were too prodigal of wit.
LIPSALVE
Expostulate no more; grant me access,
Or else I’ll travel to the wilderness.
MARIA
Your only way. Go, travel till you tire;
Be rid, and let a gull discharge the hire.
SHRIMP
Master, the doctor, the doctor!
LIPSALVE
Where? Which way?
SHRIMP
This way, that way, some way I heard him coming.
LIPSALVE
O boy, I am abused, gulled, disgraced; my credit’s cracked.
SHRIMP
You know that’s nothing for a new courtier.
LIPSALVE
O, I shall run beside myself.
SHRIMP
No sir, that’s my office; I’ll run by your side.
LIPSALVE
My brain is out of temper; what shall I do?
SHRIMP
Take her counsel, sir; get a cullis to your capacity, a restorative to your reason, and a warming-pan to your wit. He comes, he comes!
LIPSALVE
Follow close, boy; let him not see us.
Exeunt Lipsalve and Shrimp. Enter Glister.
GLISTER
What, more flatterers about my carrion? More battery to my walls? Shall I never be rid of these Petronel Flashes? As for my friend Gerardine, the wind of my rage has blown him to discover countries; and let the sea purge his love away and him together, I care not. Young wenches now are all o’ the hoigh. We that are guardians must respect more besides titles, gold lace, person, or parts; we must have lordships and manors elsewhere as well as in the man. Wealth commands all; and wealth I’ll have, or else my minion shall lead apes in hell. I must after this gallant too; I’ll know his rendezvous, and what company he keeps.
Exit.
MARIA
Now must we be abrupt; retire, sweet friend,
To thy small-ease. What more remains to do
We’ll consummate at our next interview.
GERARDINE
So shall I bear my prisonment with pleasure;
Look thou but big, [our] cruel foe will yield,
And give to Hymen th’ honour of the field.
Exeunt.