Maria’s room.
Enter Maria.
MARIA
Gerardine, come forth, Maria calls!
Enter Gerardine out of the trunk.
Those ribs shall not enfold thy buxom limbs
One minute longer: the cincture of mine arms
Shall more securely keep thy soul from harms.
GERARDINE
What heavenly breath of Phitonessa’s power,
That raised the dead corpse of her friend to life,
Prevails no less on me; for even this urn,
The figure of my sadder requiem,
Gives up my bones, my love, my life, and all,
To her that gives me freedom in my thrall.
MARIA
Be brief, sweet friend, salute and part in one;
For niggard time now threats with imminent danger
Our late joy’d scope. Thy earnest, then, of love,
Ere Sol have compass’d half the signs, I fear
Will show a blushing fault; but ’twas thine aim,
T’ enforce consent in him that bars thy claim.
GERARDINE
Love salves that fault; let time our guilt reveal,
I’ll ne’er deny my deed, my hand and seal.
The elements shall lose their ancient force,
Water and earth suppress the fire and air,
Nature in all use a preposterous course,
Each kind forget his likeness to repair,
Before I’ll falsify my faith to thee.
MARIA
The humorous body’s elemental kind
Shall sooner lose th’ innated heat of love,
The soul in nature’s bounds shall be confin’d,
Heaven’s course shall retrograde and leave to move,
Ere I surcease to cherish mutual fire,
With thoughts refin’d in flames of true desire.
GERARDINE
These words are odours in the sacred shrine
Of love’s best deity. The marriage-god
Longs to perform these ceremonious rites
Which terminate our hopes; till mine grow full,
I’ll use that intercourse amongst my friends
That erst I did. Then in the height of joy,
I’ll come to challenge interest in my boy.
Till then, farewell.
MARIA
You’ll come upon your cue?
GERARDINE
Doubt not of that.
MARIA
Then twenty times adieu.
Exeunt.