The Passionate Lord’s chambers
Music. Enter the Passionate [Lord], rudely and carelessly apparell’d, unbrac’d and untruss’d, the Cupid following.
CUPID
Think upon love, which makes all creatures handsome,
Seemly for eyesight; go not so diffusedly:
There are great ladies purpose, sir, to visit you.
PASSIONATE LORD
Grand plagues, shut in my casements, that the breaths
Of their coach-mares reek not into my nostrils;
Those beasts are but a kind of bawdy forerunners.
CUPID
It is not well with you when you speak ill of fair ladies.
PASSIONATE LORD
Fair mischiefs! Give me a nest of owls, and take ‘em!
Happy is he, say I, whose window opens
To a brown baker’s chimney: he shall be sure there
To hear the bird sometimes after twilight.
What a fine thing ’tis, methinks, to have our garments
Sit loose upon us thus, thus carelessly;
It is more manly and more mortifying,
For w’are so much the readier for our shrouds:
For how ridiculous were ‘t to have death come
And take a fellow pinn’d up like a mistress?
About his neck a ruff, like a pinch’d lanthorn,
Which schoolboys make in winter, and his doublet
So close and pent, as if he fear’d one prison
Would not be strong enough to keep his soul in,
But’s tailor makes another?
An’ trust me, for I know ‘t when I lov’d, Cupid,
He does endure much pain for the poor praise
Of a neat-sitting suit.
CUPID
One may be handsome, sir,
And yet not pain’d nor proud.
PASSIONATE LORD
There you lie, Cupid,
As bad as Mercury: there is no handsomeness
But has a wash of pride and luxury,
And you go there too, Cupid. Away, dissembler,
Thou tak’st the deed’s part which befools us all;
Thy arrowheads shoot [but] sinners: hence, away,
And after thee I’ll send a powerful charm
Shall banish thee forever.
CUPID
Never, never;
I am too sure thine own.
Exit.
PASSIONATE LORD sings
Hence, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly,
There’s naught in this life sweet,
If men were wise to see ‘t,
But only melancholy,
Oh, sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,
A look that’s fast’ned to the ground,
A tongue chain’d up without a sound.
Fountainheads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves,
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous’d save bats and owls;
A midnight bell, a parting groan,
These are the sounds we feed upon,
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley:
Nothing’s so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
Exit.