Double Falsehood
Act I, Scene 3
Outside an apartment.
-
Enter Henriquez, Gerald, and servants with lights.
Henriquez
1
-
Bear the lights close—where is the music, sirs?
Gerald
2
-
Coming, my lord.
Henriquez
3 - 27
-
Let ’em not come too near. This maid,
-
For whom my sighs ride on the night’s chill vapor,
-
Is born most humbly, though she be as fair
-
As nature’s richest mould and skill can make her,
-
Mended with strong imagination.
-
But what of that? Th’ obscureness of her birth
-
Cannot eclipse the lustre of her eyes,
-
Which make her all one light.—Strike up, my masters;
-
But touch the strings with a religious softness;
-
Teach sound to languish through the night’s dull ear,
-
’Till melancholy start from her lazy couch,
-
And carelessness grow convert to attention.
-
Music plays.
-
She drives me into wonder, when I sometimes
-
Hear her discourse; the court, whereof report,
-
And guess alone inform her, she will rave at,
-
As if she there sev’n reigns had slander’d time.
-
Then, when she reasons on her country state,
-
Health, virtue, plainness, and simplicity,
-
On beauties true in title, scorning art,
-
Freedom as well to do, as think, what’s good;
-
My heart grows sick of birth and empty rank,
-
And I become a villager in wish.
-
Play on—she sleeps too sound—be still, and vanish:
-
A gleam of day breaks sudden from her window:
-
O taper, graced by that midnight hand!
-
Violante appears above at her window.
Violante
28
-
Who is’t, that woos at this late hour? What are you?
Henriquez
29
-
One, who for your dear sake—
Violante
30 - 38
-
Watches the starless night!
-
My lord Henriquez, or my ear deceives me.
-
You’ve had my answer, and ’tis more than strange
-
You’ll combat these repulses. Good my lord!
-
Be friend to your own health; and give me leave,
-
Securing my poor fame, nothing to pity
-
What pangs you swear you suffer. ’Tis impossible
-
To plant your choice affections in my shade,
-
At least, for them to grow there.
Henriquez
39
-
Why, Violante?
Violante
40 - 48
-
Alas! Sir, there are reasons numberless
-
To bar your aims. Be warn’d to hours more wholesome;
-
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 suff’rings
-
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.
Henriquez
49 - 51
-
Your memory,
-
Too faithful to the wrongs of few lost maids,
-
Makes fear too general.
Violante
52 - 60
-
Let us be homely,
-
And let us too be chaste, 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.
Henriquez
61 - 62
-
Why this dismission
-
Does more invite my staying.
Violante
63 - 67
-
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!
Henriquez
68 - 84
-
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 myself, but thrown by fortune on me,
-
Or by the merit of some ancestor
-
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 mere outside.
