Double Falsehood
Act II, Scene 1
The prospect of a village.
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Enter Fabian and Lopez; Henriquez on the opposite side.
Lopez
1 - 2
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Aside.
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Soft, soft you, neighbor; who comes here? Pray you, slink
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aside—
Henriquez
3
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Ha! Is it come to this? Oh the devil, the devil, the devil!
Fabian
4 - 5
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Lo you now! For want of the discreet ladle of a cool
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understanding, will this fellow’s brains boil over.
Henriquez
6 - 15
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To have enjoy’d her, I would have given—what?
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All that at present I could boast my own,
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And the reversion of the world to boot,
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Had the inheritance been mine: and now,
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(Just doom of guilty joys!) I grieve as much
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That I have rifled all the stores of beauty,
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Those charms of innocence and artless love,
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As just before I was devour’d with sorrow,
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That she refus’d my vows, and shut the door
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Upon my ardent longings.
Lopez
16
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Love! Love! Downright love! I see by the foolishness of it.
Henriquez
17 - 27
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Now then to recollection—was’t not so? A promise first of
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marriage—not a promise only, for ’twas bound with surety of
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a thousand oaths—and those not light ones neither.
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Yet I remember too, those oaths could not prevail;
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Th’ unpractis’d maid trembled to meet my love:
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By force alone I snatch’d th’ imperfect joy,
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Which now torments my memory. Not love,
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But brutal violence prevail’d; to which
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The time, and place, and opportunity,
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Were accessaries most dishonorable.
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Shame, shame upon it!
Fabian
28
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What a heap of stuff’s this—I fancy, this fellow’s head would make a good peddler’s pack, neighbor.
Henriquez
29 - 53
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Hold, let me be severe to myself, but not unjust. Was it a
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rape then? No. Her shrieks, her exclamations then had drove
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me from her. True, she did not consent; as true, she did
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resist; but still in silence all.
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’Twas but the coyness of a modest bride,
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Not the resentment of a ravish’d maid.
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And is the man yet born, who would not risk
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The guilt, to meet the joy? The guilt! That’s true—
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But then the danger; the tears, the clamors of the ruin’d
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maid, pursuing me to court. That, that, I fear will (as it
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already does my conscience) something shatter my honor.
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What’s to be done? But now I have no choice. Fair Leonora
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reigns confessed the tyrant queen of my revolted heart, and
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Violante seems a short usurper there. Julio’s already by my
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arts remov’d.—O friendship!
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How wilt thou answer that? Oh, that a man
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Could reason down this fever of the blood,
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Or sooth with words the tumult in his heart!
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Then, Julio, I might be, indeed, thy friend.
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They, they only should condemn me,
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Who born devoid of passion ne’er have prov’d
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The fierce disputes ’twixt virtue and desire.
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While they, who have, like me,
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The loose escapes of youthful nature known,
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Must wink at mine, indulgent to their own.
Lopez
54 - 56
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This man is certainly mad, and may be mischievous. Prithee,
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neighbor, let’s follow him; but at some distance, for fear
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of the worst.
