SCENE II.

A Room in PETRUCHIO'S House.

Enter PETRUCHIO and ROSEILLI.

Rose. Is't possible the duke should be so mov'd?
Pet. 'Tis true; you have no enemy at court
But her, for whom you pine so much in love;
Then master your affections: I am sorry
You hug your ruin so.—

What say you to the project I proposed?
Rose. I entertain it, with a greater joy
Than shame can check.

Enter FERNANDO.

Pet. You 're come as I could wish;

My cousin is resolv'd.

Fern. Without delay

Prepare yourself, and meet at court anon,
Some half hour hence; and Cupid bless your joy!
Rose. If ever man was bounden to a friend-
Fern. No more; away. [Exeunt PET. and ROSE.
Love's rage is yet unknown;

In his-ah me! too well I feel my own.-
So, now I am alone; now let me think.
She is the duchess;-say she be: a creature,
Sew'd up in a painted cloth, might so be stiled;
That's but a name: she's married too; she is,
And therefore better might distinguish love:-
She's young and fair; why, madam, that's the bait
Invites me more to hope:-she's the duke's wife;

Who knows not this?-she's bosom'd to my friend;
There, there, I am quite lost:-will not be won;
Still worse and worse: abhors to hear me speak;
Eternal mischief. I must urge no more;
For, were I not beleper'd in my soul,

Here were enough to quench the flames of hell.
What then? pish,-[if] I must not speak, I'll write.
Come then, sad secretary to my plaints,

Plead thou my faith, for words are turn'd to sighs. What says this paper?

[Takes out a letter, and reads to himself.

Enter D'AVOLOS behind with two pictures. D'Av. Now is the time. Alone? reading a letter? good; how now? striking his breast! what, in the name of policy, should this mean? tearing his hair! passion; by all the hopes of my life, plain passion! now I perceive it. If this be not a fit of some violent affection, I am an ass in understanding; why 'tis plain,--plainer and plainer; love in the extremest. Oh, for the party who, now! The greatness of his spirits is too high cherish'd to be caught with some ordinary stuff, and if it be my lady Fiormonda, I am strangely mistook. Well, that I have fit occasion soon to understand. I have here two pictures, newly drawn, to be sent for a present to the abbot of Monaco, the duchess's uncle, her own and my lady's; I'll observe which of these may, perhaps, bewray him-he turns about. -My noble lord.

Fern. You are welcome, sir; I thank you.

D'Av. Me, my lord! for what, my lord? Fern. Who's there? I cry you mercy, D'Avolos, I took you for another; pray excuse me:

What is't you bear there?

D'Av. No secret, my lord, but may be imparted to you. A couple of pictures, my good lord,— please you see them?

Fern. I care not much for pictures; but whose are they?

D'Av. The one is for my lord's sister, the other is the duchess.

Fern. Ha, D'Avolos! the duchess's?

D'Av. Yes, my lord.

him--observe that.

Sure the word startled

[Aside.

Fern. You told me, master secretary, once,

You owed me love.

D'Av. Service, my honour'd lord; howsoever you please to term it.

Fern. Twere rudeness to be suitor for a sight; Yet trust me, sir, I'll be all secret.

D'Av. I beseech your lordship;--they are, as I am, constant to your pleasure. [Shews FIORMONDA's picture.] This, my lord, is the widow marquess's, as it now newly came from the picturedrawer's; the oil yet green: a sweet picture; and, in my judgment, art hath not been a niggard in striving to equal the life. Michael Angelo himself needed not blush to own the workmanship.

Fern. A very pretty picture; but, kind signor, To whose use is it?

D'Av. For the duke's, my lord, who determines

to send it with all speed as a present to Paulo Baglione, uncle to the duchess, that he may see the riches of two such lustres as shine in the court of Pavy.

Fern. Pray, sir, the other?

D'Av. [Shews the picture of the Duchess.]—This, my lord, is for the duchess Bianca; a wondrous sweet picture, if you well observe with what singularity the artsman hath strove to set forth each limb in exquisitest proportion, not missing a hair. Fern. A hair!

D'Av. She cannot more formally, or (if it may be lawful to use the word) more really, behold her own symmetry in her glass, than in taking a sensible view of this counterfeit. When I first saw it, I verily almost was of a mind that this was her very lip.

Fern. Lip!

D'Av. How constantly he dwells upon this portraiture! [Aside.]-Nay, I'll assure your lordship there is no defect of cunning.-His eye is fix'd as if it were incorporated there. [Aside.]-Were not the party herself alive to witness that there is a creature composed of flesh and blood, as naturally enriched with such harmony of admirable beauty, as is here artificially counterfeited, a very curious eye might repute it as an imaginary rapture of some transported conceit, to aim at an impossibility; whose very first gaze is of force almost to persuade a substantial love in a settled heart. Fern. Love! heart!

D'Av. My honour'd lord.

Fern. Oh heavens!

D'Av. I am confirmed. [Aside.]-What ails your lordship?

Fern. You need not praise it, sir; itself is praise. How near had I forgot myself! [Aside.]-I thank

you.

'Tis such a picture as might well become The shrine of some famed Venus; I am dazzled With looking on't: pray, sir, convey it hence.

D'Av. I am all your servant:-blessed, blessed discovery! [Aside.]-Please you to command me? Fern. No, gentle sir.-I am lost beyond my

senses.

D'ye hear, sir? good, where dwells the picturemaker?

D'Av. By the castle's farther drawbridge, near
Galiazzo's statue; his name is Alphonso Trinultio.
-Happy above all fate!
[Aside.
Fern. You say enough; my thanks t'ye! [Exit
D'Av.]-Were that picture

But rated at my lordship, 'twere too cheap.
I fear I spoke or did I know not what;
All sense of providence was in mine eye.

Enter FERENTES, MAURUCCIO, and GIACOPO. Fer. Youth in three-score years and ten! [Aside. Trust me, my lord Mauruccio, you are now younger in the judgment of those that compare your former age with your latter, by seven-andtwenty years, than you were three years ago;