The most excellent, most wise, most dainty, precious, loving, kind, sweet, intolerably fair lady Thamasta commends to your little hands this letter of importance. By your leave, let me first kiss, and then deliver it in fashion to your own proper beauty. [Delivers a letter. Cleo. To me, from her? 'tis strange! I dare peruse it.

[Reads.

Cuc. Good.-O, that I had not resolved to live a single life! Here's temptation, able to conjure up a spirit with a witness. So, so! she has read it. [Aside. Cleo. Is't possible? Heaven, thou art great and boun

tiful.

Sir, I much thank your pains; and to the princess
Let my love, duty, service, be remembered.

Cuc. They shall mad-dam.

Cleo. When we of hopes or helps are quite bereaven,

Our humble prayers have entrance into Heaven.

Cuc. That's my opinion clearly and without doubt.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-A Room in the Palace.

Enter ARETUS and SOPHRONOS.

Are. The prince is throughly moved.
Soph.

So much distempered.

Are.

I never saw him

What should this young man be?

'Tis to me

Nor I.

Enter PALADOR, AMETHUS, and PELIAS.
Pal. Ye have consented all to work upon
The softness of my nature; but take heed:
Though I can sleep in silence, and look on

The mockery ye make of my dull patience,

Yet ye shall know, the best of ye, that in me
There is a masculine, a stirring spirit,

Which, once provoked, shall, like a bearded comet,
Set ye at gaze, and threaten horror.

Pel.

Good sir,

Pal. Good sir! 'tis not your active wit or language, Nor your grave politic wisdoms, lords, shall dare To check-mate and control my just commands.

Enter MENAPHON.

Where is the youth, your friend? is he found yet?
Men. Not to be heard of.

Pal.

Fly, then, to the desert,

Where thou didst first encounter this fantastic,

This airy apparition; come no more

In sight! Get ye all from me: he that stays

Is not my friend.

Amet.

Are. Soph.

'Tis strange.

We must obey.

[Exeunt all but PALADOR.

Pal. Some angry power cheats with rare delusions

My credulous sense; the very soul of reason

Is troubled in me;-the physician

Presented a strange masque, the view of it
Puzzled my understanding; but the boy-

Enter RHETIAS.

Rhetias, thou art acquainted with my griefs :
Parthenophil is lost, and I would see him;
For he is like to something I remember
A great while since, a long, long time ago.
Rhe. I have been diligent, sir, to pry
for discovery, but cannot meet with him.
trick, I am confident.

into

every corner There is some

Pal. There is; there is some practice, sleight, or plot. Rhe. I have apprehended a fair wench in an odd pri

vate lodging in the city, as like the youth in face as can by possibility be discerned.

Pal. How, Rhetias!

Rhe. If it be not Parthenophil in long-coats, 'tis a spirit in his likeness; answer I can get none from her: you shall see her.

Pal. The young man in disguise, upon my life, To steal out of the land.

Rhe.

Pal. Do, do, my Rhetias.

I'll send him t’ye.

[Exit RHETIAS.

As there is by nature

In everything created contrariety,

So likewise is there unity and league

Between them in their kind: but man, the abstract
Of all perfection, which the workmanship

Of Heaven hath modelled, in himself contains
Passions of several qualities.

[Enter behind EROCLEA (PARTHENOPHIL),
in female attire.

The music

Of man's fair composition best accords

When 'tis in consort, not in single strains :
My heart has been untuned these many months,
Wanting her presence, in whose equal love

True harmony consisted. Living here,

We are Heaven's bounty all, but Fortune's exercise.
Ero. Minutes are numbered by the fall of sands,
As by an hourglass; the span of time

Doth waste us to our graves, and we look on it:
An age of pleasures, revelled out, comes home

At last, and ends in sorrow; but the life,
Weary of riot, numbers every sand,

Wailing in sighs, until the last drop down;

So to conclude calamity in rest.

Pal. What echo yields a voice to my complaints? Can I be nowhere private?

Ero. [Comes forward, and kneels] Let the substance

As suddenly be hurried from your eyes

As the vain sound can pass, sir, from your ear,
If no impression of a troth vowed yours

Retain a constant memory.

Pal.

Stand up.

'Tis not the figure stamped upon thy cheeks,
The cozenage of thy beauty, grace or tongue,
Can draw from me a secret, that hath been
The only jewel of my speechless thoughts.

[She rises.

Ero. I am so worn away with fears and sorrows,
So wintered with the tempests of affliction,

That the bright sun of your life-quickening presence
Hath scarce one beam of force to warm again
That spring of cheerful comfort, which youth once
Apparelled in fresh looks.

Pal.

Cunning impostor!

Untruth hath made thee subtle in thy trade.
If any neighbouring greatness hath seduced
A free-born resolution to attempt

Some bolder act of treachery by cutting
My weary days off, wherefore, cruel-mercy,

Hast thou assumed a shape that would make treason
A piety, guilt pardonable, bloodshed

As holy as the sacrifice of peace?

Ero. The incense of my love-desires are flamed
Upon an altar of more constant proof.

Sir, O, sir, turn me back into the world,
Command me to forget my name, my birth,
My father's sadness, and my death alive,
If all remembrance of my faith hath found

A burial without pity in your scorn!

Pal. My scorn, disdainful boy, shall soon unweave
The web thy art hath twisted. Cast thy shape off,
Disrobe the mantle of a feigned sex,

And so I may be gentle as thou art,
There's witchcraft in thy language, in thy face,

In thy demeanours; turn, turn from me, prithee,

For my belief is armed else. Yet, fair subtility,

Before we part, for part we must,—be true:

Great goodness,

The unfortunate Eroclea.

In this seducing counterfeit.

Hath honesty and virtue left the time?

Are we become so impious, that to tread
The path of impudence is law and justice?—
Thou vizard of a beauty ever sacred,

Give me thy name.

Ero.

Whilst I was lost to memory

Parthenophil did shroud my shame in change

Of sundry rare misfortunes; but, since now
I am, before I die, returned to claim

A convoy to my grave, I must not blush

To let Prince Palador, if I offend,

Know, when he dooms me, that he dooms Eroclea :
I am that woful maid.

Pal.

Join not too fast

Thy penance with the story of my sufferings:--
So dwelt simplicity with virgin truth,

So martyrdom and holiness are twins,

As innocence and sweetness on thy tongue.

But, let me by degrees collect my senses;

I

may abuse my trust. Tell me, what air

Hast thou perfumed, since tyranny first ravished

The contract of our hearts ?

Ero.

Have I been buried.

Pal.

Dear sir, in Athens

Buried! Right; as I

In Cyrus.--Come to trial; if thou beest