CAS. O mother, let me twine about your neck, And kiss you, till my soul melt on your lips! I did but this to try you.
CAS. Indeed I did but;[106] for no tongue has force To alter me from honest. If maidens would, men's words could have no power; A virgin's honour is a crystal tower Which (being weak) is guarded with good spirits; Until she basely yields, no ill inherits.
GRA. O happy child! faith, and thy birth hath sav'd me. 'Mong thousand daughters, happiest of all others: Be[107] thou a glass for maids, and I for mothers. [_Exeunt._
VEN. So, so, he leans well; take heed you wake him not, brother.
VEN. That's a good lay, for I must kill myself. Brother, that's I, that sits for me: do you mark it? And I must stand ready here to make away myself yonder. I must sit to be killed, and stand to kill myself. I could vary it not so little as thrice over again; 't has some eight returns, like Michaelmas term.[108]
VEN. But, sirrah, does the duke's son come single?
HIP. No; there's the hell on't: his faith's too feeble to go alone. He brings flesh-flies after him, that will buzz against supper-time, and hum for his coming out.
VEN. Ah, the fly-flap of vengeance beat 'em to pieces! Here was the sweetest occasion, the fittest hour, to have made my revenge familiar with him; show him the body of the duke his father, and how quaintly he died, like a politician, in hugger-mugger,[109] made no man acquainted with it; and in catastrophe slain him over his father's breast. O, I'm mad to lose such a sweet opportunity!
HIP. Nay, pish! prythee, be content! there's no remedy present; may not hereafter times open in as fair faces as this?
VEN. They may, if they can paint so well.
HIP. Come now: to avoid all suspicion, let's forsake this room, and be going to meet the duke's son.
VEN. Content: I'm for any weather. Heart! step close: here he comes.
VEN. E'en newly, my lord, just as your lordship entered now: about this place we had notice given he should be, but in some loathsome plight or other.
LUS. Private enough for this; only a few Attend my coming out.
VEN. Mass, there's the slave indeed, my lord. 'Tis a good child: he calls his father slave! [_Aside._
LUS. Ay, that's the villain, the damn'd villain. Softly. Tread easy.