NER. Prythee, no more of him: I hate his name As much as I would do the loss of honour, Which he injuriously would rob me of. No, no, Dorinda, if by love I be Enthrall'd to any, Daphnis is not he.
DOR. Why, is there any can deserve you more?
NER. Yes, many, that I could tell how to love Rather than him: for why should I love him, Whilst Hylas lives, and languishes for me? Hylas, who lov'd me in my infancy, And being then a boy, was never well If I was absent; nor indeed was I Content with any but his company. Our flocks still fed together: I on him, And he on me did feed his greedy eyes. Since, though his years have styled him man, he has Continu'd that first love with such respects, So full of innocence and simple truth, That howsoe'er my outward coyness is, My heart within tells me 'tis only his. Ah me! my father! prythee, let's away.
DOR. But Daphnis comes with him: for love's sake, stay!
Pan be as cruel to his flocks and him As he has been to me!
MIR. Go, leave your cursing, And follow her; let me alone with him.
CHAR. Ha! have I found you? Ho! Nerina, stay! Your father calls you; was not that my daughter That made away so fast?
MIR. Who, she that's gone? Believe your eyes no more, they are false to you. Could you take one for her that's nothing like her? 'Twas Chloris went from us.
DAPH. I thought that it had been my love.
CHAR. I durst have sworn that she had been my daughter. What made she here? 'Twill ne'er be otherwise; Young women will be chatting with young men, Whate'er their fathers say. It was not so When I was young--a boy, as you are, shepherds.
MIR. We are not men with him till after fifty.
CHAR. We never durst keep company with women, Nor they with us: each one did carefully Attend his charge. And when the time was come, That we grew ripe in years, and were staid youths, Our fathers would provide us wives: we did not Carve for ourselves, as nowadays they do. But now our children think themselves as wise, Nay, wiser than their fathers, and will rule 'em: They can no sooner peep out of the shell, But they must love, forsooth. I would fain know, Whether 'twere fit a maid should be in love-- I speak now of that skittish girl, my daughter-- Before she ask her father's leave and liking?