De Ga. ’Tis not private,
Nor carried so; ’tis common, my fair sister;
Your love to Mirabel: Your blushes tell it.
’Tis too much known, and spoken of too largely;
And with no little shame I wonder at it.

Ori. Is it a shame to love?

De Ga. To love undiscreetly:
A virgin should be tender of her honour,
Close, and secure.

Ori. I am as close as can be,
And stand upon as strong and honest guards too;
Unless this warlike age need a portcullis.
Yet, I confess, I love him.

De Ga. Hear the people.

Ori. Now I say, hang the people! he that dares
Believe what they say, dares be mad, and give
His mother, nay, his own wife, up to rumour.
All grounds of truth, they build on, is a tavern;
And their best censure’s sack, sack in abundance;
For as they drink, they think: They ne’er speak modestly,
Unless the wine be poor, or they want money.
Believe them? Believe Amadis de Gaul,
The Knight o’ th’ Sun, or Palmerin of England;
For these, to them, are modest and true stories!
Pray understand me; if their tongues be truth,
As if in vino veritas be an oracle,
What woman is, or has been ever, honest?
Give ’em but ten round cups, they’ll swear Lucretia
Died not for want of power to resist Tarquin,
But want of pleasure that he stay’d no longer:
And Portia, that was famous for her piety
To her loved lord, they’ll face ye out, died o’ th’ pox.

De Ga. Well, there is something, sister.

Ori. If there be, brother,
’Tis none of their things; ’tis not yet so monstrous:
My thing is marriage; and, at his return,
I hope to put their squint eyes right again.

De Ga. Marriage? ’Tis true, his father is a rich man,
Rich both in land and money; he his heir,
A young and handsome man, I must confess too;
But of such qualities, and such wild flings,
Such admirable imperfections, sister,
(For all his travel, and bought experience)
I should be loth to own him for my brother.
Methinks, a rich mind in a state indifferent
Would prove the better fortune.

Ori. If he be wild.
The reclaiming him to good and honest, brother,
Will make much for my honour; which, if I prosper,
Shall be the study of my love, and life too.

De Ga. You say well; ’would he thought as well, and loved too!
He marry? he’ll be hang’d first; he knows no more
What the conditions and the ties of love are,
The honest purposes and grounds of marriage,
Nor will know, nor be ever brought to endeavour,
Than I do how to build a church: He was ever
A loose and strong defier of all order;
His loves are wanderers, they knock at each door,
And taste each dish, but are no residents.
Or say, he may be brought to think of marriage,
(As ’twill be no small labour) thy hopes are strangers:
I know, there is a labour’d match now follow’d,
Now at this time, for which he was sent for home too:
Be not abused; Nantolet has two fair daughters,
And he must take his choice.

Ori. Let him take freely:
For all this I despair not; my mind tells me
That I, and only I, must make him perfect;
And in that hope I rest.

De Ga. Since you’re so confident,
Prosper your hope! I’ll be no adversary;
Keep yourself fair and right, he shall not wrong you.

Ori. When I forget my virtue, no man know me!

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Street before the same House.

Enter Mirabel, Pinac, Belleur, and Servants.