It is all philtres and high diet,455
That makes love rampant, and to fly out:
'Tis beauty always in the flower,
That buds and blossoms at fourscore:
'Tis that by which the sun and moon,
At their own weapons are outdone:[1]460
That makes knights-errant fall in trances,
And lay about 'em in romances:
'Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all
That men divine and sacred call:
For what is worth in anything,465
But so much money as 'twill bring?
Or what but riches is there known,
Which man can solely call his own;
In which no creature goes his half,
Unless it be to squint and laugh?470
I do confess, with goods and land,[2]
I'd have a wife at second hand;
And such you are: nor is't your person
My stomach's set so sharp and fierce on;
But 'tis your better part, your riches,475
That my enamour'd heart bewitches:
Let me your fortune but possess,
And settle. your person how you please;
Or make it o'er in trust to the devil,
You'll find me reasonable and civil.480
Quoth she, I like this plainness better
Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter,
Or any feat of qualm or sowning,[3]
But hanging of yourself, or drowning;
Your only way with me to break485
Your mind, is breaking of your neck:
- ↑ Gold and silver are marked by the sun and moon in chemistry, as they were supposed to be more immediately under the influence of those luminaries. The appropriation of the seven metals known to the ancients, to the seven planets with which they were acquainted, respectively, may be traced as high as Proclus, in the fifth century. The splendour of gold is more refulgent than the rays of the sun and moon.
- ↑ Compare the whole of this passage with Petruchio's speech in the Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 2; and Grumio's explanation of it.
- ↑ Altered to "swooning" in the edition of 1700.
him; and so again and again re-kissed her, and set her in her place, with a pretty manner of enforcement."
