pleasing as I have imposed silence on my owne passions to give care to yours and forgotten all the ills you doe me to haste to your helpe even in those which you your selfe procure you I cannot deny Madam but your sorrowes are naturall since they proceed from love and from the death of a man you lov'd you have not loved him sans merit and you have lost him without possessing him so as you lament him justly This is a truth and cannot be denied without offending the resentment you have for him But Madam against whom complaine you of his death Is it against God who did permit him live or against your selfe most innocent of his death If it be against you are you not still the more afflicted and the more sorrowfull And if it bee against God knowes hee not better what is fit for us then we our selves Could not hee have suffer'd him whom you love dead to have beene living yet possessed by another Mistris within whose arms you had lesse loved him then in his grave Could not hee as well have taken you againe as him thereby reducing you to that first nothing which he made you of Consider what you complaine of Madam and you will finde that it is nought and that to be moane your selfe and vexe your soule for nothing is an inexcusable weaknesse We well may pardon the first complaints that griefe inforceth us to utter for that there is no courage so assured whom the violence of these first motions does not overturn But this storme ceased there is no more excuse if Reason reassumes not place at her turn does not obtrude those passions that had turn'd her out It is for this Men say that the superior part of the Soule should be like the supreame Region of the Aire that never is agitated with or storm or tempest See here Madam the difference twixt what you doe and what you ought to do for doubtlesse discourse time the necessity of death and a thousand other considerations I omit should before now have setled your resolution to have borne a remedilesse mishap Where see the quite contrary instead of making your constancy appeare and shine in such an accident shewing by how many waies you exceed in the beauties and perfections of your Sex you give your selfe over a prey to griefe like to some simple and ignorant woman you shut your spirits up which God ordained for heaven within a grave together with a dead Carkasse which he it may be hath deprived of life even for the immesurable love you bore him you sacrifice your Soule to a most singular griefe and vainly runne after a shadow you are sure you never can oretake Your Soule is the Temple of God and you adore there the image of a dead man whom hee permitted not that you should love not whilest he liv'd You make scruple of small thinges and make no conscience of Idolatry which you your self do know to be the grieuousest sinne that can be perpetrate The Lawes allow a widdow but one yeare to testifie her lawfull sorrowes which for the most part be but in apparance neither and you resolve to carry yours eternally within your soule You will nourish a Woolfe that devoures you embrace what betraies you ruine your repose outrage your beautie and your health and cause your selfe to die alive To conclude Madam you will openly resist the will of God according to which you make profession of ordering yours Who being our Father loves us his children better knowing what we want then we our selves rules all things by his Providence and not according to our fancies For if the world were governed by the various humors and divers passions of men Alas Madam to what new Chaos were wee then brought backe And if that sometimes hee afflict us here t is alwais yet to profit us never to our hurt and even that ill hee does us is either still to make us merit some greater good or else to cause us shun some greater ill Complaine not you unjustly then of what he justly doth Think not that he hath suffered now this losse for other cause then to acquit you of a greater griefe which howsoever you are unable to perceive yet see you that his power is infinite and that his judgements are unknown and which 't is better farre to apprehend then prove But you will tell me the same you told me yesterday that your passions are not so easily shifted as your petticotes It is true Madame and I finde it but too certaine in what I undergoe for you But where are now those so sufficient reasons by which you have erewhiles endeavoured to perswade me that I might easily put off mine Why serve you not your selfe against your selfe with those weapons you so well handle against others Why doe you thinke it impossible to free you of the passions you have for a shadow having before beleeved that it was nothing for me to divest me of these I have for you Is it that you are more capable of love then I am or that the subject of your love is more excellent then mine Madame I will not lessen the merit of your affections which you had never conceived had they not been most perfect of which it is no little proofe to see them live yet in you after the death of him that caused them Yet are they naturall and nothing is more common then to mourne for a lost friend But that I had power to humble me so to the pleasure of a woman as for her love I have lov'd even the rivall that hindred me to be beloved is a proofe of an affection Madame that in some sort exceeds the rule of nature And in the which you cannot deny but I surpasse you as much as you in all other things exceed me As to the subject of your love Madame he was most certainly lovely otherwise you had not made choice of him But without wroning your election or his merits I dare say that there was more correspondence in your humours then in your qualities and that more then the compliance and discretion wherewith he entertained you and whereby chiefly he was praise-worthy he was not possessed of so great perfections as could make him merit yours By which you may see that the subject of my love being more excellent then yours it followes that your passions must be lesse then mine and that you may easlier divest you of them then I of mine yea if so the cause remained which being now no more it is a marvell that the effect should yet continue But Madame I have given sufficient audience to your plaints it is now high time that you hearken unto mine if not for my ease yet for your own at least since the most miserable may finde in them some cause of comfort You bemoane the dead Madame and think not of those that die by your meanes I doe daily perish and am evenat the last gaspe and that for
LOVE and VALOR OR The diuers Affections of Minerva Will Marshall sculpsit London Printed by Th Harper are sold by Tho Stater at his shop in Duck lane 1638. LOVE AND VALOVR Celebrated in the person of the Author by the name of ADRASTE OR The divers affections of MINERVA One part of the unfained story of the true Lisander and Caliste Translated out of the French by W. B. LONDON Printed by Thomas Harper for Thomas Slater and are to be sold at his shop at the Swan in Duck Lane 1638. TO THE RIGHT WORTHY AND MY Truely honoured Favourer Sir PETER TEMPLE Knight and Baronet Honoured Sir HOwsoever I have received more encouragement from your selfe alone then all men living besides had not my Author deemed his labour worthy the survey of so great a Prince I should not have entitled you to my worthlesse labours in the conversion since the difference between his originall drawn by a free and art commanding hand and my rough Copy being the first essay of my abilities in this nature may be more then the distance between your condition and a Princes In supplyance of which defect being unable to adde any thing but the bare figure of my devotion to serve you it were but ill rhetoricke and worse arithmeticke in me through many words multiplying ciphers by ciphers to blot my paper with infinite nothings Yet gracious Sir I perswade me that I see though I have not delivered in the booke many lines and draughts resembling the patheticke facility and gentlenesse of our best writers which draughts being but bare dissections and curious anatomies of humane nature it is impossible to be over-tedious if pertinent therein But I flourish as if I would say something where I am in truth a sceptique ignorant and doubting all things but my own weaknesse and the strength of those affections borne your service Worthy Sir by your vertues honourer W. B. To my Lord the MONSIEVR Sole Brother to the King of FRANCE MY Lord so much is to be said in your commendations as to forbeare in so ample a subject of elocution were rather an ingratitude then silence and I never sparing of my praises in all mens merits seeming to have refused them untill now to yours shall doe much better here to confesse then to defend my thanklesnesse It is not my good Lord but I have as much inclination to honour you as I have cause which is to have it in the greatest perfection that can be imagined but the same instigation I have had to speake hath made me still silent and the greatnesse of the subject which had animated most hath yet discouraged me There is so farre a distance from your highnesse to my lownesse and twixt my own power and my will as I deemed it a sinne against my knowledge rashly to have undertaken a thing not possible to be performed but in great imperfection and that my enterprise would much rather have discovered my weakenesse then my intentions Notwithstanding which my Lord are they not the most rare affections which men testifie to their owne prejudice how can I then more perfectly manifest mine then at the dispense and disrepute of my knowledge How can I better make seen to you the passions that I undergoe for your service and for your glory then by the exposing them amid my own weakenesses and my defaults This consideration my Lord hath changed my former feares into rashnesse and hath made me so bold to undertake that which I have not had the daring to thinke of beleeving that if the execution were impossible yet the enterprise was at least honourable and by so much the fitter to manifest my devotions bent to you wards as it beares me hood-winked beyond my knowledge and my power But I am erred my good Lord even at the entry of my discourse which beginning with your commendations as the greatest and richest argument that could be chose I know not how I have so suffered my selfe to be carried away with my passions as I have said without thinking that which I would not and have not yet spoke one word of what I would say The cause of my erring is the boundlesse extent of my subject Hardly could it be but I should lose me in a labyrinth from out of which it is so difficult to get but the wonder is I have not entred it and that in stead of loosing my selfe in search of the issue I have erred at the entry without once having found the beginning But indeed great Prince where is there any beginning in things infinite If I should begin at the greatnesse of your birth and weigh you as Prince of the chiefest kingdome in the world and Son and Brother to the two greatest Kings the earth hath ever bore were I not diverted by the excellence of your admirable nature by the exquisite education wherewith it is so happily propagate and by the ample hopes you give both of the one and the other what multitudes of other things might here be added in your commendations did I not feare to doe them wrong and loved I not more to honour them in silence then to injure them by going about to speake their greatnesse but reducing me to these three onely and speaking but one word of each what more excellent nature was there ever found in Prince or more generous then yours What Achilles fed with the marrow and pith of Lyons one day to subdue the force of Hector does not give way to you as well in noriture as couragious heart And what hopes may we not well conceive from such and so magnanimous a Prince as surpasseth the greatnesse of his birth by the excellence of his nature and the excellence of his nature by the goodnesse of his noriture But rising up to the fount head and scorse of your great Ancestors and so descending by the succession of so many Kings as have been since S. Lewis to Henry the great I not observe you onely as a green and flourishing branch of thestock of Bourbon or as a Sience of that of Anjou but as Sonne and Prince of France that is to say of the best house and most illustrious Empire of the world What can I hope lesse or the enemy feare more then some still and unexpected enterprise mannaged with no lesse silence and privacie even to the entire and generall conquest of all such authority as strangers do usurpe from us victories seeming as incident unto the house of Bourbon as crowns seem destinated unto that of Anjou Charles the brother of Lewis was the first of this family crowned King of Naples Sicile and Ierusalem Lewis brother to Charles the wise and first Duke of Anjou went to take possession of those kingdomes with 30000 horse And in our times the last Henry of the house of Valois being then Duke of Anjou and brother to Charles the ninth was crowned almost against his will King of Poland But the most honourable titles of all these
here and some there and gave him no lesse room then the whole street he passed them like thunder and fled much marvelled at so admirable a successe he need not feare following for the others fled as fast on the other side But there were so great a number of them that not seeing any offence neer them when he was gone they took hart at grasse as we say and finding the Musician and Laquay that had not the heart to flye they laid hands on them Note that it was a band of Comedians going to act before Monsieur the Prince accompanied with many others as well women as men who thinking of nothing lesse then of the adventure of Adraste were put in greater afright then he The Musician thought himselfe already hanged and the foot-boy at least flead alive but seeing thēselves not accused for having kild or hurt any one and that they were onely demanded who this mad man was that had so furiously routed them they escaped by denyall and were quit by saying they knew nothing of the matter Adraste in the mean time went his way backe all alone to the house of Oristene where he found that Periste had brought her back again yet shaking with the feare this accident had caused in her Well said Periste so soon as he saw Adraste enter much mooved with fortunes he had run I beleeve it will be this two dayes before you desire again to give your Serenades or your Aubades more to Minerva I am now ready as ever to return answered Adraste but I assure you it shall be alone for either I will ingage me in no quarrels or I will not leave my friends engaged in them after I have my self begun them which I speake not concerning you for besides that as I know well that you began not this so had you enough to do to disingage Oristine But was it possible that four or five rascals should so easily rout so many honest good fellowes As you betook you to your sword against that angry blade that would by no meanes sheath up his said Periste his companions likewise took them to theirs I seeing them to runne after you threw the formost of them to the earth with a thrust I made which stayed and took them all short up Indeed we were the greater number but the most of us had no other weapons then their Lutes which they threw away the better to flye Whilest they made away and the others took up their hurt man I had the opportunity to bring back Oristene You have done what you ought and I what I could said Adraste assuring you that I beleeve there was never Knight errant that in one evening had two such adventures or so strange as I have had since supper nor know I well if I may dare to tell them since I can hardly beleeve them my selfe Then discoursed he to them what had happened to him and they knew not lessening yet the number of those through whom he had forcibly passed for feare they should think it but a tale But the Musician and footman which he beleeved dead or at the least prisoners upon the conclusion of his story arriving no little renewed his wonder for he could not imagine how they had escaped But how went you to work said he for I left yon invironed by fifteen or twenty people from whom I scarse hoped that ever you or my selfe should have gotten free Indeed Sir said the boy they were 30 of them or more but they dreamt not of you and they had more feare in them then they could put you in And then the Musician told them that they were certain Comedians followed by many Lawyers and other gowned people the most part of whom took their wives along with them to the play which was to be acted at Monsieur the Princes Court I wondred indeed how I came so valiant answered Adraste but now the marvell is over since I finde with what manner of people I had to doe To all this discourse poore Oristine said never a word though she thought nere the lesse doubting much that she should pay deere for this piece of folly as indeed she did for the next day Adraste and Periste having taken leave of her the Kings Officer in those cases failed not to visit her house letting her understand he would informe against the ryot committed the evening before and to garnish his Majesties pockets as the French hath it began with the seisure of her goods But not to make a starre-Chamber suit of this in place of a love story we will leave Oristine to her suits and follow the affections of Minerva The Argument Adraste reconcileth himself to Minerva and not being able to vanquish the inclination shee hath for Arnolphe of a Lover he becommeth a Friend Tatius renders himself necessary to Minerva and so engageth her estate and marrieth her person after the death of Arnolphe and the vain predictions of Adraste which were found so true as they produced a second separation of Marriage between them CHAP. II. NO misfortune but may bring good to some the disparagement of Oristene was cause of the reconciliation of Adraste with Minerva She for Adrastes sake took some pains on the behalfe of Oristene and then could Adraste do no lesse then go home to her and thank her for it where a peace was no sooner treated then concluded Hee craved pardon for his Letter which was indeed to excuse him of a fault that none knew that he had done so Minerva recounted to him the mistake that it had caused her to make Though she loved not Adraste yet shee liked well to retain him for a friend or at least not to have him as an enemy so as for sometime he governed her very peaceably by day he walked with her to the Gardens of Ruel and those of Saint Germans and by night he accompanied her to the accustomed places of bathing by moon-shine at the Tournelles and afterwards having carrried her back to her house and passed the most of the night with her he usually retired all alone without light from the one end of the City to the other Of 1000 men scarce shall ye finde one that would for 1000 women do what he did for this one Notwithstanding one conge one salute of Arnolphe wayed more in the estimation of Minerva than all the services of Adraste After some time debating the matter with him she confessed to him what indeeed she could not deny The same passion you have for me said she I have for him and sigheth as often for his love as you for mine But I tell you a secret I should be loth he should discover I swear to you by the love I beare him that he hath never received the satisfaction therin which you have had nor once hath hee pretended to it however you have received but what I might with mine honour grant Arnolphe was a stranger without name quality or estate that entertained
within the course of which theyby a time return to their first heads his destiny constrained him now return into that honorable servitude in which shee captivated the most beautious souls Minerva not lesse wondring at the love of Adraste then satisfied with her own beauties of which she had heer an illustrious proof in this second conquest of this lover answered him in these terms If any other then your self should talk to me thus Adraste either I should not believe him at all or at least should fain not to believe him But the knowledge I have of your goodnesse makes me that as I esteeme you veritable so will I answer you from my own heart believing you speak to me from the bottom of yours And to observe the same method you hold with me in confessing your thoughts I shall discover mine to you and acknowledge that if I were in such condition as I could give me to any one it should be you But I will not forbear to tell you many things that hinder me therin though you do know them neer as well as I to the end that if you do not receive the satisfaction you have promised you you may lay the fault on your own errours and not upon my will that never shall be wanting in good wishes to you nor to perform like deeds on your behalf Minerva discoursing afterwards the causes hindred her from loving of Adraste missed not to put that of god in the first place whom wee ought to love and fear above all things and you said shee that love and feare him above other men would cause me render him my enemy for your love This divine reason is of such force as there is no humane passion can or convince it or withstand the being overcome by it But if you dis esteeme of god which were so enormous an offence wher of the monstrous impiety could never be sufficiently chastised or what could perswade you to make mee believe that I could ever live after being robbed of my honour in this World And you that hazard oft so generously your life to save your honour how dare you heere propose to mee the losse of mine Is not the honour of us Ladies pray all out as choice and delicate as that of men And if you love me as you say and as I do believe why do you desire to lose mee so can you love my person and neglect my honour Madam answered Adraste my discretion may be shield unto your honour and this same innocent feare you have of doing ill by favouring me is void of likelihood God is not the enemy but the author of nature and the offence without scandall is no offence Believe you that the naturall affection the author of nature imprinteth in our souls is averse to the will of him that gives it us and that the first thing he ever commanded he should now forbid us God wisheth us no il but for the ils we do to our selvs nor takes amisse the offeces done to him but those we do to our selvs for being maker of the universe his care is most to perserve his workmanship his offence at that would hinder it and not at that which meerly tendeth to the conservation of it Then is he the enemy of violence injustice cruelty and the ingratitude that tend to the subversion of love and not of love it self and he is angred that we turn his sweets to bitternesse and doe convert to our dammage that which he hath given us for our benefits For as love is the cause of our greatest goods so may it become of our greatest ils but then it must be by our own improvidence and not by his See then who offends most the divinity Madame or I that follow the lawes of love according to the end for which they first were made or you that do endeavour what you may to change and to pervert his institutions and chuse rather to apply you to the counsell of a thanklesse and unnaturall rigour then the true apprehension of a naturall inclination that is not only permitted but commanded It is true that God hath commanded love said Minerva but that which is legitimate all other affections being forbid not only by divine but humane lawes In which I 'le speake no more to him that teacheth others A good cause defends it selfe and one word is sufficient in a truth whereas a lye needs the support of a large discourse Both of them spake against their conscience and contrary to their own beliefe for this discourse of Adraste was quite averse to what he thought and Minerva's answer was no lesse farre from her meaning Adraste desiring to perswade a woman that would be perswaded and whom he perceived to seeke some honest meanes that she might love him without blushing endeavoured by this talk to take from her such shame as naturally retaines all women In which nerethelesse he knew well that he did ill but one so common amongst men whose reasons are overcome by appetite as it seems custome not onely renders them permitted but authorised Minerva speaking truely according to her beliefe stretched yet her thoughts unto such things as she might do accompanying the coldnesse of her words with the quickning flames of her faire looks drew by the gentlenesse of her fweet charms him that she yet repulsed by the force of her strong reasons to let him see the beauty of her minde in the refusing him that of her body so as in yeelding both one and the other to him he should owe the favour rather to her love then to her ignorance And permitting him some small privacies which did not much forbid the greater as they seemed to promise unto him caused him hope that she would doe like the good wives that often resuming what men aske of them yet forbeare not to doe some part of their demands but saying still they will doe nought Whilest Adraste so eagerly solicited Minerva Brassidas and Gracchus both came athwart his designes Brasidas was a little of kinne to Minerva but not so much but he could have wished to have been more neer A man discreet wise subtile and a boon companion chiefly amongst women Gracchus was a little more earthy and retained more of the Souldier then of the Courtier but nerethelesse both of them brave Gentlemen and both Lovers of Minerva who seeing Adraste first in time and consequently in right however such a consequence is not alwaies necessary in affairs of love where the last commers are many times first received agreed both together to ruine him The occasion was offered them by the means of Asteria one that Adraste saw some times and Gracchus likewise however for divertisement onely and each single without the other notwithstanding which they often met there Gracchus being then one day with Asteria she would needs know the newes of Minerva and he knowing that she knew not her but through the report of Adraste asked her again what he said
an entertainment to day should not have left him as she had to finde out his enemies and that she was not stoln away so much for any devotion she had to Church as for the desire she had to see them there But next day he was much more troubled thinking to goe make his complaint when they told him she was gone out to walk with them Then presently conceived he the plot was not combined against him but with her counsell and assent and that she had not onely approved but designed it And so returning backe his brest fraught with more despight then love and not so much reason as rage after having resolved now to breake with her once for all he wrote to her THat as hee had pitied her weaknesse seeing shee suffered her selfe to be rather perswaded by passion on the part of his Enemies then by the truth of his words so hee received no small contentment to see that for his having cheered himself before them and for ever being too d screet and respectfull on her behalf and at her instance on theirs he was now deprived of what they possessed for having been the contrary That the time had been when this privation now so easie to undergo had been most difficult for him to believe but considering that of all things that most provoked him and the chiefest cause of his vexation and worst tormenting passions it was easie for him to endure the losse of a good the possession wherof was so extremly damageable Wherfore he would now as with a sponge wipe off the fair impressions which he had formerly admitted in his memory and hee intreated her to favour him so farre as not to oblige him ever by the replacing them Hee avow'd it the mediate will of Heaven without which hee had beene as unable 'to execute as rash in undertaking this designe For which hee only was to thank her ingratitude that thinking to work him so much ill had been the cause of so great good to him And that he did beseech her by this last and by all other and so many vowes no lesse religious then unprofitable which hee most foolishly had rendred her that henceforth shee would never more call them to minde assuring her he should esteem him fully satisfied for all his services when he should finde they were forgot and that she held them so indifferent that hee had never cause to joy in or complain of them The Argument Adraste closeth againe with Minerva comforteth her on the death of Arnolphe Commotions in France and divers adventures upon that subject CHAP. IIII. WHat delight soever the company afforded could not be so pleasant to Minerva as this Letter was bitter to her But howsoever she took it extreamly ill from Adraste she would not yet loose him so No though she knew not to what purpose to reserve him for she had sufficiently manifested the little good will she bore him But there are some women that delight themselves to render all men amorous of them and they affecting none Or it may be she held this maxime of the wise that say a man should not breake with friends no not for any cause whatsoever for that such as are unfit for one thing may yet serve to another and it may be she intended to accommodate her selfe by Adraste to some other purpose Whatsoever it were she forbore to answer his Letter till her choler was past over nor wrote she to him then but passing some daies after by his lodging she caused him to be told that there was a Gentlewoman in the street asked for him Adraste came down and Minerva made him come into her Coach where she was then accompanied onely with one gentlewoman and going to take the aire She told him that she had not answered his Letters for that shee could not bethink her of termes sufficiently powerfull to make him senceable of her anger So then Madame answered Adraste if you have not given me offence I stand not obliged to you for it but your ill memory that had not means to find words sufficiently capable to expresse the offence you intended mee T is true said shee but you are a naughty man to write such Letters to mee And you are then a naughty woman answered Adraste to inforce mee to it by so many just and rightfull causes as you have If I have given you such replyed she and have so little reason in my actions why have you so little judgment in your love you have lesse reason then mee to love one that hath none at all and by the extravagance of your unfound minde accuse me of your own defaults Madam answered Adraste I have caused you to see most cleerly that you are in the wrong since you cannot finde meanes to answer my Letters But how should you finde reasons that could not indeed finde the offence Wherby it follows that being you have done the wrong you cannot have reason on your side since wrong and reason cannot be united in one subject And yet cry you that I am reasonlesse to love one that hath none I answer you that though I am reasonlesse it followes not but you are so likewise as I have proved without denying but I was my self so And on the contrary I have always endevoured to let you see that I had litle reason in me ever to shew that I had so much love for you Since if I had I could not have loved you or at least but in such sort as I had been loved again of you And if you were reasonable you would love mee as I love you See then wherfore I love you in two sorts without reason first for that you are reasonlesse secondly because I am so also As to the extravagances of my diseased minde I apprehend them to my own advantage Remember you what I have ever said that my weaknesses and failings were the things that I desired to cause you see T is well I am there arrived Minerva fell a laughing at these words and as particular complaints do usually succeed the generall Adraste complain'd of her for that when hee had left his entertainment to his enemies upon her promise to afford him one more private and favourable she had not onely turned him off to her mother Arlande but her self had stoln away from him to go to them had depriv'd him of the honour of her company and conduct to afford it unto them and had wronged a man whose goodnesse was so known to her therby to favour others whose malice was to her no lesse manifest Minerva excused her on the just fear shee might have of the bloudy effects their quarrell might have produced said that the same fear had caused her not to suffer him to lead her and that she had also denied it unto them And on the contrary having found Brasidas Gracchus at Church shee had prayed them not onely to forbeare to lead her but to see her Notwithstanding that Brasidas being since
yet seem good to me But I complain of heaven that hath bestowed on me so little merit and so boundlesse love according unto which proportions the one beares me to adore and honour you the other doth invite you to disdain and scorn me Nor can I deny also but that it seems extreamely cruell unto me to see you harke to any other speech then that of my complaint Nor that I conceive not an ill opinion of my selfe by the slight esteem that you have of my sufferance Yet Madame since that you are so pleased I shall conform me to your humours and make you see that I have no content at all but in what pleaseth you But if my frequent visits rēder you my passions importune I shall most humbly beg you will accuse your own perfections of the fault that in the image of such beauties have caused me to adore even cruelty it selfe and seeke the vaine shadow of contentment in a most sure and reall martyrdome The Answer Epistle 5. Sir I Expected the least of any thing such a Letter from you whom I beleeved better then ever satisfied in my deportments and intentions You judge both of the one and other rather by opinion then by reason and falsely accuse me to have done you ill since I have neither had the power or will and that you never can reape the good I wish you You have cause to say that I will accuse you of raving and to call to minde that I have promised to love you more then others This truth me thinks should hold sufficient place in your beliefe to hinder that any other contrary impression should ever usurpe the roome But if you take the pains to remember you of what you do complaine and chiefly of the complyance wherewith you say I gratifie all the world without remembring you You will finde they are but complements to which civility inviteth and obligeth me and that they have been more liberally imparted to your selfe then any man I am never importuned by your visits but on the contrary they have been so valued by me that I desire the continuance on condition that you give no more faith to any thing averse to the esteem I have of your demerits The Reply Epistle 6. Madame I Iudg'd what you would answer me before I wrote unto you and well I knew that you would not want words whatsoever reason you might see deficient in But I know not nor can I as yet learne on what deportment of yours I ought take up my satisfaction for either I am very blinde or else I have not seen any so favourable as might render me more satisfied then I have been Notwithstanding you have cause to say that I rather judge thereofby opinion then by reason for that I have pronounced them just against my selfe which reasonably I never could To say I accuse you wrongfully of the ill you do me and that you have nor power nor will therto were not onely against my knowledge but also against yours and cannot be said without gaine-saying the most certaine experience that I have proved therein against which it is impossible to beleeve that you have ever wished mee well As to my raving I my selfe give sentence against my selfe upon condition you confesse that it proceeds not but of too much love And for the verity of your promise I know not what place it may hold in my beliefe to hinder a contrary impression not having ever seen the proofe that was not to the contrary To remember me of things whereof I doe complaine were but to afflict me more It were better seek some meanes to forget them as her hath been their causer since that I neither can or ought hope other thing The Argument He amorously seemes angry with his Mistris Epistle 7. Madam I Should indeed never write more no nor speak calling to minde how much both the one and the other have beene bootlesse to me and how much that faithfull stedfast and most perfect affection which I beare you continued of so long time and with so wonderfull a perseverance might speak for me were not you on my behalfe the most imperswasible woman under heaven But the violence of my torments and that rigorous usage wherwithall you entertaine me when I ought be rather cloyed then starved with your favours constraine me to lament my selfe and to accuse you both of ingratitude and cruelty What is the matter Madam have you lost the name and memory of him that hath not any but to love you to serve you And is it not enough that you are lovelesse but you will be too without memory without knowledge How long have I sighed for you and you withstood not onely my felicity but more your owne Remember you that he that begs love on you now is he that of so long hath beene your suppliant and that it is not a vaine humor that invites him to it but the truest passion love did ever yet inforce Content your selfe in that so violent resistance you have made till now against your own good happe and suffer you your selfe to be orecome at last by an invincible spirit All things invite you to it and nothing lets you your honour is protected in my warinesse and my discretion and this same innocent feare you have to doe amisse in my favour is altogether causlesse God is no enemy of Natures but its Author and the offence committed without scandalls is no offence for this'tis said that they are blessed whose sinnes are covered But Madam the men of the first times having composed their civill Lawes did after give them out unto the people as divine to the intent to render them the more venerable and themselves the better obeyed in their Authority So Numa made the Romans beleeve hee had the Lawes hee gave them from the Goddesse Egeria And Lycurgus perswaded the Greekes that Apollo had given him his Stand you not then on so vaine a scruple which indeed is no other then a bare pretence to hide your cruelty And if you still doubt of that so faithfull constancie of which you have had so long experience Alas with what manner of proofe have I not testified the same which notwithstanding if so bee there yet remaines one I have not renderd may it include my life and all that ever I have command me heere that I present you with it that so living and dying in obedience as in affection I may cause you find me more worthy of the good you refuse me then of the il you do me The Argument He comforteth his Mistris on the death of his Rivall and manifesteth the excellence of his Love above all other affections Epistle 8. Madam YOu commanded mee to ease you of a passion gave you offence and at the same time promised to cure mee of another gave me death And howsoever I hope nothing lesse then the effects of such a promise your repose is so deare to me and your Empire so
your love and yet have you the heart to sigh for another before my face and the power to interdict my passions to make me wed yours I see a dead body preferr'd to me which living I in affection yet preceded and find you as insensible and whollie inanimate on my behalfe as he is on yours My whole labours all my affections and best qualities are altogether bootlesse you know without acknowledging my faith you looke upon my afflictions without once being moved and whatsoever might commend a perfect affection you behold in me not daigning ought to regard it Thou too too much beloved dead man whose condition is most happy in comparison of mine thou wert living beloved of the most lovely beauty under heaven and thou art onely he that art beloved of her as yet even after death Thou wert not onely beloved of thy Mistresse but thou wert likewise of thine enemie In stead of persecuting thee even to thy grave as thiefe and robber of my good which thy remembrance hinders me as yet to have I have honoured thy memory with my writings which have so imprinted it in the heart of thy Mistresse as now there is no other impression can take place for that Is there any complyance Is there any passion or perfection indeed in love that can come neere to this Madame I implore here the beauty of your wit and the integrity of your owne soule in default of mine that with this thought passeth away in transe and leaves me not with other hope or desire then here to see my life faile me with my speech The Argument He complaines of his Mistresse that she had failed him in a meeting appointed by her to walke Epistle 9. YOu sent yesterday to let me know that you could not come and that I should not attend you any longer I was told that you supped very late and you chased me away upon pretence that you would sup in good time A man should be extreamely purblinde not to see that there was something more in this then matter of Mastership and that you having threatned to deprive me of a particular entertainment would let me see that you were a woman of your word Hug your selfe for it Madame you shall never more be troubled though I continue ever in torment I shall not onely leave you your liberty but mine own which I pretend not to withdraw from so worthy a servitude where I chuse rather to suffer extreame tyranny then elsewhere to live beneath the perfects Empire No Madame what I pretend to is to make you see in an unparalleld respect an affection incomparable and in a blind obedience mute and inconsiderate how much inferiour to me I leave such as aspire to the glory of your love and how much I hope to exceed them by those actions which my courage and the violent ambition I have to merit you do promise meto atchieve in this war The Answere YOu conceive things otherwise then they be and according to your fancies whereupon you write to me as you please I shall better answer you by word of mouth then by Letter and making you finde your errour it will belong to you to make me satisfaction The Argument He justifieth his fancies Epistle 10. THe party you left with me yesterday can tell you how I knew not what to doe with my selfe after I had then lost you When howsoever it were neer night it seemd to me a tedious day There is a faire Lady neere you who lately told me she would gladly see me I light on him had procured me this honour who endeavoured what he could to get me thither but prevailed nothing howsoever I knew not how to busie me but in thinking of you turning and returning in my memory such things as you have said to me and those humours and conjectures whereof you accuse me after having your selfe caused them I humbly intreat you Madame take notice there may be fancies and humour without love but not love without humour and fancy and if you upbraid me with them as an error it is yet a generall one and common to all lovers above whom I have this advantage yet that I order them so as they never trouble her I love Most beauteous Minerva glory of my thoughts the soveraigne good of my life and extreame felicity of my soule who can render a more faithfull testimony of this truth then your selfe that can so casily moderate the furies of my violence How many times have you staied the most impetuous motions of my passions with one word yea with a looke No more then blame my humours that doe rather merit commendations since they make mee honour the cause that brought them forth and are not onely proofes of my love but also of my obedience The Argument Why his Mistresse should not be moved at his Martyrdome upon his departure Epistle 11. THere is nothing so strange nor any thing so wonderfull the accustomed vse whereof weares not out the astonishment Observe that death is most horrible notwithstanding which the habit theeves have in murther causeth that they kill men not onely without horror but with some kinde of pleasure and voluptuousnesse The comparison is bad but it is proper I would say that albeit my martyrdome be without example and that the novelty thereof amazeth me and renders me my selfe thereat affrighted you are so accustomed to plaints and to the teares of such whom you make sigh as that you suffer not your selfe to be the least touched at mine No Madame I beleeve your intellect extreamely generous and consequently pittifull but it is beaten so with such discourse as it but laughs thereat and lookes on me dying not only with dry eyes but with some sort of pleasure too Oh Madame were I capable of comforting the afflicted I should and not without good cause begin with my selfe rather then with those whose jealousies are more worthy of derision then of pitty You Madame with whom I am to part this day in no lesse sorrow then if I were to be separated from my proper life expect not words at my depart my sorrowes will not suffer them it will be much if I be able but to bid adue since that is the last word a man should use in leaving life The Argument He intreats his Mistris so torment him to the end such pleasure as she takes therein be increased proportionably to the increase of his torments Epistle 12. Madam I give you good night letting you know besids for newes that my dolours are become more pleasing then they were since I tooke notice of the contentment they bring you Wherefore I intreat you not to lessen them but to provide me new vexations to the end your delights bee increased proportionable to the aboundance of my punishments For I am not content to undergoe onely the ills you do me but I would yet too suffer those are done to you and become the most miserable soule that ever lived to render
are not obliged to doe more nor justly to grieve your selfe for acciâ—ents you cannot avoid Here be the remedies that I often practise on my selfe continually since I first knew me wrastling beneath so injurious a fortune as the most miserable may finde wherewith to comfort themselves in the contemplating me But I am estrayed Madame and forget that I increase the number of your troubles by the length of this my Letter which may witnesse for me if you please that the desire I have to live is not so deare to me as that I have to preserve me yours The Argument He answereth to a Letter of Minerva's Epistle 21. YOur note enforceth me to avow it that you have a better memory on my behalfe then heretofore you have had acknowledgement and that you doe something acquit you of what you owe me if so you can pay all my love with one bare remembrance I finde also that you have cause to beare me in minde for if so be I have not rendred you the service the memory whereof may be deare unto you at the least I have given you no offence that ought to render you ill apaid As for me I have a thousand reasons that oblige me to cherish yours but one onely forbids me which is that I cannot remember me of you without passion and to suffer a mans selfe to become passionate for a thing cannot be had is but a folly I have of late pretended to wisedome and have believed my selfe but ill favouredly therein as you may thinke notwithstanding which if so I cannot attain to it I will at least seeme to have done it and begin by the forgetting of my passions and of her that was the cause of them it is true that it is but an ill way this to begin to forget my love by renewing the memory thereof and indeed of what should I ever remember me after once having forgotten you The Argument A Ladies answere to her Lover Epistle 22. THe care which you have to preserve my memory and the passion you feele for my absence to my thinking are lesse then the meanes you have to expresse them notwithstanding I value them so as I am not much displeased to see the new assurances you give me of your affections which are not over-pleasing unto me though I were well satisfied with the former The fairest proofes and most desired effects you can give me of your good will consists in your return I imagine not that you have cast the affection behinde you that you had for me but contrariwise I deeme that you ever laid it amongst the most eminent of your best thoughts aud that like enough you may draw your crâ—â—es after you but cannot breake them As to the â—â—cape you have made without my leave I attribute it to your affaires never having any designe that tended to the diverting you from them if I render you beautifull thoughts it is not in such abundance but I alwaies reserve some to my selfe for the entertainment of my solitude in your absence you say that you resolve to attend my answer at Brux elles and I am resolved to write to you thither by an expresse messenger if so your comming doe not prevent me Adue I am your servant The Argument Hee makes answer to a complaint she had made of him for his silence and not writing Epistle 23. Madame ONe chanced to deliver me a note which by the hand and the stile I knew to be yours I confesse to you Madame that I scarse understood any thing in it and that as I have no cause to beleeve that my good wishes are any thing valued by you so have you yet lesse to say that you cannot consent to the losse of them You thinke not that such as love not but in presence know well how to love I know not wherefore you say that Madame to one that both in your presence and in your absence hath testified so much love unto you and one that therein hath been so ill requited as you cannot renew the memory of his affection without refreshing that of your owne ingratitude You continue to write to me almost against your will Indeed I cannot deny but in that you doe me a favour which I hold extreamly deare but with it you ought to avow that my affections do merit a greater and that for every word that you have wrote to me you have received many Letters from me from any of which I cannot thinke that you can draw argument to prove that I desire not the continuation of yours And to demand that I should cleer your scruples thereupon is it not to demand new proofes of a passion which you cannot be ignorant of without belying your own experience you say that should be much contrary to your desire so sure should it be to mine that hath never tended but to honour you though to no purpose and that cannot yet repent the time therein lost Thus would I entreat you to write to me answering my Letters as I reply to yours and arguing with me reasonably without framing to your selfe such chimera's as have not for support but your own phantasie You will be thereby more satisfied and I more contented since my contentment depends on your satisfaction I am not in the meane time your servant but I shall alwaies be so whilest it shall please God and you to let me live The Argument Vpon some discontent a little before his departure Epistle 24. Madame IF so be this paper be not as unwelcome to you as my selfe I intreate you here peruse a word or two which my extreame dolors hinder me to come and tell you I nurse sufficient ills in my despaire without the need to have had them more exasperated by the interdiction of your speech and of your sight Yet nerethelesse are any of them so cruell but I would rather undergo them still without complaint then be displeasing unto you No Madame I am sufficiently possessed of my affections but not so much to the prejudice of my obedience that they shall ever give you cause to tearme your selfe a miserable one I know not what you thinke but I wish no part in heaven if there be any manner of misfortune upon earth I would not undergoe to render you in happy state thereby Adue I goe to breath forth my afflictions in some place whereas my worst of sufferings never shall offend the due respect I owe to you and which I ever shall preserve to you even in my own losse The Answer 25. YOu have made an ill construction of my intentions if so be you thinke that I desire to banish you my sight since yours have ever been too deare to me to value it now no better And you shall much offend me if you doe not bid adue by word of mouth When you shall enter into your selfe you will I assure me confesse that you are in an errour that all such things as you accuse me of are