took from him all cause of feare that he could be suspected to shun their worst of daring being sure they would do nothing in his presence to any man much lesse to one they had not undertaken when he was alone he gave Minerva then this answer since I came not here without being called it shall besit me I conceive not to retire without your leave Which since you haue so freely given me I may well take and in obedience of your commands goe hence as by your summons I came hither And more then the contentment of obeying you I too shall beare along with me the satisfaction to have cleered your doubts and to have let you see in my as freely parting as addresse that you have not lesse power to abandon me then to bring me to you Yet I must here intreat you to acknowledge privately the wrongs you have done me now in company and in the evening yet to honour me with that free entertainment of which I now deprive me willingly to obey This day said Minerva I cannot but to morrow will dispose so of my affairs as I will afford you two houres of the morning Adraste kissing her hands made a low reverence to her mother and went his way hasting after the King without salute or once looking on Brassidas or Gracchus Having o'retaken the Court he intreated the first friend he met to take a turn with him and leading him towards that side of the Parke where he had left Minerva he told him how he had been constrained to give some offenceto a couple of Gentlemen that had no just apprehension of it or perhaps dissembled their grudge in respect to the company or it might be for that they scorned to be two to one That he had intreated him to walke this way with him to the end that the others seeing them together might have occasion and meanes to make a partie of two to two And is it for this you tooke mee from my attendance on the King answered Oriste so was hee called yes said Adraste There are such fools indeed in the world replyed Oriste amongst whom I did little think you had had a place And what in the Devils name have you to doe with them did you not tell me even now that you had given them offence It is true said Adraste and I love not to give offence but presently I will give satisfaction That is not amisse indeed if you will aske them pardon answered Oriste or make them some other submission to repair the wrong you have done them But you have not offended them as yet but in words and you would wrong them now in deeds you have but hurt them and you would kill them right out and call it satisfaction and reparation of honour It belongs to them to repair the injury you have done them by doing you a greater wrong words by the lie the lie by a box on the eare and a box of the eare by bloud or death But you have wronged them and would give satisfaction by increasing the offence and repair your fault by rendring it altogether irrepairable As for me it is a philosophy of the times I understand not Stay till they come to us and we will talk with them but to goe seek them is to run to meet a mans mishap and for pleasure to throw ones selfe head-long downe a precipice True said Adraste but you know a common error makes a law and wee are now a days governed more by the examples of fools then by the reasons of the wise In saying which they passed and repassed acrosse the wood into the same walk where Minerva was between the hands of Brasidas and Gracchus Adraste saluting Arlande and Minerva not so much as looking on the others and they resaluting also without the others observing it The next morn Adraste expected a challenge very early and having stayed till eight of the clock in his lodging hee came by that time shee rose to Minerva's where hee was scarce entred but one told Minerva that Brasidas and Gracchus were at the door Tell them I am not well said Minerva and that I desire them to hold me excused that I cannot accept the honor they do me Let it not be so answered Adraste for my boy attends me below by whom they may know I am heer What shall wee do then said Minerva I would you were all at severall ends of the World farre enough from hence where my head might scape breaking in your quarrels Madame answered Adraste yee ought yet distinguish between the innocent and the faulty It was not I caused the jarre you know best what is now to be done you prayed mee yesterday to retire for the love of them you may to day pray them to retire for the love of me And if you should wish them never come again after the knowledge you now have of their malice it were but justly done Sir said Arlande Brassidas is my kinsman I nor my daughter can well forbid him the house nor those he bringeth a long with him But go tell them said she to one of her servants that my daughter is at masse and that I am busie heere with Adraste Arlande said this well knowing they looked not for her and that the ready way to return them was to say her daughter was not within There was three or four Churches thereabouts to all which they went and Minerva thinking with her self they would not fail to go thither and not finding her they would come back to her house was much disquieted for that shee would not refuse them entry or deny her selfe to them twice together in one day and to turn off Adraste it was out of all likelihood When she was once ready he would have waited her to the Church but she excused herself and stole privatly from him to go thither alone leaving him with Arlande who told Adraste what a shame it would be to her daughter if her cosen should finde him with her in the street in stead of being at Church and the misfortune might follow if Graccus choller or his honour should so o're-rule him as now in her company to take satisfaction of the injury done him which the day before he had for the love of her dissembled Adraste did not trouble himself to answer her but taking his leave followed Minerva from Church to Church and while he sought her in one Brassidas and Gracchus found her in the other and she found no lesse pain to dismisse them then she had had to rid her of Adraste for they importuned her no lesse to wait her backe from Church then he had to bring her thither But at last she escaped them and returned as she went after having drawn a promise from Gracchus that he should not call Adraste to account for any thing that had past the day before In the meane time Adraste returned very discontented at Minerva it seemed to him that she having promised him
you the most happie No Madam I love not for my pleasure I love for yours and love not to torment you but to vex my selfe for the love of you by whom I desire still to be tormented I say not this or to flatter you or to decline your anger I know that the one is bootlesse and the other impossible I speake it as a truth by which I am thereto inforced and to make it appeare to you how much my affections are elevate above all others the vassailes and the subjects of your boundlesse Empire The Argument He excuseth himselfe for putting his Mistris in coller by preferring a just complaint unto her and protesteth that hee will never more complaine since hee seeth he cannot complaine without giving her offence Epistle 13. Madam I Were not a man if I had not passions nor a Gascoine were I not violent nor could I be amorous were I not furious But that these conditions are so eminent in me that they have ever appeared to the prejudice of that respect that subjection or that obedience which I owe you I most humbly intreat you Madam be you your selfe the judge and do not as yesternight ye did when desiring with all the humility and submission a slave owes to his Lord but to lament a just resentment you caused me feele the effect of such wrath as I nere merited after the depriving me of an entertainment promised For you alone both pleaded and adjudged the cause with such precipitation not at all hearkning to me that I had more haste to obey you without reply then by reasons to defend my selfe though it were most evident on my side and that your award was not onely unjust but likewise injurious But Madam I begge yet of you though it were yesterday forbidden mee to speake it may be permitted this day to write and that you will receive this complaint as the last I hope ever to preferre For since I cannot complaine without offending you I shall rather chuse to undergoe all the rigours in the world then once to complaine of any one You are Madam so just as you never give cause of complaint to man and if any one do of himselfe offer it you returne him such satisfaction as a man much injured could not but be well contented There is none but mee onely destinate to suffer not alone hopelesse of satisfaction but more most ascertained to bee checked and curbed for all sorts of occasions and for all sorts of people which I should embrace yet as a fauour if no other but your selfe might take advantages thereby But you haue entitled mee unto the place that does give way to all the world and forceth me give you away to others for whom I should most gladly give my life If instead of those whole daies you say you will afford mee you would vouchsafe mee onely but one houre to accept the adue you have commanded me to come and render you it would be easie for me to justifie this truth If not then must I beare it away within my breast together with an eternal sorrow to have most innocently offended you The Answere Sir HAd I words so sufficient as I had yesterday cause to be in coller I should inforce you to confesse that you are in an error to take it ill at my hands And if you please to be at the paine to to come hither I shall not forbeare to tell you what I thinke therein and assure you that I am your Servant The Argument Hee endeavours to maintaine a wager hee had propounded to have lay'd that he would write no more to her and begs pardon that hee doth not aske her pardon for it Epistle 14. Madam YEsterday upon the assault of my first motions I offer'd to have laid a wager with you of which having better considered I find that I had reason to have done it and that you were in an error to take offence at it for what can I more in writing present you with which I have not alreadie sent and said unto you And if all that I have said and all that ever I can say will not yet encline you at all to pitty to what purpose should I trouble my selfe in a labour that is not onely bootlesse unto me but likewise hurtfull For is it not true that they are so many firebrands to incense those flames wherewith I am alreadie most miserably burned And if I must not hope for any ease therin why would you that I should againe enkindle them If the most perfect love of the world the most extreame fidelity the discreetest modesty and most stedfast constancie that ever was if all these together so often tried and so many times approved by your selfe have not power to leave the least impression in your breast but that on the contrary my complaints have served meerely for your sport and pastime why should I obstinately continue to lament me of an ill which you have told me and my perseverance lets me see is altogether helplesse In a word Madam why are you pleased that I should ever aske you that which you will never grant me Would you not thinke a man extreamly cruell that should put his enemie to death that had beg'd life at his hands Yet am not I your enemy and yet you use me in this manner I and worse for you do take offence both when I aske and when I do not aske But Madam I have so perfectly conceived the greatnesse of your demerits and finde my words so meane in comparison of this conceit as the despaire to attaine it onely is a sufficient cause to make me hold my peace and religiously adore in silence what I cannot in my discourses honour but imperfectly Here is the great offence I did you yesterday Madam I most humbly intreate you pardon me that I aske you not your pardon for it The Argument After his Mistris departure he comforteth her in her afflictions by the example of his own adversities Epistle 15. Madam AFter having bid adue and followed you with both my eyes so farre as the way you held would give me leave I returned to go visit those pledges you left here behind you in the Citty where the sorrow not to see you with them renew'd those griefes I had for your departure And sending my man thither to day Mistris N. let mee know that shee would write unto you which hath invited mee to doe the like I can assure you Madam if it be a consolation to the afflicted to have companions in misery you have great cause to comfort you in your sorrowes by the example of mine which really are the most sensible I ever yet have felt You have not wept alone you have taught me the mysterie and a mysterie that hath been altogether unknowne to me ere since I knew my selfe I most humbly intreat you that my sorrowes may mitigate yours that now at need you make use of your constancie and fit your heart to beare
the furthest may be from any design of mine The Reply 26. IF I have ill interpreted your intentions you may blame your selfe that have alwaies hidden them in words so mysticall as I have been unable ere to penetrate I well might thinke you interdicted me your speech and sight when I perceived that you would neither see nor yet give care unto me And that hath caused me to resolve to bid adue by Letter not to offend you but to avoyd your offence and to punish my selfe for the sinne I have committed in loving you too perfectly But since you let me know that I should give you offence if so I should not come to present it you by word of mouth I shall collect whatsoever remaines to me of life to come and tender you that word the sole and onely thought whereof is killing I beleeve I shall confesse me in an error if once I doe re-enter in my selfe for really I think not therein ever to re-enter Yet am I not so besides my selfe that I shall ever forget me so as to accuse you of any thing no it is I that I accuse of all the ills I undergoe and I the man that doth impute them still to my misfortunes and my ill deserts THe next Epistle he wrote unto her is the last mentioned in the story where wee leave him departed for the Army from whence having sent her sixe or seven severall Letters before he received one backe being returned to Paris hee wrote the following Epistles which may give much light to the Reader of the argument of the second part that was neer finished but could not wholly for that what the Author intended otherwise as may be thought fill out an unhappy tragedy signed with his owne lives bloud after he had foure or five times victoriously returned out of the field on severall appeals honoured with the better on his enemies by whom he was unfortunately murthered neer the bed-side of this Lady The Argument Being returned to Paris he found that his Mistresse had harkened to some ill reports of him whereof hee complaineth and for that she had taken from him such houres of visitation as he had hardly acquired to give them to another The first occasion of breach betweene them Epistle 27. YEt ought I not to die without so much as one word speaking nor see my selfe condemned in a cause so just without defending me at all I had thought to have smothered my complaints in silence of my death But the griefes are too too smarting and the injustice you accuse them of oblige me to defend them Madame when I remember me of my departure of my absence and of my return and do consider that in all the three I have not cone any thing but still adore and worship you amid the most affrightfull and the hazardfullest divertisements could be and that in recompence of this and of an infinite of love which I have testified to you you in the instant and almost on the first day of my arrivall picked a quarrell with me upon pretence as false as my affections are most true and as remote from my deportments as two extreames can be the one from the other When I call to minde that you have too forbidden me the honour of your entertainment and of visiting you at the houres which I acquired by such and so many cares and which you now have taken away from me to give them to the jealousie of a watchfull spie that day and night orelooketh and controules your carriage and continually besiegeth your person When I see the importunity of his tyrannie unworthily prefer'd the merit of my services and that there is not that troublesome or pratling gossip that doth not importunely approach your eare and entertaine you three or foure houres without the least offence where I am onely he to whom minutes I and moments still are interdicted being forced to passe whole daies entire at home with you to attend the opportunitie to speake one word and notwithstanding after this to goe my waies unable once to doe it It is impossible such bitternes succeeding such sweetes I promised me and which you caused mee hope on my returne can be digested and past ore without complaints In one thing it may be Madam I have failed indeed I meane in that I have dared before you ere to sigh them forth to whom no sort of plaint as yet was ever just So have you accused them of injustice and wrote to me that you have not loved the possession of my amity but to cōsent unto the losse of it which is a strange conceit and I dare say not yours for you have too much judgment ere to love a thing unto no end without it be to loose it For me right well you may loose mee even when you please ther 's nought so certaine Madam and I shall readily serve you therein against my selfe But for my love you never can and if I would I have sworne to you that it shall abide eternally And once againe I promise you it shall but never importune or with such tyrannie as doth extend unto the deprivation of your libertie But on the contrary I never shall pretend once to stretch mine but to depend alwaies absolutely on yours Here is what I had wrote when your man gave mee your Letters After dinner I shall tell you more if so you please The Argument Vpon that shee had answered to his former Letter how she was inforced to her griefe to suffer anpleasing company and that she was sorry she could not admit of his entertainment as she would He returnes that the party whom shee fained her to be unable to be rid of was rather commanded to stay purposly to keepe him off And that he needed not his assistance in such case knowing well that she might absolutely command and forbid him what she pleased in full assurance to bee obeyed Epistle 38. INdeed Madam I apprehend you freer of your elbowes then of your heart as we say and that the party you faine ye unable to keepe off is rather commanded to stay with you purposely to keepe me away and by his presence to deprive me of that which otherwise you cannot deny to the justnesse of my desires For how should it possibly be but having so good a wit a judgment so excellent as you have and both accompanied with so sublime a spirit you should give such power over your selfe unto a man that is nothing to you so as he should not give you leave to dispose of one poore houre that I have any time this month begg'd at your hands if you had not expresly bid him so to doe And what indignity were it that he upon pretence of service and affection should so possesse him of your estate and of the libertie of your person that not so much as a breathing time should be free to you And if that it be so Madam you little need the use of his assistance
I bee in fit estate to receive it would you vouchsafe it nor doe I now expect it You have used me thus this Twelve month and if this parting should yet happen like the last why my returne were likely then to prove the same Which is the cause that I most humbly request your pardon Madam if not to interest you in my disgraces I bear them to some other place where you shall never be accused of them and if not to importune you with my visits and complaints I write you here this last farwell that you shall ever have of me so long as I live To come home and give it you to speak with you and to see you It needs not that I take here the heavens to witnesse for me that I do desire it since from having too too ardently still coveted it and from having beene over injustly denied it proceeds all my un happinesse But you have too much irritate my sores to heale them now A moment of time wasted in interrrupted teares and unprofitable sighes and yeelded at the point of my departure cannot eface the sorrowes for the time that you so long have still with-held from mee And then it were indeed but now to knit to breake againe to morrow to beat one round and endlesse path againe and againe to ascend one rocke I had rather die then once more thinke of life after the losse of all that ever made mee value it God knowes the outrage that I doe my selfe and the good whereof I doe deprive me But I offer my selfe no violence that you have not constrained mee to nor deprive mee not of any thing you have not first deprived mee All the ills I can apprehend you have already caus'd mee undergo and I have yet this comfort in my griefes that if so be there is nothing I can hope there is also nothing that I can feare It is as now almost a yeare since you did promise mee a boone Alas with what an infinite of gentle thoughts have I still cherisht that without once seeing it yet I render it backe unto you and I beseech you gratifie some other therwithall whose merits are more known unto you and affections more esteemed For me I never shall withdraw mine from an object so lovely as your selfe and shall ever beleeve that as they could not be more ingratefully acknowledged they likewise could never be more worthily employed But I shall leave you at least in peace and never more with my misfortunes will I ever trouble your repose The Answere Epistle 57. IF you depart not to day I shall make you acknowledge you are in the wrong and I entreat I may speake with you If you desire it I will give you to understand of mee at two a Clocke And in the meane time I pray you think you are in an error to complaine of mee The Argument His Mistris being informed hee was in blacks tooke occasion to write word unto him by which she condoled with him the new affliction she beleeved had beene befallen him Epistle 58. I Have learnd that you are habited in mourning and that consequently some new affliction is befallen you The lawes of what is decent and those of my owne inclination cause mee partake therein and to condole with you with so much the greater sorrow that it is unprofitable unto you that I am your servant The Argument After having a long while disputed with himselfe whether hee should answere her Letters or not he tels her that besides the afflictions hee undergoes for her he slighted all such as could happen to him That he could not beleeve that she condoled the ills she dayly augmented And wherefore he beleev'd so Epistle 59. I Disputed long with my selfe whether or no I should read your Letter before I would receive it And whether I should answere it or no when I had read it And not finding me any waies obliged either to the one or the other I thought for sufficient answer to have return'd it you with some others that were better in your hands then in those of a man you have offended Neverthelesse I thought that I ought you yet a word or two and following rather the advise of my passion then that of my reason I chose to breake the oath I had made never to write more unto you before the resolution I have taken ever to honour you to whatsoever contrary effect you may possibly oblige mee I doe let you know then Madame that if I mourne it is not for any new affliction befallen mee and that after those you cause mee I slight all such as can happen to mee That is very true that according unto the Lawes of what is decent and of humanity likewise if you have any you ought therein compatiate But that I can never beleeve that you condole with me an ill that you your selfe doe daily augment letting me finde so many effects contrary to your words as there can be no day of my life wherein I shall not repent me to have beene thereby so much seduced For to what purpose speake you to me of sorrow you that doe all that ere you can to loose and ruine me You have offended mee to death not onely without cause but for such reasons as are most capable of appeasing had I offended you And I have undergone it not onely without revenge but likewise fans complaint continuing still in more respect then in offence If I complaine of you I cannot do it but commending you And if I take offence t is ever gainst my selfe or such as doe defend me against you and render those praises as due rather to my goodnes then your merits You Madam on the contrary seeke to defraud the man that honours you and repaire not the wrongs you have done him but by most irrepairable outrages Be it true that I was offended at the speech you had with mee about the businesse chanced in Easter you have amended that with another much worse that since you held in my absence with distinction of quality which could not be done without passion nor suffer'd but with rage and madnesse I complained that you refused me the honor of your entertaine and conduct and you have satisfied me in affording it to al sorts of people else And walking night by night before my window in company of those you know doe hate mee And after this to write that the Lawes of your inclination enforce you to partake in my misfortunes is it not to take mee for the arrants Wittall ever lived But I see well your meaning you are not content to have heard say that wee fought but you would see it And I shall deeme me most unworthy life and to have dared once to pretend unto your service if I manifest not to you that I am your most obedient servant The Argument She replyes that she is more amarvailed then offended at his Letter and wisheth that all his vanities were in that paper to