Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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ID |
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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A39712
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Erminia, or, The fair and vertuous lady a trage-comedy / written by Rich. Flecknoe.
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Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678?
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1661
(1661)
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Wing F1220; ESTC R25430
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38,813
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104
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too and must do that it obliges me to do nor shall Cleander purchase more honor abroad then Erminia shall at home Al. That man never gets honour nor woman that 's never tried what made Penelope neither so famous I pray in her husbands absence but her entertaining so many Gallants as she did there was a valiant woman now Let them come as many as they wod she fear'd them not she knew she cod deal with them all And you to lock up your self a this manner for fear of them there 's wise valour indeed Er. As though there were not as much valour in Passive Fortitude and holding out a siege against the enemy as in the Active one of fighting them in the field The one is Cleander's honour the other shall be mine In either we 'l declare our selves invincible Al. I grant you a mans honour chiefly consists in sighting and a womans in defending her chastity but there 's discretion in all things a man may fight and fight and yet be counted a quarrelsom Coxcomb for his pains and a woman proud and peevish in defending her chastity give me a fair condition'd man or woman 'long as you live one that understands reason I cannot blame young maids to have always for burthen of their song a husband a husband for they never tryed and therefore may long perhaps but for married wives to be alwayes in that tone and crying out for their husbands like fools and children for their baubles shews a kinde of incontinence and insatiate desire in them Er. Cleander was my first love shall be the last and onely one I 'le ever have Al. That shews your ignorance now for as that man shud never be a great scholar who never red but in onebook so shud she never be a wise woman who never knew but one man Variety is good in every thing and use in that as in all things else makes perfectness Er. Well Althea I know you say this by way of argument now and onely to try your wit but take heed 't is dangerous disputing against known verities and Atheisme in Religion Rebellion in States and dissolution in life and manners had all their rise at first from knowing the best and arguing for the worst Al. Well then since you will needs be so far out of fashion of other wives to remember your husband in 's absence how can you better do 't then by recommending him in your Orasons to the Gods and my Lord Cleander being now expos'd to the dangerous chance of war towhom can you better recommend him then to the God of war Er. Now thou advisest well Mars's Statue discovered Erminia kneels Great Mars thou whose potent Arm do's weild The deadly pointed Lance and mighty Shield Fight for my dear Cleander with the one And with the other O defend him from His enemies abroad and grant that he May safely but return with victory So shall I ever honour thee ever pay My vows unto thee and on thy Altars lay The purest offrings the world e're cod get Or e're were laid upon thy Altars yet Hear me great Mars SCENA 5. The Prince in form of Mars's Statue Erminia Althea Pr. I do Er. Prodigious the Statue speaks Pr. 'T is you fairest have animated it Al. A good beginning if it hold on as well Er. Cold horror seizes me and I 'm become by wondrous metamorphose of living a dead statue as that of dead's become a living one And see it moves too descends from his base Pr. 'T is your beauty fairest has given me life and motion and if in the cold veins of frozen marble t' has the vertuous force to inspire and infuse such spirit and vital heat imagine in my bosom what it must needs beget discovers himself Er. Ha! my Lord the Prince Pr. The Prince your servant dearest for you metamorphos'd into statue thus for you thus chang'd into my self again Al. Stay Madam whither go you he will not hurt you Er. Gods and my better Angels defend me how came you here Pr. Your powerfull charmes sweetest did bring me hither Al. That 's well answer'd I was afraid he would have said t' was I Aside Er. And what wod you here Pr. Onely that you would please to hear me speak Er. Though I might well deny you coming as you do yet on condition you speak nothing but what is honourable nothing but what besits both you to say and me to hear I am content Al. Shame on this Honour I 'm afear'd he 'l hardly speed Exit Pr. What can be more honorable or how can I honour you more then to come here with no less devotion then to the Temple of the Immortal Gods to offer my vows and orasons at your shrine Er. That 's an Idolatry I cannot admit without a crime an honour too too great and too divine for me Pr. To com to that which is more humane then I come to beg your help for one that 's sick your pitty for a miserable wretch burns languishes and consumes away for love of you Er. Nay if you talk of love once I 'm gone Pr. And if you go I dye of what shud I talk but of love to you who are all lovely Cruel as you are can ye behold my sufferings and never pitty me shud Heaven be so pittiless alwayes to look upon the Earth with cruel Canicular eyes we soon shud see all burn languish and consume like me Er. You call me cruel and you your self are far more cruel to your self then I for what remedy for one will needs be sick or what means to quench their fires will needs Nero-like be their own incendaries But now to let you see I 'm not so pittiless as you imagine me If 't be my sight occasions your malady and inflames you so I 'le instantly be gon and leave you Pr. Ah do not do not go that were a remedy worse then the disease Think not think not excellents of your sex to quench the fire y 'ave kindled in my breast by taking away the Torch that kindled it that were to mock my flame and me No no your Eyes have double vertue to wound and cure me too Er 'T is vice not vertue to kindle unlawful fires Know Sir I am anothers and as t' were crime in me to give away what 's none of mine so 't is no less in you to covet what 's none of yours Pr. 'T is crime in Cleander rather to appropriate to himself an universal good and injustice in you to consent unto th' impoverishing the world to enrich Cleander's bed Er. And you would steal me from him Is this noble this Prince-like do you not see one may as wel bereave you of your principality Pr. I may taste the fruit and yet not be proprietary of the Tree Er. Without theft you cannot unless the owner will and I 'm so absolutely Cleanders he cannot alienate me though he wod nor relinquish his right of me Enter Althea hastily