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ACT IV, SCENE i
CORDELIA, MIRABELLA

CORD. Mirabella, it does not pain my eyes to see that you surpass all the girls in this town in beauty and grace. And yet (unless there is harm in this wish) I would gladly have you be less fair. For this excellent beauty of yours has stolen my Archiater. Those eyes of yours pierce his heart, and those locks hold him captive, so much so that he wholly loves you, courts you, and always thinks of you alone, and scorns and neglects poor me, who am afire with love of him.
MIR. Cordelia, you have no idea at all what excellent beauty is, if you think I am enriched by it. But if this beauty, such as it may be, is any enticement or even the slightest source of pleasure to your Archiater, if my eyes wound him or my hair captivates him, I’ll gouge these out, pull out that by the roots, and blacken my face entirely, so henceforth I may be a source of terror, and not of joy. With my Perilupus dead, now I do not want to please anybody. Woe is me!
CORD. What are you doing, Mirabella? Why are you so pale? Why have the roses of your cheeks so suddenly withdrawn themselves from you? Is it perhaps because the poor little things have been terrified by their ruin, which you threatened? Why are you silent?
MIR. Not at all, Cordelia. Rather, of their own volition they have vanished, humoring me, so you may gain your wish that I be less beautiful.
CORD. In vain, Mirabella. For in their place have sprung up more handsome lilies, by which you seem far more beautiful, alas, and far more loveable.
MIR. Why not pluck them out, Cordelia? Why not fly at my face?
CORD. Me fly at that bright, sweet glory of nature?
MIR. Rather its mockery.
CORD. Ah, I shall not do it. Yet this I humbly ask of you, that you bar your breast to Archiater’s loves.
MIR. I have barred it long ago, Cordelia, and buried it in hatred.
CORD. Hatred? Just so you don’t love.
MIR. If he knocks upon this door, he will waste his effort.
CORD. By Castor, you’re a good woman.
MIR. By Pollux, I’d want to flee Archiater more than you want to obtain him.
CORD. For this — a kiss — (Enter Archiater.)
MIR. And behold, he comes out.
CORD. — you unhappy happiness of my life.

ACT IV, SCENE ii
ARCHIATER, CORDELIA, MIRABELLA

ARCH. How unfairly it is arranged for those who confer health on others, that they are unable to aid themselves. I have made the feeble whole, I have recalled the moribund to life, and those on their backs with the gravest maladies have I set back on their feet. I myself am now doing poorly, I am feverish with love, but I cannot find any remedy for my ill. I who by my art am wont to put to rout an army of diseases myself now perish, consumed by an amatory fever, which, while I strive to quench it or drive it out, gradually gathers strength and burns the more, nor can you lessen it by any drugs or magicians’ spells. It bests the art of Galen, and stupefies Asclepius himself.
CORD. Let’s approach the man.
MIR. You with blandishments, I with reproaches.
ARCH. What am I seeing? My Mirabella?
MIR. Pish, yours? I’d rather marry a tiger than a man of such unkindl manners.
ARCH. Look here, you’ve killed me with a word.
MIR. I’m glad. Come, Cordelia, let’s arrange his funeral.
CORD. Rather, burial rites should be prepared for me. For unless Archiater requites my love, I cannot help but die on the spot.
MIR. So come, Archiater, and free from Hell a girl who always thinks you excellent.
ARCH. If you are courting my love, Cordelia, you waste your time. For I am fixed upon Mirabella with Cupid’s nail. But if you wish to die, may Charon be kindly to you, and accept your kiss for his fare.
CORD. Cruel man! So give me back what you have stolen, my soul.
ARCH. Me steal your soul, who scarce has one?
CORD. Long ago it moved into your breast.
ARCH. Call it outside quickly.
CORD. Rather, let us join our lips, and in that very kiss my soul will pass back into me with ease.
ARCH. You are hateful.
CORD. Woe’s me.
MIR. Is how you treat a girl so unkindly, who has always deserved the best of you?
ARCH. Speak good words, my Mirabella.
MIR. Pish, keep your hands — Pish — Move farther away, unless you put a cheap price on your eyes.
ARCH. No, I put no value on them, when by them I perceive Mirabella shunning me.
MIR. Pish, get away, you displease me.
ARCH. But I’d do anything to please.
MIR. So love her in return.
ARCH. I’d rather love a viper.
MIR. Of all the —
CORD. Ah, Mirabella, don’t say anything unkind to him.
MIR. As if anything harsher can be said against him, who holds you in contempt in this manner!
CORD. Even if he should kill me, I cannot help but love him.
MIR. You most cruel man.
CORD. You dearest man.
MIR. Flee from here, crueller than the Styx.
CORD. Ah, pray stay, kinder than the clear sky.
MIR. Direr than the dire winter.
CORD. More lovely than the lovely rose.
MIR. Fiercer than fierceness.
CORD. Sweeter than sweetness.
ARCH. They’re nearly driving me mad.
MIR. Why not flee from here?
CORD. Why not rush into my embrace?
ARCH. I’m tormented by your love more than by her hatred. (Exit.)
MIR. What should we do, Cordelia?
CORD. Let us pursue the man, that we may industriously finish what we have begun. For I hope that when he sees you are averse to him, and that for his sake I am troubled in such strange ways, he will become either by your hostility, or at least by pity for me, and at length transfer his love in this direction.
MIR. May the gods make it so! (Exeunt.)

ACT IV, SCENE iii
BUBONIUS, PERILUPUS

BUB. Ah you villain, am I holding you?
PERIL. It will be better if you let me go.
BUB. What business have you within our threshold? Ah, you scoundrel. Tiff, toff.
PERIL. May I not go within my father’s house?
BUB. If you’re looking for your father’s house, I’ll show you it. Go right up the street. When you get there, there’s a shambles. Turn to your left, and on your right you’ll see an ancient workhouse. There dwells your father and all your ancestors.
PERIL. But Ucalegon’s my father.
BUB. Ucalegon? My master?
PERIL. You scarcely regard him as your master, if you receive his son with these grimaces and blows.
BUB. As if you’re the master’s heir!
PERIL. As if you don’t recognize me, Bubonius!
BUB. By Pollux, I wonder how he knows my name.
PERIL. I wonder even more how you don’t know mine.
BUB. How can I know what I’ve never heard?
PERIL. You can’t be ignorant of what you’ve heard so often.
BUB. You play the philosopher too, you scoundrel? Tiff, toff.
PERIL. I’m Perilupus.
BUB. Hoo! Hoo!
PERIL. Why are you crying, Bubonius?
BUB. My master Perilupus, hoo! He died in a deadly fire.
PERIL. Granted, but the fire of Cupid.
BUB. You admit you’re a dead man, and yet you’re alive?
PERIL. He who lives in love dies.
BUB. Ha, ha, he.
PERIL. Why laugh?
BUB. Ha, ha, he. Is your head sane? For anyone to be able to live and die at the same time!
PERIL. A lover can.
BUB. Ha, ha, he. Pray what in the world is thing you mention, a lover?
PERIL. A living corpse.
BUB. Now I know I’m being mocked. Tiff, toff.
PERIL. What are you doing, Bubonius? Has Perilupus ever deserved ill of you?
BUB. You scarcely deserve well, pretending to be Perilupus.
PERIL. Ah Bubonius, I’m your master.
BUB. My master? Take a beating for that word. My servitude would be most blessed, were I to serve such a master. Tiff, toff. [Aside.] Ha. I don’t know what the matter is, but my mind is whispering to me that this man is Perilupus. And I almost believe it, even if I know for sure that he lost his life in the flames. Perhaps he’s of the race of the Phoenix, who is born and dies in the same fire.
PERIL. Sweetest Bubonius, lead me to Ucalegon, I pray. I know he’ll recognize me as soon as he sees me.
BUB. I believe you. When he sees you, which as if you were to say never.
PERIL. Is he blind?
BUB. I don’t know if he’s blind. But this I know, he can’t see.
PERIL. May the gods —
BUB. You call on the gods in vain. For he’s ruined his eyesight with tears. My master Ucalegon will pass by here on his way to the hospital. (Exit Bubonius.)
PERIL. How many evils have awoken today that heretofore were deep asleep? Now Health herself can scarcely calm them or make them go to sleep, even if she were to rock their cradle with her own hand. and all of them grow from love for me. He was far too bold who first committed this fragile barque of loves to the waves. I would prefer to entrust myself to the Aegean and the angry Adriatic than to love: for if their might should chance to drive the ship down to the shades below, another kindlier wave, countervailing that evil, immediately bears it up to the skies. But if the sailing lover goes down to the Underworld (as most often happens), he always dwells with Pluto, forever despairing of heaven and all the stars — save for the unlucky ones. (Enter Ucalegon and Bubonius.)

ACT IV, SCENE iv
BUBONIUS, UCALEGON, PERILUPUS

BUB. Master, I believe sorrow to be a running dog.
UCAL. Indeed it bites like a dog.
BUB. No, but because it gives birth to blind puppies.
UCAL. You too, Bubonius, mock your unhappy master, according to the small understanding of servants? Ah, where is the man who wears the mask of my Perilupus?
BUB. Here before your eyes.
UCAL. You still persist? I have none.
PERIL. Ah, Father is here, I can scarcely speak for tears. Father —
BUB. Have you also lost your ears?
UCAL. Who is calling me father. Once this was a pleasing name, but now the most displeasing of all, after I lost my son.
PERIL. But I am your son both by inclination and by nature.
UCAL. You are a son of falsehood. Malice bore you and Crime brought you up. By Pollux, I can smell your schemes, your tricks and deceptions.
BUB. Praised be the gods, his nose is sound, even if he is stricken in his eyesight.
UCAL. Since the unkind Fates have put out my eyes, you think you can deceive me with ease, and so you feign to be my son so you may cheat me out of my goods. But you are very much mistaken, if you imagine I can be deluded by these deceits.
PERIL. By all the gods, there is no deception hidden in my words.
UCAL. Hold your tongue, sacrilegious sir. Do you even invoke the gods as witnesses of your scurvy nature?
BUB. Master, Master, hale to the man to court, I tell you, and lodge a great suit.
UCAL. No, Bubonius. Rather, my condition bids me take attend to myself, for my eyes hurt terribly. Led me to a surgeon.
PERIL. I know not what to say, my mind is so dumbfounded with grief.
BUB. Give me your hand, Master.
UCAL. Take it.
BUB. How can I, if you don’t hold it out? Now I have it well, raise your foot.
UCAL. What is it?
UCAL. There’s a stone in the street. Master, now we’re coming to the ditch. It is necessary to leap over it. (He leaps. They enter the hospital.)
PERILL. Ah. Shall I allow Father to be teased by a worthless little servant thus? But who am I calling my father? Ucalegon has dismissed all fatherly disposition concerning myself. What malady is this, that he should not recognize his son? That adage is true, that a man is so altered by love that you can’t recognize him to be the same. How many cares are rending me at the same time! Exiled from home. Forgotten by Mirabella. Laden down with blows. A squalid pauper. Scorned by everybody, most of all by myself. So many ills are heaped up for me that they themselves are beginning to complain, suffering from such great hardships. Now it is come to the point where it should be permitted mortals to commit every misdeed. For the gods have expended all their thunderbolts on this one person, with the result that they have none left to punish evildoers. While they strive to make me miserable, they themselves become helpless.

ACT IV, SCENE v
PERILUPUS, MIRABELLA

PERIL. Ah! What do I see? My love? Rather my ruin.
MIR. You have an unkind disposition, Archiater, made of steel and adamant, thus to neglect a girl who worships and adores you so, and not return her love.
PERIL. I’m undone. You adore Archiater? You are courting him, even though he recoils from your love?
MIR. But meanwhile, what is this disease by which almost all we women are gripped? We put a price on things we acquire by great effort, but ungratefully scorn those which befall us, as it were, of their own free will.
PERIL. Not it’s crystal-clear that I’m unlucky and she is a wicked, false, perjured, oath-breaking woman, a fit wife for Pluto.
MIR. Cordelia, why not take your example from me, who am a laughing-stock for those I adore, and the more men have loved me, the more I loathe them.
PERIL. But I’ll run her treacherous heart through, and give you to Proserpina for a handmaid.
MIR. You hardly agree with me, Cordelia. If Archiater were to treat me so unkindly, surely I’d make up my mind to repay him tit for tat.
PERIL. Ha! What am I hearing? Have I been mistaken about her words?
MIR. But, alas, he treats me more kindly than I would wish. He loves me, he courts me, he begs me, he insists, he urges, he wheedles, he groans, he sighs, and at length he tempts me with gifts. But with his Attalid proposals he’ll never persuade me to fix my mind on him. For. even though the Fates extinguished his life, in my mind Perilupus is alive. Oh dearest Perilupus, you are very far away, yet a thousand times a minute I call you to myself in thought, a thousand times I kiss you.
PERIL. Ye gods! How thoroughly I dislike myself now, to have had held a girl in suspicion who is beyond reproach.
MIR. I have lived faithful to you, Perilupus, and faithful I shall die.
PERIL. But I intend to confront her before she goes away. Mirabella.
MIR. Who is speaking my name?
PERIL. Mirabella.
MIR. Ha, how my heart is suddenly quaking! I seem to be hearing my Perilupus’ voice.
PERIL. Mirabella.
MIR. It’s him. Surely he is speaking from heaven.
PERIL. No, your Perilupus breathes on earth. But since I have discovered you are of firm and faithful mind towards me, I don’t seem only to have gained heaven, but also immortality and the pleasures of the gods. Why are you amazed, Mirabella mine? If you have had difficulty believing I am Perilupus, behold this golden ring, which you put on my finger with your own hand.
MIR. Good God, it’s him!
PERIL. Woe’s me! Stricken by sudden joy, she’s fainted. Mirabella — Mirabella — What should I do? Oh heaven! Earth! Poor me! Dire fortune, you have me most unhappy before, but now you have found me a place beyond the limit of unhappiness. Woe’s me — Mirabella has died, loyal, modest, chaste, loving, fair Mirabella has died. Awake, Mirabella, akake. Ah, I fear you may sleep forever. Return, divine soul, return to this handsome abode. If you seek a happier home in the heavens, you seek in vain. Give it back, you envious heavens, give back my Mirabella’s soul, or I shall blind your starry eyes with these thick sighs. Mirabella, Mirabella, answer at length your Perilupus. By these tears I beg you, by these groans, by this kiss. Ha, she’s growing warm and raising her eyes. Oh the divine balsam of kisses! What power you have with women, that you can even make dead ones return to life from Hell.
MIR. Ha! Where am I?
PERIL. Where you would most wish to be, in your Perilupus’ arms.
MIR. Am I embracing you, Perilupus mine?
PERIL. You are embracing him, my delight. But why, Mirabella, did you bid this life good-bye when you beheld me?
MIR. But I thought you were dead. So I tried going down to the home of the shades in search of you. But since I did not find you in the Underworld, I am returning to the upper world to spend the rest of my life with you.
PERIL. And I have returned to life along with you. For now I first feel myself to live.
MIR. But why did you pretend to be dead, Perilupus mine?
PERIL. Ah, don’t ask that, Mirabella mine. You don’t know what bitter things have happened today.
MIR. But since I adore you desperately, you’ll easily know how much your absence affected me with care and concern.
PERIL. But now we may smile and please our minds with delights. Come, Venus mine, let us cast of our sorrows and the gloomy shadows which eclipsed our happiness.
MIR. But I am afraid lest this happiness not endure forever.
PERIL. While I enjoy your love, no malady will affect my mind, bringing me sorrow.
MIR. And if I may possess you too, I shall not begrudge Juno Jove’s embrace. But Father —
PERIL. What about that citizen of Acheron?
MIR. — has sworn a hundred times.
PERIL. A thousand may he perish!
MIR. — to marry me to a physician, or to nobody. And to achieve this he has made me live with Archiater, that prince of physicians, having no doubt but that, being overwhelmed by his company, I’d turn my mind to him.
PERIL. Alas! I’ve espied something which has been the beginning of great misfortune for me.
MIR. But, by Venus, I solemnly swear that I’d far rather have Father and all my friends angry at me than live with him or part from you.
PERIL. Well done, my Penelope. If your Ulysses ever deserts you, let him be a plaything for the waters of the Mediterranean. Why are you signing? Be of good cheer. Today I’ll discover something so you may sleep sound in these arms. You go home, and pray the gods it may turn out well for me.
MIR. I’ll wear out heaven with my prayers. Farewell. (They kiss.) Do you want anything else.
PERIL. Another farewell.
MIR. No, a thousand. Is my Perilupus alive?
PERIL. Put him to the test. (They kiss.)
MIR. Do I see you alive?
PYTH. I cannot die as long as I embrace you, my immortality (Archiater makes the door creak.)
PERIL. Careful not to say a word about me.
MIR. Do you think I can conceal such unexpected joy? Anybody will read on this face that Perilupus has come back to live. Now I’ll betake myself to Father, to find out why he has ordered me to be fetched today. (Exit.)

ACT IV, SCENE vi
URINULUS, ARCHIATER

URIN. Where love rules, there reason shown the door. It departs, it dies, it takes ship, it flees. I form this conjecture on the basis of my master at home, no need to seek for evidence abroad. For before he gave himself wholly over to love, nobody was more prudent than he, nobody more austere or better equipped with morals. But now, since he’s been made a lover, he’s crazy, he’s riotous, he’s raging. And see, he’s coming out. How his eyes are flashing!
ARCH. Can’t you hold your silence, you chief of the gods? I’ve made my mind. I’ll make the diseases themselves diseased, I’ll make the ailments ail, the fevers feverish. Come, you gasping fever, come, you who boil human blood, come and I’ll set you afire with a new fire to make you burn. Come, you cough, come, you who are always wont to bark. I’ll make you fall silent forever. And you, you knotty gout, which makes men howl and bellow like beasts, come. Ha, ha, he? Why are you slow? I don’t wish to forecast you any ill, since you often mistreat wealthy moneylenders. Hey, bloodsucking consumption, which consumes with silent tooth, must I bear your furtive wiles? I shall not, you triple villain. Come forth, paralysis, come forth. Ha, ha, he. Why are you fearful? Ha, ha, he. Why do you tremble? Ha, ha, he. Your fear proves you are degenerate. Take this! Ha, ha, he. How nimbly fearful paralysis takes to its heels! Ha, ha, he.
URIN. What Furies are hounding you, Master?
ARCH. Hey, Urinulus, what are you doing?
URIN. I’m washing out a jordan.
ARCH. Ha! Whose urine is this?
URIN. Heaven’s, I believe. For when just how it pissed, I caught it.
ARCH. Ha! It fell from the sky? Ha! Immortal gods! What prodigies I see a-swimming!
URIN. What are you seeing, Master?
ARCH. Are the skies subject to diseases too?
URIN. Don’t they ail, Master?
ARCH. Vertigo afflicts all heaven, the moon’s a leper, the sun itself burns with fever, and by its fires shines brighter than by its native light. You hear, Urinulus? How the heavens are coughing! We poor, helpless mortals, if ever we hear a loud noise in the sky, immediately we believe Jove is thundering. No, no. no. The skies, doing poorly, are only coughing. But why have I been making useless delays? Straightway I shall make my ways to the skies to bring aid and health to the ailing stars. Come then, Urinulus, prepare the clyster. (Exit.)
URIN. Why you get to the stars, pray Jove that he grant you a better mind. If this is loving, may it always be banished from my heart. I recognize no other raging Hercules but the lover. He who first called love a madness had an excellent understanding of its nature. May Venus always be Mirabella’s enemy, for she does not requite Master’s love. For because of her these disturbances befall us. (Exit.)

ACT IV, SCENE vii
NONARIA, WINIFREDA

NON. Ha, ha, he.
WIN. Hey there, Mother mine.
NON. Hey there, daughter mine. Ha, ha, he.
WIN. Why are you so cheerful?
NON. Why are you so silly? Ha, ha, he.
WIN. So are you laughing at me?
NON. Not at all, but at your folly. In a girl as old as you, virginity is a great vice and monstrosity. Ha, ha, he.
WIN. But it seems to me to be far more precious than an emerald.
NON. An emerald? Ha, ha, he. If I possessed a hundred gems of that kind, I’d sell them for a rotten nut.
WIN. But Mother —
NON. Get away, fie. If you were my daughter you’d have a similar character, but you are a degenerate from our family line. Your mother, your grandmother, your great-grandmother, your great-great grandmother, your great-great-great grandmother, your great-great-great-great grandmother, then your aunt, your great-aunt, your great-great aunt, your great-great-great aunt, your great-great-great-great aunt, and also your sister, your cousin on your father’s side, your cousin on your mother’s side, were all distinguished for their whoredom. But you are a stranger to us, you cling fast to God knows what chastity. Good heavens, this is a crime unworthy of our race!
WIN. Mother —
NON. Get away, I think you were substituted in the crib. If you think it sweeter to ply wool and loom than to seek your living by kisses, you should flee from here and go away to the countryside.
WIN. I hope to live a pauper’s life in the countryside rather than gain wealth dishonestly here, where one is not allowed to be a virgin.
NON. Dishonestly, if it please the gods! Go away with your virginity, and see what income it gets you. Trust me, as men’s morals are nowadays, virginity supplies neither food nor dress.
WIN. Mother mine, although I know this way of life will be unwelcome both to myself and to heaven, nevertheless, since you wish it so, behold a daughter obedient to your word.
NON. I’m happy, daughter mine, since I gain this of your will.
WIN. It needs must be that I be such as you wish, mother.
NON. So listen to me, while I show you what I would have you do in this business.
WIN. I am listening.
NON. Inspired by your beauty, one lover visits you daily, and likewise a second. These you should fleece, rend, mutilate, despoil, swallow up. And opportunely Pythiolus is staying with us and Ipswichus, whom our Magneticus recently brought, drunk. I want you to make yourself cheerful and easy for them. If this one has put his hand inside your bosom, you immediately put yours in his pockets. If the other has stolen a kiss, you secretly steal his gold
WIN. I can do this all adroitly, even without your advice.
NON. No wonder, when you have an example from whom to learn right here at home.

ACT IV, SCENE viii
NONARIA, WINIFREDA, PYTHIOLUS, IPSWICHUS

IPS. Hoo! Alas! I’m drunk. Alas! I’m drunk. Oh Ipswichus, Ipswichus, why are you drunk? Did you drink thus? (Slip.)
PYTH. Why are you weeping, Ipswichus? Ha, ha, he.
IPS. Alas! I’m drunk, Pythiolus, I’m drunk.
PYTH. No, no. You’re good and forgetful, not drunk. Ha, ha, he.
IPS. You mock me too? I’m drunk. I’m drunk. Beat me if you love me.
PYTH. I do not love you, but still I’ll do it. (Slip.). Thus, tosspot? (Slip.)
IPS. I deserve it, I admit. Alas! Alas!
PYTH. Aren’t you ashamed to be so drunk? To make yourself a brute? (Slip.)
IPS. Oop, oop, oop.
PYTH. You vomit too, you beast? How many times have I warned you to shun drunkenness? (Slip.)
IPS. Alas?
PYTH. I’m ashamed of you, and very sorry for you to live in such a soaked condition. Get away, beast.
WIN. Ha, ha, he. Clodius accuses an adulterer, a drunkard accuses a drunkard.
NON. Daughter, let’s concentrate on enticing them into our house. Greetings, Pythiolus.
PYTH. Oh, Nonaria.
NON. What man are you torturing so?
PYTH. Not a man, Nonaria, but a brute. He’s drunk.
NON. This is human.
PYTH. You call it human to get drunk? I it always be alien to me. Get inside, beast, to sleep off this wine. Get away, beast. Nonaria, I entrust this drunkard to your care. Oop.
NON. What, Pythiolus? Are you going to vomit too?
PYTH. No, no. I am good and sober, praised be the gods. But when this word “drunk” was in my mouth it made me gag. Oop. oop. And again. Oop. Your presence makes me gag. Get away, beast.
NON. Come with me, Ipswichus.
PYTH. In the future I won’t drink, alas, nor have a sip of wine. Alas!
NON. Have a care, my daughter, that no another girl snatch this morsel from our mouth.
WIN. I’ll handle him neatly, have no doubt. (Exeunt Ipswichus and Nonaria.)
PYTH. My Winifreda, you were here and I didn’t catch sight of you?
WIN. I was here, Pythiolus, and you didn’t give me a kiss.
PYTH. Now I’ll give you a resounding one. (She picks his pockets.) How do you like it?
WIN. A golden kiss, by Hercules, and of great value.
PYTH. Good, my little soul!
WIN. Oh Venus, the odor of your gloves! The nest of the Titan’s bird isn’t any more fragrant.
PYTH. Here, I give them too you.
WIN. By Pollux, I’m most grateful indeed. What do I see, my Pythiolus?
Did you put stars on your fingers? Why are they so shiny?
PYTH. It’s a ring.
WIN. By Castor, I thought it was the morning star, the herald of the day.
PYTH. Give me your hands, my Venus. It’s yours.
WIN. What shall I repay you for such a gift?
PYTH. A kiss as round as a ring.
WIN. Do you have any enemies, my Pythiolus?
PYTH. Why ask that?
WIN. Because you wear such a splendid sword.
PYTH. Have it for yourself, my delight.
WIN. Ah, no, Pythiolus.
PYTH. You want to have it?
WIN. Not in the slightest. But I don’t remember ever seeing a prettier one.
PYTH. You praise it too? By Jove, you shall have. it. Take it, my Penthesilea.
WIN. Perhaps it will be of use to you.
PYTH. Never. For I campaign on Venus’ fields, where hugs and kisses are the weapons. Let us fight, my darling. If you give the sweetest kisses, you’ll crown me with the victory. Why are you so admiring?
WIN. Your cloak. They strike me as being worked with wonderful art. Surely this is the very article of clothing which Dido wove for Aeneas with her very own hand. What are you doing, Pythiolus?
PYTH. Taking off my cloak, to give it to you.
WIN. You’re most kind. Are those underpants of the same wool?
PYTH. Not at all. Do you want to have them?
WIN. Get away, me want them?
PYTH. If you praise them, my own, I can’t help giving them to you.
WIN. I’m not praising them, my Pythiolus, but they are very handsome, and dyed with Tyrian purple.
PYTH. By all the gods, you’ll have them — take this — the tie-string is pure silk.
WIN. Ah, don’t take them off on the street.
PYTH. I want to. Can I deny you anything that might please you?
WIN. Better I take them inside.
PYTH. Pray lead the way. (Exeunt.)

ACT IV, SCENE ix
ARCHIATER, CORDELIA

Archiater brought out by two, and laid in the arbor.

CORD. Place my Archiater beneath this shady tree, while I strive to summon sleep with this lute.
ARCH. I’ll sing a tune, Cordelia. Ha, ha, he. I’ll sing. (Archiater sings ridiculously).

How do you like it, Cordelia? How does my ditty please you?
CORD. More than the music of the spheres, if you would erase Mirabella’s name and insert my own.
ARCH. Ha, ha, he. (Plays with his fingers.)
CORD. Alas! How disorderly is his manner!
ARCH. Do you love me, Cordelia?
CORD. These tears give proof how much I love you.
ARCH. But I’m laughing. Ha, ha, he.
CORD. It’s hard to say which of us is playing the greater fool: he, because he is insane, I, because I adore a madman. I like his folly better than the prudent wisdom of others.
ARCH. Ha, ha, he, Cordelia. Ha, he, Cordelia.
CORD. Come, my lute, by whose sweetness that Thracian bard led beasts, trees, and dancing rocks.
ARCH. Hand it to me, Cordelia, I know how to play the lute. Ha, ha, he. (Acts with his hands, as if he had it.)
CORD. Come, you well-tuned strings, speak in modes which will bring him quiet as he listens.

CORD. Ha! He’s asleep at last. Let us bear him off. Gently, I pray, gently. (Exeunt.)

Go to Act V