_Phil_. Why would you thus my easy faith abuse:
I cannot think the queen so ill would chuse.
But stay, now your imposture will appear;
She has herself confessed she loved elsewhere:
On some ignoble choice has placed her heart,
One, who wants quality, and more, desert.
_Ast_. This, though unjust, you have most right to say;
For, if you'll rail against yourself, you may.
_Phil_. Dull that I was!
A thousand things now crowd my memory.
That make me know it could be none but I.
Her rage was love; and its tempestuous flame,
Like lightning, showed the heaven from whence it came.
But in her kindness my own shame I see;
Have I dethroned her, then for loving me?
I hate myself for that which I have done,
Much more, discovered, than I did unknown.
How does she brook her strange imprisonment?
_Ast_. As great souls should, that make their own content.
The hardest term, she for your act could find,
Was only this, O Philocles, unkind!
Then, setting free a sigh, from her fair eyes
She wiped two pearls, the remnant of wild showers,
Which hung like drops upon the bells of flowers:
And thanked the heavens,
Which better did, what she designed, pursue,
Without her crime, to give her power to you.
_Phil_. Hold, hold! you set my thoughts so near a crown,
They mount above my reach, to pull them down:
Here constancy, ambition there does move;
On each side beauty, and on both sides love.
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