w, which torment my heart,)
Forbids my mind to entertain a thought
That tends to love, but meditate on death,
A fitter subject for a pensive soul.

THERIDAMAS. Olympia, pity him in whom thy looks
Have greater operation and more force
Than Cynthia's in the watery wilderness;
For with thy view my joys are at the full,
And ebb again as thou depart'st from me.

OLYMPIA. Ah, pity me, my lord, and draw your sword,
Making a passage for my troubled soul,
Which beats against this prison to get out,
And meet my husband and my loving son!

THERIDAMAS. Nothing but still thy husband and thy son?
Leave this, my love, and listen more to me:
Thou shalt be stately queen of fair Argier;
And, cloth'd in costly cloth of massy gold,
Upon the marble turrets of my court
Sit like to Venus in her chair of state,
Commanding all thy princely eye desires;
And I will cast off arms to [215] sit with thee,
Spending my life in sweet discourse of love.

OLYMPIA. No such discourse is pleasant in [216] mine ears,
But that where every period ends with death,
And every line begins with death again:
I cannot love, to be an emperess.

THERIDAMAS. Nay, lady, then, if nothing will prevail,
I'll use some other means to make you yield:
Such is the sudden fury of my love,
I must and will be pleas'd, and you shall yield:
Come to the tent again.

OLYMPIA. Stay now, my lord; and, will you [217] save my honour,
I'll give your grace a present of such price
As all the world can not afford the like.

THERIDAMAS. What is it?

OLYMPIA. An ointment which a cunning alchymist
Distilled from the purest balsamum
And simplest extracts of all minerals,
In which the essential form of marble stone,
Temper'd by science metaphysical,
And spells of magic from the mouths [218] of spirits,
With which if you but 'noint your tender skin,
Nor pistol, sword, nor lance, can pierce your flesh.

THERIDAMAS. Why, madam, think you to mock me thus palpably?

OLYMPIA. To prove it, I will 'noint my naked throat,
Which when you stab, look on your weapon's point,
And you shall see't rebated [219] with the blow.

THERIDAMAS. Why gave you not your husband some of it,
If you lov'd him, and it so precious?

OLYMPIA. My purpose