of
their own chink. This buys all t'other--and this thou shalt have; this,
and all that I am worth, for the purchase of thy love. Say, is it mine
then, ha? Speak, Syren--Oons, why do I look on her! Yet I must. Speak,
dear angel, devil, saint, witch; do not rack me with suspense.

SILV. Nay, don't stare at me so. You make me blush--I cannot look.

HEART. O manhood, where art thou? What am I come to? A woman's toy, at
these years! Death, a bearded baby for a girl to dandle. O dotage,
dotage! That ever that noble passion, lust, should ebb to this degree.
No reflux of vigorous blood: but milky love supplies the empty channels;
and prompts me to the softness of a child--a mere infant and would suck.
Can you love me, Silvia? Speak.

SILV. I dare not speak until I believe you, and indeed I'm afraid to
believe you yet.

HEART. Death, how her innocence torments and pleases me! Lying, child,
is indeed the art of love, and men are generally masters in it: but I'm
so newly entered, you cannot distrust me of any skill in the treacherous
mystery. Now, by my soul, I cannot lie, though it were to serve a friend
or gain a mistress.

SILV. Must you lie, then, if you say you love me?

HEART. No, no, dear ignorance, thou beauteous changeling--I tell thee I
do love thee, and tell it for a truth, a naked truth, which I'm ashamed
to discover.

SILV. But love, they say, is a tender thing, that will smooth frowns,
and make calm an angry face; will soften a rugged temper, and make ill-
humoured people good. You look ready to fright one, and talk as if your
passion were not love, but anger.

HEART. 'Tis both; for I am angry with myself when I am pleased with you.
And a pox upon me for loving thee so well--yet I must on. 'Tis a bearded
arrow, and will more easily be thrust forward than drawn back.

SILV. Indeed, if I were well assured you loved; but how can I be well
assured?

HEART. Take the symptoms--and ask all the tyrants of thy sex if their
fools are not known by this party-coloured livery. I am melancholic when
thou art absent; look like an ass when thou art present; wake for thee
when I should sleep; and even dream of thee when I am awake; sigh much,
drink little, eat less, court solitude, am grown very entertaining to
myself, and (as I am informed) very troublesome to everybody else. If
this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable. Nay, yet a
more certain sign than all this, I give the