MON. I think they may: But I could never find so great a clerk As could tell how t' expound the meaning of them. THYR. My life is nothing but a mystery; That which I was, and that which I shall be, Is equally unknown. Now, if you'll leave me Unto my thoughts, they'll keep me company. MON. I will; but here is one come to supply me. _Enter to him_ MIRTILLUS. MIR. Ay, let me alone. _Sings._ _He that mourns for a mistress,_ _When he knows not where she is,_ _Let him kiss her shadow fair,,_ _Or engender with the air;_ _Or see, if with his tears he can_ _Swell at an ebb the ocean:_ _Then, if he had not rather die,_ _Let him love none, or all, as I._ This is the doctrine that I ever taught you, And yet you profit not: these scurvy passions Hang on you still. You that are young and active, That may have all our nymphs at your devotion, To live a whining kind of life as this, How ill it does become you! THYR. True, Mirtillus; And yet I do not envy thee the pleasure Thou hast in thy dispers'd affections. MIR. You would, if your head were right once; but love-- Your love does make an ass of all your reason. THYR. Sure, a true lover is more rational Than you, that love at random everywhere. MIR. I do not think so; all the reason love Has left you to employ in this discourse Will hardly bring me to confess it to you. THYR. Why, all men's actions have some proper end, Whereto their means and strict endeavours tend: Else there would be nought but perplexity In human life, and all uncertainty. MIR. Well, what will you infer on this? THYR. That you, Who know no end at all of wild desire, Must in your wand'ring fancy see this way Leads unto madness, when too late you find That nothing satisfies a boundless mind. MIR. Ay, but I do confine myself to two Or three at most; in this variety I please myself; for what is wanting in One, I may find it in another. THYR. No. Not in another; one is the only centre The line of love is drawn to, must have all Perfections in her, all that's good and fair, Or else her lover must believe her so. MIR. Ay, there's your error, that's the ground of all Your tears and sighs, your fruitless hopes and fears, When she perhaps has not so much t' adorn her As the least grace your thoughts bestow upon her. THYR. Well, be it so; and yet this fair idea, Which I have fram'd unto myself, does argue Virtue in me; so that, if she be lost, Or dead--ah me! the sad remembrance of My Sylvia causes this--yet I must love, Because the character is indelibly Writ in my heart, and heaven is witness to it.