+Queen.+ But yet Heaven hath made Subordination and degrees of men, And even religion doth authorise us To rule, and tells the subject 'tis a crime, And shall meet death, if he disdain obedience. +Asc.+ Kind Heaven made us all equal, till rude strength Or wicked policy usurp'd a power: And for religion, that exhorts t' obey Only for its own ease. +Queen.+ I must not hear Such insolence 'gainst majesty; and yet This less offends than love. +Asc.+ If reason bends You not to mercy, let my passion plead, And not meet death from her, in whose fair quarrel I could each moment bring a life to th' hazard. Philosophy hath taught me that content Lives under the coarse thatch of labourers With much more quiet than where the fam'd hand Of artists to the life have richly drawn Upon the roofs the fictions of the gods. How happy then might I lengthen my life, With some fair country girl, so ignorant She knew not her own beauties, rather than Endanger death and scorn in your denial, And in your grant nothing but pomp and envy! +Queen.+ My lord, be wise, and study that best content. This bold presumptuous love hath cancell'd all The bonds I owed your valour: henceforth hope Not for that usual favour I show strangers, Since you have thus abus'd it. Would I might With safety have appear'd more grateful. [_Exit._ +Asc.+ She's gone, as life from the delinquent, when Justice sheathes up her sword. I fain would have Conceal'd love's treason, but desire t' obtain her Put me to th' torture, till each nerve did crack, And I confess'd, then died upon the rack. [_Exit._ FOOTNOTES: [281] Peradventure. Dr Johnson observes that in this sense _happily_ is written erroneously for _haply_--[a distinction surely without a difference, since both are the same, _haply_ being merely a contracted form of the other.] "One thing more I shall wish you to desire of them, who _happily_ may peruse these two treatises."--_Digby._ [282] Habington has the same thought in his "Castara," edit. 1640, p. 51-- "Would Castara were The daughter of some mountain-cottager, Who, with his toil worn out, could dying leave Her no more dowre than what she did receive From bounteous nature; her would I then lead To th' temple, rich in her own wealth." --_Steevens._ [283] [Old copy, _love_.] [284] [Old copy, _thought_.] ACT IV., SCENE I. _Enter +Cleantha+ and +Floriana+._ +Flo.+ Thy pride is such a flatterer of thy beauty, That no man sighs by accident, but thou Dost pity as enamour'd.