_Cleo._ Well, take heed Of doubts and fears;--for know, Leosthenes, A greater injury cannot be offer'd To innocent chastity, than unjust suspicion. I love Marullo's fair mind, not his person; Let that secure you. And I here command you, If I have any power in you, to stand Between him and all punishment, and oppose His temperance to his folly: if you fail---- No more; I will not threaten. [_Exit._ _Leost._ What a bridge Of glass I walk upon, over a river Of certain ruin, mine own weighty fears Cracking what should support me! and those helps, Which confidence lends to others, are from me Ravish'd by doubts, and wilful jealousy. [_Exit._ FOOTNOTES: [124] Leost. _Fears! your sufferings_:--] The character of Leosthenes is every where preserved with great nicety. His jealous disposition breaks out in this scene with peculiar beauty.--GIFFORD. [125] _Though the infringing it had call'd upon her A living funeral_, &c.] The poet alludes to the manner in which the Vestals, who had broken their vow of chastity, were punished. They had literally a _living funeral_, being plunged alive into a subterraneous cavern, of which the opening was immediately closed upon them, and walled up. The confusion of countries and customs may possibly strike the critical reader; but of this, as I have already observed, our old dramatists were either not aware or not solicitous.--GIFFORD. [126] _To remember_,] i. e. _to remind_, in which sense it frequently occurs in our old writers. SCENE IV. _Another Room in the same._ _Enter_ TIMAGORAS, CLEON, ASOTUS, CORISCA, _and_ OLYMPIA. _Cleon._ But are you sure we are safe? _Timag._ You need not fear; They are all under guard, their fangs pared off: The wounds their insolence gave you, to be cured With the balm of your revenge. _Asot._ And shall I be The thing I was born, my lord? _Timag._ The same wise thing. 'Slight, what a beast they have made thee! Afric never Produced the like. _Asot._ I think so:--nor the land Where apes and monkeys grow, like crabs and walnuts, On the same tree. Not all the catalogue Of conjurers or wise women bound together Could have so soon transform'd me, as my rascal Did with his whip; for not in outside only, But in my own belief, I thought myself As perfect a baboon---- _Timag._ An ass thou wert ever. _Asot._ And would have given one leg, with all my heart, For good security to have been a man After three lives, or one and twenty years, Though I had died on crutches. _Cleon._ Never varlets So triumph'd o'er an old fat man: I was famish'd. _Timag._ Indeed you are fallen away. _Asot._ Three years of feeding On cullises and jelly, though his cooks Lard all he eats with marrow, or his doctors Pour in his mouth restoratives as he sleeps, Will not recover him.