All this I give you leave to think, and to offend me: but ‘tis in sleep
only that I permit it; for I would never pardon you the least Offence
of this nature, if in any other Kind than in a Dream. Nor is it enough
Affliction to you, to imagine me thus idly vain; but you are to pass
on to a hundred more capricious Humours: as that I exact of you a
hundred unjust Things; that I pretend you should break off with all
your Friends, and for the future have none at all; that I will myself
do those Things, which I violently condemn in you; and that I will have
for others, as well as you, that tender Friendship that resembles Love,
or rather that Love which People call Friendship; and that I will not,
after all, have you dare complain on me.
In fine, be as ingenious as you please to torment your self; and
believe, that I am become unjust, ungrateful, and insensible: But were
I so indeed, O _Damon_! consider your awaking Heart, and tell me, would
your Love stand the proof of all these Faults in me? But know, that I
would have you believe I have none of these Weaknesses, tho’ I am not
wholly without Faults, but those will be excusable to a Lover; and this
Notion I have of a perfect one:
_Whate’er fantastick Humours rule the Fair,_
_She’s still the Lover’s Dotage, and his Care._
FOUR o’.LOCK.
_Jealousy in Dreams_.
Do not think, _Damon_, to wake yet; for I design you shall yet suffer a
little more: Jealousy must now possess you, that Tyrant over the Heart,
that compels your very Reason, and seduces all your Good-Nature. And
in this Dream you must believe That in sleeping, which you could not
do me the injustice to do when awake. And here you must explain all my
Actions to the utmost disadvantage: Nay, I will wish, that the Force
of this Jealousy may be so extreme, that it may make you languish in
Grief, and be overcome with Anger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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