_Cort_. Love is with us as natural as here, But fettered up with customs more severe. In tedious courtship we declare our pain, And, ere we kindness find, first meet disdain. _Cyd_. If women love, they needless pains endure; Their pride and folly but delay their cure. _Cort_. What you miscall their folly, is their care; They know how fickle common lovers are: Their oaths and vows are cautiously believed, For few there are but have been once deceived. _Cyd_. But if they are not trusted when they vow, What other marks of passion can they show? _Cort_. With feasts, and music, all that brings delight, Men treat their ears, their palates, and their sight. _Cyd_. Your gallants, sure, have little eloquence, Failing to move the soul, they court the sense: With pomp, and trains, and in a crowd they woo, When true felicity is but in two; But can such toys your women's passions move? This is but noise and tumult, 'tis not love. _Cort_. I have no reason, madam, to excuse Those ways of gallantry, I did not use; My love was true, and on a nobler score. _Cyd_. Your love, alas! then have you loved before? _Cort_. 'Tis true I loved, but she is dead, she's dead; And I should think with her all beauty fled, Did not her fair resemblance live in you, And, by that image, my first flames renew. _Cyd_. Ah! happy beauty, whosoe'er thou art! Though dead, thou keep'st possession of his heart; Thou makest me jealous to the last degree, And art my rival in his memory: Within his memory! ah, more than so, Thou livest and triumph'st o'er Cydaria too. _Cort_. What strange disquiet has uncalmed your breast, Inhuman fair, to rob the dead of rest!-- Poor heart! she slumbers in her silent tomb; Let her possess in peace that narrow room. _Cyd_. Poor heart!--he pities and bewails her death!-- Some god, much hated soul, restore thy breath, That I may kill thee; but, some ease 'twill be, I'll kill myself for but resembling thee. _Cort_. I dread your anger, your disquiet fear, But blows, from hands so soft, who would not bear? So kind a passion why should I remove? Since jealousy but shows how well we love. Yet jealousy so strange I never knew; Can she, who loves me not, disquiet you? For in the grave no passions fill the breast, 'Tis all we gain by death, to be at rest. _Cyd_. That she no longer loves, brings no relief; Your love to her still lives, and that's my grief. _Cort_. The object of desire once ta'en away, 'Tis then not love, but pity, which we pay. _Cyd_. 'Tis such a pity I should never have, When I must lie forgotten in the grave; I meant to have obliged you, when I died, That, after me, you should love none beside.-- But you are false already. _Cort_. If untrue, By heaven! my falsehood is to her, not you. _Cyd_. Observe, sweet heaven, how falsely he does swear!-- You said, you loved me for resembling her. _Cort_. That love was in me by resemblance bred, But shows you cheared my sorrows for the dead. _Cyd_. You still repeat the greatness of your grief.