_Cand_. How much our golden wishes are in vain! When they are past, we are ourselves again. _Enter Queen and_ ASTERIA _above_. _Queen_. Look, look, Asteria, yet they are not gone. Hence we may hear what they discourse alone. _Phil_. My love inspires me with a generous thought, Which you, unknowing in those wishes, taught. Since happiness may out of courts be found, Why stay we here on this enchanted ground; And chuse not rather with content to dwell (If love and joy can find it) in a cell? _Cand_. Those who, like you, have once in courts been great, May think they wish, but wish not, to retreat. They seldom go, but when they cannot stay; As losing gamesters throw the dice away. Even in that cell, where you repose would find, Visions of court will haunt your restless mind; And glorious dreams stand ready to restore The pleasing shapes of all you had before. _Phil_. He, who with your possession once is blest, On easy terms will part with all the rest. All my ambition will in you be crowned; And those white arms shall all my wishes bound. Our life shall be but one long nuptial day, And, like chafed odours, melt in sweets away; Soft as the night our minutes shall be worn, And chearful as the birds, that wake the morn. _Cand_. Thus hope misleads itself in pleasant way, And takes more joys on trust, than love can pay: But, love with long possession once decayed, That face, which now you court, you will upbraid. _Phil_. False lovers broach these tenets, to remove The fault from them, by placing it on love. _Cand_. Yet grant, in youth you keep alive your fire, Old age will come, and then it must expire: Youth but a while does at love's temple stay, As some fair inn, to lodge it on the way. _Phil_. Your doubts are kind; but, to be satisfied I can be true, I beg I may be tried. _Cand_. Trials of love too dear the making cost; For if successless, the whole venture's lost. What you propose, brings wants and care along. _Phil_. Love can bear both. _Cand_. But is your love so strong? _Phil_. They do not want, who wish not to have more; Who ever said an anchoret was poor? _Cand_. To answer generously, as you have done, I should not by your arguments be won: I know, I urge your ruin by consent; Yet love too well, that ruin to prevent. _Phil_. Like water given to those whom fevers fry, You kill but him, who must without it die. _Cand_. Secure me, I may love without a crime; Then, for our flight, appoint both place and time. _Phil_. The ensuing hour my plighted vows shall be; The time's not long; or only long to me. _Cand_. Then, let us go where we shall ne'er be seen By my hard mother. _Phil_. Or my cruel queen. [_Exeunt_ PHIL. _and_ CAND. _Queen above_. O, Philocles, unkind to call me cruel! So false Aeneas did from Dido fly; But never branded her with cruelty. How I despise myself for loving so! _Ast_. At once you hate yourself, and love him too. _Queen_. No, his ingratitude has cured my wound: A painful cure indeed!