_Phæd._ [_Giving a great frisk._] Look no farther, I beseech you. _Merc._ And a silver spoon---- _Phæd._ [_Shrieking._] Ah!---- _Merc._ Which you purloined last night from Bromia. _Phæd._ Keep my counsel, or I am undone for ever. [_Holding up her hands to him._ _Merc._ No; I'll mortify thee, now I have an handle to thy iniquity, if thou wilt not love me. _Phæd._ Well, if you'll promise me to be secret, I will love you; because indeed I dare do no other. _Merc._ 'Tis a good girl; I will be secret: and, further, I will be assisting to thee in thy filching; for thou and I were born under the same planet. _Phæd._ And we shall come to the same end too, I'm afraid. _Merc._ No, no; since thou hast wit enough already to cozen a judge, thou needst never fear hanging. _Phæd._ And will you make yourself a younger man, and be handsome too, and rich? for you, that know hearts, must needs know, that I shall never be constant to such an ugly old Sosia. _Merc._ Thou shalt know more of that another time; in the mean while, here is a cast of my office for thee. [_He stamps upon the ground: some Dancers come from under-ground; and others from the sides of the Stage: a Song, and a fantastic Dance._ MERCURY'S SONG TO PHÆDRA. _Fair Iris, I love, and hourly I die, But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye: She's fickle and false, and there we agree; For I am as false and as fickle as she. We neither believe, what either can say; And, neither believing, we neither betray;_ _'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course; We mean not the taking for better for worse. When present, we love; when absent, agree: I think not of Iris, nor Iris of me: The legend of love no couple can find, So easy to part, or so equally joined._ _After, the Dance._ _Phæd._ This power of yours makes me suspect you for little better than a god; but if you are one, for more certainty, tell me what I am just now thinking. _Merc._ Why, thou art thinking,--let me see; for thou art a woman, and your minds are so variable, that it is very hard, even for a god, to know them,--but, to satisfy thee, thou art wishing, now, for the same power I have exercised, that thou might'st stamp like me, and have more singers come up for another song. _Phæd._ Gad, I think the devil's in you. Then I do stamp in somebody's name, but I know not whose: [_Stamps._] Come up, gentle-folks from below, and sing me a pastoral dialogue, where the woman may have the better of the man; as we always have in love-matters. [_New Singers come up, and sing a Song._ A PASTORAL DIALOGUE BETWIXT THYRSIS AND IRIS. Thyrsis. _Fair Iris and her swain Were in a shady bower; Where Thyrsis long in vain Had sought the shepherd's hour:_ _At length his hand advancing upon her snowy breast; He said, O kiss me longer, And longer yet, and longer, If you will make me blest_