Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Adriana
Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might’st thou perceive austerely in his eye
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?
Looked he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
What observation mad’st thou in this case
Of his heart’s meteors tilting in his face?
He is deformèd, crooked, old, and sere,
Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere,
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
Luciana
First he denied you had in him no right.
Adriana
He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
Luciana
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
Adriana
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
Luciana
Then pleaded I for you.
Adriana
And what said he?
Luciana
That love I begged for you he begged of me.
Adriana
With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
Luciana
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
Adriana
Did’st speak him fair?
Luciana
Have patience, I beseech.
Adriana
I cannot, nor I will not hold me still.
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformèd, crooked, old, and sere,
Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere,
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
Luciana
Who would be jealous, then, of such a one?
No evil lost is wailed when it is gone.
Adriana
Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse.
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.