623

Precipitancy to be avoided.

Reason with the fellow,

Before you punish him,

Lest, you should chance to whip your information,
And beat the messenger, who bids beware
Of what is to be dreaded.

624 Accusation to be supported by knowledge.
If I shall be condemn'd

Upon surmises; all proofs sleeping else,
But what your jealousies awake; I tell you,
'Tis rigour, and not ław.

28-iv. 6.

13-iii. 2.

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear:
And I will stoop and humble my intents

To your well-practised, wise intentions.

19-v. 2.

Obey thy parents, keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet

heart on proud array.

out of brothels, thy pen from lenders' books.

Keep thy foot

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm* with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.

*Palm of the hand.

36-i. 3.

36-i. 3.

36-i. 3.

Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.

36-i. 3.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure,* but reserve thy judgment.

36-i. 3.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

36-i. 3.

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.f

634

36-i. 3.

The same.

To thine ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

635 Parents to be consulted in marriage concerns.

Reason, my son

36-i. 3.

Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason,
The father (all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity) should hold some counsel
In such a business.

13-iv. 3.

Women are as roses; whose fair flower,

Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour.

637

4-ii. 4.

The danger of dalliance.

Do not give dalliance

Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw

To the fire i' the blood.

* Opinion.

1-iv. 1.

† Economy, thriftiness.

638

Chastity.

The heavens hold firm

The walls of thy dear honour; keep unshaked
That temple, thy fair mind.

31-ii. 1.

Beware of them, Diana; their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all these engines of lust, are not the things they go under :* many a maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that dissuade succession, but they are limed with the twigs that threaten them. I hope, I need not to advise you farther; but, I hope, your own grace will keep you where you are, though there were no farther danger known, but the modesty which is so lost. 11-iii. 5.

When the blood burns how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat,-extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a making,-
You must not take for fire.

Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate,
Than a command to parley.

Do not believe his vows: for they are brokers
Not of that die which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon :
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,

36-i. 4.

36-i. 4.

They are not the things for which their names would make

them pass.

Implorers.

Favours, objects of entreaty.

§ Most cautious.

Too oft before their buttons be disclosed;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then: best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent* ear you list his songs;

36-i. 3.

Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered‡ importunity.

Fear it, fear it,

And keep you in the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot and danger of desire.

644

Example and precept.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

36-i. 3.

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.

645

Beauty heightened by goodness.

36-i. 3.

The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair. 5-iii. 1.

646

Grief alleviated by submission to Heaven.
Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now Heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But Heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanced :
And weep ye now, seeings he is advanced
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

* Believing. Careless,

Licentious.

† Listen to.
Regards not his own lessons.

O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.

647

Conjugal affection needful in wives.

35-iv. 5.

Fie, fie, unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor :
It blots thy beauty, as frosts bite the meads;
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds;
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

12-v. 2.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.

I am ashamed, that women are so simple

12-v. 2.

To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,

When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;
But that our soft conditions* and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts ?

650

The same.

My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty:

To you, I am bound for life, and education;

My life and education, both do learn me

12-v. 2.

How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband; And so much duty as my mother show'd

To you, preferring you before her father,

*Gentle tempers.