Enter MARIAN alone, chafing.

MAR.  My heart still pants within; I am so chaf’d! 
The rascal slave, my man, that sneaking rogue,
Had like to have undone us all for ever! 
My cousin Musgrave is with Honorea,
Set in an arbour in the summer-garden;
And he, forsooth, must needs go in for herbs,
And told me further, that his master bad him: 
But I laid hold upon my younker’s pate,
And made the blood run down about his ears. 
I trow, he shall ask me leave ere he go. 
Now is my cousin master of his love,
The lady at one time reveng’d and pleas’d. 
So speed they all that marry maids perforce!

    Enter CASTILIANO.

But here my husband comes.

CAS.  What, dame, alone?

MAR.  Yes, sir, this once—­for want of company.

CAS.  Why, where’s my lady and my cousin Musgrave?

MAR.  You may go look them both for aught I know.

CAS.  What, are you angry, dame?

MAR.  Yea, so it seems.

CAS.  What is the cause, I prythee?

MAR.  Why would you know?

CAS.  That I might ease it, if it lay in me.

MAR.  O, but it belongs not to your trade.

CAS.  You know not that.

MAR.  I know you love to prate, and so I leave you.
                                    [Exit MARIAN.

CAS.  Well, go thy way:  oft have I raked hell
To get a wife, yet never found her like. 
Why this it is to marry with a shrew. 
Yet if it be, as I presume it is,
There’s but one thing offends both her and me;
And I am glad, if that be it offends her. 
’Tis so, no doubt; I read it in her brow. 
Lord Lacy shall with all my heart enjoy
Fair Honorea:  Marian is mine;
Who, though she be a shrew, yet is she honest. 
So is not Honorea, for even now,
Walking within my garden all alone,
She came with Musgrave, stealing closely by,
And follows him, that seeks to fly from her. 
I spied this all unseen, and left them there. 
But sure my dame hath some conceit thereof,
And therefore she is thus angry, honest soul! 
Well, I’ll straight hence unto my Lord of Kent,
And warn him watch his wife from these close meetings. 
Well, Marian, thou liv’st yet free from blame. 
Let ladies go; thou art the devil’s dame.
                                    [Exit CASTILIANO.

Enter the DEVIL, like MUSGRAVE, with HONOREA.

MUS.  No, lady; let thy modest, virtuous life
Be always joined with thy comely shape,
For lust eclipseth nature’s ornament.

HON.  Young heady boy, think’st thou thou shalt recall
Thy long-made love, which thou so oft hast sworn,
Making my maiden thoughts to doat on thee?

MUS.  With patience hear me, and, if what I say
Shall jump with reason,[456] then you’ll pardon me. 
The time hath been when my soul’s liberty
Vow’d servitude unto that heavenly face,
Whilst both had equal liberty of choice;
But since the holy bond of marriage
Hath left me single, you a wedded wife,
Let me not be the third unlawfully
To do Earl Lacy so foul injury. 
But now at last—­