BAR.  But can they love one another so soon?

ILF.  O, it is no matter nowadays for love; ’tis well, and they can but make shift to lie together.

WEN.  But will your father do this too, if he know the gallant breathes himself at some two or three bawdy-houses in a morning?

ILF.  O, the sooner; for that and the land together tell the old lad, he will know the better how to deal with his daughter.  The wise and ancient fathers know this rule, Should both wed maids, the child would be a fool.  Come, wag, if thou hast gone no further than into the ordinary fashion—­ meet, see, and kiss—­give over; marry not a wife, to have a hundred plagues for one pleasure:  let’s to London, there’s variety:  and change of pasture makes fat calves.

SCAR.  But change of women bald knaves, sir knight.

ILF.  Wag, and thou beest a lover but three days, thou wilt be heartless, sleepless, witless, mad, wretched, miserable, and indeed a stark fool; and by that thou hast been married but three weeks, though thou shouldst wed a Cynthia rara avis, thou wouldst be a man monstrous—­a cuckold, a cuckold.

BAR.  And why is a cuckold monstrous, knight?

ILF.  Why, because a man is made a beast by being married.  Take but example thyself from the moon:  as soon as she is delivered of her great belly, doth she not point at the world with a pair of horns, as who would say:  Married men, ye are cuckolds.

SCAR.  I construe more divinely of their sex:  Being maids, methinks they are angels; and being wives, They are sovereign cordials that preserve our lives,[339] They are like our hands that feed us; this is clear, They renew man, as spring renews the year.

ILF.  There’s ne’er a wanton wench that hears thee, but thinks thee a coxcomb for saying so:  marry none of them; if thou wilt have their true characters, I’ll give it thee.  Women are the purgatory of men’s purses, the paradise of their bodies, and the hell of their minds; marry none of them.  Women[340] are in churches saints, abroad angels, at home devils.  Here are married men enough know this:  marry none of them.

SCAR.  Men that traduce by custom, show sharp wit
Only in speaking ill; and practice it
Against the best creatures, divine women,
Who are God’s agents’ here, and the heavenly eye,
By which this orb hath her maturity: 
Beauty in women gets the world with child,
Without whom she were barren, faint and wild. 
They are the stems on which do angels grow,
From whence virtue is still’d, and arts do flow.

    Enter SIR JOHN HARCOP and his daughter CLARE.

ILF.  Let them be what flowers they will; and they were roses, I will pluck none of them for pricking my fingers.  But soft, here comes a voider for us:  and I see, do what I can, as long as the world lasts, there will be cuckolds in it.  Do you hear, child, here’s one come to blend you together:  he has brought you a kneading-tub, if thou dost take her at his hands.  Though thou hadst Argus’ eyes, be sure of this, Women have sworn with more than one to kiss.