FUL.  Unless report be false, they are link’d already;
They are fast as words can tie them:  I will tell thee
How I, by chance, did meet him the last night:—­
One said to me this Arthur did intend
To have a wife, and presently to marry. 
Amidst the street, I met him as my friend,
And to his love a present he did carry;
It was some ring, some stomacher, or toy;
I spake to him, and bad God give him joy. 
God give me joy, quoth he; of what, I pray? 
Marry, quoth I, your wedding that is toward. 
’Tis false, quoth he, and would have gone his way. 
Come, come, quoth I, so near it and so froward: 
I urg’d him hard by our familiar loves,
Pray’d him withal not to forget my gloves. 
Then he began:—­Your kindness hath been great,
Your courtesy great, and your love not common;
Yet so much favour pray let me entreat,
To be excus’d from marrying any woman. 
I knew the wench that is become his bride,
And smil’d to think how deeply he had lied;
For first he swore he did not court a maid;
A wife he could not, she was elsewhere tied;
And as for such as widows were, he said,
And deeply swore none such should be his bride: 
Widow, nor wife, nor maid—­I ask’d no more,
Knowing he was betroth’d unto a whore.

ANS.  Is it not Mistress Mary that you mean? 
She that did dine with us at Arthur’s house?

    Enter MISTRESS ARTHUR.

FUL.  The same, the same:—­here comes the gentlewoman;
O Mistress Arthur, I am of your counsel: 
Welcome from death to life!

ANS.  Mistress, this gentleman hath news to tell ye,
And as you like of it, so think of me.

FUL.  Your husband hath already got a wife;
A huffing wench, i’ faith, whose ruffling silks
Make with their motion music unto love,
And you are quite forgotten.

ANS.  I have sworn
To move this my unchaste demand no more. [Aside.]

FUL.  When doth your colour change?  When do your eyes
Sparkle with fire to revenge these wrongs? 
When doth your tongue break into rage and wrath,
Against that scum of manhood, your vile husband?’
He first misus’d you.

ANS.  And yet can you love him?

FUL.  He left your chaste bed, to defile the bed
Of sacred marriage with a courtesan.

ANS.  Yet can you love him?

FUL.  And, not content with this,
Abus’d your honest name with sland’rous words,
And fill’d your hush’d house with unquietness.

ANS.  And can you love him yet?

FUL.  Nay, did he not
With his rude fingers dash you on the face,
And double-dye your coral lips with blood? 
Hath he not torn those gold wires from your head,
Wherewith Apollo would have strung his harp,
And kept them to play music to the gods? 
Hath he not beat you, and with his rude fists
Upon that crimson temperature of your cheeks
Laid a lead colour with his boist’rous blows?