Guy.  Fly, sir! while I give back that life you gave; Mine is well lost, if I your life can save.

[Montezuma fights off; Guyomar, making his retreat, stays.

Guy.  Tis more than man can do to scape them all; Stay, let me see where noblest I may fall.

[He runs at Vasquez, is seized behind and taken.

Vasq.  Conduct him off, And give command, he strictly guarded be.

Guy.  In vain are guards, death sets the valiant free.

[Exit Guyomar, with guards.

Vasq.  A glorious day! and bravely was it fought;
Great fame our general in great dangers sought;
From his strong arm I saw his rival run,
And, in a crowd, the unequal combat shun.

Enter Cortez leading Cydaria, who seems crying and begging of him.

Cort.  Man’s force is fruitless, and your gods would fail
To save the city, but your tears prevail;
I’ll of my fortune no advantage make,
Those terms, they had once given, they still may take.

Cyd.  Heaven has of right all victory designed, Where boundless power dwells in a will confined; Your Spanish honour does the world excel.

Cort.  Our greatest honour is in loving well.

Cyd.  Strange ways you practise there, to win a heart; Here love is nature, but with you ’tis art.

Cort.  Love is with us as natural as here,
But fettered up with customs more severe. 
In tedious courtship we declare our pain,
And, ere we kindness find, first meet disdain.

Cyd.  If women love, they needless pains endure; Their pride and folly but delay their cure.

Cort.  What you miscall their folly, is their care;
They know how fickle common lovers are: 
Their oaths and vows are cautiously believed,
For few there are but have been once deceived.

Cyd.  But if they are not trusted when they vow, What other marks of passion can they show?

Cort.  With feasts, and music, all that brings delight, Men treat their ears, their palates, and their sight.

Cyd.  Your gallants, sure, have little eloquence,
Failing to move the soul, they court the sense: 
With pomp, and trains, and in a crowd they woo,
When true felicity is but in two;
But can such toys your women’s passions move? 
This is but noise and tumult, ’tis not love.

Cort.  I have no reason, madam, to excuse
Those ways of gallantry, I did not use;
My love was true, and on a nobler score.

Cyd.  Your love, alas! then have you loved before?

Cort.  ’Tis true I loved, but she is dead, she’s dead;
And I should think with her all beauty fled,
Did not her fair resemblance live in you,
And, by that image, my first flames renew.