Rho. Ask those, who have smelt to a strong perfume two years together, what’s the scent.

Pala. But here are good qualities enough for one woman.

Rho. Ay, too many, Palamede.  If I could put them into three or four women, I should be content.

Pala. O, now I have found it! you dislike her for no other reason but because she’s your wife.

Rho. And is not that enough?  All that I know of her perfections now, is only by memory.  I remember indeed, that about two years ago I loved her passionately; but those golden days are gone, Palamede:  Yet I loved her a whole half year, double the natural term of any mistress; and I think, in my conscience, I could have held out another quarter, but then the world began to laugh at me, and a certain shame, of being out of fashion, seized me.  At last, we arrived at that point, that there was nothing left in us to make us new to one another.  Yet still I set a good face upon the matter, and am infinite fond of her before company; but when we are alone, we walk like lions in a room; she one way, and I another.  And we lie with our backs to each other, so far distant, as if the fashion of great beds was only invented to keep husband and wife sufficiently asunder.

Pala. The truth is, your disease is very desperate; but, though you cannot be cured you may be patched up a little:  you must get you a mistress, Rhodophil.  That, indeed, is living upon cordials; but, as fast as one fails, you must supply it with another.  You’re like a gamester who has lost his estate; yet, in doing that, you have learned the advantages of play, and can arrive to live upon’t.

Rho. Truth is, I have been thinking on’t, and have just resolved to take your counsel; and, faith, considering the damned disadvantages of a married man, I have provided well enough, for a poor humble sinner, that is not ambitious of great matters.

Pala. What is she, for a woman?

Rho. One of the stars of Syracuse, I assure you:  Young enough, fair enough; and, but for one quality, just such a woman as I could wish.

Pala. O friend, this is not an age to be critical in beauty.  When we had good store of handsome women, and but few chapmen, you might have been more curious in your choice; but now the price is enhanced upon us, and all mankind set up for mistresses, so that poor little creatures, without beauty, birth, or breeding, but only impudence, go off at unreasonable rates:  And a man, in these hard times, snaps at them, as he does at broad gold; never examines the weight, but takes light or heavy, as he can get it.

Rho. But my mistress has one fault, that’s almost unpardonable; for, being a town-lady, without any relation to the court, yet she thinks herself undone if she be not seen there three or four times a day with the princess Amalthea.  And, for the king, she haunts and watches him so narrowly in a morning, that she prevents even the chemists, who beset his chamber, to turn their mercury into his gold.