Emp. Such virtue is the plague of human life;
A virtuous woman, but a cursed wife. 
In vain of pompous chastity you’re proud;
Virtue’s adultery of the tongue, when loud. 
I, with less pain, a prostitute could bear,
Than the shrill sound of—­“Virtue! virtue!” hear. 
In unchaste wives
There’s yet a kind of recompensing ease;
Vice keeps them humble, gives them care to please;
But against clamorous virtue, what defence? 
It stops our mouths, and gives your noise pretence.

Nour. Since virtue does your indignation raise,
’Tis pity but you had that wife you praise: 
Your own wild appetites are prone to range,
And then you tax our humours with your change.

Emp. What can be sweeter than our native home? 
Thither for ease and soft repose we come: 
Home is the sacred refuge of our life;
Secured from all approaches, but a wife. 
If thence we fly, the cause admits no doubt;
None but an inmate foe could force us out: 
Clamours our privacies uneasy make;
Birds leave their nests disturbed, and beasts their haunts forsake.

Nour. Honour’s my crime, that has your loathing bred; You take no pleasure in a virtuous bed.

Emp. What pleasure can there be in that estate,
Which your unquietness has made me hate? 
I shrink far off,
Dissembling sleep, but wakeful with the fright;
The day takes off the pleasure of the night.

Nour. My thoughts no other joys but power pursue;
Or, if they did, they must be lost in you. 
And yet the fault’s not mine,
Though youth and beauty cannot warmth command;
The sun in vain shines on the barren sand.

Emp. ’Tis true, of marriage-bands I’m weary grown;
Love scorns all ties, but those that are his own. 
Chains, that are dragged, must needs uneasy prove,
For there’s a godlike liberty in love.

Nour. What’s love to you? 
The bloom of beauty other years demands,
Nor will be gathered by such withered hands: 
You importune it with a false desire,
Which sparkles out, and makes no solid fire. 
This impudence of age, whence can it spring? 
All you expect, and yet you nothing bring: 
Eager to ask, when you are past a grant;
Nice in providing what you cannot want. 
Have conscience; give not her you love this pain;
Solicit not yourself and her in vain: 
All other debts may compensation find;
But love is strict, and will be paid in kind.

Emp. Sure, of all ills, domestic are the worst;
When most secure of blessings, we are curst. 
When we lay next us what we hold most dear,
Like Hercules, envenomed shirts we wear,
And cleaving mischiefs.

Nour. What you merit, have;
And share, at least, the miseries you gave. 
Your days I will alarm, I’ll haunt your nights. 
And, worse than age, disable your delights. 
May your sick fame still languish till it die,
All offices of power neglected lie,
And you grow cheap in every subject’s eye! 
Then, as the greatest curse that I can give,
Unpitied be deposed, and, after, live! [Going off.