Gui. The reason’s plain. 
Hot with my friends, because, the question given,
I start the judgment right, where others drag. 
This is the effect of equal elements,
And atoms justly poised; nor should you wonder
More at the strength of body than of mind;
’Tis equally the same to see me plunge
Headlong into the Seine, all over armed,
And plow against the torrent to my point,
As ’twas to hear my judgment on the Germans,
This to another man would be a brag;
Or at the court among my enemies,
To be, as I am here, quite off my guard,
Would make me such another thing as Grillon,
A blunt, hot, honest, downright, valiant fool.

May. Yet this you must allow a failure in you,—­ You love his niece; and to a politician All passion’s bane, but love directly death.

Gui. False, false, my Mayenne; thou’rt but half Guise again. 
Were she not such a wond’rous composition,
A soul, so flushed as mine is with ambition,
Sagacious and so nice, must have disdained her: 
But she was made when nature was in humour,
As if a Grillon got her on the queen,
Where all the honest atoms fought their way,
Took a full tincture of the mother’s wit,
But left the dregs of wickedness behind.

May. Have you not told her what we have in hand?

Gui. My utmost aim has been to hide it from her,
But there I’m short; by the long chain of causes
She has scanned it, just as if she were my soul;
And though I flew about with circumstances. 
Denials, oaths, improbabilities;
Yet, through the histories of our lives, she looked,
She saw, she overcame.

May. Why then, we’re all undone.

Gui. Again you err. 
Chaste as she is, she would as soon give up
Her honour, as betray me to the king: 
I tell thee, she’s the character of heaven;
Such an habitual over-womanly goodness,
She dazzles, walks mere angel upon earth. 
But see, she comes; call the cardinal Guise,
While Malicorn attends for some dispatches,
Before I take my farewell of the court. [Exit MAY.

  Enter MARMOUTIERE.

Mar. Ah Guise, you are undone!

Gui. How, madam?

Mar. Lost,
Beyond the possibility of hope: 
Despair, and die.

Gui. You menace deeply, madam:  And should this come from any mouth but yours, My smile should answer how the ruin touched me.

Mar. Why do you leave the court?

Gui. The court leaves me.

Mar. Were there no more, but weariness of state,
Or could you, like great Scipio, retire,
Call Rome ungrateful, and sit down with that;
Such inward gallantry would gain you more
Than all the sullied conquests you can boast: 
But oh, you want that Roman mastery;
You have too much of the tumultuous times,
And I must mourn the fate of your ambition.