Ch. 767: SCENE VI. Athens. Before the prison

SCENE VI. Athens. Before the prison****

Enter Jailer’s Daughter alone.

DAUGHTER.

Let all the dukes and all the devils roar,

He is at liberty! I have ventured for him

And out I have brought him; to a little wood

A mile hence I have sent him, where a cedar

Higher than all the rest spreads like a plane

Fast by a brook, and there he shall keep close

Till I provide him files and food, for yet

His iron bracelets are not off. O Love,

What a stout-hearted child thou art! My father

Durst better have endured cold iron than done it.

I love him beyond love and beyond reason,

Or wit, or safety. I have made him know it;

I care not, I am desperate. If the law

Find me and then condemn me for ’t, some wenches,

Some honest-hearted maids, will sing my dirge

And tell to memory my death was noble,

Dying almost a martyr. That way he takes,

I purpose is my way too. Sure he cannot

Be so unmanly as to leave me here.

If he do, maids will not so easily

Trust men again. And yet he has not thanked me

For what I have done; no, not so much as kissed me,

And that, methinks, is not so well; nor scarcely

Could I persuade him to become a free man,

He made such scruples of the wrong he did

To me and to my father. Yet I hope,

When he considers more, this love of mine

Will take more root within him. Let him do

What he will with me, so he use me kindly;

For use me so he shall, or I’ll proclaim him,

And to his face, no man. I’ll presently

Provide him necessaries and pack my clothes up,

And where there is a path of ground I’ll venture,

So he be with me. By him, like a shadow

I’ll ever dwell. Within this hour the hubbub

Will be all o’er the prison. I am then

Kissing the man they look for. Farewell, father!

Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,

And shortly you may keep yourself. Now to him.

[_Exit. _]