SCENE I. The Danish Court.

[Enter Mariana and Marques Lubeck.]

LUBECK.
Lady,
Since that occasion, forward in our good,
Presenteth place and opportunity,
Let me intreat your woonted kind consent
And friendly furtherance in a suit I have.

MARIANA.
My Lord, you know you need not to intreat,
But may command Mariana to her power,
Be it no impeachment to my honest fame.

LUBECK.
Free are my thoughts from such base villainy
As may in question, Lady, call your name:
Yet is the matter of such consequence,
Standing upon my honorable credit,
To be effected with such zeal and secrecy
As, should I speak and fail my expectation,
It would redound greatly to my prejudice.

MARIANA.
My Lord, wherein hath Mariana given you
Occasion that you should mistrust, or else
Be jealous of my secrecy?

LUBECK.
Mariana, do not misconster of me:
I not mistrust thee, nor thy secrecy;
Nor let my love misconster my intent,
Nor think thereof but well and honorable.
Thus stands the case:
Thou knowest from England hether came with me
Robert of Windsor, a noble man at Arms,
Lusty and valiant, in spring time of his years:
No marvell then though he prove amorous.

MARIANA.
True, my Lord, he came to see fair Blanch.

LUBECK.
No, Mariana, that is not it. His love to Blanch
Was then extinct, when first he saw thy face.
'Tis thee he loves; yea, thou art only she
That is maistres and commander of his thoughts.

MARIANA.
Well, well, my Lord, I like you, for such drifts
Put silly Ladies often to their shifts.
Oft have I heard you say you loved me well,
Yea, sworn the same, and I believed you too.
Can this be found an action of good faith
Thus to dissemble where you found true love?

LUBECK.
Mariana, I not dissemble, on mine honour,
Nor fails my faith to thee. But for my friend,
For princely William, by whom thou shalt possess
The title of estate and Majesty,
Fitting thy love, and vertues of thy mind—
For him I speak, for him do I intreat,
And with thy favour fully do resign
To him the claim and interest of my love.
Sweet Mariana, then, deny me not:
Love William, love my friend, and honour me,
Who else is clean dishonored by thy means.

MARIANA.
Borne to mishap, my self am only she
On whom the Sun of Fortune never shined:
But Planets ruled by retrogard aspect
Foretold mine ill in my nativity.

LUBECK.
Sweet Lady, cease, let my intreaty serve
To pacify the passion of thy grief,
Which, well I know, proceeds of ardent love.

MARIANA.
But Lubeck now regards not Mariana.

LUBECK.
Even as my life, so love I Mariana.

MARIANA.
Why do you post me to another then?

LUBECK.
He is my friend, and I do love the man.

MARIANA.
Then will Duke William rob me of my Love?

LUBECK.
No, as his life Mariana he doth love.

MARIANA.
Speak for your self, my Lord, let him alone.

LUBECK.
So do I, Madam, for he and I am one.

MARIANA.
Then loving you I do content you both.

LUBECK.
In loveing him, you shall content us both:
Me, for I crave that favour at your hands,
He, for he hopes that comfort at your hands.

MARIANA.
Leave off, my Lord, here comes the Lady Blaunch.

[Enter Blaunch to them.]

LUBECK.
Hard hap to break us of our talk so soon!
Sweet Mariana, do remember me.

[Exit Lubeck.]

MARIANA.
Thy Mariana cannot chose but remember thee.

BLAUNCH.
Mariana, well met. You are very forward in your Love?

MARIANA.
Madam, be it in secret spoken to your self, if you will but
follow the complot I have invented, you will not think me
so forward as your self shall prove fortunate.

BLAUNCH.
As how?

MARIANA.
Madam, as thus: It is not unknowen to you that Sir Robert
of Windsor, a man that you do not little esteem, hath long
importuned me of Love; but rather then I will be found
false or unjust to the Marques Lubeck, I will, as did the
constant lady Penelope, undertake to effect some great
task.

BLAUNCH.
What of all this?

MARIANA.
The next time that Sir Robert shall come in his woonted
sort to solicit me with Love, I will seem to agree and like
of any thing that the Knight shall demaund, so far foorth
as it be no impeachment to my chastity: And, to conclude,
point some place for to meet the man, for my conveyance
from the Denmark Court: which determined upon, he will
appoint some certain time for our departure: whereof you
having intelligence, you may soon set down a plot to wear
the English Crown, and than—

BLANCH.
What then?

MARIANA.
If Sir Robert prove a King and you his Queen, how than?

BLANCH.
Were I assured of the one, as I am persuaded of the other,
there were some possibility in it. But here comes the man.

MARIANA.
Madam, begone, and you shall see I will work to your desire
and my content.

[Exit Blanch.]

WILLIAM CON.
Lady, this is well and happily met.
Fortune hetherto hath beene my foe,
And though I have oft sought to speak with you,
Yet still I have been crot with sinister happs.
I cannot, Madam, tell a loving tale
Or court my Maistres with fabulous discourses,
That am a souldier sworn to follow arms:
But this I bluntly let you understand,
I honor you with such religious Zeal
As may become an honorable mind.
Nor may I make my love the siege of Troy,
That am a stranger in this Country.
First, what I am I know you are resolved,
For that my friend hath let you that to understand,
The Marques Lubeck, to whom I am so bound
That whilest I live I count me only his.

MARIANA.
Surely you are beholding to the Marques,
For he hath been an earnest spokes-man in your cause.

WILLIAM.
And yields my Lady, then, at his request,
To grace Duke William with her gratious love?

MARIANA.
My Lord, I am a prisoner,
And hard it were to get me from the Court.

WILLIAM.
An easy matter to get you from the Court,
If case that you will thereto give consent.

MARIANA.
Put case I should, how would you use me than?

WILLIAM.
Not otherwise but well and honorably.
I have at Sea a ship that doth attend,
Which shall forthwith conduct us into England,
Where when we are, I straight will marry thee.
We may not stay deliberating long,
Least that suspicion, envious of our weal,
Set in a foot to hinder our pretence.

MARIANA.
But this I think were most convenient,
To mask my face, the better to scape unknowen.

WILLIAM.
A good devise: till then, Farwell, fair love.

MARIANA.
But this I must intreat your grace,
You would not seek by lust unlawfully
To wrong my chaste determinations.

WILLIAM.
I hold that man most shameless in his sin
That seeks to wrong an honest Ladies name
Whom he thinks worthy of his marriage bed.

MARIANA.
In hope your oath is true,
I leave your grace till the appointed time.

[Exit Mariana.]

WILLIAM.
O happy William, blessed in th love,
Most fortunate in Mariana's love!
Well, Lubeck, well, this courtesy of thine
I will requite, if God permit me life.

[Exit.]