to seek where to begin a quarrel:
You seem the little Cupids in the song,
Contending for the honey-bag.

_Hip_. 'Tis well
You're come; you may prevent a greater mischief:
Here 'tis Gonsalvo has appointed Roderick--

_Man_.To fight?

_Hip_. What's worse: to give your sister to him.
Won by her tears, he means to leave her free,
And to redeem her misery with his:
At least so I conjecture.

_Man_. 'Tis a doubtful
Problem; either he loves her violently,
Or not at all.

_Amid_. You have betrayed my master:--

[_To_ HIPPOLITO. _Aside_.

_Hip_. If I have injured you, I mean to give you
The satisfaction of a gentlewoman.

_Enter_ GONSALVO _and_ JULIA.

_Man_. Oh, they are here; now I shall be resolved.

_Jul_. My brother Manuel! what fortune's this!

_Man_. I'm glad I have prevented you.

_Gons_. With what
Variety my fate torments me still!
Never was man so dragged along by virtue;
But I must follow her.

_Jul_. Noble Gonsalvo,
Protect me from my brother.

_Gons_. Tell me, sir,
When you bestowed your sister on me, did not
You give her freely up to my dispose?

_Man_. 'Tis true, I did; but never with intent
You should restore her to my enemy.

_Gons_. 'Tis past; 'tis done: She undermined my soul
With tears; as banks are sapped away by streams.

_Man_. I wonder what strange blessing she expects
From the harsh nature of this Rodorick;
A man made up of malice and revenge.

_Jul_. If I possess him, I may be unhappy;
But if I lose him, I am surely so.
Had you a friend so desperately sick,
That all physicians had forsook his cure;
All scorched without, and all parched up within,
The moisture that maintained consuming nature
Licked up, and in a fever fried away;
Could you behold him beg, with dying eyes,
A glass of water, and refuse it him,
Because you knew it ill for his disease?
When he would die without it, how could you
Deny to make his death more easy to him?

_Man_. Talk not to me of love, when honour suffers.
The boys will hiss at me.

_Gons_. I suffer most:
Had there been 'choice, what would I not have chose?
To save my honour I my love must lose:
But promises, once made, are past debate,
And truth's of more necessity than fate.

_Man_. I scarce can think your promise absolute;
There might some way be thought on, if you would,
To keep both her and it.

_Gons_. No, no; my promise was no trick of state:
I meant to be made truly wretched first,
And then to die; and I'll perform them bo