unds, that my hot woes
(Vented enough) I might convert to vapour
Ascending from my infamie unseene;
Shorten the world, preventing the last breath 55
That kils the living, and regenerates death.

_Tam._ My lord, my fault (as you may censure it
With too strong arguments) is past your pardon.
But how the circumstances may excuse mee,
Heaven knowes, and your more temperate minde hereafter 60
May let my penitent miseries make you know.

_Mont._ Hereafter! tis a suppos'd infinite
That from this point will rise eternally.
Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue
Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities 65
Enrag'd with those winds that lesse lights extinguish.
Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks
Thy ruffin gally rig'd with quench for lust:
Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice
With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap 70
The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc'd;
That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe,
And quit his manhood with a womans sleight,
Who never is deceiv'd in her deceit.
Sing (that is, write); and then take from mine eyes 75
The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander
That ever lapt up an adulterous vomit,
That I may see the devill, and survive
To be a devill, and then learne to wive!
That I may hang him, and then cut him downe, 80
Then cut him up, and with my soules beams search
The cranks and cavernes of his braine, and study
The errant wildernesse of a womans face,
Where men cannot get out, for all the comets
That have beene lighted at it. Though they know 85
That adders lie a sunning in their smiles,
That basilisks drink their poyson from their eyes,
And no way there to coast out to their hearts,
Yet still they wander there, and are not stay'd
Till they be fetter'd, nor secure before 90
All cares devoure them, nor in humane consort
Till they embrace within their wives two breasts
All Pelion and Cythaeron with their beasts.--
Why write you not?

_Tam._ O, good my lord, forbeare
In wreak of great faults to engender greater, 95
And make my loves corruption generate murther.

_Mont._ It followes needfully as childe and parent;
The chaine-shot of thy lust is yet aloft,
And i