Scene XV.

Love for Love

by William Congreve

MRS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, and
JEREMY.

SCANDAL
And have you given your master a hint of their plot
upon him? [To JEREMY.]

JEREMY
Yes, sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her
for Angelica.

SCANDAL
It may make us sport.

FORESIGHT
Mercy on us!

VALENTINE
Husht--interrupt me not--I'll whisper prediction
to thee, and thou shalt prophesy. I am Truth, and can teach thy
tongue a new trick. I have told thee what's past,--now I'll tell
what's to come. Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow?--Answer me
not--for I will tell thee. To-morrow, knaves will thrive through
craft, and fools through fortune, and honesty will go as it did,
frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning
to-morrow.

SCANDAL
Ask him, Mr Foresight.

FORESIGHT
Pray what will be done at court?

VALENTINE
Scandal will tell you. I am Truth; I never come
there.

FORESIGHT
In the city?

VALENTINE
Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the
usual hours. Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as
if religion were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go
methodically in the city: the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and
the horned herd buzz in the exchange at two. Wives and husbands will
drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the
family. Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the
cropt prentice, that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may ten
to one dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things that
you will see very strange: which are wanton wives with their legs at
liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But hold,
I must examine you before I go further. You look suspiciously. Are
you a husband?

FORESIGHT
I am married.

VALENTINE
Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden
parish?

FORESIGHT
No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

VALENTINE
Alas, poor man; his eyes are sunk, and his hands
shrivelled; his legs dwindled, and his back bowed: pray, pray, for a
metamorphosis. Change thy shape and shake off age; get thee Medea's
kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, a
chine of steel, and Atlas shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the calves
of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect upon, and
look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man should have a
stomach to a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought rather to be laid
to his feet, ha, ha, ha!

FORESIGHT
His frenzy is very high now, Mr Scandal.

SCANDAL
I believe it is a spring tide.

FORESIGHT
Very likely, truly. You understand these matters.
Mr Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these
things which he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and
hieroglyphical.

VALENTINE
Oh, why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so
long?

JEREMY
She's here, sir.

MRS FORESIGHT
Now, sister.

MRS FRAIL
O Lord, what must I say?

SCANDAL
Humour him, madam, by all means.

VALENTINE
Where is she? Oh, I see her--she comes, like
riches, health, and liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and
abandoned wretch. Oh, welcome, welcome.

MRS FRAIL
How d'ye, sir? Can I serve you?

VALENTINE
Harkee; I have a secret to tell you: Endymion and
the moon shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the
dead of night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a
dark lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock
poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail, and Argus's hundred
eyes be shut, ha! Nobody shall know but Jeremy.

MRS FRAIL
No, no, we'll keep it secret, it shall be done
presently.

VALENTINE
The sooner the better. Jeremy, come
hither--closer--that none may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you
news: Angelica is turned nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll
marry one another in spite of the pope. Get me a cowl and beads,
that I may play my part,--for she'll meet me two hours hence in black
and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one
another's faces, till we have done something to be ashamed of; and
then we'll blush once for all.