Congreve's Comedy of Manners. William Congreve
Oh, Lord, I at midnight practices!
Angelica
Yes. I saw you two together through the keyhole one night, like Satan and the Witch of Endor pricking your thumbs to write poor innocents’ names in blood.
Foresight
I defy you, hussy.
Angelica
I know something worse, if I would speak of it.
Foresight
I’ll remember this; I’ll be revenged on you, cockatrice; I’ll hamper you. You have your fortune in your own hands, but—
Angelica
Will you? All shall out then. Look to it, Nanny. I can bear witness that you have a great unnatural teat under your left arm and he another, and that you suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby cat, by turns—I can.
Foresight
A teat. A teat. I, an unnatural teat! Oh, false slanderous thing.
Servant (pushing her bust out)
Feel, feel here if I have anything but what is like any other Christian.
Foresight
I will have patience. It is in my stars that I should be thus tormented. This is the effect of the malicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I’ll punish you. I’ll have my doors locked up. Not one man, not one gallant shall enter my house. Consider that, hussy.
Angelica
Do, Uncle, do. Lock ’em up quickly before my Aunt comes home. You’ll have a letter for alimony tomorrow morning. But let me begone first, and then let no man come near this house but he who converses with spirits and the celestial signs, the bull, and the ram, and the goat. Bless me! There are a great many horned beasts among the twelve signs. But patient cuckolds, they say, go to heaven.
Foresight
There’s but one virgin among the twelve signs, spitfire, but one virgin.
Angelica
No doubt she had an astrologer husband. That is what makes my Aunt go abroad.
Foresight
How? How? Is that the reason? Come, you know something. Tell me, and I’ll forgive you. Do, good Niece. Come, you shall have my coach and horses. Does my wife complain? I know women tell one another—she has a wanton eye and was born under Gemini, which may incline her to—incline; she has a mole upon her lip and a moist palm, and an open liberality on the mount of Venus—
Angelica
Ha, ha, ha.
Foresight
Don’t perplex your poor Uncle. Tell me. Won’t you speak?
Angelica
Goodbye, Uncle. Ha, ha, ha. I’ll find out my Aunt and tell her she must not come home.
(Enter Valentine, a magnificent Chevalier, who bows deeply to Angelica.)
Angelica
Ah, Valentine, you here?
Foresight
Ha, your gallant has arrived. We’ll speak of this another time, Niece. Come, Nurse.
(Foresight and Nurse go out.)
Angelica
Valentine, did you take exception last night? Oh, aye—and went away. Now I think on it, I am angry. No, now I think on it, I am pleased, for I believe I gave you some pain.
Valentine
Does that please you?
Angelica
Infinitely! I love to give pain.
Valentine
Do not affect cruelty. Your true nature is the power of pleasing.
Angelica
Oh, I ask your pardon for that. One’s cruelty is one’s power, and when one parts with one’s cruelty, one parts with one’s power and when one parts with that, I fancy one’s old and ugly.
Valentine
To be sure, sacrifice your lover to your cruelty. But I’ll tell you a secret: beauty is a lover’s gift, it is a reflection of a lover’s praise, not a woman’s face.
Angelica
By which you prove that if I give up my lover, I give up my beauty? Vain man. You would never have loved me if I were not handsome. Why, one makes lovers as fast as one pleases and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases, and if one pleases one makes more.
Valentine
Very pretty.
Angelica
I’d as soon owe my beauty to a lover as my wit to an echo.
Valentine
Ah, but you do.
Angelica
How so?
Valentine
To your lover, you owe the pleasure of hearing yourself praised, and to an echo, the pleasure of hearing yourself talk.
Angelica
Fah! I’m going out.
Valentine
I would beg a little private audience. You had the tyranny to deny me last night, though I came to impart a secret that concerned our love.
Angelica
You saw I was engaged.
Valentine
You had the leisure to entertain a herd of fools. How can you delight in such society?
Angelica
I please myself—besides, I do it for my health.
Valentine
Your health!
Angelica
Yes. It prevents the vapors. If you persist in this offensive freedom, you’ll displease me. I think I must resolve, after all, not to have you. We shan’t agree.
Valentine
Not as regards medicinal matters.
Angelica
And yet, our distemper shall be the same, for we shall be sick of one another. I shan’t endure to be reprimanded, nor instructed; ’tis so tedious to be told one’s faults. I can’t bear it. Well, I won’t have you, Valentine. I’m resolved. (hesitating) I think— You may go. (bursts out laughing) Ha, ha, ha. (Valentine shows signs of being thoroughly vexed) (good-naturedly, almost mischievously) What would you give that you could help loving me?
Valentine (furious)
I would give something if you did not know I cannot help it!
Angelica
Come, don’t look so grave then—it’s a sure sign.
Valentine
A man may as soon make a friend with his wit or a fortune by his honesty as win a woman with sincerity!
Angelica
Sententious Valentine! Prithee, don’t look so wise and violent—like Solomon at the dividing of the child.
Valentine (controlling himself)
You are a merry madame, but I would persuade you to be serious for a moment.
Angelica
What, with that face? No, if you keep your countenance it is impossible I should keep mine. (musing) Well, after all, there is something very moving in a lovesick face. Ha, ha, ha. Well,