Digital Renaissance Editions

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  • Title: Fair Em (Modern)
  • Editor: Brett Greatley-Hirsch
  • ISBN:

    Copyright Digital Renaissance Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: Anonymous
    Editor: Brett Greatley-Hirsch
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Fair Em (Modern)

    812.1[Scene 9]
    Enter Valingford and Mountney at two sundry doors, looking angrily each on [the] other, with rapiers drawn.
    Mountney
    815Valingford, so hardly I digest
    An injury thou hast profferèd me,
    As were it not that I detest to do
    What stands not with the honour of my name,
    Thy death should pay thy ransom of thy fault.
    Valingford
    And Mountney, had not my revenging wrath,
    820Incensed with more than ordinary love,
    Been such for to deprive thee of thy life,
    Thou hadst not lived to brave me as thou dost.
    Wretch as thou art,
    Wherein hath Valingford offended thee?
    That honourable bond which late we did
    Confirm 825in presence of the gods,
    When with the Conqueror we arrivèd here,
    For my part hath been kept inviolably,
    Till now, too much abused by thy villainy,
    I am enforced to cancel all those bands
    830By hating him which I so well did love.
    Mountney
    Subtle thou art, and cunning in thy fraud,
    That giving me occasion of offence,
    Thou pick始st a quarrel to excuse thy shame.
    Why, Valingford, was it not enough for thee
    835To be a rival 始twixt me and my love,
    But counsel her, to my no small disgrace,
    That when I came to talk with her of love
    She should seem deaf, as feigning not to hear?
    Valingford
    But hath she, Mountney, used thee as thou say始st?
    Mountney
    840Thou know始st too well she hath, wherein
    Thou couldst not do me greater injury.
    Valingford
    Then I perceive we are deluded both.
    For when I offered many gifts
    Of gold and jewels to entreat for love,
    She hath refused them with a coy disdain,
    845Alleging that she could not see the sun.
    The same conjectured I to be thy drift,
    That feigning so she might be rid of me.
    Mountney
    The like did I by thee. But are not these
    Natural impediments?
    Valingford
    In my conjecture merely counterfeit.
    850Therefore let始s join hands in friendship once again,
    Since that the jar grew only by conjecture.
    Mountney
    With all my heart. Yet let始s try the truth hereof.
    Valingford
    With right good will. We will straight unto her father,
    And there to learn whether it be so or no.
    Exeunt.