Bel. Pinanc. We thank you, sir.

La Ca. Your friends will have their share too.

Bel. Sir, we hope
They’ll look upon us, though we show like strangers.

Nant. Monsieur De Gard, I must salute you also,
And this fair gentlewoman: you are welcome from your travel too!
All welcome, all! [La Castre and Mirabel speak apart.

De Ga. We render you our loves, sir,
The best wealth we bring home. By your favours, beauties!—
One of these two. You know my meaning.

Ori. Well, sir;
They are fair and handsome, I must needs confess it,
And, let it prove the worst, I shall live after it:
Whilst I have meat and drink, love cannot starve me;
For, if I die o’ th’ first fit, I am unhappy,
And worthy to be buried with my heels upward.

Mir. To marry, sir?

La Ca. You know, I am an old man,
And every hour declining to my grave,
One foot already in; more sons I have not,
Nor more I dare not seek whilst you are worthy;
In you lies all my hope, and all my name,
The making good or wretched of my memory;
The safety of my state.

Mir. And you have provided,
Out of this tenderness, these handsome gentlewomen,
Daughters to this rich man, to take my choice of?

La Ca. I have, dear son.

Mir. ’Tis true, you are old, and feebled;
’Would you were young again, and in full vigour!
I love a bounteous father’s life, a long one;
I am none of those, that, when they shoot to ripeness,
Do what they can to break the boughs they grew on;
I wish you many years, and many riches,
And pleasures to enjoy ’em: But for marriage,
I neither yet believe in’t, nor affect it,
Nor think it fit.

La Ca. You’ll render me your reasons?

Mir. Yes, sir, both short and pithy, and these they are:
You would have me marry a maid?

La Ca. A maid? what else?

Mir. Yes, there be things called widows, dead men’s wills,
I never loved to prove those; nor never long’d yet
To be buried alive in another man’s cold monument.
And there be maids appearing, and maids being:
The appearing are fantastic things, mere shadows;
And, if you mark ’em well, they want their heads too;
Only the world, to cozen misty eyes,
Has clapt ’em on new faces. The maids being
A man may venture on, if he be so mad to marry,
If he have neither fear before his eyes, nor fortune;
And let him take heed how he gather these too;
For look you, father, they are just like melons,
Musk-melons are the emblems of these maids;
Now they are ripe, now cut ’em they taste pleasantly,
And are a dainty fruit, digested easily;
Neglect this present time, and come to-morrow,
They are so ripe, they are rotten—gone! their sweetness
Run into humour, and their taste to surfeit!

La Ca. Why, these are now ripe, son.

Mir. I’ll try them presently,
And, if I like their taste—

La Ca. ’Pray you please yourself, sir.

Mir. That liberty is my due, and I’ll maintain it.—
Lady, what think you of a handsome man now?