The Two Noble Kinsmen 11

³DaughterLet all the dukes and all the devils roar,
He is at liberty: I’ve ventur’d for him;
And out I’ve brought him to a little wood
A mile hence: I have sent him, where a cedar,
Higher than all the rest, spreads like a plane,
Fast by a brook; and there he shall keep close,
Till I provide him files and food; for yet
His iron bracelets are not off. O Love,
What a stout-hearted child thou art! My father
Durst better have endur’d cold iron than done it.
I love him beyond love and beyond reason,
Or wit, or safety; I have made him know it:
I care not: I am desperate; if the law
Find me, and then condemn me for’t, some wenches,
Some honest-hearted maids, will sing my dirge,
And tell to memory my death was noble,
Dying almost a martyr. That way he takes,
I purpose is my way too: sure he cannot
Be so unmanly as to leave me here:
If he do, maids will not so easily
Trust men again: and yet he has not thank’d me
For what I’ve done; no, not so much as kiss’d me;
And that, methinks, is not so well; nor scarcely
Could I persuade him to become a freeman,
He made such scruples of the wrong he did
To me and to my father. Yet, I hope,
When he considers more, this love of mine
Will take more root within him: let him do
What he will with me, so he use me kindly;
For use me so he shall, or I’ll proclaim him,
And to his face, no man. I’ll presently
Provide him necessaries, and pack my clothes up,
And where there is a patch of ground I’ll venture,
So he be with me: by him, like a shadow,
I’ll ever dwell. Within this hour the whoobub
Will be all o’er the prison: I am then
Kissing the man they look for. Farewell, father!
Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
And shortly you may keep yourself. Now to him! Exit.