SCENE VI. Athens. Before the prison

Enter Jailer’s Daughter alone.

DAUGHTER. Let all the dukes and all the devils roar, He is at liberty! I have ventured for him And out I have 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 endured 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 thanked me For what I have done; no, not so much as kissed me, And that, methinks, is not so well; nor scarcely Could I persuade him to become a free man, 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 path of ground I’ll venture, So he be with me. By him, like a shadow I’ll ever dwell. Within this hour the hubbub 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. ]