The Step-Mother: Act the Third: Scene I

PAM. Never did man experience greater ills,More miseries in love than I.--Distraction!Was it for this I held my life so dear?For this was I so anxious to return?Better, much better were it to have liv'dIn any place, than come to this again!To feel and know myself a wretch!--For whenMischance befalls us, all the intervalBetween its happening, and our knowledge of it,May be esteem'd clear gain.

PAR. But as it is,You'll sooner be deliver'd from your troubles:For had you not return'd, the breach between themHad been made wider. But now, Pamphilus,Both will, I doubt not, reverence your presence.You'll know the whole, make up their difference,And reconcile them to each other.--TheseAre all mere trifles, which you think so grievous.

PAM. Ah, why will you attempt to comfort me?Was ever such a wretch?--Before I married,My heart, you know, was wedded to another.--But I'll not dwell upon that misery,Which may he easily conceiv'd: and yetI had not courage to refuse the matchMy father forc'd upon me.--Scarcely wean'dFrom my old love, my lim'd soul scarcely freedFrom Bacchis, and devoted to my wife,Than, lo, a new calamity arises,Threatening to tear me from Philumena.For either I shall find my mother faulty,Or else my wife: In either case unhappy.For duty, Parmeno, obliges meTo bear with all the failings of a mother:And then I am so bounden to my wife,Who, calm as patience, bore the wrongs I did her,Nor ever murmur'd a complaint.--But sure'Twas somewhat very serious, Parmeno,That could occasion such a lasting quarrel.

PAR. Rather some trifle, if you knew the truth.The greatest quarrels do not always riseFrom deepest injuries. We often seeThat what would never move another's spleenRenders the choleric your worst of foes.Observe how lightly children squabble.--Why?Because they're govern'd by a feeble mind.Women, like children, too, are impotent,And weak of soul. A single word, perhaps,Has kindled all this enmity between them.PAM. Go, Parmeno, and let them know I'm come.

PAR. Ha! what's all this?

PAR. I perceive a bustle,And running to and fro.--Come this way, Sir!--To the door!--nearer still!--There, there, d'ye hear?

PAR. You talk yourself, and bid me hold my tongue.

MYRRHINA (within). Hush, my dear child, for Heaven's sake!

PAM. It seem'dThe voice of my wife's mother. I am ruin'd!

PAM. Ah, Parmeno,They hide some terrible misfortune from me!

PAR. They said your wife Philumena was ill:Whether 'tis that, I can not tell.

PAM. Death, Sirrah!Why did you not inform me that before?

PAR. Because I could not tell you all at once.

PAM. What's her disorder?

PAM. But tell me,Has she had no physician?

PAM. But why do I delay to enter straight,That I may learn the truth, be what it will?--Oh my Philumena, in what conditionShall I now find thee?--If there's danger of thee,My life's in danger too. (Exit.