ACT THE SECOND.

Scene I.
A hall in the house of Polemius.

Enter Claudius and Escarpin.

Claudius. 
Has he not returned?  Can no one
Guess in the remotest manner[8]
Where he is?

Escarpin. 
              Sir, since the day
That you left me with my master
In Diana’s grove, and I
Had with that divinest charmer
To leave him, no eye has seen him. 
Love alone knows how it mads me.

Claudius. 
Of your loyalty I doubt not.

Escarpin. 
Loyalty ’s a different matter,
’T is not wholly that.

Claudius. 
                        What then?

Escarpin. 
Dark suspicions, dismal fancies,
That perhaps to live with her
He lies hid within those gardens.

Claudius. 
If I could imagine that,
I, Escarpin, would be gladdened
Rather than depressed.

Escarpin. 
                        I ’m not:—­
I am filled, like a full barrel,
With depressions.

Claudius. 
                   And for what?

Escarpin. 
Certain wild chimeras haunt me,
Jealousy doth tear my heart,
And despairing love distracts me.

Claudius. 
You in love and jealous?

Escarpin. 
                          I
Jealous and in love.  Why marvel? 
Am I such a monster?

Claudius. 
                      What! 
With Daria?

Escarpin. 
             ’T is no matter
What her name is, or Daria
Or Maria, I would have her
Both subjective and subjunctive,
She verb passive, I verb active.

Claudius. 
You to love so rare a beauty?

Escarpin. 
Yes, her beauty, though uncommon,
Would lack something, if it had not
My devotion.

Claudius. 
              How? explain:—­

Escarpin. 
Well, I prove it in this manner:—­
Mr. Dullard fell in love
(I do n’t tell where all this happened,
Or the time, for of the Dullards
Every age and time give samples)
With a very lovely lady: 
At her coach-door as he chattered
One fine evening, he such nonsense
Talked, that one who heard his clatter,
Asked the lady in amazement
If this simpleton’s advances
Did not make her doubt her beauty?—­
But she quite gallantly answered,
Never until now have I
Felt so proud of my attractions,
For no beauty can be perfect
That all sorts of men do n’t flatter.

Claudius. 
What a feeble jest!

Escarpin. 
                     This feeble?—­

Claudius. 
Yes, the very type of flatness:—­
Cease buffooning, for my uncle
Here is coming.

Escarpin. 
                 Of his sadness
Plainly is his face the mirror.