GRISELDA 115 



purpose. I know that you will give your friendship to no man 

 whom you cannot honour ; therefore I must praise myself. I 

 govern well : you have seen the proofs. Women smile in 

 Saluce, men walk upright in the streets, and children laugh in 

 our gutters, but at court my great lords are humble. I grant, 

 they tell you in a whisper I am mad. They believe it, partly 

 because my follies are not theirs, partly because from time to 

 time I have devised certain quaint punishments for rogues and 

 villains, whereby, let me say, the breed has been notably dis- 

 couraged. But these freaks would not scare you from my wine. 

 You would not refuse the hand I proffer, but for one sin which 

 you think stains it : you believe I wronged Griselda. 



Tanc. You are more hateful when you play the hypocrite 

 than when you are openly a fiend. 



Marq. You crow loud for a caged fowl. Some grain of the 

 fiend may lurk in me, but I am no hypocrite. To prove that 

 I am worth your friendship, I ask for no better evidence than 

 I can draw from Grisyld's story. 



Tanc. Will you slander her? I have seen her eyes and 

 yours. She is true. You are false. 



Marq. She is as true as the steel of my sword-blade, and my 

 flaws lie not where you find a blemish. You say you know by a 

 man's eyes when he speaks the truth. Look in mine, young sir. 

 What my reason has called right, I do, shall do, and have 

 done all my life. I own that a complete record of that life 

 would furnish matter for a quarto tome of acts, called sins by 

 priests and women ; but I have never done the deed nor said 

 the word I will not justify before a man. Show me base stuff 

 in me, and I'll not flinch before the knife. I will cut the rotten 

 matter out, though I bring life's root with it ; but cant me no 

 cant ; prate of no old customs such as cumber the world's 

 drudges like old fusty clothes. When have I been base ? 



Tanc. In your youth first. 



Marq. You mean that I drank hard and loved women. 

 Neither my palate nor my stomach were the worse ; and as for 

 the women, they liked it. 



Tanc. You spoilt a finer sense than taste. 



Marq. That finer sense was not so blunted as to let me buy 

 a court puppet for a wife. I loathed great ladies. Their 



