His Life and Genius 171 



But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

 And wherefore say not I that I am old ? 

 O, love's best habit is in seeming trust 

 And age in love loves not to have years told. 



He is content, therefore, so she will not forsake 

 her poor Will, that they should live in mutual 

 deception, lying to one another, she to him in 

 swearing that she loves him, he to her in befool- 

 ing himself to believe her assurances when he is 

 sure they are lies — 



Therefore I lie with her and she with me, 

 And in our faults by lies we flattered be. 



Herein doubtless much customary poetic exaggera- 

 tion, but not therefore without any foundation in 

 fact, seeing that such things have been and are, 

 however sad to see : it is no strange thing for the 

 depraved appetite to feed gladly on that which 

 nurses the disease. * 



Meanwhile he implores her not to wound him 

 with her cunning, to forbear darting love-glances 

 aside in his sight, not to press him too hard with 

 her disdain by open show of preference for an- 

 other, but rather to pretend that she loves him, 



* If she were the lady whom conjecture has perhaps identified, 

 her free love certainly merited what might well have been the 

 description of her in Love's Labour 's Lost. — 



A wightly woman with a velvet brow, 

 With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes ; 

 Ay, and by heaven one that would do the deed 

 Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard. 



