Enter Aurelia, Phœnixella.
Aur.
Room for a case of matrons, colour'd
black;
How motherly my mother's death hath made us!
I would I had some girls now to bring up;
O I could make a wench so virtuous,
She should say grace to every bit of meat,
And gape no wider than a wafer's thick-ness;
And she should make French curt'sies so
most low,
That every touch should turn her over backward.
Phœn.
Sister, these words become not
your attire,
Nor your estate; our virtuous mother's death <!-- wrapped over thus: [death -->
Should print more deep effects of sorrow in
us,
Than may be worn out in so little time.
Aur.
Sister, i' faith you take too much tobacco,
It makes you black within, as y' are without.
What true-stitch sister, both your sides
alike!
Be of a slighter work; for of my word,
You shall be sold as dear, or rather dearer.
Will you be bound to customs and to rites,
Shed profitable tears, weep for advantage,
Or else do all things as you are inclin'd?
Eat when your stomach serves (saith the
physician)
Not at eleven and six. So, if your humour
Be now affected with this heaviness,
1 Give it the reins, and spare not, as I do
In this my pleasurable appetite.
It is precisianism to alter that
With austere judgment, that is given by na-
ture.
I wept, you saw too, when my mother dy'd;
For then I found it easier to do so,
And fitter with my mode, than not to weep.
But now 'tis otherwise; another time
Perhaps I shall have such deep thoughts of
her,
That I shall weep afresh some twelve month hence; <!-- wrapped over thus: [hence; -->
And I will weep, if I be so dispos'd,
And put on black as grimly then as now.
Let the mind go still with the body's stature,
Judgment is fit for judges, give me nature.
1Give ME the reins, and spare not, as I do.] She is saying, it is best to follow one's humour, and not to check it by art and rule: and she means, that if Phœnixella is really afflicted, she should indulge her heaviness, as long as her nature prompted her so to do; and this sense leads us to read it, instead of me.
Give it the reins — that is, the heaviness you are now affected with.