Enter Arden and Fraknlin

      FRANKLIN

      Arden, cheer up thy spirits, and droop no more

      My gracious lord, the duke of somerset,

      Hath freely given to thee and to thy heirs,

      by letters patent from his majesty,

      All the lands of the abbey of feversham.

      Read them, and leave this melancholy mood.

      ARDEN

      Franklin, thy love prolongs my weary life;

      And but for thee how odious were this life,

      That shows me nothing but torments my soul,

      And those foul objects that offend mine eyes,

      Which makes me wish that for this vale of heaven

      The earth hung over my head and covered me.

      Love letters past twixt Mosbie and my wife,

      And they have privy meetings in the town:

      Nay, on his finger did I spy the ring

      Which at our marriage-day the priest put on.

      Can any grief be half so great as this?

      FRANKLIN

      Comfort thyself, sweet friend; it is not strange

      That women will be false and wavering.

      ARDEN

      Ay, but to dote on such a one as he

      Is monstrous, Franklin, and intolerable.

      FRANKLIN

      Why, what is he?

      ARDEN

      A botcher, and no better at the first;

      Who, by base brokage getting some small stock,

      Crept into service of a nobleman,

      And by his servile flattery and fawning

      Is now become the steward of his house,

      And bravely jets it in his silken gown.

      ARDEN

      Yes, the lord Clifford, he that loves not me,

      But through his favor let him not grow proud,

      For were he by the lord protector backed,

      He should not make me to be pointed at.

      I am by birth a gentlfr. s rival that attempts

      To violate my dear wife’s chastity

      (for dear I hold her love, as dear as heaven)

      Shall on the bed which he thinks to defile

      See his dissevered joints and sinews torn,

      Whilst on the planchers pants his weary body,

      Smeared in the channels of his lustful blood.

      FRANKLIN

      Be patient, gentle friend, and learn of me

      To ease thy grief and save her chastity:

      Intreat her fair; sweet words are fittest engines

      To race the flint walls of a woman’s breast.

      In any