Page:Hero and Leander - Marlowe and Chapman (1821).pdf/97

Then shall you most resemble Venus' nun,
When Venus' sweet rites are perform'd and done.
Flint-breasted Pallas joys in single life,
But Pallas and your mistress are at strife.
Love, Hero, then, and be not tyrannous;
But heal the heart that thou hast wounded thus;
Nor stain thy youthful years with avarice:
Fair fools delight to be accounted nice.
The richest corn dies, if it be not reap'd;
Beauty alone is lost, too warily kept."
These arguments he us'd, and many more;
Wherewith she yielded, that was won before.
Hero's looks yielded, but her words made war;
Women are won when they begin to jar.
Thus having swallow'd Cupid's golden hook,
The more she striv'd, the deeper was she strook.
Yet evilly feigning anger, strove she still,
And would be thought to grant against her will.
So having paus'd awhile, at last she said,
"Who taught thee rhetoric to deceive a maid?
Ah me! such words as these should I abhor,
And yet I like them for the orator."
With that Leander stoop'd, to have embrac'd her,
But from his spreading arms away she cast her,