The Jew of Malta.
And knowing me impatient in distresse
Thinke me so mad as I will hang my selfe,
That I may vanish ore the earth in ayre,
And leave no memory that e're I was.
No, I will live; nor loath I this my life:
And since you leave me in the Ocean thus
To sinke or swim, and put me to my shifts,
I'le rouse my senses, and awake my selfe.
Daughter, I have it: thou perceiv'st the plight
Wherein these Christians have oppressed me:
Be rul'd by me, for in extremitie
We ought to make barre of no policie.
Abig.
Father, what e're it be to injure them
That have so manifestly wronged us,
What will not Abigall attempt?
Bar.
Why so; then thus, thou toldst me they have turn'd my house
Into a Nunnery, and some Nuns are there.
Abig.
I did.
Bar.
Then Abigall, there must my girle
Intreat the Abbasse to be entertain'd.
Abig.
How, as a Nunne?
Bar.
I, Daughter, for Religion
Hides many mischiefes from suspition.
Abig.
I, but father they will suspect me there.
Bar.
Let 'em suspect, but be thou so precise
As they may thinke it done of Holinesse.
Intreat 'em faire, and give them friendly speech,
And seeme to them as if thy sinnes were great,
Till thou hast gotten to be entertain'd.
Abig.
Thus father shall I much dissemble.
Bar.
Tush, as good dissemble that thou never mean'st
As first meane truth, and then dissemble it,
A counterfet profession is better
Then unseene hypocrisie.
Abig.
Well father, say I be entertain'd,
What then shall follow?
Bar.
This shall follow then;
There
