Pha monologue (Act 4) — Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love

Faith, I cannot readily tell you what: but methinks I should wish myself all manner of creatures. Now I would be an empress, and by and by a duchess; then a great lady of state, then one of your miscellany madams, then a waiting-woman, then your citizen's wife, then a coarse country gentlewoman, then a dairy-maid, then a shepherd's lass, then an empress again, or the queen of fairies: and thus I would prove the vicissitudes and whirl of pleasures about and again. As I were a shepherdess, I would be piped and sung to; as a dairy-wench, I would dance at maypoles, and make syllabubs; as a country gentlewoman, keep a good house, and come up to term to see motions; as a citizen's wife, to be troubled with a jealous husband, and put to my shifts; others' miseries should be my pleasures. As a waiting-woman, I would taste my lady's delights to her; as a miscellany madam, invent new tires, and go visit courtiers; as a great lady, lie a-bed, and have courtiers visit me; as a duchess, I would keep my state; and as an empress, I would do any thing. And, in all these shapes, I would ever be follow'd with the affections of all that see me. Marry, I myself would affect none; or if I did, it should not be heartily, but so as I might save myself in them still, and take pride in tormenting the poor wretches. Or, now I think on't, I would, for one year, wish myself one woman; but the richest, fairest, and delicatest in a kingdom, the very centre of wealth and beauty, wherein all lines of love should meet; and in that person I would prove all manner of suitors, of all humours, and of all complexions, and never have any two of a sort. I would see how love, by the power of his object, could work inwardly alike, in a choleric man and a sanguine, in a melancholic and a phlegmatic, in a fool and a wise man, in a clown and a courtier, in a valiant man and a coward; and how he could vary outward, by letting this gallant express himself in dumb gaze; another with sighing and rubbing his fingers; a third with play-ends and pitiful verses; a fourth, with stabbing himself, and drinking healths, or writing languishing letters in his blood; a fifth, in colour'd ribands and good clothes; with this lord to smile, and that lord to court, and the t'other lord to dote, and one lord to hang himself. And, then, I to have a book made of all this, which I would call the "Book of Humours," and every night read a little piece ere I slept, and laugh at it.--Here comes Hedon.