Ovid monologue (Act 4) — The Poetaster

O stay, my love; the hopes thou dost conceive Of thy quick death, and of thy future life, Are not authentical. Thou choosest death, So thou might'st 'joy thy love in the other life: But know, my princely love, when thou art dead, Thou only must survive in perfect soul; And in the soul are no affections. We pour out our affections with our blood, And, with our blood's affections, fade our loves. No life hath love in such sweet state as this; No essence is so dear to moody sense As flesh and blood, whose quintessence is sense. Beauty, composed of blood and flesh, moves more, And is more plausible to blood and flesh, Than spiritual beauty can be to the spirit. Such apprehension as we have in dreams, When, sleep, the bond of senses, locks them up, Such shall we have, when death destroys them quite. If love be then thy object, change not life; Live high and happy still: I still below, Close with my fortunes, in thy height shall joy.