Then how many raptures does he talk a day? is he transported
with poetic rage? / When was he styled Imperial Wit? Who are / the prince Electors in his
monarchy? / Can he like Celtic Hercules, with chains / of his divine tongue draw the
gallant tribe / through every street, whilst the grave senator / points at him as he walks
in triumph, and /doth wish with half his wealth he might be young, / to spend it all
in sack, to hear him talk / eternal sonnets to his mistress? ha? who loves not verse is damn’d.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

the midwife wrapped my head in a sheet of Sr Phillip Sidney that inspir'd me, and my nurse
descended from old Chaucer
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

A. You should do well to furnish him with and oration; a spoonful of Aganippe's well, and a little of your salt, would season, if not pickle him.
By Goldsworth, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

noise empty of all reality and worth.
By Chrisolina, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

There's so much sweetness in her, such a troop / of graces waiting on her words and actions,/ I am divided; / and like the trembling needle of a dial, / my hearts afraid to fix, in such a plenty / I have no star to sail by.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Fond men! prove it in me, thou quiverd boy, / that love with equal flame two mistresses, / I will believe thee a god, and kiss thy dart, / furnish my bosom with another heart
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (1.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Act 2
I hope you have made no verses on my hair, Acrostics on her name
By Eugenia, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

All other women / are but like pictures in a gallery / set off to the eye, and have no excellency/
but in their distance; but these two, far off /shall tempt thee to just wonder, and drawn
near / can satisfy thy narrowest curiosity: / the stock of a woman hath not two more left to
rival them in graces
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Hast thou not seen the woodbine / that honey-dropping tree, and the loved briar, / Embrace
with their chaste boughs, twisting themselves, / and weaving a green net to catch the birds /
till it do seem one body, while the flowers / wantonly run to meet and kiss each
other? / so twas betwixt us two.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

the pelican loves not her young so well, that digs upon her breast an hundred springs /
when in her blood she bathes the innocent birds / as I do my Aurelia.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Engage me in a business? nay thrust me on the lime-twigs, to set you / at liberty when
your own wings were glued / to the bush, and do you reward me in this fashion
By Thornay, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Ay, he must take her i' the nick, in the precise minute.
By Thornay, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (2.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Act 3.
When shall we matrimony it?
By Gervase Simple, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

The glass that tells the hour, hath not more sands, than there be ladies wait to catch me
up; allow me but one minute a week, to say my prayers.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

I do bear no great age in her knowledge: he, I have not knowen her long.
By Yongrave, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

Let me bathe here eternally / and study new arithmetic to count our blessings
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79r

you do ill / to interrupt our joys: upon this lip / that deserves all should open to commend it, /
I seal a contract of my heart for ever, / I will be nothing when I am not thine.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

A. were you by when I was married?
By Thornay, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

B. no, but heaven and Angels / are witnesses you did exchange a
faith / with one that mourns a virgin and a widow, who now despairing of your love
to show how willing she is to die, doth every hour distill / part of her soul in tears.
By Yongrave, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

Would we were both on us but to skirmish in a sawpit
By Thornay, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

She has purity enough for all her sex, / and this attended with so many virtues, /
as but to wish her more, itself were sin.
By Yongrave, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

By your beauty, / by those fair eyes that never kill'd till now, / make me so happy, but
to know what cuase / inclines you to suspect.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (3.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

Act: 4
Let me but live to see him, and I write my ambition satisfied.
By Eugenia, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

Indeed I love him still and shall do ever, / nor had I now returned to life, but that / I had not took
my leave of him (Shee sounding, when shee came to herselfe againe spake these words)
By Eugenia, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

We'll have an excellent well-govern'd commonwealth / a delicate Utopia / no idela man shall
live with in our state: do you mark? they are the mouths of the republic
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

many gentlemen are not, as in the days of understanding, / now satisfied with out a jig, which e>
since / they cannot, with their honour call for, after / the play, they look to be serv'd up in the
middle: your dance is the best language of some comedies; / a scene / expressed with life
of art, and squared to nature, / is dull and phlegmatic poetry.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

what! art melancholy? What hath hung plummets on thy nimble soul?
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

by Parnassus
you must not be so headhung.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

you might have had me when I was offered; tis none of my fault an you do fall to eating of chalk
and die of the black jaundice.
By Gervase Simple, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

(speaking in dirision of a wench)
Here is the what-do-you-call it of my heart.
By Gervase Simple, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (4.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

Act:5
I do / forgive my griefs, and think they have been modest, / and gentle sufferings, who can
merit such / a joy; that has not felt a world of sorrow.
By Eugenia, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

But you are merciful and imitate the eternal nature.
By Thornay, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.1), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

A.
B.
I have seen you.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

A.
B.
A.
Shall I trust you?
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

I have no other gratitude but this: / live but a week, I'll send you an ode, or die / I'll
write your Epitaph.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.2), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

We are fools indeed we are / to dote so much upon them, and betray / the glory
of our creation, to serve / a female pride: we were born free, and had /
from the great maker royal privilege / most brave immunities: but since have
made / forfeit of charter.
By Gerard, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v

Harmonious strains, / That do bless those happy plains, / Usher them forth, and shame the spheres / Charm with heavenlier notes [our] ears.
By Caperwit, in The Changes, or Love in a Maze (5.3), James Shirley
in British Library Additional MS 22608, f. 79v