Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 31

CUT: It must give place to positive divinity, sir.

MOR: Nay, good gentlemen, do not throw me into circ.u.mstances. Let your comforts arrive quickly at me, those that are. Be swift in affording me my peace, if so I shall hope any. I love not your disputations, or your court-tumults. And that it be not strange to you, I will tell you: My father, in my education, was wont to advise me, that I should always collect and contain my mind, not suffering it to flow loosely; that I should look to what things were necessary to the carriage of my life, and what not; embracing the one and eschewing the other: in short, that I should endear myself to rest, and avoid turmoil: which now is grown to be another nature to me. So that I come not to your public pleadings, or your places of noise; not that I neglect those things that make for the dignity of the commonwealth: but for the mere avoiding of clamours and impertinencies of orators, that know not how to be silent. And for the cause of noise, am I now a suitor to you. You do not know in what a misery I have been exercised this day, what a torrent of evil! my very house turns round with the tumult! I dwell in a windmill: The perpetual motion is here, and not at Eltham.

TRUE: Well, good master doctor, will you break the ice? master parson will wade after.

CUT: Sir, though unworthy, and the weaker, I will presume.

OTT: 'Tis no presumption, domine doctor.

MOR: Yet again!

CUT: Your question is, For how many causes a man may have divortium legitimum, a lawful divorce? First, you must understand the nature of the word, divorce, a divertendo--

MOR: No excursions upon words, good doctor, to the question briefly.

CUT: I answer then, the canon-law affords divorce but in a few cases; and the princ.i.p.al is in the common case, the adulterous case: But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments, as we call them, all which do not dirimere contractum, but irritum reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon-law, not take away the bond, but cause a nullity therein.

MOR: I understood you before: good sir, avoid your impertinency of translation.

OTT: He cannot open this too much, sir, by your favour.

MOR: Yet more!

TRUE: O, you must give the learned men leave, sir.--To your impediments, master Doctor.

CUT: The first is impedimentum erroris.

OTT: Of which there are several species.

CUT: Ay, as error personae.

OTT: If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another.

CUT: Then, error fortunae.

OTT: If she be a begger, and you thought her rich.

CUT: Then, error qualitatis.

OTT: If she prove stubborn or head-strong, that you thought obedient.

MOR: How! is that, sir, a lawful impediment? One at once, I pray you gentlemen.

OTT: Ay, ante copulam, but not post copulam, sir.

CUT: Master Parson says right. Nec post nuptiarum benedictionem.

It doth indeed but irrita reddere sponsalia, annul the contract: after marriage it is of no obstancy.

TRUE: Alas, sir, what a hope are we fallen from by this time!

CUT: The next is conditio: if you thought her free born, and she prove a bond-woman, there is impediment of estate and condition.

OTT: Ay, but, master doctor, those servitudes are sublatae now, among us Christians.

CUT: By your favour, master parson--

OTT: You shall give me leave, master doctor.

MOR: Nay, gentlemen, quarrel not in that question; it concerns not my case: pa.s.s to the third.

CUT: Well then, the third is votum: if either party have made a vow of chast.i.ty. But that practice, as master parson said of the other, is taken away among us, thanks be to discipline. The fourth is cognatio: if the persons be of kin within the degrees.

OTT: Ay: do you know what the degrees are, sir?

MOR: No, nor I care not, sir: they offer me no comfort in the question, I am sure.

CUT: But there is a branch of this impediment may, which is cognatio spiritualis: if you were her G.o.dfather, sir, then the marriage is incestuous.

OTT: That comment is absurd and superst.i.tious, master doctor: I cannot endure it. Are we not all brothers and sisters, and as much akin in that, as G.o.dfathers and G.o.d-daughters?

MOR: O me! to end the controversy, I never was a G.o.dfather, I never was a G.o.dfather in my life, sir. Pa.s.s to the next.

CUT: The fifth is crimen adulterii; the known case. The sixth, cultus disparitas, difference of religion: have you ever examined her, what religion she is of?

MOR: No, I would rather she were of none, than be put to the trouble of it!

OTT: You may have it done for you, sir.

MOR: By no means, good sir; on to the rest: shall you ever come to an end, think you?

TRUE: Yes, he has done half, sir. On, to the rest.--Be patient, and expect, sir.

CUT: The seventh is, vis: if it were upon compulsion or force.

MOR: O no, it was too voluntary, mine; too voluntary.

CUT: The eight is, ordo; if ever she have taken holy orders.

OTT: That's supersitious too.

MOR: No matter, master parson: Would she would go into a nunnery yet.

CUT: The ninth is, ligamen; if you were bound, sir, to any other before.

MOR: I thrust myself too soon into these fetters.

CUT: The tenth is, publica honestas: which is inchoata quaedam affinitas.