SECOND BROTHER. 'Tis most true, That musing meditation most affects The pensive secrecy of desert cell, Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds, And sits as safe as in a senate-house; For who would rob a hermit of his weeds, His few books, or his beads, or maple dish, violence? Or do his grey hairs any But Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye, To save her blossoms, and defend her fruit From the rash hand of bold Incontinence. You may as well spread out the unsunned heaps Of misers' treasure by an outlaw's den, I fear the dread events that dog them both, Lest some ill-greeting touch attempt the person Of our unowned sister. ELDER BROTHER. I do not, brother, Infer, as if I thought my sister's state Yet, where an equal poise of hope and fear My sister is not so defenceless left As you imagine: she has a hidden strength SECOND BROTHER. What hidden strength, Unless the strength of Heaven, if you mean that? ELDER BROTHER. I mean that too; but yet a hidden strength, Which, if Heaven gave it, may be termed her own; "Tis chastity, my brother, chastity: She that has that is clad in cómplete steel, And, like a quivered nymph with arrows keen, Yea there, where very Desolation dwells, By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblenched majesty, Do ye believe me yet? or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of chastity? Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste, |