Come, Cupid, to your task. First you must undo all these lovers' knots, because you tied them.

If they be true love-knots, 'tis unpossible to unknit them; if false, I never tied them.

Make no excuse, but to it.

Love-knots are tied with eyes and cannot be undone with hands, made fast 770with thoughts and cannot be unlosed with fingers. Had Diana no task to set Cupid to but 771things impossible?

[They threaten him.] I will to it.[He sets to work, unwillingly, on a love-knot.]

Why how now? You tie the knots faster.

I cannot choose. It goeth against my mind to make them loose.

Let me see, now.[She tries.] 'Tis unpossible to be undone.

4.2.36775Cupid. It is the true love knot of a woman's heart, therefore cannot be undone.

That falls in sunder of itself.

It was made of a man's thought, which will never hang together.

You have undone that well.

Ay, because it was never tied well.

To the rest, for she will give you no rest.[Cupid resumes his task.] These two knots are finely untied!

It was because I never tied them. The one was knit by Pluto, 783not Cupid, by money, not love; the other by force, not faith, by appointment, not affection.

Why do you lay that knot aside?

For death.

Why?

Because the knot was knit by faith, and must only be unknit of death.

Why laugh you?

Because it is the fairest and the falsest, done with greatest art and least truth, with best colors and worst conceits.

Who tied it?

A man's tongue.

Why do you put that in my bosom?

Because it is only for a woman's bosom.

4.2.56796Larissa. Why, what is it?

A woman's heart.

Come, let us go in and tell that Cupid hath done his task. 799Stay you behind, Larissa, and see see to it}} he sleep not, for love will be idle. 800And take heed you surfeit not, for love will be wanton.

Let me alone. I will find him somewhat to do.

Lady, can you for pity see Cupid thus punished?

Why did Cupid punish us without pity?

Is love a punishment?

It is no pastime.

[To the absent Venus] O Venus, if thou sawest Cupid as a captive, 808bound to obey that was wont to command, fearing ladies' threats that once pierced their hearts, I 809cannot tell whether thou wouldst revenge it for despite or laugh at it for disport.[To the 810absent Diana] The time may come, Diana, and the time shall come, that thou that settest Cupid 811to undo knots shalt entreat Cupid to tie knots.[To the ladies in the audience, perhaps also 812to the absent nymphs] And you ladies that with solace have beheld my pains shall with sighs 813intreat my pity.

How now, Cupid, begin you to nod?

Come, Cupid, Diana hath devised new labors for you that are god of 817loves. You shall weave samplers all night, and lackey after Diana all day. You shall shortly shoot 818at beasts for men because you have made beasts of men, and wait on ladies' trains because 819thou entrappest ladies by trains. All the stories that are in Diana's arras which are of love 820you must pick out with your needle, and in that place sew Vesta with her nuns and 821Diana with her nymphs. How like you this, Cupid?

I say I will prick as well with my needle as ever I did with mine arrows.

Diana cannot yield. She conquers affection.

Diana shall yield. She cannot conquer destiny.

Come, Cupid, you must to your business.

You shall find me so busy in your heads that you shall wish I had been idle with your hearts.