POLLY. How I dread to hear your Advice! Yet I must beg you to explain
yourself.
PEACHUM. Secure what he hath got, have him peach'd the next Sessions, and
then at once you are made a rich Widow.
POLLY. What, murder the Man I love! The Blood runs cold at my Heart with
the very Thought of it!
PEACHUM. Fie, Polly! What hath Murder to do in the Affair? Since the
thing sooner or later must happen, I dare say, the Captain himself would
like rather that we should get the Reward for his Death sooner than a
Stranger. Why, Polly, the Captain knows that as 'tis his Employment to rob,
so 'tis ours to take Robbers; every Man in his Business. So there is no
Malice in the case.
MRS. PEACHUM. Ay, Husband, now you have nick'd the Matter. To have him
peach'd is the only thing could ever make me forgive her.
Air XII.--Now ponder well, ye Parents dear.
POLLY.
O ponder well! be not severe:
So save a wretched Wife!
For on the Rope that hangs my Dear
Depends poor Polly's Life.
MRS. PEACHUM. But your Duty to your Parents, Hussy, obliges you to hang
him. What would many a Wife give for such an Opportunity!
POLLY. What is a Jointure, what is Widow-hood to me? I know my heart. I
cannot survive him.
AIR XIII.--Le printemps rappelle aux armes.
The Turtle thus with plaintive Crying,
Her Lover dying,
The Turtle thus with plaintive Crying,
Laments her Dove.
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