]
It cannot be.
ASCANIO
What, is it so with you?
I thought the friendship of the antique world
Was not yet dead, but that the Roman type
Might even in this poor and common age
Find counterparts of love; then by this love
Which beats between us like a summer sea,
Whatever lot has fallen to your hand
May I not share it?
GUIDO
Share it?
ASCANIO
Ay!
GUIDO
No, no.
ASCANIO
Have you then come to some inheritance
Of lordly castle, or of stored-up gold?
GUIDO
[bitterly]
Ay! I have come to my inheritance.
O bloody legacy! and O murderous dole!
Which, like the thrifty miser, must I hoard,
And to my own self keep; and so, I pray you,
Let us part here.
ASCANIO
What, shall we never more
Sit hand in hand, as we were wont to sit,
Over some book of ancient chivalry
Stealing a truant holiday from school,
Follow the huntsmen through the autumn woods,
And watch the falcons burst their tasselled jesses,
When the hare breaks from covert.
GUIDO
Never more.
ASCANIO
Must I go hence without a word of love?
GUIDO
You must go hence, and may love go with you.
ASCANIO
You are unknightly, and ungenerous.
GUIDO
Unknightly and ungenerous if you will.
Why should we waste more words about the matter
Let us part now.
ASCANIO
Have you no message, Guido?
GUIDO
None; my whole past was but a schoolboy's dream;
To-day my life begins.
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