One woman, in particular,
Used all her London tricks
To coney-catch the country greenhorn.
Won by her pathetic account of her virtues and trials Marlowe tried to
help her to escape from London-then, because he was utterly unused to
the wiles of women, and was
Simple as all great, elemental things,
when she expressed an infatuation for him, then
In her treacherous eyes,
As in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,
Here did he see his own eternal skies.
* * * * *
And all that God had meant to wake one day
Under the Sun of Love, suddenly woke
By candle-light, and cried, "The Sun, the Sun."
At last, holding him wrapped in her hair, the woman attempted to
tantalize him by revealing her promiscuous amours. In a horror of agony
and loathing, Marlowe broke away from her. The next day, as Nash was
loitering in a group including this woman and her lover, Archer, someone
ran in to warn Archer that a man was on his way to kill him. As Marlowe
strode into the place, Nash was struck afresh by his beauty:
I saw his face,
Pale, innocent, just the clear face of that boy
Who walked to Cambridge, with a bundle and stick,
The little cobbler's son.
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