1: The very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.
(Shakspeare.)
2: Ben Jonson, Every man in his humour;—Cynthia's Revels.
3: Winter's tale; Cymbeline; Julius Cæsar.
4: «Parmi les laïques, il y avait peu de dévotion; le jour du Seigneur était grandement profané et peu observé; les prières communes n'étaient pas fréquentées; plusieurs vivaient sans rendre aucun culte à Dieu. Beaucoup étaient purement païens et athées; la cour de la reine elle-même était un asile d'épicuriens et d'athées et de gens sans loi.» (Strype, année 1572.) «Dans ma jeunesse.... le dimanche.... le peuple ne voulait pas interrompre ses jeux et ses danses, et bien des fois celui qui lisait la Bible était forcé de s'arrêter jusqu'à ce que le joueur de flageolet et les acteurs eussent fini. Parfois les danseurs entraient dans l'église avec tous leurs accoutrements, leurs écharpes, leurs déguisements, et des clochettes qui sonnaient à leurs jambes, et, aussitôt que la prière commune était dite, retournaient ensuite à leur divertissement.» (Baxter's Narrative.)
5: Ben Jonson, Every man in his humour.
6: Chronique d'Hardinge.
7: Holinshed, 806, Lodge; Fenton; Harrington, Nugæ antiquæ. M. Philarète Chasles, Études sur Shakspeare. Voy. Shakspeare et tous les auteurs dramatiques.
8: Rôle de Calypso dans Massinger; de Putana dans Ford; de Protalyce dans Beaumont and Fletcher.
9: Middleton, Dutch Courtezan cité par Phil. Chasles, Études sur Shakspeare, 99.
10: Commission donnée par Henri VIII au comte d'Hertford, 1544.
You are there to put all to fire and sword, to burn Edinburg town, and to raze and deface it, when you have sacked it and gotten what you can out of it. Do what you can out of hand and without long tarrying, to beat down and overthrow the castle, sack Holyrood-House, and as many towns and villages about Edinburg as you conveniently can; sack Leith, and burn and subvert it, and all the rest, putting man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception when any resistance shall be made against you; and this done, pass over to the Fife land, and extend like extremities and destructions in all towns and villages whereunto you may reach conveniently, not forgetting among all the rest to spoil and turn upside down the cardinal's town of St Andrew, as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another, sparing no creature alive within the same, specially such as either in friendship or blood be allied to the cardinal. This journey shall succeed most to His Majesty's honour. (T. II, 440, Pictorial history of England by Craig and Mac-Farlane.)
11: Laneham, A goodly relief.
12: 13 février 1587. Voy., pour tous ces détails, Nathan Drake, Shakspeare and his times; Phil. Chasles, Études sur le seizième siècle.
13: Essex, souffleté par la reine, mit la main sur la garde de son épée.
14: Le grand chancelier Burleigh pleurait souvent, tant il était rudoyé par Élisabeth.
15: Middleton.
16: Voyez, pour comprendre ce caractère, les rôles de James Harlowe dans Richardson, du vieil Osborne dans Thackeray, de sir Giles Overreach dans Massinger, de Manly dans Wycherley.
17: Hentzner's Travels.—Benvenuto Cellini; voyez passim les costumes avec notices, imprimés à Venise et en Allemagne: Bellicosissimi.—Froude, t. I, p. 19, 52.
18: Voyez Froude, History of England, tomes I, II, III.
19: «Quand son cœur fut arraché, il poussa un gros gémissement.» Exécution de Parry, Strype, III, 251. Consulter Lingard, IV, 259; Holinshed, II, 938.
20: Holinshed, 940.
21: Sous Henri IV et Henri V.
22: Froude, I, 15.
23: Machine de bois qui servait pour les punitions; c'est une sorte de cangue.
24: En 1547. Pictorial history, t. II, 467.
25: Pictorial history, tome II, 907, année 1596.
26: Démonologie du roi Jacques, statuts du Parlement de 1597 à 1613: «Un nommé Scot, dit le roi Jacques, n'a pas eu honte de nier dans un imprimé public qu'il y eût une chose telle que la sorcellerie, soutenant ainsi la vieille erreur des Saducéens, lesquels niaient qu'il y eût des esprits.» Voyez le livre de Reginald Scot. 1584 (Nathan Drake).
27: Shakspeare, Measure for Measure, Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth.—Beaumont and Fletcher, Thierry and Theodoret, acte IV.
To die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world, or to be worse them worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling!—'Tis too horrible!
(Shakspeare, Measure for Measure, III, 2.)
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
28: Διεπονήθη δὲ ἐν παισὶ χαὶ περὶ παλαίστραν χαὶ μουσιχὴν, ἐξ ὡν ἀμφότέρων ἐστεφανώθη. Φιλαθηναιότατος χαὶ θεοφιλής. (Scoliaste.)
29: Excepté Beaumont et Fletcher.
30: A literary hack, comme on dit aujourd'hui.
31: Drummond, à propos de Ben Jonson.
32: Voyez, entre autres, a Woman killed with kindness de Heywood. Mistress Frankford, si honnête de cœur, accepte Wendoll à la première proposition. Sir Francis Acton, à l'aspect de celle qu'il veut déshonorer et qu'il hait, tombe «en extase» et ne souhaite plus que de l'épouser.—Voyez l'entraînement subit de Juliette, de Roméo, de Macbeth, de Miranda, etc.; les recommandations de Prospero à Fernando, quand il le laisse seul un instant avec Miranda.
33: Paroles de Nash.
34: Voyez pareillement la Vie de Bohême et les Nuits d'hiver, de Murger; la Confession d'un enfant du siècle, par de Musset.
35: Brûlé en 1589.
36: Marlowe's Works, édition Dyce, appendice II.
37: Drab.
38: Voyez surtout le Titus Andronicus attribué à Shakspeare; il y a des parricides, des mères à qui on fait manger leurs enfants, une jeune fille violée qui paraît sur la scène avec la langue et les deux mains coupées.
39:
For in a field whose superficies
Is cover'd with a liquid purple veil,
And sprinkled with the brains of slaughter'd men,
My royal chair of state shall be advanc'd,
And he that means to place himself therein,
Must armed wade up to the chin in blood....
And I whould strive to swim through pools of blood,
Or make a bridge of murder'd carcasses,
Whose arches should be fram'd with bones of Turks,
Ere I whould lose the title of a king.
(Tamburlain, part. II, acte I, sc. iii.)
40:
First, be thou void of these affections,
Compassion, love, vain hope, and heartless fear;
Be mov'd at nothing, see thou pity none,
But to thyself smile when the Christian moan.
.... I walk abroad o'nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls,
Sometimes, I go out and poison wells....
Being young, I studied physic and began
To practise first upon the Italian,
There I enrich'd the priests with burials,
And always kept the sexton's arms in use,
With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells....
I fill'd the gaols with bankrupts in a year,
And with young orphans planted hospitals,
And every moon made some or other mad,
And now and then one hang himself for grief,
Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll,
How I with interest tormented him.
ITHAMORE.
O, how I long to see him shake his heels!...
.... Pull amain.
'Tis neatly done, sir; here's no print at all.
41: So let him lean upon his staff. Excellent! He stands as if he were begging of bacon.
O mistress, I have the bravest, gravest, secret, subtle, bottle-nosed knave to my master that ever gentleman had.
42:
BARABBAS.
Heaven bless us! what, a friar a murderer!
When shall you see a Jew commit the like?
ITHAMORE.
Why, a Turk could ha' done no more.
BARABBAS.
To morrow is the sessions, you shall to it.
Come, Ithamore, let's help to take him hence.
FRIAR.
Villains, I am a sacred person; touch me not.
BARABBAS.
The law shall touch you; we'll but led you, we.
'Las, I could weep at your calamity!
(The Jew of Malt.)
43: À cette époque encore, en Angleterre, les empoisonneurs étaient jetés dans une chaudière bouillante.
44: Musée de Gand.
45: Voyez la séduction d'Ithamore, par Bellamira, peinture fruste et d'une vérité admirable.
46: Rien de plus faux que le Guillaume Tell de Schiller, ses hésitations et ses raisonnements; voyez par contraste le Gœtz, de Gœthe.—En 1377, Wyclef plaidait dans l'église de Saint-Paul devant l'évêque de Londres, et cela fit une dispute. Le duc de Lancastre, protecteur de Wyclef, «menaça de traîner l'évêque hors de l'église par les cheveux;» et le lendemain la foule furieuse pilla le palais du duc.—Pictorial history, I, 780.
47:
KING EDWARD.
Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole,
And in the channel christen him anew....
Fawn not on me, French strumpet;
Get thee gone.
Speak not unto her, let her droop and pine.
48:
LANCASTER.
He comes not back,
Unless the sea cast up his shipwreck'd body.
MORTIMER.
And to behold so sweet a sight as that,
There's none here but would run his horse to death....
LANCASTER.
We'll hale him by the ears unto the block.
KENT.
Let these their heads
Preach upon poles, for trespass of their tongues.
49:
Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel
There is a point to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down. That point I touch'd,
And seeing that there was no place to mount higher,
Why should I grieve to my declining fall?
Farewell, faire queen; weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
(Edward the second.)
50:
A sound magician is a mighty God....
How I am glutted with conceit of this!...
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl....
I'll have them read me strange philosophy,
And tell the secrets of foreign kings;
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg....
Like lions shall they guard us when we please,
Like Almain rutters with their horsemen's staves,
Or Lapland giants, trotting by our sides;
Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of Love.
51: How I am glutted with conceit of this!
52:
Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I'd give them all for Mephistophilis.
By him I'll be great emperor of the world,
And make a bridge thorough the moving air....
Why should'st thou not? Is not thy soul thy own?
53:
O this feeds my soul!
LUCIFER.
Know, Faustus, in hell is all manner of delight.
FAUSTUS.
O, might I see hell, and return again!
How happy were I then!...
I will renounce this magic and repent.
54:
My heart's so harden'd, I cannot repent;
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder unto my ears,
"Faustus, thou art damn'd!" Then swords, and knives,
Poison, guns, halters, and envenom'd steel
Are laid before me to dispatch myself.
And long ere this I should have slain myself,
Had not sweet pleasure conquer'd deep despair.
Have I not made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Œnon's death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes,
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephistophilis?
Why should I die then, or basely despair?
I am resolv'd; Faustus shall ne'er repent.—
Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon?
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?...
One thing.... let me crave of thee
To glut the longing of my heart's desire....
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships
And burn'd the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul—see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come give me my soul again;
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
O thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!
55:
Ah, my God, I would weep! But the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth, blood, instead of tears! Yea, life and soul! O, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands. But see, they hold them, they hold them; Lucifer and Mephistophilis.
Oh, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live;
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually.
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease and midnight never come.
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
Oh, I will leap to heaven: who pulls me down?
See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament:
One drop of blood will save me: Oh, my Christ,
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ.
Yet will I call on him:
Oh, half the hour is past: 't will all be past anon.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved:
It strikes, it strikes;
Oh soul, be chang'd into small water drops,
And fall into the ocean: ne'er be found.
56: Voir le jugement de Vittoria Accoramboni, celui de Virginia dans Webster, Coriolan et Jules César dans Shakspeare.
57: Rôle de Falstaff, dans Shakspeare; rôle de la reine, dans London, de Greene et Decker; rôle de Rosalinde, dans Shakespeare.
58: Voyez dans Webster, Duchess of Malfi, une scène d'accouchement admirable.
59: Voyez Hamlet, Coriolan, Hotspur.
Our son is fat and scant of breath.
60: Middleton, the Honest Whore.
61: Beaumont and Fletcher, Valentinian; Thierry and Theodoret. Voir dans Massinger, the Picture: c'est la Barberine de Musset. La crudité, l'énergie extraordinaire et repoussante montreront la différence des deux siècles.
62: Massinger, Duke of Milan.
63:
For with this arm I'll swim through seas of blood,
Or make a bridge arch'd with the bones of men,
But I will grasp my aims in you, my dearest,
Dearest and best of women!
(Massinger, Duke of Milan, acte II, sc. i.)
I'll follow him to hell, but I will find him,
And there live a fourth fury to torment him.
Then, for this cursed hand and arm that guided
The wicked steel, I'll have them joint by joint,
With burning irons sear'd off, which I will eat,
I being a vulture fit to taste such carrion.
(Ibid., acte V, sc. ii.)
64: Massinger, The Fatal Dowry; Webster and Ford, A late meurther of the soun upon the mother; Ford, 'Tis a pity she is a whore. Voir encore The Broken Heart, de Ford, et les sublimes scènes d'agonie et de folie.
65:
Lost! I am lost! My fates have doom'd my death!
The more I strive, I love. The more I love,
The less I hope. I see my ruin certain....
I have even wearied heaven with pray'rs, dried up
The spring of my continual tears, even starv'd
My veins with continual fasts: what wit or art
Could counsel, I have practised; but alas!
I find all these but dreams, and old men's tales,
To fright unsteady youth. I am still the same,
Or I must speak or burst.
('T is a pity she is a whore, acte I.)
66:
Come, strumpet, famous whore!
Harlot, rare, notable harlot,
That with thy brazen face maintain'st thy sin,
Was there no man in Parma to be bawd
To your loose cunning whoredom else but I?
Must your hot itch and pleurisy of lust,
The heyday of your luxury, be fed
Up to a surfeit, and could none but I
Be pick'd out to be cloak to your close tricks,
Your belly-sports?—Now, I must be the dad
To all that gallimaufry that is stuff'd
In thy corrupted bastard-bearing womb?
Why, must I?
ANNABELLA.
Beastly man! why? 'Tis thy fate.
I sued not for thee.
SORANZO.
Tell me by whom.
ANNABELLA.
Soft, 'Twas not in my bargain.
Yet somewhat, sir, to stay your longing stomach
I am content t'acquaint you with: the Man,
The more than man, that got this sprightly boy
(For 'tis a boy, and therefore glory, sir,
Your heir shall be a son).
SORANZO.
Damnable monster!
ANNABELLA.
Nay, an you will not hear, I'll speak no more.
SORANZO.
Yes speak, and speak thy last.
ANNABELLA.
A match, a match!...
... You! why, you are not worthy once to name
His name without true worship, or indeed
Unless you kneel'd, to hear another name him.
SORANZO.
What was he call'd?
ANNABELLA.
We are not come to that.
Let it suffice, that you shall have the glory
To father what so brave a father begot....
SORANZO.
Dost thou laugh?
Come, whore, tell me your lover, or by truth
I'll hew thy flesh to shreds. Who is he?
ANNABELLA.
(Sings) Che morte piu dolce che morire per amore.
SORANZO.
Thus will I pull thy hair and thus I'll drag
Thy lust be-leper'd body through the dust....
(Hales her up and down.)
ANNABELLA.
Be a gallant hangman.
I dare thee to the worst; strike and strike home.
I leave revenge behind, and thou shall feel it.
(To Vasquez.) Pish, do not beg for me, I prize my life
As nothing, if the man will needs be mad,
Why, let him take it.
(Ibid., acte IV, sc. iii.)
67:
These are the funeral tears
Shed on your grave; these furrowed my cheeks
When first I lov'd and knew not how to woo....
Give me your hand; how sweetly life doth run
In these well-colour'd veins! How constantly
These palms do promise health!...
Kiss me again, forgive me.... Farewell....
Soranzo, see this heart, which was thy wife's.
Thus I exchange it royally for thine.
(Ibid., acte V, sc. v.)
68: Édition Dyce, Duchess of Malfi, 60.
For places in court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower.
(Duchess of Malfi, acte II, sc. I.)
69: Personnages de Bosola, de Flaminio.
70: Voyez Stendhal, Chroniques italiennes: les Cenci, la Duchesse de Palliano, et toutes les Vies du temps; celle des Borgia, de Bianca Capello, de Vittoria Accoramboni, etc.
71:
I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal pit, with the ventage stopp'd,
That their curs'd smoke might not ascend to heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in pitch or sulphur,
Wrap them in't, and then light them as a match;
Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis
And give't his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back.
72:
DUCHESS.
Good comfortable fellow,
Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel
To have all his bones new set: entreat him live
To be executed again. Who must despatch me?
BOSOLA.
Come, be of comfort, I will save your life.
DUCHESS.
Indeed, I have not leisure to tend
So small a business.
BOSOLA.
Now, by my life, I pity you.
DUCHESS.
Thou art a fool then
To wast thy pity upon a thing so wretched
As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers.
(Ibid., acte V, sc. i.)
73:
CARIOLA.
What think you of, madam?
DUCHESS.
Of nothing:
When I muse thus, I sleep.
CARIOLA.
Like a madman, with your eyes open?
DUCHESS.
Dost thou think we shall know one another
In the other world?
CARIOLA.
Yes, out of question.
DUCHESS.
O, that it were possible we might
But hold some two days conference with the dead!
From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,
I never shall know here. I'll tell thee a miracle:
I am not mad yet....
The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass.
The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.
I am acquainted with sad misery
As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar....
DUCHESS.
Farewell, Cariola.
I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy
Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl
Say her prayers ere she sleep.... Now what you please.
What death?
BOSOLA.
Strangling; here are your executioners.
DUCHESS.
I forgive them.
The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o'the lungs
Would do as much as they do....
.... My body
Bestow upon my women, will you?
Go, tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They may then feed in quiet....
CARIOLA.
I will not die; I must not; I am contracted
To a young gentleman.
FIRST EXECUTIONER.
Here's your wedding-ring.
CARIOLA.
If you kill me now,
I am damn'd. I have not been at confession
These two years.
BOSOLA.
When?
CARIOLA.
I am quick with child.
FIRST EXECUTIONER.
She bites and scratches.
BOSOLA.
Delays, throttle her.
(Ibid., acte IV, sc. ii.)
74:
O this gloomy world!
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!...
We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves
That, ruined, yield no echo.
(Duchess of Malfi, V, v.)
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'ed to near, have neither heat nor light.
(Vittoria, page 36.)
75:
This busy trade of life appears most vain,
Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.
(The White Devil, dernière scène.)
76:
VITTORIA.
To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace
A dream I had last night....
FLAMINIO.
Excellent devil! she has taught him in a dream
To make away his duchess and her husband!
77:
VITTORIA.
Pray, my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;
I'll make no answer else.
FRANCESCO DE MEDICIS.
Why, you understand Latin.
VITTORIA.
I do, sir; but amongst that auditory
Which comes to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in it....
I am at the mark, sir; I'll give aim to you
And tell you how near you shoot....
Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallow'd
Some pothecaries' bills or proclamations;
And now the hard and indigestible words
Come up, like stones we use give hawks for physic.
Why, this is Welsh to Latin.
To the point.
78:
Find me guilty, sever head from body,
We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life,
At yours or any man's entreaty, sir....
These are but feigned shadows of my evils:
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind,
The filth returns in's face.
(The White Devil, p. 22, Ed. Dyce.)
79:
.... Take you your course; it seems you have beggar'd me first,
And now would fain undo me. I have houses,
Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes.
Would those would make you charitable!...
In faith, my lord, you might go to pistol flies;
The sport would be more noble.
80:
VITTORIA.
A house of convertites! What's that?
MONTICELSO.
A house
Of penitent whores.
VITTORIA.
Do the noblemen in Rome
Erect it for their wives, that I am sent
To lodge there?...
I will not weep.
No, I do scorn to call one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice. Bear me hence
Unto this house of.... What's your mitigating title?
MONTICELSO.
Of convertites.
VITTORIA.
It shall not be a house of convertites;
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable
Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal.
(Ibidem.)
81: Comparez à Mme Marneffe, de Balzac.
82:
Yes, I shall welcome death
As princes do some great ambassadors;
I'll meet thy weapon half way....
'Twas a manly blow,
The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;
And then thou wilt be famous....
My soul, like a ship in a black storm,
Is driven, I know not whither.
(Dernière scène.)
83: De là le bonheur et la solidité de leur mariage. En France, il n'est qu'une association de deux camarades, presque semblables et presque égaux, ce qui produit les tiraillements et la tracasserie continue.
84: Voir la peinture de ce caractère dans toute la littérature anglaise et allemande. Le plus grand des observateurs, Stendhal, tout imprégné des mœurs et des idées italiennes et françaises, est stupéfait à cette vue. Il ne comprend rien à cette espèce de dévouement, «à cette servitude, que les maris anglais, sous le nom de devoir, ont eu l'esprit d'imposer à leurs femmes.» Ce sont «des mœurs de sérail.» Voyez aussi Corinne.
85:
A perfect woman already: meek and patient.
Heywood.
86: Voir par contraste toutes les femmes de Molière, si françaises, même Agnès et la petite Louison.]
87: Beaumont and Fletcher. Philaster, acte V, sc. v.
EUPHRASIA.
My father oft would speak
Your worth and virtue; and as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so praised; but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found; till sitting in my window,
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a God,
I thought (but it was you), enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast,
As I had puff'd it forth and suck'd it in
Like breath. Then was I call'd away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man
Heaved from a sheep-cote to a sceptre, raised
So high in thought as I: You left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
From you for ever; I did hear you talk,
Far above singing! After you were gone,
I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd
What stirr'd it so: Alas I found it love:
Yet far from lust. For could I have but lived
In presence of you, I had had my end....
.... Blest be that hand!
It meant me well; Again for pity's sake!
.... Never, sir, will I
Marry; it is a thing within my vow:
But if I may have leave to serve the princess,
To see the virtues of her lord and her,
I shall have hope to live:
ARETHUSA
Come, live with me;
Live free as I do; she that loves my lord,
Curst be the wife that hates her!
88: Rôle de Kaled dans Lara, de lord Byron.
89: Chose étrange! la princesse n'est point jalouse: «Viens, vis avec moi, vis aussi librement que moi-même. Celle qui aime mon seigneur, maudite soit l'épouse qui voudrait la haïr!»
90:
I saw a god.
(Philaster, acte V, sc. v.)
91:
BIANCA.
So dearly I respected both your fame
And quality, that I would first have perish'd
In my sick thought, than e'er have given consent
To have undone your fortunes, by inviting
A marriage with so mean a one as I am.
I should have died sure, and no creature known
The sickness that had kill'd me....
Now since I know
There is no difference 'twixt your birth and mine,
Not much 'twixt our estates (if any be,
The advantage is on my side), I come willingly
To tender you the first-fruits of my heart,
And am content so accept you for my husband
Now when you are at lowest.
CESARIO.
Why, Bianca,
Report has cozen'd thee. I am not fallen
From my expected honours or possessions,
Though from the hope of birth-right.
BIANCA.
Are you not?
Then I am lost again! I have a suit too;
You'll grant it, if you be a good man.
Pray, do not talk of aught I have said to you....
.... Pity me,
But never love me more....
I will pray for you,
That you may have a virtuous wife, a fair one;
And when I am dead....
CESARIO.
Fy, fy!
BIANCA.
Think on me sometimes,
With mercy for this trespass!
CESARIO.
Let us kiss
At parting as at coming.
BIANCA.
This I have
As a free dower to a virgin's grave.
All goodness dwell with you!
(The fair maid of the Inn, acte IV, sc. i.)
Beaumont and Fletcher.
92: Beaumont and Fletcher, Thierry and Theodoret, The Maid's tragedy, Philaster. Voyez aussi le rôle de Lucina dans Valentinian.
93: