ACT III.

SCENE I.

A dumb show. The cornets sounding for the Act.

Enter Castilio and Forobosco, Alberto and Balurdo, with poleaxes; Piero, talking with Strotzo, seemeth to send him out: exit Strotzo. Re-enter Strotzo with Maria, Nutriche, and Lucio. Piero passeth through his guard, and talks with Maria with seeming amorousness; she seemeth to reject his suit, flies to the tomb, kneels, and kisseth it. Piero bribes Nutriche and Lucio; they go to her, seeming to solicit his suit. She riseth, offers to go out; Piero stayeth her, tears open his breast, embraceth and kisseth her; and so they go all out in state.

After the dumb show enter two Pages, the one with tapers, the other holding a chafing-dish with a perfume in it; Antonio, in his night-gown and a night-cap, unbraced, following after.

Ant. The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings[263]
’Bout heaven’s brow: [clock strikes twelve] ’tis now stark dead night.
Is this Saint Mark’s Church?

Ghost of And. Thy pangs of anguish rip my cerecloth up,
And, lo, the ghost of old Andrugio
Forsakes his coffin. Antonio, revenge!
I was empoison’d by Piero’s hand.
Revenge my blood! take spirit, gentle boy;
Revenge my blood! Thy Mellida is chaste:
Only to frustrate thy pursuit in love,
Is blazed unchaste. Thy mother yields consent
To be his wife, and give his blood a son,    40
That made her husbandless, and doth complot
To make her sonless; but before I touch
The banks of rest, my ghost shall visit her.
Thou vigour of my youth, juice of my love,
Seize on revenge, grasp the stern-bended front
Of frowning vengeance with unpaiz’d[264] clutch.[265]
Alarum Nemesis, rouse up thy blood!
Invent some stratagem of vengeance,
Which, but to think on, may like lightning glide
With horror through thy breast! Remember this:    50
Scelera[266] non ulcisceris, nisi vincis.

[Exit Andrugio’s ghost.

Enter Maria, her hair about her ears; Nutriche and Lucio, with Pages, and torches.

Mar. Where left you him? show me, good boys, away!

Nut. God’s me, your hair!

Mar. Nurse, ’tis not yet proud day:
The neat gay mists of the light’s not up,
Her cheek’s not yet slur’d over with the paint
Of borrow’d crimson; the unprankèd world
Wears yet the night-clothes. Let flare my loosèd hair!
I scorn the presence of the night.—
Where’s my boy?—Run: I’ll range about the church,
Like frantic Bacchanal or Jason’s wife,    60
To tell me where.—Ha? O my poor wretched blood!
What dost thou up at midnight, my kind boy?
Dear soul, to bed! O thou hast struck a fright
Unto thy mother’s panting——

Ant.[267] O quisquis nova
Supplicia functis dirus umbrarum arbiter
Disponis, quisquis exeso jaces
Pavidus sub antro,[268] quisquis venturi times
Montis ruinam, quisquis avidorum feros[269]
Rictus leonum, et dira furiarum agmina    70
Implicitus horres, Antonii vocem excipe
Properantis ad vos—Ulciscar!

Mar. Alas! my son’s distraught. Sweet boy, appease
Thy mutining affections.

Ant. By the astonning terror of swart night,
By the infectious damps of clammy graves,
And[270] by the mould that presseth down
My dead father’s skull, I’ll be revenged!

Mar. Wherefore? on whom? for what? Go, go to bed,
Good, duteous son. Ho, but thy idle——    80

Ant. So I may sleep tomb’d in an honour’d hearse,
So may my bones rest in that sepulchre,——

Mar. Forget not duty, son: to bed, to bed.

Ant. May I be cursèd by my father’s ghost,
And blasted with incensèd breath of Heaven,
If my heart beat[271] on ought but vengeance!
May I be numb’d with horror, and my veins
Pucker with singeing torture, if my brain
Disgest[272] a thought but of dire vengeance;
May I be fetter’d slave to coward Chance,    90
If blood, heart, brain, plot ought save vengeance.

Mar. Wilt thou to bed? I wonder when thou sleep’st!
I’faith thou look’st sunk-ey’d; go couch thy head:
Now, faith, ’tis idle: sweet, sweet son, to bed.

Ant. I have a prayer or two to offer up
For the good, good prince, my most dear, dear lord,
The duke Piero, and your virtuous self;
And then, when those prayers have obtain’d success,
In sooth I’ll come (believe it now) and couch
My head in downy mould. But first I’ll see    100
You safely laid: I’ll bring ye all to bed.
Piero, Maria, Strotzo, Lucio,
I’ll see you all laid: I’ll bring you all to bed,
And then, i’faith, I’ll come and couch my head,
And sleep in peace.

Mar. Look then, we go before.

[Exeunt all but Antonio.

Ant. Ay, so you must, before we touch the shore
Of wish’d revenge. O, you departed souls,
That lodge in coffin’d trunks, which my feet press,
(If Pythagorean Axioms be true,
Of spirits’ transmigration) fleet no more    110
To human bodies, rather live in swine,
Inhabit wolves’ flesh, scorpions, dogs, and toads,
Rather than man. The curse of Heaven rains
In plagues unlimited through all his days:
His mature age grows only mature vice,
And ripens only to corrupt and rot
The budding hopes of infant modesty.
Still striving to be more than man, he proves
More than a devil. Devilish suspect,
Devilish cruelty,    120
All hell-strai[n’]d juice is pourèd to his veins,
Making him drunk with fuming surquedries;[273]
Contempt of Heaven, untam’d arrogance,
Lust, state, pride, murder.

Ghost of And. Murder!

}

}

Ghost of Feli. Murder!

} From above and beneath.

}

Pan.[274] Murder!

}

Ant. Ay, I will murder: graves and ghosts
Fright me no more, I’ll suck red vengeance
Out of Piero’s wounds, Piero’s wounds!

[Retires to the back of the stage.

Enter two boys, with Piero in his night-gown and night-cap.

Pier. Maria, love, Maria! she took this aisle.
Left you her here? On, lights, away!
I think we shall not warm our beds to-day.    130

Enter Julio, Forobosco, and Castilio.

Jul. Ho, father! father!

Pier. How now, Julio, my little pretty son?
Why suffer you the child to walk so late?

For. He will not sleep, but calls to follow you,
Crying that bug-bears and spirits haunted him.

[Antonio offers to come near and stab; Piero presently withdraws.

Ant. [Aside.] No, not so.
This shall be sought for; I’ll force him feed on life
Till he shall loath it. This shall be the close
Of vengeance’ strain.

Pier. Away there, pages, lead on fast with light;    140
The church is full of damps; ’tis yet dead night.

[Exeunt all, saving Julio and Antonio.

Jul. Brother Antonio, are you here, i’faith?
Why do you frown? Indeed my sister said
That I should call you brother, that she did,
When you were married to her. Buss me: good truth,
I love you better than my father, ’deed.

Ant. Thy father? Gracious, O bounteous Heaven!
I do adore thy justice: venit in nostras manus
Tandem vindicta, venit et tota quidem.[275]

Jul. Truth, since my mother died, I loved you best.    150
Something hath anger’d you; pray you, look merrily.

Ant. I will laugh, and dimple my thin cheek
With cap’ring joy; chuck, my heart doth leap
To grasp thy bosom.—[Aside.] Time, place, and blood,
How fit you close together! Heaven’s tones
Strike not such music to immortal souls
As your accordance sweets my breast withal.
Methinks I pace upon the front of Jove,
And kick corruption with a scornful heel!
Griping this flesh, disdain mortality!    160
O that I knew which joint, which side, which limb,
Were father all, and had no mother in’t,
That I might rip it vein by vein, and carve revenge
In bleeding races! but since ’tis mix’d together,
Have at adventure, pell mell, no reverse.—
Come hither, boy. This is Andrugio’s hearse.

Jul. O God, you’ll hurt me. For my sister’s sake,
Pray you do not hurt me. And you kill me, ’deed,
I’ll tell my father.

Ant. O, for thy sister’s sake, I flag revenge.    170

Ghost of And. Revenge!

Ant. Stay, stay, dear father, fright mine eyes no more.
And cleaves[276] his heart.—Come, pretty tender child,
It is not thee I hate, not thee I kill.
Thy father’s blood that flows within thy veins,
Is it I loathe; is that revenge must suck.
I love thy soul: and were thy heart lapp’d up
In any flesh but in Piero’s blood,
I would thus kiss it; but being his, thus, thus,    180
And thus I’ll punch it. Abandon fears:
Whilst thy wounds bleed, my brows shall gush out tears.

Jul. So you will love me, do even what you will.

Ant. Now barks the wolf against the full-cheek’d moon;
Now lions half-clam’d[277] entrails roar for food;
Now croaks the toad, and night-crows screech aloud,
Fluttering ’bout casements of departed souls;
Now gapes the graves, and through their yawns let loose
Imprison’d spirits to revisit earth;
And now, swart night, to swell thy hour out,    190
Behold I spurt warm blood in thy black eyes.

Howl not, thou putry[278] mould; groan not, ye graves;
Be dumb, all breath. Here stands Andrugio’s son,
Worthy his father. So: I feel no breath.
His jaws are fall’n, his dislodg’d soul is fled:
And now there’s nothing but Piero left:
He is all Piero, father all. This blood,
This breast, this heart, Piero all:
Whom thus I mangle. Sprite of Julio,
Forget this was thy trunk. I live thy friend:    200
May’st thou be twinèd with the soft’st embrace
Of clear eternity: but thy father’s blood
I thus make incense of to vengeance.
Ghost of my poison’d sire, suck this fume:
To sweet revenge perfume thy circling air
With smoke of blood. I sprinkle round his gore,
And dew thy hearse with these fresh-reeking drops.
Lo thus I heave my blood-dyed hands to heaven,
Even like insatiate hell still crying, More!
My heart hath thirsting dropsies after gore.    210
Sound peace and rest to church, night-ghosts, and graves:
Blood cries for blood, and murder murder craves.

SCENE II.

Chamber of Maria.

Enter two Pages with torches; Maria, her hair loose, and Nutriche.

Nut. Fie, fie; to-morrow your wedding day, and weep! God’s my comfort! Andrugio could do well: Piero may do better. I have had four husbands myself. The first I called, sweet duck; the second, dear heart; the third, pretty pug;[279] but the fourth, most sweet, dear, pretty, all in all; he was the very cockall of a husband. What, lady? your skin is smooth, your blood warm, your cheek fresh, your eye quick: change of pasture makes fat calves; choice of linen clean bodies, and (no question) variety of husbands perfect wives. I would you should know it: as few teeth as I have in my head, I have read Aristotle’s Problems,[280] which saith that woman receiveth perfection by the man. What then be the men? Go to, to bed, lie on your back, dream not on Piero; I say no more. To-morrow is your wedding: go,[281] dream not of Piero.    16

Enter Balurdo with a base viol.

Mar. What an idle prate thou keep’st, good nurse; go sleep.
I have a mighty task of tears to weep.

Bal. Lady, with a most retort and obtuse leg,
I kiss the curlèd locks of your loose hair.    20

The Duke hath sent you the most musical Sir Jeffrey, with his not base, but most ennobled viol, to rock your baby thoughts in the cradle of sleep.

Mar. I give the noble Duke respective[282] thanks.

Bal. Respective; truly a very pretty word. Indeed, madam, I have the most respective fiddle; did you ever smell a more sweet sound? My ditty must go thus; very witty, I assure you: I myself in an humorous passion made it, to the tune of my mistress Nutriche’s beauty. Indeed, very pretty, very retort, and obtuse, I’ll assure you; ’tis thus:—    31

My mistress’ eye doth oil my joints,
And makes my fingers nimble:
O love, come on, untruss your points,
My fiddlestick wants rozen.
My lady’s duggs are all so smooth,
That no flesh must them handle:
Her eyes do shine, for to say sooth,
Like a new-snuffèd candle.

Mar. Truly, very pathetical and unvulgar.    40

Bal. Pathetical and unvulgar; words of worth, excellent words. In sooth, madam, I have taken a murr,[283] which makes my nose run most pathetically, and unvulgarly. Have you any tobacco?

Mar. Good Signior, your song.

Bal. Instantly, most unvulgarly, at your service. Truly, here’s the most pathetical rozen. Umh.

[A Song.

Mar. In sooth, most knightly sung, and like Sir Jeffrey.

Bal. Why, look you, lady, I was made a knight only for my voice; and a councillor only for my wit.    51

Mar. I believe it. Good night, gentle sir, good night.

Bal. You will give me leave to take my leave of my mistress, and I will do it most famously in rhyme.

Farewell, adieu! saith thy love true,
As to part loath.
Time bids us part, mine own sweet heart,
God bless us both.

[Exit Balurdo.

Mar. Good night, Nutriche. Pages, leave the room.
The life of night grows short, ’tis almost dead.    60

[Exeunt Pages and Nutriche.

O thou cold widow-bed, sometime thrice blest
By the warm pressure of my sleeping lord,
Open thy leaves, and whilst on thee I tread,
Groan out,—Alas, my dear Andrugio’s dead!

[Maria draweth the curtain: and the ghost of Andrugio is displayed, sitting on the bed.

Amazing terror, what portent is this!

Ghost of And. Disloyal to our hymeneal[284] rites,
What raging heat reigns in thy strumpet blood?
Hast thou so soon forgot Andrugio?
Are our love-bands so quickly cancellèd?
Where lives thy plighted faith unto this breast?    70
O weak Maria! Go to, calm thy fears.
I pardon thee, poor soul! O shed no tears;
Thy sex is weak. That black incarnate fiend
May trip thy faith that hath o’erthrown my life:
I was impoison’d by Piero’s hand.
Join with my son to bend up strain’d revenge,
Maintain a seeming favour to his suit,
Till time may form our vengeance absolute.

Enter Antonio, his arms bloody, bearing a torch, and a poniard.

Ant. See, unamazed I will behold thy face;
Outstare the terror of thy grim aspect,    80
Daring the horrid’st object of the night.
Look how I smoke in blood, reeking the steam
Of foaming vengeance. O my soul’s enthroned
In the triumphant chariot of revenge!
Methinks I am all air, and feel no weight
Of human dirt clog. This is Julio’s blood!
Rich music, father: this is Julio’s blood!
Why lives that mother?

Ghost of And. Pardon ignorance.
Fly, dear Antonio:
Once more assume disguise, and dog the court    90
In feignèd habit, till Piero’s blood
May even o’erflow the brim of full revenge.
Peace and all blessèd fortunes to you both!
Fly thou from court, be peerless in revenge:

[Exit Antonio.

Sleep thou in rest, lo, here I close thy couch.

[Exit Maria to her bed, Andrugio drawing the curtains.

And now ye sooty coursers of the night,
Hurry your chariot into hell’s black womb.
Darkness, make flight; graves, eat your dead again:
Let’s repossess our shrouds. Why lags delay?
Mount sparkling brightness, give the world his day!    100

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Enter Antonio in a fool’s habit, with a little toy of a walnut shell, and soap to make bubbles: Maria and Alberto.

Mar. Away with this disguise in any hand!

Alb. Fie, ’tis unsuiting to your elate spirit:
Rather put on some transhaped cavalier,
Some habit of a spitting critic, whose mouth
Voids nothing but gentile and unvulgar
Rheum of censure: rather assume——

Ant. Why, then should I put on the very flesh
Of solid folly. No, this cock’s comb is a crown
Which I affect even with unbounded zeal.

Alb. ’Twill thwart your plot, disgrace your high resolve.    10

Ant. By wisdom’s heart, there is no essence mortal
That I can envy, but a plump-cheek’d fool:
O, he hath a patent of immunities
Confirm’d by custom, seal’d by policy,
As large as spacious thought.

Alb. You cannot press among the courtiers,
And have access to——

Ant. What? not a fool? Why, friend, a golden ass,
A babled[285] fool, are sole canonical,
Whilst pale-cheek’d wisdom, and lean-ribbèd art    20
Are kept in distance at the halbert’s point;
All held Apocrypha, not worth survey.
Why, by the genius of that Florentine,
Deep, deep observing, sound-brain’d Machiavel,
He is not wise that strives not to seem fool.
When will the Duke hold fee’d intelligence,
Keep wary observation in large pay,
To dog a fool’s act?

Mar. Ay, but feigning known disgraceth much.

Ant. Pish! Most things that morally adhere to souls,    30
Wholly exist in drunk opinion:
Whose reeling censure, if I value not,
It values nought.

Mar. You are transported with too slight a thought,
If you but meditate of what is past,
And what you plot to pass.

Ant. Even in that note a fool’s beatitude:
He is not capable of passion;
Wanting the power of distinction,
He bears an unturned sail with every wind:    40
Blow east, blow west, he stirs his course alike.
I never saw a fool lean: the chub-faced fop
Shines sleek with full-cramm’d fat of happiness,
Whilst studious contemplation sucks the juice
From wisards’[286] cheeks: who making curious search
For nature’s secrets, the first innating cause
Laughs them to scorn, as man doth busy apes
When they will zany men. Had Heaven been kind,
Creating me an honest senseless dolt,
A good poor fool, I should want sense to feel    50
The stings of anguish shoot through every vein;
I should not know what ’twere to lose a father;
I should be dead of sense to view defame
Blur my bright love; I could not thus run mad,
As one confounded in a maze of mischief,
Stagger’d, stark, fell’d with bruising stroke of chance;
I should not shoot mine eyes into the earth,
Poring for mischief that might counterpoise
Mischief, murder and——

Enter Lucio.

How now, Lucio?

Lu. My lord, the Duke, with the Venetian states,[287]    60
Approach the great hall to judge Mellida.

Ant. Ask’d he for Julio yet?

Lu. No motion[288] of him: dare you trust this habit?

Ant. Alberto, see you straight rumour me dead.
Leave me, good mother; leave me, Lucio;
Forsake me, all.

[Exeunt omnes, saving Antonio.

Now patience hoop my sides
With steelèd ribs, lest I do burst my breast
With struggling passions. Now disguise, stand bold:
Poor scornèd habits oft choice souls enfold.

[The cornets sound a senet.

Enter Castilio, Forobosco, Balurdo, and Alberto, with pole-axes, Lucio bare; followed by Piero and Maria talking together; two Senators, Galeatzo, Matzagente, and Nutriche.

Pier. Entreat me not: there’s not a beauty lives    70
Hath that imperial predominance
O’er my affects[289] as your enchanting graces:
Yet give me leave to be myself—

Ant. [Aside.] A villain.

Pier. Just—

Ant. [Aside.] Most just.

Pier. Most just and upright in our judgment seat.
Were Mellida mine eye, with such a blemish
Of most loath’d looseness, I would scratch it out.
Produce the strumpet in her bridal robes,
That she may blush t’appear so white in show,    80
And black in inward substance. Bring her in.

[Exeunt Forobosco and Castilio.

I hold Antonio, for his father’s sake,
So very dearly, so entirely choice,
That knew I but a thought of prejudice
Imagined ’gainst his high ennobled blood,
I would maintain a mortal feud, undying hate,
’Gainst the conceiver’s life. And shall justice sleep
In fleshly lethargy, for mine own blood’s favour,
When the sweet prince hath so apparent scorn
By my—I will not call her daughter? Go,    90
Conduct in the loved youth Antonio:

[Exit Alberto to fetch Antonio.

He shall behold me spurn my private good;
Piero loves his honour more than ’s blood.

Ant. [Aside.] The devil he does more than both.

Bal. Stand back there, fool; I do hate a fool most, most pathetically. O, these that have no sap of retort and obtuse wit in them: faugh!

Ant. Puff, hold, world; puff, hold, bubble; puff, hold, world; puff, break not behind; puff, thou art full of wind; puff, keep up thy[290] wind; puff, ’tis broke! and now I laugh like a good fool at the breath of mine own lips, he, he, he, he, he!    102

Bal. You fool!

Ant. You fool, puff!

Bal. I cannot disgest[291] thee, the unvulgar fool. Go, fool.

Pier. Forbear, Balurdo; let the fool alone.
Come hither.[292] Is he your fool?

Mar. Yes, my loved lord.

Pier. [Aside.] Would all the states[293] in Venice were like thee!
O then I were secur’d.    110
He that’s a villain, or but meanly soul’d,
Must still converse and cling to routs of fools,
That can not search the leaks of his defects.
O, your unsalted fresh fool is your only man:
These vinegar tart spirits are too piercing,
Too searching in the unglued joints of shaken wits.
Find they a chink, they’ll wriggle in and in,
And eat like salt sea in his siddow[294] ribs,
Till they have opened all his rotten parts
Unto the vaunting surge of base contempt,    120
And sunk the tossèd galleasse[295] in depth
Of whirlpool scorn. Give me an honest fop.—
Dud a dud a! Why lo, sir, this takes he
As grateful now as a monopoly.

[The still flutes sound softly.

Enter Forobosco and Castilio: Mellida supported by two waiting-women.

Mel. All honour to this royal confluence.

Pier. Forbear, impure, to blot bright honour’s name
With thy defilèd lips. The flux of sin
Flows from thy tainted body: thou so foul,
So all dishonour’d, canst no honour give,
No wish of good, that can have good effect    130
To this grave senate, and illustrate bloods.
Why stays the doom of death?

1st. Sen. Who riseth up to manifest her guilt?

2d Sen. You must produce apparent proof, my lord.

Pier. Why, where is Strotzo?—he that swore he saw
The very act, and vow’d that Feliche fled
Upon his sight: on which I brake the breast
Of the adulterous lecher with five stabs.
Go, fetch in Strotzo. Now, thou impudent,
If thou hast any drop of modest blood    140
Shrouded within thy cheeks, blush, blush for shame,
That rumour yet may say thou felt’st defame.

Mel. Produce the devil; let your Strotzo come:
I can defeat his strongest argument,
With——

Pier. With what?

Mel. With tears, with blushes, sighs, and claspèd hands;
With innocent uprearèd arms to Heaven;
With my unnookt[296] simplicity. These, these
Must, will, can only quit my heart of guilt:    150
Heaven permits not taintless blood be spilt.
If no remorse live in your savage breast——

Pier. Then thou must die.

Mel. Yet dying, I’ll be blest.

Pier. Accurst by me.

Mel. Yet blest, in that I strove
To live, and die——

Pier. My hate.

Mel. Antonio’s love.

Ant. [Aside.] Antonio’s love!

Enter Strotzo, with a cord about his neck.

Str. O what vast ocean of repentant tears
Can cleanse my breast from the polluting filth
Of ulcerous sin! Supreme Efficient,
Why cleavest thou not my breast with thunderbolts    160
Of wing’d revenge?

Pier. What means this passion?

Ant. [Aside.] What villainy are they decocting now? Umh!

Str. In[297] me convertite ferrum, O proceres.
Nihil iste, nec ista.

Pier. Lay hold on him! What strange portent is this?

Str. I will not flinch. Death, hell more grimly stare
Within my heart than in your threatening brows.
Record, thou threefold guard of dreadest power,[298]
What I here speak is forcèd from my lips
By the [im]pulsive strain of conscience.    170
I have a mount of mischief clogs my soul,
As weighty as the high-noll’d[299] Apennine,
Which I must straight disgorge, or breast will burst.
I have defam’d this lady wrongfully,
By instigation of Antonio,
Whose reeling love, tost on each fancy’s surge,
Began to loath before it fully joyed.

Pier. Go, seize Antonio! guard him strongly in!

[Exit Forobosco.

Str. By his ambition being only bribed,
Fee’d by his impious hand, I poisonèd    180
His agèd father, that his thirsty hope[s]
Might quench their dropsy of aspiring drought
With full unbounded quaff.

Pier. Seize me, Antonio!

Str. O, why permit you now such scum of filth
As Strotzo is to live and taint the air
With his infectious breath!

Pier. Myself will be thy strangler, unmatched slave.

Piero comes from his chair, snatcheth the cord’s end, and Castilio aideth him: both strangle Strotzo.

Str. Now change your——

Pier. I—pluck Castilio!—I change my humour: pluck Castilio!
Die, with thy death’s entreats even in thy jaws.—    190
[Aside.] Now, now, now, now, now, my plot begins to work!
Why, thus should statesmen do,
That cleave through knots of craggy policies,
Use men like wedges, one strike out another,
Till by degrees the tough and knurly[300] trunk
Be riv’d in sunder.—Where’s Antonio?

Enter Alberto, running.

Alb. O, black accursèd fate! Antonio’s drown’d.

Pier. Speak, on thy faith, on thy allegiance, speak.

Alb. As I do love Piero, he is drown’d.

Ant. [Aside.] In an inundation of amazement.    200

Mel. Ay, is this the close of all my strains in love?
O me most wretched maid!

Pier. Antonio drown’d! how? how? Antonio drown’d!

Alb. Distraught and raving, from a turret’s top
He threw his body in the swollen sea,
And as he headlong topsy turvy ding’d[301] down,
He still cried “Mellida!”

Ant. [Aside.] My love’s bright crown!

Mel. He still cried “Mellida"!

Pier. Daughter, methinks your eyes should sparkle joy,
Your bosom rise on tiptoe at this news.    210

Mel. Ay me!

Pier. How now? Ay, me! why, art not great of thanks
To gracious Heaven for the just revenge
Upon the author of thy obloquies!

Mar. Sweet beauty, I could sigh as fast as you,
But that I know that, which I weep to know.
[Aside.] His[302] fortunes should be such he dare not show
His open presence!

Mel. I know he lov’d me dearly, dearly, ay:
And since I cannot live with him, I die.    220

[Swoons.

Pier. ’Fore Heaven, her speech falters; look, she swouns.
Convey her up into her private bed.

[Maria, Nutriche, and the Ladies bear out Mellida, as being swooned.

I hope she’ll live. If not——

Ant. Antonio’s dead! the fool will follow too.
He, he, he!
[Aside.] Now works the scene; quick observation, scud
To cote[303] the plot, or else the path is lost:
My very self am gone, my way is fled:
Ay, all is lost, if Mellida is dead.