Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows:
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast
Nail'd to the earth with grief; if any heart
Pierc'd through with anguish pant within this ring,
If there be any blood whose heat is choked
And stifled with true sense of misery,
If aught of these strains fill this consort up-
Th' arrive most welcome. O that our power
Could lacky or keep wing with our desires,
That with unused poise of style and sense,
We might weigh massy in judicious scale.
Yet here's the prop that doth support our hopes :
When our scenes falter, or invention halts,
Your favour will give crutches to our faults.
ANTONIO, son to ANDRUGIO Duke of Genoa, whom PIERO the Venetian prince and father-in-law to ANTONIO has cruelly murdered, kills PIERO'S little son JULIO, as a sacrifice to the ghost of ANDRUGIO.—The scene, a churchyard: the time, midnight.
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.
Jul. Truth, since my mother died, I loved you best.
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. 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.
O that I knew which joint, which side, which limb,
Were father all, and had no mother in it,
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, Ant. O, for thy sister's sake, I flag revenge.
ANDRUGIO's ghost cries "Revenge."
Ant. Stay, stay, dear father, fright mine eyes no more. Revenge as swift as lightning bursteth forth,
And clears 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 my heart lapt up
In any flesh but in Piero's blood,
I would thus kiss it: but being his, thus, thus,
And thus I'll punch it. Abandon fears :
Whilst thy wounds bleed, my brows shall gush out
will love me, do even what you will.
Ant. Now barks the wolf against the full-cheek'd
Now lions' half-clam'd entrails roar for food
Now croaks the toad, and night-crows screech aloud,
Fluttering 'bout casements of departing souls ;
Now gape the graves, and through their yawns let
Imprison'd spirits to revisit earth;
And now, swart night, to swell thy hour out,
Behold I spurt warm blood in thy black eyes.
From under the earth a groan.
Howl not, thou putry 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 fallen, 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.
Mayst thou be twined with the soft'st embrace
Of clear eternity1: but thy father's blood
I thus make incense of to vengeance.
see, the dapple grey coursers of the morn Beat up the light with their bright silver hooves, And chase it through the sky.
One who died, slandered.
Look on those lips,
Those now lawn pillows, on whose tender softness Chaste modest speech, stealing from out his breast, Had wont to rest itself, as loath to post
From out so fair an inn: look, look, they seem To stir,
And breathe defiance to black obloquy.
Even in that, note a fool's beatitude:
He is not capable of passion;
Wanting the power of distinction,
1 To lie immortal in the arms of fire." Brown's Religio Medici. Of the punishments in hell.
He bears an unturned sail with every wind:
Blow east, blow west, he steers his course alike.
I never saw a fool lean: the chub-faced fop
Shines sleek with full cram'd fat of happiness,
Whilst studious contemplation sucks the juice
From wizards'1 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.
MARIA (the Duchess of Genoa) describes the aeath of MELLIDA, her daughter-in-law.
Being laid upon her bed, she grasp'd my hand,
And kissing it, spake thus: Thou very poor,
Why dost not weep? the jewel of thy brow,
The rich adornment that enchased thy breast,
Is lost :
Thy son, my love, is lost, is dead.
And have I lived to see his virtues blurr'd
With guiltless blots? O world, thou art too subtile
For honest natures to converse withal,
Therefore I'll leave thee; farewell, mart of woe,
I fly to clip my love, Antonio!
With that, her head sunk down upon her breast;
Her cheek changed earth, her senses slept in rest,
Until my fool,2 that press'd unto the bed,
Screech'd out so loud that he brought back her soul,
Call'd her again, that her bright eyes 'gan ope
And stared upon him. He, audacious fool,
Dared kiss her hand, wish'd her soft rest, loved bride ;
She fumbled out, thanks, good: and so she died.
2 Antonio, who is thought dead, but still lives in that disguise.
THE MALCONTENT, A TRAGI-COMEDY: BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
The Malcontent describes himself.
I CANNOT sleep, my eyes' ill-neighbouring lids
Will hold no fellowship. O thou pale sober night,
Thou that in sluggish fumes all sense dost steep ;
Thou that giv'st all the world full leave to play,
Unbend'st the feebled veins of sweaty labour;
The galley-slave, that all the toilsome day
Tugs at his oar against the stubborn wave,
Straining his rugged veins, snores fast;
The stooping scythe-man, that doth barb the field,
Thou makest wink sure; in night all creatures sleep;
Only the Malcontent, that 'gainst his fate
Repines and quarrels; alas! he 's Goodman Tellclock;
His sallow jaw-bones sink with wasting moan; Whilst others' beds are down, his pillow 's stone.
My cell 'tis, lady; where, instead of masks,
Music, tilts, tournies, and such court-like shows,
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds
Shall groan again, whilst the unquiet sea
Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.
There usherless1 the air comes in and out;
The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,
Whilst you behold true desolation;
A rocky barrenness shall pierce your eyes,
Where all at once one reaches, where he stands,
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.
1 i. e. without the ceremony of an usher, to give notice of its approach, as is usual in courts. As fine as Shakspeare: "the bleak air thy boisterous chamberlain,"
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