ALL'S LOST BY LUST, A TRAGEDY: BY WILLIAM ROWLEY.

RODERIGO king of Spain takes the opportunity to violate the daughter of JULIANUS, while that old general is fighting his battles against the Moors. JACINTA seeks her father in the camp, at the moment of victory.

JULIANUS. Servant.

Serv. Sir, here's a woman (forc'd by some tide of sorrow)

With tears entreats your pity, and to see you.
Jul. If any soldier has done violence to her,
Beyond our military discipline,

Death shall divide him from us: fetch her in.
I have myself a daughter, on whose face
But thinking, I must needs be pitiful :

And when I have told my conquest to my king,
My poor girl then shall know, how for her sake
I did one pious act.

Servant returns with JACINTA veiled.

Is this the creature?

Serv. Yes, my lord, and a sad one.

Jul. Leave us. A sad one!

The downcast look calls up compassion in me,
A corse going to the grave looks not more deadly.
Why kneel'st thou art thou wrong'd by any

soldier?

Rise, for this honour is not due to me.

Hast not a tongue to read thy sorrows out?
This book I understand not.

Jacin. O my dear father!

Jul. Thy father? who has wrong'd him?

Jacin. A great commander.

Jul. Under me?

Jacin. Above you.

Jul. Above me! who 's above a general?

None but the general of all Spain's armies,

And that's the king, king Roderick: he 's all goodness,

He cannot wrong thy father. Jacin. What was Tarquin?

Jul. A king, and yet a ravisher.

Jacin. Such a sin

Was in those days a monster; now 'tis common. Jul. Prithee be plain.

Jacin. Have not you, sir, a daughter?

Jul. If I have not, I am the wretched'st man
That this day lives; for all the wealth I have
Lives in that child.

Jacin. O for your daughter's sake then hear my woes.
Jul. Rise then, and speak them.

Jacin. No, let me kneel still;

Such a semblance of a daughter's duty

Will make you mindful of a father's love:
For such my injuries must exact from you,
As you would for your own.

Jul. And so they do.

For whilst I see thee kneeling, I think of my
Jacinta.

Jacin. Say your Jacinta then, chaste as the rose,
Coming on sweetly in the springing bud,

And ne'er felt heat, to spread the summer sweet,
But to increase and multiply it more,

Did to itself keep in its own perfume;

do?

Say that some rapine hand had pluck'd the bloom,1 Jacinta, like that flower, and ravish'd her, Defiling her white lawn of chastity With ugly blacks of lust, what would you Jul. O'tis too hard a question to resolve, Without a solemn council held within Of man's best understanding faculties :

1 "Cropt this fair rose," &c.-Otway.

There must be love, and fatherhood, and grief, And rage, and many passions, and they must all Beget a thing call'd vengeance; but they must sit upon 't.

Jacin. Say this were done by him that carried

The fairest seeming face of friendship to yourself. Jul. We should fall out.

Jacin. Would you in such a case respect degrees?
Jul. I know not that.

Jacin. Say he were noble.

Jul. Impossible, the act 's ignoble; the bee can breed No poison, though it suck the juice of hemlock. Jacin. Say a king should do 't? were th' act less done By the greater power? does majesty

Extenuate a crime?

Jul. Augment it rather.

Jacin. Say then that Roderick, your king and master,
To quit the honours you are bringing home,
Had ravish'd your Jacinta.

Jul. Who has sent

A fury in this foul-fair shape to vex me?

I have seen that face methinks, yet know it not : How darest thou speak this treason 'gainst my king? Durst any man i' th' world bring me this lie? By this, he had been in hell: Roderick a Tarquin! Jacin. Yes, and thy daughter (had she done her part) Should be the second Lucrece view me well, I am Jacinta.

Jul. Ha!

Jacin. The king my ravisher.

Jul. The king thy ravisher! Oh, unkingly sound! He dares not sure, yet in thy sullied eyes

I read a tragic story.

ANTONIO, ALONZO, and other Officers, enter.

Jul. O noble friends,

Our wars are ended, are they not?

IX.

337

Y

All. They are, sir.

Jul. But Spain has now begun a civil war,

And to confound me only. See you my daughter? She sounds the trumpet which draws forth my sword To be revenged.

Alon. On whom? speak loud your wrongs,

Digest your choler into temperance;

Give your considerate thoughts the upper hand
In your hot passions, 'twill assuage the swelling
Of your big heart; if you have injuries done you,
Revenge them, and we second you.

Jacin. Father, dear father.

Jul. Daughter, dear daughter.

Jacin. Why do you kneel to me, sir?

Jul. To ask thee pardon that I did beget thee.
I brought to a shame stains all the way

"Twixt earth and Acheron: not all the clouds
(The skies' large canopy) could they drown the seas
With a perpetual inundation,

Can wash it ever out: leave me, I pray.

[Falls down.

Alon. His fighting passions will be o'er anon,

And all will be at peace.

Ant. Best in my judgment

We wake him with the sight of his won honours.
Call up the army, and let them present

His prisoners to him, such a sight as that
Will brook no sorrow near it.

Jul. 'Twas a good doctor that prescrib'd that physic.
I'll be your patient, sir; show me my soldiers,
And my new honours won; I will truly weigh

them

With my full griefs, they may perhaps o'ercome. Alon. Why, now there's hope of his recovery. Jul. Jacinta welcome, thou art my child still, No forced stain of lust can alienate Our consanguinity.