While with vain hopes our faculties we tire, I would not change my peace of conscience To store them with fresh colour.-Who's there! DUTCH. Antonio !* Bos. Yes, madam, he is living; The dead bodies you saw, were but feign'd statues ; He's reconcil'd to your brothers; the Pope hath wrought The attonement. DUTCH. Mercy! [Dies. Bos. O, she's gone again! there the cords of life broke. O, sacred innocence, that sweetly sleeps On turtles' feathers, whilst a guilty conscience Is a black register, wherein is writ All our good deeds and bad, a perspective The idea of making the Dutchess speak a few words after she has been strangled, was doubtless taken from the death of Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello, Act V. That shews us hell! That we cannot be suffer'd These tears, I am very certain, never grew Unto a wretch hath slain his father. Come, And execute thy last will; that's deliver Of some good women: that the cruel tyrant [Exit. ACT V.-SCENE I. Enter ANTONIO and DELIO. ANT. What think you of my hope of reconcilement To the Arragonian brethren? DELIO. I misdoubt it; For though they have sent their letters of safe conduct For your repair to Milan, they appear But nets to entrap you. The Marquis of Pescara, last] Omitted in the 4to. of 1640. Under whom you hold certain land in cheat, To be invested in your revenues. I cannot think, they mean well to your life, ANT. You are still an heretick To any safety I can shape myself. DELIO. Here comes the marquis: I will make myself Petitioner for some part of your land, To know whither it is flying. ANT. I pray do. Enter PESCARA. DELIO. Sir, I have a suit to you. PES. To me? DELIO. An easy one: There is the citadel of St. Bennet, With some demesnes, of late in the possession Of Antonio Bologna,-please you bestow them on me? PES. You are my friend; but this is such a suit, Nor fit for me to give, nor you to take. DELIO. No, sir? PES. I will give you ample reason for't, Soon in private: here's the cardinal's mistress. Enter JULIA. JULIA. My lord, I am grown your poor petitioner, And should be an ill beggar, had I not PES. He entreats for you The citadel of St. Bennet, that belong'd To the banish'd Bologna. JULIA. Yes. PES. I could not have thought of a friend I could rather Pleasure with it: 'tis yours. JULIA. Sir, I thank you ; And he shall know how doubly I am engag'd Both in your gift, and speediness of giving, Themselves with my ruin! Little bound to you. PES. Why? [Exit. DELIO. Because you denied this suit to me, and gave't To such a creature. PES. Do you know what it was? It was Antonio's land; not forfeited By course of law, but ravish'd from his throat Look ruddier upon me? I am glad This land, ta'en from the owner by such wrong, Returns again unto so I'll be a nobler giver. foul an use, Learn, good Delio, me, and you shall find DELIO. You instruct me well. ANT. Why, here's a man now, would fright im pudence From sauciest beggars. PES. Prince Ferdinand's come to Milan, To visit him. ANT. 'Tis a noble old fellow. [Exit. DELIO. What course do you mean to take, Antonio? ANT. This night I mean to venture all my fortune, Which is no more than a poor lingering life, To the cardinal's worst of malice: I have got Private access to his chamber; and intend To visit him about the mid of night, As once his brother did our noble dutchess. It may be that the sudden apprehension Of danger, for I'll go in mine own shape, When he shall see it fraight with love and duty, fraight] i. e. fraught: so Brathwait; "And shall man fraight with knowledge and with reason, Act against God and Nature such high treason?" The Honest Ghost, 1658, p. 9. See too the lines addressed to Watson in my ed. of Peele's Works, vol. ii. p. 164. |