English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Bellina_. My honourd Father, your griev'd Daughter thus
Thrice every day to Heaven lifts her poore hand
And payes her vowes to the incensed Powers
For your release and happy patience,
And will grow old in vowes unto those Powers
Till they fall on me loaden with my wishes.
_Belliz_. Thou art the comfort of my Treasure, Girle:
Wee'le live together, if it please the King,
And tell sad Stories of thy wretched Mother;
Give equall sighes to one anothers griefe,
And by discourse of happinesse to come
Trample upon our present miseries.
_Hub_. There is a violent fire runnes round about me,
Which my sighes blow to a consuming flame.
To be her Martyr is a happinesse,
The sainted souls would change their merit for it.
Methinkes griefe dwells about her purest eyes,
As if it begg'd a pardon for those teares
Exhausted hence and onely due to love:
Her Vaile hangs like a Cloud over her face,
Through which her beauty, like a glimmering Starre,
Gives a transparent lustre to the night,
As if no sorrow could Ecclipse her light:
Her lips, as they discourse, methinks, looke pale
For feare they should not kisse agen; but, met,
They blush for joy, as happy Lovers doe
After a long divorce when they encounter.
_Belliz_. Noble Lord, if you dare lose so much precious time
As to be companion to my misery
But one poor houre,
And not esteeme your selfe too prodigall
For that expence, this wretched Maid my Child
Shall waite upon you with her sorrows stories;
Vouchsafe but you to heare it.
_Hub_. Yes, with full eare.
_Belliz_. To your best thoughts I leave you;
I will but read, and answer this my Letter.
[_Exit. Belliz_.
_Bellina_. Why do you, seeme to loose your eyes on me?
Here's nothing but a pile of wretchednesse;
A branch that every way is shooke at roote
And would (I think) even fall before you now,
But that Divinity which props it up
Inspires it full of comfort, since the Cause
My father suffers for gives a full glory
To his base fetters of Captivity.
And I beseech you, Sir, if there but dwell
So much of Vertue in you as your lookes
Seeme to expresse possesse your honour'd thoughts,
Bestow your pitty on us, not your scorne;
And wish, for goodnesse sake and your soules weale,
You were a sharer in these sufferings,
So the same cause expos'd your fortunes too't.
_Hub_. Oh, happy woman, know I suffer more,
And for a cause as iust.
_Bellina_. Be proud then of that tryumph; but I am yet
A stranger to the Character of what
You say you suffer for. Is it for Conscience?
_Hub_. For love, divine perfection.
_Bellina_. If of Heaven's love, how rich is your reward!
_Hub_. Of Heaven's best blessing, your most perfect selfe.
_Bellina_. Alas, Sir, here perfection keeps no Court,
Love dresses here no wanton amorous bowers;
Sorrow has made perpetuall winter here,
And all my thoughts are Icie, past the reach
Of what Loves fires can thaw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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