English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Anton_. Faith 'tis true, we must at length;
But yet, _Petronius_, while we may awhile
We would enjoy them; those we have w'are sure of,
When that thou talke of's doubtful and to come.
_Petron_. Perhaps thou thinkst to live yet twenty yeeres,
Which may unlookt for be cut off, as mine;
If not, to endlesse time compar'd is nothing.
What you endure must ever, endure now;
Nor stay not to be last at table set.
Each best day of our life at first doth goe,
To them succeeds diseased age and woe;
Now die your pleasures, and the dayes you[91] pray
Your rimes and loves and jests will take away.
Therefore, my sweet, yet thou wilt goe with mee,
And not live here to what thou wouldst not see.
_Enan_. Would y'have me then [to] kill my selfe, and die,
And goe I know not to what places there?
_Petron_. What places dost thou feare?
Th'ill-favoured lake they tell thee thou must passe,
And the[92] blacke frogs that croake about the brim?
_Enan_. O, pardon, Sir, though death affrights a woman,
Whose pleasures though you timely here divine,
The paines we know and see.
_Petron_. The paine is lifes; death rids that paine away.
Come boldly, there's no danger in this foord;
Children passe through it. If it be a paine
You have this comfort that you past it are.
_Enan_. Yet all, as well as I, are loath to die.
_Petron_. Judge them by deed, you see them doe't apace.
_Enan_. I, but 'tis loathly and against their wils.
_Petron_. Yet know you not that any being dead
Repented them and would have liv'd againe.
They then there errors saw and foolish prayers,
But you are blinded in the love of life;
Death is but sweet to them that doe approach it.
To me, as one that tak'n with _Delphick_ rage,
When the divining God his breast doth fill,
He sees what others cannot standing by,
It seemes a beauteous and pleasant thing.--
Where is my deaths Phisitian?
_Phisi_. Here, my Lord.
_Petron_. Art ready?
_Phisi_. I, my Lord.
_Petron_. And I for thee:
Nero, my end shall mocke thy tyranny.
[_Exeunt_.
_Finis Actus Quarti_.
_Actus Quintus_.
_Enter Nero, Nimphidius, Tigellinus, Neophilus,
Epaphroditus and other attendants_.
_Nero_. Enough is wept, _Poppaea_, for thy death,
Enough is bled: so many teares of others
Wailing their losses have wipt mine away.
Who in the common funerall of the world
Can mourne on[e] death?
_Tigell_. Besides, Your Maiestie this benefit
In their diserved punishment shall reape,
From all attempts hereafter to be freed.
Conspiracy is how for ever dasht,
Tumult supprest, rebellion out of heart;
In _Pisoes_ death danger it selfe did die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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