English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Lady_. Enough, good friend; no more.
Had a rude _Scythian_, ignorant of teares,
Unlesse the wind enforcd them from his eyes,
Heard this relation, sure he would have wept;
And yet I cannot. I have lost all sense
Of pitty with my womanhood, and now
That once essentiall Mistress of my soule,
Warme charity, no more inflames my brest
Than does the glowewormes ineffectual fire
The ha[n]d that touches it. Good sir, desist
The agravation of your sad report; [_Weepe_
Ive to much greife already.
_Tho_. It becomes you:
You do appeare more glorious in these t[ears]
Then the red morne when she adornes her cheeks
With _Nabathean_ pearls: in such a posture
Stand _Phaetons_ sisters when they doe distill
Their much prisd amber. Madam, but resume
Your banishd reason to you, and consider
How many Iliads of preposterous mischeife
From your intemperate breach of faith to me
Fetch their loathed essence; thinke but on the love,
The holy love I bore you, that we two
--Had you bin constant--might have taught the wor[ld]
Affections primitive purenes; when, from
Your abrogation of it, Bonvills death,
Your daughter['s] losse have luc[k]lessly insu'd.
The streame that, like a Crocodile, did weepe
Ore them whom with an over ravenous kisse
Its moyst lips stifled, will record your fault
In watery characters as lastingly
As iff twere cut in marble. Heaven, forgive you;
Ile pray for you; repent.
[_Exeunt Thorowgood and Grimes_.
_Grimes_. O, my deare Master!
_Lady_. Repent! should I but spend
The weakest accent of my breath in sighes
Or vaine compunction, I should feare I sinnd
Against my will, then which I doe confes
Noe other diety. Passions[120] doe surround
My intellectual powers; only my heart,
Like to a Rocky Island, does advance
Above the foming violence of the waves
Its unmovd head, bids me my fate outdare.
Ills sure prevention is a swift despaire.
[_Exit_.
([SCENE] 2.)
_Enter Alexander and Young Marlowe_.
_Alex_. Thinke, sir, to whome the Iniury was don,--go to--your Lady
Mother, a vertuous lady, I say and I sayt agen, a very vertuous lady.
Had I but youth and strength as you have, in what cause should I sooner
hazard both then in this?
_Y. M_. Murder, my friend!
_Alex_. Noe, tis doing sacrifice to slaunderd goodnes.
_Y. M_. Rob my beloved Sister of a husband!
_Alex_. Yes, to redeeme to your mother her lost honour.
_Y. M_. Art not a Divell?
_Alex_. Ha!
_Y. M_. Thy breath has blasted me.
_Alex_. I must confes indeed I have eaten garlicke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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