A happier age, a thousand years to come; An age for peace, religion, wealth, and ease, When all the world shall wonder at your bliss: That, that is yours! Leave this to Gorlois’ ghost. And see where comes one engine of my hate, With moods and manners fit for my revenge. [_Exit_. THE SECOND SCENE. GUENEVERA, FRONIA. GUENEVERA. And dares he after nine years’ space return, And see her face, whom he so long disdain’d? Was I then chose and wedded for his stale, To look and gape for his retireless sails, Puff’d back and flittering spread to every wind? O wrong, content with no revenge, seek out Undared plagues: teach Mordred how to rage: Attempt some bloody, dreadful, irksome fact, And such as Mordred would were rather his. Why stayest? It must he done! let bridle go: Frame out some trap beyond all vulgar guile, Beyond Medea’s wiles: attempt some fact, That any wight unwieldy[254] of herself, That any spouse unfaithful to her pheer, Durst e’er attempt in most despair of weal. Spare no revenge, b’ it poison, knife, or fire! FRONIA. Good madam, temper these outrageous moods, And let not will usurp, where wit should rule. GUENEVERA. The wrath that breatheth blood doth loathe to lurk: What reason most withholds, rage wrings perforce. I am disdain’d: so will I not be long. That very hour that he shall first arrive, Shall be the last that shall afford him life. Though neither seas, nor lands, nor wars abroad Sufficed for thy foil, yet shalt thou find Far worse at home--thy deep-displeased spouse. Whate’er thou hast subdu’d in all thy stay This hand shall now subdue; then stay thy fill. What’s this? my mind recoils and irks these threats: Anger delays, my grief gins to assuage, My fury faints, and sacred wedlock’s faith Presents itself. Why shunn’st thou fearful wrath? Add coals afresh: preserve me to this venge, At least exile thyself to realms unknown, And steal his wealth to help thy banish’d state; For flight is best. O base and heartless fear! Theft? Exile? Flight? all these may fortune send Unsought; but thee beseems more high revenge. Come, spiteful fiends, come, heaps of furies fell, Not one by one, but all at once! my breast Raves not enough: it likes me to be fill’d With greater monsters yet. My heart doth throb, My liver boils: somewhat my mind portends, Uncertain what; but whatsoever, it’s huge. So it exceed, be what it will, it’s well. Omit no plague, and none will be enough: Wrong cannot be reveng’d but by excess. FRONIA. O, spare this heat! you yield too much to rage: Y’ are too unjust. Is there no mean in wrong? GUENEVERA. Wrong claims a mean, when first you offer wrong: The mean is vain when wrong is in revenge. Great harms cannot be hid: the grief is small, That can receive advice, or rule itself.