A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Originally Published by Robert Dodsley in the year 1744
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays: Originally Published by Robert Dodsley in the year 1744
English drama
AND. Your highness circles me with honour’s bounds;
I shall discharge the weight of your command
With best respect: if friendly-tempered phrase
Cannot affect the virtue of your charge,
I will be hard like thunder, and as rough
As northern tempests, or the vexed bowels
Of too insulting waves, who at one blow
Five merchants’ wealths into the deep doth throw.
I’ll threaten crimson wars----
ROG. Aye, aye, that’s good;
Let them keep coin, pay tribute with their blood.
SPAIN. Farewell, then, Don Andrea; to thy charge.
Lords, let us in; joy shall be now our guest:
Let’s in to celebrate our second feast.
[_Exeunt omnes, manet_ LORENZO _solus._
LOR. Andrea’s gone embassador;
Lorenzo is not dreamt on in this age.
Hard fate,
When villains sit not in the highest state!
Ambition’s plumes, that flourished in our court,
Severe authority has dashed with justice;
And policy and pride walk like two exiles,
Giving attendance, that were once attended;
And we rejected, that were once high-honoured.
I hate Andrea; ’cause he aims at honour,
When my purest thoughts work in a pitchy vale,
Which are as different as heaven and hell.
One peers for day, the other gapes for night.
That yawning beldam, with her jetty skin--
’Tis she I hug as mine effeminate bride,
For such complexions best appease my pride.
I have a lad in pickle of this stamp,
A melancholy, discontented courtier,
Whose famished jaws look like the chap of death;
Upon whose eyebrows hangs damnation;
Whose hands are washed in rape and murders bold:
Him with a golden bait will I allure
(For courtiers will do anything for gold),
To be Andrea’s death at his return.
He loves my sister, that shall cost his life;
So she a husband, he shall lose a wife.
O sweet, sweet policy, I hug thee! good;
Andrea’s Hymen’s-draught shall be in blood.
[_Exit._
_Enter_ HORATIO _at one door_, ANDREA _at another._
HOR. Whither in such haste, my second self?
AND. I’faith, my dear bosom, to take solemn leave
Of a most weeping creature.
HOR. That’s a woman.
_Enter_ BELL’-IMPERIA.
AND. That’s Bell’-Imperia.
HOR. See, see, she meets you here:
And what is it to love, and be lov’d dear!
BEL. I have heard of your honour, gentle breast,
I do not like it now so well, methinks.
AND. What! not to have honour bestowed on me?
BEL. O, yes; but not a wandering honour, dear;
I could afford well, diddest thou stay here.
Could honour melt itself into thy veins,
And thou the fountain, I could wish it so,
If thou wouldst remain here with me, and not go.
AND. ’Tis but to Portugal.
HOR. But to demand the tribute, lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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