_Awake, ye woful wights, That long have wept in woe: Resign to me your plaints and tears, My hapless hap to show. My woe no tongue can tell, No pen can well descry: O, what a death is this to hear, Damon my friend must die!_ _The loss of worldly wealth Man’s wisdom may restore, And physic hath provided too A salve for every sore: But my true friend once lost, No art can well supply: Then, what a death is this to hear, Damon my friend must die!_ _My mouth, refuse the food, That should my limbs sustain: Let sorrow sink into my breast, And ransack every vein: Ye Furies, all at once On me your torments try: Why should I live, since that I hear[62] Damon my friend must[63] die!_ _Gripe me, you greedy grief And present pangs of death, You sisters three, with cruel hands With speed come[64] stop my breath: Shrine me in clay alive, Some good man stop mine eye: O death, come now, seeing I hear Damon my friend must die._ _He speaketh this after the song._ In vain I call for death, which heareth not my complaint: But what wisdom is this, in such extremity to faint? _Multum juvat in re malâ animus bonus._ I will to the court myself, to make friends, and that presently. I will never forsake my friend in time of misery-- But do I see Stephano amazed hither to run? _Here entereth_ STEPHANO. STEPHANO. O Pithias, Pithias, we are all undone! Mine own ears have sucked in mine own sorrow; I heard Dionysius swear, that Damon should die to-morrow. PITHIAS. How camest thou so near the presence of the king, That thou mightest hear Dionysius speak this thing? STEPHANO. By friendship I gat into the court, where in great audience I heard Dionysius with his own mouth give this cruel sentence By these express words: that Damon the Greek, that crafty spy, Without further judgment to-morrow should die: Believe me, Pithias, with these ears I heard it myself. PITHIAS. Then how near is my death also! Ah, woe is me! Ah my Damon, another myself, shall I forego thee? STEPHANO. Sir, there is no time of lamenting now: it behoveth us To make means to them which can do much with Dionysius, That he be not made away, ere his cause be fully heard; for we see By evil report things be made to princes far worse than they be. But lo, yonder cometh Aristippus, in great favour with king Dionysius, Entreat him to speak a good word to the king for us, And in the mean season I will to your lodging to see all things safe there. PITHIAS. To that I agree: but let us slip aside his talk to hear. _Here entereth_ ARISTIPPUS.