A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 05
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 05
English drama
[168] _Imprison'd_, 1618, '23, 33.
[169] _Marshals_, 1618, 23, '33.
[170] _I_, omitted, 1618, '23, '33.
[171] _Bare_, omitted, ditto.
[172] _Men-kind_, ditto.
[173] _Credit_, ditto.
[174] _Should_, ditto.
[175] _Could not_, 1618, '23, '33.
[176] _The_, 1618, '23, '33.
[177] _No_, ditto.
[178] _My_, omitted, 1618, '23, '33.
[179] _No reason_, ditto.
[180] _For_, 1618, '23, '33.
[181] [Old copies, _murder? o._]
[182] _The_, 1618, '23, '33.
[183] _Spring-tide_, 1618, '23, '33.
[184] _But_, ditto.
[185] _Shall thus be this revenged_, 1618. _Shall thus be thus_
_revenged_, 1623, '33.
[186] _Should_, 1618, '23, '33.
[187] _For thee_, ditto.
ACT IV.[188]
_Enter_ ISABELLA _and her_ MAID.
ISABELLA.
So that you say this herb will purge the eye,[189]
And this the head. Ah, but none of them will purge the heart!
No, there's no medicine left for my disease,
Nor any physic to recure the dead.
[_She runs lunatic._
Horatio! O, where's Horatio?
MAID.
Good madam, affright not thus yourself
With outrage for your son Horatio;
He sleeps in quiet in the Elysian fields.
ISABELLA.
Why, did I not give you gowns and goodly things?
Bought you a whistle and a whipstalk[190] too,
To be revenged on their villanies?
MAID.
Madam, these humours do torment my soul.
ISABELLA.
My soul, poor soul; thou talk'st of things--
Thou know'st not what: my soul hath silver wings,
That mount me up unto the highest heavens:
To heaven, ay, there sits my Horatio,
Back'd with a troop of fiery cherubims,
Dancing about his newly-healed wounds,
Singing sweet hymns, and chanting heavenly notes:
Rare harmony to greet his innocence,[191]
That died,[192] ay, died a mirror in our days.
But say, where shall I find the men, the murderers,
That slew Horatio? Whither shall I run,
To find them out, that murdered my son?
[_Exeunt._
BELL'-IMPERIA _at a window_.
BELL'-IMPERIA.
What means this outrage, that is offer'd me?
Why am I thus sequester'd from the court?
No notice! shall I not know the cause
Of these my secret and suspicious ills!
Accursed brother, unkind murderer,
Why bend'st thou thus thy mind to martyr me?
Hieronimo, why writ[193] I of thy wrongs?
Or why art thou so slack in thy revenge?
Andrea, O Andrea! that thou saw'st
Me for thy friend Horatio handled thus;
And him for me thus causeless murdered!
Well, force perforce, I must constrain myself
To patience, and apply me to the time,
Till heav'n, as I have hop'd, shall set me free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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