+Oss.+ My lord, may Heaven direct you! [_Exit +Ossuna+._ +Dec.+ What have I obtain'd By all this sweat of business? Like the wind, Prosperous ambition only swell'd my sail, To give me courage to encounter with A tempest. Early cares and midnight frights, Faint hopes and causeless fears, successively, Like billows, have moved in me. What a fool Is human wisdom; what a beggar wealth; How scorn'd a nothing that proud state we doat on! Time laughs us out of greatness, and shuts up Our wide designs in a dark narrow room, Whence, when the valiant monarch shall creep forth, He will, like some poor coward, hide his eyes, And hope to skulk away. But these are thoughts, And now 'tis time for action. _Enter +Soldier+._ +Sol.+ If your lordship Will please for some few moments to retire Into your tent, her majesty in person Will give you parley here. +Dec.+ In person, sir? The favour bears some omen! She who in The tempest of misfortune still did spread Her sails at large, why doth she strike them now, The wind so prosperous? This is a descent Beneath her greatness. +Sol.+ I reach not, my lord, The mysteries of princes; but this message She charg'd me to return. +Dec.+ The acts of princes Are govern'd often by as frail a passion As those are of the vulgar: the same rage That stirs two footmen to a fray, creates War between kingdoms; but the zealous subject, Gazing afar on th' actions of the proud, Finds towers and lions in an empty cloud. But I'll obey her leisure. Watch you here Till you discover her advanc'd this way. [_Exit +Decastro+._ _Enter +Ascanio+, +Florentio+._ +Flo.+ Sir, you created me, and rais'd me up To th' state of duke, when I was common dust; And, had not fortune given me interest I' th' favour of the queen, I had continued In the worst fate of man, ingratitude. Now I can boast I have restored you back A love rich as the bounty you shower'd on me: 'Tis all the stock of my poor life. +Asc.+ Sad fate! That I must wound thee to the heart to cure My leprosy with thy blood. Florentio, search I' th' stock of women; there's some other beauty. +Flo.+ O, no! no other. +Asc.+ I'll endow her with The wealth of all Castile. +Flo.+ Poor empty nothing! +Asc.+ If sovereignty be the idol of thy soul, I will divide my kingdom. Thou shalt reign As independent as myself.