A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 14
English drama
Not find Evadne! sure, some wanton wind
Has snatch'd her from the earth into the air!
Smooth Zephyr fans the tresses of her hair,
Whilst slick[30] Favonius plays the fawning slave,
And hourly dies, making her breasts his grave.
O false Evadne! is Giovanno's love,
That has outdone all merit for thy sake,
So light that wind outweighs it?
No, no, [no,] no; Evadne is all virtue,
Sweet as the breath of roses; and as chaste
As virgin lilies in their infancy.
Down, you deluding ministers of air,
Evadne is not light, though she be fair.
Dissolve that counterfeit: ha, ha, ha, ha!
See how they shrink! why so, now I will love you:
Go search into the hollows of the earth,
And find my love, or I will chain you up
To eternity: see, see, who's this?
O, I know him now. So, ho, ho! so, ho, ho!
Not hear? 'Tis Phaeton: no, 'tis an heir
Got, since his father's death, into a cloak
Of gold outshines the sun; the headstrong horses of
Licentious youth have broke their reins, and drawn
Him through the signs of all libidinousness.
See, from the whorish front of Capreæ
He's tumbling down as low as beggary.
O, are you come, grim Tartar Rhadamanth!
Go, ask of Pluto, if he have not ta'en
Evadne to his smoky commonwealth,
And ravish'd her? Begone, why stir you not?
Ha, ha, ha! the devil is afraid.
EVAD. Help, a rape!
[_Within._
BAN. Stop her mouth.
GIO. Who calls for help? 'tis my Evadne; ay,
It was her voice that gave the echo life,
That cried a rape. Devil, dost love a wench?
Who was thy pander, ha? What saucy fiend
Durst lay his unpar'd fangs on my Evadne?
Come, I'll swim unarmed o'er Acheron,
And sink grim Charon in his ferry boat.
EVAD. Murder! a rape!
[_Within._
GIO. I come, I come.
[_Exit._
_Enter the_ BANDIT _dragging_ EVADNE _by the hair: she drops
a scarf_. _Exeunt._
_Enter_ GIOVANNO _again_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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