Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Spurious and doubtful works; Tragedies (Drama); Yorkshire (England) -- Drama
MASTER.
Unnatural, flinty, more than barbarous:
The Scythians or the marble hearted fates
Could not have acted more remorseless deeds
In their relentless natures, then these of thine:
Was this the answer I long waited on,
The satisfaction for thy prisoned brother?
HUSBAND.
Why, he can have no more on’s then our skins,
And some of em want but fleaing.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Great sins have made him imprudent.
MASTER.
H’as shed so much blood that he cannot blush.
2 GENTLEMAN.
Away with him, bear him a long to the Justices;
A gentleman of worship dwells at hand;
There shall his deeds be blazed.
HUSBAND.
Why, all the better.
My glory tis to have my action known:
I grieve for nothing, but I mist of one.
MASTER.
There’s little of a father in that grief:
Bear him away.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IX. A room in the house of a Magistrate.
[Enter a knight with two or three Gentlemen.]
KNIGHT.
Endangered so his wife? murdered his children?
1 GENTLEMAN.
So the Cry comes.
Knight.
I am sorry I ere knew him,
That ever he took life and natural being
From such an honoured stock, and faira descent;
Til this black minute without stain or blemish.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Here come the men.
[Enter the master of the college and the rest, with the
prisoner.]
KNIGHT.
The serpent of his house! I’m sorry
For this time that I am in place of justice.
MASTER.
Please you, Sir.
KNIGHT.
Do not repeat it twice I know too much,
Would it had ne’er been thought on:
Sir, I bleed for you.
1 GENTLEMAN.
Your fathers sorrows are alive in me:
What made you shew such monstrous cruelty?
HUSBAND.
In a word, Sir, I have consumd all, played away long acre,
and I thought it the charitablest deed I could do to cussen
beggery and knock my house oth head.
KNIGHT.
Oh, in a cooler blood you will repent it.
HUSBAND.
I repent now, that ones left unkild,
My brat at nurse. Oh, I would full fain have weand him.
KNIGHT.
Well, I do not think but in to morrows judgement,
The terror will sit closer to your soul,
When the dread thought of death remembers you;
To further which, take this sad voice from me:
Never was act played more unnaturally.
HUSBAND.
Thank you, Sir.
KNIGHT.
Go, lead him to the Jail:
Where justice claims all, there must pity fail.
HUSBAND.
Come, come, away with me.
[Exit prisoner.]
MASTER.
Sir, you deserve the worship of your place.
Would all did so: in you the law is grace.
KNIGHT.
It is my wish it should be so.—Ruinous man,
The desolation of his house, the blot
Upon his predecessors honord name!
That man is nearest shame that is past shame.
[Exit.]
SCENE X. Before Calverly Hall.
[Enter Husband with the officers, The Master and gentlemen,
as going by his house.]
HUSBAND.
I am right against my house, seat of my Ancestors: I hear my
wife’s alive; but much endangered. Let me intreat to speak
with her, before the prison gripe me.
[Enter his wife, brought in a chair.]
GENTLEMAN.
See here she comes of her self.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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