Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 06 of 10Fletcher, John
General
Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 06 of 10
Fletcher, John
English drama
_Sess._ Cruel beginnings meet with cruel ends;
And the best sacrifice to Heaven for peace,
Is tyrants blood: and those that stuck fast to him,
Flesh'd instruments in his commands to mischief,
With him dispatch'd.
_Boats._ They are cut off.
_Sess._ 'Tis well.
_All._ Thanks to the Duke of _Sesse_.
_Sess._ Pay that to Heaven,
And for a general joy, give general thanks:
For blessings nere descend from Heaven, but when
A grateful Sacrifice ascends from men.
To your devotion, leave me, there's a Scene,
Which I would act alone; yet you may stay,
For wanting just spectators, 'twill be nothing.
The rest forbear me.
_Cit._ Liberty, liberty, liberty.
_Mar._ I would I were as far beneath the Centre,
As now I stand above it; how I tremble!
Thrice happy they that dyed; I dying live
To stand the whirlwind of a fathers fury.
Now it moves toward me.
_Sess._ Thou, I want a name,
By which to stile thee: All articulate sounds
That do express the mischief of vile woman,
That are, or have been, or shall be, are weak
To speak thee to the height. Witch, Parricide,
For thou, in taking leave of modesty,
Hast kild thy father, and his honor lost;
He's but a walking shadow to torment thee.
To leave, and rob thy father; then set free
His foes, whose slavery he did prefer
Above all treasure, was a strong defeazance
To cut off, even the surest bonds of mercy.
After all this, having given up thy self,
Like to a sensual beast, a slave to lust,
To play the whore, and then (high Heaven it racks me)
To find out none to quench thy appetite,
But the most cruel King, whom next to Hell,
Thy father hated; and whose black imbraces
Thou shouldst have fled from, as the whips of furies;
What canst thou look for?
_Enter Pandulph, and bodies born on the Herse._
_Mart._ Death; and 'tis not in you
To hurt me farther: my old resolution,
Take now the place of fear; in this I liv'd,
In this I'll dye, your daughter.
_Pand._ Look but here;
You had I know, a guilty hand in this;
Repent it Lady.
_Mart. Juliana_ dead?
And _Virolet_?
_Pand._ By her unwilling hand.
_Mart._ Fates you are equal. What can now fall on me,
That I will shrink at? now unmov'd I dare
Look on your anger, and not bend a knee
To ask your pardon; let your rage run higher
Than billows rais'd up by a violent Tempest,
And be, as that is, deaf to all intreaties:
They are dead, and I prepar'd; for in their fall
All my desires are summ'd up.
_Sess._ Impudent too?
Die in it wretch.
_Boats._ Stay Sir. [_Boats. kills her._
_Sess._ How dar'st thou villain,
Snatch from my sword the honor of my justice?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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