With her fair hands she strives in vain Her body to defend; With shrieks and cries she doth complain, But all is to no end. 80 A servant listning near the door, Struck with her doleful noise, Strait ran his lady to implore; But she'll not hear his voice. With bleeding heart he goes agen 85 To mark the maiden's groans; And plainly hears, within the den, How she herself bemoans. Again he to his lady hies, With all the haste he may; 90 She into furious passion flies, And orders him away. Still back again does he return To hear her tender cries; The virgin now had ceas'd to mourn, 95 Which fill'd him with surprize. In grief, and horror, and affright, He listens at the walls But finding all was silent quite, He to his lady calls. 100 "Too sure, O lady," now quoth he, "Your cruelty hath sped; Make haste, for shame, and come and see; I fear the virgin's dead." She starts to hear her sudden fate, 105 And does with torches run; But all her haste was now too late, For death his worst had done. The door being open'd, strait they found The virgin stretch'd along; 110 Two dreadful snakes had wrapt her round, Which her to death had stung. One round her legs, her thighs, her waist, Had twin'd his fatal wreath; The other close her neck embrac'd, 115 And stopt her gentle breath. The snakes being from her body thrust, Their bellies were so fill'd, That with excess of blood they burst, Thus with their prey were kill'd. 120 The wicked lady, at this sight, With horror strait ran mad; So raving dy'd, as was most right, 'Cause she no pity had. Let me advise you, ladies all, 125 Of jealousy beware: It causeth many a one to fall, And is the devil's snare. THE LADY ISABELLA'S TRAGEDY. "This ballad is given from an old black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, collated with another in the British Museum, H. 263, folio. It is there entitled, _The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-Mother's Cruelty; being a relation of a lamentable and cruel murther, committed on the body of the Lady Isabella, the only daughter of a noble Duke, &c. To the tune of The Lady's Fall_. To some copies are annexed eight more modern stanzas, entitled, _The Dutchess's and Cook's Lamentation_." Percy's _Reliques_, iii. 199. The copy in Durfey's _Pills to Purge Melancholy_, v. 53, is nearly _verbatim_ the same. There was a lord of worthy fame, And a hunting he would ride, Attended by a noble traine Of gentrye by his side.