Cese la furia del rigor violento Tuyo. Marquino, baste, triste, baste, La que yo paso en la region escura, Sin que tú crezcas mas mi desventura. Engáñaste, si piensas que recibo Contento de volver á esta penosa, Mísera y corta vida, que ahora vivo, Que ya me va faltando presurosa; Antes, me causas un dolor esquivo, Pues otra vez la muerte rigurosa Triunfará de mi vida y de mi alma; Mi enemigo tendrá doblada palma, El cual, con otros del escuro bando De los que son sugetos á aguardarte, Está con rabia en torno, aquí esperando A que acabe, Marquino, de informarte Del lamentable fin, del mal nefando, Que de Numancia puedo asegurarte. Jorn. II., Sc. 2. There is nothing of so much dignity in the incantations of Marlowe’s “Faustus,” which belong to the contemporary period of the English stage; nor does even Shakspeare demand from us a sympathy so strange with the mortal head reluctantly rising to answer Macbeth’s guilty question, as Cervantes makes us feel for this suffering spirit, recalled to life only to endure a second time the pangs of dissolution. The scenes of private and domestic affliction arising from the pressure of famine are sometimes introduced with unexpected effect, especially one between a mother and her child, and the following between Morandro, a lover, and his mistress, Lira, whom he now sees wasted by hunger and mourning over the universal desolation. She turns from him to conceal her sufferings, and he says tenderly,-- Nay, Lira, haste not, haste not thus away; But let me feel an instant’s space the joy Which life can give even here, amidst grim death. Let but mine eyes an instant’s space behold Thy beauty, and, amidst such bitter woes, Be gladdened! O my gentle Lira!--thou, That dwell’st for ever in such harmony Amidst the thoughts that throng my fantasy, That suffering grows glorious for thy sake;-- What ails thee, love? On what are bent thy thoughts, Chief honor of mine own? _Lira._ I think, how fast All happiness is gliding both from thee And me; and that, before this cruel war Can find a close, my life must find one too. _Morandro._ What sayst thou, love?