HUMBER.
Give me some meat, villain; give me some meat,
Or gainst this rock I’ll dash thy cursed brains,
And rent thy bowels with my bloody hands.
Give me some meat, villain; give me some meat!
STRUMBO.
By the faith of my body, good fellow, I had rather give an whole oxe
than that thou shouldst serve me in that sort. Dash out my brains? O
horrible! terrible! I think I have a quarry of stones in my pocket.
Let him make as though he would give him some, and as he putteth out
his hand, enter the ghost of Albanact, and strike him on the hand: and
so Strumbo runs out, Humber following him. Exit.
ALBANACT’S GHOST.
Lo, here the gift of fell ambition,
Of usurpation and of treachery!
Lo, here the harms that wait upon all those
That do intrude themselves in other’s lands,
Which are not under their dominion.
[_Exit._]
SCENE III. A chamber in the Royal Palace
Enter Locrine alone.
LOCRINE.
Seven years hath aged Corineus lived,
To Locrine’s grief, and fair Estrild’s woe,
And seven years more he hopeth yet to live.
Oh supreme Jove, annihilate this thought!
Should he enjoy the air’s fruition?
Should he enjoy the benefit of life?
Should he contemplate the radiant sun,
That makes my life equal to dreadful death?
Venus, convey this monster fro the earth,
That disobeyeth thus thy sacred hests!
Cupid, convey this monster to dark hell,
That disanulls thy mother’s sugared laws!
Mars, with thy target all beset with flames,
With murthering blade bereave him of his life,
That hindreth Locrine in his sweetest joys!
And yet, for all his diligent aspect,
His wrathful eyes, piercing like Linces’ eyes,
Well have I overmatched his subtilty.
Nigh Deurolitum, by the pleasant Lee,
Where brackish Thamis slides with silver streams,
Making a breach into the grassy downs,
A curious arch, of costly marble fraught,
Hath Locrine framed underneath the ground;
The walls whereof, garnished with diamonds,
With ophirs, rubies, glistering emeralds,
And interlast with sun-bright carbuncles,
Lighten the room with artificial day:
And from the Lee with water-flowing pipes
The moisture is derived into this arch,
Where I have placed fair Estrild secretly.
Thither eftsoons, accompanied with my page,
I covertly visit my heart’s desire,
Without suspicion of the meanest eye;
For love aboundeth still with policy:
And thither still means Locrine to repair,
Till Atropos cut off mine uncle’s life.
[_Exit._]
SCENE IV. The entrance of a cave, near which runs the river, afterward
the Humber
Enter Humber alone, saying:.
HUMBER.
O vita misero longa, foelici brevis,
Eheu! malorum fames extremum malum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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