English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600; Greene, Robert, 1558-1592
_Orl._ Angelica doth none but Medor love!
Shall Medor, then, possess Orlando's love?
Dainty and gladsome beams of my delight;
Delicious brows, why smile your heavens for those
That, wounding you, prove poor Orlando's foes?
Lend me your plaints, you sweet Arcadian nymphs,
That wont to sing your new-departed loves;
Thou weeping flood, leavé Orpheus' wail for me;
And, Titan's nieces, gather all in one
Those fluent springs of your lamenting tears,
And let them stream along my faintful looks.
_Shep._ [_aside_]. Now is the fire, late smother'd in suspect,
Kindled, and burns within his angry breast:
Now have I done the will of Sacripant.
_Orl. Fœmineum servile genus, crudele, superbum:_
Discourteous women, nature's fairest ill,
The woe of man, that first-created curse,
Base female sex, sprung from black Ate's loins,
Proud, disdainful, cruel, and unjust,
Whose words are shaded with enchanting wiles,
Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds;
And in their hearts sits shameless treachery,
Turning a truthless vile circumference.
O, could my fury paint their furies forth!
For hell's no hell, comparèd to their hearts,
Too simple devils to conceal their arts;
Born to be plagues unto the thoughts of men,
Brought for eternal pestilence to the world.
_O femminile ingegno, dituttimali sede,_
_Come ti volgi e muti facilmente,_
_Contrario oggetto proprio de la fede!_
_O infelice, O miser chi ti crede!_
_Importune, superbe, dispettose,_
_Prive d'amor, di fede e di consiglio,_
_Timerarie, crudeli, inique, ingrate,_
_Per pestilenzia eterna al mondo nate._[152]
Villain, what art thou that followest me?
_Org._ Alas, my lord, I am your servant, Orgalio.
_Orl._ No, villain, thou art Medor; that rann'st away with Angelica.
_Org._ No, by my troth, my lord, I am Orgalio; ask all these people else.
_Orl._ Art thou Orgalio? tell me where Medor is.
_Org._ My lord, look where he sits.
_Orl._ What, sits he here, and braves me too?
_Shep._ No, truly, sir, I am not he.
_Orl._ Yes, villain. [_Draws him in by the leg._
_Org._ Help, help, my lord of Aquitain!
_Enter the_ DUKE OF AQUITAIN _and_ Soldiers.
O, my lord of Aquitain, the Count Orlando is run mad, and taking of a
shepherd by the heels, rends him as one would tear a lark! See where he
comes, with a leg on his neck.
_Re-enter_ ORLANDO _with a leg._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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