The bands, that should combine your snow-white wrists, Are these which shall adorn your milk-white necks. The private cells, where you shall end your lives, Is Italy, is Europe--nay, the world. Th' Euxinian Sea, the fierce Sicilian Gulf, The river Ganges and Hydaspes' stream Shall level lie, and smooth as crystal ice, While Fulvia and Cornelia pass thereon. The soldiers, that should guard you to your deaths, Shall be five thousand gallant youths of Rome, In purple robes cross-barr'd with pales of gold, Mounted on warlike coursers for the field, Fet[63] from the mountain-tops of Corsica, Or bred in hills of bright Sardinia, Who shall conduct and bring you to your lord. Ay, unto Sylla, ladies, shall you go, And tell him Marius holds within his hands Honour for ladies, for ladies rich reward; But as for Sylla and for his compeers, Who dare 'gainst Marius vaunt their golden crests, Tell him for them old Marius holds revenge, And in his hands both triumphs life and death. * * * * * Only two plays, _The Spanish Tragedy_ (before 1588) and _Cornelia_ (printed 1594), are definitely known to have been written by Thomas Kyd. There are two others, however, which are commonly attributed to him, _Jeronimo_ and _Soliman and Perseda_. _The Spanish Tragedy_ continues the story of _Jeronimo_ with so much care in the perpetuation of each character--Villuppo and Pedringano are examples--that it is natural to suppose them both by the same author; in which case 1587 may be guessed as the date of the latter. Different but strong internal evidence points to Kyd's authorship of _Soliman and Perseda_. It has many features corresponding to those found in _The Spanish Tragedy_. The Chorus of Love, Fortune and Death, in its attitude to the play, closely resembles that of the Ghost and Revenge. Most of the characters come to a violent end, and in each play the list of deaths is carefully enumerated by the triumphant spirit, Death or the Ghost. Then there are similarities of lines and phrases and remarkable identity in certain tricks of style, notably in the love of repetition and in a peculiar form of reasoning after the fashion of a sorites.--Curiously enough, these same tricks are found, in equally emphatic form, in _Locrine_, an anonymous play of somewhat later date.--We may compare, for example, the two following extracts: (1) _Erastus._ No, no; my hope full long ago was lost, And Rhodes itself is lost, or else destroy'd: If not destroy'd, yet bound and captivate; If captivate, then forc'd from holy faith; If forc'd from faith, for ever miserable: For what is misery but want of God? And God is lost if faith be overthrown. (_Soliman and Perseda_, Act IV.) (2)