_Erc._ Compare her beauty and my youth together And you will find the fair effects of love No miracle at all.” They fight, and both fall mortally wounded, as it is supposed. Ercole is reported dead, and Contarino dying, having first made a will in favor of Jolenta. Romelio, disguised as a Jew, to avenge the injury to himself in the death of Ercole, and to make sure that Contarino shall not survive to alter his will, gets admission to him by bribing his surgeons, and stabs him. This saves his life by reopening the old wound and letting forth its virus. Of course both he and Ercole recover, and both conceal themselves, though why, it is hard to say, except that they are not wanted again till towards the end of the play. Romelio, unaware of his mother’s passion for Contarino, tells her, as a piece of good news she will be glad to hear, of what he has done. She at once resolves on a most horrible and unnatural revenge. Her speech has a kind of savage grandeur in it which Webster was fond of showing, for he rightly felt that it was his strongest quality, though it often tempted him too far, till it became bestial in its ferocity. It is to be observed that he was on his guard here, and gives us a hint, as you will see, in a highly imaginative passage, that Leonora’s brain was turning:-- “I will make you chief mourner, believe it. Never was woe like mine. O, that my care And absolute study to preserve his life Should be his absolute ruin! Is he gone, then? There is no plague i’ th’ world can be compar’d To impossible desire; for they are plagu’d In the desire itself. Never, O, never Shall I behold him living, in whose life I liv’d far sweetlier than in mine own! A precise curiosity has undone me: why did I not Make my love known directly? ’T had not been Beyond example for a matron To affect i’ th’ honourable way of marriage So youthful a person. O, I shall run mad! For as we love our youngest children best, So the last fruit of our affection, Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, Most violent, most unresistible, Since ’t is indeed our latest harvest-home, Last merriment ’fore winter; and we widows, As men report of our best picture-makers, We love the piece we are in hand with better Than all the excellent work we have done before. And my son has depriv’d me of all this! Ha, my son! I’ll be a Fury to him; like an Amazon lady, I’d cut off this right pap that gave him suck, To shoot him dead. I’ll no more tender him, Than had a wolf stol’n to my teat i’ the night And robb’d me of my milk; nay, such a creature I should love better far. Ha, ha! what say you? I do talk to somewhat, methinks; it may be My evil Genius. Do not the bells ring? I have a strange noise in my head: O, fly in pieces! Come, age, and wither me into the malice Of those that have been happy! Let me have