_Pier._[224] Ram't quickly down, that it may not rise up To imbraid[225] my thoughts. Behold my stomach; Strike me quite through with the relentless edge 210 Of raging fury. Boy, I'll kill thy love. Pandulf Feliche, I have stabb'd thy son: Look, yet his lifeblood reeks upon this steel. Albert, yon hangs thy friend. Have none of you Courage of vengeance? Forget I am your duke; Think Mellida is not Piero's blood; Imagine on slight ground I'll blast his honour; Suppose I saw not that incestuous slave, Clipping the strumpet with luxurious twines![226] O, numb my sense of anguish, cast my life 220 In a dead sleep, whilst law cuts off yon maim,[227] Yon putrid ulcer of my royal blood! _For._ Keep league with reason, gracious sovereign. _Pier._ There glow no sparks of reason in the world; All are raked up in ashy beastliness. The bulk of man's as dark as Erebus, No branch of reason's light hangs in his trunk: There lives no reason to keep league withal. I ha' no reason to be reasonable. Her wedding eve, link'd to the noble blood 230 Of my most firmly-reconcilèd friend, And found even cling'd in sensuality! O heaven! O heaven! Were she as near my heart As is my liver, I would rend her off. _Enter_ STROTZO. _Str._ Whither, O whither shall I hurl vast grief! _Pier._ Here, into my breast: 'tis a place built wide By fate, to give receipt to boundless woes. _Str._ O no; here throb those hearts, which I must cleave With my keen-piercing news. Andrugio's dead. _Pier._ Dead! 240 _Mar._ O me, most miserable! _Pier._ Dead! alas, how dead? [_Gives seeming passion._ [_Aside._] Fut, weep, act, feign--Dead! alas, how dead? _Str._ The vast delights of his large sudden joys Open'd his powers so wide, that 's native heat So prodigally flow'd t' exterior parts, That th'inner citadel was left unmann'd, And so surpris'd on sudden by cold death. _Mar._ O fatal, disastrous, cursèd, dismal! Choke breath and life! I breathe, I live too long. 250 Andrugio, my lord, I come, I come! [_Swoons._ _Pier._ Be cheerful, princess; help, Castilio, The lady's swounèd;[228] help to bear her in: Slow comfort to huge cares is swiftest sin. _Bal._ Courage, courage, sweet lady, 'tis Sir Jeffrey Balurdo bids you courage. Truly I am as nimble as an elephant about a lady. [_Exeunt_ PIERO, CASTILIO, FOROBOSCO _and_ BALURDO, _bearing out_ MARIA. _Pan._ Dead! _Ant._ Dead! _Alb._ Dead! 260 _Ant._ Why, now the womb of mischief is deliver'd, Of the prodigious issue of the night. _Pan._ Ha, ha, ha!