_A treble viol, a base lute, &c., play softly within the canopy._ Hark! hark! now softer melody strikes mute Disquiet Nature. O thou power of sound, How thou dost melt me! Hark! now even heaven Gives up his soul amongst us. Now's the time When greedy expectation strains mine eyes For their loved object; now Erictho will'd Prepare my appetite for love's strict gripes. O you dear founts of pleasure, blood, and beauty, Raise active Venus worth fruition 210 Of such provoking sweetness. Hark, she comes! _A short song to soft music above._ Now nuptial hymns enforcèd spirits sing. Hark, Syphax, hark! Now hell and heaven rings. CANTANT. With music spite of Phoebus. Peace! She comes! _Enter_ ERICTHO _in the shape of_ SOPHONISBA, _her face veiled, and hasteth in the bed of_ SYPHAX. Fury of blood's impatient! Erictho, 'Bove thunder sit: to thee, egregious soul, Let all flesh bend. Sophonisba, thy flame But equal mine, and we'll joy such delight, That gods shall not admire, but even spite! [SYPHAX _hasteneth within the canopy, as to_ SOPHONISBA'S _bed_. [354] In old eds. is the direction--"_Organs, Viols, and Voices play for this Act._" [355] Old eds. "dumps." [356] So ed. 1.--Ed. 2. "justly." [357] Enclosure. [358] Old form of "vault." [359] So ed. 2.--Ed. 1. "New graud whose entrailes yet not turne." [360] Ed. 1. "gelled;" ed. 2. "gellid."--_Gelid_ is here preferable to the form _jellied_ that I adopted in vol. i. p. 114. [361] So ed. 1.--Ed. 2. "love." (Persons born under the planet Jupiter were supposed to be of a _jovial_ disposition.) [362] Ed. 1. "heastes." [363] Ed. 1. "vncurlde." [364] So Chapman in a magnificent passage of _Bussy D'Ambois_:-- "Terror of darkness, O thou _king of flames_," &c. [365] A recognised old form of _reverend_. It occurs so frequently in this sense that it cannot be regarded as a misprint. [366] "Vively limn'd,"--drawn to the life. [367] "Without a man"--outside of man's senses. ACT V.[368] SCENE I. _Bed-chamber in the palace of_ SYPHAX. SYPHAX _draws the curtains, and discovers_ ERICTHO _lying with him_. _Eri._ Ha! ha! ha! _Sy._ Light, light! _Eri._ Ha! ha! _Sy._ Thou rotten scum of hell! O my abhorrèd heat! O loath'd delusion! [_They leap out of the bed_; SYPHAX _takes him to his sword._