_Cast._ Ye gods, we're taught that all your works are justice; You're painted merciful, and friends to innocence: If so, then why these plagues upon my head? _Pol._ Blame not the Heavens; here lies thy fate, Castalio. They're not the gods, 'tis Polydore has wronged thee; I've stained thy bed; thy spotless marriage-joys Have been polluted by thy brother's lust. _Cast._ By thee! _Pol._ By me: last night the horrid deed Was done, when all things slept, but rage and incest. _Cast._ Now where's Monimia? Oh! _Re-enter_ MONIMIA. _Mon._ I'm here; who calls me? Methought I heard a voice Sweet as the shepherd's pipe upon the mountains, When all his little flock's at feed before him. But what means this? here's blood! _Cast._ Ay, brother's blood. Art thou prepared for everlasting pains? _Pol._ Oh, let me charge thee by the eternal justice, Hurt not her tender life! _Cast._ Not kill her! Rack me, Ye powers above, with all your choicest torments, Horror of mind, and pains yet uninvented, If I not practise cruelty upon her, And wreak revenge some way yet never known! _Mon._ That task myself have finished: I shall die Before we part; I've drunk a healing draught For all my cares, and never more shall wrong thee. _Pol._ Oh, she is innocent. _Cast._ Tell me that story, And thou wilt make a wretch of me indeed. _Pol._ Hadst thou, Castalio, used me like a friend, This ne'er had happened; hadst thou let me know Thy marriage, we had all now met in joy: But, ignorant of that, Hearing the appointment made, enraged to think Thou hadst outdone me in successful love, I, in the dark, went and supplied thy place; Whilst all the night, 'midst our triumphant joys, The trembling, tender, kind, deceived Monimia Embraced, caressed, and called me her Castalio. _Cast._ And all this is the work of my own fortune! None but myself could e'er have been so curst. My fatal love, alas! has ruined thee, Thou fairest, goodliest frame the gods e'er made, Or ever human eyes and heart adored! I've murdered too my brother. Why wouldst thou study ways to damn me further, And force the sin of parricide upon me? _Pol._ 'Twas my own fault, and thou art innocent. Forgive the barbarous trespass of my tongue; 'Twas a hard violence; I could have died With love of thee, even when I used thee worst; Nay, at each word that my distraction uttered, My heart recoiled, and 'twas half death to speak them. _Mon._ Now, my Castalio, the most dear of men, Wilt thou receive pollution to thy bosom, And close the eyes of one that has betrayed thee? _Cast._ Oh, I'm the unhappy wretch whose cursèd fate Has weighed thee down into destruction with him; Why then thus kind to me?