HANG. I thank your l[ord] worship.
Exit HANGMAN.
HIERO. And yet, though somewhat neerer me concernes
I will, to ease the greefe that I sustaine,
Take truce with sorrow while I read on this.
[Reads] "My lord, I writ, as mine extreames require,
That you would labour my deliuerie:
If you neglect, my life is desperate,
And in my death I shall reueale the troth.
You know, my lord, I slew him for your sake,
And was confederate with the prince and you;
Wonne by rewards and hopefull promises,
I holpe to murder Don Horatio too."--
Holpe he to murder mine Horatio?
And actors in th' accursed tragedie
Wast thou, Lorenzo? Bathazar and thou,
Of whome my sone, my sonne deseru'd so well?
What haue I heard? what haue mine eies behelde?
O sacred heauens, may it come to passe
That such a monstrous and detested deed,
So closely smootherd and so long conceald,
Shall thus by this be [revenged] or reuealed?
Now see I, what I durst not then suspect,
That Bel-imperias letter was not fainde,
Nor fained she, though falsly they haue wrongd
Both her, my-selfe, Horatio and themselues.
Now may I make compare twixt hers and this
Of euerie accident. I neere could finde
Till now, and now I feelingly perceiue,
They did what Heauen vnpunisht [should] not leaue.
O false Lorenzo! are these thy flattering lookes?
Is this honour that thou didst my sonne?
And, Balthazar,--bane to thy soule and me!--
What this the ransome he reseru'd [for thee]?
Woe to the cause of these constrained warres!
Woe to thy basenes and captiuitie!
Woe to thy birth, thy body and thy soule,
Thy cursed father, and thy conquerd selfe!
And band with bitter execrations be
The day and place where he did pittie thee!
But wherefore waste I mine vnfruitfull words,
When naught but blood will satisfie my woes?
I will goe plaine me to my lord the king,
And cry aloud for iustice through the court,
Wearing the flints with these my withered feet,
And either purchase iustice by intreats
Or tire them all with my reuenging threats.
Exit.
[ACT III. SCENE 8.]
[HIERONIMO's house.]
Enter ISABELL and her MAID.
ISA. So that you say this hearb will purge the [eyes],
And this the head? ah! but none of them will purge the
hart!
No, thers no medicine left for my disease,
Nor any physick to recure the dead.
She runnes lunatick.
Horatio! O, wheres Horatio?
MAIDE. Good madam, affright not thus your-selfe
With outrage for your sonne Horatio;
He sleepes in quiet in the Elizian fields.
ISA. Why did I not giue you gownes and goodly things,
Bought you a wistle and a whipstalke too,
To be reuenged on their villanies?
MAIDE. Madame, these humors doe torment my soule.
ISA. My soule? poore soule, thou talkes of things
Thou knowest not what! My soule hath siluer wings,
That mounts me vp vnto the highest heauens--
To heauen? I, there sits up Horatio,
Backt with troup of fierry cherubins
Dauncing about his newly healed wounds,
Singing sweet hymns and chaunting heauenly notes,
Rare harmony to greet his innocence,
That dyde, I, dyde a mirrour in our daies!
But say, where shall I finde, the men, the murderers,
That slew Horatio? whether shall I runne
To finde them out, that murdered my sonne?
Exeunt.
[ACT III. SCENE 9.]
[The DUKE's castle.]
BEL-IMPERIA at a window.
BEL. What meanes this outrage that is offred me?
What am I thus sequestred from the court?
No notice? shall I not know the cause
Of these my secret and suspitious ils?
Accursed brother! vnkinde murderer!
Why bends thou thus thy minde to martir me?
Hieronimo, why writ I of they wrongs,
Or why art thou so slack in thy reuenge?
Andrea! O Andrea, that thou sawest
Me for thy freend Horatio handled thus,
And him for me thus causeles murdered!
Well, force perforce, I must constraine my-selfe
To patience, and apply me to the time,
Till Heauen, as I haue hoped, shall set me free.