AEGISTHUS

ANd that shall be ere long, tush (shall be's) slow, My vengeful thoughts tell me thou now art dead. Fie saint Apollo, weakling infant-God, Why wouldst thou let lame Vulcan's hammers Beatrice Down those brave Turrets which thou help'dst to built? Venus, I see thou art a woman now, Which here are Like to take a double foil, For me, that whilom reueld in thy camp In the sweet pleasures of incestuous sheets Must leave our loved unsatiate desires: But now begin, thou black Eumenides, You handmaids of great Dis, let such a flame Of anger burn me, as does Etna's forge, On fury, on, our hate shall not die thus: I'll draw my poisonous arrow to the length, That it may hit the mark and fly with-strength. Exit. Spoke Like a queen, spoke Like Aegysteus love, Now great Thyestes Genias, which didst prompt Me to this act, come, be spectator now, And see revenge for Athens bloody feast. And thou wronged Clytemnestra call to mind How his unsatiate, lustful, loathed desire Doted on every female face he saw, Rap't the Priests daughter, and so brought a plague On all the Grecian host: Callest thou us friends? Stabs him again. Is your hight blood yet cold! Help my Lords the Queen. Faith she begins well, sure she knows the man: Yes, hee'll remember how you curse him now, Now hands I thank you, now my soul: grows glad, Had not he grieved thus, I had lost revenge. Fair morning to my Queen, nay more, my love, How likes my sweet her change of bedfellow? Oh who'ld not do a murder for a woman! Heaven had but two things for the Gods reserved Fire, and women, when with Giant thought Promotheus had taken one, Jove in his rage Threw him the to'ther, bade him keep they both, Oh th'are rare creatures, they have such Maeanders, Their tears will come and go with such Art, Come now my Queen, one sweet Ambrosian kiss; Oh Nectar ! prethe hadst thou taught thy tears How they should flow before: Yes, all was woman Like, but yet that boy He took it deeply, would he were with his father, So gone, it skills not how, were he away We would act freely all our lustful play: Now thou art thy self, Yes, yes my love, there shall one spring from us Shall be a lofty Pine, let this be cropped, Murder must murder guard, gilded add to gilded, After one drop whole streams of blood be spilled. walks away. Good Cousin add not disobedience Unto your mother's griefs. WHat, is Orestes fled? sure there's some plot, If you deer Queen, but search Elect. well, You'll find she knows whither her brother's gone, Oh, were that moat taken from our comforts beams, No cloud could ever then o'rshade our joys, His life must be cut off without delay, Mischief by mischief finds the safest way; But here's Electra : Why, what portentous news? Amaze us not, Tell us what e'r it be. Why, then if Agamemnon and his son Have brought their leaf of life to the full end; I am Thyestes son, and the next heir, To fit in Argos Throne of Majesty. Thanks to our Alpheus sea, who as't'ad strived To gratify Aegystheus, raised his force, And gathered all his waters to one place, They might be deep enough to drown Orestes : But come my Queen, let us command a feast. To get a kingdom, who'ld not think it good, To swim unto it through a sea of blood. Thanks to my Father's subjects: Now Argos swell up to the brim with joy, And streams of gladness flow on Tyndarus, Now made our Father; see old King, see here's My Queen does mean to make thee a grandfather, See how thy royal blood shall propagate, Whose Kingly drops Like heaven distilling Due Shall add fresh life unto thy withered root. Nay but good Father let pass elegies, Clyt. seems to weep You draw fresh tears now from your daughters eyes, Who shed enough before at's funeral, Let's talk who are to live, not who are dead; And think what progeny shall spring from us May bear your Image stamped upon the face, This we must talk of now, not what griefs passed But of the joy to come: My Queen not well? Now good Electra look unto your mother, Clyt. riseth from the table. Lucina be propitious to the birth; Why, will not now a young Aegystheus be, As grateful as and old Orestes was? Thou times good lengthener, age, posterity, Spread thy self still upon Aegistheus line, Help me to treasure up antiquity, And from Thyestes loins let spring and heir, Shall ever fit in great Thyestes chair. Exeunt. Never but when a royal offspring comes From a Kings loins, can he be truly King, Then does he fit firm, rooted in his state, Then is he truly man, and then the Gods He knows do love him, which when Kings do want, The curse of nature does deny them fruit, And brands their bed with loathed sterility. Tush father, now not without grief I speak All brooks which from the Princely Ocean ran, Are quite dried up, only Electra here, Our deer Electra, whose great weight of love Is in our balance equally so poised, That she shall ever think her father lives, Our heart shall be so parallel with hers. Look here good father, look my nobles here, Upon this Babe scarce crept yet out of earth, For you shall grow and Autumn of ripe years, When time hath brought it to maturity, Look on thy Grandchild, Tyndarus, see, it's thine, This came from thee, old man, see how it smiles Upon the Grandsire, as if wise nature had Taught him his kindreds names before he came forth. We thank our daughter, come Lord Strophius, come, Grief still sits heavy on your sighing heart, Be frolic, learn of us, in all the grace, And pleasure our Court extends, you shall have place. We thank old Strophius, and if honour can Keep thee still young, our Princely hand is wide, And freely shall extend all graces on thee, And you all our subjects, which bear partly Thus in our joy; and here I do proclaim, And personally from my own mouth pronounce, Sealing it with the signet of my State, A general immunity to all Murders, rapes, treasons, thefts, conveyances, Which have been from the birth of our deer child, In all the confines of our Empire done; Nor shall your licence date be quite expired, Till the slow year seven times runs out his course. Our self thus speak it; until then all's free, Kings win their subjects by immunity. Exeunt omnes. Father, Lord Strophius fit and hear the cause. My queen shall strait way know, bring them away, Although it is not fallen out of our mind, Of a free act or pardon of all faults, Committed in the date of such a time, Our hand of mercy must not be so soft, To cover over with gentle lenity, Such ulcerous sores as these; there is no place For mercy left; murder must not find grace: Therefore our doom is passed, one needs must die, Blood still for blood unto the gods will cry. This does amaze us, I never yet saw two Turns Rhetoricians so to plead for death. Would not the pardon of this odious fact, Like a foul stench, or and unwholesome air, Send and infectious vapour through the land, And choke up Justice; this fidelity Should for this one time set two murderers free. My love, thou knowest I never look too stern, Upon a fault that could ask lenity. But this is so transcendant, and so great, It must not be slipped without impunity, To do a heinous murder, and i'th court, I'th place of Justice, where the King might hear, Upon a chief attendant of the Kings, Murder it self is passed all expiation, The greatest crime that Nature does abhor, Not being, is abominable to her, And when we be, make others not to be, It's worse then bestial, and we did not so, When only we by nature's aid did live, A Heterogeneous kind, as semibeasts, When reason challenged scarce a partly in us, But now does manhood and civility Stand at the bar of justice, and there plead, How much the'r wronged, and how much defaced When man does die his hands in blood of man, Judgement it self would scarce a law enact Against the murderer, thinking it a fact, That man against man would never dare commit, Since the worst things of nature do not it. In troth this make my doom it cannot fallen: Will none of you confess? Strophius weeps. How now Lord Strophius, what affect you so, That makes your tears be wrayers of some passion. Would, prithee let me speak with thee apart. Thou strikest on tunes now, make me glad to hear, We will commit our secrecy to thee, Canst water barren wombs with such a Due, Shall make'em flourish and wax green with fruit? Although we cannot altogether blame, That Nature hath been too unkind to us, Yet we would plant each corner of our Realm, With springing branches of our royal self, To compass in our selves, and we stand in the amid: Kings in their children do great blessing find, And great men love to propagate their kind. We Like thy temper well, and we will trust, Therefore this night we will appoint it so, Thou shalt be guided to our secretest room, And there shalt use thy skill; which if it take, Or love shall honour thee for Physics sake. Oh Doctor, you are busy for our coming: Over. looking on the cups. Yes, must we fit, fit there my Queen. Thinkest thou so Doctor? Oh my boy, my boy. Bath not thy hands in a poor infants blood, Nor in thy mother's, I deserve to die: And yet remember how my doom saved thee, How easily mercy did obtain her suit. Oh, I am wounded, Oh when dost thou end? Oh, my heart feels it, Me thinks I now go equal with the stars And my proud head touches the highest pole, Hark, Hell applauds me, and me thinks I hear A noise. Thyestes tell me I have done enough: And now I kiss my hands, while yet they bear This tincture on them, and embrace my Queen, Now made my love; lets in, this night the Fates Have amply fed us with revengeful cates. Exeunt, Oh but hee'll bear a still suspicious eye And who in bloody Scenes does act a partly, Thinks every eye does penetrate his heart. Nor can we ere be free, or I enjoy True pleasures, we must be but thieves at most, Close in delights, and have a Pander still To be a Factor, betwixt thy bed and mine This we could have before, what now we do The world should see done, and applaud it too. Night, now only spread thy sable wings Over this climate, gather all thy fogs That they may meet, and make thy face more black; Let horrid murder take thee by the hand And come along: I have a prodigy Equal to all the murders, all the blood That hath been shed in all Troy's ten years siege He draws the curtain. So, snore returned King; good Morpheus hang Thy leaden weights upon his drowsy eyes Let him not wake till he shall see himself, Drenched in a sea of his vermilian gore: Thou dost no Trojan, now no Hector fear, But yet I'll show thee a new Hector here. Nay then I'm glad our mercy did extend On men whom such rare virtues do commend; Or love shall then grow greater, and our court Shall entertain you, an't may chance we will, My queen and I make trial of your skill. Treason, we are betrayed. Oh, the Gods blush, and heaven looks pale at this, A father's face besmeared with his own blood. Oh mischief above mischief! what Bred on a stony rock, could e'r endure To see a father's thirst quenched with such blood? Hast thou no measure? hath revenge no end? Are you the men which thus abused our state, Was't one or both, if both, you both shall die, If one, that one, we are joust in our decree. A Guard there on us, here is murder done, What is Misander killed our trusty servant? Where are the villains? What is the matter, speak, how came he dead? They shall die two death's, that did cause him one. Oh, now, the heavens rain vengeance on our head This brings ten death's. Pray God thy physique take.