CLYTEMNESTRA

Oh my deer Lord, absence of things we love, Thus intermixed, makes them the sweeter prove: That your departure pierced my tender soul, Witness those Crystal floods which in my eyes Did make a sea, when you should go to sea, Those streams which then flowed from the veins of grief At your return do overflow the banks. But 'tis with joy. But come my Lord, true love still hates delays, Let no ears first be blessed with your breath, Till on my breast resting your wearied head, You tell your war, wh e that the field's your bed. See, I'll turn man too now, and to the hate Which women bear, I'll add a manly strength, My mind does tremble, what I mean to do Breath forth your vapours, Oh you stygian powers, And listen to hateful woman's prayers. Pluto stand by me, for to aid my hand I may strike home now, and perform and act May make Medea blush, she thought not of Could the old dry boned dotard ever dream, Now he had drawn forth all his strength abroad, He could be welcome to lie bedrid here And supple his numb joints in my fresh arms? breath dotard, do? You shall have gapes enough to let your soul Find a free passage to his deserved flames. Now I am Clytemnestra right, now I deserve To add one more to the three Furies, now Do I count this more then my nuptial night It's mine, 'tis thine Egystheus, and none else Shall share a minute of this right, but we. HOw now? what ails our son, how now Orestes! Oh why let you not my soul, that while he lived, Was linked to his, and would too now have fled With winged desire to have been with him, What do I live for, Agamemnon slain, My Lord, my King, my Husband, wake my Lord, What bloody Trojan followed thee from thence To kill thee here, could he not one night Have let me rested in thy sweet embraces? Must he for sureness make so many holes For thy sweet soul to fly to be a God? Oh let my tears be balm to these thy wounds, Let my lips kiss, and warm thy gelid lips, Let my hair wipe these clots of blood away From thy age-honor'd side: Oh dry your tears, Join knees and prayers with me, awake you Gods, And send our vows, since we can send no wounds: They both kneel'. Come son, we women still know how to curse, Let him that did it be and Adulterer; But come my son, now let us talk of graves, Of Epitaphs, and tombs, and's soul being fled, Draw the curtain, and carry him away. Let's lap his Trunk up in a sheet of led. Look as a hollow leafless failing oak, To whom for that he hath been her weight too long, The earth denies to lend him moisture, so His sap fails, and he stands on a green Amongst sprouting Elms, that they may seem more fresh While he's but held a monument of years, Such one seemed Agamemnon ; a dry tree: Thou Like a sprouting elm, whom I embrace Like twining Ivy, with these now-blest arms, Blessed while this treasure in them they holdlockt. No, trust me love, I knew my tears would soon be at command, And faith the boy had almost made me weep Really once: were not my curses rare? Oh but my love, he's mine; nor can the raven Dig her sharp beak into her own birds breast; He will forget his father: woe will break, It's not the greatest grief that most does speak. Why my deer Love, I that would set my hand To stain my marriage sheets with husbands blood Would let these hands instructed now in ill, Not leave one arm of that uprooted tree; Could but Aegystheus give me any hope, That from this top there should one spreading branch Grow up and flourish. Our son's too saucy with his mother Queen: Why, Sir, shall you tell us a time to weep? Sir, curb this lavish speech, or I'll forget You are my son, and make you but a subject. Aegistheus, canst thou still suffer thy dul sword i'th sheath? Take the rank head from this o'r-growing weed. He is so, and I'll learn him to be so: Had I a brazen bull, it should be heat, Hotter then for the Tyrant: Disobedient? More harsh then Adders hisses is thy voice, Sir, you shall die, but with a living death, He still shall live, but live to know he die; Who strait threats death, knows not to Tyrannise. If in her heart there be but lodged a thought, Unknown to me this hand shall rip her breast, And search her inparts: but I'll find it out. Mysander, call Electra: Why, how now Minion, what a blubbering still? Huswife, pray where's your brother, where's my son? Why, the more dismal, the more welcome it's, But as for you. Yes, life is worse to those that feign would die. But where's the messenger? Relate it quickly, hold's not in suspense. Oh Sir, the Fates needs must have leave to make Ways for themselves to manage what they do: Had Agamemnon and Orestes lived, They could not then have blessed me with these gifts: Still when the heavens and Fates do work their will, They intend good, though sometime there come ill. Daughter, your heart now with obedience strung, Makes a sweet music sounding from your tongue. Nurse, bring the Babe, give it Electra, so, You daughter shall have oversight of it. No, good Nurse, no, Electra with her care, you with your pains. Long may our father his opinion hold, And you, our daughter, let not sinister thoughts Wrong your suspicious mind, though this being young, It makes our Lord, and me to speak our joys, Yet our affection and our natural love, Is not a whit to you diminished. A mother can be mother unto many, And as from one root hid within the ground, Springs many flowers, that lends sap to all: So from a parents heart run veins of love; Which, though to many, they without do flow, Yet from one heart, one root, they all do grow. Why, my Lord, what is't makes the business thus? Surely he means to work rare Art upon us. Oh turn thy bloody weapon on my breast 'Twas this womb that brought forth this Babe and thee If that be guilty, I have made it so. Rip up this place which first did bring thee forth It's I'intreat thee, it's the mother, she Which gave thee houseroom here within this breast, Upon whose dugs thy infant lips did hang. Oh Nature, see here all thy law infringed A mother's prayers prevail not with her son. Oh kill me quickly, time prolongs my woe, And since I must die, let me quickly go. Why son, whose death is it thou dost revenge? Thy father's? but on whom? upon thy mother! On her which brought thee forth, which took most care, To bring thee up, from whom thou tookest thy self, Thou'rt sure thou art mine, but dost not know, Who it begat thee. yes, yes, Aegysteus, you And rap't young Briseis from Achilles bed; Crowd all revengeful thoughts into this hour, Now let thy sword let out that lustful blood Wound him Aegisteus, kill him not at once, Aegist, stabs him, Wee'll be true Tyrants, let him feel he die Yes dotard I will help thee, thus, yes thus: Remember the Priests daughter: this for her, She stabs him. And this for Briseis: I, so, curse on, curse on: Yes, mine or Cassandra's, old adulterer? Let him be conscious he hath done a deed Deserves revenge, whither it fallen or no; Let him for ever bear in mind this night, And who 'twas helped him in this bloody act. I, good my love, let justice come and look, If she can find in all her statute book, Two men for the same crime should rightly die; She will not say so, justice cannot lie. And since they both will die, let ones love save The others life, and so both life shall have. Oh help now good heaven to keep my sex Let me dissemble. Now good my love, me thinks I pity them, And prithee for my sake, I know them not, Abate thy edge of Justice for this once. Nay, but is this fit time for physic Doctor? Oh, why dost banish nature from his place? Look on thy mother's teares' worse then those groans, And pangs she had, when she first brought thee forth, When of thy friends or parents thou hast wrong, Patience, not fury does to thee belong. Is this the blessing that thy knee should ask? Repay'st thou thus my kisses and my tears, Which flowed from me to thee in tender years. Oh, I confess, My conscience tells me, I deserve no less: And thus thy mother from thee does depart, Leaving vexation to torment thy heart: She die.