ISABELLA

Herd you that groan my Lord—o he is dead: Crack then you tardy heart strings, quickly crack, And give me leave to overtake the fligh Of my dead husband. Be brief. Thou art a villain, and a poisoner then, Hast thou a drug for us? I do: and more, how thou couldst purchase this Without a gilded. Thus we learn Murder from thy Felony: But what should make me trust a confessed rogue? I must beleeu't: but darest thou poison well? Commit a crime, which thou mayest glory of? Nay I care not whom. But I can give reward to a wise crime. Now should he poison Sforza. Oh found hope! That makest us think all true that we desire. Should he betray us now? for what? that we Entreated him to kill, we knew not whom. By this expression thus much I have won: I may be made, but cannot be undone. PRince of shades, (for unto me Still thou keepest thy Majesty) If thou art not wholly lost, And there's something in a Ghost: Hear thy Isabella's vow: If hereafter I allow Of a second match, or know Any man, but for a foe, Saving him that shall engage His revenge unto my rage: (Hear joust Heavens) may I then be Made another Ghost Like thee, May I die, and never have What I visit now, a Grave. No, obey your Prince, If you have goodness in you keep your oath, Murder is nothing unto perjury. Which I accept: but for no other end Then to revenge his death, base wretch, on thee: If that head be not planted there, it shall off: You shall enjoy your Master's death. Found thought! Dost think Idem love a man that kills a man? Make him my Prince, who hath dispatched his own Was Treason ever Preface unto Love? Hadst thou monopolized perfection, And shared a thousand Cupid's in each eye: I would contemn the proudest of their shafts, And give thee only what is endue, Disdain. I believe thee now, And trust me, so believe, that I could thank thee, I love thy cruelty, though not thy person. Do not dissuade me, Julia, it's true I may escape, but whither? all is lost, In Naples we find France, as well as here. Oh who'od endure the tyranny of hope, That could so quickly gain a liberty? If I but fallen I'm free; o Julia, The greatest distance betwixt my bliss, and me, Reaches no farther then to the next earth. Can I behold in a perplexed flight (Of which I know no comfort, and no end) This my sweet infant crying for the food, Which I'm uncertain where to beg for him? No, I'll descend, and if the greedy French Will have our blood with our Dominions, She comes down with some soldiers Yet I shall joy to have a speedy end And call a nimble enemy, a friend. You shall not needs my Lords, What you could wish you have, most cheaply have, The conquest of a woman, and a child. I'm Isabella, (let not that sad name Be ominous to conquerors,) and this This pretty infant, is my luckless child, Born Prince of that, which you have made your prey. Why do you one consult another's face, As you would see, who could be cruel first? Be not at all, or if at all, to me. Oh do not war with infants! can these hands Deserve your fear or anger? these weak hands That cannot reach themselves unto their teat? Who have so much of young infirmity, They cannot lift themselves to ask your mercy? Oh let them have, because they cannot ask. How many dismal accidents may chance To take him hence, before he grow to man, And so excuse, and yet fulfil your purpose? Oh let disease be cruel, and not you. Oh my stars! What have I done? ay me? I have betrayed, What Tyranny had left me, my sweet boy: For whom I never knew a grief; till now I brought him forth with pleasure, when I think Upon this pain of parting: my deer child, Oh too too Like thy mother; if thou chance To draw thy life unto that hated length, That thou arrive to the discretion To know, what by my folly, thou hast lost, Call it no more, o do not call it crime, No mother willingly would loose a son: While in some darker cell I will in tomb Thy ruins cause, where whatsoever tear Sorrow did once force, no devotion shall: That my new name unto the heavens may reach Whom misery the way to bliss did teach. Oh my good Lord, he rests But it's a quiet, such as the Seas have, When that the winds have spent their violence, And out of impotence bestow a calm: It's more a death, then slumber, you may see His senses rather weary, then at rest. Nothing else, Should he but wake, youde think two Armies met And strove together for the loudest shout. Disease has spread herself over all his parts, And only spared his tongue, as if some star Not knowing otherwise to clear it self From imputation of tyranny, For such exact plaguing of Innocence Had left him that to curse withal, that so To all that herd his fury, he might seem To be thus tortured for his Blasphemy. Forsake my grief—Oh bid me forsake heaven, My reason, and mine honour: only sighs Donc keep me in opinion of Being, And without them I were a stupid coarse. Shall I obey impossibilities? Forsake the sorrow, and retain the cause? How can I think that yet the untired Sun Has journeyed but a twelvemonth, since I was In Ferdinando's Court, the Paragon Of happy Naples, when his Palace seemed Guarded with Princely suitors, and mine eye, Caught with so many rarities of men, Taught me that too much choice did hinder choice, That Galeazzo then must carry me? This Galeazzo, neither Prince, nor Man, Fooled out of both by Sforza, his deer uncle. Can I think this, and think of joy again? Can I think this, and dare to think again? Why should some toys of after-torment fright A resolution of easing me From present ones? Oh 'tis the curse of man To be unhappy at arbitrement, Enter Julia. Till heaven please to relent My Julia, Breath's Naples any comfort? quickly speak. What patience? he should have sent me rage, Aided my anger, if not my revenge: Patience? Oh God! can grief be patient? Can Thunder whisper? or chafed see not ro re? In me is Sea and thunder, I will be A pattern of Revenge not misery. My Lord, My sorrow dares not argue with your love, This smile expels it. Oh Galeazzol Oh not Galeazzo! How has Man fled thee! how thy soul has fled thee! Only thy lineaments belly a Man. Thou hunt; as poor Prince, thou art the Game: Thy uncle Hunt's: and yet he does not neither, But stands a glad, and idle looker on, While thou insnar st thy self, sinfully fooled, Flattering thy Executioner, and so Dost no prevent thy misery, nor yet know. My For which so strange a sad ness seizes me, That it increases when I strive with it, And makes my face rebellious to my Lord, When my heart yields. Now the fit begins: What traps are these to catch the Innocent? Sforza I smell your project, it's too rank. My Lord, no more: your speech is dangerous, I must not hear it. Ask why I do not weep: (Poor Isabella are thy tears denied thee?) Ask why thus long such a succession Of sorrow clogs my bosom, and does rob So much of Woman from me, as complaints. Ask why I do not rave, tear my hair, thus, Create a grief, which Fate would spare me, then Cloud the sad Air with sighs, and at the last, With a bold stab take from insulting Fortune The miserable object of her sport: Ask why I do not this, not, why I weep. It's your uncle. The noble Prince Ascanio.