in The Brazen Age (The Age of Brass) — Heywood, Thomas
Metadata
Play
The Brazen Age (The Age of Brass)
Author
Heywood, Thomas
Year (catalogued)
1613
First performance
1611
Decade
1610s
Genre
Classical Myth
Play type
Adult Professional
Company
Queen Anne's Men
Speech prefix(es)
Ness.
Words
489
Characters
2640
Typicality
0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A03189
BritDrama no.
1653
Cluster
Cluster 22 — Ghosts, curses & horror voices
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
That's Hercules I know him by his Club, Whose ponderous weight I felt upon my Skull At the great Bridal of the Lapiths. What lovely Lady's she that in her beauty So much exceeds fair Hypodamia? Yes great Hercules, (Till I can find fit time for joust revenge) Methinks my brains still rattle in my skull) What Lady's that in great Alcides Guard? A double envy burns in all my veins, First for revenge; next, that he should enjoy That beauteous maid whom Nessus dearly loves. Will Hercules command me? or his Bride? I'll lackey by thee wheresoever thou goest, And be the vassal to great Hercules. This is Evenus flood, A dangerous current, full of whirlpools deep, And yet unfounded: darest thou trust thy Bride On Nessus back? I'll undertake to swim her Unto the furthest strand, upon my shoulders, And yet not laue her shoe. Have I not swom The Hellesepont, when waves high as yond hills Tossed by the winds, have crowned me, yet in spite Of all their briny weight I have wrought my self Above the topmost billow to overlook The troubled main: come beauteous Deyaneira, Not Charon with more safety ferries souls, Then I will thee through this impetuous ford, Now my revenge for that inhuman banquet, In which so many of the Centaur's fell, I'll rape this Princess, having passed the flood Come beauteous Deyaneira, mount my shoulders, And fear not your safe wastage. Thy beauty Deyaneira is my death, And yet that Nessus die embracing thee Takes from my senses all those torturing pangs That should associate death: to show I loved thee, I'll leave thee, in my will, a legacy; Shall stead thee more, then should thy father give thee Unto thy Dower the Crown of Calidon. Of such great virtue is my living blood, And of such prize, that couldst thou value it, Thou wouldst not let one drop fallen to the ground: But o I die. Now Nessus, in thy death be avenged on him On whom in life thou couldst not wreak thy rage: (My blood is poison) all these pure drops save, Which I bequeathe thee ere I take my graven: I know thy Lord lascivious, bent to lust, Witness the fifty daughters of King Thespeius, Whom in one night he did adulterate: And of those fifty begotten fifty sons: Now if in all his quests, he be withheld By any Ladies love, and stay from thee, Such is the virtue of my blood now shed, That if thou dipst a shirt, steeped in the least Of all these drops, and sendest it to thy Lord, No sooner shall it touch him, but his love Shall die to strangers, and revive to thee, Make use of this my love. And so, whom Nessus cannot, do thou kill; Still dying men speak true: it's my last cry, Save of my blood, may steed thee ere thou die.
Plot summary
Plot — The Brazen Age (The Age of Brass)
Hercules and the shape-changing Achelous fight for the hand of Dejanira; Achelous transforms himself into a series of monsters, but Hercules retains the upper hand, and Achelous concedes defeat after one of his bull’s horns is pulled off (later to become the cornucopia). Hercules takes Dejanira home, and en route they meet Nessus, the only survivor of Hercules’ massacre of the centaurs. Feigning friendship, the vindictive Nessus offers to carry Dejanira across the river on his back; but when he gets to the other side, he attempts to abduct her. Hercules shoots him and, dying, he tells Dejanira that his blood is a love-charm, which she should use on Hercules if he ever seems interested in another woman; in fact, it is poisonous. Hercules travels to Egypt, where King Busiris sacrifices foreigners, and kills him on his own altar, but refuses to accept his crown. During his absence, Diana, offended that King Oeneus has sacrificed to all the gods but her, sends a boar to ravage the Calydonian countryside. The lords of Greece gather to hunt the boar. One of them is Adonis, and Venus falls in love with him; he insists on hunting, the boar kills him, and she transforms him into a flower. Atalanta joins the hunt, and Meleager falls in love with her; when the boar is killed, he is awarded its head, but he offends his companions by presenting it to her. In the ensuing fight, Meleager kills his uncles. His mother Althea is torn between her duty to her brothers and to her son. Meleager’s life is in her power, for, when he was born, the Fates visited her, pointed out a brand in the fire, and foretold that the child would live until the brand was burnt up; she rescued it and has kept it safe ever since. Now she burns the brand, and he dies; in remorse, she kills herself with his sword. Hercules joins Jason and the Argonauts on their quest to retrieve the golden fleece from Colchis. On the way they stop off at Troy, where King Laomedon faces an unwelcome obligation to sacrifice his daughter Hesione: he accepted a loan from Neptune’s priests to finance building the city walls, but failed to repay it when the work was complete, and retribution came in the form of a sea monster who must be appeased with the monthly sacrifice of a young Trojan woman; this month the fatal lot has fallen on Hesione. Laomedon offers Hercules a reward for rescuing her, but reneges after Hercules does so. Jason insists they defer Hercules’ revenge until their return from Colchis. The golden…