FERRERS

Them thus we tender. Death! My mortal foe? how is my poor life hunted? I must give you ne lie, to say I do. I had never been slave unto a Turk, a shore else. Rather than deny— My name and Country, I 'le acknowledge any Thing base or deadly: I confess you know me, I shall? If Fate Has writ my name in her black book: and this The hindmost minute of my hours, I scorn To bribe the Beldame to wipe't out again. For a bold Foe, and a proud Spaniard. My ransom? Why? Why should he ransom me? Nay rather, why should I ask that? I saw Inveterate hate flame in his burning eye, He frees me from slight bondage of the Turk To slave me to himself, and exercise New tyranny: he meets a living grave That's vassal unto him, was once his slave; That fate overtakes me: I will not accept it. Not that I desire to live Slave to a turk, or fear the bloody usage Of and ambitious Spaniard: Death is but death What shape so ere he comes in. Though you cannot enforce so much, I'll tell you, See you this man? One that with me hath fronted The wrath, and utmost violence of Fate, Should mine own Countrymen, nay, natural mother, Or my kind Sister, whose fair eyes I honour, Should the best Lord of that see have sent my ransom, Had it come single without his, as this, I would have spu ed, and sent it back. Because for mine, thou hast not loved thy life, But throwneit upon dangers more than common: Because for me, thou leftest thy native land, Father and Friends, and to make me a fortune Unmade thine own; gavest both thy self and fate Wholly to me; think me not so unjust To loose a Jewel made over to me in trust. But they return. Nor Christian but a Spaniard Would ere have bought. Yes truly, for a Tyrant, And bloody hangman: had I knownethee half so well. When on the Deck I had thee at my mercy, I would have ground my sword upon thy bones, And writ my freedom in thy blood. And I breathe yet, To dare thee to thy utmost: and may win More honour of thee, by my manly suffering, Than thou, by base inflicting: My friend and I Like two chain-bullets, side by side, will fly Thorough the jaws of death. Sunder them? that word Falls colder on me than the Rhewme of Death. Hear me Valladaura, Since thou wilt needs ta e up the attribute And name of Tyrant, study thy trade perfect, Soil it not in per ormance, Like a true Artist, Degree thy tortures, Like and angry tempest, Rise calmly first, and keep thy worst rage last, Torment us jointly: sunder us at first, A plague so deadly, that what ever follows Will seem but as a Cordial: wouldst have devised After a thousand tortures, one to mad My manly patience, or to split my heart, It had been done in this one accent, partly. I used not you so though: but noble Sir, How well thou hast merited living? Born on that confidence, loose not one tear, Nor spend a sighs, let guilty cowards fear. Your churlsh—nor can we look to find Usage more gentle. Revenge is unconfined. I dare the worst. Sir from a bondman, you have cast me into a free mould, almost new made me, yet what your purpose is, I can not gather, I am still yours; Is't your intention to prank me up, to make me fit for death, or feed me till I be in some good plighted, the better to fat your own revenge? Sir, you this day have brought me to a fight That more contents me than the wealth of Spain: This matchless Lady. I Sir doo't? Doubly captived: Honour should still preseede love: Sir, I will, Though I to cure another, my self kill. A mere worm Trod on by every Fate. This your scorn. Makes me appear more abject to my self Then all diseases I have tasted yet Had power to asperse upon me, and yet Lady I could say something durst . And yet— I know not how my phrase may relish you, And loath I were to offend, even in what's passed I must confess, I was too bold,—Farewell, I shall no more distaste you. You charge deeply, And yet now, I bethink me. What? Lady I shall. I will. I love you. Still it is my misery Thus to be mocked in all things. I looked thus to be laughed at, my estate And Fortune's I confess, deserves no less; That made me so unwilling to denounce Mine own de zions, but alas I find No Nation, sex, complexion, birth, degree. But jest at want, and mock at misery. I do, I do, and maugre Fate, And spite of all sinister evil shall. And now I charge you, by that filias zeal You owe your father, by the memory Of your deer mother, by the joys you hope In blessed marriage, by the fortunate issue Stored in your womb, by these and all things else, That you can style with goodness: instantly, Without evasion, trick, or circumstance, Nay, least premeditation, answer me. Affect you me, or no? Without or pause. I pardon you oh minute, not so much As to apparel the least phrase you speak, Speak in the shortest sentence. O, my happiness What wilt thou feel me still? art thou not weary Of making me thy May-game to possess me Of such a treasures mighty Magozin, Not suffer me to inioy't, taken with this hand, With that to get another. I was born to it, And it shall out at once. Now my death, For mine own tongue must kill me, noble Lady. You have endeared me to you, but my vow Was never to match with any of what state Or birth soever, till before the contract, Some one thing I impose her. Or if she fail me in my first demand I to abjure her ever. You shall then, You shall? And my salfe with the same stroke. As I would in death unto my Confessor. Home and retire, Why should you strive thus to undo one that's already conquered? I would 'twere but a dream, then there were hope I might be once a wake and so see day, But night is lodged with n me, night perpetual Darker than the Ci erian, all my lights Have only been mere flashes that precede Tempestuous cracks of thunder. As you would wish. Yes, and divide my self from happiness, this hand Must forth my bosom pluck a blessedness And place it in another's,—are you ready? Awake? or in a dream? I hope the last, The God of marriage would not see his shrine. So much abused, the hallowed lights burn out Themselves in anger, and the Covenant Book Dropped down for shame, my hand shook, and my tongue Like a false evidence before a judge Faltered, and gave it self the lie, and yet My treach rous heart agreed , and this habit, O, old I throw my grief as easily from me, As I do thee, never did religious sha S, Count nance or shelter such a horrid act. Would? that very accent, friend, Gi es my faint fears the he, and writes my act Nob e and lawful: had I given him my life ' was but his own. Mine? alas, I have done nothing. Worthy your least good thought: if you (or helf) Can find a service to enjoin your slavs More e hard (or damnable) that may become (The Devil to will) a servant to effect, Urge one more trial. Name it. And if I doe't not— Sleep with your wife? and is that all? You have been ever noble. Stand you all mute? then give me leave to speak. Woman, peace. Strumpet hence, Would I had never known thee, thou hast made me A foreign scorn, and where I aim at honour Most infamous and loathed, this vitiated beauty Even by her own confession late deflower worser I beg from this most sacred Majesty, To see severely chastised: being English To have that English shame and punishment, Endue to the Like offenders. This may be A mere confederacy, but to my fears At all no satisfaction, her own tongue Hath published her a mechall prostitute, And that is my first truth. Spain's admiration. And wonder of a friend, I dare to you Be plain and serious: to all others ears I Wish my words locked in silence: O, with shame And infamy I speak it, desiring heaven IT might be my last of speech, this thing, polluted This (would I had ought elce to style her by) But needs out, out it must, she is my—my Sister. The same, O me, the same, my natural Sister. So. O, you are mine And I vowed ever yours. Pray lets talk mildly: And first to you, to whom my soul's engaged, Why should you hazard such a precious life For one by her own language stands condemned. O you have moulded her In me anew: and friend your confirmation, I do receive her perfect as the woman, Whose acts are laws, whose saying's Oracles, And she was never truly mine, till now, so I receive her from you. But I pray, What might you be of whom I have deserved So ill to make you my Antagonist? The face of your kind visage yet looks smooth, I spy in it no wrinkle; But my friend, How have you dealt by him? If he perish, I am swept from off the earth too, with my sister, He next my heart sits unmoveable: pray what service Will you command me now? I am yours. But never with a braver opposite Did English -man to j with fire. Which I begged. Wear I not yours? Though not so many, yet more deeply arv'd, With greater danger, and expense of blood, Then ever dropped from these. I came but with one gyve upon my leg, Fastened upon me in his courtesy, But since I looked upon your Ladies eyes, Now I am doubly fettered. The e, a man. No better then you see a slave. His that hath redeemed me. Yes, I proclaim it; I that was once mine own, Am now become his creature. Not here, for I am all dejectedness Captive to fortune, and a slave to want; I can not call these e oaths I wear mine own, I do not eat, but at another's cost, This air I breathe, is borrowed; never was man So po re and abject. I have not so much, In all this universe, as a thing to leave Or a Country I can freely boast is mine: In all the world, I had but one true friend, And he is ravished from me; My essen e, and my being, is another's: What should I say? I am not any thing, And I possess as little. Then you shall. Love noble Vallada ra, And at his soonest appointment marry him. O I still, And evermore, must owe you. Name it I pray you, having one thing done, I now am in at all things. That which you have bought, And paid for, with your money. Why, I have done: What I shall ever rue, may give it motion, I being new all for Actium. And this I'll do. I am in, Passed half already, why not up toth' chin? I will do't; sleep with your wife? I'll do I, No Eunuke Like me. It's done, How ere I , I'll rise bright honours son I ask no more, I have her heart already. That app rition transports me into wonder. That word quaked all the blood within my veins, And agues all my nerves. O that some whirlwind would but snatch me up, And bear me to a desert wilderness, Where never man was known, to sunder me So far, If not much further, from my shame. I hope Lady, you are not Jealous, are you? Friend! And swear to this? England.