ALTHEA

— As is your soul. aside. Althea to Lucilio. Did my Lord so far impart the business to your self? I prithee return him this answer, and be silent. Warm blood assist me! how has wonder seized The frozen passages that slowly guide My shivering spirits up to the seat of life! Murder the Duke! now innocence forbid, And let our selves be as out loves, unstained. Tyrannous affection! can thy transforming power Enforce our passion thus beyond our selves? Rob us of nature and the sense of man? Seize all our actions? force us to forget That we are children? and with loves finger blot Clean from our thoughts the piety we owe To them that gave us life? Carry us headlong To such a gulf of sin? where we must drown Our selves, our honour, and that secure content A guiltless conscience brings to innocence! Ah deer Lucilio! how are thy virtues dimmed In my best thoughts, that Like a Crystal mirror Still held the shapes of thy deserving actions Unspottedly resembled! what spirit of night Has mixed it self with those untainted vows Thy never yet ambitious soul poured forth To attend our loves? Some Angel, deer Lucilio, Descend into thy fancy to persuade thee By all the bans Love, Duty, Nature, Heaven, Can bring to bind thee in a tender fear Of roughly breathing on the softest air That touches but his safety, to desist. From this unnatural act of parricide. Fatal experience speaks; and makes it good, They stand not firm that rise by steps of blood. Whose that? Oh my deer Lord! As one that lives but in the arms of death, And Like a frost-kill'd worm is half revived By your fair presence, whose desired sighed Makes a warm blood post through my trembling veins To tell my heart this news, that ere I die I once shall speak to you: But I must chide Yove Grace my Lord, that would so stain your love With soulest spots of blood. It was your seal and hand that did persuade Me to the murder, but my self returned Dissuasive arguments to beat you from't. No my dearest Lord, let me in contentment die, Since you are innocent, and in my Tomb Bury your danger, that have thus long sat A heavy burden to your happiness. It'll sweeten much the bitterest throes of death When I shall think my labouring soul does work For my Lucilio's rest: then let my guiltless Ghost Securely pass up to the fields of peace, For I am weary and would gladly die. I have my Lord; but what of this? What means your Grace? I'll meet the ugliest shapes that ever Death Appeared to Nature in, before I'll leave Your Grace exposed to danger for my life. And if you die I shall not long outlive you. In what a sad dilemma stands my soul In this divulsion between love and danger! Yet bless mine eyes once more with sighed of you. Dearest Lord farewell. I Camilla, the desire of being public is the disease of our Sex: we think the Countries free breathing spaciousness a pri son, where the lose of liberty is the want of company. But if there were one of us, whose contents were not without her, she would shun that common concourse of eyes, as she does the opini on of deformity; and perceive that the best perfectio ̄ had no grea ter enemy than public aspects. Thats the error of our ambition, that while we take our aim at admiration, by publikenesse and common flattery, we miss that repute among the wisest, which our beauty's not pro stituted would infallibly merit; because every thing, though less perfect, yet less common, is more admired, as we see in the Sun and a Comet. Such Camilla be the disgrace of their Sex: whose appe tites change with variety; and taint the general name of women with the vicious note of inconstancy. A sin! and mortal! It's a work of merit, and they be Saints worthy to have their names written upon the Altar of Chastity. It's beloved of Heaven, and sometime fortunately rewarded here. My self you mean. Why then it's I, Virtue is rich, and rewards it self: and if my wrongs merit Lucilios safety, Heaven redouble them. What is she? Sure some voluntary occasion has dri ven her this way. Yet be not impudent, invite not thy self. Not I. Because I have none to go. I cannot eat. And therefore I cannot eat, because I cannot live. 'Twere Tytius plague, to renew strength for grief to feed on. A hard choice for me the while. Peace good Echo. Both to your self, I am not sick. I think so too; pray heaven it be no more. I cannot drink—were you in the City late? O— She sownes. I am not well; good Shepherdess Leave us a while; I thank thee for her meat, But the Sauce comes worse than poison to my breast. Oh we have lived too long Camilla, and Out-slept the hour in which we should have died, Plagues, gilded and mischief have o'rtaken us, Because we slacked, and would not quit the world To rest in pure white Tombs of innocence, Poor wench, these news have wounded thee. Does Hell conspire with envy then to persecute Our misery? and sent some fiend to take That shape, that never till now did shrow so foul a sin. Of all life's Misery's. She rubs her to get life. Dead— stark dead— It is not much I ask the Angry heavens, Lend but my wits to die, I crave no more: Or if you have a further punishment Reserved, be mild, and hurl it quickly on me With its full weight— Poor wench, I have no tools To break the earth, nor means to bury thee: Thou hast not killed a Mother, nor a Prince, Nor been the ruin of thy Family; Is't such a gilded to bear me company, That thou must die, and want what Homicides, And Malefactors find? —a grave! Here take This Scarf, Lucilio was wont to wear it; Tell him thou hast it for thy Shroud, and I Am gone to meet him, and have only begged A truce with fatal mischief, while I High, That where he died, there I may likewise die. Poor soul farewell. exit. Lie there thou gentle weed, that hast prolonged A weary life, thou whose dissembling shape Has helped me reach the place which drew that life As and attractive Loadstone to it's end. Some friendly Passenger will for this reward Bestow perhaps a burial on my Coarse; And be my death as freely exempt from sighed. As is my grief, that never innocent eyes May be infected with those fumes of gilded My latest gasp breathes forth, reserved till now To be unfortunate in all save this, That I shall sacrifice my dearest blood Upon that Altar where Lucilio died, And let one air receive our joined spirits And sacrifices to Faiths Deity. And witness now you zealous thoughts of love, Witness the vows my affection held so deer, My soul comes unconstrained to you deer Lord, And parts as freely from a gladsome heart, As ere it wished to enjoy the lively sighed Of your desired presence— She spies him as below. — Awake my fancy, do mine eyes conspire To aggravate my grief, or does the strong Imagination of my lose present the shape Of his dead person to my troubled sense? Methinks I sleep, that, thus illusive shows Do mock my apprehension: or is't decreed That even in death I must endure affliction? And die in height of woe? How Like his pace, His gesture, shape, and countenance! true constant spirit! (That wouldst not be unless thou mightest be true) Did not my greedy sighed distract my thoughts To feed upon thy shadow, and make me forget My business next in hand: I should have flown To be a shadow, and have walked with dead Lucilio — As hearing somewhere the voice of his name. Stay. Oh stay deer love! Why, I do live. Sweet love, if you do live, as fear and hope betwixt adverse passion make me doubtful yet, Know that I live as when we parted last, Nor ere was yet interred. Great Lord, recall your self, and give me leave To speak what will resolve this doubtful maze In which your senses wander, and can find No passage out. Since I last left your Grace Traveling in that disguise, I lost indeed Camilla, poor Companion of my cares: But hearing that your self in shape of me Was by your Father's doom thrown off this Rock, Knowing my sufferance guilty of your death, I came to end my life where you had died, And expiate the murder with my blood Where 'twas committed on your guiltless self, Reserved by Heavens mild hand to this blessed hour Wherein our innocent loves might once more meet In spite of envy. Yet is my joy but small amid your many, Since you have burned my innocent Mother, And razed our Family. The day grows hight, and with the climbing Sun That mounts to height of noon, our cares do fly Drawn on by fear and grief, to deep despair. Lets rest under this shade until the singing Ray a little hath with drawn it self. And therefore condemn us of unnaturalness, that when beauty was equally shared betwixt them and us, they respect it as it is; whilst we, blinded by reasonable sense, conceive it the richest gift Heaven could give, study it above the soul, and equal to life, though it merely touch our outsides, as clothes do. Why then it's you: would any woman breathing, that had her 5 senses, and no read head, no blue lips nor raw Nose, no desperate Fortune's, nor cracked reputatio ̄ , but walked upright in the face of the world, and in the April of her age, so devote her self to one, that she must undergo these Misery's, when by renouncing him, she may underlie so many commodities? To turn Savage here, and hold conference with none but hills and sheep, when she might have variety of fashions, wits, and breathes to Court her at home. I protest I would love over a whole Playhouse of Gallants first. Yet it is the perfection of virtue to loose by the exercise. I could be angry with thee Camilla, for I'll first be trea cherous to my own soul, ere buy content or kingdoms with perfidiousness. It does invite me speak, and with his silent looks Seems to entreat a word, yet my faint heart Throbbing with fear, denies to second speech. good Spirit leave thy tempting: my heart grows cold and pants, as if it did presage some fatal ill stood nigh me.