MACRINUS

As you love your life study t'appease her. And thee Theophilus. I'm in hast. Be brief. She slept but ill. Ill, well, straight, crooked, I know not how. I know not. Fare you well Sir. I then must study, A new Arithmatike, to sum up the virtues Which Antoninus gracefully become, There is in him so much man, so much goodness, So much of honour, and of all things else Which makes our being excellent, that from his store He can enough lend others, yet much taken from him, The want shall be as little as when Seas Lend from their bounty to fill up the poorness Of needy Rivers. You make me a sad Messenger. But him self Being come in person, shall I hope hear from you Music more pleasing. None I Like. Hermes inspire thee. We are betrayed. With one high raging billow. I have been His keeper in this sickness, with such eyes As I have seen my mother watch over me, And from that observation sure I find, It is a Mid wife must deliver him. Yes, With child, And will I fear loose life if by a woman He is not brought to bed: stand by his Pillow Some little while and in his broken slumbers Him shall you hear cry out on Dorothea, And when his arms fly open to catch her, Closing together, he falls fast asleep, Pleased with embracings of her airy form; Physicians but torment him, his disease Laughs at their gibrish language, let him hear The voice of Dorothea, nay but the name, He starts up with high colour in his face, She or none cures him, and how that can be, (The Princess strick't command, barring that happiness) To me impossible seems. Silence fit, he wakes. She's here; I enjoy her. Oh be your self deer friend. Dear sir, vex him not. A Slave is to me, what now. By this preparation You well may rest assured that Dorethea This hour is to die here. I am amazed 'Tis in the air. But what shall follow? I'll vndertake't, theres some thing prompts me to it 'Tis to save innocent blood, a Saintlike act, And to be merciful has never been By mortal men themselves esteemed a sin. You are Like to those That are ill only, cause they are too well, That surfeiting in the excess of blessings Call their abundance want: what could you wish, That is not fallen upon you? honour, greatness, Respect, wealth, favour, the whole world for a dowry, And with a Princess, whose excelling form Exccedes her fortune. Sir you point at Your dotage on the scornful Dorothea, Is she though fair the same day to be named With best Artemia? in all their courses Wisemen propose their ends: with sweet Artemia There comes along pleasure, security, Ushered by all that in this life is precious: With Dorothea, though her birth be noble, The Daughter to a Senator of Room, By him lest rich (yet with a private wealth And far inferior to yours) arrives The Emperors frown (which Like a mortal plague Speaks death is near) the Princess heavy scorn, Under which you will shrink, your father's fury, Which to resist even piety forbids, And but remember that she stands suspected A favourer of the Christian Sect, she brings Not danger but assured destruction with her: This truly weighed, one smile of great Artemia Is to be cherished and preferred before All joys in Dorothea, therefore leave her. Stange affection! Cupid once more hath changed his shafts with death, And kills in stead of giving life. Yet sir 'tis my wonder That you who hearing only what she suffers, Partake of all her tortures, yet will be To add to vour calamity, and eye witness Of her last Ttagicke scene, which must pierce deeper And make the wound more desperate. It was his will, And we were left to serve him, not command him, I see nothing. Your son sinks to. Antonius Sinks If Queen's viewing his presents, paid to the whiteness Of your chased hand alone, should be ambitious, But to be parted in their numerous shares, This he counts nothing: could you see main Armies Make battalles in the quarrel of his valour, That 'tis best, the truest, this were nothing, The greatness of his State, his father's voice And arm, owing Cesaream, he never boasts of The Sunbeam, which the Emperor throws upon him, Shine there but as in water, and guild him Not with one spot of pride, no dearest beauty, All these heaped up together in one scale, Cannot weigh down the love he bears to you Being put into the other. Citherea Great Queen of love be now propitious to me. I am yours, And if my travel this way be ill spent, Judge not, my reader will, by the event. You know I dare and will do any thing. Put me unto the test.