MARCELLA

O where is ruth? or where is pity now? Whither is gentle heart and mercy fled? Are they exiled out of our stony breasts Never to make return? is all the world Drowned in blood, and sunk in cruelty? If not in women mercy may be found If not (alas) within the mother's breast To her own child, to her own flesh and blood If ruth be banished thence, if pity there May have no place, if there no gentle heart Do live and dwell, where should we seek it than? Oh silly woman I, why to this hour, Have kind and fortune thus deferred my breathe That I should live to see this doleful day Will ever wight believe that such harden heart Could rest within the cruel mother's breast, With her own hand to slay her only son? But out (alas) these eyes beheld the same, They saw the driery sighed, and are become Most ruthful records of the bloody fact. Porrex, (alas) is by his mother slain, And with her hand a woeful thing to tell, While slomberinge on his careful bed he rests His heart stalde in with kniefe is reft of life. Alas he lives not, it is to true, That with these eyes of him a pereles Prince, Son to a King, and in the flower of youth, Even with a twinke a censeles stock I saw. But hear this ruthefull end. The noble Prince pierced with the sudden wound Out of his wretched slumber hastily start Whole stre ̄ gth now failing straight he overthrew When in the fallen his eyes even new unclosed Beheld the Queen and cried to her for help We then, alas, the Ladies which that time Did there attend, sing that heinous deed And hearing him oft call the wretched name Of mother, and to cry to her for Aid Whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound Pitying, (alas, for nought else could we do) His ruthefull end, ran to the woeful bed Despoiled straight his breast, and all we might wiped in vain with napkyns next at hand, The sudden streams of blood that flushed fast Out of the gaping wound: Oh what a look, Oh what a ruthefull steadfast eye me thought He fixed upon my face, which to my death Will never part from me, when with a braid Adeepe set sign he gave and therewith all Clasping his hands, to heaven he cast his sighed And straight pale death pressing within his face The flying ghost his mortal corpse forsook. Oh harden and cruel happen, that thus assigned Unto so worthy a wight so wretched end But most harden cruel heart, that could consent To lend the hatefnll destinies that hand By which, alas, so heinous crime was wrought, Oh Queen of Adamant, Oh Marble breast If not the favour of his comely face, If not his Princely cheer and counten unce, His valiant Active Arms, his manly breast. If not his fair and seemly personage His noble Limbs in such preparation cast As would have wrapped a silly woman's thought If this might not have moved the bloody heart And that most cruel hand the wretched weapon Even to let fallen, and kiste him in the face, With tears for ruth to reave such one by death Should nature yet consent to slay her son Oh mother, thou to murder thus thie child Even Jove with Justice must w to lightning flames From heaven send down some strange revenge on thee. Ah noble Prince, how oft have I beheld Thee mounted on thy fierce and traumpling stead Shining in Armour bright before the Tylte And with thy Mistress Sleeve tied on thy Helm And charge thy staff to please thy Ladies eye That howed the head piece of thy friendly foe, How oft in Arms on horse to bend the Mace How oft in Arms on foot to break the sword, Which never now these eyes men again. What wight is that which saw that I did see And could refrain to wail with plaint & tears Not I, alas, that heart is not in me, But let us go, for I am grieved anew, To call to mind the wretched father's woe.