TAMYRA

Revenge, that ever read itt'st in the eyes Of injured Ladies, till we crown thy brows With bloody Laurel; and receive from thee Justice for all our humours injury, Whose wings none fly, that Wrath or Tyranny Have ruthless made, and bloody. Enter here, Enter, Oh enter: and, though length of time Never lets any escape thy constant justice, Yet now prevent that length. Fly, fly, and here Fix thy steel footsteps: Here, Oh here, where still Earth (moved with pity) yielded and embraced My Loves fair figure, drawn in his deer blood, And marked the place, to show thee where was done The cruelest murder that ere fled the Sun. Oh Earth! why keepest thou not as well his spirit, To give his form life? No, that was not earthly: That (rarefying the thin and yielding air) Flew sparkling up into the Sphere of fire, Whence endless flames it sheds in my desire: Here be my daily pallet, here all nights That can be wrested from thy rivals arms; (Oh my deer Bussy) I will lie, and kiss Spirit into thy blood, or breathe out mine In sighs, and kisses, and sad tunes to thine. That is so far from all ye seek of us, That (though your selves be common as the air) We must not take the air, we must not fit Our actions to our own affections: But as Geometricians (you still say) Teach that no lines, nor superficies, Do move themselves, but still accompany The motions of their bodies; so poor wives Must not pursue, nor have their own affections, But to their husbands earnests, and their jests, To their austerities of looks, and laughters, (Though never so foolish and injurious) Like Parasites and slaves, fit their disposures. So said you, when you wooed. So Soldiers tortured Withtedious sieges of some well-walled Town, Propound conditions of most large contents, Freedom of Laws, all former government; But having once set foot within the Walls, And God the reins of power into their hands, Then do they tyrannise at their own rude swindges, Seize all their goods, their liberties, and lives, And make advantage, and their lustest, their laws. Forgiveness! that grace you should seek of me: These tortured fingers, and these stabbed-through arms Keep that law in their wounds yet, unobserved, And ever shall. You do more then I. Those with fair warnings might have been reformed, Not these unmanly rages. You have herd The fiction of the North wind and the Sun, Both working on a Traveller, and contending Which had most power to take his cloak from him: Which when the Wind attempted, he roared out Outrageous blasts at him to force it off, That wrapped it closer on. When the calm Sun (The Wind once leaving) charged him with still beams, Quiet, and fervent, and therein was constant, Which made him cast off both his cloak and coat: Like whom should men do. If ye wish your Wives Should leave disliked things, seek it not with rage; For that enrages: what ye give, ye have: But use calm warnings, and kind manly means, And that in Wives most prostitute will win Not only sure amends; but make us Wives Better then those that never led faulty lives. I see you're Servant, sir, to my deer sister, The Lady of her loved Baligny. She writes to me as much, and much desires, That you may be the man, whose spirit she knows Will cut short off these long and dull delays, Hitherto to bribing the eternal Justice: Which I believe, since her unmatched spirit Can judge of spirits, that have her sulphur in them; But I must tell you, that I make no doubt, Her living brother will revenge her dead, On whom the dead imposed the task and he, I know, will come t'effect it instantly. See; this is the vault, where he must enter: Where now I think he is. One that your self will say, I well may trust. See her Letter sir. Good Madame, I rue your fate, more then mine, And know not how to order these affairs, They stand on such occurrents. Oh my servant! let us embrace. I, none. That you may do well, It is the blood you lately shed, you smell. What vault? hold your sword. Trust not his oath. He will lie Like a Lapwing, when she flies Far from her sought nest, still here 'tis she cries. Out on my fortune to wed such and abject. Now is the peoples voice, the voice of God; He that to wound a woman vaunts so much, (As he did me) a man dares never touch. Come sir, good sir hold him. I sir, she sent him, With this kind Letter, to perform the wreak Of my deer Servant. Oh it breaks my heart. Misery on misery! Oh me wretched Dame Of all that breath, all heaven turn all his eyes, In hearty envy, thus on one poor dame. Hide, hide thy snaky head, to Cloisters fly, In penance pine, too easy 'tis to die. I'll make him read it.