FRANCISCUS

Forsake me honour, when I do forget the bound of friendship, let not poverty, no, nor your father's behaviour Julio: though our Venetian law proved him a Traitor: come pluck away your interest from my breast: when we were pupils in the Academy, I was Franciscus and your fellow then; I am Franciscus and your fellow still, nor can be alte read: I have now a heart as free from pride, as when I clipped thee thus, before thou knewest the taste of poverty, or I pros perity. Think not ancient friend I can forget thee, though thy needs were such as beggary despised. Amen to that and more. I tell thee Julio, I am not happier in my virtuous wife: and yet that's greater than yielding thee relief 'tis all that good men wish: Why have we wealth bestowed on us, but to re turn the same, where stern necessity pinches the ribs of him or her that wants? it has no other worth, no more esteem of me. Heap it together while the, massy weight e'ne crack, what bears it less than dust? on dust deserves no more re guard. I have a Wife, Nurse, and mother, all she is in one; yet one deserves more Titles, beside her feature, which may make compare with those that boast of parts: she is so kind, that many millions may be stamped again, ere one so perfect currant. She is worth more than the earth is: but she is my wife, and I will cease her praise: you know her father when you have his name: he is called Chrysippus, many style him good, and wish all Venice such. She is that jewel, that unmatched, thing I made my boast of: That Cornelia is none but mine, I dare boldly say, and eke affirm it: See my Julio, she meets us unexpec ted, and comes to hinder what I would speak more, in cause of her demerit, modesty, and sweetness. My Love and duty make me ever such. To all this company a happy hour. You have been missed Cornelia. Where ere I have been, this is my friend, tender him your welcome with as good respects as I my self where he. You shall exchange your habit: Phemone, sister, Anthonio— I durst not come believe it: Vallentius for says rouses are too great, They make me quake to see they. How fares my cousin Lodwick? I thank his love. Ever, ever welcome. THou hast to say something, yet nothing I hope trivial, by our known affection I beseech thee, speak what thou canst. Whereto tends this speech if I thought my fault, or any ones pertained to me, through wilful negligence, or otherwise, to breed the occasion of this passionate mood, I should condemn the cause of the offence, and deem my self unhappy. Let me know that ill, and I rest satisfied. Many that wear that name in Italy: but one a amongst that many known to me. Pardon Julio, I'll hate my self first. Villain never had so fair and outside, nor yet heart so just as that he carries. I have some business at the Port, yowl sup with me to night. I do. Give me to understand, since you will force me to endure your report, wherein he's culpable, or does deserve these ignominious titles. 'Tis not my fault. Therein, he's too blame. That amends, quits all his former wrongs. How's this? Come, come, my wife is honest. If she be, 'tis nothing you have said, I'll hear no more; begun. Wrong me, and if he would he cannot. Would I might understand you? I wish you Julio, to know what you speak. I pray be advised, consider what you do? speak not this no report, be certain; do not abuse my patience. Tempt my wife, rend earth, and swallow falsehood. My blood is not mine own, I want command of all that now obeyed me, how different are my fits? I am now a congealed, kneaded cake of ice, bound from all motion, now again (me thinks) a flaming Island, a Vesunius Hill, merely combustion. Tell me of patience when I am my self: how did he tempt her, how did she accord on thy reputation? Hang not ith' wind, (delay does torture) answer me as how? Answer me how. What? strike and cry mercy, I must be resolved, thou hast flung me ith' fire, even in the Oven, the mouth of Aetna, nothing thou coulst have said, nothing have done, could have assured Like torture. Cornelia false, the flood may come again, nothing impossible, kiss, and crush hands, wink, wink heaven and all above. Bear witness, all that good are, how deer, how deer, I held that most false man: set him here, here, even on the spire and pinnacle of my heart; my life was his, and all that I call mine, but her he has abused? No Julio, no, had she meant well, She would have warned me of his foul attempts, Said such, and so's his behaviour. When she was loyal, as sure one she was, (If ever any was) no accident how vain So ever it seemed, but she a woman, would unfold Her sex, and say 'twas thus, and thus. Triple abuse: Deflowered my wife, abused me, Disgraced my sister; thrown infamy On all our heads at once: What beast uncivil bred, Amongst careless Monsters (but thee Antonio) Would have been kicked on to that damned enterprise? That I had patience; me thinks thou shouldst not Be the Villain yet, report does speak thee. 'Tis true, it's true. Had any betwixt the North and Southern Pole Spoke these words but he, it had not been, And he had falsely lied. This is a Creature I have raised, revived, Snatched from destructions teeth, Incorporated to me, so deer and just, as not A thing in all the world can be more truer to it self And certain: but his modesty conceals it, Could write a Volume of their loathed designs, And curse the stories cause. Oh false Cornelia! Remembrance burst! There's no contemplation, nothing what ere can Drive the thought of shame out of my mind: Would I had never known discretion, Could never have made distinctions of persons, And harmless Creatures; hence forth be ignorance: Mother of Nations and Understanding perish: Fair, foul Cornelia. The blue faced Occan, nor her fertile womb, that yields Us all increase, nourishes none so false as woman: Traitors have they been since their first being, And betrayed poor man ever he beheld himself. Cornelia can it be thou art a Strumpet? O, o, fury finish that, burns thee to Cinders. Draw your sword. against me. Draw your sword. Draw your sword. I must fight with you. With thee perfidious monster, with thee thou Judas. Thou hast abused me, wronged me. Do not inquire; yonder he sits knows all: Look yonder, thou art to him transparent, and seen through, As easy as the air: do not cloak thy vice, do not: Seest thou this? seest thou the place we tread on? Mark my speech, one of us twain, or both (never start) On this cold earth, this very Champion, shall Offer up a crimson sacrifice of his most precious blood: For that cause drew I to this silent shade, Remote from all suspicion, where Revenge might glut with satisfaction: Draw thy sword, or else thou never shalt. Will you draw? Will you draw? Do you not love my wife? Confess, o impudence! my wrong cries out, no more expostulation, remember Julio. Bath there, adulterate fiend, and thy read drops wash off thy guilty stains. What Angle of the Earth must be my grave? The Sea and Sun have bounds, and know their course, The sons of men have none: Limitless he wanders the foreign deserts, And begets more wonders every hour: The Chime that tells the last minuite of the night, Chides but in vain when every thing's a sleep; So I in the relation of my woe, when no man hearkens, Spend but idle breath, and never find relief. But for increase sake, I could wish devoutly, I never had known woman: What comfort ever others reaped from them, They have been plagues to me: to note the difference, They are such things, nothing's more worse, nor better; To say truth, they are Angels, and Devils; I will not curse they, lest I make them worse That needs no badness, nor rip up their defects, Lest I spend all my after time of life in nothing else but that. Julio, the profit of my Orisona be thine, Where ever I spend they, upright constant man: Yet I am eased, in that I do not bear my slavish yoke, Cocker mine infamy, as many do within our Venice gates: Thanks to thee Julio; Chastity, honour of women, Whither art thou fled? that they are all so false I must forget they, they will make me mad To think of their abuse: would I could learn What inquisition is made after me; Some speech of my concealment will report blab out, That I may hear the danger does pursue me, Though I adventure life, I will know more, Or die in the presumption: I'll nearer to the City. Thus by degrees, with hazard of my life, have I attained unto my wishes rest; and boldly gaze thee Venice in the face: the time has been, O, but that time is passed, when I was more familiar with thy pomp, but all that bliss is gone: And murder now, has with a crimson stain sealed me accursed, and Like a con demn'd guilty Fugitive; I wander in despair; fearing the ru le of the harmless bird, and the flies clamor, the Ant, the Wasp, and every lesser thing, Dreadless of danger, strays abroad for food; Not caring who behold them, But I, alas, of all; am most unhappy: Would I were dead, and passed the fear of that, Makes me thus Cowish. Who art thou comest here, more needy then my self? I cannot hold: his voice, his humour, I dare swear as much, it's he; It's he by heaven, my Julio. That I could spend my self to tears for joy, bear wit ness you that know it: Julio, for ever dwell within these arms of mine, thou truest among men, I have not power to question thee, my danger, my joy is so excessive; run all to spoil, & terror meet with terror; I fear none my Julio. And if you love me wish me not that wrong by pray king for your end: do not quite undo me, if you but knew my heart, my Julio, you would not crav't again: I could have come fort now, and clean forget the dangers I have passed, and those pursue me still: nothing to come can half so much dismay, as thou dost comfort; be it sudden death or torture worse than it: but for your sake, would in my womb I had been strangled, and never drawn this air. Take all I have had I my former wealth, My bounty could not recompense thy worth, And pour it all before thee (my deer Julio:) Be not impatient with thy sufferance, he's above will pay thee all My debts, though I should perish now. Contemned for me? alack, alack, if there be such A thing in Charity, be charitable: do not curse the cause Of this thy present want, I do beseech thee do not thou Julio? I prithee answer me, and either do what I have wished, Or cure the wound thou hast made. I will not urge thee further: Shall we here combine, and shape our course alike, And never, never partly; yet pardon me, I will not wish thee so much injury To be unknown of woman. I have a habit for thee yet unknown, or worn, But by my self: it's not a Furlong from the Antique Beech, Whose hollow sides conceals it: bide but here, Till I can reach it from the hidden place, And take it for thine own: though homely, Yet the coursenesse will keep warm, And ward the sharpest blast. I'll be with thee straight. That any should be false—But were there no dross, gold could not be esteemed, nor nothing precious rare. Cornelia let me forget that name and nothing else. Would I had left the world when I first saw her. How easy could we make our Misery's, if we might live and die when't pleased our selves? I left him dead: thou art still just; some beast has made that fouler beast his prey, and made up my revenge: but come with me, let us withdraw unto you thicket by, and speak at large that woeful history commixed of my proceedings, and pur with; Wilt time's our own. Speak no more such words, but make your own con tent: yet good Julio be not absent long, make me not long to see thee. Not wish thee? yes, though thou shouldst make return ever thou depart. Be brief, and goodness take with thee. This Julio, if desert might purchase Fame, deserves sufficient: but thou art par tiall Fortune in cramming Buzzards, while the Eagle starves: How many in this fertile Italy, whom Nature moulded when she loathed her task, and blue her seed among the ignorant, hast thou adorned with plenty? while seemly virtue, wracked with poverty, jets under base control: There's no felicity, nor true content here upon earth: The Spider builds his Web in Barns and Palaces: and the Prince himself tastes gall as honey: Happiness there's none, for least or greatest: Here my grief so parches me, that it does pain me to relate my woes, and make my feelings known. Beneath this Hill a clear and pleasant fountain curls along, whose shallowness makes the small pebbles 'peare above Like Rocks, and murmur as she runs down to the silver Current, thither will I high, and borrow so much of her watery store, as will assuage my thirst: All things are kind, And feed our wants when they themselves are pined. In mighty men how great appears the virtue never so small; how small the vice, though mighty Philosophy, they rules bridles my cogitations, and prolongs, what manhood would disdain, the time to come appalls my courage and strikes instant fears through every nerve and artery: might we Like beasts end when we die, and never make account in no other place then her: what heart so base would fear the threatening Law? Flatter the Judge to save him: I would not sure: but there is bliss and torment much to come, we cannot think on't yet the Re surrection avus me, I am much distempered, and want of compa nigh, begets in me millions of terrors: Julio tarries long, my Orisons secure him, could the tears wash the blood but of my hands, my mind were something free. What are these for men. What mean you friends? Arbaces, I am betrayed. None I have deserved, or am about to crave, I know the worst, my life thou canst but have, It's thine; I make a tender of it ere the sentence come, & give thy labour ease, alas, poor Julio: thou wilt unfriended, run thy future raze without society, I pity thee my friend more then my self, danger to me is such, I do expect and dread not. Fare thee well, my breach of promise, is not with my will, but merely on constraint. Sick, sick to death Vallentius: shall we hence? Save that pains, guilty, nor do repent, that in my wrath I did, whereof I stand convict. No mighty sir, but rather joy the more, in that it bre viats my passage here, which I would willingly leave. Hear me good my Lord. That I did take his life, I have confessed, what further accusations laid on me, is merely malice, and proceed from some, could wish my torment worse. Unless I should belie my self, and speak Like a vain boaster, more then what I did, I must say this is false, and he's from truth, as far as I am from hope of life, begotten this slander. What Devil should be raised from the lowest hell, to justify this wrong? Julio: he's not his proof I hope. How comes this about? My sentence, good my Lord. How's that? Did he betray me? can this be. Would? I have done wrong, mighty, mighty wrong. Pardon me father, pardon good Arbaces: that villain, that foul villain. Some good or bade thing fell me suddenly, let me be hold no more. Wilt thou pardon me and live a happy one, when I am dead, and leapt in this cold earth. I see it, and believe: that villain, o, that villain! Hear me my good Lord, little I have to say, yet to much grief tend my few words, this traitor, nay, it's title all too good for one so heinous foul, that he is perjured, by the death I owe his latest words do witness what he is more, and worse: with pardon Lords, I shall delate at large, that all hereafter may example take, and shun a villains snare; I took him up, when Like and Adder in the frosty Due, the cold had starved him: that I had set my foot upon his head, when to my bosom I did take the Serpent, not cherished, comforted long had he been, but he both bit and stung me: foolish man I was to be so found, not many months, nor happy days I had with this most truest, most immaculate piece, but that perfidious Caitiff, that black fiend by strange suggestions, and invented projects, draws me into a confirmed jealousy, that she had stained her honour, falsely played with young Antonio. I from my wrong conceived, least could I not, Drew him apart into a silent Grove, Having before vowed solemnly revenge, Where I made some repetition of my grief: he still (I see him) Innocent gentleman, taking my words For such as Lovers use, when they are wanton, Smiles me in the face, and would not thing 'twas anger. This enkindled me, and as Boar, When he does chaw his foam, predicts some mischief, So my bent front foretold his ruin, Forth I drew my sword, and sheathed it Within his breast, what else is added, He's a Jew avers, and falser than a whore. Art thou a man, or something else; o fool, fool. It is not so, this cannot be. Though what I speak, with some additions, I have done and more, and he more false has played, than I have said, blot his offences: be propitious Sir. Yet be compendious, and possess this presence, what cause thou hadst that tempted thee so badly to seek my ruin. Oh fie Ioretzo. He's dead, and suffered for the same offence. Can you forgive mine injury, Antonio? I needs not make what's made, take and enjoy her that hath vowed to be none but yours. This day breeds wonders: by what accident escaped you of your wounds? What, what does heaven suffer, speak my Julio? Blot not the reputation of his youth with such calumny, he is no way such, but as unblemished, as the snow before it touch the Mountains.