LOCRINE. Sweet fortune, favour Locrine with a smile, That I may venge my noble brother's death; And in the midst of stately Troinouant, I'll build a temple to thy deity Of perfect marble and of Iacinthe stones, That it shall pass the high Pyramids, Which with their top surmount the firmament.
CAMBER. The armstrong offspring of the doubled night, Stout Hercules, Alemena's mighty son, That tamed the monsters of the threefold world, And rid the oppressed from the tyrant's yokes, Did never show such valiantness in fight, As I will now for noble Albanact.
CORINEIUS. Full four score years hath Corineius lived, Sometime in war, sometime in quiet peace, And yet I feel my self to be as strong As erst I was in summer of mine age, Able to toss this great unwieldy club Which hath been painted with my foemen's brains; And with this club I'll break the strong array Of Humber and his straggling soldiers, Or lose my life amongst the thickest prease, And die with honour in my latest days. Yet ere I die they all shall understand What force lies in stout Corineius' hand.
THRASIMACHUS. And if Thrasimachus detract the fight, Either for weakness or for cowardice, Let him not boast that Brutus was his eame, Or that brave Corineius was his sire.
LOCRINE. Then courage, soldiers, first for your safety, Next for your peace, last for your victory.
[Exeunt.]
ACT III. SCENE V. The field of battle.
[Sound the alarm. Enter Hubba and Segar at one door, and Corineius at the other.]
CORINEIUS. Art thou that Humber, prince of fugitives, That by thy treason slewst young Albanact?
HUBBA. I am his son that slew young Albanact, And if thou take not heed, proud Phrigian, I'll send thy soul unto the Stigian lake, There to complain of Humber's injuries.
CORINEIUS. You triumph, sir, before the victory, For Corineius is not so soon slain. But, cursed Scithians, you shall rue the day That ere you came into Albania. So perish thy that envy Brittain's wealth, So let them die with endless infamy; And he that seeks his sovereign's overthrow, Would this my club might aggravate his woe.
[Strikes them both down with his club.]
ACT III. SCENE VI. Another part of the field.
[Enter Humber.]
HUMBER. Where may I find some desert wilderness, Where I may breath out curse as I would, And scare the earth with my condemning voice; Where every echoes repercussion May help me to bewail mine overthrow, And aide me in my sorrowful laments? Where may I find some hollow uncoth rock, Where I may damn, condemn, and ban my fill The heavens, the hell, the earth, the air, the fire, And utter curses to the concave sky, Which may infect the airy regions, And light upon the Brittain Locrine's head? You ugly sprites that in Cocitus mourn, And gnash your teeth with dolorous laments: You fearful dogs that in black Laethe howl, And scare the ghosts with your wide open throats: You ugly ghosts that, flying from these dogs, Do plunge your selves in Puryflegiton: Come, all of you, and with your shriking notes Accompany the Brittains' conquering host. Come, fierce Erinnis, horrible with snakes; Come, ugly Furies, armed with your whips; You threefold judges of black Tartarus, And all the army of you hellish fiends, With new found torments rack proud Locrine's bones! O gods, and stars! damned be the gods & stars That did not drown me in fair Thetis' plains! Curst be the sea, that with outrageous waves, With surging billows did not rive my ships Against the rocks of high Cerannia, Or swallow me into her watery gulf! Would God we had arrived upon the shore Where Poliphemus and the Cyclops dwell, Or where the bloody Anthrophagie With greedy jaws devours the wandering wights!
[Enter the ghost of Albanact.]
But why comes Albanact's bloody ghost, To bring a corsive to our miseries? Is't not enough to suffer shameful flight, But we must be tormented now with ghosts, With apparitions fearful to behold?
GHOST. Revenge! revenge for blood!
HUMBER. So nought will satisfy your wandering ghost But dire revenge, nothing but Humber's fall, Because he conquered you in Albany. Now, by my soul, Humber would be condemned To Tantal's hunger or Ixion's wheel, Or to the vulture of Prometheus, Rather than that this murther were undone. When as I die I'll drag thy cursed ghost Through all the rivers of foul Erebus, Through burning sulphur of the Limbo-lake, To allay the burning fury of that heat That rageth in mine everlasting soul.