[Let her offer to kill her self.]
Ay me, my virgin's hands are too too weak, To penetrate the bulwark of my breast; My fingers, used to tune the amorous lute, Are not of force to hold this steely glaive. So I am left to wail my parents' death, Not able for to work my proper death. Ah, Locrine, honored for thy nobleness! Ah, Estrild, famous for thy constancy! Ill may they fare that wrought your mortal ends!
[Enter Gwendoline, Thrasimachus, Madan, and the soldiers.]
GWENDOLINE. Search, soldiers, search, find Locrine and his love; Find the proud strumpet, Humber's concubine, That I may change those her so pleasing looks To pale and ignominious aspect. Find me the issue of their cursed love, Find me young Sabren, Locrine's only joy, That I may glut my mind with lukewarm blood, Swiftly distilling from the bastard's breast. My father's ghost still haunts me for revenge, Crying, Revenge my overhastened death. My brother's exile and mine own divorce Banish remorse clean from my brazen heart, All mercy from mine adamantine breasts.
THRASIMACHUS. Nor doth thy husband, lovely Gwendoline, That wonted was to guide our stailess steps, Enjoy this light; see where he murdered lies By luckless lot and froward frowning fate; And by him lies his lovely paramour, Fair Estrild, gored with a dismal sword;-- And as it seems, both murdered by themselves, Clasping each other in their feebled arms, With loving zeal, as if for company Their uncontented corps were yet content To pass foul Stix in Charon's ferry-boat.
GWENDOLINE. And hath proud Estrild then prevented me? Hath she escaped Gwendoline's wrath Violently, by cutting off her life? Would God she had the monstrous Hydra's lives, That every hour she might have died a death Worse than the swing of old Ixion's wheel; And every hour revive to die again, As Titius, bound to housles Caucason, Doth feed the substance of his own mishap, And every day for want of food doth die, And every night doth live, again to die. But stay! methinks I hear some fainting voice, Mournfully weeping for their luckless death.
SABREN. You mountain nymphs, which in these deserts reign, Cease off your hasty chase of savage beasts; Prepare to see a heart oppressed with care; Address your ears to hear a mournful style! No humane strength, no work can work my weal, Care in my heart so tyrant like doth deal. You Dryads and lightfoot Satyri, You gracious Faries which, at evening tide, Your closets leave with heavenly beauty stored, And on your shoulders spread your golden locks; You savage bears in caves and darkened dens, Come wail with me the martial Locrine's death; Come mourn with me for beauteous Estrild's death. Ah! loving parents, little do you know What sorrow Sabren suffers for your thrall.
GWENDOLINE. But may this be, and is it possible? Lives Sabren yet to expiate my wrath? Fortune, I thank thee for this courtesy; And let me never see one prosperous hour, If Sabren die not a reproachful death.
SABREN. Hard hearted death, that, when the wretched call, Art furthest off, and seldom hearest at all; But, in the midst of fortune's good success, Uncalled comes, and sheers our life in twain: When will that hour, that blessed hour, draw nigh, When poor distressed Sabren may be gone? Sweet Atropos, cut off my fatal thread! What art thou death? shall not poor Sabren die?
GWENDOLINE.
[Taking her by the chin shall say thus.]
Yes, damsel, yes; Sabren shall surely die, Though all the world should seek to save her life; And not a common death shall Sabren die, But after strange and grievous punishments Shortly inflicted upon thy bastard's head, Thou shalt be cast into the cursed streams, And feed the fishes with thy tender flesh.
SABREN. And thinkst thou then, thou cruel homicide, That these thy deeds shall be unpunished? No, traitor, no; the gods will venge these wrongs, The fiends of hell will mark these injuries. Never shall these blood-sucking masty curs, Bring wretched Sabren to her latest home; For I my self, in spite of thee and thine, Mean to abridge my former destinies, And that which Locrine's sword could not perform, This pleasant stream shall present bring to pass.