Pen. That remedy

Must be a winding-sheet, a fold of lead, And some untrod-on corner in the earth. Not to detain your expectation, princess, I have an humble suit.

Cal. Speak, and enjoy it. Pen. Vouchsafe then to be my executrix, And take that trouble on ye, to dispose Such legacies as I bequeath impartially: I have not much to give, the pains are easy;

Heaven will reward your piety and thank it, When I am dead; for sure I must not live; I hope I cannot.

Pen.

Cal. Now beshrew thy sadness!
Thou turn'st me too much woman.
Her fair eyes
Melt into passion, then I have assurance
Encouraging my boldness. In this paper
My will was charactered; which you, with
pardon,

Shall now know from mine own mouth.
Cal.
Talk on, prithee;

It is a pretty earnest.

Pen.

I have left me

Of mere imagination! Speak the last : I strangely like thy will.

Pen.

This jewel, madam, Is dearly precious to me; you must use The best of your discretion, to employ This gift as I intend it.

Cal.
Do not doubt me.
Pen. 'Tis long ago since first I lost my

heart;

Long I have lived without it: but instead
Of it, to great Calantha, Sparta's heir,
By service bound and by affection vowed,
I do bequeath in holiest rites of love
Mine only brother Ithocles.

eye

On these divine looks, but with low-bent thoughts

Accusing such presumption: as for words,
He dares not utter any but of service;
Yet this lost creature loves you.

princess

Be a

In sweetness as in blood; give him his

doom,

Or raise him up to comfort.

Cal. What new change

Appears in my behaviour, that thou darest Tempt my displeasure?

Pen. I must leave the world, To revel in Elysium; and 'tis just

To wish my brother some advantage here. Yet by my best hopes, Ithocles is ignorant Of this pursuit. But if you please to kill him,

Lend him one angry look, or one harsh word,

And you shall soon conclude how strong a power

Your absolute authority holds over
His life and end.

Cal.

You have forgot, Penthea, How still I have a father.

Pen. But remember

I am sister: though to me this brother

Bos. The manner of your death should much afflict you;

This cord should terrify you.

Not a whit.

Duch. What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds? or to be smothered

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?

I know, death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits; and 'tis found They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways: any way: (for Heaven sake)

So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers

That I perceive, death (now I'm well awake)

Best gift is, they can give or I can take.
I would fain put off my last woman's

fault;

hope

I had in thee. Let me forget the thought
Of thy most pretty infancy: when first,
Returning from the wars, I took delight
To rock thee in my target; when my girl
Would kiss her father in his burgonet
Of glittering steel hung 'bout his armed
neck,

And, viewing the bright metal, smile to see
Another fair Virginia smile on thee;
When I first taught thee how to go, to
speak;

And (when my wounds have smarted) I have sung,

With an unskilful yet a willing voice,
To bring my girl asleep. O my Virginia!
When we begun to be, begun our woes;
Increasing still, as dying life still grows.
Thus I surrender her into the court
Of all the gods.

[Kills her.

HONOURABLE EMPLOYMENT.

O MY lord, lie not idle:

The chiefest action for a man of great spirit

Is never to be out of action. We should think

The soul was never put into the body, Which has so many rare and curious

pieces

spirit,

How fares the king and 's followers?
Ari.
Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them: all prisoners, sir,
In the lime-grove which weather-fends
your cell;

They cannot budge till you release. The king,

His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;

And the remainder mourning over them, Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly Him, that you termed, sir, "The good old lord Gonzalo:"

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops

From eaves of reeds; your charm so strongly works them,

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Pro. Dost thou think so, spirit? Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human. Pro. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier moved than

thou art?

lakes, and groves;

And ye, that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him,

When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that

By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid (Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimmed

The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake; and by the spurs

plucked up

The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,

Have waked their sleepers; oped, and let them forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have required
Some heavenly music (which even now I
do)

To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book.

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

Or, if I live, is it not very like,

The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the place,As in a vault, an ancient réceptacle, Where, for these many hundred years, the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are packed; Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,

Lies festering in his shroud; where as they

I have forgot him; my imagination
Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated with the lion
Must die for love! 'Twas pretty, though
a plague,

To see him every hour, to set and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls

In our heart's table; heart, too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour!