GIOVANNI. Gio. What, chang'd so soon? 1 ANNABELLA. -does the fit come on you, to prove treacherous To your past vows and oaths? Anna. Why should you jest At my calamity, without all sense Of the approaching dangers you are in? Gio. What danger's half so great as thy revolt? Thou art a faithless sister, else thou know'st, Malice or any treachery beside Would stoop to my bent brows: why, I hold fate Anna. Brother, dear brother, know what I have been; To you and me; resolve yourself it is, Gio. Well then, The schoolmen teach that all this globe of earth Anna. So I have read too. Gio. But 'twere somewhat strange Anna. That's most certain.—2 But, How to escape. Gio. Look up, look here; what see you in my face? Gio. Death and a swift repining wrath--yet look, [Two lines omitted.] [Ten lines.] Gio. I do indeed; these are the funeral tears Anna. Methinks you weep. Shed on your grave: these furrow'd up my cheeks, The story of my life, we might lose time. And all things else that are, that day and night, Hath paid to Annabella's sacred love, Hath been these tears which are her mourners now. Never till now did Nature do her best, To show a matchless beauty to the world, Anna. Then I see your drift. Ye blessed angels, guard me!1 Gio. Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run In these well-colour'd veins! how constantly This pulse doth promise health! But I could chide Forgive me. Anna. With my heart. Gio. Farewell. Anna. Will you be gone? Gio. Be dark, bright sun, And make this mid-day night, that thy gilt rays More sooty than the poets feign their Styx.2 Gio. To save thy fame.- Thus die, and die by me, and by my hand; (Stabs her.) Farewell. [Dies. [Act v., Sc. 5.] Sir Thomas Browne, in the last Chapter of his Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, rebukes such Authors as have chosen to relate prodigious and nameless Sins. The chapter is entitled, Of some Relations whose Truth we fear. His reasoning is solemn and fine." Lastly, as there are many Relations whereto we cannot assent, and make some doubt thereof, so there are divers others whose verities we fear, [Verbal omissions to the end.] [Six lines omitted.] and heartily wish there were no truth therein. Many other accounts like these we meet sometimes in History, scandalous unto Christianity, and even unto humanity; whose not only verities but relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want either name or precedent, there is oft times a sin even in their histories. We desire no records of such enormities; sins should be accounted new, that so they may be esteemed monstrous. They omit of monstrosity, as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently expatiate without these singularities of villainy; for, as they increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that may make latter ages worse than were the former: for the vicious example of ages past, poison[s] the curiosity of these present, affording a hint of sin unto seduceable spirits, and soliciting those unto the imitation of them, whose heads were never so perversely principled as to invent them. In things of this nature silence commendeth History; 'tis the veniable part of things lost, wherein there must never rise a Pancirollus1 nor remain any register but that of Hell." THE BROKEN HEART: A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1633]. BY JOHN FORD Ithocles loves Calantha, Princess of Sparta; and would have his sister Penthea plead for him with the Princess. She objects to him her own wretched condition, made miserable by a Match, into which he forced her with Bassanes, when she was precontracted by her dead Father's Will, and by inclination, to Orgilus; but at last she consents. ITHOCLES. PENTHEA. Ith. Sit nearer, sister to me, nearer yet; Pen. You had been happy : Then had you never known that sin of life Which blots all following glories with a vengeance; For forfeiting the last will of the dead, From whom you had your being. Ith. Sad Penthea, Thou canst not be too cruel: my rash spleen A lover-blest heart, to grind it into dust; For which mine's now a-breaking. Pen. Not yet, heaven, 1 Who wrote De Antiquis Deperditis, or of the Lost Inventions of Antiquity, I do beseech thee: first let some wild fires Scorch, not consume it; may the heat be cherish'd Ith. Wrong'd soul, thy prayers are heard. A miserable creature, led to ruin Ith. I consume In languishing affections for that trespass, Pen. The handmaid to the wages, The untroubled1 of country toil, drinks streams, Quench my hot sighs with fleetings of my tears. Ith. The labourer doth eat his coarsest bread, Put me to any penance for my tyranny, Pen. Pray kill me; Rid me from living with a jealous husband; Ith. After my victories abroad, at home I meet despair; ingratitude of nature Hath made my actions monstrous: Thou shalt stand A deity, my sister, and be worshipp'd For thy resolved martyrdom; wrong'd maids And married wives shall to thy hallow'd shrine Offer their orisons, and sacrifice Pure turtles crown'd with myrtle, if thy pity One finger but to ease it. Pen. O, no more. pressure lend Ith. Death waits to waft me to the Stygian banks, And free me from this chaos of my bondage; And till thou wilt forgive, I must endure. Pen. Who is the saint you serve? Ith. Friendship, or nearness Of birth, to any but my sister, durst not 1A word seems defective here. [Should be "Of country toil drinks the untroubled streams ".] "[Twelve lines omitted.] VOL. IV.-14 Have moved that question: as a secret, sister, I dare not murmur to myself. Pen. Let me, By your new protestations I conjure ye, Ith. Her name-'tis-'tis-I dare not— Ith. They are not-Peace.— Calantha is the princess, the king's daughter, Knows it not yet, nor Prophilus my nearest. Pen. Suppose you were contracted to her, would it not Split even your very soul to see her father Snatch her out of your arms against her will, And force her on the Prince of Argos? Ith. Trouble not The fountains of mine eyes with thine own story. Pen. We are reconciled. Alas! Sir, being children, but two branches Have comfort; you may find it. Ith. Yes, in thee, Only in thee, Penthea mine. Pen. If sorrows Have not too much dull'd my infected brain, I'll cheer invention for an active strain. [Act iii., Sc. 2.1] Penthea recommends her Brother as a dying bequest to the Princess, CALANTHA. PENTHEA. Cal. Being alone, Penthea, you have granted The opportunity you sought, and might At all times have commanded. Pen. "Tis a benefit Which I shall owe your goodness even in death for. The summons of departure short and certain. [Edited Ellis.] |