A nation warlike, and enured to practice A feminate authority; we therefore Command your counsel, how you may advise us Near. Royal lady, Your law is in your will. Arm. We have seen tokens Of constancy too lately, to mistrust it. Crot. Yet, if your highness settle on a choice, By your own judgment both allow'd and liked of, Sparta may grow in power, and proceed To an increasing height. Cal. Hold you the same mind? Bass. Alas, great mistress! reason is so clouded With the thick darkness of my infinite woes, That I forecast nor dangers, hopes, or safety. Give me some corner of the world to wear out The remnant of the minutes I must number, Where I may hear no sounds, but sad complaints Of virgins, who have lost contracted partners; Of husbands howling that their wives were ravish'd By some untimely fate; of friends divided By churlish opposition; or of fathers Weeping upon their children's slaughter'd car casses; Or daughters, groaning o'er their fathers' hearses, Cal. Cousin of Argos. Near. Madam. Cal. Were I presently To choose you for my lord, I'll open freely Near. Name them, virtuous lady. Cal. I would presume you would retain the royalty Of Sparta in her own bounds; then in Argos Cal. Be Sparta's marshal; The multitudes of high employments could not Bass. This is a testament! It sounds not like conditions on a marriage. He should be, cousin, solemnly invested Too short a time enjoyed. Pro. I am unworthy To live in your remembrance. Near. Madam, what means that word, " neg lected husband?" Cal. Forgive me:-now I turn to thee, thou shadow Of my contracted lord! Bear witness all, [Places a ring on the finger of ITHOCLES. Thus I new-marry him, whose wife I am; Death shall not separate us. Oh, my lords, I but deceiv'd your eyes with antick gesture, When one news straight came huddling on another, Of death! and death! and death! still I danced forward! But it struck home, and here, and in an instant. Be such mere women, who, with shrieks and out cries, Can vow a present end to all their sorrows, Yet live to [court] new pleasures, and outlive them : They are the silent griefs which cut the heartstrings; Let me die smiling. Near. "Tis a truth too ominous. Cal. One kiss on these cold lips, my last!— (kisses ITH.)-crack, crack Argos now 's Sparta's king. Command the voices Near. Sirs, the song! Cho. DIRGE. Glories, pleasures, pomps, delights and ease, Can but please [The] outward senses, when the mind Is [or] untroubled, or by peace refined. First voice. Crowns may flourish and decay, Second. Third. Cho. Love only reigns in death; though art Arm. Look to the queen! Bass. Her "heart is broke" indeed. Oh, royal maid, 'would thou hadst mist this part! Arm. Wise Tecnicus! thus said he : When youth is ripe, and age from time doth part, Near. I am your king. Nearchus, king of Sparta! Shall never be digress'd from; wait in order * [Exeunt. * "I do not know," says Mr. Lamb, who brings to the perusal of our old dramatists a sensibility almost painfully exquisite, "where to find, in any play, a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, to describe high passions and high actions.' The fortitude of the Spartan Boy, who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died, without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit, and exenteration of the inmost mind, which Calantha, with a holy violence against her nature, keeps closely covered till the last duties of a wife and a queen are fulfilled..... But Ford was of the first order of poets. He sought for sublimity, not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has full residence in the heart of man, in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds."-LAMB's Specimens of Dramatic Poets. EPILOGUE. WHERE noble judgments and clear eyes are fix'd |