Crying to Jove for vengeance of the deed, Blood asketh blood, and death must death requit ; Jove by his just and everlasting doom Justly hath ever so requited it. This times before record and times to come O happy wight that suffers not the snare [The style of this old play is stiff and cumbersome, like the dresses of its times. There may be flesh and blood underneath, but we cannot get at it. Sir Philip Sydney has praised it for its morality. One of its authors might easily furnish that. Norton was an associate to Hopkins, Sternhold, and Robert Wisdom, in the Singing Psalms. I am willing to believe that Lord Buckhurst supplied the more vital parts. The chief beauty in the extract is of a secret nature. Marcella obscurely intimates that the murdered prince Porrex and she had been lovers.] THE SPANISH TRAGEDY OR HIERONIMO IS MAD AGAIN. A TRAGEDY BY THOMAS KYD. HORATIO, the son of HIERONIMO, is murdered while he is sitting with his mistress BELIMPERIA by night in an arbour in his father's garden. The murderers (BALTHAZAR, his rival, and LORENZO, the brother of BELIMPERIA) hang his body on a tree. HIERONIMO is awakened by the cries of BELIMPERIA, and coming out into his garden, discovers by the light of a torch, that the murdered man is his son. Upon this he goes distracted. HIERONIMO mad. Hier. My son and what's a son? A thing begot within a pair of minutes, there about: To balance those light creatures we call women; To make a father doat, rave, or run mad? He must be fed, be taught to go, and speak. Ay, or yet? why might not a man love a calf as well? Or melt in passion o'er a frisking kid, as for a son? Methinks a young bacon, Or a fine little smooth horse colt, Should move a man as much as doth a son ; Will grow to some good use; whereas a son None but a damned murderer could hate him. When his strong arm unhors'd the proud prince Bal And his great mind, too full of honour, took [thazar; And there is Nemesis, and furies, And things call'd whips, And they sometimes do meet with murderers: They do not always 'scape, that's some comfort. Wrapt in a ball of fire, And so doth bring confusion to them all. JAQUES and PEDRO, Servants. [Exit. Jaq. I wonder, Pedro, why our master thus And, now his aged years should sleep in rest, HIERONIMO enters. Hier. I pry thro' every crevice of each wall, Ped. We are your servants that attend you, sir. Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now? When as the sun god rides in all his glory; Light me your torches then. Ped. Then we burn day light. Hier. Let it be burnt; night is a murd'rous slut, That would not have her treasons to be seen: I'll prove it to thee; and were I mad, how could I? Where was she the same night, when my Horatio was murder'd ? She should have shone : search thou the book: Had the moon shone in my boy's face, there was a kind of grace, That I know, nay I do know had the murd'rer seen him, ISABELLA, his wife, enters. Isa. Dear Hieronimo, come in a doors, And when our hot Spain could not let it grow, Would I be sprinkling it with fountain water: Tags of points. At last it grew and grew, and bore and bore: Ped. It is a painter, sir. Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort, For surely there's none lives but painted comfort. Let him come in, one knows not what may chance. God's will that I should set this tree! but even so Masters ungrateful servants rear from nought, And then they hate them that did bring them up. The Painter enters. Pain. God bless you, sir. Hier. Wherefore? why, thou scornful villain? How, where, or by what means should I be blest? Isa. What wouldst thou have, good fellow? Pain. Justice, madam. Hier. O ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that That lives not in the world? Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy An ounce of justice, 'tis a jewel so inestimable. I tell thee, God hath engross'd all justice in his hands, And there is none but what comes from him. Pain. O then I see that God must right me for my murder'd son. Hier. How, was thy son murder'd? Pain. Ay, sir, no man did hold a son so dear. As massy as the earth: I had a son, A thousand of thy sons, and he was murder'd. Hier. Nor I, nor I; but this same one of mine Was worth a legion. But all is one, Pedro, Jaques, go in a doors, Isabella, go, And this good fellow here, and I, Will range this hideous orchard up and down, [Exeunt. [The Painter and he sit down. |