Hast thou discover'd? is she fallen to lust, I would not aid Her base desires; but what I came to know As servant to her, I would not reveal, To make my life last ages. Phi. O my heart! This is a salve worse than the main disease. Bell. Why, so you do. She is (for aught I know), by all the gods, As chaste as ice; but were she foul as hell, And I did know it, thus; the breath of kings, The points of swords, tortures, nor bulls of brass, Phi. Then it is no time To dally with thee; I will take thy life, For I do hate thee; I could curse thee now. Bell. If you do hate, you could not curse me worse; The gods have not a punishment in store Greater for me than is your hate. Phi. Fie, fie, So young and so dissembling!1 fear'st thou not death? Can boys contemn that? Bell. O, what boy is he Can be content to live to be a man, That sees the best of men thus passionate, Thus without reason? Phi. Oh, but thou dost not know what 'tis to die. Bell. Yes, I do know, my lord. "Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep, A quiet resting from all jealousy; A thing we all pursue; I know besides It is but giving over of a game That must be lost. Phi. But there are pains, false boy, For perjur'd souls; think but on these, and then 1 1 [Eight and a half lines left out.] If I be perjured, or have ever thought Of that you charge me with; if I be false, Phi. O, what should I do? Why, who can but believe him? He does swear The gods would not endure him. Rise, Bellario; Bell. I will fly as far As there is morning, ere I give distaste To that most honour'd mind. But through these tears, A world of treason practis'd upon you, And her, and me. Farewell for evermore; If you shall hear that sorrow struck me dead, And after find me loyal, let there be A tear shed from you in my memory, And I shall rest at peace. [Act iii., Sc. 1.] Bellario, discovered to be a Woman, confesses the motive for her disguise to have been Love for Prince Philaster. My father would oft speak Your worth and virtue, and as I did grow Like breath; then was I call'd away in haste [Act v., Sc. 5.] 1 The character of Bellario must have been extremely popular in its day. For many years after the date of Philaster's first exhibition on the stage, scarce a play can be found without one of these women pages in it, following in the train of some pre-engaged lover, calling on the gods to bless her happy rival (his mistress) whom no doubt she secretly curses in her heart, giving rise to many pretty equivoques by the way on the confusion of sex, and either made happy at last by some surprising turn of fate, or dismissed with the joint pity of the lovers and the audience. Our ancestors seem to have been wonderfully delighted with these transformations of sex. Women's parts were then acted by young men. What an odd double confusion it must have made, to see a boy play a woman playing a man: one cannot disentangle the perplexity without some violence to the imagination. Donne has a copy of verses addrest to his mistress, dissuading her from a resolution, which she seems to have taken up from some of these scenical representations, of following him abroad as a page. It is so earnest, so weighty, so rich in poetry, in sense, in wit, and pathos, that I have thought fit to insert it, as a solemn close in future to all such sickly fancies as he there deprecates. The story of his romantic and unfortunate marriage with the daughter of Sir George Moore, the Lady here supposed to be addrest, may be read in Walton's Lives. ELEGY. By our first strange and fatal interview, Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me, Natural Antipathies. Nature, that loves not to be questioned Why she did this, or that, but has her ends, As he and I am: if a bowl of blood I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath, The fair Orithea, whom he swore he lov'd. Of players which upon the world's stage be, His warm land, well content to think thee page, Nor spungy Aydroptique Dutch shall thee displease, To walk in expectation, till from thence Drawn from this arm of mine would poison thee, Interest in Virtue. Why, my lord, are you so moved at this ?- [Act i., Sc. 2.] [Act iii., Sc. 1.] CUPID'S REVENGE. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1615: PRODUCED 1611-12]. BY FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER Leucippus, the King's Son, takes to mistress Bacha, a Widow; but being questioned by his Father, to preserve her honour, swears that she is chaste. The old King admires her, and on the credit of that Oath, while his Son is absent, marries her. Leucippus, when he discovers the dreadful_consequences of the deceit which he had used to his Father, counsels his friend Ismenus never to speak a falsehood in any case. Leu. My sin, Ismenus, has wrought all this ill: Be sure thou do not lie, make no excuse The most officious falsehood 'scape thy tongue; Will make that seed which thou hast sown of lies, Upon thine head, as they have done on mine. [Act iii., Sc. 2.1] Leucippus and his wicked Mother-in-law, Bacha, are left alone together for the first time after her marriage with the King, his Father. Bach. He stands As if he grew there, with his eyes on earth. Sir, you and I, when we were last together, 1[Dyce's edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, vol. ii.] |