ACT IIIPROLOGUEEnterAteas before. The dumb show. A Crocodile sitting on a river’s rank, and a little Snake stinging it. Then let both of them fall into the water.ATE.Scelera in authorem cadunt.High on a bank by Nilus’ boistrous streams,Fearfully sat the Aegiptian Crocodile,Dreadfully grinding in her sharp long teethThe broken bowels of a silly fish.His back was armed against the dint of spear,With shields of brass that shined like burnished gold;And as he stretched forth his cruel paws,A subtle Adder, creeping closely near,Thrusting his forked sting into his claws,Privily shed his poison through his bones;Which made him swell, that there his bowels burst,That did so much in his own greatness trust.So Humber, having conquered Albanact,Doth yield his glory unto Locrine’s sword.Mark what ensues and you may easily see,That all our life is but a Tragedy.SCENE I. Troynouant. An apartment in the Royal PalaceEnterLocrine, Gwendoline, Corineus, Assaracus, Thrasimachus, Camber.LOCRINE.And is this true? Is Albanactus slain?Hath cursed Humber, with his straggling host,With that his army made of mungrel curs,Brought our redoubted brother to his end?O that I had the Thracian Orpheus’ harp,For to awake out of the infernal shadeThose ugly devils of black Erebus,That might torment the damned traitor’s soul!O that I had Amphion’s instrument,To quicken with his vital notes and tunesThe flinty joints of every stony rock,By which the Scithians might be punished!For, by the lightening of almighty Jove,The Hun shall die, had he ten thousand lives:And would to God he had ten thousand lives,That I might with the arm-strong HerculesCrop off so vile an Hydra’s hissing heads!But say me, cousin, for I long to hear,How Albanact came by untimely death.THRASIMACHUS.After the traitrous host of ScithiansEntered the field with martial equipage,Young Albanact, impatient of delay,Led forth his army gainst the straggling mates,Whose multitude did daunt our soldiers’ minds.Yet nothing could dismay the forward prince,But with a courage most heroical,Like to a lion mongst a flock of lambs,Made havoc of the faintheart fugitives,Hewing a passage through them with his sword.Yea, we had almost given them the repulse,When suddenly, from out the silent wood,Hubba, with twenty thousand soldiers,Cowardly came upon our weakened backs,And murthered all with fatal massacre.Amongst the which old Debon, martial knight,With many wounds was brought unto the death,And Albanact, oppressed with multitude,Whilst valiantly he felled his enemies,Yielded his life and honour to the dust.He being dead, the soldiers fled amain,And I alone escaped them by flight,To bring you tidings of these accidents.LOCRINE.Not aged Priam, King of stately Troy,Grand Emperor of barbarous Asia,When he beheld his noble minded sonsSlain traitorously by all the Mermidons,Lamented more than I for Albanact.GWENDOLINE.Not Hecuba, the queen of IliumWhen she beheld the town of Pergamus,Her palace, burnst with all devouring flames,Her fifty sons and daughters fresh of hueMurthered by wicked Pirrhus’ bloody sword,Shed such sad tears as I for Albanact.CAMBER.The grief of Niobe, fair Athen’s queen,For her seven sons, magnanimous in field,For her seven daughters, fairer than the fairest,Is not to be compared with my laments.CORINEUS.In vain you sorrow for the slaughtered prince,In vain you sorrow for his overthrow;He loves not most that doth lament the most,But he that seeks to venge the injury.Think you to quell the enemy’s warlike trainWith childish sobs and womanish laments?Unsheath your swords, unsheath your conquering swords,And seek revenge, the comfort for this sore.In Cornwall, where I hold my regiment,Even just ten thousand valiant men at armsHath Corineus ready at command:All these and more, if need shall more require,Hath Corineus ready at command.CAMBER.And in the fields of martial Cambria,Close by the boistrous Iscan’s silver streams,Where lightfoot fairies skip from bank to bank,Full twenty thousand brave courageous knights,Well exercised in feats of chivalry,In manly manner most invincible,Young Camber hath with gold and victual:All these and more, if need shall more require,I offer up to venge my brother’s death.LOCRINE.Thanks, loving uncle, and good brother, too;For this revenge, for this sweet word, revengeMust ease and cease my wrongful injuries.And by the sword of bloody Mars, I swear,Ne’er shall sweet quiet enter this my front,Till I be venged on his traitorous headThat slew my noble brother Albanact.Sound drums and trumpets; muster up the camp.For we will straight march to Albania.[Exeunt.]SCENE II. The banks of the river, afterward the HumberEnterHumber, Estrild, Hubba, Trussierand the soldiers.HUMBER.Thus are we come, victorious conquerors,Unto the flowing current’s silver streams,Which, in memorial of our victory,Shall be agnominated by our name,And talked of by our posterity:For sure I hope before the golden sunPosteth his horses to fair Thetis’ plains,To see the water turned into blood,And change his bluish hue to rueful red,By reason of the fatal massacreWhich shall be made upon the virent plains.Enter the ghost ofAlbanact.GHOST.See how the traitor doth presage his harm,See how he glories at his own decay,See how he triumphs at his proper loss;O fortune wild, unstable, fickle, frail!HUMBER.Me thinks I see both armies in the field:The broken lances climb the crystal skies;Some headless lie, some breathless on the ground,And every place is strewed with carcasses.Behold! the grass hath lost his pleasant green,The sweetest sight that ever might be see.GHOST.Aye, traitorous Humber, thou shalt find it so.Yea, to thy cost thou shalt the same behold,With anguish, sorrow, and with sad laments.The grassy plains, that now do please thine eyes,Shall ere the night be coloured all with blood;The shady groves which now inclose thy campAnd yield sweet savours to thy damned corps,Shall ere the night be figured all with blood:The profound stream, that passeth by thy tents,And with his moisture serveth all thy camp,Shall ere the night converted be to blood,—Yea, with the blood of those thy straggling boys;For now revenge shall ease my lingering grief,And now revenge shall glut my longing soul.HUBBA.Let come what will, I mean to bear it out,And either live with glorious victory,Or die with fame renowned for chivalry.He is not worthy of the honey comb,That shuns the hives because the bees have stings:That likes me best that is not got with ease,Which thousand dangers do accompany;For nothing can dismay our regal mind,Which aims at nothing but a golden crown,The only upshot of mine enterprises.Were they enchanted in grim Pluto’s court,And kept for treasure mongst his hellish crew,I would either quell the triple CerberusAnd all the army of his hateful hags,Or roll the stone with wretched Sisiphos.HUMBER.Right martial be thy thoughts my noble son,And all thy words savour of chivalry.—EnterSegar.But warlike Segar, what strange accidentsMakes you to leave the warding of the camp.SEGAR.To arms, my Lord, to honourable arms!Take helm and targe in hand; the Brittains come,With greater multitude than erst the GreeksBrought to the ports of Phrygian Tenidos.HUMBER.But what saith Segar to these accidents?What counsel gives he in extremities?SEGAR.Why this, my Lord, experience teacheth us:That resolution is a sole help at need.And this, my Lord, our honour teacheth us:That we be bold in every enterprise.Then since there is no way but fight or die,Be resolute, my Lord, for victory.HUMBER.And resolute, Segar, I mean to be.Perhaps some blissful star will favour us,And comfort bring to our perplexed state.Come, let us in and fortify our camp,So to withstand their strong invasion.[Exeunt.]SCENE III. Before the hut of a peasantEnterStrumbo, Trompart, Oliver,and his sonWilliamfollowing them.STRUMBO.Nay, neighbour Oliver, if you be so what, come, prepare yourself. You shall find two as stout fellows of us, as any in all the North.OLIVER.No, by my dorth, neighbor Strumbo. Ich zee dat you are a man of small zideration, dat will zeek to injure your old vriends, one of your vamiliar guests; and derefore, zeeing your pinion is to deal withouten reazon, ich and my zon William will take dat course, dat shall be fardest vrom reason. How zay you, will you have my daughter or no?STRUMBO.A very hard question, neighbour, but I will solve it as I may. What reason have you to demand it of me?WILLIAM. Marry, sir, what reason had you, when my sister was in the barn, to tumble her upon the hay, and to fish her belly.STRUMBO.Mass, thou saist true. Well, but would you have memarry her therefore? No, I scorn her, and you. Aye,I scorn you all.OLIVER.You will not have her then?STRUMBO.No, as I am a true gentleman.WILLIAM.Then will we school you, ere you and we part hence.They fight. EnterMargeryand snatch the staff out of her brother’s hand, as he is fighting.STRUMBO.Aye, you come in pudding time, or else I had dressed them.MARGERY.You, master saucebox, lobcock, cockscomb, you slopsauce, lickfingers, will you not hear?STRUMBO.Who speak you to? me?MARGERY.Aye, sir, to you, John lackhonesty, little wit. Is it you that will have none of me?STRUMBO.No, by my troth, mistress nicebice. How fine you can nickname me. I think you were brought up in the university of bridewell; you have your rhetoric so ready at your tongue’s end, as if you were never well warned when your were young.MARGERY.Why then, goodman cods-head, if you will have none of me, farewell.STRUMBO.If you be so plain, mistress drigle dragle, fare you well.MARGERY.Nay, master Strumbo, ere you go from hence, we must have more words. You will have none of me?[They both fight.]STRUMBO.Oh my head, my head! leave, leave, leave! I will, I will,I will!MARGERY.Upon that condition I let thee alone.OLIVER.How now, master Strumbo? hath my daughter taught you a new lesson?STRUMBO.Aye, but hear you, goodman Oliver; it will not be for my ease to have my head broken every day; therefore remedy this and we shall agree.OLIVER.Well, zon, well—for you are my zon now—all shall be remedied. Daughter, be friends with him.[Shake hands. ExeuntOliver, WilliamandMargery.]STRUMBO.You are a sweet nut! The devil crack you. Masters, I think it be my luck; my first wife was a loving quiet wench, but this, I think, would weary the devil. I would she might be burnt as my other wife was. If not, I must run to the halter for help. O codpiece, thou hast done thy master! this it is to be meddling with warm plackets.[Exeunt.]SCENE IV. The camp of LocrineEnterLocrine, Camber, Corineus, Thrasimachus, Assarachus.LOCRINE.Now am I guarded with an host of men,Whose haughty courage is invincible:Now am I hemmed with troops of soldiers,Such as might force Bellona to retire,And make her tremble at their puissance:Now sit I like the mighty god of war,When, armed with his coat of Adament,Mounted his chariot drawn with mighty bulls,He drove the Argives over Xanthus’ streams:Now, cursed Humber, doth thy end draw nigh.Down goes the glory of thy victories,And all the fame, and all thy high renownShall in a moment yield to Locrine’s sword.Thy bragging banners crossed with argent streams,The ornaments of thy pavilions,Shall all be capituated with this hand,And thou thyself, at Albanactus’ tomb,Shalt offered be in satisfactionOf all the wrongs thou didst him when he lived.—But canst thou tell me, brave Thrasimachus,How far we are distant from Humber’s camp?THRASIMACHUS.My Lord, within yon foul accursed grove,That bears the tokens of our overthrow,This Humber hath intrenched his damned camp.March on, my Lord, because I long to seeThe treacherous Scithians squeltring in their gore.LOCRINE.Sweet fortune, favour Locrine with a smile,That I may venge my noble brother’s death;And in the midst of stately Troinouant,I’ll build a temple to thy deityOf perfect marble and of Iacinthe stones,That it shall pass the high Pyramids,Which with their top surmount the firmament.CAMBER.The armstrong offspring of the doubled night,Stout Hercules, Alemena’s mighty son,That tamed the monsters of the threefold world,And rid the oppressed from the tyrant’s yokes,Did never show such valiantness in fight,As I will now for noble Albanact.CORINEUS.Full four score years hath Corineus lived,Sometime in war, sometime in quiet peace,And yet I feel myself to be as strongAs erst I was in summer of mine age,Able to toss this great unwieldy clubWhich hath been painted with my foemen’s brains;And with this club I’ll break the strong arrayOf Humber and his straggling soldiers,Or lose my life amongst the thickest prease,And die with honour in my latest days.Yet ere I die they all shall understandWhat force lies in stout Corineus’ hand.THRASIMACHUS.And if Thrasimachus detract the fight,Either for weakness or for cowardice,Let him not boast that Brutus was his eame,Or that brave Corineus was his sire.LOCRINE.Then courage, soldiers, first for your safety,Next for your peace, last for your victory.[Exeunt.]SCENE V. The field of battleSound the alarm. EnterHubbaandSegarat one door, andCorineusat the other.CORINEUS.Art thou that Humber, prince of fugitives,That by thy treason slewst young Albanact?HUBBA.I am his son that slew young Albanact,And if thou take not heed, proud Phrigian,I’ll send thy soul unto the Stigian lake,There to complain of Humber’s injuries.CORINEUS.You triumph, sir, before the victory,For Corineus is not so soon slain.But, cursed Scithians, you shall rue the dayThat ere you came into Albania.So perish thy that envy Brittain’s wealth,So let them die with endless infamy;And he that seeks his sovereign’s overthrow,Would this my club might aggravate his woe.[Strikes them both down with his club.]SCENE VI. Another part of the fieldEnterHumber.HUMBER.Where may I find some desert wilderness,Where I may breath out curse as I would,And scare the earth with my condemning voice;Where every echoes repercussionMay help me to bewail mine overthrow,And aide me in my sorrowful laments?Where may I find some hollow uncoth rock,Where I may damn, condemn, and ban my fillThe heavens, the hell, the earth, the air, the fire,And utter curses to the concave sky,Which may infect the airy regions,And light upon the Brittain Locrine’s head?You ugly sprites that in Cocitus mourn,And gnash your teeth with dolorous laments:You fearful dogs that in black Laethe howl,And scare the ghosts with your wide open throats:You ugly ghosts that, flying from these dogs,Do plunge your selves in Puryflegiton:Come, all of you, and with your shriking notesAccompany the Brittains’ conquering host.Come, fierce Erinnis, horrible with snakes;Come, ugly Furies, armed with your whips;You threefold judges of black Tartarus,And all the army of you hellish fiends,With new found torments rack proud Locrine’s bones!O gods, and stars! damned be the gods & starsThat did not drown me in fair Thetis’ plains!Curst be the sea, that with outrageous waves,With surging billows did not rive my shipsAgainst the rocks of high Cerannia,Or swallow me into her watery gulf!Would God we had arrived upon the shoreWhere Poliphemus and the Cyclops dwell,Or where the bloody AnthrophagieWith greedy jaws devours the wandering wights!Enter the ghost ofAlbanact.But why comes Albanact’s bloody ghost,To bring a corsive to our miseries?Is’t not enough to suffer shameful flight,But we must be tormented now with ghosts,With apparitions fearful to behold?GHOST.Revenge! revenge for blood!HUMBER.So nought will satisfy your wandering ghostBut dire revenge, nothing but Humber’s fall,Because he conquered you in Albany.Now, by my soul, Humber would be condemnedTo Tantal’s hunger or Ixion’s wheel,Or to the vulture of Prometheus,Rather than that this murther were undone.When as I die I’ll drag thy cursed ghostThrough all the rivers of foul Erebus,Through burning sulphur of the Limbo-lake,To allay the burning fury of that heatThat rageth in mine everlasting soul.GHOST.Vindicta, vindicta.[Exeunt.]
EnterAteas before. The dumb show. A Crocodile sitting on a river’s rank, and a little Snake stinging it. Then let both of them fall into the water.
ATE.Scelera in authorem cadunt.High on a bank by Nilus’ boistrous streams,Fearfully sat the Aegiptian Crocodile,Dreadfully grinding in her sharp long teethThe broken bowels of a silly fish.His back was armed against the dint of spear,With shields of brass that shined like burnished gold;And as he stretched forth his cruel paws,A subtle Adder, creeping closely near,Thrusting his forked sting into his claws,Privily shed his poison through his bones;Which made him swell, that there his bowels burst,That did so much in his own greatness trust.So Humber, having conquered Albanact,Doth yield his glory unto Locrine’s sword.Mark what ensues and you may easily see,That all our life is but a Tragedy.
EnterLocrine, Gwendoline, Corineus, Assaracus, Thrasimachus, Camber.
LOCRINE.And is this true? Is Albanactus slain?Hath cursed Humber, with his straggling host,With that his army made of mungrel curs,Brought our redoubted brother to his end?O that I had the Thracian Orpheus’ harp,For to awake out of the infernal shadeThose ugly devils of black Erebus,That might torment the damned traitor’s soul!O that I had Amphion’s instrument,To quicken with his vital notes and tunesThe flinty joints of every stony rock,By which the Scithians might be punished!For, by the lightening of almighty Jove,The Hun shall die, had he ten thousand lives:And would to God he had ten thousand lives,That I might with the arm-strong HerculesCrop off so vile an Hydra’s hissing heads!But say me, cousin, for I long to hear,How Albanact came by untimely death.
THRASIMACHUS.After the traitrous host of ScithiansEntered the field with martial equipage,Young Albanact, impatient of delay,Led forth his army gainst the straggling mates,Whose multitude did daunt our soldiers’ minds.Yet nothing could dismay the forward prince,But with a courage most heroical,Like to a lion mongst a flock of lambs,Made havoc of the faintheart fugitives,Hewing a passage through them with his sword.Yea, we had almost given them the repulse,When suddenly, from out the silent wood,Hubba, with twenty thousand soldiers,Cowardly came upon our weakened backs,And murthered all with fatal massacre.Amongst the which old Debon, martial knight,With many wounds was brought unto the death,And Albanact, oppressed with multitude,Whilst valiantly he felled his enemies,Yielded his life and honour to the dust.He being dead, the soldiers fled amain,And I alone escaped them by flight,To bring you tidings of these accidents.
LOCRINE.Not aged Priam, King of stately Troy,Grand Emperor of barbarous Asia,When he beheld his noble minded sonsSlain traitorously by all the Mermidons,Lamented more than I for Albanact.
GWENDOLINE.Not Hecuba, the queen of IliumWhen she beheld the town of Pergamus,Her palace, burnst with all devouring flames,Her fifty sons and daughters fresh of hueMurthered by wicked Pirrhus’ bloody sword,Shed such sad tears as I for Albanact.
CAMBER.The grief of Niobe, fair Athen’s queen,For her seven sons, magnanimous in field,For her seven daughters, fairer than the fairest,Is not to be compared with my laments.
CORINEUS.In vain you sorrow for the slaughtered prince,In vain you sorrow for his overthrow;He loves not most that doth lament the most,But he that seeks to venge the injury.Think you to quell the enemy’s warlike trainWith childish sobs and womanish laments?Unsheath your swords, unsheath your conquering swords,And seek revenge, the comfort for this sore.In Cornwall, where I hold my regiment,Even just ten thousand valiant men at armsHath Corineus ready at command:All these and more, if need shall more require,Hath Corineus ready at command.
CAMBER.And in the fields of martial Cambria,Close by the boistrous Iscan’s silver streams,Where lightfoot fairies skip from bank to bank,Full twenty thousand brave courageous knights,Well exercised in feats of chivalry,In manly manner most invincible,Young Camber hath with gold and victual:All these and more, if need shall more require,I offer up to venge my brother’s death.
LOCRINE.Thanks, loving uncle, and good brother, too;For this revenge, for this sweet word, revengeMust ease and cease my wrongful injuries.And by the sword of bloody Mars, I swear,Ne’er shall sweet quiet enter this my front,Till I be venged on his traitorous headThat slew my noble brother Albanact.Sound drums and trumpets; muster up the camp.For we will straight march to Albania.
[Exeunt.]
EnterHumber, Estrild, Hubba, Trussierand the soldiers.
HUMBER.Thus are we come, victorious conquerors,Unto the flowing current’s silver streams,Which, in memorial of our victory,Shall be agnominated by our name,And talked of by our posterity:For sure I hope before the golden sunPosteth his horses to fair Thetis’ plains,To see the water turned into blood,And change his bluish hue to rueful red,By reason of the fatal massacreWhich shall be made upon the virent plains.
Enter the ghost ofAlbanact.
GHOST.See how the traitor doth presage his harm,See how he glories at his own decay,See how he triumphs at his proper loss;O fortune wild, unstable, fickle, frail!
HUMBER.Me thinks I see both armies in the field:The broken lances climb the crystal skies;Some headless lie, some breathless on the ground,And every place is strewed with carcasses.Behold! the grass hath lost his pleasant green,The sweetest sight that ever might be see.
GHOST.Aye, traitorous Humber, thou shalt find it so.Yea, to thy cost thou shalt the same behold,With anguish, sorrow, and with sad laments.The grassy plains, that now do please thine eyes,Shall ere the night be coloured all with blood;The shady groves which now inclose thy campAnd yield sweet savours to thy damned corps,Shall ere the night be figured all with blood:The profound stream, that passeth by thy tents,And with his moisture serveth all thy camp,Shall ere the night converted be to blood,—Yea, with the blood of those thy straggling boys;For now revenge shall ease my lingering grief,And now revenge shall glut my longing soul.
HUBBA.Let come what will, I mean to bear it out,And either live with glorious victory,Or die with fame renowned for chivalry.He is not worthy of the honey comb,That shuns the hives because the bees have stings:That likes me best that is not got with ease,Which thousand dangers do accompany;For nothing can dismay our regal mind,Which aims at nothing but a golden crown,The only upshot of mine enterprises.Were they enchanted in grim Pluto’s court,And kept for treasure mongst his hellish crew,I would either quell the triple CerberusAnd all the army of his hateful hags,Or roll the stone with wretched Sisiphos.
HUMBER.Right martial be thy thoughts my noble son,And all thy words savour of chivalry.—
EnterSegar.
But warlike Segar, what strange accidentsMakes you to leave the warding of the camp.
SEGAR.To arms, my Lord, to honourable arms!Take helm and targe in hand; the Brittains come,With greater multitude than erst the GreeksBrought to the ports of Phrygian Tenidos.
HUMBER.But what saith Segar to these accidents?What counsel gives he in extremities?
SEGAR.Why this, my Lord, experience teacheth us:That resolution is a sole help at need.And this, my Lord, our honour teacheth us:That we be bold in every enterprise.Then since there is no way but fight or die,Be resolute, my Lord, for victory.
HUMBER.And resolute, Segar, I mean to be.Perhaps some blissful star will favour us,And comfort bring to our perplexed state.Come, let us in and fortify our camp,So to withstand their strong invasion.
[Exeunt.]
EnterStrumbo, Trompart, Oliver,and his sonWilliamfollowing them.
STRUMBO.Nay, neighbour Oliver, if you be so what, come, prepare yourself. You shall find two as stout fellows of us, as any in all the North.
OLIVER.No, by my dorth, neighbor Strumbo. Ich zee dat you are a man of small zideration, dat will zeek to injure your old vriends, one of your vamiliar guests; and derefore, zeeing your pinion is to deal withouten reazon, ich and my zon William will take dat course, dat shall be fardest vrom reason. How zay you, will you have my daughter or no?
STRUMBO.A very hard question, neighbour, but I will solve it as I may. What reason have you to demand it of me?
WILLIAM. Marry, sir, what reason had you, when my sister was in the barn, to tumble her upon the hay, and to fish her belly.
STRUMBO.Mass, thou saist true. Well, but would you have memarry her therefore? No, I scorn her, and you. Aye,I scorn you all.
OLIVER.You will not have her then?
STRUMBO.No, as I am a true gentleman.
WILLIAM.Then will we school you, ere you and we part hence.
They fight. EnterMargeryand snatch the staff out of her brother’s hand, as he is fighting.
STRUMBO.Aye, you come in pudding time, or else I had dressed them.
MARGERY.You, master saucebox, lobcock, cockscomb, you slopsauce, lickfingers, will you not hear?
STRUMBO.Who speak you to? me?
MARGERY.Aye, sir, to you, John lackhonesty, little wit. Is it you that will have none of me?
STRUMBO.No, by my troth, mistress nicebice. How fine you can nickname me. I think you were brought up in the university of bridewell; you have your rhetoric so ready at your tongue’s end, as if you were never well warned when your were young.
MARGERY.Why then, goodman cods-head, if you will have none of me, farewell.
STRUMBO.If you be so plain, mistress drigle dragle, fare you well.
MARGERY.Nay, master Strumbo, ere you go from hence, we must have more words. You will have none of me?
[They both fight.]
STRUMBO.Oh my head, my head! leave, leave, leave! I will, I will,I will!
MARGERY.Upon that condition I let thee alone.
OLIVER.How now, master Strumbo? hath my daughter taught you a new lesson?
STRUMBO.Aye, but hear you, goodman Oliver; it will not be for my ease to have my head broken every day; therefore remedy this and we shall agree.
OLIVER.Well, zon, well—for you are my zon now—all shall be remedied. Daughter, be friends with him.
[Shake hands. ExeuntOliver, WilliamandMargery.]
STRUMBO.You are a sweet nut! The devil crack you. Masters, I think it be my luck; my first wife was a loving quiet wench, but this, I think, would weary the devil. I would she might be burnt as my other wife was. If not, I must run to the halter for help. O codpiece, thou hast done thy master! this it is to be meddling with warm plackets.
[Exeunt.]
EnterLocrine, Camber, Corineus, Thrasimachus, Assarachus.
LOCRINE.Now am I guarded with an host of men,Whose haughty courage is invincible:Now am I hemmed with troops of soldiers,Such as might force Bellona to retire,And make her tremble at their puissance:Now sit I like the mighty god of war,When, armed with his coat of Adament,Mounted his chariot drawn with mighty bulls,He drove the Argives over Xanthus’ streams:Now, cursed Humber, doth thy end draw nigh.Down goes the glory of thy victories,And all the fame, and all thy high renownShall in a moment yield to Locrine’s sword.Thy bragging banners crossed with argent streams,The ornaments of thy pavilions,Shall all be capituated with this hand,And thou thyself, at Albanactus’ tomb,Shalt offered be in satisfactionOf all the wrongs thou didst him when he lived.—But canst thou tell me, brave Thrasimachus,How far we are distant from Humber’s camp?
THRASIMACHUS.My Lord, within yon foul accursed grove,That bears the tokens of our overthrow,This Humber hath intrenched his damned camp.March on, my Lord, because I long to seeThe treacherous Scithians squeltring in their gore.
LOCRINE.Sweet fortune, favour Locrine with a smile,That I may venge my noble brother’s death;And in the midst of stately Troinouant,I’ll build a temple to thy deityOf perfect marble and of Iacinthe stones,That it shall pass the high Pyramids,Which with their top surmount the firmament.
CAMBER.The armstrong offspring of the doubled night,Stout Hercules, Alemena’s mighty son,That tamed the monsters of the threefold world,And rid the oppressed from the tyrant’s yokes,Did never show such valiantness in fight,As I will now for noble Albanact.
CORINEUS.Full four score years hath Corineus lived,Sometime in war, sometime in quiet peace,And yet I feel myself to be as strongAs erst I was in summer of mine age,Able to toss this great unwieldy clubWhich hath been painted with my foemen’s brains;And with this club I’ll break the strong arrayOf Humber and his straggling soldiers,Or lose my life amongst the thickest prease,And die with honour in my latest days.Yet ere I die they all shall understandWhat force lies in stout Corineus’ hand.
THRASIMACHUS.And if Thrasimachus detract the fight,Either for weakness or for cowardice,Let him not boast that Brutus was his eame,Or that brave Corineus was his sire.
LOCRINE.Then courage, soldiers, first for your safety,Next for your peace, last for your victory.
[Exeunt.]
Sound the alarm. EnterHubbaandSegarat one door, andCorineusat the other.
CORINEUS.Art thou that Humber, prince of fugitives,That by thy treason slewst young Albanact?
HUBBA.I am his son that slew young Albanact,And if thou take not heed, proud Phrigian,I’ll send thy soul unto the Stigian lake,There to complain of Humber’s injuries.
CORINEUS.You triumph, sir, before the victory,For Corineus is not so soon slain.But, cursed Scithians, you shall rue the dayThat ere you came into Albania.So perish thy that envy Brittain’s wealth,So let them die with endless infamy;And he that seeks his sovereign’s overthrow,Would this my club might aggravate his woe.
[Strikes them both down with his club.]
EnterHumber.
HUMBER.Where may I find some desert wilderness,Where I may breath out curse as I would,And scare the earth with my condemning voice;Where every echoes repercussionMay help me to bewail mine overthrow,And aide me in my sorrowful laments?Where may I find some hollow uncoth rock,Where I may damn, condemn, and ban my fillThe heavens, the hell, the earth, the air, the fire,And utter curses to the concave sky,Which may infect the airy regions,And light upon the Brittain Locrine’s head?You ugly sprites that in Cocitus mourn,And gnash your teeth with dolorous laments:You fearful dogs that in black Laethe howl,And scare the ghosts with your wide open throats:You ugly ghosts that, flying from these dogs,Do plunge your selves in Puryflegiton:Come, all of you, and with your shriking notesAccompany the Brittains’ conquering host.Come, fierce Erinnis, horrible with snakes;Come, ugly Furies, armed with your whips;You threefold judges of black Tartarus,And all the army of you hellish fiends,With new found torments rack proud Locrine’s bones!O gods, and stars! damned be the gods & starsThat did not drown me in fair Thetis’ plains!Curst be the sea, that with outrageous waves,With surging billows did not rive my shipsAgainst the rocks of high Cerannia,Or swallow me into her watery gulf!Would God we had arrived upon the shoreWhere Poliphemus and the Cyclops dwell,Or where the bloody AnthrophagieWith greedy jaws devours the wandering wights!
Enter the ghost ofAlbanact.
But why comes Albanact’s bloody ghost,To bring a corsive to our miseries?Is’t not enough to suffer shameful flight,But we must be tormented now with ghosts,With apparitions fearful to behold?
GHOST.Revenge! revenge for blood!
HUMBER.So nought will satisfy your wandering ghostBut dire revenge, nothing but Humber’s fall,Because he conquered you in Albany.Now, by my soul, Humber would be condemnedTo Tantal’s hunger or Ixion’s wheel,Or to the vulture of Prometheus,Rather than that this murther were undone.When as I die I’ll drag thy cursed ghostThrough all the rivers of foul Erebus,Through burning sulphur of the Limbo-lake,To allay the burning fury of that heatThat rageth in mine everlasting soul.
GHOST.Vindicta, vindicta.
[Exeunt.]