Fath. O my son:

I am her father; every tear I shed

Is threescore ten years old; I weep and smile
Two kinds of tears: I weep that she must die,
I smile that she must die a virgin: thus
We joyful men mock tears, and tears mock us.
Ter. What speaks that cup?

Fath. White wine and poison.

Ter. Oh!

That very name of poison poisons me.
Thou winter of a man, thou walking grave,

Whose life is like a dying taper: how

Canst thou define a Lover's labouring thoughts?

What scent hast thou but death? what taste but earth?
The breath that purls from thee is like the steam
Of a new-open'd vault: I know thy drift;
Because thou'rt travelling to the land of graves,
Thou covet'st company, and hither bring'st
A health of poison to pledge death: a poison
For this sweet spring; this element is mine,
This is the air I breathe; corrupt it not:
This heaven is mine, I bought it with my soul
Of him that sells a heaven to buy a soul.

Fath. Well, let her go; she's thine, thou call'st her thine,
Thy element, the air thou breath'st; thou know'st
The air thou breath'st is common; make her so.
Perhaps thou'lt say none but the King shall wear
Thy night-gown, she that laps thee warm with love;
And that Kings are not common: then to show
By consequence he cannot make her so.

Indeed she may promote her shame and thine,
And with your shames speak a good word for mine.
The King shining so clear, and we so dim,
Our dark disgraces will be seen through him.
Imagine her the cup of thy moist life,

:

What man would pledge a King in his own Wife?
Ter. She dies that sentence poisons her: O life!
What slave would pledge a King in his own Wife?
Cal. Welcome, O poison, physic against lust,
Thou wholesome medicine to a constant blood;
Thou rare apothecary that canst keep
My chastity preserv'd within this box
Of tempting dust, this painted earthen pot
That stands upon the stall of the white soul,
To set the shop out like a flatterer,

To draw the customers of sin: come, come,
Thou art no poison, but a diet drink

To moderate my blood: White-innocent Wine,
Art thou made guilty of my death? O no,
For thou thyself art poison'd: take me hence,

For Innocence shall murder Innocence.

[Drinks.

Ter. Hold, hold, thou shalt not die, my bride, my wife,

O stop that speedy messenger of death;
O let him not run down that narrow path
Which leads unto thy heart, nor carry news
To thy removing soul that thou must die.
Cal. "Tis done already, the Spiritual Court
Is breaking up, all offices discharged,
My Soul removes from this weak Standing-house
Of frail mortality: Dear father, bless
Me now and ever: Dearer man, farewell;
I jointly take my leave of thee and life;
Go tell the King thou hast a constant wife.
Fath. Smiles on my cheeks arise

To see how sweetly a true virgin dies.1

The beauty and force of this scene are much diminished to the reader of the entire play, when he comes to find that this solemn preparation is but a sham contrivance of the father's, and the potion which Celestina swallows nothing more than a sleeping draught; from the effects of which she is to awake in due time, to the surprise of her husband, and the great mirth and edification of the King and his courtiers. As Hamlet says, they do but "poison in jest" ["Hamlet," Act iii., Sc. 2, line 244.]-The sentiments are worthy of a real martyrdom, and an Appian sacrifice in earnest.

WESTWARD HOE. A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1607]. BY THOMAS DECKER AND JOHN WEBSTER

[1580 ?-1625?]

Sweet Pleasure!

Pleasure, the general pursuit.

Delicious Pleasure! earth's supremest good,
The spring of blood, though it dry up our blood.
Rob me of that (though to be drunk with pleasure,
As rank excess ev'n in the best things is bad,
Turns man into a beast), yet, that being gone,
A horse, and this (the goodliest shape) all one.

[For other extracts from this play see page 464, "Serious Fragments" page 569, and Appendix page 588. For other extracts from Decker alone see pp. 590 and 595.]

We feed; wear rich attires; and strive to cleave
The stars with marble towers; fight battles; spend
Our blood, to buy us names; and in iron hold
Will we eat roots to imprison fugitive gold :
But to do thus what spell can us excite?
This; the strong magic of our appetite :
To feast which richly, life itself undoes.
Who'd die thus?

Why even those that starve in voluntary wants,
And, to advance the mind, keep the flesh poor,
The world enjoying them, they not the world;
Would they do this, but that they are proud to suck
A sweetness from such sourness?

Let music

Music.

Charm with her excellent voice an awful silence
Through all this building, that her sphery soul
May (on the wings of air) in thousand forms
Invisibly fly, yet be enjoy'd.2

[Act iv., Sc. 1.1]

[Act iv., Sc. 1.]

THE HISTORY

OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA. THE FIRST PART [PUBLISHED 1602]. BY JOHN MARSTON [1575-1634]

Andrugio Duke of Genoa banished his country, with the loss of a son supposed drowned, is cast upon the territory of his mortal enemy the Duke of Venice; with no attendants but Lucio an old nobleman, and a page.

Andr. Is not yon gleam the shuddering Morn that flakes
With silver tincture the east verge of heaven?

Luc. I think it is, so please your Excellence.
Andr. Away, I have no Excellence to please.
Prithee observe the custom of the world;
That only flatters greatness, states exalts.
And please my Excellence! O Lucio,
Thou hast been ever held respected, dear,
Even precious to Andrugio's inmost love:
Good, flatter not.3

1[Pearson's ed. of Decker, vol. ii. For Decker in partnership with Massinger see p. 357. For Decker in partnership with Ford and Rowley see p. 145. For Webster see p. 162.

[This selection precedes the foregoing, ten lines intervening.] [Line and a half and Sforza's letter omitted.]

My thoughts are fixt in contemplation

Why this huge earth, this monstrous animal

That eats her children, should not have eyes and ears.
Philosophy maintains that Nature's wise,

And forms no useless nor unperfect thing.

Did Nature make the earth, or the earth Nature?
For earthly dirt makes all things, makes the man,
Moulds me up honour, and, like a cunning Dutchman,
Paints me a puppet even with seeming breath,
And gives a sot appearance of a soul.

Go to, go to; thou ly'st, Philosophy.

Nature forms things unperfect, useless, vain.
Why made she not the earth with eyes and ears?
That she might see desert and hear men's plaints;
That when a soul is splitted, 'sunk with grief,
He might fall thus upon the breast of Earth,
And in her ear halloo his misery,1

Exclaiming thus: O thou all bearing Earth,

Which men do gape for till thou cramm'st their mouths
And choak'st their throats with dust; open thy breast,
And let me sink into thee: look who knocks;
Andrugio calls. But O she's deaf and blind.

A wretch but lean relief on earth can find.

Luc. Sweet Lord, abandon passion; and disarm. Since by the fortune of the tumbling sea

We are roll'd up upon the Venice marsh,

Let's clip all fortune, lest more lowering fate

Andr. More low'ring fate! O Lucio, choak that breath.

Now I defy chance. Fortune's brow hath frown'd,

Even to the utmost wrinkle it can bend :

Her venom's spit. Alas! what country rests,
What son, what comfort, that she can deprive?
Triumphs not Venice in my overthrow?
Gapes not my native country for my blood?
Lies not my son tomb'd in the swelling main?
And in more low'ring fate? There's nothing left
Unto Andrugio but Andrugio:

And that

Nor mischief, force, distress, nor hell can take :
Fortune my fortunes, not my mind, shall shake.

Luc. Speak like yourself: but give me leave, my lord,

To wish your safety. If you are but seen,
Your arms display you; therefore put them off,
And take

Andr. Would'st have me go unarm'd among my foes?

[This line is not given by Bullen.]

Being besieg'd by Passion, entering lists

To combat with Despair and mighty Grief:
My soul beleaguer'd with the crushing strength
Of sharp Impatience. Ha, Lucio; go unarm'd?
Come, soul, resume the valour of thy birth;
Myself, myself will dare all opposites:

I'll muster forces, an unvanquish'd power:
Cornets of horse shall press th' ungrateful earth:
This hollow-wombed mass shall inly groan
And murmur to sustain the weight of arms:
Ghastly Amazement, with upstarted hair,
Shall hurry on before, and usher us,

Whilst trumpets clamour with a sound of death.

Luc. Peace, good my lord, your speech is all too light. Alas! survey your fortunes, look what's left

Of all your forces and your utmost hopes;

A weak old man, a page, and your poor self.

Andr. Andrugio lives; and a Fair Cause of Arms.
Why, that's an army all invincible.

He who hath that, hath a battalion royal,
Armour of proof, huge troops of barbed steeds,
Main squares of pikes, millions of harquebush.
O, a Fair Cause stands firm, and will abide ;
Legions of Angels fight upon her side.

[Act iii., Sc. 1.1]

The situation of Andrugio and Lucio resembles that of Lear and Kent, in that King's distresses. Andrugio, like Lear, manifests a kind of royal impatience, a turbulent greatness, an affected resignation. The Enemies which he enters lists to combat, "Despair, and mighty Grief, and sharp Impatience," and the forces ("Cornets of Horse," etc.) which he brings to vanquish them, are in the boldest style of Allegory. They are such a "race of mourners" as "the infection of sorrows loud" in the intellect might beget on "some pregnant cloud" in the imagination.

ANTONIO'S REVENGE. THE SECOND PART OF THE HISTORY OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA [PUBLISHED 1602]. BY JOHN MARSTON

The Prologue.2

The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps

The fluent summer's vein and drizzling sleet

[Marston's Works, edited Bullen, 1887, vol. i.]

2 This prologue, for its passionate earnestness, and for the tragic note of preparation which it sounds, might have preceded one of those old tales of Thebes, or Pelops' line, which Milton has so highly commended, as free from the common error of the poets in his days, "of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity,