RODERIGO, King of Spain, takes the opportunity to violate the Daughter of JULIANUS, while that old General is fighting his Battles against the Moors. JACINTA seeks her Father in the Camp, at the moment of Victory. JULIANUS. Servant.

Ser. Sir, here's a Woman, forced by some tide of

sorrow,

With tears entreats your pity, and to see you.

Jul. If any soldier has done violence to her
Beyond our military discipline,

Death shall divide him from us: fetch her in.
I have myself a daughter, on whose face
But thinking, I must needs be pitiful :
And when I ha' told my conquest to my King,
My poor girl then shall know, how for her sake
I did one pious act.

Servant returns with JACINTA veiled.
Is this the creature?

Ser. Yes, my lord, and a sad one.
Jul. Leave us. A sad one!

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The down-cast look calls up compassion in me,
A corse going to the grave looks not more deadly.
Why kneel'st thou ? art thou wrong'd by any soldier?

Rise for this honour is not due to me.
Hast not a tongue to read thy sorrows out?
This book I understand not.

Jacin. O my dear father!

Jul. Thy father, who has wrong'd him?
Jacin. A great Commander.
Jul. Under me?

Jacin. Above you.

Jul. Above me! who's above a general?

None but the general of all Spain's armies,

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And that's the king, king Roderick: he's all goodHe cannot wrong thy father.

Jacin. What was Tarquin?

Jul. A king, and yet a ravisher.

Jacin. Such a sin

[ness;

Was in those days a monster; now 'tis common.
Jul. Prithee be plain.

Jacin. Have not you, Sir, a daughter?

Jul. If I have not, I am the wretched'st man That this day lives: for all the wealth I have Lives in that child.

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Jacin. O for your daughter's sake then hear my

woes.

Jul. Rise then, and speak 'em.

Jacin. No, let me kneel still :

Such a resemblance of a daughter's duty

Will make you mindful of a father's love:
For such my injuries must exact from you,
As you would for your own.

Jul. And so they do ;

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For whilst I see thee kneeling, I think of my Jacinta.
Jacin. Say your Jacinta then, chaste as the rose
Coming on sweetly in the springing bud,

And ne'er felt heat, to spread the summer sweet;
But to increase and multiply it more,

Did to itself keep in its own perfume;

Say that some rapine hand had pluck'd the bloom,*

Jacinta, like that flower, and ravish'd her,

Defiling her white lawn of chastity

you

do?

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With ugly blacks of lust: what would
Jul. O'tis too hard a question to resolve,

Without a solemn council held within

* "Cropt this fair Rose," &c.-Otway.

Of man's best understanding faculties:

There must be love, and fatherhood, and grief,
And rage, and many passions: and they must all
Beget a thing called vengeance: but they must sit
upon 't.

Jacin. Say this were done by him that carried
The fairest seeming face of friendship to yourself.
Jul. We should fall out.

Jacin. Would you in such a case respect degrees? Jul. I know not that.

Jacin. Say he were noble.

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Jul. Impossible: the act's ignoble. The bee can breed

No poison, though it suck the juice of hemlock. Jacin. Say a king should do it; were the act less done

By the greater power? does majesty

Extenuate a crime?

Jul. Augment it rather.

Jacin. Say then that Roderick, your king and

master,

To quit the honours you are bringing home,
Had ravish'd your Jacinta.

Jul. Who has sent

A Fury in this foul-fair shape to vex me?

I ha' seen that face methinks yet know it not :

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How darest thou speak this treason 'gainst my king?
Durst any man in the world bring me this lie,
By this, he had been in hell: Roderick a Tarquin!
Jacin. Yes, and thy daughter (had she done her
part)

Should be the second Lucrece. View me well:
I am Jacinta.

Jul. Ha!

Jacin. The king my ravisher.

Jul. The king thy ravisher! oh unkingly sound.

He dares not sure; yet in thy sullied eyes

I read a tragic story.

ANTONIO, ALONZO, and other Officers, enter.

Jul. O noble friends,

Our wars are ended, are they not?

All. They are, Sir.

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