Gio. Let some mischief

Befall me soon, if I dissemble aught.
Anna. You are my brother, Giovanni.
Gio. You

My sister, Annabella, I know this:

And could afford you instance why to love.
So much the more for this.1

He gives some sophistical Reasons, and resumes.
Must I now live or die?

Anna. Live: thou hast won

The field, and never fought. What thou hast urg'd,
My captive heart had long ago resolv'd.

I blush to tell thee (but I tell thee now)
For every sigh that thou hast spent for me,
I have sigh'd ten; for every tear shed twenty:
And not so much for that I lov'd, as that
I durst not say I lov'd, nor scarcely think it.
Gio. Let not this music be a dream, ye gods,
For pity's sake I beg ye.

Anna. On my knees,

Brother, even by our mother's dust, I charge you,

Do not betray me to your mirth or hate;

Love me, or kill me, brother.

Gio. On my knees,

Sister, even by my mother's dust, I charge you,

Do not betray me to your

Love me, or kill me, sister.

mirth or hate;

Anna. You mean good sooth, then?
Gio. In good truth I do ;

And so do you, I hope: say, I'm in earnest.
Anna. I'll swear it; and I.

Gio. And I.

I would not change this minute for Elysium.

(She kneels.)

(He kneels.)

[Act i., Sc. 3.]

Sorano, her Hus

Annabella proves pregnant by her Brother. band, to whom she is newly married, discovers that she is pregnant, but cannot make her confess by whom. At length by means of Vasques, his servant, he comes to the truth of it. He feigns forgiveness and reconcilement with his Wife: and makes a sumptuous Feast to which are invited Annabella's old Father, with Giovanni, and all the chief Citizens in Parma; meaning to entrap Giovanni by that bait to his death.-Annabella suspects his drift.

1[Six lines omitted.]

Το

GIOVANNI.

Gio. What, chang'd so soon?1

ANNABELLA.

-does the fit come on you, to prove treacherous
your past vows and oaths?

Anna. Why should you jest

At my calamity, without all sense

Of the approaching dangers you are in?

Gio. What danger's half so great as thy revolt?
Thou art a faithless sister, else thou know'st,
Malice or any treachery beside

Would stoop to my bent brows: why, I hold fate
Clasp'd in my fist, and could command the course
Of time's eternal motion, had'st thou been
One thought more steady than an ebbing sea.

Anna. Brother, dear brother, know what I have been;
And know that now there's but a dining time
"Twixt us and our confusion: let's not waste
These precious hours in vain and useless speech.
Alas! these gay attires were not put on
But to some end; this sudden solemn feast
Was not ordain'd to riot and expense:

I that have now been chamber'd here alone,
Barr'd of my guardian, or of any else,
Am not for nothing at an instant freed
To fresh access. Be not deceiv'd, my brother;
This banquet is a harbinger of death

To you and me; resolve yourself it is,
And be prepar'd to welcome it.

Gio. Well then,

The schoolmen teach that all this globe of earth
Shall be consumed to ashes in a minute.

Anna. So I have read too.

Gio. But 'twere somewhat strange
To see the waters burn. Could I believe
This might be true, I could believe as well
There might be hell or heaven.

Anna. That's most certain.-2 But,
Good brother, for the present, how do you mean
To free yourself from danger? some way think

How to escape.

I'm sure the guests are come.

Gio. Look up, look here; what see you in my face? Anna. Distraction and a troubled conscience.

Gio. Death and a swift repining wrath——yet look, What see you in mine eyes?

[Two lines omitted.]

[Ten lines.]

Anna. Methinks you weep.

Gio. I do indeed; these are the funeral tears
Shed on your grave: these furrow'd up my cheeks,
When first I lov'd and knew not how to woo.
Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.
Be record all the spirits of the air,

And all things else that are, that day and night,
Early and late, the tribute which my heart
Hath paid to Annabella's sacred love,

Hath been these tears which are her mourners now.
Never till now did Nature do her best,
To show a matchless beauty to the world,
Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,
The jealous destinies required again.
Pray, Annabella, pray; since we must part,
Go thou, white in thy soul, to fill a throne
Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.
Pray, pray, my sister.

Anna. Then I see your drift.

Ye blessed angels, guard me!1

Gio. Give me your hand. How sweetly life doth run

In these well-colour'd veins! how constantly

This pulse doth promise health! But I could chide
With Nature for this cunning flattery!

Forgive me.

Anna. With my heart.

Gio. Farewell.

Anna. Will be gone?

you

Gio. Be dark, bright sun,

And make this mid-day night, that thy gilt rays

May not behold a deed, will turn their splendour

More sooty than the poets feign their Styx.2
Anna. What means this?

Gio. To save thy fame.

Thus die, and die by me, and by my hand;
Revenge is mine, honour doth love command.
Anna. Forgive him, heaven, and me my sins.
Brother, unkind, unkind-

(Stabs her.)

Farewell.

[Dies. [Act v., Sc. 5.]

Sir Thomas Browne, in the last Chapter of his Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors, rebukes such Authors as have chosen to relate prodigious and nameless Sins. The chapter is entitled, Of some Relations whose Truth we fear. His reasoning is solemn and fine." Lastly, as there are many Relations whereto we cannot assent, and make some doubt thereof, so there are divers others whose verities we fear, [Verbal omissions to the end.]

[Six lines omitted.]

and heartily wish there were no truth therein. Many other accounts like these we meet sometimes in History, scandalous unto Christianity, and even unto humanity; whose not only verities but relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want either name or precedent, there is oft times a sin even in their histories. We desire no records of such enormities; sins should be accounted new, that so they may be esteemed monstrous. They omit of monstrosity, as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently expatiate without these singularities of villainy; for, as they increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that may make latter ages worse than were the former: for the vicious example of ages past, poison[s] the curiosity of these present, affording a hint of sin unto seduceable spirits, and soliciting those unto the imitation of them, whose heads were never so perversely principled as to invent them. In things of this nature silence commendeth History; 'tis the veniable part of things lost, wherein there must never rise a Pancirollus1 nor remain any register but that of Hell."

THE BROKEN HEART: A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED BY JOHN FORD

1633].

Ithocles loves Calantha, Princess of Sparta; and would have his sister Penthea plead for him with the Princess. She objects to him her own wretched condition, made miserable by a Match, into which he forced her with Bassanes, when she was precontracted by her dead Father's Will, and by inclination, to Orgilus; but at last she consents.

ITHOCLES. PENTHEA.

Ith. Sit nearer, sister to me, nearer yet;
We had one father, in one womb took life,
Were brought up twins together, yet have liv'd
At distance like two strangers. I could wish,
That the first pillow whereon I was cradled
Had prov'd to me a grave.

Pen. You had been happy:

Then had you never known that sin of life

Which blots all following glories with a vengeance;

For forfeiting the last will of the dead,

From whom you had your being.

Ith. Sad Penthea,

Thou canst not be too cruel: my rash spleen

Hath with a violent hand pluck'd from thy bosom

A lover-blest heart, to grind it into dust;

For which mine's now a-breaking.

Pen. Not yet, heaven,

1 Who wrote De Antiquis Deperditis, or of the Lost Inventions of Antiquity,

I do beseech thee: first let some wild fires

Scorch, not consume it; may the heat be cherish'd
With desires infinite but hopes impossible.

Ith. Wrong'd soul, thy prayers are heard.
Pen. Here, lo, I breathe,

A miserable creature, led to ruin
By an unnatural brother.

Ith. I consume

In languishing affections for that trespass,
Yet cannot die.

Pen. The handmaid to the wages,

The untroubled1 of country toil, drinks streams,
With leaping kids, and with the bleating lambs,
And so allays her thirst secure; while I

Quench my hot sighs with fleetings of my tears.

Ith. The labourer doth eat his coarsest bread,
Earn'd with his sweat, and lies him down to sleep;
While every bit I touch turns in digestion
To gall, as bitter as Penthea's curse.
Put me to any penance for my tyranny,
And I will call thee merciful.

Pen. Pray kill me;

Rid me from living with a jealous husband;
Then we will join in friendship, be again
Brother and sister-

Ith. After my victories abroad, at home

I meet despair; ingratitude of nature

Hath made my actions monstrous: Thou shalt stand

A deity, my sister, and be worshipp'd

For thy resolved martyrdom; wrong'd maids

And married wives shall to thy hallow'd shrine

Offer their orisons, and sacrifice

Pure turtles crown'd with myrtle, if thy pity

Unto a yielding brother's pressure lend

One finger but to ease it.

Pen. O, no more.

Ith. Death waits to waft me to the Stygian banks,

And free me from this chaos of my bondage;

And till thou wilt forgive, I must endure.

Pen. Who is the saint you serve?

Ith. Friendship, or nearness

Of birth, to any but my sister, durst not

1 A word seems defective here. [Should be "Of country toil drinks the untroubled streams ".]

[Twelve lines omitted.]

VOL. IV.-14