Gis. I thank my father, and thee, gentle squire, For this thy travail: take thou for thy pains This bracelet, and commend me to the king.

*

*

So, now is come the long-expected hour,
The fatal hour I have so looked for.

Now hath my father satisfied his thirst
With guiltless blood, which he so coveted.
What brings this cup? ah me! I thought no less;
It is my Earl's, my County's pierced heart.

Dear heart, too dearly hast thou bought my love, 10
Extremely rated at too high a price.

Ah, my dear heart, sweet wast thou in thy life,
But in thy death thou provest passing sweet.
A fitter hearse than this of beaten gold
Could not be 'lotted to so good a heart.
My father therefore well provided thus
To close and wrap thee up in massy gold,
And therewithal to send thee unto me,
To whom of duty thou dost best belong.
My father hath in all his life bewrayed
A princely care and tender love to me,
But this surpasseth, in his latter days

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To send me this, mine own dear heart, to me.
Wert not thou mine, dear heart, whilst that my love
Danced and play'd upon thy golden strings?
Art thou not mine, dear heart, now that my love
Is fled to heaven, and got him golden wings?
Thou art mine own, and still mine own shalt be,
Therefore my father sendeth thee to me.

Ah pleasant harborough of my heart's thought! 30
Ah sweet delight, the quickener of my soul !

Seven times accursed be the hand that wrought

Thee this despite, to mangle thee so foul;
Yet in this wound I see my own true love,
And in this wound thy magnanimity,
And in this wound I see thy constancy.
Go, gentle heart, go rest thee in thy tomb;

Receive this token as thy last farewell. [She kisseth it.
Thy own true heart anon will follow thee,
Which panting lusteth for thy company.

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Thus hast thou run, poor heart, thy mortal race,
And rid thy life from fickle fortune's snares,

Thus hast thou lost this world and worldly cares,
And of thy foe, to honour thee withal,
Receiv'd a golden grave to thy desert.
Nothing doth want to thy just funeral,

But my salt tears to wash thy bloody wound;
Which to the end thou mightst receive, behold,
My father sends thee in this cup of gold;

And thou shalt have them; though I was resolved
To shed no tears; but with a cheerful face
Once did I think to wet thy funeral
Only with blood, and with no weeping eye.
This done, my soul forthwith shall fly to thee;
For therefore did my father send thee me.

10

[Nearly a century after the date of this Drama, Dryden produced his admirable version of the same story from Boccacio. The speech here extracted may be compared with the corresponding passage in the Sigismonda and Guiscardo, with no disadvantage to the elder performance. It is quite as weighty, as pointed, and as passionate.]

III.

ALAHAM: A TRAGEDY.

BY FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.

ALAHAM, second Son to the KING of ORMUS, deposes his Father: whose Eyes, and the Eyes of his elder Brother ZOPHI, (acting upon a maxim of Oriental Policy), he causes to be put out. They, blind, and fearing for their Lives, wander about. In this Extremity they are separately met by the King's Daughter CELICA, who conducts them to places of Refuge; hiding her Father amid the Vaults of a Temple, and guiding her Brother to take Sanctuary at the Altar.

KING. CELICA.

King. Calica; thou only child, whom I repent Not yet to have begot, thy work is vain :

Thou run'st against my destiny's intent.

Fear not my fall; the steep is fairest plain ;

And error safest guide unto his end,

Who nothing but mischance can have to friend.
We parents are but nature's nursery ;

When our succession springs, then ripe to fall.
Privation unto age is natural.

Age there is also in a prince's state,

Which is contempt, grown of misgovernment,
Where love of change begetteth prince's hate :
For hopes must wither, or grow violent,

If fortune bind desires to one estate.

Then mark! Blind, as a man: scorn'd, as a king;
A father's kindness loath'd, and desolate :
Life without joy, or light: what can it bring,
But inward horror unto outward hate?

O safety! thou art then a hateful thing,

When children's death assures the father's state.
No, safe I am not, though my son were slain,
My frailty would beget such sons again.
Besides, if fatal be the heavens' will,
Repining adds more force to destiny;
Whose iron wheels stay not on fleshly wit,
But headlong run down steep necessity.
And as in danger, we do catch at it
That comes to help, and unadvisedly
Oft do our friends to our misfortune knit,
So with the harm of those who would us good
Is destiny impossibly withstood.

Cælica, then cease; importune me no more:
My son, my age, the state where things are now,
Require my death.

Who would consent to live

Where love cannot revenge, nor truth forgive?
Calica. Though fear see nothing but extremity,
Yet danger is no deep sea, but a ford,
Where they that yield can only drowned be
In wrongs, and wounds. Sir, you are too remiss ;
To thrones a passive nature fatal is.

King. Occasion to my son hath turn'd her face; My inward wants all outward strengths betray; And so make that impossible I may.

Calica. Yet live:

Live for the state.

King. Whose ruins glasses are,

Wherein see errors of myself I must,

And hold my life of danger, shame, and care.

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Calica. When fear propounds, with loss men ever

choose.

King. Nothing is left me but myself to lose. Calica. And is it nothing then to lose the state? King. Where chance is ripe, there counsel comes too late.

Calica, by all thou ow'st the gods and me,

I do conjure thee, leave me to my chance.
What's past was error's way; the truth it is,
Wherein I wretch can only go amiss.

If nature saw no cause of sudden ends,

She, that but one way made to draw our breath,
Would not have left so many doors to death.

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Calica. Yet, Sir, if weakness be not such a sand As neither wrong nor counsel can manure; Choose and resolve what death you will endure. King. This sword, thy hands, may offer up my breath

And plague my life's remissness in my death.

Calica. Unto that duty if these hands be born, I must think God and truth were names of scorn. Again, this justice were if life were loved, Now merely grace; since death doth but forgive A life to you, which is a death to live; Pain must displease that satisfies offence.

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King. Chance hath left death no more to spoil but sense.

Calica. Then sword, do justice' office thorough me: I offer more than that he hates to thee.

[Offers to kill herself.
King. Ah! stay thy hand. My state no equal hath,
And much more matchless my strange vices be:
One kind of death becomes not thee and me.
Kings' plagues by chance or destiny should fall;
Headlong he perish must that ruins all.

Calica. No cliff or rock is so precipitate,
But down it eyes can lead the blind away;
Without me live, or with me die you may,
King. Cælica, and wilt thou Alaham exceed?
His cruelty is death, you torments use;
He takes my crown, you take myself from me.
A prince of this fall'n empire let me be.

Calica. Then be a king, no tyrant of thyself:
Be; and be what you will; what nature lent
Is still in hers, and not our government.

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King. If disobedience, and obedience both, Still do me hurt; in what strange state am I? But hold thy course; it well becomes my blood, To do their parents mischief with their good. Calica. Yet, Sir, hark to the poor oppressed tears, The just men's moan, that suffer by your fall; A prince's charge is to protect them all. And shall it nothing be that I am yours?

The world without, my heart within, doth know,

I never had unkind, unreverent powers.

If thus you yield to Alaham's treachery,

He ruins you: 'tis you, Sir, ruin me.

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King. Cælica, call up the dead; awake the blind; Turn back the time; bid winds tell whence they come ; As vainly strength speaks to a broken mind. Fly from me, Calica, hate all I do :

Misfortunes have in blood successions too.

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Calica. Will you do that which Alaham cannot? He hath no good; you have no ill, but he: This mar-right yielding's honour's tyranny. King. Have I not done amiss? am I not ill, That ruin'd have a king's authority?

And not one king alone: since princes all

Feel part of those scorns, whereby one doth fall.
Treason against me cannot treason be:

All laws have lost authority in me.

Cœlica. The laws of power chain'd to men's humours be.

The good have conscience; the ill (like instruments) Are, in the hands of wise authority,

Moved, divided, used, or laid down;

Still, with desire, kept subject to a crown.

Stir up all states, all spirits: hope and fear,

Wrong and revenge, are current everywhere.

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King. Put down my son: for that must be the way:

A father's shame: a prince's tyranny;

The sceptre ever shall misjudged be.

Calica. Let them fear rumour that do work amiss; Blood, torments, death, horrors of cruelty,

Have time, and place. Look through these skins of

fear,

Which still persuade the better side to bear.

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