Dido. But yet Aeneas will not leave his love.
Aeneas. I am commanded by immortal Jove
To leave this town and pass to Italy:
And therefore must of force.
Dido. These words proceed not from Aeneas' heart.
Aeneas. Not from my heart, for I can hardly go;
And yet I may not stay. Dido, farewell.
Dido. Farewell! is this the 'mends for Dido's love?
Do Trojans use to quit their lovers thus?
Fare well may Dido, so Aeneas stay;
I die, if my Aeneas say farewell.
Aeneas. Then let me go, and never say farewell;
Let me go: farewell: I must from hence.
Dido. These words are poison to poor Dido's soul:
O, speak like my Aeneas, like my love!
Why look'st thou toward the sea? the time hath been
When Dido's beauty chained thine eyes to her.
Am I less fair than when thou saw'st me first?
O, then, Aeneas, 'tis for grief of thee!
Say thou wilt stay in Carthage with thy queen,
And Dido's beauty will return again.
Aeneas, say, how canst thou take thy leave?
Wilt thou kiss Dido? O, thy lips have sworn
To stay with Dido! Canst thou take her hand?
Thy hand and mine have plighted mutual faith.
Therefore, unkind Aeneas, must thou say,
'Then let me go, and never say farewell'?
Aeneas. O queen of Carthage, wert thou ugly-black,
Aeneas could not choose but hold thee dear!
Yet must he not gainsay the gods' behest.
Dido. The gods! what gods be those that seek my death?
Wherein have I offended Jupiter,
That he should take Aeneas from mine arms?
O, no! the gods weigh not what lovers do:
It is Aeneas calls Aeneas hence.
Summarizing, in one short paragraph, the advance in tragedy inaugurated by Kyd and Marlowe, we record the progress made in characterization, plot structure, and verse, and in the treatment of history. A play has now become interesting for its delineation of character, not merely for its events or 'story'. One or two figures monopolize the attention by their lofty passions, their sufferings, and their fate. We look on at a tremendous conflict waged between will and circumstance, between right and wrong, or we watch the gradual decay of goodness by the action of a poisonous thought introduced into the mind. The plot has undergone a similar intensification. With resistless evolution it bears the chief characters along to the fatal hour of decision or action, then drags them down the descent which the wrong choice or the unwise deed suddenly places at their feet. Our sympathies are drawn out, we take sides in the cause, and demand that at least justice shall prevail at the end. There is an art, too, in this evolution, a close interweaving of events, a chain of cause and effect; a certain harmony and balance are maintained, so that our feelings are neither jerked to extremes nor worn out by strain. Even the history play has freed itself to some extent from the leading strings of chronology, claiming the right to make the same appeal to our common instincts as any other play. Verse has taken a mighty bound from formalism to the free intoxicating air of poetry and nature. Men and women no longer exchange dull speeches; they converse with easy spontaneity and delight us by the beauty of their language. A poet may be a dramatist at last without feeling that his imagination must be held back like a restive horse lest the decorum of human speech be violated.