Alc. Their fates I have long since
For your sakes mourn'd; Clarange's death, for so
Your silence doth confirm, till now I heard not;
Are these the bounds that are prescrib'd unto
The swelling seas of sorrow?
Lis. The bounds, Alcidon?
Can all the winds of mischief, from all Quarters,
Euphrates, Ganges, Tigris, Volga, Po,
Paying at once their tribute to this Ocean,
Make it swell higher? I am a Murtherer,
Banish'd, proscrib'd, is there ought else that can
Be added to it?
Lid. I have lost a friend,
Priz'd dearer than my being, and he dead,
My miseries at the height contemn the worst
Of Fortunes malice.
Alc. How our humane weakness,
Grown desperate from small disasters, makes us
Imagine them a period to our sorrows!
When the first syllable of greater woes
Is not yet written.
Lid. How?
Lis. Speak it at large,
Since grief must break my heart, I am ambitious
It should be exquisite.
Alc. It must be told,
Yet ere you hear it, with all care put on
The surest armour anvil'd in the Shop
Of passive fortitude; the good Cleander,
Your friend, is murther'd.
Lis. 'Tis a terrible pang,
And yet it will not do, I live yet, act not
The Torturers part; if that there be a blow
Beyond this, give it, and at once dispatch me.
Alc. Your Sword died in his heart-bloud was found near him,
Your private Conference at mid-night urg'd
With fair Calista; which by her whose pure truth,
Would never learn to tell a lie, being granted,
She by enrag'd Beronte is accus'd
Of Murther and Adultery, and you
(However I dare swear it false) concluded
Her principal Agent.
Lid. Wave upon wave rowls o'r me.
My Sister? my dear Sister?