That life is deathe, and is no life at all,
The liuer rente, it dothe the conscience tell:
Which being launch’de, and prick’d, with inward care,
Although wee liue, yet still wee dyinge are.”
How Shakespeare applies this mythic story appears in the Titus Andronicus (act ii. sc. 1, l. 14, vol. vi. p. 451), where Aaron, speaking of his queen, Tamora, affirms of himself,—
“Whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fetter’d in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.”
And still more clearly is the application made, 1 Henry VI. (act iv. sc. 3, l. 17, vol. v. p. 71), when Sir William Lucy thus urges York,—