Dioc. She hates your sight;
And more, since you accused her.
166 Cre. Urge it not.
I cannot stay to tell thee my design;
For she's too near.
Enter Eurydice.
How, madam, were your thoughts employed?
Eur. On death, and thee.
Cre. Then were they not well sorted: Life and me
Had been the better match.
Eur. No, I was thinking
On two the most detested things in nature:
And they are death and thee.
Cre. The thought of death to one near death is dreadful!
O 'tis a fearful thing to be no more;
Or, if to be, to wander after death;
To walk as spirits do, in brakes all day;
And when the darkness comes, to glide in paths
That lead to graves; and in the silent vault,
Where lies your own pale shroud, to hover o'er it,
Striving to enter your forbidden corps,
And often, often, vainly breathe your ghost
Into your lifeless lips;
Then, like a lone benighted traveller,
Shut out from lodging, shall your groans be answered
By whistling winds, whose every blast will shake
Your tender form to atoms.
Eur. Must I be this thin being? and thus wander?
No quiet after death!
Cre. None: You must leave
This beauteous body; all this youth and freshness
Must be no more the object of desire,
But a cold lump of clay;
Which then your discontented ghost will leave,
And loath its former lodging.
This is the best of what comes after death.
Even to the best.