Pier. Conduct him with attendance sumptuous;
Sound all the pleasing instruments of joy;
Make triumph stand on tiptoe whilst we meet:
O sight most gracious, O revenge most sweet! 250
And. We vow, by the honour of our birth, to recompense any man that bringeth Andrugio’s head, with twenty thousand double pistolets, and the endearing to our choicest love.
Pier. We still with most unmoved resolve[185] confirm
Our large munificence, and here breathe
A sad and solemn protestation:
When I recall this vow, O, let our house
Be even commanded, stain’d, and trampled on,
As worthless rubbish of nobility. 260
And. Then here [raising his beaver], Piero, is Andrugio’s head,
Royally casquèd in a helm of steel:
Give me thy love, and take it. My dauntless soul
Hath that unbounded vigour in his spirits
That it can bear more rank indignity,
With less impatience than thy canker’d hate
Can sting and venom his untainted worth
With the most vip’rous sound of malice. Strike!
O, let no glimpse of honour light thy thoughts;
If there be any heat of royal breath 270
Creeping in thy veins, O stifle it;
Be still thyself, bloody and treacherous.
Fame not thy house with an admirèd act
Of princely pity. Piero, I am come
To soil thy house with an eternal blot
Of savage cruelty; strike, or bid me strike.
I pray my death; that thy ne’er-dying shame
Might live immortal to posterity.
Come, be a princely hangman, stop my breath.
O dread thou shame, no more than I dread death. 280
Pier. We are amazed, our royal spirit’s numb’d
In stiff astonish’d wonder at thy prowess.
Most mighty, valiant, and high-tow’ring heart,
We blush, and turn our hate upon ourselves,
For hating such an unpeer’d excellence.
I joy my state: him whom I loath’d before,
That now I honour, love, nay more, adore.
[The still flutes sound a mournful senet. Enter a funeral procession, followed by Lucio.
But stay; what tragic spectacle appears!
Whose body bear you in that mournful hearse?
Lu. The breathless trunk of young Antonio. 290
Mel. Antonio! ay me! my lord, my love! my——.