Bal. Courage, courage, sweet lady, ’tis Sir Jeffrey Balurdo bids you courage. Truly I am as nimble as an elephant about a lady.
[Exeunt Piero, Castilio, Forobosco and Balurdo, bearing out Maria.
Pan. Dead!
Ant. Dead!
Alb. Dead! 260
Ant. Why, now the womb of mischief is deliver’d,
Of the prodigious issue of the night.
Pan. Ha, ha, ha!
Ant. My father dead: my love attaint of lust,—
That’s a large lie, as vast as spacious hell!
Poor guiltless lady! O, accursèd lie!
What, whom, whither, which shall I first lament?
A[229] dead father, a dishonour’d wife? Stand.
Methinks I feel the frame of nature shake.
Cracks not the joints of earth to bear my woes? 270
Alb. Sweet prince, be patient.
Ant. ’Slid, sir, I will not in despite of thee.
Patience is slave to fools: a chain that’s fixt
Only to posts, and senseless log-like dolts.