Mel. Antonio’s love.
Ant. [Aside.] Antonio’s love!
Enter Strotzo, with a cord about his neck.
Str. O what vast ocean of repentant tears
Can cleanse my breast from the polluting filth
Of ulcerous sin! Supreme Efficient,
Why cleavest thou not my breast with thunderbolts 160
Of wing’d revenge?
Pier. What means this passion?
Ant. [Aside.] What villainy are they decocting now? Umh!
Str. In[297] me convertite ferrum, O proceres.
Nihil iste, nec ista.
Pier. Lay hold on him! What strange portent is this?
Str. I will not flinch. Death, hell more grimly stare
Within my heart than in your threatening brows.
Record, thou threefold guard of dreadest power,[298]
What I here speak is forcèd from my lips
By the [im]pulsive strain of conscience. 170
I have a mount of mischief clogs my soul,
As weighty as the high-noll’d[299] Apennine,
Which I must straight disgorge, or breast will burst.
I have defam’d this lady wrongfully,
By instigation of Antonio,
Whose reeling love, tost on each fancy’s surge,
Began to loath before it fully joyed.