Prep. When?
Mal. Rest in peace, as the duke does; quietly sit: for my own part, I beheld him but dead; that’s all: marry, here’s one can give you a more particular account of him.
Men. Speak, holy father, nor let any brow Within this presence fright thee from the truth: Speak confidently and freely.
Aur. We attend. 110
Pietro. Now had the mounting sun’s all-ripening wings
Swept the cold sweat of night from earth’s dank breast,
When I, whom men call Hermit of the Rock,
Forsook my cell, and clambered up a cliff,
Against whose base the heady Neptune dash’d
His high-curl’d brows; there ’twas I eas’d my limbs:
When, lo! my entrails melted with the moan
Some one, who far ’bove me was climb’d, did make—
I shall offend.
Men. Not. 120
Aur. On.
Pietro. Methinks I hear him yet:—“O female faith!
Go sow the ingrateful sand, and love a woman:
And do I live to be the scoff of men?
To be the[492] wittol-cuckold, even to hug
My poison? Thou knowest, O truth!
Sooner hard steel will melt with southern wind,
A seaman’s whistle calm the ocean,
A town on fire be extinct with tears,
Than women, vow’d to blushless impudence, 130
With sweet behaviour and soft minioning[493]
Will turn from that where appetite is fix’d.
O powerful blood! how thou dost slave their soul!
I wash’d an Ethiop, who, for recompense,
Sullied my name: and must I, then, be forc’d
To walk, to live thus black? must! must! fie!
He that can bear with must, he cannot die.”
With that, he sigh’d so[494] passionately deep,
That the dull air even groan’d: at last he cries,
“Sink shame in seas, sink deep enough!” so dies; 140
For then I viewed his body fall, and souse[495]
Into the foamy main. O, then I saw,
That which methinks I see, it was the duke;
Whom straight the nicer-stomach’d sea belch’d up:
But then——
Mal. Then came I in; but, ’las, all was too late!
For even straight he sunk.