Enter Aurelia, two halberts before and two after, supported by Celso and Ferrardo; Aurelia in base mourning attire.
Aur. To banishment! lead[510] on to banishment! 30
Pietro. Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you!
Aur. Why, why, I can desire nothing but death,
Nor deserve anything but hell.
If heaven should give sufficiency of grace
To clear my soul, it would make heaven graceless:
My sins would make the stock of mercy poor;
O, they would tire[511] heaven’s goodness to reclaim them!
Judgment is just yet[512] from that vast villain;
But, sure, he shall not miss sad punishment
’Fore he shall rule.—On to my cell of shame! 40
Pietro. My cell ’tis, lady; where, instead of masks,
Music, tilts, tourneys, and such court-like shows,
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds
Shall groan again; whilst the unquiet sea
Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.
There usherless[513] the air comes in and out:
The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,
Whilst you behold true desolation:
A rocky barrenness shall pain[514] your eyes,
Where all at once one reaches where he stands, 50
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.
Aur. It is too good.—Bless’d spirit of my lord,
O, in what orb soe’er thy soul is thron’d,
Behold me worthily most miserable!
O, let the anguish of my contrite spirit
Entreat some reconciliation!
If not, O, joy, triumph in my just grief!
Death is the end of woes and tears’ relief.
Pietro. Belike your lord not lov’d you, was unkind.
Aur. O heaven! 60
As the soul loves[515] the body, so lov’d he:
’Twas death to him to part my presence, heaven
To see me pleas’d.
Yet I, like to a wretch given o’er to hell,
Brake all the sacred rites of marriage,
To clip a base ungentle faithless villain;
O God! a very pagan reprobate—
What should I say? ungrateful, throws me out,
For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honour.
But ’tis most fit: why should a better fate 70
Attend on any who forsake chaste sheets;
Fly the embrace of a devoted heart,
Join’d by a solemn vow ’fore God and man,
To taste the brackish flood[516] of beastly lust
In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty!
Insatiate impudence of appetite!
Look, here’s your end; for mark, what sap in dust,
What good in sin,[517] even so much love in lust.
Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord! pardon to me!