RAVENSBANE Thou liest.
THE IMAGE
Our Daddy Dickon and our mother Rickby begot and conceived us at sunrise, in a Jack-o’-lantern.
RAVENSBANE Thou liest, torturing illusion. Thou art but a phantom in a glass.
THE IMAGE Why, very true. So art thou. We are a pretty phantom in a glass.
RAVENSBANE It is a lie. I am no longer thou. I feel it; I am a man.
THE IMAGE And prithee, what’s a man? Man’s but a mirror, Wherein the imps and angels play charades, Make faces, mope, and pull each other’s hair— Till crack! the sly urchin Death shivers the glass, And the bare coffin boards show underneath.
RAVENSBANE Yea! if it be so, thou coggery! if both of us be indeed but illusions, why, now let us end together. But if it be not so, then let me for evermore be free of thee. Now is the test—the glass! [Springing to the fireplace, he seizes an iron cross-piece from the andirons.] I’ll play your urchin Death and shatter it. Let see what shall survive! [He rushes to strike the glass with the iron. Dickon steps out of the mirror, closing the curtain.]
DICKON I wouldn’t, really!