Ant. Why hath this thus amazed you, mistress?
Abs. O, leave me, leave me: I am all distraction;
Struck to the soul with sorrow.
Enter Milan, Lords, and Lorenzo guarded.
Ant. See where they come!
My father full of tears, too. I'll stand by:
Strange changes must have strange discovery.
Abs. 'Tis he: heart, how thou leap'st! O ye deluded,
And full of false rash judgment! why do ye lead
Innocence like a sacrifice to slaughter?
Get garlands rather: let palm and laurel round[170]
Those temples, where such wedlock-truth is found.
Lor. Ha!
Omnes. Wedlock!
Abs. O Lorenzo! thou hast suffer'd bravely,
And wondrous far: look on me, here I come,
Hurried by conscience to confess the deed.
Thy innocent blood will be too great a burthen
Upon the judge's soul.
Lor. Abstemia!
Abs. Look, look,
How he will blind ye! by and by, he'll tell ye
We saw not one another many a day;
In love's cause we dare make our lives away.
He would redeem mine: 'tis my husband, sir;
Dearly we love together; but I, being often
By the dead prince, your son, solicited
To wrong my husband's bed, and still resisting,
Where you found him dead he met me, and the place
Presenting opportunity, he would there
Have forc'd me to his will; but prizing honesty
Far above proffer'd honour, with my knife,
In my resistance, most unfortunately
I struck him in the eye. He fell, was found,
The pursuit rais'd, and ere I could get home
My husband met me; I confess'd all to him.
He, excellent in love as the sea-inhabitant,
Of whom 'tis writ that, when the flatt'ring hook
Has struck his female, he will help her off,
Although he desperately put on himself,
But if he fail, and see her leave his eye,
He swims to land, will languish, and there die—
Such is his love to me; for, pursu'd closely,
He bid me save myself, and he would stay
With his drawn sword there about the place, on purpose
To requite my loyalty, though with his death.
Fear forc'd my acceptance then; but conscience
Hath brought me back to preserve innocence.