HUSBAND.
I’ll kiss the blood I spilt and then I go:
My soul is bloodied, well may my lips be so.
Farewell, dear wife, now thou and I must part,
I of thy wrongs repent me with my heart.
WIFE.
Oh stay, thou shalt not go.
HUSBAND.
That’s but in vain, you see it must be so.
Farewell, ye bloody ashes of my boys!
My punishments are their eternal joys.
Let every father look into my deeds,
And then their heirs may prosper, while mine bleeds.
WIFE.
More wretched am I now in this distress,
[Exeunt Husband with holberds.]
Then former sorrows made me.
MASTER.
Oh kind wife,
Be comforted. One joy is yet unmurdered:
You have a boy at nurse; your joy’s in him.
WIFE.
Dearer then all is my poor husbands life:
Heaven give my body strength, which yet is faint
With much expence of blood, and I will kneel,
Sue for his life, number up all my friends,
To plead for pardon for my dear husbands life.
MASTER.
Was it in man to wound so kind a creature?
I’ll ever praise a woman for thy sake.
I must return with grief; my answer’s set:
I shall bring news ways heavier then the debt.—
Two brothers: one in bond lies overthrown,
This on a deadlier execution.