COUNTESS.
Unnatural besiege! woe me unhappy,
To have escaped the danger of my foes,
And to be ten times worse injured by friends!
Hath he no means to stain my honest blood,
But to corrupt the author of my blood
To be his scandalous and vile solicitor?
No marvel though the branches be then infected,
When poison hath encompassed the root:
No marvel though the leprous infant die,
When the stern dame invenometh the Dug.
Why then, give sin a passport to offend,
And youth the dangerous reign of liberty:
Blot out the strict forbidding of the law,
And cancel every cannon that prescribes
A shame for shame or penance for offence.
No, let me die, if his too boistrous will
Will have it so, before I will consent
To be an actor in his graceless lust.
WARWICK.
Why, now thou speakst as I would have thee speak:
And mark how I unsay my words again.
An honorable grave is more esteemed
Than the polluted closet of a king:
The greater man, the greater is the thing,
Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake:
An unreputed mote, flying in the Sun,
Presents a greater substance than it is:
The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss:
Deep are the blows made with a mighty Axe:
That sin doth ten times aggravate it self,
That is committed in a holy place:
An evil deed, done by authority,
Is sin and subornation: Deck an Ape
In tissue, and the beauty of the robe
Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast.
A spatious field of reasons could I urge
Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame:
That poison shews worst in a golden cup;
Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds;
And every glory that inclines to sin,
The shame is treble by the opposite.
So leave I with my blessing in thy bosom,
Which then convert to a most heavy curse,
When thou convertest from honor’s golden name
To the black faction of bed blotting shame.
COUNTESS.
I’ll follow thee; and when my mind turns so,
My body sink my soul in endless woe!
[Exeunt.]
ACT II. SCENE II. The Same. A Room in the Castle.
[Enter at one door Derby from France, At an other door
Audley with a Drum.]
DERBY.
Thrice noble Audley, well encountered here!
How is it with our sovereign and his peers?
AUDLEY.
Tis full a fortnight, since I saw his highness
What time he sent me forth to muster men;
Which I accordingly have done, and bring them hither
In fair array before his majesty.
What news, my Lord of Derby, from the Emperor?
DERBY.
As good as we desire: the Emperor
Hath yielded to his highness friendly aid,
And makes our king lieutenant general
In all his lands and large dominions;
Then via for the spatious bounds of France!