He bites out his tongue.
KING. O monstrous resolution of a wretch!
See, Viceroy, he hath bitten forth his tongue
Rather than reveal what we require'd.
CAS. Yet can he write.
KING. And if in this he satisfy us not,
We will devise th' extremest kind of death
That ever was invented for a wretch.
Then he makes signs for a knife to mend his pen.
CAS. O, he would have a knife to mend his pen.
VICE. Here; and advise thee that thou write the troth,—
Look to my brother! save Hieronimo!
He with a knife stabs the DUKE and himself.
KING. What age hath ever heard such monstrous deeds?
My brother and the whole succeeding hope
That Spain expected after my decease.
Go bear his body hence, that we may mourn
The loss of our beloved brother's death,
That he may be entomb'd. Whate'er befall,
I am the next, the nearest, last of all.
VICE. And thou, Don Pedro, do the like for us:
Take up our hapless son untimely slain;
Set me up with him, and he with woeful me,
Upon the main-mast of a ship unmann'd,
And let the wind and tide hale me along
To Scylla's barking and untamed gulf
Or to the loathsome pool of Acheron,
To weep my want for my sweet Balthazar.
Spain hath no refuge for a Portingale!