Hen. Destroy not in one man
More virtue than the world can boast again.
View him the eldest pledge of your first love,
Your virgin joys; that may some pity move—
King. No; for the wrongs I suffer weigh it down:
I'd now not spare his life to save my own.
Away! by thy soft tongue I'll not be caught.
Hen. By all that hopes can frame I beg: if not,
May you by some base hand unpitied die,
And childless mothers curse your memory!
By honour, love, by life—
King. Fond girl, away:
By Heaven, I'll kill thee else! Still darest thou stay?
Cannot death terrify thee?
Hen. No; for I,
If you refuse me, am resolved to die.
Don Car. Kind fair one, do not waste your sorrows here
On me, too wretched, and not worth a tear.
There yet for you are mighty joys in store,
When I in dust am laid, and seen no more.—
O madam! [To the Queen.
Queen. O my Carlos! must you die
For me? no mercy in a father's eye?
Don Car. Hide, hide your tears, into my soul they dart
A tenderness that misbecomes my heart:
For, since I must, I like a prince would fall,
And to my aid my manly spirits call.
Queen. You, like a man, as roughly as you will
May die, but let me be a woman still! [Weeps.
King. Thou'rt woman, a true copy of the first,
In whom the race of all mankind was cursed.
Your sex by beauty was to Heaven allied;
But your great lord, the devil, taught you pride.
He too an angel, till he durst rebel;
And you are, sure, the stars that with him fell.
Weep on! a stock of tears like vows you have,
And always ready when you would deceive.