Death.
Nay, what are you both, but subjects unto Death?
And I command you to forbear this place;
For here the mouth of sad Melpomene
Is wholly bent to tragedy's discourse:
And what are tragedies but acts of death?
Here means the wrathful muse, in seas of tears
And loud laments, to tell a dismal tale—
A tale, wherein she lately hath bestow'd
The husky humour of her bloody quill,
And now for tables takes her to her tongue.
Love.
Why, thinks Death Love knows not the history
Of brave Erastus and his Rhodian dame?
'Twas I that made their hearts consent to love;
And therefore come I now as fittest person
To serve for chorus to this tragedy:
Had I not been, they had not died so soon.
Death.
Had I not been, they had not died so soon.
Fortune.
Nay then, it seems, you both do miss the mark:
Did not I change long love to sudden hate;
And then rechange their hatred into love;
And then from love deliver them to death?
Fortune is Chorus; Love and Death, begone!
Death.