Hip. My lord, since you invite us to your sorrows,
Let's truly taste 'em, that with equal comfort,
As to ourselves, we may relieve your wrongs:
We have grief too, that yet walks without tongue;
Curæ leves loquuntur, majores stupent.
Ant. You deal with truth, my lord,
Lend me but your attentions, and I'll cut
Long grief into short words. Last revelling night,
When torch-light made an artificial noon
About the court, some courtiers in the masque,
Putting on better faces than their own,
Being full of fraud and flattery—amongst whom
The duchess' youngest son (that moth to honour)
Fill'd up a room, and with long lust to eat
Into my warren,[31] amongst all the ladies
Singled out that dear form, who ever liv'd
As cold in lust as she is now in death,
(Which that step-duchess monster knew too well)
And therefore in the height of all the revels,
When music was heard loudest, courtiers busiest,
And ladies great with laughter—O vicious minute!
Unfit but for relation to be spoke of:
Then with a face more impudent than his vizard,
He harri'd[32] her amidst a throng of panders,
That live upon damnation of both kinds,
And fed the ravenous vulture of his lust.
O death to think on't! She, her honour forc'd,
Deem'd it a nobler dowry for her name,
To die with poison, than to live with shame.
Hip. A wondrous lady! of rare fire compact;
Sh' has made her name an empress by that act.
Piero. My lord, what judgment follows the offender?
Ant. Faith, none, my lord; it cools, and is deferr'd.
Piero. Delay the doom for rape!
Ant. O, you must note who 'tis should die,
The duchess' son! she'll look to be a saver:
"Judgment, in this age, is near kin to favour."
Hip. Nay, then, step forth, thou bribeless officer:
[Draws.
I'll bind you all in steel, to bind you surely;
Here let your oaths meet, to be kept and paid,
Which else will stick like rust, and shame the blade;
Strengthen my vow that if, at the next sitting,
Judgment speak all in gold, and spare the blood
Of such a serpent e'en before their seats
To let his soul out, which long since was found
Guilty in heaven—