They have brought the extreme unction.
Brach. On pain of death let no man name death to me:
It is a word most infinitely terrible.
Withdraw into our cabinet.’
The deception practised upon him by Lodovico and Gasparo, who offer him the sacrament in the disguise of Monks, and then discover themselves to damn him, is truly diabolical and ghastly. But the genius that suggested it was as profound as it was lofty. When they are at first introduced, Flamineo says,
‘See, see how firmly he doth fix his eye
Upon the crucifix.’
To which Vittoria answers,
‘Oh, hold it constant:
It settles his wild spirits; and so his eyes