[Exeunt Lords.
Bast. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?[542]
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach[543]
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,[543]
Art thou damn'd, Hubert.[543]
Hub. Do but hear me, sir.
Bast. Ha! I'll tell thee what;120
Thou'rt damn'd as black—nay, nothing is so black;[544]
Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer:
There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
Hub. Upon my soul—[545]
Bast. If thou didst but consent125
To this most cruel act, do but despair;
And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb
Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam[546]
To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,[547]130
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.
I do suspect thee very grievously.
Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,135
Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
I left him well.
Bast. Go, bear him in thine arms.[548]
I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way140
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
How easy dost thou take all England up![549]
From forth this morsel of dead royalty,[549]
The life, the right and truth of all this realm
Is fled to heaven; and England now is left145
To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth[550]
The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.[551]
Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:150
Now powers from home and discontents at home
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,[552]
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.[553]
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can[554]155
Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child
And follow me with speed: I'll to the king:
A thousand businesses are brief in hand,[555]
And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. [Exeunt.[556]
FOOTNOTES:
[407] Act IV. Sc. 1.] Actus Quartus, Scæna prima. F1. Actus Quintus ... F2 F3 F4.