PENTHEA.
Pray, kill me....
Kill me, pray, nay, will you?
ITHOCLES.
How does thy lord esteem thee?
PENTHEA.
Such an one
As only you have made me; a faith-breaker,
A spotted whore. Forgive me, I am one,
In act, not in desires, the Gods must witness...:
For she that's wife to Orgilus, and lives
In known adultery with Bassanes
Is, at the best, a whore. Will kill me now?
The hand-maid to the wages
Of country toil, drinks the untroubled streams
With leaping kids and with the bleating lambs,
And so allays her thirst secure; whilst I
Quench my hot sighs with fleetings of my tears.
(Ford, the Broken heart.)
[97]:
My glass of life, sweet princess, has few minutes
Remaining to run down; the sands are spent.
For by an inward messenger I feel
The summons of departure short and certain.
Glories
Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams
And shadows soon decaying; on the stage
Of my mortality, my youth has acted
Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length
By varied pleasures, sweetened in the mixture,
But tragical in issue.
That remedy
Must be a winding sheet, a fold of lead,
And some untrod-on corner in the earth.
(Ibid.)