The Spanish Tragedy

I took him up, and wound him in mine arms,
And welding him unto my private tent,
There laid him down, and dewed him with my tears,
And sighed and sorrowed as became a friend.
But neither friendly sorrow, sighs nor tears
Could win pale Death from his usurped right.
Yet this I did, and less I could not do:
I saw him honoured with due funeral.
This scarf I plucked from off his lifeless arm,
And wear it in remembrance of my friend.

Ay, go Horatio, leave me here alone,
For solitude best fits my cheerless mood.
Yet what avails to wail Andrea’s death,
From whence Horatio proves my second love?
Had he not loved Andrea as he did,
He could not sit in Bel-Imperia’s thoughts.
But how can love find harbour in my breast,
Till I revenge the death of my beloved?
Yes, second love shall further my revenge.

Both well, and ill: it makes me glad and sad:
Glad, that I know the hinderer of my love,
Sad, that I fear she hates me whom I love,
Glad, that I know on whom to be revenged,
Sad, that she’ll fly me if I take revenge.
Yet must I take revenge or die myself,
For love resisted grows impatient.
I think Horatio be my destined plague:
First, in his hand he brandished a sword,
And with that sword he fiercely waged war,
And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds,
And by those wounds he forced me to yield,
And by my yielding I became his slave.

What, will you murder me?

Ay, thus, and thus; these are the fruits of love.

See’st thou this handkercher besmeared with blood?
It shall not from me till I take revenge.
See’st thou those wounds that yet are bleeding fresh?
I’ll not entomb them till I have revenged.
Then will I joy amidst my discontent,
Till then my sorrow never shall be spent.

The heavens are just, murder cannot be hid:
Time is the author both of truth and right,
And time will bring this treachery to light.

This sly enquiry of Hieronimo
For Bel-lmperia breeds suspicion,
And this suspicion bodes a further ill,
As for myself, I know my secret fault;
And so do they, but I have dealt for them.
They that for coin their souls endangered,
To save my life, for coin shall venture theirs:
And better it’s that base companions die,
Than by their life to hazard our good haps.
Nor shall they live, for me to fear their faith:
I’ll trust myself, myself shall be my friend,
For die they shall, slaves are ordained to no other end.

Thus must we toil in other men’s extremes,
That know not how to remedy our own;
And do them justice, when unjustly we, |
For all our wrongs, can compass no redress.
But shall I never live to see the day
That I may come, by justice of the heavens,
To know the cause that may my cares allay?
This toils my body, this consumeth age,
That only I to all men just must be,
And neither gods nor men be just to me.

Peace, impudent, for thou shalt find it so:
For blood with blood shall, while I sit as judge,
Be satisfied, and the law discharged.
And though myself cannot receive the like,
Yet will I see that others have their right.
Despatch, the fault’s approved and confessed,
And by our law he is condemned to die.

And art thou come, Horatio, from the depth,
To ask for justice in this upper earth?
To tell thy father thou art unrevenged,
To wring more tears from Isabella’s eyes,
Whose lights are dimmed with over-long laments?
Go back my son, complain to Aeacus,
For here’s no justice; gentle boy be gone,
For justice is exiled from the earth;
Hieronimo will bear thee company.
Thy mother cries on righteous Rhadamanth
For just revenge against the murderers.

Welcome, Balthazar,
Welcome brave prince, the pledge of Castile’s peace;
And welcome Bel-lmperia. How now, girl?
Why com’st thou sadly to salute us thus?
Content thyself, for I am satisfied;
It is not now as when Andrea lived.
We have forgotten and forgiven that,
And thou art graced with a happier love.

And you, my lord, whose reconciled son
Marched in a net, and thought himself unseen
And rated me for brainsick lunacy.
With “God amend that mad Hieronimo!”—
How can you brook our play’s catastrophe?
And here behold this bloody handkercher,
Which at Horatio’s death I weeping dipped
Within the river of his bleeding wounds:
It as propitious, see I have reserved,
And never hath it left my bloody heart,
Soliciting remembrance of my vow
With these, O these accursed murderers:
Which now performed, my heart is satisfied.