University of Virginia Library

SCENA QUINTA.

Licastes, Alphonso, Isabella. Clarina.
Licastes.
The death, Sir, of your sonne is but to certaine
W'ave brought his body into the next chāber.
Some little distance from this place we found it
Stript, and so much disfigured with wounds,
That we should not have judg'd it to be his,
If seeking carefully we had not found
His coate not farre of, and a little further
His hatt: The thing which troubleth me most
In this misfortune is, that having made
A fruitles search all over for the rest
Of his habillements, I could not finde
Any one of them, and can not imagine
Who should have tane them thence.

Alphonso.
Vnhappie Sonne
Of an unfortunate Father!

Licastes.
Sir, you may
From hence see this sad object, if you please
To cause that curtaine to be drawn aside.

aside
Alphonso.
Draw it, Licastes, let me see my sorrow;
We would be private, everie one retire.
The curtaine is drawne, and he sees upon a bed a murthered body.
I cannot in this Lamentable object
Discerne one feature of my Sonne, and scarce
Will my confusion give me leave to know
Him whom I have begotten, lying thus
In such a mangled condition.
Sonne, if it may be lawfull in the sad
Estate wherein our miseries have put us
For me to use that name sometime so sweet,
I must then say unto thee, that this spectacle
Makes me to feel thy wounds more sensibly
Then thou thy selfe didst when thou didst receive them:
Thy miserable destinie and mine
Differs not much, the blood which thou shed'st is
The purest in my veines, the arme whose rigour
Hasted thy death, gave not the fatall stroak
Through thy heart, but it entered in my bowells:
And if we differ any thing in such
A miserable fortune, tis in this,
That I still feel the pressing evills, which thou
Sufferest no more. Sources of my afflictions,
Deepe wounds, which appeare now but bloody mouths,
Whose silent accents seeme here to solissit
My arme to a reveng, know that a subject
Houlds not his Soveraignes fate betwene his hāds:
In vaine ye aske reveng' gainst such a blood;
Alas here I can offer you no other,
But what my heart makes to flow from mine eyes.

Isabella.
The crueltie o'th' Duke, Sir, should be punish'd.

Alphonso.
He is my Prince, although in my concernement
A tyrant, subjects destinies depend
Vpon their Soveraignes, a crime becomes
Iust in their hands; and if at any time
Those earthlie Gods ought to be punished',
It must be by a thunder bolt from Heaven:
In this case I should make but vaine attempts.
If the Duke dye, shall my Sonne live againe?
But what chance brings Clarina here in such
Distracted haste?