University of Virginia Library

Scæn. 2.

Enter Lycias, and Proculus.
Lycias.
Sicker, and sicker Proculus?

Pro.
Oh Lycias,
What shall become of us? would we had dide
With happy Chilax, or with Balbus, bedrid—
Enter Lycinius.
And made too lame for justice.

Lycinius.
The soft Musick;
And let one sing to fasten sleep upon him:
Oh friends, the Emperor.

Pro.
What say the Doctors?

Lycin.
For us a most sad saying, he is poysond,
Beyond all cure too.

Lyc.
Who?

Lycin.
The wretch Aretus,
That most unhappy villaine.

Lyc.
How doe you know it?

Lyci.
He gave him drink last: let's disperse and find him;
And since he has opend misery to all,
Let it begin with him first: Softly he slumbers.

—Enter Emperor sicke in a Chaire, with Eudoxia, the Empresse, and Physitians, and Attendants.
Emp.
Oh gods, gods: drink, drink, colder, colder
Then snow on Scythian Mountaines: ô my heart strings.

Eudox.
How do's your Grace.

Phis.
The Empresse speakes Sir;

Emp.
Dying,
Dying Eudoxa, dying.

Phys.
Good Sir patience;

Eudox.
What have ye given him?

Phys.
Pretious things deere Lady
We hope shall comfort him.

Emp.
O flattered foole,
See what thy god-heads come to: Oh Eudoxa.

Eudox.
O patience, patience Sir.

—Enter Proculus, Licinius with Aretus.
Emp.
Danubius,
Ile have brought through my body.

Eudox.
Gods give comfort.

Em.
And Volga, on whose face the North freezes,
I and an hundred hells, an hundred Piles
Already to my Funeralls are flaming,
Shall I not drink?

Phys.
You must not Sir.

Emp.
By heaven
Ile let my breath out that shall burne ye all
If ye deny me longer: tempests blow me,
And inundations that have drunk up kingdomes
Flow over me, and quench me: wher's the Villaine?
Am I immortall now ye slaves? by Numa
If he doe scape: Oh, oh,

Eudox.
Deere Sir;

Emp.
Like Nero,
But farre more terrible, and full of slaughter,
I'th midst of all my flames ile fire the Empire:
A thousand fans, a thousand fans to coole me:
Invite the gentle windes Eudoxa.

Eudox.
Sir;

Emp.
Oh doe not flatter me, I am but flesh,
A man, a mortall man: drink, drink, ye dunces;
What can your doses now doe, and your scrapings,
Your oyles, and Mithridates? if I doe die,
You only words of health, and names of sicknesse
Finding no true disease in man but mony,
That talke your selves into Revenues, oh
And ere ye kill your patients, begger 'em,
Ile have ye flead, and dride.

Pro:
The Villaine Sir;
The most accursed wretch.

Emp.
Be gon my Queene,
This is no sight for thee: goe to the Vestalls,
Cast holy incense in the fire, and offer
One powerfull sacrifice to free thy Cæsar.

Pro.
Goe Goe and be happy.

—Exit Eudoxa.
Aretus.
Goe, but give no ease,
The Gods have set thy last houre Valentinian,
Thou art but man, a bad man too, a beast,
And like a sensual bloudy thing thou diest.

Pro.
Oh—Traitor.

Are.
Curse your selves ye flatterers,
And howle your miseries to come ye wretches,
You taught him to be poysond,

Emp.
Yet no comfort?

Aret.
Be not abusd with Priests, nor Pothecaries,
They cannot help thee: Thou hast now to live
A short halfe houre, no more, and I ten minutes:
I gave thee poyson for Aecius sake,
Such a destroying poyson would kill nature;
And for thou shalt not die alone, I took it.
If mankind had bin in thee at this murder,
No more to people earth again, the wings
Of old time clipt for ever, reason lost,
In what I had attempted, yet ô Cæsar
To purchase faire revenge, I had poysond them too.

Emp.
Oh villaine: I grow hotter, hotter,

Are.
Yes;
But not neere my heate yet; what thou feel'st now,
Marke me with horror Cæsar, are but Embers
Of lust and leachery thou hast committed:
But there be flames of murder.

Emp.
Fetch out tortures.

Are.
Doe, and ile flatter thee, nay more ile love thee:
Thy tortures to what now I suffer Cæsar,
At which thou must arrive too, ere thou dy'est,
Are lighter, and more full of mirth then laughter.

Emp.
Let 'em alone: I must drink.

Are.
Now be mad.
But not neere me yet.

Emp.
Hold me, hold me, hold me,
Hold me; or I shall burst else.

Are.
See me Cesar,
And see to what thou must come for thy murder;
Millions of womens labours, all diseases.

Emp.
Oh my afflicted soule too,

Are.
Womens feares, horrors,
Despaires, and all the Plagues the hot Sunne breeds.—

Emp.
Æcius, ô Æcius: ô Lucyna,

Are.
Are but my torments shadowes.

Emp.
Hide me mountaines;
The gods have found my sinnes:
Now breake.

Are.
Not yet Sir;
Thou hast a pull beyond all these.

Emp.
Oh hell,
Oh villaine, cursed villaine:

Are.
O brave villaine,
My poyson dances in me at this deed:
Now Cesar, now behold me, this is torment,
And this is thine before thou diest, I am wildfire:
The brazen Bull of Phalaris was feignd,
The miseries of soules despising Heaven,
But Emblems of my torments.

Emp.
Oh quench me, quench me, quench me.

Are.
Fire a flattery;
And all the Poets tales of sad Avernus,
To my paines lesse then fictions: Yet to shew thee
What constant love I bore my murdred mastere;
Like a Southwind, I have sung through all these tempests
My heart, my witherd heart, feare, feare thou Monster,
Feare the just gods, I have my peace.—

He dies.
Emp.
More drinke,
A thousand Aprill showres fall in my bosom:
How dare ye let me be tormented thus?
Away with that prodigious body, gods,
Gods, let me aske ye what I am, ye lay
All your inflictions on me, heare me, heare me;
I doe confesse I am a ravisher,,
A murderer, a hated Cesar; oh,
Are there not vowes enough, and flaming Altars,
The fat of all the world for sacrifice,
And where that failes, the blood of thousand captives
To purge those sins? but I must make the incense:
I do despise ye all, ye have no mercy,
And wanting that, ye are no Gods, your paroale
Is only preach'd abroad to make Fooles fearfull,
And women made of awe, beleeve your heaven:
Oh torments, torments, torments, paines above paines,
If ye be any thing but dreames, and ghests,
and truly hold the guidance of things mortall;
Have in your selves times past, to come, and present,
Fashion the soules of men, and make flesh for 'em,
Waighing our fates, and fortunes beyond reason,
Be more then all the Gods, great in forgivenesse,
Breake not the goodly frame ye build in anger;
For you are things men teach us, without passions,
Give me an howre to know ye in: Oh save me
But so much perfect time ye make a soule in,
Take this destruction from me; no ye cannot,
The more I would beleeve ye, more I suffer,
My braines are ashes, now my heart, my eyes freinds;
I go, I goe, more aire, more aire; I am mortall.—

He dyes.
Pro.
Take in the body: oh Lycinius,
The misery that we are left to suffer;
No pitty shall find us,

Licini.
Our lives deserve none:
Would I were chain'd againe to slavery,
With any hope of life.

Pro.
A quiet grave,
Or a consumption now Lycinius,
That we might be too poore to kill, were something.

Lycini.
Let's make our best use, we have mony Proculus,
And if that cannot save us, we have swords.

Pro.
Yes, but we dare not dye.

Lyc.
I had forgot that:
There's other countries then.

Pro.
But the same hate still,
Of what we are.

Lyci.
Think any thing, Ile follow—

Enter a Messenger.
Pro.
How now what newes?

Mess.
Shift for your selves, ye are lost else:
The Souldier is in armes for great Æcius,
And their Lievtenant generall that stopt 'em,
Cut in a thousand peeces: they march hither:
Beside, the women of the Towne have murderd
Phorba, and loose Ardelia, Cæsars she-Bawdes.

Lyci.
Then here's no staying Proculus?

Pro.
O Cæsar,
That we had never known thy lusts: Lets fly,
And where we find no womans man lets dye.—

Exeunt