University of Virginia Library

Scena prima.

Sforza, Ascanio, Caiazzo, Sanseuerin, a Boy.
Sf.
We leaue it to your care, Sanseuerin;
But see the night grows old, good rest my Lords.
Why stayst thou, my Aurelio? good boy
Ile see no bed to night; then goe, yet stay,
If they haue not escap'd thy memory
Sing me those verses which you made of sleepe.
Song.

Sf.
Pretty Philosophy! goe boy, goe sleepe,
Ex.
Enioy the good thou sing'st—this boy can sleepe,
Sleepe quietly, and sing himselfe asleepe:
Making that gentle Rest vnto his Song.
But Ile goe read: what haue we here? a Map?
Welcome thou liuely picture of the world:
Now Ile peruse my large Dominions,
What a vast compasse they doe fill in thee?
How Poe is wearied with his tedious course,
But running onely through our Continent?
Ha! where is Poe? which is our Continent?
If that my eyes deceiue me not, I see
My Empire is compriz'd within my nayle:
What a poore point Ime Master of? a blot!
Made by the swiftest tincture of the Inke?
But what did this point cost me? this small blot?
My innocence, my conscience, my soule;
I kill'd a Nephew, to obtaine this blot,
O horrid purchase! all this toyle, this guilt
For so despis'd a Nothing? let me see,
Here is no roome to sit, to walke, to stand,
In all my land I cannot place my selfe,
Nor be at all, where I would be the Duke.
But the sad tapers doe deny their light,
And stranger fire supplyes an horrid day
Of Lightning: help vs, heau'n, make vs confess,
Ascendit vmb. Galeaz.
There is a Power in your Mercy too.

Vmb.
Is then a time, when all our time is spent
That thou of vs shouldst feare a punishment?
O happy purchas'd priuacy! to haue
The free possession of an humble graue.
Wu't poyson vs from that? why starest thou so?
We doe not shunne a kinsman, but a foe:
Beleeue it Sforza, I am a neer ghost,
Nor is our kindred by thy murther lost:
Rayse thy cheer'd looke, see Galeazzo here:
Traitor, and coward, does thy faint breast feare
The shadow, which is made? or is a soule
Vncloath'd of Earth, more abled to controle
Him that vncloth'd it! Then I see to dye
Is more to right, then suffer iniury.
Know I am still thy Prince, and if that man
In such a Miracle of villaine can
At last be sound, in this thy manhood show
That thou darst heare thy doome of ouerthrow.

Sf.
Villaine be dumbe: we are too tamely mild
That dead men dare affront vs, assume flesh,
And we will make a second ghost of thee.

Vmb.
Thy threats are Ayre, like vs: but to goe on
In curse; now that thy wisdome hopes vpon
A ioy in vnmolested royalty,
Now shalt thou haue onely a certainty
Of high vnhappinesse, and be vndone,
Losing thy rule no better then twas wonne.
Fetters shall bind thy legs, not Crownes thy head,
And as a curst beast is prohibited
From common shew; so thou, of beasts the worst,
Must die imprison'd, and, what's most accurst,
Obey, to death, all comforts tane away,
Rob'd of the light, and the sweet heau'n of day:
Then flatter not thy miseries, to know
Is not to hinder Fate, fall shalt thou low,
Sinke to despaire, despaire to nought, and dy,
Then lower fall, and then as low as I.
Descendit vmb.

Sf.
Sinke into earth, and doe not reach thy hell,
Propheticke bubble: might thy threats proue true,
For we could wish the death that thou foretell'st,
That our feirce shadow might pursue thee still,
To fright thy Ghost to nothing: O weake Heau'ns!
Was this a terror for a man? to send
A Bug-beare, fram'd out of the empty Ayre.
This does confirme, not fright vs: this might be
A terror to my picture, not to me.