University of Virginia Library

Scena tertia.

Picinino in his study, with a Deaths-head and a Watch.
Pic.
This is the summe, I can but be like this.
After the prouder threatning of the French,
After the sure impression of Disease,
I can but be like this: then let me thinke
What losse I haue when I am made like this:
This feares no French: a peece of ordinance
Can breake, but not astonish this, no force
Can draw a teare, no not a sigh from hence:
And can it be a losse to be like this?
O Death! why art thou fear'd? why doe we thinke
Tis such a horrid terror Not to Be?
Why, not to be, is, not to be a wretch,
Why, not to be, is, to be like the heau'ns,
Not to be subiect to the pow'r of Fate:
O there's no happinesse but not to be.
to the Watch.
But thou discloser of the stealth of Time,
Let me inquire how much is worne away
Of this sad houre: the halfe? O speedy time!
That mak'st vs feele, ere we can thinke of Age,
Ere we can take an order for the Graue.

Enter Iul.
Iul.
What? deepe in meditation, noble friend?
So studious of your Watch? alas good man,
Thou needst not this faint helpe to guesse at Fate,
These siluer haires are watch enough for thee.

Pic.
I onely looke how many minutes hence
Millan expires.

Jul.
O swift Arithmeticke,
To summe by minutes our sad Duchies age.

Pic.
This Watch doth teach reall Philosophy,
There is no tutor to this actiue brasse:
What is a Kingdome, but a larger watch?
Wound vp by Fate vnto some scores of yeares,
And then it falls: good Iuliano list,
Harke how it beats, how strongly, and how fast,
Beyond the motion of a nimble pulse:
Who would not thinke this were a lasting noise?
And yet it ends: after some date of houres
The watch will be as silent as the head.
O tis our folly, folly, my deare friend,
Because we see th'actiuity of States,
To flatter them with false Eternity:
Why longer then the dweller lasts the house?
Why should the world be alwaies, and not man?
Sure kingdomes are as mortall as their Kings,
And stay but longer for their period.

Iul.
I feare our Climactericall is now:
When all professions turne to souldier,
To that curst Art that thriues by Destiny.
The sithes are straighted into swords, and th'Earth
Being not wounded is vndone, where once
Stood buildings, which an humble Poetry
Without too bold a swelling might giue Kings:
Whole Mines vndone to beautifie one roofe,
Now onely Desolation dwels: weake griefe,
To say Corne growes, where once a City stood,
That sustenance is there where no men are,
This is a trifling, and halfe misery:
Our Lands now onely furnish vs with Graues,
Can hide vs, but not feed vs; we would thinke
Our Cities standing, though the buildings fell,
If we had no griefe, but Fertility.

Pic.
But on what strength does Sforza still subsist
Against so powrefull foes?

Iul.
The Emperor
Has sold him some few Almaines, but his hopes
Chiefly depend vpon the valiant Swizze,
Who were the chiefe in his depression.

Pic.
Has his grosse braine not learnt the danger yet
Of bringing strangers into Italy?
He call'd the French to Naples, who haue now
Found Millan too: O what's the difference
Betwixt a mercenary and a foe?
But that we kill one for his outrages,
And hyre the other? Juliano, I
May feele misfortune, but will neuer buy.

Ex.