University of Virginia Library

SCÆNA 2.

Plangus Solus.
Pl.
I can no longer hold, tis not ith' power
Of fate to make me less; bid me out-stare
The Sun, out-run a falling star,
Feed upon flames, or pocket up the clouds,
And so burn up a land with plagues, the son
Of flaming heat, for want of rain
To cool the yawning chaps of the dry earth;
Or if there be a task mad Juno's hate
Could not invent to plague poor Hercules,
Impose it upon me, I'le do't without a grudge:
Condemn me to a Gally, load me with chains,
Whose weight may so keep me down, I can scarce swell
Under my burden to let out a sigh. I would o'recome all
Were there a Deity that men adore
And throw their prayers upon, that would lend
Just ears to humane wishes,
I would grow great by being punished, and be
A plague my self, so that when people curst
Beyond invention, to their prodigious Rhetorick
This Epiphonema should be added,
Become as miserable as wretched Plangus.
I have been jaded, basely jaded, by those tame fools
Honour and piety, and now am wake't into revenge,
Breathing forth ruine to those first spread
This drowsiness upon my soul.
A woman! O heaven! had I been gull'd
By any thing had born the name of man!
But this will look so sordidly in story,
I shall be grown, discourse for Grooms and Foot-boyes,
Be ballated, and sung to filthy tunes.
But do I talk still? well I must leave
This patience: And now Ephorbas
Since thou hast wrought me to this temper,
Ile be reveng'd with as much skill as thou
Hast injur'd me. Ile to these presently,
For my hour-glass shall not return ten minutes longer,
And having kill'd my self before thee,
Ile pluck my heart out, tell thee all
My innocence, and leave thee hem'd in with
A despair thicker then Ægyptian darkness.
I know thou canst not choose but dye for grief,
But here he is.