University of Virginia Library

SCENA QVARTA.

Enter Antonio solus, in fooles habit.
Ant.
I heauen, thou maist, thou maist omnipotence.
What vermine bred of putrifacted slime,
Shall dare to expostulate with thy decrees!
O heauen, thou maist indeede: she was all thine,
All heauenly, I did but humbly beg
To borrowe her of thee a little time.
Thou gau'st her me, as some weake breasted dame
Giueth her infant, puts it out to nurse;
And when it once goes high-lone, takes it back.
She was my vitall blood, and yet, and yet,
Ile not blaspheame, Looke here, beholde,
Antonio puts off his cap, and lyeth iust vpon his back.
I turne my prostrate breast vpon thy face,
And vent a heauing sigh. O heare but this;


I am a poore poore Orphant; a weake, weak childe,
The wrack of splitted fortune, the very Ouze,
The quick sand that deuours all miserie.
Beholde the valiant'st creature that doth breath.
For all this, I dare liue, and I will liue,
Onely to numme some others cursed bloode,
With the dead palsie of like misery.
Then death, like to a stifling Incubus,
Lie on my bosome. Loe sir, I am sped.
My breast is Golgotha, graue for the deade.