University of Virginia Library

Scena 3.

Enter Ferrara solus.
Ferr.
Feare and suspition, two night-waking charmes,
Banish all sleepe, suggesting in my thoughts,
Falsehood and treason: I am slow and dull,
Discending like the earth: yet I know not what
Prickes like the thorne of Philomel at my breast:
And tels me there is daunger in my rest.
Sometime I thinke of Iulia: and that thought
Presents her loues in a liuing shape.
When not remembring death, I ope my armes,
To tye a Gordian knot about her waste
And bid her welcome: but that empty claspe,
Deluding my false hopes with nought but ayre,
Makes my blood angry, and doth turne my passion
To seeke a subiect fit for my reuenge:
And then I euer thinke of Borgias,
As if my loue were wrongd by Borgias.
A groning within.
What meanes these suddaine tumults in mine eares?
Saue me eternall guard of innocence:
Treason, treason, villaine thou shalt buy my blood.

Eunuchus rusheth in: he kils him: Enter Timoclea.
Eun.
O spare me.

Fer.
Distraction of my braine, what shape art thou?

Timo.
Iulias

Exit.
Ferr.
Iulia: hah: stay tis gone: did I see?
Or did my feare and fancy frame this forme?
Villaine thou art some instrument of falshood
Confesse thy treason.

Eun.
You are secure: that shape that nam'd your loue
Pursued me through the court, till for my rescue
Feare made me vse this violence at your chamber.
O I am slaine, and dye a causeles death,
I nere liud false to thee: all thou hast gaind
Is that my soule dyes cleare and leaues thine staind.

He dyes.
Ferr.
To doe thee good my soule shall say as much
And witnes it before the Iudge of soules,
When at the generall Barre we meete together.
But I must vse thy shape: this night Ile walke
Hid in thy habit from discerning eyes:
Ile pry about the Court, perhaps I may
Once more see Iulias ghost, and learne her wrongs,
By them to ayme a right in my reuenge.
My hand first dyes the scene: and it shall fill
The stage with vengeance: Nemesis shall wade
Vp to the chin and bath herselfe in blood,
The dangling snakes that hang about her necke
Shall sucke like Lethe of the purple gore
Shed for my Iulias death.
Ile feast the rauenous people of the aire,
And fill the hungrie wolues with slaughtered men.
The streets of Florence like the streets of Rome
(When death & Sylla raingd) shall run with blood.
Their swelling channels with a scarlet tide
Shall wash the stores, and for my Iulias death
The angry gods of wrath shall smile as pleasd
To se me so reuengd: Eunuchu, thy death
Is but a prologue to induce a plot,
Maist thou be blessed, th'art not worth my hate
I must reach higher, and on thy disguise,
Lay but the ground-worke for reuenge to rise.

Exit.