White Devil V-6 Fragment Text

Lodovico. O, thou hast been a most prodigious comet,
But I'll cut off your train.- Kill the Moor first.	215
Vittoria. You shall not kill her first. Behold my breast,-
I will be waited on in death; my servant
Shall never go before me.
Gasparo. Are you so brave?
Vittoria. Yes I shall welcome death
As princes do some great ambassadors;	220
I'll meet thy weapon half way
Lodovico. Thou dost tremble;
Methinks fear should dissolve thee into air.
Vittoria. O thou art deceived, I am too true a woman;
Conceit can never kill me. I’ll tell thee what:
I will not in my death shed one base tear,	225
Or if look pale, for want of blood, not fear.
Carlo. Thou art my task, black Fury.
Zanche. I have blood
As red as either of theirs; wilt drink some?
'Tis good for the falling sickness. I am proud
Death cannot alter my complexion,	230
For I shall ne'er look pale.
Lodovico. Strike, strike,
With a joint motion. [They strike]
Vittoria. 'Twas a manly blow.
The next thou giv’st, murder some sucking infant,
And then thou wilt be famous.
Flamineo. O, what blade is't?
A Toledo, or an English fox?	235
I ever thought a cutler could distinguish
The cause of my death, rather than a doctor.
Search my wound deeper; tent it with the steel
That made it.
Vittoria. O my greatest sin lay in my blood.	240
Now my blood pays for't.
Flamineo. Th'art a noble sister-
I love thee now; if woman do breed man
She ought to teach him manhood. Fare thee well.
Know many glorious women that are famed
For masculine virtue have been vicious,	245
Only a happier silence did betide them;
She hath no faults, who hath the art to hide them.
Vittoria. My soul, like to a ship in a black storm,
Is driven I know not whither.
Flamineo. Then cast anchor.
Prosperity doth bewitch men seeming clear,	250
We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves,
Nay, cease to die by dying. Art thou gone,
And thou so near the bottom?-False report
Which says that women vie with the nine Muses	255
For nine tough durable lives. I do not look
Who went before, nor who shall follow me;
No, at myself I will begin and end:
While we look up to heaven we confound
Knowledge with knowledge. O, I am in a mist.	260
Vittoria. O happy they that never saw the court,
Nor ever knew great man but by report. VITTORIA dies.
Flamineo. I recover like a spent taper for a flash
And instantly go out.
Let all that belong to great men remember th'old wives'	265
tradition, to be like the lions i'th'Tower on Candlemas
day, to mourn if the sun shine, for fear of the pitiful
remainder of winter to come.
'Tis well yet there’s some goodness in my death,
My life was a black charnel. I have caught	270
An everlasting cold. I have lost my voice
Most irrevocably. Farewell, glorious villains;
This busy trade of life appears most vain,
Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.
Let no harsh flattering bells resound my knell,	275
Strike thunder, and strike loud to my farewell. Dies.