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. |