SCENE III-A Room in FLORIO'S House.

Enter GIOVANNI.

Gio. Busy opinion is an idle fool,
That, as a school-rod keeps a child in awe,
Frights th' unexperienced temper of the mind:
So did it me; who, ere my precious sister

Was married, thought all taste of love would die
In such a contract; but I find no change
Of pleasure in this formal law of sports.
She is still one to me, and every kiss
As sweet and as delicious as the first

I reap'd, when yet the privilege of youth
Entitled her a virgin. O the glory
Of two united hearts like hers and mine!
Let poring book-men dream of other worlds;
My world, and all of happiness, is here,
And I'd not change it for the best to come:
A life of pleasure is Elysium.

I know't; and 'tis all written in her blood.

She writes I know not what. Death! I'll not fear
An armed thunderbolt aim'd at my heart.
She writes, we are discover'd-pox on dreams
Of low faint-hearted cowardice !-discover'd?
The devil we are! which way is't possible?
Are we grown traitors to our own delights?
Confusion take such dotage! 'tis but forged;
This is your peevish chattering, weak old man !—
Now, sir, what news bring you?

Friar. O, do not go; this feast, I'll gage my Is but a plot to train you to your ruin; Be ruled, you shall not go.

Gio. Not go! stood death

[life,

Threatening his armies of confounding plagues,
With hosts of dangers hot as blazing stars,
I would be there; not go! yes, and resolve
To strike as deep in slaughter as they all;
For I will go.

Friar. Go where thou wilt ;-I see
The wildness of thy fate draws to an end,
To a bad fearful end :-I must not stay

To know thy fall; back to Bononia I
With speed will haste, and shun this coming blow.
Parma, farewell; would I had never known thee,
Or aught of thine! Well, young man, since no
prayer

Can make thee safe, I leave thee to despair. [Exit.
Go. Despair, or tortures of a thousand hells,
All's one to me; I have set up my rest.
Now, now, work serious thoughts on baneful plots;
Be all a man, my soul; let not the curse
Of old prescription rend from me the gall
Of courage, which enrolls a glorious death :

If I must totter like a well-grown oak,
Some under-shrubs shall in my weighty fall
Be crush'd to splits; with me they all shall perish!
[Exit.

SCENE IV.-A Hall in SORANZO'S House. Enter SORANZO, VASQUES with Masks, and Banditti. Sor. You will not fail, or shrink in the attempt? Vas. I will undertake for their parts; be sure, my masters, to be bloody enough, and as unmerciful as if you were preying upon a rich booty on the very mountains of Liguria: for your pardons, trust to my lord; but for reward, you shall trust none but your own pockets.

Banditti. We'll make a murder.

Sor. Here's gold,—[Gives them money]—here's more; want nothing; what you do Is noble, and an act of brave revenge : I'll make you rich, banditti, and all free. Omnes. Liberty! liberty!

Vas. Hold, take every man a vizard; when you are withdrawn, keep as much silence as you can possibly. You know the watch-word, till which be spoken, move not; but when you hear that, rush in like a stormy flood: I need not instruct you in your own profession.

Omnes. No, no, no.

Vas. In, then; your ends are profit and preferment.-Away! [Exeunt Ban. Sor. The guests will all come, Vasques? Vas. Yes, sir. And now let me a little edge your resolution: you see nothing is unready to this great work, but a great mind in you; call to your remembrance your disgraces, your loss of honour, Hippolita's blood, and arm your courage in your own wrongs; so shall you best right those wrongs in vengeance, which you may truly call your own.

Sor. 'Tis well; the less I speak, the more I burn, And blood shall quench that flame.

Vas. Now you begin to turn Italian. This beside; when my young incest-monger comes, he will be sharp set on his old bit give him time enough, let him have your chamber and bed at

liberty; let my hot hare have law ere he be hunted to his death, that, if it be possible, he post to hell in the very act of his damnation.

Sor. It shall be so; and see, as we would wish, He comes himself first

Enter GIOVANNI.

Welcome, my much-lov'd brother; Now I perceive you honour me; you are welcomeBut where's my father?

Gio. With the other states,

Attending on the nuncio of the pope,

To wait upon him hither. How's my sister?
Sor. Like a good housewife, scarcely ready yet;
You were best walk to her chamber.

Gio. If you will.

Sor. I must expect my honourable friends; Good brother, get her forth.

Gio. You are busy, sir.

[Exit.

Vas. Even as the great devil himself would have it! let him go and glut himself in his own destruction-[Flourish.]-Hark, the nuncio is at hand; good sir, be ready to receive him.

Enter Cardinal, FLORIO, DONADO, RICHARDETTO, and Attendants.

Sor. Most reverend lord, this grace hath made
me proud,

That you vouchsafe my house; I ever rest
Your humble servant for this noble favour.

Car. You are our friend, my lord; his Holiness
Shall understand how zealously you honour
Saint Peter's vicar in his substitute:
Our special love to you.

Sor. Signiors, to you

My welcome, and my ever best of thanks
For this so memorable courtesy.
Pleaseth your grace, walk near?

Car. My lord, we come

To celebrate your feast with civil mirth,
As ancient custom teacheth: we will go.

Sor. Attend his grace there. Signiors, keep
your way.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-ANNABELLA's Bed Chamber in the

same.

ANNABELLA, richly dressed, and GIOVANNI.

Gio. What, chang'd so soon! hath your new sprightly lord

Found out a trick in night-games more than we
Could know, in our simplicity?-Ha! is't so?
Or does the fit come on you, to prove treacherous
To your past vows and oaths?

Ann. Why should you jest

At my calamity, without all sense

Of the approaching dangers you are in?

Gio. What dangers half so great as thy revolt? Thou art a faithless sister, else thou know'st, Malice, or any treachery beside,

Would stoop to my bent brows; why, I hold fate
Clasp'd in my fist, and could command the course
Of time's eternal motion, hadst thou been
One thought more steady than an ebbing sea.
And what? you'll now be honest, that's resolv'd?
Ann. Brother, dear brother, know what I have
been,

And know that now there's but a dining-time
'Twixt us and our confusion; let's not waste

But-brother, for the present, what d'ye mean
To free yourself from danger? some way think
How to escape; I'm sure the guests are come.
Gio. Look up, look here; what see you in my
face?

Ann. Distraction and a troubled conscience.
Gio. Death, and a swift repining wrath :-yet
What see you in mine eyes?
[look ;

Ann. Methinks you weep.

Gio. I do indeed; these are the funeral tears
Shed on your grave; these furrow'd up my cheeks
When first I lov'd and knew not how to woo.
Fair Annabella, should I here repeat

The story of my life, we might lose time.
Be record all the spirits of the air,
And all things else that are, that day and night,
Early and late, the tribute which my heart
Hath paid to Annabella's sacred love,

Hath been these tears, which are her mourners now!

Never till now did nature do her best,
To shew a matchless beauty to the world,
Which in an instant, ere it scarce was seen,
The jealous destinies required again.
Pray, Annabella, pray! since we must part,
Go thou, white in thy soul, to fill a throne
Of innocence and sanctity in heaven.
Pray, pray, my sister!

Ann. Then I see your drift—
Ye blessed angels guard me!
Gio. So say I;

With nature for this cunning flattery—
Kiss me again-forgive me.

Ann. With my heart.

Gio. Farewell!

Ann. Will you be gone?

Gio. Be dark, bright sun,

And make this mid-day night, that thy gilt rays
May not behold a deed, will turn their splendour
More sooty than the poets feign their Styx !
One other kiss, my sister.

Ann. What means this?

Gio. To save thy fame, and kill thee in a kiss.
[Stabs her.
Thus die, and die by me, and by my hand!
Revenge is mine; honour doth love command.
Ann. Oh brother, by your hand!
Gio. When thou art dead

I'll give my reasons for't; for to dispute
With thy (even in thy death) most lovely beauty,
Would make me stagger to perform this act
Which I most glory in.

Ann. Forgive him, Heaven-and me my sins! farewell,

Brother unkind, unkind,-mercy, great Heaven! oh-oh!

[Dies.

Gio. She's dead, alas, good soul! The hapless That in her womb received its life from me, [fruit Hath had from me a cradle and a grave. I must not dally-this sad marriage-bed In all her best, bore her alive and dead. Soranzo, thou hast miss'd thy aim in this! I have prevented now thy reaching plots, And kill'd a love, for whose each drop of blood I would have pawn'd my heart. Fair Annabella, How over-glorious art thou in thy wounds, Triumphing over infamy and hate! Shrink not, courageous hand, stand up, my heart, And boldly act my last, and greater part! [The scene closes.

I vow 'tis hers;-this dagger's point plough'd up
Her fruitful womb, and left to me the fame
Of a most glorious executioner.

Flo. Why, madman, art thyself?

Gio. Yes, father, and, that times to come may How, as my fate, I honour'd my revenge, [know, List, father; to your ears I will yield up How much I have deserv'd to be your son.

Flo. What is't thou say'st?

Gio. Nine moons have had their changes, Since I first thoroughly view'd, and truly lov'd, Your daughter and my sister.

Flo. How? Alas, my lords, He is a frantic madman!

Gio. Father, no.

For nine months space, in secret, I enjoy'd
Sweet Annabella's sheets; nine months I lived
A happy monarch of her heart and her;
Soranzo, thou know'st this; thy paler cheek
Bears the confounding print of thy disgrace;
For her too fruitful womb too soon bewray'd
The happy passage of our stolen delights,
And made her mother to a child unborn.
Car. Incestuous villain!

Flo. Oh, his rage belies him.

Gio. It does not, 'tis the oracle of truth; I vow it is so.

Sor. I shall burst with furyBring the strumpet forth!

Vas. I shall, sir.

[Exit.

Gio. Do, sir; have you all no faith To credit yet my triumphs? here I swear By all that you call sacred, by the love I bore my Annabella whilst she lived, These hands have from her bosom ripp'd this

Gio. Be not amazed: if your misgiving hearts Shrink at an idle sight, what bloodless fear

Of coward passion would have seiz'd your senses,
Had you beheld the rape of life and beauty
Which I have acted?-my sister, oh my sister!

For in my fists I bear the twists of life.
Soranzo, see this heart, which was thy wife's;
Thus I exchange it royally for thine. [They fight.
And thus and thus! now brave revenge is mine.

[SORANZO falls.

Vas. I cannot hold any longer. You, sir, are you grown insolent in your butcheries? have at you.

Gio. Come, I am arm'd to meet thee. [They fight. Vas. No! will it not be yet? if this will not, another shall. Not yet? I shall fit you anonVENGEANCE!

The Banditti rush in.

for know, my lord, I am by birth a Spaniard, brought forth my country in my youth by lord Soranzo's father; whom, whilst he lived, I served faithfully; since whose death I have been to this man, as I was to him. What I have done, was duty, and I repent nothing, but that the loss of my life had not ransomed his.

I dare your worst

[They surround and wound him. Oh I can stand no longer; feeble arms, Have you so soon lost strength? [Falls. Vas. Now, you are welcome, sir!-Away, my masters, all is done; shift for yourselves, your reward is your own; shift for yourselves.

Band. Away, away!

Vas. How do you, my lord? [pointing to G10.] how is't?

[Aside to Band. [Exeunt.

See you this?

Sor. Dead; but in death well pleas'd, that I have liv'd

To see my wrongs reveng'd on that black devil.——
O Vasques, to thy bosom let me give

My last of breath; let not that lecher live-
Oh !

[Dies. Vas. The reward of peace and rest be with [you], my ever dearest lord and master!

Gio. Whose hand gave me this wound?

Vas. Mine, sir; I was your first man; have you enough?

Gio. I thank thee, thou hast done for me But what I would have else done on myself. Art sure thy lord is dead?

Vas. Oh impudent slave!

As sure as I am sure to see thee die.

Car. Think on thy life and end, and call for

Car. Say, fellow, know'st thou any yet un[nam'd, Vas. Yes, an old woman, sometime guardian to this murder'd lady.

Car. And what's become of her?

Vas. Within this room she is; whose eyes, after her confession, I caused to be put out, but kept alive, to confirm what from Giovanni's own mouth you have heard. Now, my lord, what I have done you may judge of; and let your own wisdom be a judge in your own reason.

Car. Peace! first this woman, chief in these My sentence is, that forthwith she be ta'en [effects, Out of the city, for example's sake, There to be burnt to ashes.

Don. "Tis most just.

Car. Be it your charge, Donado, see it done. Don. I shall.

Vas. What for me? if death, 'tis welcome; I have been honest to the son, as I was to the father.

[was done

Car. Fellow, for thee, since what thou didst Not for thyself, being no Italian, We banish thee for ever; to depart Within three days: in this we do dispense With grounds of reason, not of thine offence. Vas. 'Tis well; this conquest is mine, and I rejoice that a Spaniard outwent an Italian in revenge. [Exit.

Car. Take up these slaughter'd bodies, see them buried;

And all the gold and jewels, or whatsoever,
Confiscate by the canons of the church,
We seize upon to the Pope's proper use.
Rich. (Discovers himself.) Your grace's par-
don; thus long I liv'd disguised,

To see the effect of pride and lust at once
Brought both to shameful ends.

Car. What! Richardetto, whom we thought for
Don. Sir, was it you-

Rich. Your friend.

Car. We shall have time

[dead?

To talk at large of all; but never yet
Incest and murder have so strangely met.
Of one so young, so rich in nature's store,
Who could not say, 'Tis PITY SHE'S A WHORE?

[Excunt.