Hen. The jest! torment me not.

And you'll confess, since you began confession (A thing I should have died ere I had thought on) Y'have marr'd the fashion of your affection utterly, your own wicked counsel, there you paid me;

In

a bell

Enter AURELIUS and UTHER, with Soldiers;
VORTIGER and HORSUS above.

Uth. My lord, the castle is so fortified-
Aur. Let wild-fire ruin it,

That his destruction may appear to him
In the figure of Heaven's wrath at the last day,
That murderer of our brother. Hence, away,
I'll send my heart no peace till it be consum'd.
Uth. There he appears again-behold, my lord.
Aur. Oh that the zealous fire on my soul's altar,
To the high birth of virtue consecrated,
Would fit me with a lightning now to blast him,
Even as I look upon him.

Uth. Good, my lord,

Your anger is too noble, and too precious
To waste itself on guilt so foul as his;
Let ruin work her will.

Vor. Begirt all round?

Hor. All, all, my lord, 'tis folly to make doubt of it;

You question things that horror long ago
Resolv'd us on.

Vor. Give me leave, Horsus, though

Hor. Do what you will, sir, question them again,

I'll tell them to you.

Vor. Not so, sir,

I will not have them told again.

Hor. It rests then.

Vor. That's an ill word put in, when thy heart knows

There is no rest at all, but torment making.

Hor. True, my heart finds it; that sits weeping blood now

For poor Roxena's safety. You'll confess, my lord,

You were bound to't, as men in honesty, That vitiate virgins, to give dowries to them; My faith was pure before to a faithful woman. Hor. My lord, my counsel

Vor. Why, I'll be judg'd by these

That knit death in their brows, and hold me now
Not worth the acception of a flattery,
Most of whose faces smil'd when I smil'd once-
My lords!

Uth. Reply not, brother.

Vor. Seeds of scorn,

I mind you not, I speak to them alone
Whose force makes yours a power, which else

were none.

Shew me the main food of your hate; which

cannot be

Doubly beset with enemies, wrath and fire?
It comes nearer--rivers and fountains, fall.
It sucks away my breath: I cannot give
A curse to sin, and hear 't out while I live.
Help, help!
[She falls.
Vor. Burn, burn, now I can tend thee.
Take time with her in torment; call her life
Afar off to thee: dry up her strumpet-blood,
And hardly parch the skin. Let one heat
strangle her;

Another fetch her to her sense again;
And the worst pain be only her reviving.
Follow her eternally-Oh mystical harlot !
Thou hast thy full due. Whom lust crown'd
queen before,

Flames crown her now a most triumphant whore.
And that end crown them all!

In

dur. Our peace is full

[He falls.

yon usurper's fall; nor have I known A judgment meet more fearfully.

Here, take this ring, deliver the good queen, And those grave pledges of her murder'd honour, (Her worthy father, and her noble uncle.) How now! the meaning of these sounds? Enter HENGIST, DEVONSHIRE, STAFFORD, and Soldiers.

Hen. The consumer has been here; she's gone, she's lost,

In glowing cinders now lie all my joys.
The headlong fortune of my rash captivity
Strikes not so deep a wound into my hopes
As thy dear loss.

Aur. Her father and her uncle!
1st Lord. They are indeed, my lord.
Aur. Part of my wishes.

What fortunate power has prevented me,
And ere my love came, brought them victory?
1st Lord. My wonder sticks in Hengist, king

of Kent.

The rankness of whose insolence and treason Grew to such height, 'twas arm'd to bid you battle:

Whom, as our fame's redemption, on our knees We present captive.

Aur. Had it needed reason,

You richly came provided. I understood
Not your
deserts till now.-My honoured lords,
Is this that German Saxon, whose least thirst
Could not be satisfied under a province?

Hen. Had but my fate directed this bold arm To thy life, the whole kingdom had been mine, That was my hope's great aim. I have a thirst Could never have been full quench'd under all. The whole must do 't, or nothing.

Aur. A strange draught!

And what a little ground shall death now teach you

To be content withal?

Hen. Why let it then;

For none else can: y' have nam'd the only way
To limit my ambition: a full cure
For all my fading hopes and sickly fears;
Nor shall it be less welcome to me now,
Than a fresh acquisition would have been
Unto my new-built kingdoms. Life to me
('Less it be glorious) is a misery.

[out; Aur. That pleasure we will do you-Lead him And when we have inflicted our just doom On his usurping head, it will become Our pious care to see this realm secur'd From the convulsions it hath long endur'd. [Exeunt omnes.

2

SCENE I.

A place being provided for the Devils' Consistory, enter St DUNSTAN with his beads, book, and crosier-staff, &c.

St Dun. Envy, that always waits on virtue's train,

And tears the graves of quiet sleeping souls,
Hath brought me, after many hundred years,
To shew myself again upon the earth.
Know then (who list) that I am English born,
My name is Dunstan; whilst I liv'd with men,
Chief primate of the holy English church:
I was begotten in West Saxony:

My father's name was Heorston, my mother's
Cinifred,

Endowed with my merit's legacy,

I flourish'd in the reign of seven great kings;
The first was Adelstane, whose niece Elfleda,
Malicious tongues reported, I defiled:
Next him came Edmond, then Edred, and
Edwin:

And after him reign'd Edgar, a great prince,
But full of many crimes, which I restrain'd;
Edward his son, and lastly Egelred.
With all these kings was I in high esteem,
And kept both them and all the land in awe ;
And, had I liv'd, the Danes had never boasted
Their then beginning conquest of this land.
Yet some accuse me for a conjurer,
By reason of those many miracles

Which Heaven for holy life endowed me with;
But whoso looks into the golden legend,
(That sacred register of holy saints)
Shall find me by the pope canoniz'd,
And happily the cause of this report
Might rise by reason of a vision,
Which I beheld in great king Edgar's days,
Being that time abbot of Glassenbury,
Which (for it was a matter of some worth)
I did make known to few, until this day:

But now I purpose that the world shall see
How much those slanderers have wronged me;
Nor will I trouble you with courts and kings;
Or drive a feigned battle out of breath;
Or keep a coil myself upon the stage;
But think you see me in my secret cell,
Ara'd with my portass, bidding of my beads.
But on a sudden I'm o'ercome with sleep!
If aught ensue, watch you, for Dunstan dreams.
He layeth him down to sleep; lightning and
thunder; the curtains drawn on a sudden;
PLUTO, MINOS, LACUS, RHADAMANTHUS, set
in counsel; before them MALBECCO's Ghost
guarded with Furies.

Flu. You ever-dreaded judges of black hell,
Grimm Minos, acus, and Rhadamant,
Lords of Cocytus, Styx, and Phlegiton,
Princes of darkness, Plato's ministers,
Know that the greatness of his present cause
Hath made ourself in person sit as judge,
To hear the arraignment of Malbecco's ghost.
Stand forth, thou ghastly pattern of despair,
And to this powerful synod tell thy tale,
That we may hear if thou canst justly say
Thou wert not author of thy own decay.

4 Mal. Infernal Jove, great prince of Tartary,
With humble reverence poor Malbecco speaks;
Still trembling with the fatal memory
Of his so late concluded tragedy.

I was (with thanks to your great bounty) bred
A wealthy lord, whilst that I liv'd on earth;
And so might have continu'd to this day,
Had not that plague of mankind fall'n on me›
For I (poor man) join'd woe unto my name,
By choosing out a woman for my wife.
A wife? a curse ordained for the world.
Fair Helena! fair she was indeed,
But foully stain'd with inward wickedness.
I kept her bravely, and I lov'd her dear;
But that dear love did cost my life, and all.

S. P.

printed by Caxton in folio, 1483.