_Sago._ By this fresh blood, that from thy manly breast I cowardly sluiced[300] out, I would in hell, From this sad minute till[301] the day of doom, To re-inspire vain Æsculapius, And fill these crimson conduits, feel the fire 20 Due to the damnèd and this horrid fact![302]
_Med._ Upon my soul, brave Spaniard, I believe thee.
_Sago._ O cease to weep in blood, or teach me too! The bubbling wounds[303] do murmur for revenge. This is the end of lust, where men may see, Murder's the shadow of adultery, And follows it to death.
_Med._ But, hopeful lord, we do commiserate Thy bewitch'd fortunes, a free pardon give On this thy true and noble penitence. 30 Withal we make thee colonel of our horse, Levied against the proud Venetian state.
_Sago._ Medina, I thank thee not; give life to him That sits with Risus and the full-cheek'd Bacchus, The rich and mighty monarchs of the earth; To me life is ten times more terrible Than death can be to me. O, break, my breast! _Divines_[304] _and dying men may talk of hell, But in my heart the several torments dwell._ What Tanais, Nilus, or what Tigris[305] swift, 40 What Rhenus ferier[306] than the cataract,-- Although[307] Neptolis cold, the waves of all the Northern Sea, Should flow for ever through these guilty hands, Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be!
_Mes._ The countess comes, my lord, unto the death;
But so unwillingly and unprepared, That she is rather forced, thinking the sum She sent to you of twenty thousand pound Would have assurèd her of life.
_Med._ O Heavens! 50 Is she not weary yet of lust and life? Had it been Croesus' wealth, she should have died; Her goods by law are all confiscate to us, And die she shall: her lust Would make a slaughter-house of Italy. Ere she attain'd to four-and-twenty years, Three earls, one viscount, and this valiant Spaniard, Are known to ha' been the fuel to her lust; Besides her secret lovers, which charitably I judge to have been but few, but some they were. 60 Here is a glass wherein to view her soul, A noble but unfortunate gentleman, Cropp'd by her hand, as some rude passenger Doth pluck the tender roses in the bud! Murder and lust, the least of which is death, And hath she yet any false hope of breath?