ACT II. SCEN. III.

GISMUNDA cometh alone out of her chamber.

Gismunda. By this I hope my aunt hath mov'd the king,

And knows his mind, and makes return to me

To end at once all this perplexity.

Lo, where she stands. Oh! how my trembling heart
In doubtful thoughts panteth within my breast.
For in her message doth rely my smart,

Or the sweet quiet of my troubled mind.

Lucrece. Niece, on the point you lately willed me
To treat of with the king in your behalf,
I brake even now with him so far, till he
In sudden rage of grief, ere I scarce had
My tale out told, pray'd me to stiut my suit,
As that from which his mind abhorred most.
And well I see, his fancy to refute

Is but displeasure gain'd, and labour lost.
So firmly fixed stands his kingly will,
That till his body shall be laid in grave,
He will not part from the desired sight
Of your presence, which silder he should have,
If he had once allied you again

In marriage to any prince or peer.

This is his final resolution.

Gismunda. 24 A resolution that resolves my blood Into the icy drops of Lethe's flood.

24 A resolution that resolves my blood] Resolve has the same meaning as dissolve. So, in Lyly's Euphues and his England, p. 38: "I "could be content to resolve myselfe into teares to rid thee of "trouble."

Christopher Marlow, as quoted in England's Parnassus, 1600, p. 480:

"No molten Christall but a richer mine,

"Even natures rarest alchumie ran there,

"Diamonds resolv'd, and substance more divine,

Through whose bright gliding current might appeare
"A thousand naked Nymphes, whose yvorie shine,
"Enameling the bankes, made them more deare

Lucrece. Therefore my counsel is, you shall not stir,
Nor farther wade in such a case as this:
But since his will is grounded on your love,
And that it lies in you to save or spill

His old fore-wasted age; you ought t' eschew
The thing that grieves so much his crazed heart,
And, in the state you stand, content yourself:
And let this thought appease your troubled mind,
That in your hands relies your father's death,
Or blissful life; and since without your sight
He cannot live, nor can his thoughts endure
Your hope of marriage, you must then relent,
And over-rule these fond affections;

Lest it be said, you wrought your father's end. Gismunda. Dear aunt, I have with patient ears indur'd

The hearing of my father's hard behest;
And since I see, that neither I myself,
Nor your request, can so prevail with him,
Nor any sage advice persuade his mind
To grant me my desire, in willing wise
I must submit me unto his command,
And frame my heart to serve his majesty.
And (as I may) to drive away the thoughts
That diversly distract my passions,
Which as I can, I'll labour to subdue,
But sore I fear, I shall but toil in vain ;
Wherein (good aunt) I must desire your pain.
Lucrece. What lies in me by comfort or advice,
I shall discharge with all humility.

[Gismunda and Lucrece depart into Gismunda's
chamber.

Chorus 1. Who marks our former times and present

years,

What we are now, and looks what we have been,
He cannot but lament with bitter tears

"Then ever was that glorious Pallas gate,

"Where the day shining sunne in triumph sate."

See also Shakspeare's Hamlet, A. 1. S. 2. and Mr. Steevens's Note on it.

The great decay and change of all women.
For as the world wore on, and waxed old,
25 So virtue quail'd, and vice began to grow.
So that that age, that whilome was of gold,
Is worse than brass, more vile than iron now.
The times were such (that if we aught believe
Of elder days), women examples were
Of rare virtues: Lucrece disdain'd to live
Longer than chast; and boldly, without fear,
Took sharp revenge on her inforced heart,
With her own hands: for that it not withstood
The wanton will, but yielded to the force

Of proud Tarquin, who bought her fame with blood. Chorus 2. Queen Artemissa thought an heap of stones,

(Although they were the wonder of that age)
A worthless grave, wherein to rest the bones
Of her dear lord, but with bold courage

She drank his heart, and made her lovely breast
His tomb, and failed not of wifely faith,
Of promis'd love, and of her bound behest,
Until she ended had her days by death.
Ulysses' wife (such was her stedfastness)
Abode his slow return whole twenty years:
And spent her youthful days in pensiveness,
Bathing her widow's bed with brinish tears.
Portia,

Chorus 3. The stout daughter of Cato, Brutus' wife,
When she had heard his death, did not desire
Longer to live and lacking use of knife,
(A most strange thing) ended her life by fire,
And eat hot burning coals. O worthy dame!
O virtues worthy of eternal praise!

25 So virtue quail'd] To quail, is to languish, to sink into dejection. So, in Churchyard's Challenge, 24:

"Where malice sowes, the seedes of wicked waies,

"Both honor quailes, and credit crackes with all:

"Of noblest men, and such as fears no fall."

See also Mr. Steevens's Notes on the First Part of Henry IV. A. 4. S. 2. and Cymbeline, A. 5. S. 5.

The flood of Lethe cannot wash out thy fame,
To others great reproach, shame, and dispraise.

Chorus 4. Rare are those virtues now in women's mind!

Where shall we seek such jewels passing strange ?
Scarce can you now among a thousand find
One woman stedfast: all delight in change.
Mark but this princess, that lamented here
Of late so sore her noble husband's death,
And thought to live alone without a pheer;
Behold how soon she changed hath that breath!
I think those ladies that have liv'd tofore,
A mirror and a glass to womenkind;

By those their virtues they did set such store,
That unto us they none bequeath'd behind;
Else in so many years we might have seen
As virtuous as ever they have been.

Chorus 1. Yet let not us maidens condemn our kind,

Because our virtues are not all so rare:

For we may freshly yet record in mind,
26 There lives a virgin, one without compare,
Who of all graces hath her heavenly share ;
In whose renown, and for whose happy days,
Let us record this Pæan of her praise.

26 There lives a virgin,] A complement to Queen Elizabeth. S. P.

It was, as Mr. Steevens observes, no uncommon thing to introduce a compliment to Queen Elizabeth in the body of a play. See Midsummer's Night's Dream, A. 2. S. 2. See also Locrine, A. 5. S. last.

27 Per Hen. No.] Probably Henry Noel, younger brother to Sir Andrew Noel, and one of the gentlemen pensioners to Queen Elizabeth, a man, says Wood, of excellent parts, and well skilled in musick. See Fasti, p. 145. A Poem, entitled, Of disdainful Daphne, by M. H. Nowell, is printed in England's Helicon, 1600, 4to. The name of Mr. Henry Nowell also appears in the list of those lords and gentlemen that ran at a tilting before Queen Elizabeth. See "Polyhymnia describing the honourably Triumph at Tylt before her Majestie, on the 17 of November lust past, being the

ACT III. SCEN. I.

Cupid. So, now they feel what lordly Love can do,
That proudly practise to deface his name;

In vain they wrestle with so fierce a foe;

66

Of little sparks arise a blazing flame.

By small occasions Love can kindle heat,

"And waste the oaken breast to cinder dust." Gismund I have enticed to forget

Her widow's weeds, and burn in raging lust:

"first day of the three and thirtieth yeare of her Highnesse raigne. With "Sir Henrie Lea, his resignation of honour at Tylt, to her Majestie, "and received by the right honorable, the Earl of Cumberland." By George Peele, 4to. 1590.

I cannot here let pass unremembered a worthy gentleman, master Henry Noel, brother to the said sir Andrew Noel, one of the gentlemen pensioners * to Queen Elizabeth; a man for personage, parentage, grace, gesture, valour, and many excellent parts, inferior to none of his rank in the court; who, though his lands and livelihoods were but small, having nothing known certain but his annuity and his pension, yet in state, pomp, magnificence and expences, did equalize barons of great worth. If any shall demand whence this proceeded, I must make answer with that Spanish proverb

Aquello qual vienne de arriba ninguno lo pregunta.

That which cometh from above let no one question. This is the man of whom Queen Elizabeth made this enigmatical distich :

The word of denial, and letter of fifty,

Is that gentleman's name that will never be thrifty.

He, being challenged (as I have heard) by an Italian gentleman at the baloune (a kind of play with a great ball tossed with wooden braces upon the arm) used therein such violent motion, and did so overheat his blood, that he fell into a calenture, or burning fever; and thereof died, Feb. 26, 1596, and was, by her majesty's appointment, buried ni the abbey church of Westminster, in the chapel of St. Andrew.

Benton in Nicholas's Leicestershire, vol. III. p. 249. Henry Noel was the second son of Sir Edward Noel, of Dalby, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William Hopton, of , Shropshire, relict of Sir John Peryent, Knt. Ibid. 254. O. G.

* See Peck's Life of Milton, p. 225, for the Gentleman Pensioners.