The crystal springs, whose taste illuminates

Refined eyes with an eternal sight,

Like tried silver, run through Paradise,

To entertain divine Zenocrate.

The cherubins and holy seraphins,

That sing and play before the King of kings,
Use all their voices and their instruments
To entertain divine Zenocrate.

And in this sweet and curious harmony,
The God that tunes this music to our souls,
Holds out his hand in highest majesty
To entertain divine Zenocrate.

Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts
Up to the palace of th' empyreal heaven,
That this my life may be as short to me
As are the days of sweet Zenocrate.-
Physicians, will no1 physic do her good?

Phys. My lord, your majesty shall soon perceive :
An if she pass this fit, the worst is past.

Tamb. Tell me, how fares my fair Zenocrate?

Zeno. I fare, my lord, as other empresses,

That, when this frail and 2 transitory flesh
Hath sucked the measure of that vital air

That feeds the body with his dated health,

Wane with enforced and necessary change.

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40

Tamb. May never such a change transform my love,

In whose sweet being I repose my life,

1 So 4to.-8vo. "not."
2 So 4to.-8vo. "a."

step!

Whose heavenly presence, beautified with health,
Gives light to Phoebus and the fixèd stars!
Whose absence makes1 the sun and moon as dark
As when, opposed in one diameter,

Their spheres are mounted on the serpent's head,
Or else descended to his winding train.

50

4) prophesy.

Live still, my love, and so conserve my life,

Or, dying, be the author2 of my death!

Zeno. Live still, my lord! O, let my sovereign

live!

And sooner let the fiery element

Dissolve and make your kingdom in the sky,

Than this base earth should shroud your majesty :
For should I but suspect your death by mine,
The comfort of my future happiness,

And hope to meet your highness in the heavens,
Turned to despair, would break my wretched breast,
And fury would confound my present rest.
But let me die, my love; yet let me die;
With love and patience let your true love die!
Your grief and fury hurts my second life.-
Yet let me kiss my lord before I die,
And let me die with kissing of my lord.

But since my life is lengthened yet a while,
Let me take leave of these my loving sons,
And of my lords, whose true nobility
Have merited my latest memory.

Sweet sons, farewell! In death resemble me,

1 So 4to.-8vo. "make."
2 So 4to.-8vo. "anchor."

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70

And in your lives your father's excellence.1
Some music, and my fit will cease, my lord.

[They call for music.

Tamb. Proud fury, and intolerable fit,
That dares torment the body of my love,
And Scourge the
of the immortal God:
Scourge
Now are those spheres, where Cupid used to sit,
Wounding the world with wonder and with love,
Sadly supplied with pale and ghastly death,
Whose darts do pierce the centre of my soul.
Her sacred beauty hath enchanted heaven;
And had she lived before the siege of Troy,
Helen (whose beauty summoned Greece to arms,
And drew a thousand ships to Tenedos)

Had not been named in Homer's Iliads;
Her name had been in every line he wrote.

Or had those wanton poets, for whose birth
Old Rome was proud, but gazed a while on her,
Nor Lesbia nor Corinna had been named ;
Zenocrate had been the argument

Of every epigram or elegy.

What is she dead?

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90

[The music sounds.-Zenocrate dies. Techelles, draw thy sword

And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,

And we descend into the infernal vaults,

To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair,2

2 44 This is very like the raving of old Titus Andronicus :—
'I'll dive into the infernal lake below

And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.""-Broughton.

And throw them in the triple moat of hell,
For taking hence my fair Zenocrate.

Casane and Theridamas, to arms!
Raise cavalieros 1 higher than the clouds,

And with the cannon break the frame of heaven;
Batter the shining palace of the sun,

And shiver all the starry firmament,

For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence,

Meaning to make her stately queen of heaven.

What God soever holds thee in his arms,

Giving thee nectar and ambrosia,

Behold me here, divine Zenocrate,

Raving, impatient, desperate, and mad,
Breaking my steelèd lance, with which I burst.
The rusty beams of Janus' temple-doors,
Letting out Death and tyrannising War,
To march with me under this bloody flag!
And if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the Great,
Come down from heaven, and live with me again!
Ther. Ah, good my lord, be patient; she is dead,
And all this raging cannot make her live.

If words might serve, our voice hath rent the air;
If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth;

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120

If grief, our murdered hearts have strained forth blood;
Nothing prevails,2 for she is dead, my lord.

1 "Cavalier is the word still used for a mound for cannon, elevated above the rest of the works of a fortress, as a horseman is raised above a foot-soldier."-Cunningham.

2 Avails. So Peele (in Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes) :—

་་

"O king, the knight is fled and gone, pursuit prevaileth nought."

Tamb. Cots love

Tamb. For she is dead! Thy words do pierce my

soul !

Ah, sweet Theridamas! say so no more;

Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives,

And feed my mind that dies for want of her.

Where'er her soul be, thou [To the body] shalt stay with

me,

Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh,

Not lapt in lead, but in a sheet of gold,
And till I die thou shalt not be interred,
Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus'
We both will rest and have our epitaph
Writ in as many several languages

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword.
This cursed town will I consume with fire,
Because this place bereaved me of my love:
The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned;
And here will I set up her statua,1

And march about it with my mourning camp
Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.

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140

[The scene closes.

1 Old copies give "stature," but the metre requires a trisyllable.