Classic Poem

[Enter Gwendoline, Thrasimachus, Madan, and
the soldiers.]

GWENDOLINE.
You gentle winds, that with your modest blasts
Pass through the circuit of the heavenly vault,
Enter the clouds unto the throne of Jove,
And there bear my prayers to his all hearing ears.
For Locrine hath forsaken Gwendoline,
And learnt to love proud Humber's concubine.
You happy sprites, that in the concave sky
With pleasant joy enjoy your sweetest love,
Shed forth those tears with me, which then you shed,
When first you would your ladies to your wills.
Those tears are fittest for my woeful case,
Since Locrine shuns my nothing pleasant face.
Blush heavens, blush sun, and hide thy shining beams;
Shadow thy radiant locks in gloomy clouds;
Deny thy cheerful light unto the world,
Where nothing reigns but falsehood and deceit.
What said I? falsehood? Aye, that filthy crime,
For Locrine hath forsaken Gwendoline.
Behold the heavens do wail for Gwendoline.
The shining sun doth blush for Gwendoline.
The liquid air doth weep for Gwendoline.
The very ground doth groan for Gwendoline.
Aye, they are milder than the Brittain king,
For he rejecteth luckless Gwendoline.

THRASIMACHUS.
Sister, complaints are bootless in this cause;
This open wrong must have an open plague,
This plague must be repaid with grievous war,
This war must finish with Locrine's death;
His death will soon extinguish our complaints.

GWENDOLINE.
O no, his death will more augment my woes.
He was my husband, brave Thrasimachus,
More dear to me than the apple of mine eye,
Nor can I find in heart to work his scathe.

THRASIMACHUS.
Madame, if not your proper injuries,
Nor my exile, can move you to revenge,
Think on our father Corineius' words;
His words to us stands always for a law.
Should Locrine live that caused my father's death?
Should Locrine live that now divorceth you?
The heavens, the earth, the air, the fire reclaims,
And then why should all we deny the same?

GWENDOLINE.
Then henceforth, farewell womanish complaints!
All childish pity henceforth, then, farewell!
But, cursed Locrine, look unto thy self,
For Nemesis, the mistress of revenge,
Sits armed at all points on our dismal blades;
And cursed Estrild, that inflamed his heart,
Shall, if I live, die a reproachful death.

MADAN.
Mother, though nature makes me to lament
My luckless father's froward lechery,
Yet, for he wrongs my Lady mother thus,
I, if I could, my self would work his death.

THRASIMACHUS.
See, madame, see, the desire of revenge
Is in the children of a tender age!
Forward, brave soldiers, into Mertia,
Where we shall brave the coward to his face.

[Exeunt.]