Classic Poem

[ACT V.]

Enter the Presenter before the last Dumb-show, and speaketh .

Ill be to him that so much ill bethinks;
And ill betide this foul ambitious Moor,
Whose wily trains with smoothest course of speech
Have tied and tangled in a dangerous war
The fierce and manly King of Portugal.
Now throw the heavens forth their lightning-flames,
And thunder over Afric's fatal fields:
Blood will have blood, foul murder scape no scourge.

Enter Fame , like an angel, and hangs the crowns upon a tree .

At last descendeth Fame, as Iris [did]
To finish fainting Dido's dying life;
Fame from her stately bower doth descend,
And on the tree, as fruit new-ripe to fall,
Placeth the crowns of these unhappy kings,
That erst she kept in eye of all the world.
Now fiery stars, and streaming comets blaze,
That threat the earth and princes of the same.
Fire, fire about the axletree of heaven
Whirls round, and from the foot of Cassiope,
In fatal hour, consumes these fatal crowns.

Down falls the diadem of Portugal.

The crowns of Barbary and kingdoms fall
Ay me, that kingdoms may not stable stand
And now approaching near the dismal day,
The bloody day wherein the battles join,
Monday the fourth of August, seventy-eight,
The sun shines wholly on the parched earth,
The brightest planet in the highest heaven.
The heathens, eager bent against their foe,
Give onset with great ordnance to the war;
The Christians with great noise of cannon-shot
Sound angry onsets to the enemy.
Give ear, and hear how war begins his song
With dreadful clamours, noise, and trumpets' sound.