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Another Part of the Forest. | |
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Enter DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA, ravished; her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out. | |
| Dem. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak, | |
| Who ’twas that cut thy tongue and ravish’d thee. | |
| Chi. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so; | 5 |
| An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe. | |
| Dem. See, how with signs and tokens she can scrowl. | |
| Chi. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands. | |
| Dem. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash; | |
| And so let’s leave her to her silent walks. | 10 |
| Chi. An ’twere my case, I should go hang myself. | |
| Dem. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord. [Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON. | |
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Enter MARCUS. | |
| Mar. Who’s this? my niece, that flies away so fast? | |
| Cousin, a word; where is your husband? | 15 |
| If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me! | |
| If I do wake, some planet strike me down, | |
| That I may slumber in eternal sleep! | |
| Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands | |
| Have lopp’d and hew’d and made thy body bare | 20 |
| Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments, | |
| Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in, | |
| And might not gain so great a happiness | |
| As have thy love? Why dost not speak to me? | |
| Alas! a crimson river of warm blood, | 25 |
| Like to a bubbling fountain stirr’d with wind, | |
| Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips, | |
| Coming and going with thy honey breath | |
| But, sure, some Tereus hath deflower’d thee, | |
| And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue. | 30 |
| Ah! now thou turn’st away thy face for shame; | |
| And, notwithstanding all this loss of blood, | |
| As from a conduit with three issuing spouts, | |
| Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face | |
| Blushing to be encounter’d with a cloud. | 35 |
| Shall I speak for thee? shall I say ’tis so? | |
| O! that I knew thy heart; and knew the beast, | |
| That I might rail at him to ease my mind. | |
| Sorrow concealed, like to an oven stopp’d, | |
| Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is. | 40 |
| Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue, | |
| And in a tedious sampler sew’d her mind: | |
| But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee; | |
| A craftier Tereus hast thou met withal, | |
| And he hath cut those pretty fingers off, | 45 |
| That could have better sew’d than Philomel. | |
| O! had the monster seen those lily hands | |
| Tremble, like aspen-leaves, upon a lute, | |
| And make the silken strings delight to kiss them, | |
| He would not, then, have touch’d them for his life; | 50 |
| Or had he heard the heavenly harmony | |
| Which that sweet tongue hath made, | |
| He would have dropp’d his knife, and fell asleep, | |
| As Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s feet. | |
| Come, let us go, and make thy father blind; | 55 |
| For such a sight will blind a father’s eye: | |
| One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads; | |
| What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes? | |
| Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee: | |
| O! could our mourning ease thy misery. [Exeunt. | 60 |
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