Onae.  Oh, I woo’d crowne him With thanks, praise, gold, and tender of my life.

Bal.  Shall I bee that Germane Fencer[195] and beat all the knocking boyes before me? shall I kill him?

Onae.  There’s musick in the tongue that dares but speak it.

Bal.  That fiddle then is in me; this arme can doo’t by ponyard, poyson, or pistoll; but shall I doo’t indeed?

Onae.  One step to humane blisse is sweet revenge.

Bal.  Stay; what made you love him?

Onae.  His most goodly shape Married to royall virtues of his mind.

Bal.  Yet now you would divorce all that goodnesse; and why? for a little letchery of revenge? it’s a lye:  the Burre that stickes in your throat is a throane:  let him out of his messe of Kingdomes cut out but one, and lay Sicilia, Arragon, Naples or any else upon your trencher, and you’ll prayse Bastard[196] for the sweetest wine in the world and call for another quart of it.  ’Tis not because the man has left you but because you are not the woman you would be, that mads you:  a shee-cuckold is an untameable monster.

Onae.  Monster of men thou art:  thou bloudy villaine,
Traytor to him who never injur’d thee,
Dost thou professe Armes and art bound in honour
To stand up like a brazen wall to guard
Thy King and Country, and wood’st thou ruine both?

Bal.  You spurre me on too’t.

Onae.  True;
Worse am I then the horrid’st fiend in hell
To murder him whom once I lov’d too well: 
For tho I could runne mad, and teare my haire,
And kill that godlesse man that turn’d me vile;
Though I am cheated by a perjurous Prince
Who has done wickednesse at which even heaven
Shakes when the Sunne beholds it; O yet I’de rather
Ten thousand poyson’d ponyards stab’d my brest
Then one should touch his:  bloudy slave!  I’le play
My selfe the Hangman and will Butcher thee
If thou but prick’st his finger.

Bal.  Saist thou me so? give me thy goll[197], thou art a noble girle:  I did play the Devils part and roare in a feigned voyce, but I am the honestest Devill that ever spet fire.  I would not drinke that infernall draught of a kings blood, to goe reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in Diamonds.

Onae.  Art thou not counterfeit?

Bal.  Now, by my skarres, I am not.

Onae.  I’le call thee honest Souldier, then, and woo thee To be an often Visitant.

Bal.  Your servant: 
Yet must I be a stone upon a hill,
For tho I doe no good I’le not lye still.

[Exeunt.

Actus Tertius.

SCAENA PRIMA.

Enter Malateste and the Queene.

Mal.  When first you came from Florence wud the world
Had with an universal dire eclipse
Bin overwhelm’d, no more to gaze on day,
That you to Spaine had never found the way,
Here to be lost for ever.