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Mine eyes, too much drown'd, now must feel more

rain.

Car. Fetch officers. [Exit KATH. with servants.
Frank. For whom?

Car. For thee, sirrah! sirrah!

Some knives

have foolish posies upon them, but thine has a villainous one; look!-[shewing the bloody knife]—oh, it is enamelled with the heart-blood of thy hated wife, my beloved daughter! What say'st thou to this evidence? is't not sharp? does't not strike home? thou canst not answer honestly, and without a trembling heart, to this one point, this terrible bloody point.

Win. I beseech you, sir,

Strike him no more; you see he's dead already. Car. Oh, sir! you held his horses; you are as arrant a rogue as he: up go you too.

Frank. As you're a man, throw not upon that

woman

Your loads of tyranny, for she is innocent.

Car. How? how? a woman! Is't grown to a fashion for women in all countries to wear the breeches?

Win. I am not as my disguise speaks me, sir,

his page;

But his first, only wife, his lawful wife.

Car. How? how? more fire i' th' bed-straw !1

More fire i' th' bed-straw!] A proverbial expression for more concealed mischief!

Win. The wrongs which singly fell upon your daughter,

On me are multiplied; she lost a life;

But I an husband and myself must lose,
you call him to a Bar for what he has done.
Car. He has done it then?

If

Win. Yes, 'tis confess'd to me.

Frank. Dost thou betray me?

Win. Oh pardon me, dear heart! I am mad to lose thee,

And know not what I speak; but if thou didst, I must arraign this father for two sins,

Adultery and murder.

Re-enter KATHERINE.

Kath. Sir, they are come.

Car. Arraign me for what thou wilt, all Middlesex knows me better for an honest man, than the middle of a market-place knows thee for an honest woman. Rise, sirrah, and don your tacklings; rig yourself for the gallows, or I'll carry thee thither on my back: your trull shall to the gaol with you; there be as fine Newgate birds as she, that can draw him in: pox on's wounds!

Frank. I have serv'd thee, and my wages now are paid;

Yet my worst punishment shall, I hope, be staid. [Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Witch's Cottage.

Enter Mother SAWYER.

Saw. Still wrong'd by every slave? and not a

dog

Bark in his dame's defence? I am call'd witch,
Yet am myself bewitch'd from doing harm.
Have I giv'n up myself to thy black lust
Thus to be scorn'd? Not see me in three days!
I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come,
Revenge to me is sweeter far than life :2
Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings
Revenge comes flying to me. Oh my best love!
I am on fire, even in the midst of ice,

Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them; come, then, my darling,

If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me

2

Revenge to me is sweeter far than life.

At vindicta bonum vita jucundius.

I have already observed on the incongruous language put into the mouth of our village witch. Either of the poets could have written down to her vulgar estimation, but they appear to entertain some indistinct notion of raising her character. This soliloquy, which is a very fine one, might have been pronounced by a Sagana, or a Canidia.

In some dark cloud; and as I oft have seen
Dragons and serpents in the elements,

Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' th' sea?
Muster up all the monsters from the deep,
And be the ugliest of them; so that my bulch3
Show but his swarth cheek to me, let earth

cleave,

And break from hell, I care not! could I run
Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world,
Up would I blow it all, to find out thee,

Though I lay ruin'd in it.

Not yet come! I must then fall to my old prayer:

Sanctibicetur nomen tuum.

Not yet come! [the] worrying of wolves, biting of mad dogs, the manges, and the

Enter Dog, white.

Dog. How now! whom art thou cursing?

Saw. Thee!

Ha! no, 'tis my black cur I am cursing,

For not attending on me.

Dog. I am that cur.

Saw. Thou liest: hence! come not nigh me.
Dog. Bow, wow!

Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white,

As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love?

3 So that my bulch.] Literally, a calf; sometimes used, as here, as an expression of kindness; but generally indicative of familiarity and contempt.

Dog. I am dogged, [and] list not to tell thee; yet,—to torment thee,—my whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding-sheet.

Saw. Am I near death?

Dog. Yes, if the dog of hell be near thee; when the devil comes to thee as a lamb, have at thy throat!

Saw. Off, cur!

Dog. He has the back of a sheep, but the belly of an otter; devours by sea and land. "Why am I in white?" didst thou not pray to me?

Saw. Yes, thou dissembling hell-hound, Why now in white more than at other times?

Dog. Be blasted with the news! whiteness is day's foot-boy, a forerunner to light, which shows thy old rivell'd face: villainies are stripp'd naked; the witch must be beaten out of her cock-pit.

Saw. Must she? she shall not; thou'rt a lying spirit:

Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce?
I am at peace with none; 'tis the black colour
Or none, which I fight under: I do not like
Thy puritan paleness; glowing furnaces

Are far more hot than they which flame outright.
If thou my old dog art, go and bite such

As I shall set thee on.

Dog. I will not.

Saw. I'll sell myself to twenty thousand fiends, To have thee torn in pieces then.

Dog. Thou canst not; thou art so ripe to fall. into hell, that no more of my kennel will so much as bark at him that hangs thee.

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