Hum.
O vita, misero longa, felici brevis!
Eheu malorum fames extremum malum!
Long have I lived in this desert cave,
With eating haws and miserable roots,
Devouring leaves and beastly excrements.
Caves were my beds, and stones my pillowberes,
Fear was my sleep, and horror was my dream;
For still, methought, at every boisterous blast,
Now Locrine comes, now, Humber, thou must die;
So that for fear and hunger Humber's mind
Can never rest, but always trembling stands.

O, what Danubius now may quench my thirst?
What Euphrates, what light-foot Euripus
May now allay the fury of that heat,
Which raging in my entrails eats me up?
You ghastly devils of the ninefold Styx,
You damned ghosts of joyless Acheron,
You mournful souls, vex'd in Abyssus' vaults,
You coal-black devils of Avernus' pond,
Come, with your flesh-hooks rent my famish'd arms,
These arms that have sustain'd their master's life.
Come, with your razors rip my bowels up,
With your sharp fire-forks crack my starved bones:
Use me as you will, so Humber may not live.
Accursed gods, that rule the starry poles,
Accursed Jove, king of the cursed gods,
Cast down your lightning on poor Humber's head,
That I may leave this death-like life of mine!
What! hear you not? and shall not Humber die?
Nay I will die, though all the gods say nay.
And, gentle Aby, take my troubled corpse^{9 note},
Take it, and keep it from all mortal eyes,
That none may say, when I have lost my breath,
The very floods conspir'd 'gainst Humber's death* ^note. [Flings himself into the river^{1 note}








.

Enter the Ghost of Albanact.

Ghost.
En cædem sequitur cædes, in cæde quiesco.
Humber is dead. Joy heavens, leap earth, dance trees!
Now may'st thou reach thy apples, Tantalus,
And with them feed thy hunger-bitten limbs.
Now Sisyphus, leave the tumbling of thy rock* ^note