Bast.
Here's a good world; knew you of this fair work?
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
Of mercy, (if thou didst this deed of death)
Art thou damn'd, Hubert.

Hub.
Do but hear me, Sir.

Bast.
Ha? I'll tell thee what,
Thou'rt damn'd so black—nay nothing is so black;

Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer.
There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

Hub.
Upon my soul—

Bast.
If thou didst but consent
To this most cruel act, do but despair;
And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
That ever spider twisted from her womb
Will strangle thee; a rush will be a beam
To hang thee on: or would'st thou drown thy self,
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.
I do suspect thee very grievously.

Hub.
If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
Let hell want pains enough to torture me.
I left him well.

Bast.
Go, bear him in thine arms.
I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way
Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
How easie dost thou take all England up,
From forth this morsel of dead royalty?
The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
Is fled to heav'n, and England now is left
To tug and scramble, and to part by th'teeth
The un-owed interest of proud-swelling state.
Now for the bare-pickt bone of majesty,
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest,
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace.
Now pow'rs from home and discontent at home
Meet in one line: and vast confusion waits

(As doth a Raven on a sick, fall'n beast)
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
Now happy he, whose cloak and ^{f note}cincture can
Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,
And follow me with speed; I'll to the King;
A thousand businesses are brief at hand,
And heav'n it self doth frown upon the land. [Exeunt.

Previous section