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Ill may they fare that wrought your mortal ends!

       [Enter Gwendoline, Thrasimachus, Madan, and the soldiers.]

       GWENDOLINE.

       Search, soldiers, search, find Locrine and his love;

       Find the proud strumpet, Humber’s concubine,

       That I may change those her so pleasing looks

       To pale and ignominious aspect.

       Find me the issue of their cursed love,

       Find me young Sabren, Locrine’s only joy,

       That I may glut my mind with lukewarm blood,

       Swiftly distilling from the bastard’s breast.

       My father’s ghost still haunts me for revenge,

       Crying, Revenge my overhastened death.

       My brother’s exile and mine own divorce

       Banish remorse clean from my brazen heart,

       All mercy from mine adamantine breasts.

       THRASIMACHUS.

       Nor doth thy husband, lovely Gwendoline,

       That wonted was to guide our stailess steps,

       Enjoy this light; see where he murdered lies

       By luckless lot and froward frowning fate;

       And by him lies his lovely paramour,

       Fair Estrild, gored with a dismal sword;—

       And as it seems, both murdered by themselves,

       Clasping each other in their feebled arms,

       With loving zeal, as if for company

       Their uncontented corps were yet content

       To pass foul Stix in Charon’s ferry-boat.

       GWENDOLINE.

       And hath proud Estrild then prevented me?

       Hath she escaped Gwendoline’s wrath

       Violently, by cutting off her life?

       Would God she had the monstrous Hydra’s lives,

       That every hour she might have died a death

       Worse than the swing of old Ixion’s wheel;

       And every hour revive to die again,

       As Titius, bound to housles Caucason,

       Doth feed the substance of his own mishap,

       And every day for want of food doth die,

       And every night doth live, again to die.

       But stay! methinks I hear some fainting voice,

       Mournfully weeping for their luckless death.

       SABREN.

       You mountain nymphs, which in these deserts reign,

       Cease off your hasty chase of savage beasts;

       Prepare to see a heart oppressed with care;

       Address your ears to hear a mournful style!

       No humane strength, no work can work my weal,

       Care in my heart so tyrant like doth deal.

       You Dryads and lightfoot Satyri,

       You gracious Faries which, at evening tide,

       Your closets leave with heavenly beauty stored,

       And on your shoulders spread your golden locks;

       You savage bears in caves and darkened dens,

       Come wail with me the martial Locrine’s death;

       Come mourn with me for beauteous Estrild’s death.

       Ah! loving parents, little do you know

       What sorrow Sabren suffers for your thrall.

       GWENDOLINE.

       But may this be, and is it possible?

       Lives Sabren yet to expiate my wrath?

       Fortune, I thank thee for this courtesy;

       And let me never see one prosperous hour,

       If Sabren die not a reproachful death.

       SABREN.

       Hard hearted death, that, when the wretched call,

       Art furthest off, and seldom hearest at all;

       But, in the midst of fortune’s good success,

       Uncalled comes, and sheers our life in twain:

       When will that hour, that blessed hour, draw nigh,

       When poor distressed Sabren may be gone?

       Sweet Atropos, cut off my fatal thread!

       What art thou death? shall not poor Sabren die?

       GWENDOLINE.

       [Taking her by the chin shall say thus.]

       Yes, damsel, yes; Sabren shall surely die,

       Though all the world should seek to save her life;

       And not a common death shall Sabren die,

       But after strange and grievous punishments

       Shortly inflicted upon thy bastard’s head,

       Thou shalt be cast into the cursed streams,

       And feed the fishes with thy tender flesh.

       SABREN.

       And thinkst thou then, thou cruel homicide,

       That these thy deeds shall be unpunished?

       No, traitor, no; the gods will venge these wrongs,

       The fiends of hell will mark these injuries.

       Never shall these blood-sucking masty curs,

       Bring wretched Sabren to her latest home;

       For I my self, in spite of thee and thine,

       Mean to abridge my former destinies,

       And that which Locrine’s sword could not perform,

       This pleasant stream shall present bring to pass.

       [She drowneth her self.]

       GWENDOLINE.

       One mischief follows on another’s neck.

       Who would have thought so young a maid as she

       With such a courage would have sought her death?

       And for because this River was the place

       Where little Sabren resolutely died,

       Sabren for ever shall this same be called.

       And as for Locrine, our deceased spouse,

       Because he was the son of mighty Brute,

       To whom we owe our country, lives and goods,

       He shall be buried in a stately tomb,

       Close by his aged father Brutus’ bones,

       With such great pomp and great solemnity,

       As well beseems so brave a prince as he.

       Let Estrild lie without the shallow vaults,

       Without the honour due unto the dead,

       Because she was the author of this war.

       Retire, brave followers, unto Troynouant,

       Where we shall celebrate these exequies,

       And place young Locrine in his father’s tomb.

       [Exeunt omnes.]

       [Enter Ate.]

       ATE.

       Lo here the end of lawless treachery,

       Of usurpation and ambitious pride;

       And they that for their private amours dare

      

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