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Play, spend, give, riot, waste; do what thou wilt,

So thou wilt hence awhile, and leave me here. [Exit LODOWICK.

Having already, out of a desire and determination to do no possible injustice to the actual merits of this play in the eyes of any reader who might never have gone over the text on which I had to comment, exceeded in no small degree the limits I had intended to impose upon my task in the way of citation, I shall not give so full a transcript from the next and last scene between the Countess and the King.

Edward. Now, my soul’s playfellow! art thou come

To speak the more than heavenly word of yea

To my objection in thy beauteous love?

(Again, this singular use of the word objection in the sense of offer or proposal has no parallel in the plays of Shakespeare.)

Countess. My father on his blessing hath commanded—

Edward. That thou shalt yield to me.

Countess. Ay, dear my liege, your due.

Edward. And that, my dearest love, can be no less

Than right for right, and render {263b} love for love.

Countess. Than wrong for wrong, and endless hate for hate.

But, sith I see your majesty so bent,

That my unwillingness, my husband’s love,

Your high estate, nor no respect respected,

Can be my help, but that your mightiness

Will overbear and awe these dear regards,

I bind my discontent to my content,

And what I would not I’ll compel I will;

Provided that yourself remove those lets

That stand between your highness’ love and mine.

Edward. Name them, fair countess, and by heaven I will.

Countess. It is their lives that stand between our love

That I would have choked up, my sovereign.

Edward. Whose lives, my lady?

Countess. My thrice loving liege,

Your queen, and Salisbury my wedded husband;

Who living have that title in our love

That we can not bestow but by their death.

Edward. Thy opposition {264a} is beyond our law.

Countess. So is your desire: If the law {264b}

Can hinder you to execute the one,

Let it forbid you to attempt the other:

I cannot think you love me as you say

Unless you do make good what you have sworn.

Edward. No more: thy husband and the queen shall die.

Fairer thou art by far than Hero was;

Beardless Leander not so strong as I:

He swom an easy current for his love;

But I will, through a helly spout of blood, {264c}

Arrive that Sestos where my Hero lies.

Countess. Nay, you’ll do more; you’ll make the river too

With their heartbloods that keep our love asunder;

Of which my husband and your wife are twain.

Edward. Thy beauty makes them guilty of their death

And gives in evidence that they shall die;

Upon which verdict I their judge condemn them.

Countess. O perjured beauty! more corrupted judge!

When, to the great star-chamber o’er our heads,

The universal sessions calls to count

This packing evil, we both shall tremble for it.

Edward. What says my fair love? is she resolute?

Countess. Resolute to be dissolved: and, therefore, this:

Keep but thy word, great king, and I am thine.

Stand where thou dost; I’ll part a little from thee;

And see how I will yield me to thy hands.

Here by my side do hang my wedding knives;

Take thou the one, and with it kill thy queen,

And learn by me to find her where she lies;

And with the other I’ll despatch my love,

Which now lies fast asleep within my heart:

When they are gone, then I’ll consent to love.

Such genuinely good wine as this needs no bush. But from this point onwards I can find nothing especially commendable in the remainder of the scene except its brevity. The King of course abjures his purpose, and of course compares the Countess with Lucretia to the disadvantage of the Roman matron; summons his son, Warwick, and the attendant lords; appoints each man his post by sea or land; and starts for Flanders in a duly moral and military state of mind.

Here ends the first part of the play; and with it all possible indication, though never so shadowy, of the possible shadowy presence of Shakespeare. At the opening of the third act we are thrown among a wholly new set of characters and events, all