nor no hope of end To our infamous, monstrous slaveries. Gape, earth, and let the fiends infernal view A 276 hell as hopeless and as full of fear As are the blasted banks of Erebus, Where shaking ghosts with ever-howling groans Hover about the ugly ferryman, To get a passage to Elysium! 277 Why should we live?—O, wretches, beggars, slaves!—      Why live we, Bajazeth, and build up nests So high within the region of the air, By living long in this oppression, That all the world will see and laugh to scorn The former triumphs of our mightiness In this obscure infernal servitude? BAJAZETH. O life, more loathsome to my vexed thoughts 278 Than noisome parbreak 279 of the Stygian snakes, Which fills the nooks of hell with standing air, Infecting all the ghosts with cureless griefs! O dreary engines of my loathed sight, That see my crown, my honour, and my name Thrust under yoke and thraldom of a thief, Why feed ye still on day's accursed beams, And sink not quite into my tortur'd soul? You see my wife, my queen, and emperess, Brought up and propped by the hand of Fame, Queen of fifteen contributory queens, Now thrown to rooms of black abjection, 280 Smeared with blots of basest drudgery, And villainess 281 to shame, disdain, and misery.      Accursed Bajazeth, whose words of ruth, 282 That would with pity cheer Zabina's heart, And make our souls resolve 283 in ceaseless tears, Sharp hunger bites upon and gripes the root From whence the issues of my thoughts do break! O poor Zabina! O my queen, my queen! Fetch me some water for my burning breast, To cool and comfort me with longer date, That, in the shorten'd sequel of my life, I may pour forth my soul into thine arms With words of love, whose moaning intercourse Hath hitherto been stay'd with wrath and hate Of our expressless bann'd 284 inflictions. ZABINA. Sweet Bajazeth, I will prolong thy life As long as any blood or spark of breath Can quench or cool the torments of my grief.            [Exit.]       BAJAZETH. Now, Bajazeth, abridge thy baneful days, And beat the 285 brains out of thy conquer'd head, Since other means are all forbidden me, That may be ministers of my decay. O highest lamp of ever-living 286 Jove, Accursed day, infected with my griefs, Hide now thy stained face in endless night, And shut the windows of the lightsome heavens! Let ugly Darkness with her rusty coach, Engirt with tempests, wrapt in pitchy clouds, Smother the earth with never-fading mists, And let her horses from their nostrils breathe Rebellious 

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