This very marble always in distress,
This sprawling miser!  Oh, how was't my lord,
He saw you kneel, and begg'd him, as a boon,
To throw beneath his feet his idle heaps,
And use thee, as his trusty rod of scorn;
Or with a whip of wire, an arrow's point,
Send thee to earth!--And talk of infamous terms
That they might speak on lightly, and in whispers
!!!_Jaf._ Oh! my tormentor!
Is now the tormentor of love?_Bel._ One hour's calm
Could not be bought at such a price: as all
Our happiness is built on crazie grounds,
And totters like a mud-wall, when it shakes,
Is fall'n again beneath its load of envy.
Would I had died before I saw thee poor,
Or had been born a beggar! What old tales
Shall I be charged with, when I'm dead and rotten,
Of such a one disgrac'd, who liv'd with Jaffier!
And sounds will be belch'd out by aged sinners,
Affrighted babes with--Do, you see yon tower?
!!!_

ACT THE FOURTH.SCENE I. A CHAMBER._Enter Jaffier.__Jaf._ I'll think no more on't; but since we must part,
Let whining virtue be its own reward.
Is the state bare I left it?--Oh, the grudging!
What's here!--A handkerchief, and gloves!
He went not this way to the senate-house.
Death, and furies, dogs, damnation!--Courage,
I need thee; let me fix my resolution.
Oh that she were well lost--But who comes here?
My wife too! in the name of misery,
What title has she more to honour than
She gains from poverty!--She comes, she comes--
She melts me all to water with her tears._Jaf._ Oh, Portia, Portia! what a soul was thine!  
_Bel._ That Portia was a woman; and when Brutus,  
Big with the fate of Rome, (heav'n guard thy safety!)  
Conceal'd from her the labours of his mind;  
She let him see her blood was great as his,  
Flow'd from a spring as noble, and a heart  
Fit to partake his troubles as his love.  

 Prev. P 13/31 next