William Shakespeare - The Complete Apocryphal Works of William Shakespeare - All 17 Rare Plays in One Edition

THRASIMACHUS.

And if Thrasimachus detract the fight,

Either for weakness or for cowardice,

Let him not boast that Brutus was his eame,

Or that brave Corineius was his sire.

LOCRINE.

Then courage, soldiers, first for your safety,

Next for your peace, last for your victory.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE V. The field of battle.

[Sound the alarm. Enter Hubba and Segar at one door, and Corineius at the other.]

CORINEIUS.

Art thou that Humber, prince of fugitives,

That by thy treason slewst young Albanact?

HUBBA.

I am his son that slew young Albanact,

And if thou take not heed, proud Phrigian,

I’ll send thy soul unto the Stigian lake,

There to complain of Humber’s injuries.

CORINEIUS.

You triumph, sir, before the victory,

For Corineius is not so soon slain.

But, cursed Scithians, you shall rue the day

That ere you came into Albania.

So perish thy that envy Brittain’s wealth,

So let them die with endless infamy;

And he that seeks his sovereign’s overthrow,

Would this my club might aggravate his woe.

[Strikes them both down with his club.]

SCENE VI. Another part of the field.

[Enter Humber.]

HUMBER.

Where may I find some desert wilderness,

Where I may breath out curse as I would,

And scare the earth with my condemning voice;

Where every echoes repercussion

May help me to bewail mine overthrow,

And aide me in my sorrowful laments?

Where may I find some hollow uncoth rock,

Where I may damn, condemn, and ban my fill

The heavens, the hell, the earth, the air, the fire,

And utter curses to the concave sky,

Which may infect the airy regions,

And light upon the Brittain Locrine’s head?

You ugly sprites that in Cocitus mourn,

And gnash your teeth with dolorous laments:

You fearful dogs that in black Laethe howl,

And scare the ghosts with your wide open throats:

You ugly ghosts that, flying from these dogs,

Do plunge your selves in Puryflegiton:

Come, all of you, and with your shriking notes

Accompany the Brittains’ conquering host.

Come, fierce Erinnis, horrible with snakes;

Come, ugly Furies, armed with your whips;

You threefold judges of black Tartarus,

And all the army of you hellish fiends,

With new found torments rack proud Locrine’s bones!

O gods, and stars! damned be the gods & stars

That did not drown me in fair Thetis’ plains!

Curst be the sea, that with outrageous waves,

With surging billows did not rive my ships

Against the rocks of high Cerannia,

Or swallow me into her watery gulf!

Would God we had arrived upon the shore

Where Poliphemus and the Cyclops dwell,

Or where the bloody Anthrophagie

With greedy jaws devours the wandering wights!

[Enter the ghost of Albanact.]

But why comes Albanact’s bloody ghost,

To bring a corsive to our miseries?

Is’t not enough to suffer shameful flight,

But we must be tormented now with ghosts,

With apparitions fearful to behold?

GHOST.

Revenge! revenge for blood!

HUMBER.

So nought will satisfy your wandering ghost

But dire revenge, nothing but Humber’s fall,

Because he conquered you in Albany.

Now, by my soul, Humber would be condemned

To Tantal’s hunger or Ixion’s wheel,

Or to the vulture of Prometheus,

Rather than that this murther were undone.

When as I die I’ll drag thy cursed ghost

Through all the rivers of foul Erebus,

Through burning sulphur of the Limbo-lake,

To allay the burning fury of that heat

That rageth in mine everlasting soul.

GHOST.

Vindicta, vindicta.

[Exeunt.]

ACT IV.PROLOGUE.

[Enter Ate as before. Then let there follow Omphale, daughter to the king of Lydia, having a club in her hand, and a lion’s skin on her back, Hercules following with a distaff. Then let Omphale turn about, and taking off her pantole, strike Hercules on the head; then let them depart, Ate remaining, saying:]

Quem non Argolici mandota severa Tyranni,

Non potuit Juno vincere, vicit amor.

Stout Hercules, the mirror of the world,

Son to Alemena and great Jupiter,

After so many conquests won in field,

After so many monsters quelled by force,

Yielded his valiant heart to Omphale,

A fearful woman void of manly strength.

She took the club, and wear the lion’s skin;

He took the wheel, and maidenly gan spin.

So martial Locrine, cheered with victory,

Falleth in love with Humber’s concubine,

And so forgetteth peerless Gwendoline.

His uncle Corineius storms at this,

And forceth Locrine for his grace to sue.

Lo here the sum, the process doth ensue.

[Exit.]

SCENE I. The camp of Locrine.

[Enter Locrine, Camber, Corineius, Assaracus,

Thrasimachus, and the soldiers.]

LOCRINE.

Thus from the furty of Bellona’s broils,

With sound of drum and trumpets’ melody,

The Brittain king returns triumphantly.

The Scithians slain with great occasion

Do equalize the grass in multitude,

And with their blood have stained the streaming brooks,

Offering their bodies and their dearest blood

As sacrifice to Albanactus’ ghost.

Now, cursed Humber, hast thou paid thy due,

For thy deceits and crafty treacheries,

For all thy guiles and damned strategems,

With loss of life, and everduring shame.

Where are thy horses trapped with burnished gold,

Thy trampling coursers ruled with foaming bits?

Where are thy soldiers, strong and numberless,

Thy valiant captains and thy noble peers?

Even as the country clowns with sharpest scythes

Do mow the withered grass from off the earth,

Or as the ploughman with his piercing share

Renteth the bowels of the fertile fields,

And rippeth up the roots with razours keen:

So Locrine with his mighty curtleaxe

Hath cropped off the heads of all thy Huns;

So Locrine’s peers have daunted all thy peers,

And drove thin host unto confusion,

That thou mayest suffer penance for thy fault,