Tragicall Death of Sophonisba, The - Stanzas 71ÔÇô80

Nor doth this breath-bereauing monster keepe,
A certaine diet, or appointed date,
For sometime they who most securely sleepe,
VVho doe on nothing lesse then death conceit,
There life then hangs into most dangerous state:
For why vnwares he oftimes comes to many,
But being called for, seldome comes to any.

And when he comes, request, nor yet intreat,
With this remorselesse catife nought availes,
For when he finds aproach the fatall date:
The execution neuer in him failes,
So many kinde of waies this theefe assailes,
That where so e're we goe, we walke, or fare,
Head-longs we run the post into his snare.

Ten thousand diuers meanes he has, whereby
He do's destroy this little world of man,
Sometime by naturall sicknesse makes him lie,
Till Atrop's cut the thred her sister span:
Sometime by sword, by pestilence, or than
By cruell famine, which of all is worst,
Poore filly man to quit his breath is forst.

He sometime stirs vp brother against brother
To cruell iarres, like earth-borne Cadmus brood,
And which is more vnnaturall, makes the mother
T' inwombe againe her child for want of food,
And sometime makes within the raging flood,
The monstrous great Balena to intombe,
Poore wretched man within his hollow wombe.

And in this last age, mongst so many hunders,
Of diuers kindes of instruments he hath,
The deuill ha's moulded one engine that thunders
Destruction, ruine, horror, terrour, death;
This mercy-wanting frame, this birth of wrath,
Not onely brai's to ashes, flesh and bones,
But ruins mountaines, hils and towers of stones

Yet notwithstanding all those diuerse waies,
He hath reserued secret meanes, whereby,
To kill whom neither sword nor famine slaies,
Nor naturall death, nor pestilence makes die:
Nor that is swallowed by the raging sea
With powerfull poison secret and vnseene,
He can dispatch, as he did serue this Queene.

For now the post, who, as you heard, was gone,
From Massinissa so his iourney hied
That by the swift pac'd horses of the Sunne,
Were in their places to his Charriot tied.
He Sophonisbae's palace had espied,
And euen as from her chamber shee did goe,
He doth his letters and his credit shew.

But he no sooner doth approach her fight,
When to her alwaies harme-misdeeming minde,
Takes apprehension all things went not right:
Whether t'were that her Genius so deuin'd,
Or that her thoughts suspiciously enclin'd,
Marking the letters date and his great speed,
Coniectures some sad matter to succeed.

Yet doth she all that lies in her to couer,
This suddaine feare that so appales her heart,
And to that end ask's for his Lord her louer:
In what good health he was, and in what part:
And with that word her stagring tongue did thwart,
For the remembrance in what part he was,
Inforc'd her minde to sadder thoughts giue place.

Then with a houering silence still she stands,
And gazes on the ground with staring eyes,
The simple swain to such abrupt demaunds,
Ere he could answere long amazed staies;
At last with bashfull tongue he thus replies,
Your royall husband, Madam, and my Lord,
Rests in good health, as I can well record.
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