th retorqued [275] thoughts,
And have no hope to end our ecstasies.

ZABINA. Then is there left no Mahomet, no God,
No fiend, no fortune, 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 [