all adventure, Charites (being called for) came in, and with
manly courage and bold force stood over the sleeping murderer, saying:
Behold the faithfull companion of my husband, behold this valiant
hunter; behold me deere spouse, this is the hand which shed my bloud,
this is the heart which hath devised so many subtill meanes to worke my
destruction, these be the eies whom I have ill pleased, behold now they
foreshew their owne destinie: sleepe carelesse, dreame that thou art in
the hands of the mercifull, for I will not hurt thee with thy sword or
any other weapon: God forbid that I should slay thee as thou slewest my
husband, but thy eies shall faile thee, and thou shalt see no more, then
that whereof thou dreamest: Thou shalt thinke the death of thine enemie
more sweet then thy life: Thou shalt see no light, thou shalt lacke the
aide of a leader, thou shalt not have me as thou hopest, thou shalt have
no delight of my marriage, thou shalt not die, and yet living thou shalt
have no joy, but wander betweene light and darknesse as an unsure Image:
thou shalt seeke for the hand that pricked out thine eies, yet shalt
thou not know of whom thou shouldest complaine: I will make sacrifice
with the bloud of thine eies upon the grave of my husband. But what
gainest thou through my delay? Perhaps thou dreamest that thou embracest
me in thy armes: leave off the darknesse of sleepe and awake thou to
receive a penall deprivation of thy sight, lift up thy face, regard thy
vengeance and evill fortune, reckon thy miserie; so pleaseth thine eies
to a chast woman, that thou shall have blindnesse to thy companion, and
an everlasting remorse of thy miserable conscience. When she had spoken
these words, she tooke a great needle from her head and pricked out both
his eies: which done, she by and by caught the naked sword which her
husband Lepolemus accustomed to weare, and ranne throughout all the
Citie like a mad woman towards the Sepulchre of her husband. Then all
we of the house, with all the Citizens, ranne incontinently after her
to take the sword out of her hand, but she clasping about the tombe of
Lepolemus, kept us off with her naked weapon, and when she perceived
that every one of us wept and lamented, she spake in this sort: I pray
you my friends weepe not, nor lament for me, for I have revenged the
death of my husband, I have punished deservedly the wicked breaker
of our marriage; now is it time to seeke out my sweet Lepolemus, and