nder pleasant baits his hook;
But ye beware, it will be hard to hold
Your greedy minds, but if ye wisely look
What sly snake lurks under those flowers gay.
But ye mistrust some cloudy smokes, and fear
A stormy shower after so fair a day:
Ye may repent, and buy your pleasure dear;
For seldom-times is Cupid wont to send
"Unto an idle love a joyful end."

FINIS ACTUS. _G. Al_.

ACT IV., SCENE 1.

_Before this act_ MEGAERA _riseth out of hell, with the
other furies_, ALECTO _and_ TYSIPHONE _dancing an hellish
round; which done, she saith_:

MEGAERA. Sisters, begone, bequeath the rest to me,
That yet belongs unto this tragedy.
[_The two furies depart down_.
Vengeance and death from forth the deepest hell
I bring the cursed house, where Gismund dwells.
Sent from the grisly god, that holds his reign
In Tartar's ugly realm, where Pelops' sire
(Who with his own son's flesh, whom he had slain,
Did feast the gods) with famine hath his hire;
To gape and catch at flying fruits in vain,
And yielding waters to his gasping throat;
Where stormy Aeol's son with endless pain
Rolls up the rock; where Tytius hath his lot
To feed the gripe that gnaws his growing heart;[68]
Where proud Ixion, whirled on the wheel,
Pursues himself; where due deserved smart
The damned ghosts in burning flame do feel--
From thence I mount: thither the winged god,
Nephew to Atlas that upholds the sky,
Of late down from the earth with golden rod
To Stygian ferry Salerne souls did guide,
And made report how Love, that lordly boy,
Highly disdaining his renown's decay,
Slipp'd down from heaven, and filled with fickle joy
Gismunda's heart, and made her throw away
Chasteness of life to her immortal shame:
Minding to show, by proof of her foul end,
Some terror unto those that scorn his name.
Black Pluto (that once found Cupid his friend
In winning Ceres' daughter, queen of hells;)
And Parthie, moved by the grieved ghost
Of her late husband, that in Tartar dwells,
Who pray'd due pains for her, that thus hath lost
All care of him and of her chastity.
The senate then of hell, by grave advice
Of Minos, Aeac, and of Radamant,
Commands me draw this hateful air, and rise
Above the earth, with dole and death to daunt
The pride and present joys, wherewith these two
Feed their disdained hearts; which now to do,
Behold I come with instruments of death.
This stinging snake, which is of hate and wrath,
I'll fix upon