her father's heart full fast,
And into hers this other will I cast,
Whose rankling venom shall infect them so
With envious wrath and with recureless woe,
Each shall be other's plague and overthrow.
"Furies must aid, when men surcease to know
Their gods: and hell sends forth revenging pain
On those whom shame from sin cannot restrain."

ACT IV., SCENE 2.

MEGAERA _entereth into the palace, and meeteth with_
TANCRED _coming out of_ GISMUNDA'S _chamber with_
RENUCHIO _and_ JULIO, _upon whom she throweth her
snake_.[69]

TANCRED. Gods! are ye guides of justice and revenge?
O thou great Thunderer! dost thou behold
With watchful eyes the subtle 'scapes of men
Harden'd in shame, sear'd up in the desire
Of their own lusts? why then dost thou withhold
The blast of thy revenge? why dost thou grant
Such liberty, such lewd occasion
To execute their shameless villainy?
Thou, thou art cause of all this open wrong,
Thou, that forbear'st thy vengeance all too long.
If thou spare them, rain then upon my head
The fulness of thy plagues with deadly ire,
To reave this ruthful soul, who all too sore
Burns in the wrathful torments of revenge.
O earth, the mother of each living wight,
Open thy womb, devour this wither'd corpse.
And thou, O hell (if other hell there be
Than that I feel), receive my soul to thee.
O daughter, daughter (wherefore do I grace
Her with so kind a name?) O thou fond girl,
The shameful ruin of thy father's house,
Is this my hoped joy? Is this the stay
Must glad my grief-ful years that waste away?
For life, which first thou didst receive from me,
Ten thousand deaths shall I receive by thee.
For all the joys I did repose in thee.
Which I, fond man, did settle in thy sight,
Is this thy recompense--that I must see
The thing so shameful and so villanous:
That would to God this earth had swallowed
This worthless burthen into lowest deeps,
Rather than I, accursed, had beheld
The sight that hourly massacres my life?
O whither, whither fly'st thou forth, my soul?
O whither wand'reth my tormented mind?
Those pains, that make the miser[70] glad of death,
Have seiz'd on me, and yet I cannot have
What villains may command--a speedy death.
Whom shall I first accuse for this outrage?
That God that guideth all, and guideth so
This damned deed? Shall I blaspheme their names--
The gods, the authors of this spectacle?
Or shall I justly curse that cruel star,
Whose influence assign'd this desti