Book Description

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ACT THE FOURTH. SCENE I. The Bridge on the Scheldt restored to its original strength. Parma?Torai.va. Torai.va. The river sealed against them as before, They can't hold out much longer Dogs and cats? The most offensive tribes of household vermin, Are luxuries in Antwerp. PARMA. Pr'ythee, spare Description of the haggard wretchedness Stalking in conquest's van ?The ruddy slaughter That garnishes the battle, is a feast Which Death, in kingly purple vestured, spreads For guests to whom his presence is familiar; But Famine's horrid banquetings resemble The gorging of the hunger-maddened wolf, Among the shepherd's decimated flocks These hideous scenes we must behold, when victors? Meanwhile let distance veil them. I am not Of the same nest as my forerunner, Alva, Who scented like a carrion crow, afar, The charnel steam of human desolation? Some less sepulchral theme? TORALVA. Then shall it be The fair enchantress of your Spanish-love dream? Cassilda, the incomparable ? Your prize, By royal right of capture, soon she'll be. Parma. Of a forgotten purpose you remind me? There is a Flemish officer?Teligny ? To you a prisoner?I'll pay his ransom, And barter him with the burghers for old Nunez. Toralva. A subtle stroke of suitorship?to woo The daughter through the sire PARMA. The guess is shrewd, And shows thy subtlety?a shaft well aimed, Yet wide of the mark, Toralva. Did not The notice brought by Nunez save my life ? And though he were a dog, am I not bound To care for his ? The fellow's base enough?; Unless he's grossly libelled, he'd enact The part of Trojan Pandar, in a play Of which the heroine and the hero Should be, Giambelli's spouse, and the commander...