Page:Metamorphoses (Ovid, 1567).djvu/231

I wreake, and do against all right: with death must death be payde:
In mischiefe mischiefe must be heapt: on corse must corse be laide.
Confounded let this wicked house with heaped sorrowes bee.
Shall Oenie joy his happy sonne in honor for to see
And Thestie mourne bereft of his? Nay: better yet it were,
That eche with other companie in mourning you should beare.
Ye brothers Ghostes and soules new dead I wish no more, but you
To feele the solemne obsequies which I prepare as now:
And that mine offring you accept, which dearly I have bought
The yssue of my wretched wombe. Alas, alas what thought
I for to doe? O brothers, I besech you beare with me.
I am his mother: so to doe my hands unable be.
His trespasse I confesse deserves the stopping of his breath:
But yet I doe not like that I be Author of his death.
And shall he then with life and limme, and honor too, scape free?
And vaunting in his good successe the King of Calidon bee?
And you deare soules lie raked up but in a little dust?
I will not surely suffer it. But let the villaine trust
That he shall die, and draw with him to ruine and decay
His Kingdome, Countrie and his Sire that doth upon him stay.
Why where is now the mothers heart and pitie that should raigne
In Parents? and the ten Monthes paines that once I did sustaine?
O would to God thou burned had a babie in this brand,
And that I had not tane it out and quencht it with my hand.
That all this while thou lived hast, my goodnesse is the cause.
And now most justly unto death thine owne desert thee drawes.
Receive the guerdon of thy deede: and render thou agen
Thy twice given life, by bearing first, and secondarly when
I caught this firebrand from the flame: or else come deale with me
As with my brothers, and with them let me entumbed be.
I would, and cannot. What then shall I stand to in this case?
One while my brothers corses seeme to prease before my face
With lively Image of their deaths. Another while my minde
Doth yeelde to pitie, and the name of mother doth me blinde.
Now wo is me. To let you have the upper hand is sinne:
But nerethelesse the upper hand O brothers doe you win.
Condicionly that when that I to comfort you withall