1. The problem
The play now known as The Spanish Tragedy looms large in English Renaissance drama but is also obscure in many aspects. Philip Henslowe, manager and owner of various London theatres, recorded a performance of ‘spanes comodye donne oracioe’ [probably ‘Spanish Comedy of Don Horatio’] on 23 February 1592 (new style) and of ‘Jeronymo’ on 14 March of the same year, both by Strange’s Men (actually an amalgamation of Strange’s and the Admiral’s Men) at the Rose Theatre (Henslowe, 2002, 16-17). The titles refer to Horatio, a Spanish courtier murdered early in the play, and his father Hieronymo, a court official who carries out revenge for his son’s death. ‘Jeronymo’ seems to be the play entered in the Stationers’ Register by Abel Jeffes on 6 October 1592 as ‘the spanish tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellimpera’. No copy of this edition survives, but in December 1592 Edward White was fined for printing the play despite the fact that Abel Jeffes owned it; a single copy of White’s edition survives in the British Library, titled ‘The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Belimperia: with the pitifull death of olde Hieronimo’. The play was reprinted in 1594 from the 1592 White edition, and this was reprinted in turn in 1599. There is no mention of the author in early printed editions, but Thomas Heywood in his Apology for Actors (1612) quotes from the play and assigns it to ‘M. Kid’, and there is no reason to doubt that Thomas Kyd (1558-94) is the author, as parallels with Kyd’s translation Cornelia (1594) confirm.
Records of performances are patchy, but we do know from Henslowe that the play was performed twenty times in the 1591-2 season, and three times in the 1592-3 season, and once in the 1596-7 season. Along with the record of multiple editions, and the extensive allusions to the play through the period, this indicates that it was a popular and influential play, perhaps one of the most popular and influential of all tragedies in the English drama before 1642.
By 1600 the copyright in the play had passed to Thomas Pavier, who brought out an edition in 1602 ‘Newly corrected, amended, and enlarged with new additions of the Painters part, and others, as it hath of late been diuers times acted’. This in its turn formed the basis for further editions in 1603, 1610-11, 1615, 1623, and 1633. There are five new passages in the 1602 edition. The first of 54 lines occurs just after Hieronymo has discovered Horatio’s body and has been joined by his wife Isabella. Hieronymo (departing from the earlier version) loses his senses temporarily and imagines that the body is someone else’s, dressed in Horatio’s clothes, before returning to full consciousness of his loss (‘How strangely had I lost my way to grief’, he says). The second passage (ten lines in all) replaces a two-line speech of Hieronymo’s to Lorenzo with an exchange including a reference to the murder by Hieronymo, one of elaborately forced casualness (‘A thing of nothing, my lord’). The third addition is a long speech by Hieronymo (48 lines) made to two Portuguese met by accident outside Lorenzo’s house. Hieronymo muses on the drawbacks of having a son, the troubles they bring and the foolishness of a parent’s love for them, but then contrasts this with Horatio’s virtues and anticipates retribution for his murderers. The fourth addition is the longest, at 169 lines. Hieronymo talks to servants and to Isabella in a distracted manner and then to a painter who is appealing to him for justice for his own murdered son. Hieronymo wants him to paint the family as they were five years ago and the scene of the murder and his own discovery of the body by torchlight. The last additions come in the final scene and expand on Hieronymo’s original triumphing over his revenge (22 lines become 48, though twelve lines of the earlier version are incorporated in the revision).
The added passages are as anonymous as the play itself in early editions. Henslowe, however, records two payments to Ben Jonson for additions to the play.
Lent vnto mr alleyn the 25 of september 1601 to lend vnto
Bengemen Johnson vpon h[is] writtinge of his adicians in geronymo
the some of xxxxs
Lent vnto bengemy Johnsone at the A poyntment of EAlleyn &
wm birde the 22 of Iune 1602 in earneste of A Boocke called
Richard crockbacke & for new adicyons for Jeronymo the some of xli
(Henslowe, 2002, 182, 203)
There are some difficulties in associating the additions Jonson was paid for with the passages added to the 1602 edition of the play. Most important in terms of external evidence is chronology. There are two parodies of the scene with the painter in the fourth of the passages in Marston’s play Antonio and Mellida, which was printed in 1602, but which is normally dated 1599, on the grounds of a pointed reference to that year (and to Marston’s age in that year) in the same scene which includes the parody (Erne, 2001, 122). Jonson himself has a character allude to a revised version of The Spanish Tragedy in the Praeludium to Cynthia’s Revels (first performance 1600; printed 1601): a playgoer is quoted as declaring that ‘“the old Hieronimo”, as it was first acted, “was the only, best, and judiciously penned play of Europe”’ (166-7). Henslowe had put his symbol ‘ne’ (i.e. ‘new’) next to a performance of The Spanish Tragedy in 1597; it may be that the new passages printed in 1602 had been written by then, and that those written by Jonson were different ones, and are now lost.
Other external evidence is more difficult to assess. Payments of two pounds and then for a part of ten pounds would be unusually high for the 330 lines of the added passages, though not impossible, as others have argued Barton, 1984, 14). It has been seen as improbable that passages added to the acting version would have reached print so quickly ( Spanish Tragedy, ed. Greg, xviii-xix).
All commentators on the problem have agreed that the style of the added passages is unlike that of surviving dramatic writing by Jonson. However, in her 1984 book, Ben Jonson, Dramatist , Anne Barton makes a strong argument for Jonson’s authorship. She considers that the objections to the attribution based on Henslowe’s entry can all be met, and finds that the material in them can be accommodated to Jonson’s known work. She notes that he had always responded with unusual intensity to the deaths of children, and to the father-son relationship in general; she suggests that the play he was called upon to revise, based on a father’s revenge for the murder of his son, ‘activated feelings and responses that were deeply buried in his innermost self’ (16). Parallels in idea and sensibility (if not in style) can be found with Jonson’s well-attributed work, so that parts of the additions seem ‘characteristic’ of Jonson, ‘recognizably akin’ in imagination to conceits from Jonson’s oeuvre (23). David Riggs’s biography of Jonson, published in 1989, accepts these arguments. He notes that all the added passages ‘focus on the allied themes of premature death and parental bereavement, and these were subjects close to Jonson’s heart’ (Riggs, 1989, 87). One of Hieronymo’s speeches in the third addition deploys an hypothetical unwanted son in parallel to his lost son Horatio. Riggs notes that in 1601-2 Jonson had two sons, Ben (aged five) and Joseph (aged two). ‘Hieronymo’s plight’, comments Riggs, ‘suddenly takes on an uncanny resemblance to Jonson’s personal situation’ (89).
Barton’s and Riggs’s views have been influential in reopening the case for Jonson, though in the most recent book on Kyd, Lukas Erne takes them to task for underestimating the external evidence against accepting that the additions Henslowe paid for are the ones that were printed in 1602 (Erne, 2001, 119-23). The other chief candidates have been Webster, as proposed by Charles Lamb (1808, 12), though this has been challenged by the Webster editor F. L. Lucas; Dekker (Crundell, 1933, 1934, 1941), and Shakespeare (Coleridge, 1990, 355; Stevenson, 1968). There is an allusion to Titus Andronicus in the fourth addition, and to Doctor Faustus in the fifth (Erne, 143n.). Erne notes that a scene in Titus which looks like a Shakespearean addition (it first appears in the folio text of the play, 3.2 in modern editions) focuses attention on the play’s hero, his bereavement, and his consequent madness, much like the Spanish Tragedy additions (142n.).
2. A statistical test
2.1 Introduction
The added passages are together some 2668 words, and are long enough for testing by some of the methods of computational stylistics. In a comparison of the case for Jonson’s authorship as against that for Shakespeare’s, I concluded that Shakespeare was the better candidate (Craig, 1992). In the study reported below, a far longer list of authors is tested, and results are described for multiple variable sets.
2.2 Corpus and features counted
Along with the 1602 Additions to The Spanish Tragedy, 75 plays, dated by the Annals of English Drama between 1580 and 1619, and all with reasonably secure attributions to a single author, were prepared in machine-readable form. These are listed in Table 1 (below). In each case an early printed version was used as copytext. Variant spellings of the common words were standardised, and contractions were expanded, so that counts of the commonest words could be made. Some function words were tagged according to grammatical function, so that instances of ‘that’ (for instance) form three distinct word-variables: ‘that’ as conjunction, as relative, and as demonstrative. Largest representations among the writers are of Shakespeare (25 plays), Jonson (12), and Middleton (10). Eighteen other playwrights are included, a number with only a single play. The plays were divided into 2,500 word blocks to match the 2,668 words of the Additions. Remnant blocks were added to the last complete 2,500 word one.
| Author | Title | Date |
| Beaumont | The Burning Pestle | 1607 |
| Cary | Tragedy of Mariam | 1604 |
| Chapman | Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois | 1610 |
| Dekker | Shoemaker's Holiday | 1599 |
| Dekker | Honest Whore | 1604 |
| Fletcher | Valentinian | 1614 |
| Fletcher | Bloody Brother | 1619 |
| Fulke Greville | Mustapha | 1596 |
| Goffe | Amurath | 1618 |
| Greene | Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay | 1589 |
| Greene | Selimus Part 1 | 1592 |
| Heywood | Woman Killed with Kindness | 1603 |
| Jonson | The Case is Altered | 1597 |
| Jonson | Every Man in his Humour | 1598 |
| Jonson | Every Man out of his Humour | 1599 |
| Jonson | Poetaster | 1601 |
| Jonson | Cynthia's Revels | 1601 |
| Jonson | Sejanus | 1603 |
| Jonson | Volpone | 1606 |
| Jonson | Epicoene | 1609 |
| Jonson | Alchemist | 1610 |
| Jonson | Catiline | 1611 |
| Jonson | Bartholomew Fair | 1614 |
| Jonson | The Devil is an Ass | 1616 |
| Kyd | Spanish Tragedy | 1587 |
| Kyd | Cornelia | 1594 |
| Marlowe | Tamburlaine, Part 1 | 1587 |
| Marlowe | Dido and Aeneas | 1587 |
| Marlowe | Jew of Malta | 1589 |
| Marlowe | Faustus | 1592 |
| Marston | Antonio's Revenge | 1600 |
| Marston | Sophonisba | 1605 |
| Middleton | Phoenix | 1604 |
| Middleton | Five Gallants | 1605 |
| Middleton | A Trick to Catch the Old One | 1605 |
| Middleton | Mad World my Masters | 1606 |
| Middleton | Michaelmas Term | 1606 |
| Middleton | A Chaste Maid in Cheapside | 1611 |
| Middleton | No Wit, No Help like a Woman's | 1613 |
| Middleton | Witch | 1615 |
| Middleton | More Dissemblers besides Women | 1615 |
| Middleton | Hengist | 1618 |
| Peele | David and Bathsheba | 1587 |
| Porter | Two Angry Women of Abington | 1588 |
| Rowley | All's Lost by Lust | 1619 |
| Shakespeare | Comedy of Errors | 1592 |
| Shakespeare | Two Gentlemen of Verona | 1593 |
| Shakespeare | Richard III | 1593 |
| Shakespeare | Romeo and Juliet | 1595 |
| Shakespeare | Richard II | 1595 |
| Shakespeare | Love's Labours Lost | 1595 |
| Shakespeare | King John | 1596 |
| Shakespeare | Merchant of Venice | 1596 |
| Shakespeare | Henry IV Part 1 | 1597 |
| Shakespeare | Henry IV Part 2 | 1597 |
| Shakespeare | Julius Caesar | 1599 |
| Shakespeare | Henry V | 1599 |
| Shakespeare | Merry Wives of Windsor | 1600 |
| Shakespeare | Twelfth Night | 1600 |
| Shakespeare | Hamlet | 1601 |
| Shakespeare | All's Well that Ends Well | 1602 |
| Shakespeare | Troilus and Cressida | 1602 |
| Shakespeare | Measure for Measure | 1604 |
| Shakespeare | Othello | 1604 |
| Shakespeare | King Lear | 1605 |
| Shakespeare | Antony and Cleopatra | 1607 |
| Shakespeare | Coriolanus | 1608 |
| Shakespeare | Cymbeline | 1609 |
| Shakespeare | Winter's Tale | 1610 |
| Shakespeare | Tempest | 1611 |
| Tourneur | Atheist's Tragedy | 1609 |
| Webster | White Devil | 1612 |
| Webster | Duchess of Malfi | 1614 |
| Webster | Devil's Law Case | 1617 |
| Wilson | Three Ladies of London | 1581 |
Some 205 word-variables were counted in each block. This list was arrived at by combining a list of the 120 commonest words in a larger corpus of English Renaissance drama with a number of others which complete sets of pronouns and of common auxiliaries. Some word-types were combined where the expansion of contractions and classification into grammatical class provided too many dubious cases. The remaining list was divided into three classes: function words; lexical words with little apparent sensitivity to subject; and lexical words which did appear a priori to be sensitive to subject. The words are listed in Table 2.
Table 2
205 word-variables in groups
Class 1: function words, in order of frequency
Abbreviations: (adj)
adjective (adv) adverb (ad) adverb of degree (am) adverb of manner
(c)
conjunction (d) demonstrative (e) exclamation (i) infinitive (int)
interrogative (n) noun
(p) preposition (pron) pronoun (r) relative (v)
verb
the and I of you+ye* a is my it to(i)
in(p) not to(p) will(verb) me you be he with but (20)
have his this for(p) as him what that(r) all thou are
do that(demonstrative) shall if now we by(p) thy or (40)
that(c) they no(adj) our would O thee at so(ad) she
here so(c)+ so(am)** was there from then how them more their (60)
let am her(adj) on(p) when which(r) may one her(pronoun) for(c)
us must were yet why should than had upon(p) can (80)
an such out too some hath these where did like(p)
most up(adv) much no(e) nor mine has aye thus cannot (100)
been away could art doth done though again in(adv) who(r)
down myself who(int) on(adv) being many might unto himself does (120)
dost yourself thine through shalt back wilt over under to(adv)
dare yours methinks itself above thyself by(adv) themselves canst for(adv) (140)
having herself ourselves wouldst like(adjective) which(int) like(adv) yourselves wert ours
durst upon(adv) self shouldst mayst doing wast hers ought darest (160)
methought couldst its theirs beest ourself mightst up(p) (168)
class 2: non-subject-specific lexical
good come well make see know go say take give think tell (180)
speak made hear look live like(verb) soon (187)
class 3: subject-specific lexical
sir lord man love time great men life fair king son will(n) sirra (200)
tomorrow today art(n) tonight sire (205)
* Combined to eliminate unreliable expansions
** Combined to eliminate
unreliable classifications
2.3 Method
There are, then, 21 authorial groups of play segments and the single Additions group in the study. To which does the latter approximate most closely? Not all the writers included are candidates for attribution, for reason of chronology (being, we know, either already dead before the likely range of date of composition for the Additions, or so young as to be highly unlikely as author), but are included nevertheless to broaden the base of the comparison and in order to test the method. Of the 75 plays, one each from the largest authorial groups, chosen at random, is reserved for testing (making 29 segments in all); 30 segments, chosen at random from the remaining segments are also reserved for testing.
John Burrows has recently proposed a simple but effective method of approaching attribution problems where there are multiple candidates. An overall mean and standard deviation is calculated for each variable in the whole corpus. From this an authorial z-score is calculated for each (i.e. the mean for the authorial group is taken, and the difference between this mean and the overall mean is divided by the standard deviation for the whole group). This z-score is then compared with the z-score for the target segment, in this case the Additions. A mean is taken for all the absolute differences between the authorial group and the target segment z-scores. This (which Burrows calls the Delta score) is a measure of the distance between the authorial group and the target segment. The lowest of these Delta scores indicates the closest relationship between author and target text.
2.4 Results
First the efficacy of the method is tested. With segments whose author is
known, how reliable are the results? Figure 1 (below) shows the number of
successful attributions of the 59 test segments using the first 20 of the
word-variables, then the first 40, and so on to the first 168 function words
byo frequency, and then with the lexical words added (word-variables 169 to
187 are classes as non-subject specific, 188 to 205 as subject-specific).
Figure 1
Figure 1
×
The line with the diamonds represents the number of segments
where the correct author is given the lowest delta score, i.e. with the
lowest distance to the target text, the line with hollow squares shows the
number of segments where the correct author is either lowest or second
lowest, and so on. The best result for the lowest-score line is achieved
using 100 word-variables, and is 46 out of a possible 59, or 78%. Using
those word-variables, therefore, one might expect the method to get the
author right more than three-quarters of the time. If the criterion is
relaxed to assigning the correct author as first or second, then the best
performance is with 80 word-variables, at 56 out of 59 or 95%. To get 100%
success one has to include the best five candidates; this is still a useful
result (16 of the 21 authors are ruled out) and gives confidence that
authorial styles are consistent enough, and the method well enough attuned
to them, to provide genuine information on authorship through the tests.
Figure 2 (below) shows the distances from the Additions for the five
closest authors (those who never score more than 0.95 on the Delta
measure).
Figure 2
Figure 2
×
Shakespeare is the closest, by a good margin for the central
range of the function word groups (this class extends from word-variables 1
to 168). With the lower-frequency function words, and then the lexical
words, his scores converge with those of Jonson, Dekker, and Marlowe. With
the second of the class 2 (non-subject-specific lexical) words added,
Shakespeare is only fractionally lower than Jonson, who then, with the class
3 (subject-specific lexical) word-variables included, becomes the
front-runner.
2.5 Conclusion
Shakespeare is the closest in style to the Additions on the measures which in general were more reliable in connecting test pieces with their authors (these are the groups 1 to 80, 1 to 100, 1 to 120, and 1 to 140). Jonson also has some claims, since he was second to Shakespeare on the best-performing measures and was closest of all when the subject-specific lexical word-variables were included. However, the class 3 word-variables especially seem a priori to be less reliable, since their presence or absence is governed by factors such as the social composition of the characters involved in the passage in question (see especially ‘king’, ‘lord’, ‘sir’, ‘sire’, ‘sirra’), and do indeed influence the system to produce fewer good matches on the test segments when added.
There are some negative, but nevertheless important, conclusions from the study. No new author was associated with the additions on stylistic grounds. One of the well-supported candidates, John Webster, can be ruled out, and another, Dekker, was always more distant from the additions than Shakespeare and Jonson. The statistical study would seem to justify a further examination of the case for Shakespeare as author of the Additions.
The issues and methods described above are discussed at greater length in Craig (2009) and Vickers (2012).
The Spanish Tragedy: Additional passages from the edition of 1602 (modernized)
FIRST ADDITION
(Between 2.5.45 and 2.5.46).
[ISABELLA For outrage fits our cursèd wretchedness.]
Ay me, Hieronimo, sweet husband, speak!
HIERONIMO He supped with us tonight, frolic and merry,
And said he would go visit Balthazar
At the duke's palace; there the prince doth lodge.
He had no custom to stay out so late; 5
He may be in his chamber. Some go see.
[He calls.] Roderigo, ho!
Enter PEDRO and JAQUES.
ISABELLA Ay me, he raves.--Sweet Hieronimo!
HIERONIMO True, all Spain takes note of it.
Besides, he is so generally beloved, 10
His Majesty the other day did grace him
With waiting on his cup. These be favours
Which do assure he cannot be short-lived.
ISABELLA Sweet Hieronimo!
HIERONIMO I wonder how this fellow got his clothes. 15
Sirrah, sirrah, I'll know the truth of all.
Jaques, run to the Duke of Castile's presently,
And bid my son Horatio to come home.
I and his mother have had strange dreams tonight.
Do ye hear me, sir?
JAQUES Ay, sir.
HIERONIMO Well sir, be gone. 20 [Exit Jaques.]
Pedro, come hither. Knowest thou who this is?
PEDRO Too well, sir.
HIERONIMO Too well? Who? Who is it? --Peace, Isabella.
Nay, blush not, man.
PEDRO It is my lord Horatio.
HIERONIMO Ha, ha! Saint James, but this doth make me laugh, 25
That there are more deluded than myself.
PEDRO Deluded?
HIERONIMO Ay, I would have sworn myself within this hour
That this had been my son Horatio,
His garments are so like. Ha! 30
Are they not great persuasions?
ISABELLA Oh, would to God it were not so!
HIERONIMO Were not, Isabella? Dost thou dream it is?
Can thy soft bosom entertain a thought
That such a black deed of mischief should be done 35
On one so pure and spotless as our son?
Away! I am ashamèd.
ISABELLA Dear Hieronimo,
Cast a more serious eye upon thy grief.
Weak apprehension gives but weak belief.
HIERONIMO It was a man, sure, that was hanged up here, 40
A youth, as I remember. I cut him down.
If it should prove my son now after all--
Say you? Say you? Light! Lend me a taper,
Let me look again. O God!
Confusion, mischief, torment, death and hell, 45
Drop all your stings at once in my cold bosom,
That now is stiff with horror! Kill me quickly.
Be gracious to me, thou infective night,
And drop this deed of murder down on me.
Gird in my waste of grief with thy large darkness, 50
And let me not survive to see the light
May put me in the mind I had a son.
ISABELLA O sweet Horatio, O my dearest son!
HIERONIMO How strangely had I lost my way to grief.
[Sweet lovely rose, ill-plucked before thy time,]
SECOND ADDITION
(Replacing Hieronimo's speech, 3.2.65-6.)
[LORENZO Why so, Hieronimo? Use me.]
HIERONIMO Who, you, my lord?
I reserve your favour for a greater honour.
This is a very toy, my lord, a toy.
LORENZO All's one, Hieronimo, acquaint me with it.
HIERONIMO I'faith, my lord, it is an idle thing, 5
I must confess; I ha' been too slack, too tardy,
Too remiss unto your honour.
LORENZO How now, Hieronimo?
HIERONIMO In troth, my lord, it is a thing of nothing,
The murder of a son, or so;
A thing of nothing, my lord.
[LORENZO Why then, farewell. ] 10
THIRD ADDITION
(Between 3.11.1 and 2.)
[FIRST PORTUGUESE By your leave, sir.]
HIERONIMO 'Tis neither as you think, nor as you think,
Nor as you think; you're wide all.
These slippers are not mine, they were my son Horatio's.
My son! And what's a son? A thing begot
Within a pair of minutes, thereabout; 5
A lump bred up in darkness, and doth serve
To ballast these light creatures we call women,
And, at nine months' end, creeps forth to light.
What is there yet in a son
To make a father dote, rave, or run mad? 10
Being born, it pouts, cries, and breeds teeth.
What is there yet in a son? He must be fed,
Be taught to go and speak. Ay, or yet,
Why might not a man love a calf as well?
Or melt in passion o'er a frisking kid 15
As for a son? Methinks a young bacon
Or a fine little smooth horse-colt
Should move a man as much as doth a son;
For one of these in very little time
Will grow to some good use, whereas a son, 20
The more he grows in stature and in years,
The more unsquared, unbevelled, he appears,
Reckons his parents among the rank of fools,
Strikes care upon their heads with his mad riots,
Makes them look old before they meetwith age. 25
This is a son.
And what a loss were this, considered truly?
Oh, but my Horatio
Grew out of reach of these insatiate humours;
He loved his loving parents; 30
He was my comfort and his mother's joy,
The very arm that did hold up our house.
Our hopes were storèd up in him;
None but a damnèd murderer could hate him.
He had not seen the back of nineteen year 35
When his strong arm unhorsed the proud Prince Balthazar,
And his great mind, too full of honour,
Took him unto mercy,
That valiant but ignoble Portingale.
Well, heaven is heaven still, 40
And there is Nemesis and Furies,
Andthings called whips,
And they sometimes do meet with murderers;
They do not always scape, that's some comfort.
Ay, ay, ay, and then time steal on, 45
And steals, and steals, till violence leaps forth
Like thunder wrappèd in a ball of fire,
And so doth bring confusion to them all.
[Good leave have you. Nay, I pray you go.]
FOURTH ADDITION
(Between 3.12 and 3.13, with the final stage direction
replacing 3.13.0.1.)
Enter JAQUES and PEDRO [with torches].
JAQUES I wonder, Pedro, why our master thus
At midnight sends us with our torches' light,
When man and bird and beast are all at rest,
Save those that watch for rape and bloody murder?
PEDRO 0 Jaques, know thou that our master's mind 5
Is much distraught since his Horatio died,
And, now his agèd years should sleep in rest,
His heart in quiet, like a desperate man
Grows lunatic and childish for his son.
Sometimes, as he doth at his table sit, 10
He speaks as if Horatio stood by him,
Then, starting in a rage, falls on the earth,
Cries out, 'Horatio! Where is my Horatio?'
So that with extreme grief and cutting sorrow
There is not left in him one inch of man. 15
See where he comes.
Enter HIERONIMO
HIERONIMO I pry through every crevice of each wall,
Look on each tree and search through every brake,
Beat on the bushes, stamp our grandam earth,
Dive in the water, and stare up to heaven, 20
Yet cannot I behold my son Horatio.--
How now? Who's there? Sprites? Sprites?
PEDRO We are your servants that attend you, sir.
HIERONIMO What make you with your torches in the dark?
PEDRO You bid us light them and attend you here. 25
HIERONIMO No, no, you are deceived; not I, you are deceived.
Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now?
Lightme your torches at the mid of noon,
Whenas the sun-god rides in all his glory;
Light me your torches then.
PEDRO Then we burn daylight. 30
HIERONIMO Let it be burnt. Night is a murderous slut
That would not have her treasons to be seen,
And yonder pale-faced Hecate there, the moon,
Doth give consent to that is done in darkness,
And all those stars that gaze upon her face 35
Are aglets on her sleeve, pins on her train;
And those that should be powerful and divine
Do sleep in darkness when they most should shine.
PEDRO Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words.
The heavens are gracious, and your miseries 40
And sorrow makes you speak you know not what.
HIERONIMO Villain, thou liest, and thou doest naught
But tell me I am mad. Thou liest, I am not mad.
I know thee to be Pedro, and he Jaques.
I'll prove it to thee, and, were I mad, how could I? 45
Where was she that same night when my Horatio
Was murdered? She should have shone; search thou the book.
Had the moon shone, in my boy's face there was a kind of grace
That,I know, nay, I do know, had the murderer seen him,
His weapon would have fall'n and cut the earth, 50
Had he been framed of naught but blood and death.
Alack, when mischief doth it knows not what
What shall we say to mischief?
Enter ISABELLA.
ISABELLA Dear Hieronimo, come in a-doors.
Oh, seek not means so to increase thy sorrow. 55
HIERONIMO Indeed, Isabella, we do nothing here.
I do not cry; ask Pedro, and ask Jaques.
Not I indeed; we are very merry, very merry.
ISABELLA How? Be merry here, be merry here?
Is not this the place, and this the very tree, 60
Where my Horatio died, where he was murdered?
HIERONIMO Was--do not say what; let her weep it out.
This was the tree; I set it of a kernel,
And when our hot Spain could not let it grow,
But that the infant and the human sap 65
Began to wither, duly twice a morning
Would I be sprinkling it with fountain water.
At last it grew, and grew, and bore and bore,
Till at the length
It grew a gallows, and did bear our son. 70
It bore thy fruit and mine. O wicked, wicked plant!
One knocks within at the door.
See who knock there.
PEDRO It is a painter, sir.
HIERONIMO Bid him come in and paint some comfort,
For surely there's none lives but painted comfort.
Let him come in. One knows not what may chance. 75
God's will, that I should set this tree!--But even so
Masters ungrateful servants rear from naught,
And then they hate them that did bring them up.
Enter the PAINTER.
PAINTER God bless you, sir.
HIERONIMO Wherefore? Why, thou scornful villain, 80
How, where, or by what means should I be blessed?
ISABELLA What wouldst thou have, good fellow?
PAINTER Justice, madam.
HIERONIMO Ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that
That lives not in the world? 85
Why, all the undelvèd mines cannot buy
An ounce of justice, 'tis a jewel so inestimable.
I tell thee,
God hath engrossed all justice in his hands,
And there is none but what comes from him. 90
PAINTER Oh, then I see
That God must right me for my murdered son.
HIERONIMO How, was thy son murdered?
PAINTER Ay, sir. No man did hold a son so dear.
HIERONIMO What, not as thine? That's a lie 95
As massy as the earth. I had a son,
Whose least unvalued hair did weigh
A thousand of thy sons; and he was murdered.
PAINTER Alas, sir, I had no more but he.
HIERONIMO Nor, I, nor I; but this same one of mine 100
Was worth a legion. But all is one.--
Pedro, Jaques, go in a-doors; Isabella, go;
And this good fellow here and I
Will range this hideous orchard up and down,
Like to two lions reavèd of their young. 105
Go in a-doors, I say. Exeunt [Isabella, Pedro, and Jaques].
The PAINTER and he sits down.
Come, let's talk wisely now. Was thy son murdered?
PAINTER Ay, sir.
HIERONIMO So was mine. How dost take it? Art thou not
sometimes mad? Is there no tricks that comes before 110
thine eyes?
PAINTER O Lord, yes, sir.
HIERONIMO Art a painter? Canst paint me a tear, or a wound,
a groan, or a sigh? Canst paint me such a tree as this?
PAINTER Sir, I am sure you have heard of my painting. My 115
name's Bazardo.
HIERONIMO Bazardo! Afore God, an excellent fellow. Look
you, sir, do you see, I'd have you paint me in my gallery,
in your oil colours matted, and draw me five years
younger thanI am---do you see, sir, let five years go, let 120
them go---like the marshal of Spain; my wife Isabella
standing by me; with a speaking look to my son Horatio,
which should intend to this or some such like purpose:
'God bless thee, my sweet son,' and my hand leaning
upon his head, thus sir, do you see? May it be done? 125
PAINTER Very well, sir.
HIERONIMO Nay, I pray mark me, sir. Then, sir, would I have
you paint me this tree, this very tree. Canst paint a doleful
cry?
PAINTER Seemingly, sir. 130
HIERONIMO Nay, it should cry; but all is one. Well sir, paint
me a youth, run through and through with villains'
swords, hanging upon this tree. Canst thou draw a
murderer?
PAINTER I'll warrant you, sir. I have the pattern of the most 135
notorious villains that ever lived in all Spain.
HIERONIMO Oh, let them be worse, worse. Stretch thine art, and
let their beards be of Judas his own colour, and let their
eyebrows jutty over; in any case observe that. Then, sir,
after some violent noise, bring me forth in my shirt, and 140
my gown under mine arm, with my torch in my hand,
and my sword reared up thus; and with these words:
What noise is this? Who calls Hieronimo?
May it be done?
PAINTER Yea, sir. 145
HIERONIMO Well, sir, then bring me forth, bring me through
alley and alley, still with a distracted countenance going
along, and let my hair heave up my night-cap. Let the
clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the
winds blowing, the bells tolling, the owl shrieking, 150
the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock
striking twelve. And then at last, sir, starting, behold a
man hanging, and tottering and tottering, as you know
the wind will weave a man, and I with a trice to cut him
down. And looking upon him by the advantage of my 155
torch, find it to be my son Horatio. There you may show
a passion, there you may show a passion. Draw me like
old Priam of Troy, crying, 'The house is afire, the house
is afire, as the torch over my head.' Make me curse,
make me rave, make me cry, make me mad, make me 160
well again, make me curse hell, invocate heaven, and, in
the end, leave me in a trance--and so forth.
PAINTER And is this the end?
HIERONIMO Oh, no, there is no end; the end is death and madness.
As I am never better than when I am mad, then 165
methinks I am a brave fellow, then I do wonders; but
reason abuseth me, and there's the torment, there's the
hell. At the last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers.
Were he as strong as Hector, thus would I tear and drag
him up and down. 170
He beats the Painter in, then comes out again with a book in his hand.
FIFTH ADDITION
(Replacing 4.4.168-90, but incorporating lines 176-8 and
168-75.)
[CASTILE Why hast thou butchered both my children thus?]
HIERONIMO But are you sure they are dead?
CASTILE Ay, slave, too sure.
HIERONIMO What, and yours too?
VICEROY Ay, all are dead, not one of them survive.
HIERONIMO Nay, then I care not, come; and we shall be friends;
Let us lay our heads together. 5
See, here's a goodly noose will hold them all.
VICEROY 0 damnèd devil, how secure he is!
HIERONIMO Secure? Why. dost thou wonder at it?
I tell thee, Viceroy, this day I have seen revenge,
And in that sight am grown a prouder monarch 10
That ever sat under the crown of Spain.
Had I as many lives as there be stars,
As many heavens to go as those lives,
I'd give them all, ay, and my soul to boot,
But I would see thee ride in this red pool. 15
CASTILE Speak, who were thy confederates in this?
VICEROY That was thy daughter Bel-Imperia,
For by her hand my Balthazar was slain.
I saw her stab him.
HIERONIMO Oh, good words!
As dear to me was my Horatio 20
As yours, or yours, or yours, my lord, to you.
My guiltless son was by Lorenzo slain,
And I at last revengèd thoroughly,
Upon whose souls may heavens be yet revenged 25
With greater far than these afflictions.
Methinks since I grew inward with revenge
I cannot look with scorn enough on death.
KING What, dost thou mock us, slave?--Bring tortures forth!
HIERONIMO Do, do, do, and meantime I'll torture you. 30
You had a son, as I take it; and your son
Should ha' been married to your daughter; ha, was 't not so?
You had a son, too; he was my liege's nephew.
He was proud and politic; had he lived,
He might ha' cometo wear the crown of Spain; 35
I think 'twas so. 'Twas I that killed him;
Look you, this same hand, 'twas it that stabbed
His heart--do you see this hand?—
For one Horatio, if you ever knew him,
A youth, one that they hanged up in his father's garden, 40
One that did force your valiant son to yield,
While your more valiant son did take him prisoner.
VICEROY Be deaf my senses; I can hear no more.
KING Fall, heaven, and cover us with thy sad ruins!
CASTILE Roll and the world within thy pitchy cloud! 45
HIERONIMO Now do I applaud what I have acted.
Nunc iners cadat manus!
Now to express the rupture of my part,
[First take my tongue, and afterwards my heart.]
[He bites out his tongue.]
The Spanish Tragedy: Additional passages from the edition of 1602 (old-spelling)
FIRST ADDITION
(Between 2.5.45 and 2.5.46).
[sigs. D3-4r]
[ Isa. For outrage fits our cursed wretchednes.]
Aye me, Heronimo sweet husband speake.
Hier. He supt with vs tonight, frolicke and mery.
And said he would goe visit Balthazar.
At the Dukes Palace: there the Prince doth lodge.
He had no custome to stay out so late,
He may be in his chamber, some go see. Rodorigo, Ho.
Enter Pedro, and Iaques..
Isa.
Aye me, he raues, sweet Heronimo.
Hero. True, all Spaine takes note of it.
Besides he is so generally beloued,
His Maiestie the other day did grace him
With waiting on his cup: these be fauours
Which doe assure me cannot be short liued.
Isa.
Sweet Hieronimo.
Hiero. I wonder how this fellow got his clothes:
Syrha, sirha, Ile know the trueth of all:
Iaques. runne to the Duke of Castiles presently,
And bid my sonne Horatio to come home.
I, and his mother haue had strange dreames to night.
Doe ye heare me sir?
Iaques.
I, sir.
Hiero. Well sir, begon. Pedro, come hither knowest thou
who this is.
Ped.
It is my Lord, Horatio.
Hier. Ha, ha, Saint Iames, but this doth make me laugh,
That there are more deluded then my selfe.
Ped.
Deluded?
Hier. I, I would haue sworne my selfe within this houre,
That this had beene my sonne Horatio,
His garments are so like: Ha, are they not great perswasions,
Isa.
O would to God it were not so.
Hier. Were not, Isabella, doest thou dreame it is?
Can thy soft bosome intertaine a thought,
That such a blacke deede of mischiefe should be done,
On one so poore and spotles as our sonne?
Away, I am ashamed.
Isa. Deare Hieronimo, cast a more serious eye vpon thy griefe
Weake apprehension giues but weake beliefe.
Hier. It was a man sure that was hanged vp here,
A youth, as I remember, I cut him downe:
If it should prooue my sonne now after all,
Say you, say you, light: lend me a Taper,
Let me looke againe.
O God, confusion, mischiefe, torment, death and hell.
Drop all your stinges at once in my cold bosome,
That now is stiffe with horror, kill me quickely:
Be gracious to me thou infectiue night,
And drop this deede of murder downe on me,
Gird in my wast of griefe with thy large darkenesse,
And let me not suruiue, to see the light
May put me in the minde I had a sonne.
Isa.
O, sweet Horatio, O, my dearest sonne.
Hiero. How strangly had I lost my way to griefe.
[Sweet louely rose, ill pluckt before they time:]
SECOND ADDITION (Replacing Hieronimo's speech, 3.2.65-6.) [sig. E3r]
[Lor. Why so Hieronomo? vse me.]
Hiero. Who, you my Lord?
I reserue your fauour for a greater honor,
This is a very toy my Lord, a toy.
Lor.
All’s one Hieronimo, acquaint me with it.
Hiero. Y’fayth my Lord tis an idle thing I must confesse,
I ha’been too slacke, too tardie, too remisse vnto your honor.
Lor. How now Hieronimo?
Hiero. In troth my Lord it is a thing of nothing,
The murder of a Sonne, or so:
A thing of nothing my Lord.
[Lor. Why then farewell.]
THIRD ADDITION
(Between 3.11.1 and 2.)
[sigs. G3v-4r]
[Enter two Portingales, and Hieronimo meets them.
I. By your leaue sir.]
Hie.. Tis neither as you thinke, nor as you thinke,
Nor as you thinke: you’r wide all:
These slippers are not mine, they were my sonne Horatios,
My sonne, and what’s a sonne?
A thing begot within a paire of minutes, there about:
A lumpe bred vp in darkenesse, and doth serue
To ballace these light creatures we call Women:
And at nine moneths ende, creepes foorth to light.
What is there yet in a sonne?
To make a father dote, raue, or runne mad.
Being borne, it poutes, cryes, and breeds teeth.
What is there yet in a sonne? He must be fed,
Be thaught to goe, and speake I, or yet.
Why might not a man loue a Calfe as well?
Or melt in passion ore a frisking Kid,
As for a sonne, me thinkes a young Bacon,
Or a fine little smooth Horse-colt
Should mooue a man, as much as doth a sonne.
For one of these in very little time,
Will grow to some good vse, where as a sonne,
The more he growes in stature and in yeeres,
The more vnsquard, vnbeuelled he appeares,
Reccons his parents among the rancke of fooles,
Strikes care vpon their heads with his mad ryots.
Makes them looke olde, before they meet with age:
This is a sonne: And what a losse were this, considered truly.
O but my Horatio, grew out of reach of these
Insatiate humours: He loued his louing parents,
He was my comfort, and his mothers ioy,
The very arme that did holde vp our house,
Our hopes were stored vp in him.
None but a damned murderer could hate him:
He had not seene the backe of nineteene yeere,
When his strong arme vnhorst the proud Prince Balthazar,
And his great minde too full of Honour,
Tooke him vs to mercy, that valiant, but ignoble Portingale.
Well, heauen is heauen still,
And there is Nemesis and Furies,
And things called whippes,
And they sometimes doe meete with murderers,
They doe not alwayes scape, that’s some comfort.
I, I, I, and then time steales on: and steales, and steales
Till violence leapes foroth like thunder
Wrapt in a ball of fire,
And so doth bring confusion to them all.
[Good leaue haue you: nay, I pray you goe]
FOURTH ADDITION
(Between 3.12 and 3.13, with the final stage direction
replacing 3.13.0.1.)
[sigs. H2r-4v]
Enter Iaques and Pedro.
Iaq.. I wonder Pedro, why our Maister thus
At midnight sendes vs with our Torches light,
When man and bird and beast are all at rest,
Saue those that watch for rape and bloody murder?
Ped. O Iaques, know thou that our Maisters minde
Is much distraught since his Horatio dyed,
And now his aged yeeres should sleepe in rest,
His hart in quiet, like a desperat man,
Growes lunaticke and childish for his Sonne:
Sometimes as he doth at his table sit
He speakes as if Horatio stood by him,
Then starting in a rage, falles on the earth,
Cryes out Horatio, Where is my Horatio?
So that with extreame griefe and cutting sorrow,
There is not left in him one ynch of man:
See where he comes.
Enter Hieronimo.
Hiero.. I prie through euery creuie of each wall,
Looke on each tree, and search through euery brake,
Beat at the bushes, stampe our grandam earth,
Diue in the water, and stare vp to heauen,
Yet cannot I behold my sonne Horatio.
How now, Who’s there, sprits, sprits?
Ped..
We are your seruants that attend you sir.
Hie.
What make you with your torches in the darke.
Ped..
You bid vs light them, and attend you here.
Hier.. No, no, you are deceiu’d, not I, you are deceiu’d,
Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now,
Light me your torches at the mid of noone,
When as the Sun-God rides in all his glorie:
Light me your torches then.
Ped.. Then we burne day light.
Hie. Let it be burnt, night is a murderous slut,
That would not haue her treasons to be seene,
And yonder pale faced Hee-cat there, the Moone,
Doth giue consent to that is done in darkensse,
And all those Starres that gaze vpon her face,
Are aggots on her sleeue pins on her traine,
And those that should be powerfull and diuine,
Doe sleepe in darkenes when they most should shine.
Ped. Prouoke them not faire sir, with tempting words,
The heauens are gracious, and your miseries and sorow,
Makes you speake you know not what.
Hie. Villaine, thou liest, and thou doest nought
But tell me I am mad, thou liest, I am not mad.
I know thee to be Pedro, and he Iaques,
Ile prooue it to thee, and were I mad, how could I?
Where was she that same night when my Hor. was murdred?
She should haue shone: Search thou the booke,
Had the Moone shone, in my boyes face (there was a kind of grace
That I know) nay, I doe know, had the murderer seene him,
His weapon would haue fall’n and cut the earth,
Had he been framed of naught but blood and death.
Alacke when mischiefe doth it knowes not what,
What shall we say to mischiefe?
Enter Isabella.
Isa.. Deare Hieronimo, come in a doores.
O, seeke not meanes so to encrease thy sorrow.
Hier.. Indeed, Isabella we doe nothing heere,
I doe not cry, aske Pedro and aske Iaques,
Not I indeed, we are very merrie, very merrie.
Isa. How, be merrie heere, be merrie heere.
Is not this the place, and this the very tree,
Where my Horatio hied, where he was murdered?
Hier.. Was, doe not say what: let her weepe it out.
This was the tree, I set if of a kiernnell,
And when our hot Spaine could not let it grow
But that the infant and the humaine sap
Began to wither, duly twice a morning,
Would I be sprinkling it with fountaine water.
At last it grewe, and grewe, and bore and bore,
Till at the length it grew a gallowes, and did beare our sonne.
It bore thy fruit and mine: O wicked, wicked plant.
One knockes within at the doore..
See who knocke there.
Pedro. It is a painter sir.
Hie.. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort,
For surely there’s none liues but painted comfort.
Let him come in, one knowes not what may chance,
Gods will, that I should set this tree,
But euen so masters, vngratefull seruants reare from nought,
And then they hate them that did bring them vp.
Enter the Painter.
Pain. God blesse you sir.
Hie.. Wherefore, why, thou scornefull villaine.
How, where, or by what meanes should I be blest,
Isa.
What wouldst thou haue good fellow.
Pain.
Iustice, Madame,
Hie.. O ambitious begger, wouldest thou haue htat
That liues not in the world,
Why all the vndelued mynes cannot buy
An ounce of iustice, tis a iewel so inestimable:
I tell thee, God hath engrossed all iustice in his hands,
And there is none, but what comes from him.
Pain.. O then I see that God must right me for my murdred sonne
Hie.. How, was thy sonne murdered?
Pain. I, sir, no man did hold a sonne so deere.
Hie.. What not as thine? that’s a lie,
As massie as the earth I had a sonne,
Whose least vnuallued haire did waigh
A thousand of thy sonnes: and he was murdered.
Pain.
Alas, sir, I had no more but he.
Hie.. Nor I, nor I: but this same one of mine,
Was worth a legion: but all is one.
Pedro, Iaques, goe in a doores, Isabella goe,
And this good fellow heere and I,
Will range this hidious orchard vp and downe,
Like to two Lyons reaued of their yong.
Goe in a doores, I say. Exeunt.
The Painter and he sits downe.
Come let’s talke wisely now:
Was thy sonne murdered?
Pain..
I, sir.
Hier. So was mine.
How doo’st take it: art thou not sometimes mad?
Is there no trickes that comes before thine eies?
Pain..
O Lord, yes sir.
Hie.. Art a Painter? canst paint me a teare, or a wound,
A groane, or a sigh? canst paint me such a tree as this?
Paint.. Sir, I am sure you haue heard of my painting,
my name’sBazardo.
Hie. Bazardo. Bazardo, afore-god, an excellent fellow. Look you sir,
Doe you see, I’de haue you paint me my Gallirie
In your oile colours matted, and draw me fiue
Yeeres youger then I am. Doe ye see sir, let fiue
Yeeres goe, let them goe like the Marshall of Spaine.
My wife Isabella standing by me,
With a speaking looke to my sonne Horatio.
Which should entend to this, or some such like purpose:
God blesse thee, my sweet sonne and my hand leaning vpon
his head thus sir, doe you see? may it be done?
Pain.
Very well sir.
Hier.. Nay, I pray marke me, sir. Then sir, would I haue
you paint me this tree, this very tree.
Canst paint a dolefull crie?
Pain. Seemingly, sir.
Hier.. Nay, it should crie: but all is one.
Well sir, paint me a youth, run thorow and thorow with vil-
laines swords, hanging vpon this tree.
Canst thou draw a murderer ?
Painter.. Ile warrant you sir,
I haue the patterne of the most notorious willaines that euer
liued in all Spaine.
Hie. O, let them be worse, worse: stretch thine Arte,
And let their beardes be of Iudas his owne collour,
And let their eie-browes iuttie ouer: in any case obserue that.
Then sir, after some violent noyse,
Bring mee foorth in my shirt, and my gowne vnder myne
arme, with my torch in my hand, and my sword reared vp
thus: and with these wordes.
What noyse is this? Who call’s Hieronimo ?
May it be done ?
Painter.. Yea, sir.
Well sir, then bring mee foorth, bring mee thorow allie and
allye, still with a distracted countenance going a long,
and let my haire heaue vp my night-cap.
Let the clowdes scowle, make the Moone darke, the Starres
extinct, the Windes blowing, the Belles towling, the
Owle shriking, the Toades croking, the Minutes ier-
ing, and the Clocke striking twelue.
And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging: And tot-
tering, and tottering as you know the winde will weaue
a man, and I with a trise to cut him downe.
And looking vpon him by the aduantage of my torch, finde
it to be my sonne Horatio.
There you may a passion, there you may shew a passion.
Drawe mee like old Priam of Troy,
Crying, the house is a fire, the house is a fire
As the torch ouer my head. Make me curse,
Make me raue, make me cry, make me mad,
Make me well againe, make me curse hell,
Inuocate heauen, and in the ende, leaue me
In a traunce, and so foorth.
Pain.. And is this the end.
Hie. O no, there is no end: the end is death and madnesse,
As I am neuer better then when I am mad,
Then methinkes I am a braue fellow,
Then I doe wonders: But reason abuseth me,
And there’s the torment, there’s the hell.
As the last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers,
Were he as strong as Hector, thus would I
Teare and drage him vp and downe.
He beates the Painter in, then comes out
againe
with a Booke in his hand..
FIFTH ADDITION (Replacing 4.4.168-90, but incorporating lines 176-8 and 168-75.) [sigs. L4v-M1r]
[Cast. Why hast thou butchered both my children thus?]
Hier.. But are you sure they are dead?
Cast.. I, slaue, too sure.
Hier. What and yours too?
Vic. I, all are dead, not one of them suruiue.
Hier. Nay, then I care not, come, and we shall be friends.
Let vs lay our heades together,
See here’s a goodly nowse will hold them all.
Vice.. O damned Deuill, how secure he is.
Hier. Secure, why doest thou wonder at it.
I tell thee Vice-roy, this day I haue seen reueng’d,
And in that sight am growne a prowder Monarch,
Then euer sate vnder the Crowne of Spaine:
Had I as many lyues as there be Starres,
As many Heauens to go to, as those liues,
Ide giue them all, I and my soule to boote,
But I would see thee ride in this red poole.
Cast..
Speake, Who were thy confederates in this?
Vic.. That was thy daughter Bel-imperia,
For by her hand my Balthazar was slaine:
I saw her stab him.
Hie.. O good words: as deare to me was my Horatio,
As yours, or yours, or yours my L to you.
My giltlesse sonne was by Lorenzo slaine.
And by Lorenzo, and that Balthazar,
Am I at last reuenged thorowly.
Vpon whose soules may heauens be yet reuenged,
With greater farre then these afflictions.
Me thinkes since I grew inward with reuenge,
I cannot looke with scorne enough on death.
King..
What doest thou mocke vs slaue, bring torturs forth.
Hie.. Doe, doe, doe, and meane time Ile torture you
You had a sonne (as I take it) and your sonne,
Should ha’e beene married to your daughter: ha, wast not so?
You had a sonne too, he was my Lieges Nephew.
He was proude and politicke, had he liued,
He might a come to weare the crowne of Spaine,
I thinke twas so: twas I that killed him,
Looke you this same hand, twas it that stab’d
His heart, Doe you see this hand?
For one Horatio, if you euer knew him
A youth, one that they hanged vp in his fathers garden:
One that did force your valiant sonne to yeelde,
While your more valiant sonne did take him prisoner:
Vis..
Be deafe my sences, I can heare no more.
King.
Fall heauen, and couer vs with they sad ruines,
Cast..
Rowle all the world within thy pitchy cloud.
Hie.. Now doe I applaud what I haue acted.
Nunck niers cadaemanus.
Now to expresse the rupture of my part,
[First take my tongue, and afterward my heart.]
[He bites out his tongue.]