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Double Falsehood: Act IV, Scene 2

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Double Falsehood
Act IV, Scene 2

The prospect of the mountains.

  1. Enter Julio, and two Gentlemen.

First Gentleman

1
  1. Good sir, compose yourself.

Julio

2 - 4
  1.                             O Leonora,
  2. That heav’n had made thee stronger than a woman,
  3. How happy had I been!

Second Gentleman

5 - 9
  1.                       He’s calm again:
  2. I’ll take this interval to work upon him.
  3. These wild and solitary places, sir,
  4. But feed your pain; let better reason guide you;
  5. And quit this forlorn state, that yields no comfort.
  1. Lute sounds within.

Julio

10
  1. Ha! Hark, a sound from heav’n! Do you hear nothing?

First Gentleman

11 - 12
  1. Yes, sir; the touch of some sweet instrument:
  2. Here’s no inhabitant.

Julio

13
  1.                       No, no, the better.

Second Gentleman

14
  1. This is a strange place to hear music in.

Julio

15 - 26
  1. I’m often visited with these sweet airs.
  2. The spirit of some hapless man that died,
  3. And left his love hid in a faithless woman,
  4. Sure haunts these mountains.
  5. Violante sings within.
  6. Fond echo! Forego thy light strain,
  7. And heedfully hear a lost maid;
  8. Go, tell the false ear of the swain
  9. How deeply his vows have betray’d.
  10. Go, tell him, what sorrows I bear;
  11. See, yet if his heart feel my woe:
  12. ’Tis now he must heal my despair,
  13. Or death will make pity too slow.

Second Gentleman

27 - 28
  1. See, how his soul strives in him! This sad strain
  2. Has search’d him to the heart.

Julio

29 - 30
  1.                                Excellent sorrow!
  2. You never lov’d?

First Gentleman

31
  1. No.

Julio

32 - 37
  1.     Peace; and learn to grieve then.
  2. Violante sings within.
  3. Go, tell him, what sorrows I bear;
  4. See, yet if his heart feel my woe:
  5. ’Tis now he must heal my despair,
  6. Or death will make pity too slow.
  7. Is not this heav’nly?

First Gentleman

38
  1.                       I never heard the like, sir.

Julio

39 - 44
  1. I’ll tell you, my good friends; but pray, say nothing;
  2. I’m strangely touch’d with this. The heav’nly sound
  3. Diffuses a sweet peace through all my soul.
  4. But yet I wonder, what new, sad, companion
  5. Grief has brought hither to out-bid my sorrows.
  6. Stand off, stand off, stand off—Friends, it appears.
  1. Enter Violante.

Violante

45 - 53
  1. How much more grateful are these craggy mountains,
  2. And these wild trees, than things of nobler natures;
  3. For these receive my plaints, and mourn again
  4. In many echoes to me. All good people
  5. Are fall’n asleep forever. None are left,
  6. That have the sense, and touch of tenderness
  7. For virtue’s sake: no, scarce their memory:
  8. From whom I may expect counsel in fears,
  9. Ease to complainings, or redress of wrongs.

Julio

54
  1. This is a moving sorrow, but say nothing.

Violante

55 - 62
  1. What dangers have I run, and to what insults
  2. Expos’d this ruin of myself? Oh! Mischief
  3. On that soul-spotted hind, my vicious master!
  4. Who would have thought, that such poor worms as they,
  5. (Whose best feed is coarse bread; whose bev’rage, water)
  6. Should have so much rank blood? I shake all over,
  7. And blush to think what had become of me,
  8. If that good man had not reliev’d me from him.

Julio

63 - 66
  1. Since she is not Leonora, she is heav’nly.
  2. When she speaks next, listen as seriously,
  3. As women do that have their loves at sea,
  4. What wind blows ev’ry morning.

Violante

67 - 78
  1. I cannot get this false man’s memory
  2. Out of my mind. You maidens, that shall live
  3. To hear my mournful tale, when I am ashes,
  4. Be wise; and to an oath no more give credit,
  5. To tears, to vows, (false both!) or any thing
  6. A man shall promise, than to clouds, that now
  7. Bear such a pleasing shape, and now are nothing.
  8. For they will cozen, (if they may be cozen’d,)
  9. The very gods they worship. Valor, justice,
  10. Discretion, honesty, and all they covet,
  11. To make them seeming saints, are but the wiles
  12. By which these sirens lure us to destruction.

Julio

79 - 80
  1. Do not you weep now? I could drop myself
  2. Into a fountain for her.

Second Gentleman

81
  1. She weeps extremely.

Julio

82 - 83
  1.                      Let her weep; ’tis well:
  2. Her heart will break else. Great sorrows live in tears.

Violante

84
  1. O false Henriquez!—

Julio

85
  1.                     Ha!

Violante

86 - 95
  1.     And oh, thou fool,
  2. Forsaken Violante! Whose belief
  3. And childish love have made thee so—go, die;
  4. For there is nothing left thee now to look for,
  5. That can bring comfort, but a quiet grave.
  6. There all the miseries I long have felt,
  7. And those to come, shall sweetly sleep together.
  8. Fortune may guide that false Henriquez hither,
  9. To weep repentance o’er my pale, dead coarse,
  10. And cheer my wand’ring spirit with those lov’d obsequies.
  1. Going.

Julio

96 - 97
  1. Stay, lady, stay: can it be possible,
  2. That you are Violante?

Violante

98 - 101
  1.                        That lost name,
  2. Spoken by one, that needs must know my fortunes,
  3. Has taken much fear from me. Who are you, sir?
  4. For, sure, I am that hopeless Violante.

Julio

102 - 103
  1. And I, as far from any earthly comfort
  2. That I know yet, the much-wrong’d Julio!

Violante

104
  1.                                          Julio!

Julio

105 - 109
  1. I once was thought so. If the curst Henriquez
  2. Had pow’r to change you to a boy, why, lady,
  3. Should not that mischief make me any thing,
  4. That have an equal share in all the miseries
  5. His crimes have flung upon us?

Violante

110 - 118
  1.                                Well I know it:
  2. And pardon me, I could not know your virtues,
  3. Before your griefs. Methought, when last we met,
  4. The accent of your voice struck on my ear
  5. Like something I had known, but floods of sorrow
  6. Drown’d the remembrance. If you’ll please to sit,
  7. (Since I have found a suff’ring true companion,)
  8. And give me hearing, I will tell you something
  9. Of Leonora, that may comfort you.

Julio

119 - 129
  1. Blessing upon thee! Henceforth, I protest
  2. Never to leave thee, if heav’n say amen.
  3. But, soft! Let’s shift our ground, guide our sad steps
  4. To some remoter gloom, where, undisturb’d,
  5. We may compare our woes; dwell on the tale
  6. Of mutual injuries, ’till our eyes run o’er,
  7. And we infect each other, with fresh sorrows.
  8. Talk’d you of comfort? ’Tis the food of fools,
  9. And we will none on’t; but indulge despair:
  10.                                             So, worn with griefs, steal to the cave of death,
  11.                                                   And in a sigh give up our latest breath.
  1. Exeunt.
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