DEMETRIUS
So, now go tell, an if tongue can speak,
Who that cut tongue and ravished .
CHIRON
Write down mind, bewray meaning so,
An if stumps will let play the scribe.
DEMETRIUS
See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.
CHIRON
Go home, call for sweet water, wash hands.
DEMETRIUS
She no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;
And so let’s leave her to her silent walks.
CHIRON
An ’twere my cause, I should go hang myself.
DEMETRIUS
If hadst hands to help knit the cord.
MARCUS
Who is this? My niece, that flies away so fast?
Cousin, a word; where is your husband?
If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
That I may slumber an eternal sleep!
Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands
lopped and hewed and made body bare
Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments
Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,
And might not gain so great a happiness
As half love? Why not speak to me?
Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,
rise and fall between rosed lips,
Coming and going with honey breath.
But sure some Tereus deflowered ,
And, lest detect him, cut tongue.
Ah, now turn’st away face for shame,
And notwithstanding all this loss of blood,
As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,
Yet do cheeks look red as Titan’s face
Blushing to be encountered with a cloud.
Shall I speak for , shall I say so?
O, that I knew heart, and knew the beast,
That I might rail at him to ease my mind.
Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped,
burn the heart to cinders where it is.
Fair Philomela, why she but lost her tongue,
And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind;
But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from ;
A craftier Tereus, cousin, met,
And he cut those pretty fingers off
That could have better sewed than Philomel.
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
He would not then have touched them for his life.
Or had he heard the heavenly harmony
Which that sweet tongue made,
He would have dropped his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet’s feet.
Come, let us go, and make father blind,
For such a sight will blind a father’s eye.
One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads;
What will whole months of tears father’s eyes?
Do not draw back, for we will mourn with .
O, could our mourning ease misery!