Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

ANT. I would it had, dear lady;
This story had been needless, and this place,
I think, unknown to me.

ALM. Were your bloods equal?

ANT. Yes; and I thought our hearts too.

ALM. Then she must love.

ANT. She did—but never me; she could not love me,
She would not love, she hated; more, she scorn'd me,
And in so poor and base a way abused me,
For all my services, for all my bounties,
So bold neglects flung on me—

ALM. An ill woman!
Belike you found some rival in your love, then?

ANT. How perfectly she points me to my story! (Aside.)
Madam, I did; and one whose pride and anger,
Ill manners, and worse mien, she doted on,
Doted to my undoing, and my ruin.
And, but for honour to your sacred beauty,
And reverence to the noble sex, though she fall,
As she must fall that durst be so unnoble,
I should say something unbeseeming me.
What out of love, and worthy love, I gave her,
Shame to her most unworthy mind! to fools,
To girls, and fiddlers, to her boys she flung,
And in disdain of me.

ALM. Pray you take me with you.
Of what complexion was she?

ANT. But that I dare not
Commit so great a sacrilege 'gainst virtue,
She look'd not much unlike—though far, far short,
Something, I see, appears—your pardon, madam—
Her eyes would smile so, but her eyes could cozen;
And so she would look sad; but yours is pity,
A noble chorus to my wretched story;
Hers was disdain and cruelty.

ALM. Pray heaven,
Mine be no worse! he has told me a strange story, (Aside.)" &c.—ED.

140

By Hieronimo Mr. Coleridge meant The Spanish Tragedy, and not the previous play, which is usually called The First Part of Jeronimo. The Spanish Tragedy is, upon the authority of Heywood, attributed to Kyd. It is supposed that Ben Jonson originally performed the part of Hieronimo, and hence it has been surmised that certain passages and whole scenes connected with that character, and not found in some of the editions of the play, are, in fact, Ben Jonson's own writing. Some of these supposed interpolations are amongst the best things in the Spanish Tragedy; the style is singularly unlike Jonson's, whilst there are turns and particular images which do certainly seem to have been imitated by or from Shakspeare. Mr. Lamb at one time gave them to Webster. Take this, passage, in the fourth act:—

"HIERON. What make you with your torches in the dark?

PEDRO. You bid us light them, and attend you here.

HIERON. No! you are deceived; not I; you are deceived.
Was I so mad to bid light torches now?
Light me your torches at the mid of noon,
When as the sun-god rides in all his glory;
Light me your torches then.

PEDRO. Then we burn day-light.

HIERON. Let it be burnt; Night is a murd'rous 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
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 and sorrow
Make you speak you know not what

HIERON. Villain! thou liest, and thou dost nought
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 thee; and were I mad, how could I?
Where was she the same night, when my Horatio was murder'd!
She should have shone then; 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 fallen, and cut the earth,
Had he been framed of nought but blood and death," &c.

Again, in the fifth act:—

"HIERON. But are you sure that they are dead?

CASTILE. Ay, slain, too sure.

HIERON. What, and yours too?

VICEROY. Ay, all are dead; not one of them survive.

HIBRON. Nay, then I care not—come, we shall be friends;
Let us lay our heads together.
See, here's a goodly noose will hold them all.