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  • Title: The Tragedy of Locrine (Third Folio, 1664)

    • Copyright Digital Renaissance Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Authors: Anonymous, William Shakespeare
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Tragedy of Locrine (Third Folio, 1664)

    Scena Quinta.
    1685Enter Humber alone, saying:
    Hum. O vita misero longa, foelici brevis!
    Eheu malorum fames extremum malum.
    Long have I lived in this desart cave,
    With eating hawes and miserable roots,
    1690Devouring leaves and beastly excrements.
    Caves were my beds, and stones my pillow-beres,
    Fear was my sleep, and horrour was my dream;
    For still me thought at every boisterous blast,
    Now Locrine comes, now Humber thou must dye;
    1695So that for fear and hunger, Humber's mind
    Can never rest, but alwayes trembling stands.
    O what Danubius now may quench my thirst?
    What Euphrates, what light-foot Euripus
    May now allay the fury of that heat,
    1700Which raging in my entrails eats me up?
    You ghastly devils of the ninefold Styx,
    You damned ghosts of joyless Acheron,
    You mournfull soules, vext in Abyssus vaults,
    You coal-black devils of Avernus pond,
    1705Come with your flesh-hooks, rend my famisht armes,
    These armes that have sustain'd their masters life;
    Come with your razours rip my bowels up,
    With your sharp fire-forks crack my starved bones.
    Use me as you will, so Humber may not live.
    1710 Accursed gods that rule the starrie poles,
    Accursed Jove king of the accursed gods,
    Cast down your lightning on poor Humber's head,
    That I may leave this deathfull like life of mine:
    What hear you not, and shall not Humber dye?
    1715Nay I will dye though all the gods say nay.
    And gentle Aby take my troubled corps,
    Take it and keep it from all mortal eyes,
    That none may say when I have lost my breath,
    The very flouds conspir'd 'gainst Humber's death.
    1720Flings himself into the river.
    Enter the Ghost of Albanact.
    En caedem sequitur, caedes in caede quiesco.
    Humber is dead, joy heavens, leap earth, dance trees;
    Now may'st thou reach thy apples Tantalus,
    1725And withem feed thy hunger-bitten limmes:
    Now Sysiphus leave the tumbling of thy rock,
    And rest thy restless bones upon the same;
    Unbind Ixion, cruel Rhadamanth,
    And lay proud Humber on the whirling wheel.
    1730Back will I post to hell mouth Taenarus,
    And pass Cocytus, to the Elysian fields,
    And tell my father Brutus of these newes.Exeunt.
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