Damon, my friend, my joy, my life, is in peril. Of force I must now faint.
But, O music, as in joyful times[60] thy merry notes did borrow,
So now lend me thy yearnful tunes to utter my sorrow.
Here Pithias sings and the regals[61] play.
Awake, ye woful wights,
That long have wept in woe:
Resign to me your plaints and tears,
My hapless hap to show.
My woe no tongue can tell,
No pen can well descry:
O, what a death is this to hear,
Damon my friend must die!
The loss of worldly wealth
Man’s wisdom may restore,
And physic hath provided too
A salve for every sore:
But my true friend once lost,
No art can well supply:
Then, what a death is this to hear,
Damon my friend must die!
My mouth, refuse the food,
That should my limbs sustain:
Let sorrow sink into my breast,
And ransack every vein:
Ye Furies, all at once
On me your torments try:
Why should I live, since that I hear [62]
Damon my friend must[63] die!
Gripe me, you greedy grief
And present pangs of death,
You sisters three, with cruel hands
With speed come[64] stop my breath:
Shrine me in clay alive,
Some good man stop mine eye:
O death, come now, seeing I hear
Damon my friend must die.
He speaketh this after the song.
In vain I call for death, which heareth not my complaint:
But what wisdom is this, in such extremity to faint?
Multum juvat in re malâ animus bonus.
I will to the court myself, to make friends, and that presently.
I will never forsake my friend in time of misery—
But do I see Stephano amazed hither to run?
Here entereth Stephano.
Stephano. O Pithias, Pithias, we are all undone!
Mine own ears have sucked in mine own sorrow;
I heard Dionysius swear, that Damon should die to-morrow.
Pithias. How camest thou so near the presence of the king,
That thou mightest hear Dionysius speak this thing?
Stephano. By friendship I gat into the court, where in great audience
I heard Dionysius with his own mouth give this cruel sentence
By these express words: that Damon the Greek, that crafty spy,
Without further judgment to-morrow should die:
Believe me, Pithias, with these ears I heard it myself.
Pithias. Then how near is my death also! Ah, woe is me!
Ah my Damon, another myself, shall I forego thee?
Stephano. Sir, there is no time of lamenting now: it behoveth us
To make means to them which can do much with Dionysius,
That he be not made away, ere his cause be fully heard; for we see
By evil report things be made to princes far worse than they be.
But lo, yonder cometh Aristippus, in great favour with king Dionysius,
Entreat him to speak a good word to the king for us,
And in the mean season I will to your lodging to see all things safe there.
Pithias. To that I agree: but let us slip aside his talk to hear.
Here entereth Aristippus.
Aristippus. Here is a sudden change indeed, a strange metamorphosis,
This court is clean altered: who would have thought this?
Dionysius, of late so pleasant and merry,
Is quite changed now into such melancholy,
That nothing can please him: he walketh up and down,
Fretting and chaffing, on every man he doth frown;
In so much that, when I in pleasant words began to play,
So sternly he frowned on me, and knit me up so short,
I perceive it is no safe playing with lions, but when it please them;
If you claw where it itch not, you shall disease them,
And so perhaps get a clap; mine own proof taught me this,
That it is very good to be merry and wise.
The only cause of this hurly-burly is Carisophus, that wicked man,
Which lately took Damon for a spy, a poor gentleman,
And hath incensed the king against him so despitefully,
That Dionysius hath judged him to-morrow to die.
I have talk’d with Damon, whom though in words I found very witty,
Yet was he more curious than wise in viewing this city:
But truly, for aught I can learn, there is no cause why
So suddenly and cruelly he should be condemned to die:
Howsoever
