ACT III.

As meet they will, and fighting die; brave sport! | Which forced their hands divide united hearts,
Come, Katherine, our losses equal are;
Then of true grief let us take equal share.

24 Tall fellows-i, e. brave fellows.

To make me shew them favour severally,
That by my favour they should both be slain!
Admit thou lovest not Lodowick for his sin,
Yet Don Mathias ne'er offended thee;
But thou wert set upon extreme revenge,
Because the prior dispossest thee once,
And couldst not venge it, but
his son;
upon
Nor on his son, but by Mathias' means;
Nor on Mathias, but by murdering me:
But I perceive there is no love on earth,
Pity in Jews, nor piety in Turks.—

But here comes cursed Ithamore with the friar.
Enter ITHAMORE and Friar. ̧

Friar. Virgo, salce.

Itha. When duck you?

Abig. Welcome, grave friar-Ithamore, be

gone.

Know, holy sir, I am bold to solicit thee.
Friar, Whereiu?

[Exit.

Abig. To get me be admitted for a nun.
Friar. Why, Abigail, it is not yet long since

That I did labour thy admission,

And then thou didst not like that holy life.

Bar. Why, made mine Abigail a nun.

Itha. That's no lye, for she sent me for him.
Bar. Oh, unhappy day,

False, credulous, inconstant Abigail!

But let them go: and, Ithamore, from hence
Ne'er shall she grieve me more with her disgrace;
Ne'er shall she live to inherit ought of mine,

Abig. Then were my thoughts so frail and un- Be blest of me, nor come within my gates,

confirined,

And I was chained to follies of the world;
But now experience, purchased with grief,
Has made me see the difference of things.
My sinful soul, alas! hath paced too long
The fatal labyrinth of misbelief,

Far from the Son, that gives eternal life.
Friar. Who taught thee this?
Abig. The abbess of the house,
Whose zealous admonition I embrace:
Oh therefore, Jacomo, let me be one,
Although unworthy, of that sisterhood.

Friar. Abigail, I will; but see thou change no

But perish underneath my bitter curse,
Like Cain by Adam, for his brother's death.

Itha. Oh, master

Bar. Ithamore, intreat not for her, I am moved,
And she is hateful to my soul and me:
And least thou yield to this that I intreat,
I cannot think but that thou hatest my life.
Itha. Who, I, master? Why, I'll run to some
rock, and

Throw myself headlong into the sea; why, I'll do

any

Thing for your sweet sake.

Bur. Oh, trusty Ithamore! no servant, but my
friend;

I here adopt thee for mine only heir;
All that I have is thine when I ain dead,
And whilst I live use half; spend as myself:
Here, take my keys, I'll give them thee anon:
Go buy thee garments; but thou shalt not want:
Only know this, that thus thou art to do:
But first go fetch me in the pot of rice
That for our supper stands upon the fire.

Itha. I hold my head iny master's hungry :-I
go, sir.

Exit.

Bar. Thus every villain ambles after wealth,
Although he ne'er be richer than in hope:
But hush't.

Enter ITUAMORE with the Pot.
Itha. Here 'tis, master.

Bar. Well said, Ithamore. What, hast thou
brought
The ladle with thee too?

Itha. Yes, sir; the proverb says, he that eats | with the devil

Had need of a long spoon ;26 I have brought you
a ladle.

Bar. Very well, Ithamore; then now be secret,
And, for thy sake, whom I so dearly love,
Now shalt thou see the death of Abigail,
That thou may'st freely live to be my heir.
Itha. Why, master, will you poison her with a
mess of rice

Porridge?--that will preserve life, make her round
and plump,

And batten 27 more than you are aware.

Bar. Aye, but, Ithamore, seest thou this?
It is a precious powder, that I bought
Of an Italian in Ancona once,
Whose operation is to bind, infect,
And poison deeply; yet not appear
In forty hours after it is ta'en.
Itha. How, master?

tage should be spoiled.

Bar. Peace, Ithamore, 'tis better so than spared. Assure thyself thou shalt have broth by the eye.28 My purse, my coffer, and myself is thine.

Itha. Well, master, I go.

Bar. Stay, first let me stir it, Ithamore.
As fatal be it to her as the draught

Of which great Alexander drunk, and died;
And with her let it work like Borgia's wine,
Whereof his sire, the pope, was poisoned.
In few, the blood of Hydra, Lerna's bane,
The juice of Hebon,29 and Cocytus' breath,
And all the poisons of the Stygian pool,
Break from the fiery kingdoin, and in this

Vomit your venom, and invenom her,
That, like a fiend, hath left her father thus!
Itha. What a blessing has he given't! was ever
pot of

Rice porridge so sauc't! What shall I do with it?
Bar. Oh, my sweet Ithamore, go set it down,
And come again so soon as thou hast done,
For I have other business for thee.

Itha. Here's a drench to poison a whole stable
of

Flanders mares; I'll carry it to the nuns with a
powder.

Bar. And the horse pestilence to boot; away.
Itha. I am gone.

Pay me my wages, for any work is done.

[Erit. [Exit.

Bar. I'll pay thee with a vengeance, Ithamore.

Enter Governor, DEL Bosco, Knights, Bashaw.

Gov. Welcome, great Bashaw; how fares Ca-
Ivmath?

What wind drives you thus into Malta road?
Bash. The wind that bloweth all the world be-
sides,
Desire of gold.

Gov. Desire of gold, great sir?

That's to be gotten in the Western Iude:
In Malta are no golden minerals.

Bash. To you of Malta thus saith Calymath:
The time you took for respite is at hand;
For the performance of your promise past,
And for the tribute-money I am sent.

Goo. Bashaw, in brief, shalt have no tribute

here,

Nor shall the heathens live upon our spoil:
First will we raze the city walls ourselves,
Lay waste the island, hew the temples down,
And, shipping off our goods to Sicily,
Open an entrance for the wasteful sea,
Whose billows, beating the resistless banks,
Shall overflow it with their refluence.

Bash. Well, governor, since thou hast broke
the league

By flat denial of the promised tribute,
Talk not of razing down your city walls;
You shall not need trouble yourselves so far,
For Selim Calymath shall come himself,

And with brass bullets batter down your towers,
And turn proud Malta to a wilderness,

26 Yes, sir, the proverb says, he that eats with the devil

Had need of a long spoon.-See note 30 to Grim the Collier of Croydon.

27 Batten-i. e. thrive, grow fat. See note on Hamlet, edition 1778, Vol. X. p. 322. S.

27* Pot-The 4to reads plot, which however may be right. He perhaps means to call the pot a plot on his daughter's life.

28 Assure thyself thou shalt have broth by the eye-Perhaps he means, thou shalt see how the broth that is designed for thee is made, that no mischievous ingredients enter its composition. The passage is hov

ever obscure. S.

29 The juice of Heben-i. e. either henbane or ebony. The latter was antiently esteemed to be poison

ous.

S.

And by my father's practice, which is there Set down at large, the gallants were both slain. 2 Friar. Oh monstrous villainy!

Abig. To work my peace, this I confess to thee;

Reveal it not, for then my father dies.

2 Friar. Know, that confession must not be
revealed,

The canon law forbids it, and the priest
That makes it known, being degraded first,
Shall be condemned, and then sent to the fire.
Abig. So I have heard; pray therefore keep it
close.

Death seizeth on my heart: ah, gentle friar,
Convert my father, that he may be saved!
And witness that I die a Christian.

[Dies.

2 Friar. Aye, and a virgin too, that grieves

me most:

But I must to the Jew, and exclaim on him,
And make him stand in fear of me.

Enter first Friar.

1 Friar. Oh, brother, all the nuns are dead; let's bury them,

2 Friar. First help to bury this; then go with

me

And help me to exclaim against the Jew.
1 Friar. Why, what has he done?

2 Friar. A thing that makes me tremble to
unfold.

1 Friar. What, has he crucified a child? 32
2 Friar. No, but a worse thing; 'twas told me
in shrift,

Thou know'st 'tis death and if it be revealed.

Abig. My father did contract me to 'em both: Come let's away.

[Exeunt.

30 Port-cullise" A falling gate or door, to let down, to keep enemies from, or keep them in a city.” BLOUNT.

31 Basilisks-Basilisks are large pieces of ordnance.

32 What, has he crucified a child? In Queen Elizabeth's time no Jews resided in England; and the prejudices entertained against that persecuted people seem to have been kept up by every artifice which either religion or policy could invent. The stage also contributed its assistance to establish the general odium; no characters seeming to afford more satisfaction to the audience than this of the Jew of Malta, and Shakespeare's Jew of Venice. With respect to the particular charge against the Jews, mentioned in the text, it probably, as Dr Percy says, never happened in a single instance: "For if we consider," as that writer observes, on the one hand, the ignorance and superstition of the times when such stories took their rise, the virulent prejudices of the monks who record them, and the eagerness with which they would be catched up by the barbarous populace as a pretence for plunder; on the other hand, the great danger incurred by the perpetrators, and the inadequate motives they could have to excite them to a crime of so much horror: we may reasonably conclude the whole charge to be groundless and malicious. See Percy's Reliques, vol. i p. 38. Tovey, in his Anglia Judaica, has given the several instances which are upon record, of these charges against the Jews; which he observes they were never accused of, but at such times as the king was manifestly in great want of money.