SCENE I.--_A Battle-field.
_Alarums: enter_ SACRIPANT _crowned, and pursuing_ MARSILIUS _and_ MANDRICARD.
_Sac._ Viceroys, you are dead; For Sacripant, already crown'd a king, Heaves up his sword to have your diadems.
_Mars._ Traitor, not dead, nor any whit dismay'd; For dear we prize the smallest drop of blood.
_Enter_ ORLANDO _with a scarf before his face._
_Orl._ Stay, princes, 'base not yourselves to combat such a dog. Mount on your coursers, follow those that fly, And let your conquering swords be tainted in their bloods: Pass ye for him; he shall be combated. [_Exeunt_ MARSILIUS _and_ MANDRICARD.
_Sac._ Why, what art thou that brav'st me thus?
_Orl._ I am, thou see'st, a mercenary soldier, Homely attir'd, but of so haughty thoughts, As naught can serve to quench th' aspiring flames, That burn as do the fires of Sicily, Unless I win that princely diadem, That seems so ill upon thy coward's head.
_Sac._ Coward! To arms, sir boy! I will not brook these braves, If Mars himself, even from his fiery throne Came arm'd with all his furnitures of war. [_They fight, and_ SACRIPANT _falls._ O villain! thou hast slain a prince.
_Orl._ Then mayst thou think that Mars himself came down, To vail thy plumes and heave thee from thy pomp. Proud that thou art, I reck not of thy gree, But I will have the conquest of my sword, Which is the glory of thy diadem.
_Sac._ These words bewray thou art no base-born Moor, But by descent sprung from some royal line: Then freely tell me, what's thy name?
_Orl._ Nay, first let me know thine.
_Sac._ Then know that thou hast slain Prince Sacripant.
_Orl._ Sacripant! Then let me at thy dying day entreat, By that same sphere wherein thy soul shall rest, If Jove deny not passage to thy ghost, Thou tell me whether thou wrong'dst Angelica or no?
_Sac._ O, that's the sting that pricks my conscience! O, that's the hell my thoughts abhor to think! I tell thee, knight, for thou dost seem no less, That I engrav'd the roundelays on the trees, And hung the schedules of poor Medor's love, Intending so to breed debate Between Orlando and Angelica: O, thus I wrong'd Orlando and Angelica! Now tell me, what shall I call thy name?
_Orl._ Then dead is the fatal author of my ill. Base villain, vassal, unworthy of a crown, Know that the man that struck the fatal stroke Is Orlando, the County Palatine, Whom fortune sent to quittance all my wrongs. Thou foil'd and slain, it now behoves me straight To hie me fast to massacre thy men: And so, farewell, thou devil in shape of man. [_Exit._
_Sac._ Hath Demogorgon, ruler of the fates, Set such a baleful period on my life As none might end the days of Sacripant But mighty Orlando, rival of my love? Now hold the fatal murderers of men The sharpen'd knife ready to cut my thread, Ending the scene of all my tragedy: This day, this hour, this minute ends the days Of him that liv'd worthy old Nestor's age. Phœbus, put on thy sable-suited wreath, Clad all thy spheres in dark and mourning weeds: Parch'd be the earth, to drink up every spring: Let corn and trees be blasted from above; Heaven turn to brass, and earth to wedge of steel; The world to cinders. Mars, come thundering down, And never sheath thy swift-revenging sword, Till, like the deluge in Deucalion's days, The highest mountains swim in streams of blood. Heaven, earth, men, beasts, and every living thing, Consume and end with County Sacripant! [_Dies._