Page 1634 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But O,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scrope? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature! [95]
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,

That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might’st have coin’d me into gold
Would’st thou have practis’d on me for thy use,
May it be possible that foreign hire [100]

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange
That, thought the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

Treason and murder ever kept together, [105]
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them:

But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder: [110]
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously

Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation [115]
With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch’d

From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper’d thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou should’st do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. [120]

If that same demon that hath gull’d thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions: “I can never win

A soul so easy as that Englishman’s”. [125]
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd?

Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious? [130]