Page 1298 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Was then nor threshed nor blasted; Fortune at you [65]
Dimpled her cheeks with smiles. Hercules our kinsman −
Then weaker than your eyes − laid by his club;
He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide

And swore his sinews thawed. O grief and time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour! [70]

FIRST QUEEN
O, I hope some god,
Some god hath put his mercy in your manhood,

Whereto he’ll infuse power, and press you forth
Our undertaker.

THESEUS
O, no knees, none, widow;
Unto the helmeted Bellona use them, [75]
And pray for me, your soldier; troubled I am.

He turns away.

SECOND QUEEN
Honoured Hippolyta,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain
The scythe-tusked boar, that with thy arm as strong

As it is white wast near to make the male [80]
To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord,
Born to uphold creation in that honour
First Nature styled it in, shrunk thee into
The bound thou wast o’erflowing, at once subduing

Thy force and thy affection; soldieress, [85]
That equally canst poise sternness with pity,
Whom now I know hast much more power on him

Than ever he had on thee, who owest his strength
And his love too, who is a servant for
The tenor of thy speech; dear glass of ladies, [90]
Bid him that we whom flaming war doth scorch
Under the shadow of his sword may cool us;

Require him he advance it o’er our heads;
Speak’t in a woman’s key, like such a woman