ALSEMERO Did my fate wait for this unha...

ALSEMERO Did my fate wait for this unhappy stroke

At my first sight of woman?

Enter Beatrice.

She's here.

BEATRICE Alsemero!

ALSEMERO How do you?

BEATRICE How do I?

Alas! How do you? You look not well.

ALSEMERO You read me well enough; I am not well.

BEATRICE Not well, sir? Is't in my power to better you?

ALSEMERO Yes.

BEATRICE Nay, then y'are cur'd again.

ALSEMERO Pray resolve me one question, lady.

BEATRICE If I can.

ALSEMERO None can so sure. Are you honest?

BEATRICE Ha, ha, ha, that's a broad question, my lord.

ALSEMERO But that's not a modest answer, my lady:

Do you laugh? My doubts are strong upon me

BEATRICE 'Tis innocence that smiles, and no rough brow

Can take away the dimple in her cheek.

Say I should strain a tear to fill the vault,

Which would you give the better faith to?

ALSEMERO 'Twere but hypocrisy of a sadder colour,

But the same stuff; neither your smiles nor tears

Shall move or flatter me from my belief: You are a whore.

BEATRICE What a horrid sound it hath!

It blasts a beauty to deformity;

Upon what face soever that breath falls,

It strikes it ugly: oh, you have ruin'd

What you can ne'er repair again!

ALSEMERO I'll all demolish and seek out truth within you,

If there be any left: let your sweet tongue

Prevent your heart's rifling; there I'll ransack

And tear out my suspicion.

BEATRICE You may, sir,

'Tis an easy passage; yet if you please,

Show me the ground whereon you lost your love.

My spotless virtue may but tread on that Before I perish.

ALSEMERO Unanswerable;

A ground you cannot stand on: you fall down

Beneath all grace and goodness when you set

Your ticklish heel on't. There was a visor

O'er that cunning face, and that became you;

Now impudence in triumph rides upon't.

How comes this tender reconcilement else

'Twixt you and your despite, your rancourous loathing,

Deflores? He that your eye was sore at sight of, He's now become your arms' supporter, your

Lips' saint.

BEATRICE Is there the cause?

ALSEMERO Worse: your lust's devil,

Your adultery.

BEATRICE Would any but yourself say that,

'Twould turn him to a villain.

ALSEMERO 'Twas witness'd

By the counsel of your bosom, Diaphanta.

BEATRICE Is your witness dead then?

ALSEMERO 'Tis to be fear'd

It was the wages of her knowledge, poor soul;

She liv'd not long after the discovery.

BEATRICE Then hear a story of not much less horror

Than this your false suspicion is beguil'd with.

To your bed's scandal I stand up innocence,

Which even the guilt of one black other deed

Will stand for proof of: your love has made me

A cruel murderess.

ALSEMERO Ha!

BEATRICE A bloody one.

I have kiss'd poison for't, strok'd a serpent,

That thing of hate, worthy in my esteem

Of no better employment, and him most worthy

To be so employ'd I caus'd to murder

That innocent Piracquo, having no

Better means than that worst, to assure

Yourself to me.

ALSEMERO Oh, the place itself e'er since

Has crying been for vengeance, the temple

Where blood and beauty first unlawfully

Fir'd their devotion and quench'd the right one.

'Twas in my fears at first: 'twill have it now.

Oh, thou art all deform'd!

BEATRICE Forget not, sir,

It for your sake was done: shall greater dangers

Make the less welcome?

ALSEMERO Oh, thou shouldst have gone

A thousand leagues about to have avoided

This dangerous bridge of blood; here we are lost.

BEATRICE Remember I am true unto your bed.

ALSEMERO The bed itself's a charnel, the sheets shrouds

For murdered carcasses; it must ask pause

What I must do in this. Meantime you shall

Be my prisoner only; enter my closet.

Exit Beatrice.

I'll be your keeper yet. Oh, in what part

Of this sad story shall I first begin?

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. The Changeling. http://www.tech.org/~cleary/change.html.

Full text of The Changeling: http://www.tech.org/~cleary/change.html

Wikipedia entry on The Changeling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheChangeling(play)