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Double Falsehood: Act I, Scene 1

Double Falsehood
Act I, Scene 1

The province of Andalusia in Spain. A royal palace.

  1. Enter Roderick and the Duke.

Roderick

1 - 2
  1. My gracious father, this unwonted strain
  2. Visits my heart with sadness.

Duke

3 - 9
  1.                               Why, my son?
  2. Making my death familiar to my tongue
  3. Digs not my grave one jot before the date.
  4. I’ve worn the garland of my honors long,
  5. And would not leave it wither’d to thy brow,
  6. But flourishing and green; worthy the man,
  7. Who, with my Dukedoms, heirs my better glories.

Roderick

10
  1. This praise, which is my pride, spreads me with blushes.

Duke

11 - 20
  1. Think not, that I can flatter thee, my Roderick;
  2. Or let the scale of love o’er-poise my judgment.
  3. Like a fair glass of retrospection, thou
  4. Reflect’st the virtues of my early youth;
  5. Making my old blood mend its pace with transport:
  6. While fond Henriquez, thy irregular brother,
  7. Sets the large credit of his name at stake,
  8. A truant to my wishes, and his birth.
  9. His taints of wildness hurt our nicer honor,
  10. And call for swift reclaim.

Roderick

21 - 24
  1.                             I trust, my brother
  2. Will, by the vantage of his cooler wisdom,
  3. E’er-while redeem the hot escapes of youth,
  4. And court opinion with a golden conduct.

Duke

25 - 33
  1. Be thou a prophet in that kind suggestion!
  2. But I, by fears weighing his unweigh’d course,
  3. Interpret for the future from the past.
  4. And strange misgivings, why he hath of late
  5. By importunity, and strain’d petition,
  6. Wrested our leave of absence from the court,
  7. Awake suspicion. Thou art inward with him;
  8. And, haply, from the bosom’d trust can’st shape
  9. Some formal cause to qualify my doubts.

Roderick

34 - 44
  1. Why he hath press’d this absence, sir, I know not;
  2. But have his letters of a modern date,
  3. Wherein by Julio, good Camillo’s son,
  4. (Who, as he says, shall follow hard upon;
  5. And whom I with the growing hour expect)
  6. He doth solicit the return of gold
  7. To purchase certain horse, that like him well.
  8. This Julio he encounter’d first in France,
  9. And lovingly commends him to my favor;
  10. Wishing, I would detain him some few days,
  11. To know the value of his well-placed trust.

Duke

45 - 50
  1. O, do it, Roderick; and assay to mould him
  2. An honest spy upon thy brother’s riots.
  3. Make us acquainted when the youth arrives;
  4. We’ll see this Julio, and he shall from us
  5. Receive the secret loan his friend requires.
  6. Bring him to court.
  1. Exeunt.
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