log out

Double Falsehood: Act II, Scene 2

Double Falsehood
Act II, Scene 2

An apartment.

  1. Enter Violante alone.

Violante

1 - 8
  1. Whom shall I look upon without a blush?
  2. There’s not a maid, whose eye with virgin gaze
  3. Pierces not to my guilt. What will’t avail me,
  4. To say I was not willing;
  5. Nothing; but that I publish my dishonor,
  6. And wound my fame anew.—O misery,
  7. To seem to all one’s neighbors rich, yet know
  8. One’s self necessitous and wretched.
  1. Enter maid, and afterwards Gerald with a letter.

Maid

9 - 10
  1. Madam, here’s Gerald, Lord Henriquez’ servant;
  2. He brings a letter to you.

Violante

11 - 12
  1. A letter to me! How I tremble now!
  2. Your lord’s for court, good Gerald, is he not?

Gerald

13
  1. Not so, lady.

Violante

14
  1. O my presaging heart! When goes he then?

Gerald

15
  1. His business now steers him some other course.

Violante

16
  1. Whither, I pray you? How my fears torment me!

Gerald

17
  1. Some two months progress.

Violante

18 - 21
  1.                           Whither, whither, sir,
  2. I do beseech you? Good heav’ns, I lose all patience.
  3. Did he deliberate this? Or was the business
  4. But then conceiv’d, when it was born?

Gerald

22 - 24
  1. Lady, I know not that; nor is it in the command I have to
  2. wait your answer. For the perusing the letter I commend you
  3. to your leisure.
  1. Exit Gerald and maid.

Violante

25 - 48
  1. To hearts like mine suspense is misery.
  2. Wax, render up thy trust: be the contents
  3. Prosp’rous, or fatal, they are all my due.
  4. Reads.
  5. Our prudence should now teach us to forget,
  6. What our indiscretion has committed. I
  7. Have already made one step towards this
  8. Wisdom, by prevailing on myself to bid you
  9. Farewell.
  10. O, wretched and betray’d! Lost Violante!
  11. Heart-wounded with a thousand perjur’d vows,
  12. Poison’d with studied language, and bequeath’d
  13. To desperation. I am now become
  14. The tomb of my own honor: a dark mansion,
  15. For death alone to dwell in. I invite thee,
  16. Consuming desolation, to this temple,
  17. Now fit to be thy spoil: the ruin’d fabric,
  18. Which cannot be repair’d, at once o’erthrow.
  19. What must I do? But that’s not worth my thought:
  20. I will commend to hazard all the time
  21. That I shall spend hereafter: farewell, my father,
  22. Whom I’ll no more offend: and men, adieu,
  23. Whom I’ll no more believe: and maids, adieu,
  24. Whom I’ll no longer shame. The way I go,
  25. As yet I know not. Sorrow be my guide.
  1. Exit Violante.
© 2021 Unotate.comcontactprivacy policyCreative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.comAll illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons