u8 LITERATURE AND DRAMA 



Marq. Why then should we both admire her for not loathing 

 me ? If I had foreseen what she would suffer, I could have 

 spared her and myself much pain ; but without trial we know 

 nothing. If Grisyld had no wants, small thanks to her for 

 patience. I worked wept stormed fought for what I 

 wanted. She was silent ; yet now I know that my most 

 passionate desire was a boy's greed, measured by the mother's 

 yearning for her lost little ones. 



Tanc. My lord, I must believe that you once loved Griselda, 

 and I think that, even now, you do not love evil. Be again the 

 man you were when you first won her 



Marq. I should like that much. 



Tanc. Act now as you would have acted then, and you 

 will feel now as then. Give Griselda back her throne, her 

 children, and her husband ; her husband not in name only, but 

 the man she once loved the man who must once have been 

 worth her love. 



Marq. I may take your advice ; you think those children are 

 alive ? 



Tanc. I am fooled again ; yet I would rather be the fool and 

 killed than you who kill. 



Marq. To convince Grisyld that they lived I must have 

 brought them back. She would not have taken my mere word, 

 and yet she trusted me. What I did was still for her well 

 done. 



Tanc. By heaven, it was base in her ! 



Marq. By solid earth, I now first feel anger ! Pray, sir, how 

 would you, so ready to teach me, have taught Griselda ? Are 

 you silent ? Grisyld was right, I say ; she nursed no grief to 

 give herself the pleasure of self-pity. She abjured sorrow, and 

 lived usefully. Grant me bad : her hate would have damned 

 me. Would you have had her in a nunnery to mumble prayers 

 for me in hell ? I have good cause to know the part she chose 

 was better, for by her trust in me she has redeemed my soul. 

 Diana's body ! you have heated me 



[Unbuckles sword, throws it on table, rises and walks to end of 

 room, with his bade to TANCRED, then turns. 



Tanc. Why have you tempted me ? You cast the sword there 

 purposely. 



