Act II, Scene iii

Sound to the battle, and SIGISMUND comes out wounded

SIGISMUND
Discomfited is all the Christian host
And God hath thundered vengeance from on high
For my accursèdand hateful perjury.
O just and dreadful punisher of sin,
Let the dishonour of the pains I feel	5
In this my mortal well-deservèd wound
End all my penance in my sudden death,
And let this death wherein to sin I die
Conceive a second life in endless mercy!
[Dies]
Enter ORCANES, GAZELLUS, URIBASSA, with others
ORCANES
Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods,	10
And Christ or Mahomet hath been my friend.
GAZELLUS
See here the perjured traitor Hungary,
Bloody and breathless for his villainy.
ORCANES
Now shall his barbarous body be a prey
To beasts and fowls, and all the winds shall breathe	15
Through shady leaves of every senseless tree
Murmurs and hisses for his heinous sin.
Now scalds his soul in the Tartarian streams
And feeds upon the baneful tree of hell,
That Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness	20
That in the midst of fire is ingraft,
Yet flourisheth as Flora in her pride,
With apples like the heads of damnèd fiends.
The devils there in chains of quenchless flame
Shall lead his soul through Orcus’ burning gulf	25
From pain to pain, whose change shall never end.
What sayest thou yet, Gazellus, to his foil,
Which we referred to justice of his Christ
And to his power, which here appears as full
As rays of Cynthia to the clearest sight?	30
GAZELLUS
’Tis but the fortune of the wars, my lord,
Whose power is often proved a miracle.
ORCANES
Yet in my thoughts shall Christ be honourèd,
Not doing Mahomet an injury
Whose power had share in this our victory.	35
And since this miscreant hath disgraced his faith
And died a traitor both to heaven and earth,
We will both watch and ward shall keep his trunk
Amidst these plains for fowls to prey upon.
Go Uribassa, give it straight in charge.	40
URIBASSA
I will my lord.
Exit URIBASSA [and others, with SIGISMUND’S body]
ORCANES
And now, Gazellus, let us haste and meet
Our army and our brother of Jerusalem,
Of Soria, Trebizon, and Amasia,
And happily with full Natolian bowls	45
Of Greekish wine now let us celebrate
Our happy conquest and his angry fate.	Exeunt