Locrine

ACT II

PROLOGUE

Enter Ate as before. After a little lightning and thundering, let there come forth this show:—Perseus and Andromeda, hand in hand, and Cepheus also, with swords and targets. Then let there come out of an other door, Phineus, all black in armour, with Aethiopians after him, driving in Perseus, and having taken away Andromeda, let them depart, Ate remaining, saying:

ATE.
Regit omnia numen.
When Perseus married fair Andromeda,
The only daughter of king Cepheus,
He thought he had established well his Crown,
And that his kingdom should for aie endure.
But, lo, proud Phineus with a band of men,
Contrived of sun-burnt Aethiopians,
By force of arms the bride he took from him,
And turned their joy into a flood of tears.
So fares it with young Locrine and his love,
He thinks this marriage tendeth to his weal;
But this foul day, this foul accursed day,
Is the beginning of his miseries.
Behold where Humber and his Scithians
Approacheth nigh with all his warlike train.
I need not, I, the sequel shall declare,
What tragic chances fall out in this war.