A monologue from the play by Thomas Kyd
NOTE: This monologue can be reprinted via The The spanish language Tragedy. Thomas Kyd. London: M. M. Drop & Company., 1898.
GHOSTING: When this eternal element of my soul
Did live imprison\d in my wanton flesh:
Every in their function serving other\s need
I used to be a représentant in the The spanish language Court.
My name was Don Andrea, my ancestry
Though not ignoble, yet inferior far
To gracious fortunes of my tender youth:
For there in prime and pride of most my years
By Duteous service and deserving appreciate
In key I possess\d a deserving dame
Which in turn hight lovely Bel-imperia simply by name.
In the harvesting of my personal summer joys
Death\s winter season nipp\d the blossoms of my enjoyment
Forcing divorce betwixt my love and me.
For in the late conflict with Portingale
My own valour attracted me into danger\s mouth
Till existence to fatality made verse through my wounds.
While i was slain, my heart and soul descended direct
To pass the flowing stream of Acheron:
But churlish Charon, just boatman presently there
Said that my own rites of burial certainly not perform\d
I would not stay amongst his passengers.
Ere Sol got slept three nights in Thetis\ clapboard
And slak\d his smoking chariot in her avalanche:
By Don Horatio the Knight Marshal\s son
My personal funerals and obsequies had been done.
Then simply was the ferryman of hell content
To me over to the oozy strond
That leads to chop down Avernus\ unsightly waves:
Generally there pleasing Cerberus with honey\d speech
We pass\d the perils of the foremost veranda.
Not far from therefore amidst ten thousand souls
Sat Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanth
To whom no faster \gan My spouse and i make approach
To seek a passport for my own wand\ring ghost:
But Minos in graven leaves of lottery
Came forth the way of my entire life and loss of life.
\This knight\ (quoth he) \both liv\d and passed away in appreciate
And for his love tried fortune in the wars
Through war\s good fortune lost both equally love and life. \
\Why then simply, \ said Aeacus, communicate him hence
To walk with fans in our areas of love:
And spend the course of everlasting time
Under green myrtle forest and cypress shades. \
\No, not any, \ stated Rhadamanth, \It were not well
With adoring souls to put a martialist:
He passed away in conflict, and need to to martial fields:
In which wounded Hector lives in long lasting pain
And Achilles\ myrmidons do search the plain. \
In that case Minos weakest censor with the three
Made this device to end the difference.
\Send him\ (quoth he) \to our infernal King:
To doom him as best seems his majesty. \
For this effect my passport right was driven.
In keeping on my way to Pluto\s the courtroom
Through dreadful shades of ever-glooming night
I could see more scenery than thousands of tongues will be able to tell
Or pens can write, or mortal hearts may think.
Three ways there were, that on the right side
Was all set way on to the foresaid fields
Wherever lovers live, and bloody martialists
But either sort contain\d inside his range.
The left hand path declining fearfully
Was ready demise to the deepest hell
Where bloody rage shake their whips of steel
And poor Ixion turns an endless wheel.
In which userers happen to be chok\d with melting gold
And wantons are embrac\d with ugly snakes:
And murderers groan with hardly ever killing pains
And perjur\d wights scalded in hot lead
And foul sins with torments overwhelm\d.
\Twixt these two methods, I trod the middle route
Which helped bring me for the fair Elysian green.
In midst whereof there stands a stately structure
The walls of brass, the gates of adamant.
In this article finding Pluto with his Proserpine
I show\d my passport humbled in the knee.
Whereat fair Proserpine began to laugh
And begg\d that only the lady might provide my doom.
Pluto was pleas\d, and seal\d this with a kiss.
Forthwith (Revenge) she curved thee in th\ hearing
And poor thee lead me throughout the Gates of Horn
Wherever dreams possess passage in the silent night.
No faster had your woman spoke yet we were below
I wot not just how, in twinkling of an eyesight.
