Seb. And not to weigh the important cause I had To rid myself of life!

Dor. True; for a crime So horrid, in the face of men and angels, As wilful incest is!

Seb. Not wilful, neither.

Dor. Yes, if you lived, and with repeated acts Refreshed your sin, and loaded crimes with crimes, To swell your scores of guilt.

Seb. True; if I lived.

Dor. I said so, if you lived.

Seb. For hitherto was fatal ignorance, And no intended crime.

Dor. That you best know; But the malicious world will judge the worst.

Alv. O what a sophister has hell procured, To argue for damnation!

Dor. Peace, old dotard. 
Mankind, that always judge of kings with malice,
Will think he knew this incest, and pursued it. 
His only way to rectify mistakes,
And to redeem her honour, is to die.

Seb. Thou hast it right, my dear, my best Alonzo! 
And that, but petty reparation too;
But all I have to give.

Dor. Your, pardon, sir; You may do more, and ought.

Seb. What, more than death?

Dor. Death! why, that’s children’s sport; a stage-play death;
We act it every night we go to bed. 
Death, to a man in misery, is sleep. 
Would you,—­who perpetrated such a crime,
As frightened nature, made the saints above
Shake heavens eternal pavement with their trembling
To view that act,—­would you but barely die? 
But stretch your limbs, and turn on t’other side. 
To lengthen out a black voluptuous slumber,
And dream you had your sister in your arms?

Seb. To expiate this, can I do more than die?

Dor. O yes, you must do more, you must be damned;
You must be damned to all eternity;
And sure self-murder is the readiest way.

Seb. How, damned?

Dor. Why, is that news?

Alv. O horror, horror!

Dor. What, thou a statesman,
And make a business of damnation
In such a world as this! why, ’tis a trade;
The scrivener, usurer, lawyer, shopkeeper,
And soldier, cannot live but by damnation. 
The politician does it by advance,
And gives all gone beforehand.

Seb. O thou hast given me such a glimpse of hell,
So pushed me forward, even to the brink
Of that irremeable burning gulph,
That, looking in the abyss, I dare not leap. 
And now I see what good thou mean’st my soul,
And thank thy pious fraud; thou hast indeed
Appeared a devil, but didst an angel’s work.

Dor. ’Twas the last remedy, to give you leisure; For, if you could but think, I knew you safe.

Seb. I thank thee, my Alonzo; I will live,
But never more to Portugal return;
For, to go back and reign, that were to show
Triumphant incest, and pollute the throne.