A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY

A monologue from the play by Thomas Middleton


  • NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from A Yorkshire Tragedy. Thomas Middleton. London: Thomas Pavier, 1608.
  • WIFE: What will become of us? All will away:
    My husband never ceases in expense,
    Both to consume his credit and his house;
    And 'tis set down by heaven's just decree,
    That riot's child must needs be beggary.
    Are these the virtues that his youth did promise?
    Dice and voluptuous meetings, midnight revels,
    Taking his bed with surfeits; ill beseeming
    The ancient honour of his house and name?
    And this not all, but that which kills me most,
    When he recounts his losses and false fortunes,
    The weakness of his state so much dejected,
    Not as a man repentant, but half mad
    His fortunes cannot answer his expense,
    He sits, and sullenly locks up his arms;
    Forgetting heaven, looks downward; which makes him
    Appear so dreadful that he frights my heart:
    Walks heavily, as if his soul were earth;
    Not penitent for those his sins are past,
    But vex'd his money cannot make them last:
    A fearful melancholy, ungodly sorrow.
    O, yonder he comes; now in despite of ills
    I'll speak to him, and I will hear him speak,
    And do my best to drive it from his heart.

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