[_Goes between with her sword_.
_Enter_ GONSALVO, _following_ RODORICK, _who falls_.
_Rod_. So, now I am at rest:--
I feel death rising higher still, and higher,
Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
Shuts up my life within a shorter compass,
And, like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
And less each pulse, 'till it be lost in air.
[_Swoons away_.
_Gons_. Down at your feet, much injured innocence,
I lay that sword, which--
_Jul_. Take it up again;
It has not done its work 'till I am killed:
For ever, ever, thou hast robbed me of
That man, that only man, whom I could love:
Dost thou thus court thy mistress? thus oblige her?
All thy obligements have been fatal yet,
Yet the most fatal now would most oblige me.
Kill me:--yet I am killed before in him.
I lie there on the ground; cold, cold, and pale:
That death, I die in Roderick, is far
More pleasant than that life, I live in Julia.--
--See how he stands--when he is bid dispatch me!
How dull! how spiritless! that sloth possest
Thee not, when thou didst kill my Roderick.
_Gons_. I'm too unlucky to converse with men:
I'll pack together all my mischiefs up,
Gather with care each little remnant of them,
That none of them be left behind: Thus loaded,
Fly to some desert, and there let them loose,
Where they may never prey upon mankind.
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