Act 5 — [Scene IV.][3494]
Reading edition
[Scene IV.][3494]
Enter Perigot, with his hand bloody.
Peri. Here will I wash it in the morning’s dew, Which she on every little grass doth strew In silver drops against the sun’s appear;[3495] ’T is holy water, and will make me clear. My hand will not be cleans’d.—My wronged love,5 If thy chaste spirit in the air yet move, Look mildly down on him that yet doth stand All full of guilt, thy blood upon his hand; And though I struck thee undeservedly, Let my revenge on her that injur’d thee10 Make less a fault which I intended not. And let these dew-drops wash away my spot!— It will not cleanse. Oh, to what sacred flood Shall I resort, to wash away this blood? Amidst these trees the holy Clorin dwells,15 In a low cabin of cut boughs, and heals All wounds: to her I will myself address, And my rash faults repentantly confess; Perhaps she ’ll find a means, by art or prayer, To make my hand, with chaste blood stained, fair.20 That done, not far hence, underneath some tree I ’ll have a little cabin built, since she Whom I ador’d is dead; there will I give Myself to strictness, and, like Clorin, live. Exit.