live on ground.
My soul deserves of this mischance the peril for to bear.
I, wretch, have been the death of thee, which to this place of fear
Did cause thee in the night to come, and came not here before.
My wicked limbs and wretched guts with cruel teeth therefore
Devour ye, O ye lions all that in this rock do dwell.
But cowards use to wish for death. The slender weed that fell
From Thisbe up he takes, and straight doth bear it to the tree,
Which was appointed erst the place of meeting for to be.
And when he had bewept and kissed the garment which he knew,
Receive thou my blood too (quoth he), and therewithal he drew
His sword, the which among his guts he thrust, and by and by
Did draw it from the bleeding wound, beginning for to die,
And cast himself upon his back. The blood did spin on high
As when a conduit pipe is cracked, the water bursting out
Doth shoot itself a great way off, and pierce the air about.
The leaves that were upon the tree besprinkled with his blood
Were dyed black. The root also, bestained as it stood
A deep dark purple colour, straight upon the berries cast,
Anon scarce ridded of her fear with which she was aghast,
For doubt of disappointing him comes Thisbe forth in haste,
And for her lover looks about, rejoicing for to tell
How hardly she had 'scaped that night the danger that befell.
And as she knew right well the place and fashion of the tree
(As which she saw so late before) even so when she did see
The colour of the berries turned, she was uncertain whether
It were the tree at which they both agreed to meet together.
While in this doubtful stound[4] she stood, she cast her eye aside,
And there beweltered in his blood her lover she espied
Lie sprawling with his dying limbs; at which she started back,
And looked pale as any box; a shuddering through her strack,
Even like the sea which suddenly with whissing noise doth move,
When with a little blast of wind it is but touched above.
But when approaching nearer him she knew it was her love,
She beat her breast, she shrieked out, she tare her golden hairs,
And taking him between her arms did wash his wounds with tears;
She meint[5] her weeping with his blood, and kissing all his face
(Which now became as cold as ice) she cried in woeful case:
Alas! what chance, my Pyramus hath parted thee and me?
Make answer, O my Pyramus: it is thy Thisbe, even she
Whom thou dost