_Dor._ It looks indeed too like my master's hand:
So does the signet: more I cannot say;
But wish 'twere not so like.
_Seb._ Methinks it owns
The black adultery, and Almeyda's birth;
But such a mist of grief comes o'er my eyes,
I cannot, or I would not, read it plain.
_Alm._ Heaven cannot be more true, than this is false.
_Seb._ O couldst thou prove it with the same assurance!
Speak, hast thou ever seen my father's hand?
_Alm._ No; but my mother's honour has been read
By me, and by the world, in all her acts,
In characters more plain and legible
Than this dumb evidence, this blotted lie.--
Oh that I were a man, as my soul's one,
To prove thee traitor, and assassinate
Of her fame! thus moved, I'd tear thee thus,-- [_Tearing the Paper._
And scatter o'er the field thy coward limbs,
Like this foul offspring of thy forging brain.
[_Scattering the Paper._
_Alv._ Just so shalt thou be torn from all thy hopes;
For know, proud woman, know, in thy despite,
The most authentic proof is still behind,--
Thou wear'st it on thy finger: 'Tis that ring,
Which, matched to that on his, shall clear the doubt.
'Tis no dumb forgery, for that shall speak,
And sound a rattling peal to either's conscience.
_Seb._ This ring, indeed, my father, with a cold
And shaking hand, just in the pangs of death,
Put on my finger, with a parting sigh;
And would have, spoke, but faultered in his speech,
With undistinguished sound.
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