Scene
VI
Enter Friar Jacomo and Friar Barnadine.
Friar Jacomo
O, brother, brother, all the nuns are sick,
And physic will not help them: they must die.
Friar Barnadine
The abbess sent for me to be confessed:
O, what a sad confession will there be!
Friar Jacomo
And so did fair Maria send for me:
I’ll to her lodging: hereabouts she lies.
Exit.
Enter Abigail.
Friar Barnadine
What, all dead, save only Abigail?
Abigail
And I shall die too, for I feel death coming.
Where is the friar that conversed with me?
Friar Barnadine
O, he is gone to see the other nuns.
Abigail
I sent for him, but, seeing you are come,
Be you my ghostly father: and first know,
That in this house I lived religiously,
Chaste, and devout, much sorrowing for my sins;
But, ere I came—
Friar Barnadine
What then?
Abigail
I did offend high Heaven so grievously
As I am almost desperate for my sins:
And one offence torments me more than all.
You knew Mathias and Don Lodowick?
Friar Barnadine
Yes; what of them?
Abigail
My father did contract me to ’em both:
First to Don Lodowick: him I never loved;
Mathias was the man that I held dear,
And for his sake did I become a nun.
Friar Barnadine
So, say how was their end?
Abigail
Both, jealous of my love, envied each other,
And by my father’s practice, which is there
Set down at large, the gallants were both slain.
Gives a written paper.
Friar Barnadine
O monstrous villany!
Abigail
To work my peace, this I confess to thee;
Reveal it not, for then my father dies.
Friar Barnadine
Know that confession must not be revealed,
The canon law forbids it, and the priest
That makes it known, being degraded first,
Shall be condemned, and then sent to the fire.
Abigail
So I have heard; pray, therefore, keep it close.
Death seizeth on my heart: ah gentle friar,
Convert my father that he may be saved,
And witness that I die a Christian!
Dies.
Friar Barnadine
Ay, and a virgin too; that grieves me most:
But I must to the Jew, and exclaim on him,
And make him stand in fear of me.
Reenter Friar Jacomo.
Friar Jacomo
O brother, all the nuns are dead, let’s bury them.
Friar Barnadine
First help to bury this, then go with me,
And help me to exclaim against the Jew.
Friar Jacomo
Why, what has he done?
Friar Barnadine
A thing that makes me tremble to unfold.
Friar Jacomo
What, has he crucified a child?
Friar Barnadine
No, but a worse thing: ’twas told me in shrift,
Thou know’st ’tis death, an if it be revealed.
Come, let’s away.
Exeunt.