The Birth of Merlin, or, the Childe Hath Found His Father
ACT III SCENE III


Thunder and lightning; enter Devil.

DEVIL.
Mix light and darkness; earth and heaven dissolve,
Be of one piece agen, and turn to Chaos;
Break all your works, you powers, and spoil the world,
Or, if you will maintain earth still, give way
And life to this abortive birth now coming,
Whose fame shall add unto your oracles.
Lucina Hecate, dreadful Queen of Night,
Bright Proserpine, be pleas'd for Ceres love,
From Stigian darkness summon up the Fates,
And in a moment bring them quickly hither,
Lest death do vent her birth and her together. (Thunder.
Assist, you spirits of infernal deeps,
Squint ey'd Erictho, midnight incubus,
Rise, rise to aid this birth prodigious.

Enter Lucina and the three Fates.

Thanks, Hecate; hail, sister to the gods!
There lies your way, haste with the Fates, and help,
Give quick dispatch unto her laboring throws,
To bring this mixture of infernal seed
To humane being; (Exit Fates.
And to beguil her pains, till back you come,
Anticks shall dance and musick fill the room.-- (Dance.

DEVIL.
Thanks, Queen of Shades.

LUCINA.
Farewel, great servant to th'infernal king.
In honor of this childe, the Fates shall bring
All their assisting powers of knowledge, arts,
Learning, wisdom, all the hidden parts
Of all-admiring prophecy, to fore-see
The event of times to come: his art shall stand
A wall of brass to guard the Brittain land.
Even from this minute, all his arts appears
Manlike in judgement, person, state, and years.
Upon his brest the Fates have fixt his name,
And since his birth place was this forrest here,
They now have nam'd him Merlin Silvester.

DEVIL.
And Merlins name in Brittany shall live,
Whilst men inhabit here or Fates can give
Power to amazing wonder; envy shall weep,
And mischief sit and shake her ebbone wings,
Whilst all the world of Merlins magick sings. (Exit.

On to Scene IV
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