ACT IV. SCENE IV. The entrance of a cave,
near which runs the river, afterward the Humber.]

[Enter Humber alone, saying:]

HUMBER.
O vita misero longa, foelici brevis,
Eheu! malorum fames extremum malum.

Long have I lived in this desert cave,
With eating haws and miserable roots,
Devouring leaves and beastly excrements.
Caves were my beds, and stones my pillow-bears,
Fear was my sleep, and horror was my dream,
For still me thought, at every boisterous blast,
Now Locrine comes, now, Humber, thou must die:
So that for fear and hunger, Humber's mind
Can never rest, but always trembling stands,
O, what Danubius now may quench my thirst?
What Euphrates, what lightfoot Euripus,
May now allay the fury of that heat,
Which, raging in my entrails, eats me up?
You ghastly devils of the ninefold Styx,
You damned ghosts of joyless Acheron,
You mournful souls, vexed in Abyss' vaults,
You coalblack devils of Avernus' pond,
Come, with your fleshhooks rent my famished arms,
These arms that have sustained their master's life.