Chapman, george The Plays of George Chapman, The Tragedies. Allan Holaday, ed. Q1. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987 1607 ChaBuDa1.1 Buss Fortune, not reason, rules the state of things, Reward goes backwards, honour on his head; Who is not poor, is monstrous; only need Gives form and worth to every human seed. As cedars beaten with incessant storms, So great men flourish; and do imitate Unskilful statuaries, who suppose (in forging a colossus) if they make him Straddle enough, strut, and look big, and gape, Their work is goodly: so our tympanous statists (in their affected gravity of voice, Sourness of countenance, manners' cruelty, Authority, wealth, and all the spawn of fortune) Think they bear all the kingdom's worth before them; Yet differ not from those colossic statues, Which with heroic forms without overspread, Within are nought but mortar, flint and lead. Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream But of a shadow, summed with all his substance; And as great seamen using all their powers And skills in neptune's deep invisible paths, In tall ships richly built and ribbed with brass, To put a girdle round about the world - When they have done it (coming near their haven) Are glad to give a warning-piece, and call A poor staid fisherman, that never passed His country's sight, to waft and guide them in: So when we wander furthest through the waves Of glassy glory and gulfs of state, Topped with all titles, spreading all our reaches, As if each private arm would sphere the world; We must to virtue for her guide resort, Or we shall shipwrack in our safest port. Mons There is no second place in numerous state That holds more than a cipher: in a king All places are contained. his words and looks Are like the flashes and the bolts of jove, His deeds inimitable, like the sea That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts, Nor prints of precedent for poor men's facts. There is but a thread betwixt me and a crown; I would not wish it cut, unless by nature; Yet to prepare me for that likely fortune, It is fit i get resolved spirits about me. I followed d'ambois to this green retreat; A man of spirit beyond the reach of fear, Who (discontent with his neglected worth) Neglects the light, and loves obscure abodes; But he is young and haughty, apt to take Fire at advancement, to bear state and flourish; In his rise therefore shall my bounties shine: None loathes the world so much, nor loves to scoff it, But gold and grace will make him surfeit of it. What, d'ambois? Buss he sir. Mons turned to earth, alive? Up man, the sun shines on thee.Buss let it shine. I am no mote to play in it, as great men are. Mons Thinkest thou men great in state, motes in the sun? They say so that would have thee freeze in shades, That (like the gross sicilian gourmandist) Empty their noses in the cates they love, That none may eat but they. do thou but bring Light to the banquet fortune sets before thee, And thou wilt loathe lean darkness like thy death. Who would believe thy mettle could let sloth Rust and consume it? if themistocles Had lived obscured thus in the athenian state, Xerxes had made both him and it his slaves. If brave camillus had lurked so in rome, He had not five times been dictator there, Nor four times triumphed. if epaminondas (who lived twice twenty years obscured in thebes) Had lived so still, he had been still unnamed, And paid his country nor himself their right: But putting forth his strength, he rescued both From imminent ruin; and like burnished steel, After long use he shined; for as the light Not only serves to shew, but render us Mutually profitable: so our lives In acts exemplary, not only win Ourselves good names, but doth to others give Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live. Buss What would you wish me do? Mons leave the troubled streams, And live as thrivers do at the well-head. Buss At the well-head? alas what should i do With that enchanted glass? see devils there? Or (like a strumpet) learn to set my looks In an eternal brake, or practise juggling, To keep my face still fast, my heart still loose; Or bear (like dames schoolmistresses their riddles) Two tongues, and be good only for a shift; Flatter great lords, to put them still in mind Why they were made lords: or please portly ladies With a good carriage, tell them idle tales, To make their physic work; spend a man's life In sights and visitations, that will make His eyes as hollow as his mistress' heart; To do none good, but those that have no need; To gain being forward, though you break for haste All the commandments ere you break your fast: But believe backwards, make your period And creed's last article, i believe in god; And (hearing villainies preached) to unfold their art Learn to commit them - it is a great man's part. Shall i learn this there? Mons no, thou needest not learn, Thou hast the theory, now go there and practise. Buss Ay, in a threadbare suit; when men come there, They must have high naps, and go from thence bare: A man may drown the parts of ten rich men In one poor suit; brave barks, and outward gloss Attract court eyes, be in-parts never so gross. Mons Thou shalt have gloss enough, and all things fit To enchase in all shew, thy long smothered spirit: Be ruled by me then. the rude scythians Painted blind fortune's powerful hands with wings, To shew her gifts come swift and suddenly, Which if her favourite be not swift to take, He loses them for ever. then be ruled: Stay but a while here, and i will send to thee. Buss What will he send? some crowns? it is to sow them Upon my spirit, and make them spring a crown Worth millions of the seed crowns he will send: But he is no husband here; a smooth plain ground Will never nourish any politic seed; I am for honest actions, not for great: If i may bring up a new fashion, And rise in court with virtue, speed his plough; The king hath known me long as well as he, Yet could my fortune never fit the length Of both their understandings till this hour. There is a deep nick in time's restless wheel For each man's good, when which nick comes it strikes; As rhetoric yet works not persuasion, But only is a mean to make it work: So no man riseth by his real merit, But when it cries clink in his raiser's spirit. Many will say, that cannot rise at all, Man's first hour's rise, is first step to his fall: I will venture that; men that fall low must die, As well as men cast headlong from the sky. Maff Humour of princes! is this man indued With any merit worth a thousand crowns? Will my lord have me be so ill a steward Of his revenue, to dispose a sum So great with so small cause as shews in him? I must examine this. - is your name d'ambois? Buss Sir? Maff is your name d'ambois? buss who have we here? Serve you the monsieur? Maff how? Buss serve you the monsieur? Maff Sir, you are very hot. i serve the monsieur; But in such place as gives me the command Of all his other servants: and because His grace's pleasure is, to give your good A pass through my command; methinks you might Use me with more good fashion. Buss cry you mercy. Now you have opened my dull eyes, i see you; And would be glad to see the good you speak of: What might i call your name? Maff monsieur maffe. Buss Monsieur maffe? then good monsieur maffe, Pray let me know you better. Maff pray do so, That you may use me better. for yourself, By your no better outside, i would judge you To be a poet; have you given my lord Some pamphlet? Buss pamphlet? Buss Did his wise excellency leave the good That is to pass your charge, to my poor use, To your discretion? Maff though he did not sir, I hope it is no bad office to ask reason, How that his grace gives me in charge, goes from me? Buss That is very perfect sir. Maff why very good sir; I pray then give me leave: if for no pamphlet, May i not know what other merit in you, Makes his compunction willing to relieve you? Buss No merit in the world sir. Maff that is strange. You are a poor soldier, are you? Buss that i am sir. Maff And have commanded? Buss ay, and gone without sir. Maff I see the man: a hundred crowns will make him Swagger, and drink healths to his highness' bounty; And swear he could not be more bountiful. So there is nine hundred crowns, saved; - here tall soldier, His grace hath sent you a whole hundred crowns. Buss A hundred sir? nay do his highness right; I know his hand is larger, and perhaps I may deserve more than my outside shews; I am a scholar, as i am a soldier, And i can poetise; and (being well encouraged) May sing his fame for giving; yours for delivering (like a most faithful steward) what he gives. Maff What shall your subject be? Buss i care not much, If to his excellence i sing the praise Of fair great noses, and to your deserts The reverend virtues of a faithful steward; What qualities have you sir (beside your chain And velvet jacket)? can your worship dance? Maff A merry fellow faith: it seems my lord Will have him for his jester; and believe it, Such men are now no fools, it is a knight's place: If i (to save my lord some crowns) should urge him To abate his bounty, i should not be heard; I would to heaven i were an arrant ass, For then i should be sure to have the ears Of these great men, where now their jesters have them: It is good to please him, yet i will take no notice Of his preferment, but in policy Will still be grave and serious, lest he think I fear his wooden dagger; here sir ambo, A thousand crowns i bring you from my lord; Serve god, play the good husband, you may make This a good standing living, it is a bounty His highness might perhaps have bestowed better. Buss Go, you are a rascal; hence, away you rogue. Maff What mean you sir? Buss hence; prate no more; Or by thy villain's blood thou pratest thy last: A barbarous groom, grudge at his master's bounty: But since i know he would as much abhor His hind should argue what he gives his friend, Take that sir, for your aptness to dispute. Maff These crowns are sown in blood, blood be their fruit. ChaBuDa1.2 Hen Duchess of guise, your grace is much enriched In the attendance of this english virgin, That will initiate her prime of youth (disposed to court conditions) under hand Of your preferred instructions and command, Rather than any in the english court, Whose ladies are not matched in christendom For graceful and confirmed behaviours; More than the court where they are bred is equalled. Gui I like not their court-form, it is too crestfallen In all observance; making semi-gods Of their great nobles; and of their old queen An ever-young, and most immortal goddess. Hen Assure you cousin guise, so great a courtier, So full of majesty and royal parts, No queen in christendom may boast herself, Her court approves it, that is a court indeed; Not mixed with rudeness used in common houses; But, as courts should be the abstracts of their kingdoms, In all the beauty, state, and worth they hold: So is hers, amply, and by her informed. The world is not contracted in a man With more proportion and expression, Than in her court, her kingdom: our french court Is a mere mirror of confusion to it: The king and subject, lord and every slave Dance a continual hay; our rooms of state, Kept like our stables; no place more observed Than a rude market-place: and though our custom Keep this assured deformity from our sight, It is nevertheless essentially unsightly, Which they would soon see, would they change their form To this of ours, and then compare them both; Which we must not affect, because in kingdoms, Where the king's change doth breed the subject's terror, Pure innovation is more gross than error. Mont No question we shall see them imitate (though afar off) the fashions of our courts, As they have ever aped us in attire; Never were men so weary of their skins, And apt to leap out of themselves as they; Who when they travel to bring forth rare men, Come home delivered of a fine french suit: Their brains lie with their tailors, and get babies For their most complete issue; he is first-born To all the moral virtues, that first greets The light with a new fashion, which becomes them Like apes, disfigured with the attires of men. Hen No question they much wrong their real worth, In affectation of outlandish scum; But they have faults, and we; they foolish-proud, To be the pictures of our vanity; We proud, that they are proud of foolery. Mons Come mine own sweet heart i will enter thee. - Sir, i have brought this gentleman to attend you; And pray, you would vouchsafe to do him grace. Hen D'ambois, i think. ChaBuDa1.2 Buss that is still my name, my lord, Though i be something altered in attire. Hen I like your alteration, and must tell you, I have expected the offer of your service; For we (in fear to make mild virtue proud) Use not to seek her out in any man. Buss Nor doth she use to seek out any man: He that will win, must woo her; she is not shameless. Mons I urged her modesty in him, my lord, And gave her those rites, that he says she merits. Hen If you have wooed and won, then brother wear him. Mons Thou art mine, my love; see here is the guise's duchess. The countess of montsurry; beaupre, come i will enseam Thee; ladies, you are too many to be in council: i have Here a friend, that i would gladly enter in your graces. Duch If you enter him in our graces, methinks by his blunt Behaviour, he should come out of himself. Tam Has he never been courtier, my lord? Mons Never, my lady. BeaupAnd why did the toy take him in the head now? Buss It is leap-year, lady, and therefore very good to enter a Courtier. Tam the man is a courtier at first sight. Buss I can sing prick-song, lady, at first sight; and why not Be a courtier as suddenly? BeaupHere is a courtier rotten before he be ripe. Buss Think me not impudent, lady, i am yet no courtier, i Desire to be one, and would gladly take Entrance, madam, under your princely colours. Gui Sir, know you me? Buss My lord? Gui I know not you: whom do you serve? Buss Serve, my lord? Gui go to companion; your courtship is too saucy. Buss Saucy? companion? it is the guise, but yet Those terms might have been spared of the guiserd. Companion? he is jealous by this light: are you blind of That side sir? i will to her again for that. Forth madam, for the honour of courtship. Gui Cease your courtship, or by heaven i will cut your throat. Buss Cut my throat? cut a whetstone; good accius naevius, Do as much with your tongue as he did with a razor; cut My throat? Gui I will do it by this hand. Buss That hand dares not do it; you have cut too many throats Already guise; and robbed the realm of many thousand Souls, more precious than thine own. Come madam, talk on; 'sfoot, can you not talk? talk On i say, more courtship, as you love it. Barr What new-come gallant have we here, that dares mate The guise thus? L'an 'sfoot it is d'ambois; the duke mistakes him (on my Life) for some knight of the new edition. Buss Cut my throat? i would the king feared thy cutting of His throat no more than i fear thy cutting of mine. Gui So sir, so. Pyrr Here is some strange distemper. Barr Here is a sudden transmigration with d'ambois, out Of the knights' ward, into the duchess' bed. L'an See what a metamorphosis a brave suit can work. Pyrr 'slight, step to the guise and discover him. Barr by no means, let the new suit work, we will see the issue. Gui Leave your courtship. Buss I will not. i say mistress, and i will stand unto it, that If a woman may have three servants, a man may have Threescore mistresses. Gui Sirrah, i will have you whipped out of the court for this Insolence. Buss Whipped? such another syllable out of the presence, If thou darest for thy dukedom. Gui Remember, poltroon. Mons Pray thee forbear. Buss Passion of death! were not the king here, he should Strew the chamber like a rush. Mons But leave courting his wife then. Buss I will not: i will court her in despite of him. not court Her! - come madam, talk on; fear me nothing. - Well mayest thou drive thy master from the court; But never d'ambois. Mons His great heart will not down, it is like the sea That partly by his own internal heat, Partly the stars' daily and nightly motion, Ardour and light, and partly of the place The divers frames, and chiefly by the moon, Bristled with surges, never will be won (no, not when the hearts of all those powers are burst) To make retreat into his settled home, Till he be crowned with his own quiet foam. Hen You have the mate. another. Gui No more. Barr Why here is the lion, scared with the throat of a dunghill Cock; a fellow that has newly shaked off his shackles; Now does he crow for that victory. L'an It is one of the best jigs that ever was acted. Pyrr Whom does the guise suppose him to be, trow? L'an Out of doubt, some new-denizened lord; and thinks That suit come new out of the mercers' books. Barr I have heard of a fellow, that by a fixed imagination Looking upon a bull-baiting, had a visible pair of horns Grew out of his forehead: and i believe this gallant overjoyed With the conceit of monsieur's cast suit, imagines Himself to be the monsieur. L'an And why not? as well as the ass, stalking in the lion's Case, bear himself like a lion, roaring all the huger beasts Out of the forest? Pyrr peace, he looks this way. Barr Marry let him look sir, what will you say now if the Guise be gone to fetch a blanket for him? L'an Faith i believe it for his honour. Pyrr But, if d'ambois carry it clean? Barr True, when he curvets in the blanket. Pyrr Ay marry sir. L'an 'sfoot, see how he stares on us. Barr Lord bless us, let us away. Buss Now sir, take your full view: how does the object please Ye? Barr If you ask my opinion sir, i think your suit sits as well As if it had been made for you. Buss So sir, and was that the subject of your ridiculous Jollity? L'an What is that to you sir? Buss Sir, i have observed all your fleerings; and resolve Yourselves ye shall give a strict account for it. Pyrr O strange credulity! do you think yourself such a Singular subject for laughter, that none can fall into our Merriment but you? Barr This jealousy of yours sir, confesses some close defect In yourself, that we never dreamed of. L'an We held discourse of a perfumed ass, that being disguised With a lion's case, imagined himself a lion: i Hope that touched not you. Buss So sir: your descants do marvellous well fit this ground, We shall meet where your buffoonly laughters will cost ye The best blood in your bodies. Barr For life's sake let us be gone; he will kill us outright. Buss Go at your pleasures, i will be your ghost to haunt you, And ye sleep on it, hang me. L'an Go, go sir, court your mistress. Pyrr And be advised: we shall have odds against you. Buss Tush, valour stands not in number: i will maintain it, That one man may beat three boys. Bris Nay you shall have no odds of him in number sir: he is A gentleman as good as the proudest of you, and ye shall Not wrong him. Barr Not sir? Mel Not sir: though he be not so rich, he is a better man than The best of you; and i will not endure it. L'an Not you sir? Bris No sir, nor i. Buss I should thank you for this kindness, if i thought these Perfumed musk-cats (being out of this privilege) durst But once mew at us. Barr Does your confident spirit doubt that sir? come follow Us and try. L'an Come sir, we will lead you a dance. ChaBuDa2.1 Hen This desperate quarrel sprung out of their envies To d'ambois' sudden bravery, and great spirit. Gui Neither is worth their envy. Hen less than either Will make the gall of envy overflow; She feeds on outcast entrails like a kite: In which foul heap, if any ill lies hid, She sticks her beak into it, shakes it up, And hurls it all abroad, that all may view it. Corruption is her nutriment; but touch her With any precious ointment, and you kill her: When she finds any filth in men, she feasts, And with her black throat bruits it through the world (being sound and healthful); but if she but taste The slenderest pittance of commended virtue, She surfeits of it, and is like a fly, That passes all the body's soundest parts, And dwells upon the sores; or if her squint eye Have power to find none there, she forges some: She makes that crooked ever which is straight; Calls valour giddiness, justice tyranny: A wise man may shun her, she not herself; Whithersoever she flies from her harms, She bears her foe still clasped in her own arms: And therefore cousin guise let us avoid her. Nun What atlas, or olympus lifts his head So far past covert, that with air enough My words may be informed? and from his height I may be seen, and heard through all the world? A tale so worthy, and so fraught with wonder, Sticks in my jaws, and labours with event. Hen Comest thou from d'ambois? Nun from him, and the rest His friends and enemies; whose stern fight i saw, And heard their words before, and in the fray. Hen Relate at large what thou hast seen and heard. Nun I saw fierce d'ambois, and his two brave friends Enter the field, and at their heels their foes; Which were the famous soldiers, barrisor, L'anou, and pyrrhot, great in deeds of arms: All which arrived at the evenest piece of earth The field afforded; the three challengers Turned head, drew all their rapiers, and stood ranked: When face to face the three defendants met them, Alike prepared, and resolute alike, Like bonfires of contributory wood: Every man's look shewed, fed with either's spirit, As one had been a mirror to another, Like forms of life and death, each took from other; And so were life and death mixed at their heights, That you could see no fear of death, for life; Nor love of life, for death: but in their brows Pyrrho's opinion in great letters shone, That life and death in all respects are one. Hen Passed there no sort of words at their encounter? Nun As hector, betwixt the hosts of greece and troy (when paris and the spartan king should end The nine years' war) held up his brazen lance For signal, that both hosts should cease from arms, And hear him speak: so barrisor (advised) Advanced his naked rapier betwixt both sides, Ripped up the quarrel, and compared six lives Then laid in balance with six idle words; Offered remission and contrition too; Or else that he and d'ambois might conclude The others' dangers. d'ambois liked the last; But barrisor's friends (being equally engaged In the main quarrel) never would expose His life alone, to that they all deserved. And (for the other offer of remission) D'ambois (that like a laurel put in fire, Sparkled and spit) did much much more than scorn, That his wrong should incense him so like chaff, To go so soon out; and like lighted paper, Approve his spirit at once both fire and ashes: So drew they lots, and in them fates appointed, That barrisor should fight with fiery d'ambois; Pyrrhot with melynell; with brisac l'anou: And then like flame and powder they commixed, So spritely, that i wished they had been spirits, That the never-shutting wounds they needs must open, Might as they opened, shut, and never kill: But d'ambois' sword (that lightened as it flew) Shot like a pointed comet at the face Of manly barrisor; and there it stuck: Thrice plucked he at it, and thrice drew on thrusts, From him, that of himself was free as fire; Who thrust still as he plucked, yet (past belief!) He with his subtle eye, hand, body, scaped; At last the deadly bitten point tugged off, On fell his yet undaunted foe so fiercely, That (only made more horrid with his wound) Great d'ambois shrunk, and gave a little ground; But soon returned, redoubled in his danger, And at the heart of barrisor sealed his anger: Then, as in arden i have seen an oak Long shook with tempests, and his lofty top Bent to his root, which being at length made loose (even groaning with his weight) he gan to nod This way and that, as loth his curled brows (which he had oft wrapped in the sky with storms) Should stoop: and yet, his radical fivers burst, Storm-like he fell, and hid the fear-cold earth. So fell stout barrisor, that had stood the shocks Of ten set battles in your highness' war, Against the sole soldier of the world, navarre. Gui o piteous and horrid murder! Beaum such a life Methinks had mettle in it to survive An age of men. Hen such, often soonest end. Thy felt report calls on, we long to know On what events the other have arrived. Nun Sorrow and fury, like two opposite fumes Met in the upper region of a cloud, At the report made by this worthy's fall Brake from the earth, and with them rose revenge, Entering with fresh powers his two noble friends; And under that odds fell surcharged brisac, The friend of d'ambois, before fierce l'anou; Which d'ambois seeing, as i once did see In my young travels through armenia, An angry unicorn in his full career Charge with too quick an eye a jeweller, That watched him for the treasure of his brow; And ere he could get shelter of a tree, Nail him with his rich antler to the earth: So d'ambois ran upon revenged l'anou, Who eyeing the eager point borne in his face, And giving back, fell back, and in his fall His foe's uncurbed sword stopped in his heart: By which time all the life strings of the two other Were cut, and both fell as their spirits flew Upwards: and still hunt honour at the view. And now (of all the six) sole d'ambois stood Untouched, save only with the others' blood. Hen All slain outright? Nun all slain outright but he, Who kneeling in the warm life of his friends (all freckled with the blood his rapier rained), He kissed their pale cheeks, and bade both farewell; And see the bravest man the french earth bears. Buss Now is the time, you are princely-vowed my friend, Perform it princely, and obtain my pardon. Mons Else heaven forgive not me: come on brave friend. If ever nature held herself her own, When the great trial of a king and subject Met in one blood, both from one belly springing: Now prove her virtue and her greatness one, Or make the t'one the greater with the t'other (as true kings should), and for your brother's love (which is a special species of true virtue), Do that you could not do, not being a king. Hen Brother i know your suit; these wilful murders Are ever past our pardon. Mons manly slaughter Should never bear the account of wilful murder; It being a spice of justice, where, with life Offending past law, equal life is laid In equal balance, to scourge that offence By law of reputation (which to men Exceeds all positive law); and what that leaves To true men's valours (not prefixing rights Of satisfaction, suited to their wrongs) A free man's eminence may supply and take. Hen This would make every man that thinks him wronged, Or is offended, or in wrong or right, Lay on this violence, and all vaunt themselves Law-menders and suppliers though mere butchers; Should this fact (though of justice) be forgiven? Mons O no, my lord; it would make cowards fear To touch the reputations of full men; When only they are left to imp the law, Justice will soon distinguish murderous minds From just revengers: had my friend been slain, His enemy surviving, he should die, Since he had added to a murdered fame (which was in his intent) a murdered man; And this had worthily been wilful murder: But my friend only saved his fame's dear life Which is above life, taking the under-value Which in the wrong it did was forfeit to him; And in this fact only preserves a man In his uprightness; worthy to survive Millions of such as murder men, alive. Hen Well brother, rise, and raise your friend withal From death to life: and d'ambois, let your life (refined by passing through this merited death) Be purged from more such foul pollution; Nor on your escape, nor valour more presuming, To be again so violent. Buss my lord, I loathe as much a deed of unjust death, As law itself doth; and to tyrannise, Because i have a little spirit to dare And power to do, as to be tyrannised; This is a grace that (on my knees redoubled) I crave to double this my short life's gift; And shall your royal bounty centuple, That i may so make good what god and nature Have given me for my good: since i am free (offending no just law), let no law make By any wrong it does, my life her slave: When i am wronged and that law fails to right me, Let me be king myself (as man was made) And do a justice that exceeds the law: If my wrong pass the power of single valour To right and expiate; then be you my king, And do a right, exceeding law and nature: Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no king, and is a king indeed. Hen Enjoy what thou entreatest, we give but ours. Buss What you have given, my lord, is ever yours. Gui Mort dieu, who would have pardoned such a murder? Mons Now vanish horrors into court attractions, For which let this balm make thee fresh and fair. Buss How shall i quite your love? Mons be true to the end: I have obtained a kingdom with my friend. ChaBuDa2.2 Mont He will have pardon sure. ChaBuDa2.2 Tam it were pity else: For though his great spirit something overflow, All faults are still-born, that from greatness grow: But such a sudden courtier saw i never. BeaupHe was too sudden, which indeed was rudeness. Tam true, for it argued his no due conceit Both of the place, and greatness of the persons; Nor of our sex: all which (we all being strangers To his encounter) should have made more manners Deserve more welcome. Mont all this fault is found Because he loved the duchess and left you. Tam Alas, love give her joy; i am so far From envy of her honour, that i swear, Had he encountered me with such proud sleight, I would have put that project face of his To a more test than did her duchess-ship. BeaupWhy, by your leave my lord, i will speak it here (although she be my aunt), she scarce was modest, When she perceived the duke her husband take Those late exceptions to her servant's courtship, To entertain him. Tam ay, and stand him still, Letting her husband give her servant place: Though he did manly, she should be a woman. Gui D'ambois is pardoned: where is a king? where law? See how it runs, much like a turbulent sea; Here high, and glorious, as it did contend To wash the heavens, and make the stars more pure: And here so low, it leaves the mud of hell To every common view; come count montsurry We must consult of this. Tam stay not, sweet lord. Mont Be pleased, i will straight return. Tam would that would please me. BeaupI will leave you madam to your passions. I see, there is change of weather in your looks. Tam I cannot cloak it: but, as when a fume, Hot, dry and gross (within the womb of earth Or in her superficies begot), When extreme cold hath struck it to her heart, The more it is compressed, the more it rageth; Exceeds his prison's strength that should contain it, And then it tosseth temples in the air; All bars made engines to his insolent fury: So, of a sudden, my licentious fancy Riots within me: not my name and house Nor my religion to this hour observed Can stand above it: i must utter that That will in parting break more strings in me, Than death when life parts; and that holy man That from my cradle counselled for my soul, I now must make an agent for my blood. Mons Yet, is my mistress gracious? Tam yet unanswered? Mons Pray thee regard thine own good, if not mine, And cheer my love for that; you do not know What you may be by me, nor what without me; I may have power to advance and pull down any. Tam that is not my study: one way i am sure You shall not pull down me: my husband's height Is crown to all my hopes: and his retiring To any mean state, shall be my aspiring: Mine honour is in mine own hands, spite of kings. Mons Honour, what is that? your second maidenhead: And what is that? a word: the word is gone, The thing remains: the rose is plucked, the stalk Abides: an easy loss where no lack is found: Believe it there is as small lack in the loss, As there is pain in the losing; archers ever Have two strings to a bow: and shall great cupid (archer of archers both in men and women) Be worse provided than a common archer? A husband and a friend all wise wives have. Tam Wise wives they are that on such strings depend, With a firm husband, weighing a dissolute friend. Mons Still you stand on your husband, so do all The common sex of you, when you are encountered With one ye cannot fancy: all men know You live in court here by your own election, Frequenting all our solemn sports and triumphs, All the most youthful company of men: And wherefore do you this? to please your husband? It is gross and fulsome: if your husband's pleasure Be all your object, and you aim at honour In living close to him, get you from court, You may have him at home; these common put-offs For common women serve: my honour? husband? Dames maritorious, never were meritorious: Speak plain and say i do not like you sir, You are an ill-favoured fellow in my eye, And i am answered. Tam then i pray be answered: For in good faith my lord i do not like you In that sort you like. Mons then have at you here: Take (with a politic hand) this rope of pearl; And though you be not amorous, yet be wise: Take me for wisdom; he that you can love Is never the further from you. Tam now it comes So ill prepared, that i may take a poison Under a medicine as good cheap as it: I will not have it were it worth the world. Mons Horror of death: could i but please your eye, You would give me the like, ere you would loose me: Honour and husband! Tam by this light my lord You are a vile fellow: and i will tell the king Your occupation of dishonouring ladies And of his court: a lady cannot live As she was born, and with that sort of pleasure That fits her state, but she must be defamed With an infamous lord's detraction: Who would endure the court if these attempts Of open and professed lust must be borne? Who is there? come on dame, you are at your book When men are at your mistress; have i taught you Any such waiting woman's quality? Mons Farewell good husband. Tam farewell wicked lord. Mont Was not the monsieur here? Tam yes, to good purpose. And your cause is as good to seek him too And haunt his company. Mont why what is the matter? Tam Matter of death, were i some husbands' wife: I cannot live at quiet in my chamber For opportunities almost to rapes Offered me by him. Mont pray thee bear with him: Thou knowest he is a bachelor, and a courtier, Ay, and a prince: and their prerogatives Are, to their laws, as to their pardons are Their reservations: after parliaments One quits another; form gives all their essence: That prince doth high in virtue's reckoning stand That will entreat a vice, and not command: So far bear with him: should another man Trust to his privilege, he should trust to death; Take comfort then, my comfort, nay triumph, And crown thyself, thou partest with victory: My presence is so only dear to thee, That other men's appear worse than they be. For this night yet, bear with my forced absence: Thou knowest my business; and with how much weight My vow hath charged it. Tam true my lord, and never My fruitless love shall let your serious profit, Yet, sweet lord, do not stay, you know my soul Is so long time without me, and i dead, As you are absent. Mont by this kiss, receive My soul for hostage, till i see my love. Tam the morn shall let me see you. Mont with the sun I will visit thy more comfortable beauties. Tam this is my comfort, that the sun hath left The whole world's beauty ere my sun leaves me. Mont It is late night now indeed: farewell my light. Tam Farewell my light and life - but not in him. Alas, that in the wane of our affections We should supply it with a full dissembling, In which each youngest maid is grown a mother: Frailty is fruitful, one sin gets another: Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine, When they go out; most vice shews most divine. - Go maid, to bed, lend me your book i pray: Not like yourself, for form; i will this night trouble None of your services: make sure the doors, And call your other fellows to their rest. Per I will, yet i will watch to know why you watch. Tam Now all ye peaceful regents of the night, Silently-gliding exhalations, Languishing winds, and murmuring falls of waters, Sadness of heart, and ominous secureness, Enchantments, dead sleeps, all the friends of rest, That ever wrought upon the life of man, Extend your utmost strengths; and this charmed hour Fix like the centre; make the violent wheels Of time and fortune stand; and great existence (the maker's treasury) now not seem to be, To all but my approaching friends and me: They come, alas they come, fear, fear and hope Of one thing, at one instant fight in me: I love what most i loathe, and cannot live Unless i compass that that holds my death: For love is hateful without love again, And he i love, will loathe me, when he sees I fly my sex, my virtue, my renown, To run so madly on a man unknown. See, see the gulf is opening, that will swallow Me and my fame for ever; i will in, And cast myself off, as i never had been. Com come worthiest son, i am past measure glad, That you (whose worth i have approved so long) Should be the object of her fearful love; Since both your wit and spirit can adapt Their full force to supply her utmost weakness: You know her worths and virtues, for report Of all that know, is to a man a knowledge: You know besides, that our affections' storm, Raised in our blood, no reason can reform. Though she seek then their satisfaction (which she must needs, or rest unsatisfied), Your judgement will esteem her peace thus wrought, Nothing less dear, than if yourself had sought: And (with another colour, which my art Shall teach you to lay on) yourself must seem The only agent, and the first orb move, In this our set and cunning world of love. Buss Give me the colour, my most honoured father, And trust my cunning then to lay it on. Com It is this, good son; lord barrisor (whom you slew) Did love her dearly, and with all fit means Hath urged his acceptation, of all which She keeps one letter written in his blood: You must say thus then, that you heard from me How much herself was touched in conscience With a report (which is in truth dispersed) That your main quarrel grew about her love, Lord barrisor imagining your courtship Of the great guise's duchess in the presence, Was by you made to his elected mistress: And so made me your mean now to resolve her, Choosing (by my direction) this night's depth, For the more clear avoiding of all note Of your presumed presence; and with this (to clear her hands of such a lover's blood) She will so kindly thank and entertain you (methinks i see how), ay, and ten to one, Shew you the confirmation in his blood, Lest you should think report and she did feign, That you shall so have circumstantial means To come to the direct, which must be used: For the direct is crooked; love comes flying; The height of love is still won with denying. Buss Thanks honoured father. Com she must never know That you know anything of any love Sustained on her part: for learn this of me: In any thing a woman does alone, If she dissemble, she thinks it is not done; If not dissemble, nor a little chide, Give her her wish, she is not satisfied; To have a man think that she never seeks, Does her more good than to have all she likes: This frailty sticks in them beyond their sex; Which to reform, reason is too perplex: Urge reason to them, it will do no good; Humour (that is the chariot of our food In every body) must in them be fed, To carry their affections by it bred. Stand close. Tam Alas, i fear my strangeness will retire him: If he go back, i die; i must prevent it, And cheer his onset with my sight at least, And that is the most; though every step he takes Goes to my heart, i will rather die than seem Not to be strange to that i most esteem. Com Madam. Tam ah. That, so beyond your expectation (and at a time for visitants so unfit), I (with my noble friend here) visit you: You know that my access at any time Hath ever been admitted; and that friend That my care will presume to bring with me, Shall have all circumstance of worth in him, To merit as free welcome as myself. Tam O father, but at this suspicious hour You know how apt best men are to suspect us, In any cause, that makes suspicious shadow No greater than the shadow of a hair: And you are to blame: what though my lord and husband Lie forth to-night? and since i cannot sleep When he is absent, i sit up to-night, Though all the doors are sure, and all our servants As sure bound with their sleeps; yet there is one That sits above, whose eye no sleep can bind: He sees through doors, and darkness, and our thoughts; And therefore as we should avoid with fear To think amiss ourselves before his search, So should we be as curious to shun All cause that other think not ill of us. Buss Madam, it is far from that: i only heard By this my honoured father, that your conscience Was something troubled with a false report That barrisor's blood should something touch your hand, Since he imagined i was courting you, When i was bold to change words with the duchess, And therefore made his quarrel; which my presence Presumed on with my father at this season (for the more care of your so curious honour), Can well resolve your conscience, is most false. Tam And is it therefore that you come good sir? Than crave i now your pardon and my father's, And swear your presence does me so much comfort, That all i have, it binds to your requital: Indeed sir, it is most true that a report Is spread, alleging that his love to me Was reason of your quarrel; and because You shall not think i feign it for my glory That he importuned me for his court service, I will shew you his own hand, set down in blood To that vain purpose: good sir, then come in. Father i thank you now a thousandfold. Com May it be worth it to you honoured daughter. ChaBuDa3.1 Tam O my dear servant, in thy close embraces, I have set open all the doors of danger To my encompassed honour, and my life: Before, i was secure against death and hell; But now am subject to the heartless fear Of every shadow, and of every breath, And would change firmness with an aspen leaf: So confident a spotless conscience is; So weak a guilty: o the dangerous siege Sin lays about us! and the tyranny He exercises when he hath expugned: Like to the horror of a winter's thunder, Mixed with a gushing storm, that suffer nothing To stir abroad on earth, but their own rages; Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us: No roof, no shelter can secure us so, But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe. Buss Sin is a coward madam, and insults But on our weakness, in his truest valour: And so our ignorance tames us, that we let His shadows fright us: and like empty clouds In which our faulty apprehensions forge The forms of dragons, lions, elephants, When they hold no proportion, the sly charms Of the witch policy makes him like a monster Kept only to shew men for goddess money: That false hag often paints him in her cloth Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth. In three of us, the secret of our meeting Is only guarded, and three friends as one Have ever been esteemed: as our three powers That in our one soul are, as one united: Why should we fear then? for my truth i swear Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure, And health be grievous to men long time sick, Than the dear jewel of your fame in me Be made an outcast to your infamy; Nor shall my value (sacred to your virtues) Only give free course to it, from myself: But make it fly out of the mouths of kings In golden vapours, and with awful wings. Tam It rests as all kings' seals were set in thee. It is not i, but urgent destiny, That (as great statesmen for their general end In politic justice, make poor men offend) Enforceth my offence to make it just: What shall weak dames do, when the whole work of nature Hath a strong finger in each one of us? Needs must that sweep away the silly cobweb Of our still-undone labours: that lays still Our powers to it, as to the line the stone, Not to the stone the line should be opposed; We cannot keep our constant course in virtue; What is alike at all parts? every day Differs from other: every hour and minute: Ay, every thought in our false clock of life Ofttimes inverts the whole circumference: We must be sometimes one, sometimes another; Our bodies are but thick clouds to our souls, Through which they cannot shine when they desire; When all the stars, and even the sun himself, Must stay the vapours' times that he exhales Before he can make good his beams to us - O how can we, that are but motes to him, Wandering at random in his ordered rays, Disperse our passions' fumes, with our weak labours, That are more thick and black than all earth's vapours? Mont Good day, my love: what up and ready too! Tam Both, my dear lord: not all this night made i Myself unready, or could sleep a wink. Mont Alas, what troubled my true love, my peace, From being at peace within her better self? Or how could sleep forbear to seize thy beauties When he might challenge them as his just prize? Tam I am in no power earthly, but in yours; To what end should i go to bed my lord, That wholly missed the comfort of my bed? Or how should sleep possess my faculties, Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes? Mont Then will i never more sleep night from thee: All mine own business, all the king's affairs Shall take the day to serve them: every night I will ever dedicate to thy delight. Tam Nay, good my lord esteem not my desires Such doters on their humours, that my judgement Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure: A wife's pleased husband must her object be In all her acts, not her soothed fantasy. Mont Then come my love, now pay those rites to sleep Thy fair eyes owe him: shall we now to bed? Tam O no my lord, your holy friar says, All couplings in the day that touch the bed Adulterous are, even in the married; Whose grave and worthy doctrine, well i know, Your faith in him will liberally allow. Mont He is a most learned and religious man; Come to the presence then, and see great d'ambois (fortune's proud mushroom shot up in a night) Stand like an atlas underneath the king; Which greatness with him monsieur now envies As bitterly and deadly as the guise. Tam What, he that was but yesterday his maker? His raiser and preserver? Mont even the same. Each natural agent works but to this end, To render that it works on, like itself; Which since the monsieur in his act on d'ambois Cannot to his ambitious end effect, But that (quite opposite) the king hath power (in his love borne to d'ambois) to convert The point of monsieur's aim on his own breast, He turns his outward love to inward hate: A prince's love is like the lightning's fume, Which no man can embrace, but must consume. ChaBuDa3.2 Hen Speak home my bussy, thy impartial words Are like brave falcons that dare truss a fowl Much greater than themselves; flatterers are kites That check at nothing; thou shalt be my eagle, And bear my thunder underneath thy wings: Truth's words like jewels hang in the ears of kings. Buss Would i might live to see no jews hang there Instead of jewels; sycophants i mean, Who use truth like the devil, his true foe, Cast by the angel to the pit of fears, And bound in chains; truth seldom decks king's ears: Slave flattery (like a rippier's legs rolled up In boots of hay-ropes) with kings' soothed guts Swaddled and strappled, now lives only free: O it is a subtle knave; how like the plague Unfelt, he strikes into the brain of truth, And rageth in his entrails when he can, Worse than the poison of a red-haired man. Hen Fly at him and his brood, i cast thee off, And once more give thee surname of mine eagle. Buss I will make you sport enough then, let me have My lucerns too (or dogs inured to hunt Beasts of most rapine) but to put them up, And if i truss not, let me not be trusted: Shew me a great man (by the people's voice, Which is the voice of god) that by his greatness Bombasts his private roofs, with public riches; That affects royalty, rising from a clapdish; That rules so much more than his suffering king, That he makes kings of his subordinate slaves: Himself and them graduate like woodmongers (piling a stack of billets) from the earth, Raising each other into steeples' heights; Let him convey this on the turning props Of protean law, and (his own counsel keeping) Keep all upright; let me but hawk at him, I will play the vulture, and so thump his liver, That (like a huge unlading argosy) He shall confess all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a clergyman, that is in voice A lark of heaven, in heart a mole of earth; That hath good living, and a wicked life; A temperate look, and a luxurious gut; Turning the rents of his superfluous cures Into your pheasants and your partridges; Venting their quintessence as men read hebrew: Let me but hawk at him, and, like the other, He shall confess all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a lawyer that turns sacred law (the equal renderer of each man his own, The scourge of rapine and extortion, The sanctuary and impregnable defence Of retired learning, and oppressed virtue) Into a harpy, that eats all but his own; Into the damned sins it punisheth; Into the synagogue of thieves and atheists; Blood into gold, and justice into lust: Let me but hawk at him, as at the t'other, He shall confess all, and you then may hang him. Gui Where will you find such game as you would hawk at? Buss I will hawk about your house for one of them. Gui Come, you are a glorious ruffian, and run proud Of the king's headlong graces; hold your breath, Or by that poisoned vapour not the king Shall back your murderous valour against me. Buss I would the king would make his presence free But for one charge betwixt us: by the reverence Due to the sacred space betwixt kings and subjects, Here would i make thee cast that popular purple, In which thy proud soul sits and braves thy sovereign. Mons Peace, peace, i pray thee peace. ChaBuDa3.2 Buss let him peace first That made the first war. Mons he is the better man. Buss And therefore may do worst? Mons he has more titles. Buss So hydra had more heads. Mons he is greater known. Buss His greatness is the people's, mine is mine own. Mons He is nobler born. Buss he is not, i am noble. And noblesse in his blood hath no gradation, But in his merit. Gui thou art not nobly born, But bastard to the cardinal of ambois. Buss Thou liest proud guiserd; let me fly, my lord. Hen Not in my face; my eagle, violence flies The sanctuaries of a prince's eyes. Buss Still shall we chide? and foam upon this bit? Is the guise only great in faction? Stands he not by himself? proves he the opinion That men's souls are without them? be a duke, And lead me to the field. Gui come, follow me. Hen Stay them, stay d'ambois; cousin guise, i wonder Your equal disposition brooks so ill A man so good, that only would uphold Man in his native noblesse, from whose fall All our dissensions rise; that in himself (without the outward patches of our frailty, Riches and honour) knows he comprehends Worth with the greatest: kings had never borne Such boundless eminence over other men, Had all maintained the spirit and state of d'ambois; Nor had the full impartial hand of nature That all things gave in her original, Without these definite terms of mine and thine, Been turned unjustly to the hand of fortune - Had all preserved her in her prime, like d'ambois; No envy, no disjunction, had dissolved Or plucked out one stick of the golden faggot In which the world of saturn was comprised, Had all been held together with the nerves, The genius and the ingenuous soul of d'ambois. Let my hand therefore be the hermean rod To part and reconcile, and so conserve you, As my combined embracers and supporters. Buss It is our king's motion, and we shall not seem (to worst eyes) womanish, though we change thus soon Never so great grudge for his greater pleasure. Gui I seal to that, and so the manly freedom That you so much profess, hereafter prove not A bold and glorious licence to deprave: To me his hand shall prove the hermean rod His grace affects, in which submissive sign On this his sacred right hand, i lay mine. Buss It is well my lord, and so your worthy greatness Engender not the greater insolence, Nor make you think it a prerogative, To rack men's freedoms with the ruder wrongs: My hand (stuck full of laurel, in true sign It is wholly dedicate to righteous peace) In all submission kisseth the other side. Hen Thanks to ye both: and kindly i invite ye Both to a banquet where we will sacrifice Full cups to confirmation of your loves; At which, fair ladies, i entreat your presence. Mons What had my bounty drunk when it raised him? Gui You have stuck us up a very proper flag That takes more wind than we with all our sails. Mons O so he spreads and flourishes. Gui he must down, Upstarts should never perch too near a crown. Mons It is true my lord; and as this doting hand, Even out of earth (like juno) struck this giant, So jove's great ordnance shall be here implied To strike him under the aetna of his pride: To which work lend your hands and let us cast Where we may set snares for his gadding greatness: I think it best, amongst our greatest women: For there is no such trap to catch an upstart As a loose downfall; and indeed their falls Are the ends of all men's rising: if great men And wise make escapades to please advantage It is with a woman: women that worst may Still hold men's candles: they direct and know All things amiss in all men; and their women All things amiss in them: through whose charmed mouths We may see all the close escapades of the court: The place is marked, and by his venery He still is taken. shall we then attempt The chiefest mean to that discovery here, And court our greatest ladies' greatest women With shews of love, and liberal promises? It is but our breath: if something given in hand Sharpen their hopes of more, it will be well ventured. Gui No doubt of that: and it is an excellent point Of our devised investigation. Mons I have already broke the ice, my lord, With the most trusted woman of your countess, And hope i shall wade through to our discovery. Mont Take assay of her my lord, she comes most fitly, And we will to the other. Gui you are engaged. Ann Nay pray my lord forbear. Mont what skittish, servant? Ann No my lord, i am not so fit for your service. Char Pray pardon me now my lord! my lady expects me. Gui I will satisfy her expectation, as far as an uncle may. Mons Well said: a spirit of courtship of all hands. - Now mine own pero: hast thou remembered me for the Discovery i entreated thee to make concerning thy Mistress? speak boldly, and be sure of all things i have Promised. Pero Building on that you have sworn, my lord, i may Speak: and much the rather, because my lady hath not Trusted me with that i can tell you; for now i cannot be Said to betray her. Mons That is all one: so it be not to one that will betray thee: Forth i beseech thee. Pero To tell you truth, my lord, i have made a strange Discovery. Mons Excellent pero thou revivest me: may i sink quick into Earth here, if my tongue discover it. Pero It is thus then: this last night my lord lay forth: and i Wondering my lady is sitting up, stole at midnight from My pallet: and (having before made a hole both through The wall and arras to her inmost chamber) i saw D'ambois and she set close at a banquet. Mons D'ambois? Pero Even he my lord. Mons Dost thou not dream wench? Pero No my lord, he is the man. Mons The devil he is, and thy lady his dam: Infinite regions betwixt a woman's Tongue and her heart: is this our goddess of chastity? I thought i could not be so slighted, if she had not Her freight besides: and therefore plotted this with her Woman - dear pero i will advance thee for ever: but tell Me now - god's precious it transforms me with Admiration - sweet pero, whom should she trust with his Conveyance? or, all the doors being made sure, how could His conveyance be performed? Pero Nay my lord, that amazes me: i cannot by any study So much as guess at it. Mons Well, let us favour our apprehensions with forbearing That a little: for if my heart were not hooped with Adamant, the conceit of this would have burst it: but hark Thee - Char I swear to your grace, all that i can conjecture Touching my lady your niece, is a strong affection she bears to The english milor. Gui All quod you? it is enough i assure you; but tell me - Mont I pray thee resolve me - the duke will never imagine That i am busy about his wife - hath d'ambois any privy Access to her? Ann No my lord, d'ambois neglects her (as she takes it) And is therefore suspicious that either your countess, or The lady beaupre hath closely entertained him. Mont Berlady a likely suspicion, and very near the life, if she Marks it; especially of my wife. Mons Come we will put off all, with seeming only to have Courted - away dry palm: she has a liver as hard as a Biscuit: a man may go a whole voyage with her, and get Nothing but tempests at her windpipe. Gui Here is one, i think, has swallowed a porcupine, she casts Pricks from her tongue so. Mont And here is a peacock seems to have devoured one of The alps, she has so swelling a spirit, and is so cold of her Kindness. Char We be no windfalls my lord; ye must gather us with The ladder of matrimony, or we will hang till we be rotten. Mons Indeed that is the way to make ye right open-arses. but Alas ye have no portions fit for such husbands as we wish You. Pero portions my lord, yes and such portions as your Principality cannot purchase. Mons What, woman? what are those portions? Pero Riddle my riddle my lord. Mons Ay marry wench, i think thy portion is a right riddle, A man shall never find it out: but let us hear it. Pero You shall my lord. Pero What is that, that being most rare is most cheap? That if you sow, you never reap? That when it grows most, most you in it? And still you lose it when you win it: That when it is commonest, it is dearest, And when it is farthest off it is nearest? Mons Is this your portion? Pero Even this my lord. Mons Believe me i cannot riddle it. Pero No my lord, it is my chastity, which you shall neither Riddle nor fiddle. Mons Your chastity? let me begin with the end of you; how Is a woman's chastity nearest a man, when it is furthest Off? Pero Why my lord, when you cannot get it, it goes to the Heart on you; and that i think comes most near you: and I am sure it shall be far enough off; and so i leave you to My mercy. Mons Farewell riddle. Gui Farewell medlar. Mont Farewell winter plum. Mons Now my lords, what fruit of our inquisition? feel you Nothing budding yet? speak good my lord montsurry. Mont Nothing but this: d'ambois is negligent in observing The duchess, and therefore she is suspicious that your Niece or my wife closely entertains him. Mons Your wife, my lord? think you that possible? Mont Alas, i know she flies him like her last hour. Mons Her last hour? why that comes upon her the more she Flies it: does d'ambois so, think you? Mont That is not worth the answering: it is horrible to think With what monsters women's imaginations engross them When they are once enamoured, and what wonders they Will work for their satisfaction. they will make a sheep Valiant, a lion fearful. Mons And an ass confident, my lord, it is true, and more Will come forth shortly, get you to the banquet. Mons O the unsounded sea of women's bloods, That when it is calmest, is most dangerous; Not any wrinkle creaming in their faces, When in their hearts are scylla and charybdis, Which still are hid in monster-formed clouds, Where never day shines, nothing ever grows, But weeds and poisons, that no statesman knows; Not cerberus ever saw the damned nooks Hid with the veils of women's virtuous looks: I will conceal all yet, and give more time To d'ambois' trial, now upon my hook; He awes my throat; else like sibylla's cave It should breathe oracles; i fear him strangely, And may resemble his advanced valour Unto a spirit raised without a circle, Endangering him that ignorantly raised him, And for whose fury he hath learned no limit. How now, what leapest thou at? Buss o royal object. Mons Thou dreamest awake: object in the empty air? Buss Worthy the head of titan, worth his chair. Mons Pray thee what meanest thou? Buss see you not a crown Empale the forehead of the great king monsieur? Mons O fie upon thee. Buss sir, that is the subject Of all these your retired and sole discourses. Mons Wilt thou not leave that wrongful supposition? This still hath made me doubt thou dost not love me. Wilt thou do one thing for me then sincerely? Buss Ay, anything, but killing of the king. Mons Still in that discord, and ill-taken note? Buss Come, do not doubt me, and command me all things. Mons I will not then, and now by all my love Shewn to thy virtues, and by all fruits else Already sprung from that affection, I charge thee utter (even with all the freedom Both of thy noble nature and thy friendship) The full and plain state of me in thy thoughts. Buss What, utter plainly what i think of you? Why this swims quite against the stream of greatness: Great men would rather hear their flatteries, And if they be not made fools, are not wise. Mons I am no such great fool, and therefore charge thee Even from the root of thy free heart, display me. Buss Since you affect it in such serious terms, If yourself first will tell me what you think As freely and as heartily of me, I will be as open in my thoughts of you. Mons A bargain of mine honour; and make this, That prove we in our full dissection Never so foul, live still the sounder friends. Buss What else sir? come begin, and speak me simply. Mons I will i swear. i think thee then a man, That dares as much as a wild horse or tiger; As headstrong and as bloody; and to feed The ravenous wolf of thy most cannibal valour (rather than not employ it), thou wouldst turn Hackster to any whore, slave to a jew Or english usurer, to force possessions (and cut men's throats) of mortgaged estates; Or thou wouldst tire thee like a tinker's wife, And murder market folks; quarrel with sheep, And run as mad as ajax; serve a butcher, Do anything but killing of the king: That in thy valour thou art like other naturals, That have strange gifts in nature, but no soul Diffused quite through to make them of a piece, But stop at humours that are more absurd, Childish and villainous than that hackster, whore, Slave, cut-throat, tinker's bitch, compared before: And in those humours wouldst envy, betray, Slander, blaspheme, change each hour a religion; Do anything, but killing of the king; That in that valour (which is still my dunghill, To which i carry all filth in thy house) Thou art more ridiculous and vainglorious Than any mountebank; and impudent Than any painted bawd; which, not to soothe And glorify thee like a jupiter hammon, Thou eatest thy heart in vinegar; and thy gall Turns all thy blood to poison, which is cause Of that toad-pool that stands in thy complexion; And makes thee (with a cold and earthy moisture, Which is the dam of putrefaction, As plague to thy damned pride) rot as thou livest; To study calumnies and treacheries; To thy firend's slaughters like a screech-owl sing, And to all mischiefs, but to kill the king. Buss So: have you said? Mons how thinkest thou? do i flatter? Speak i not like a trusty firend to thee? Buss That ever any man was blessed withal; So here is for me. i think you are (at worst) No devil, since you are like to be no king; Of which, with any friend of yours i will lay This poor stillado here, against all the stars, Ay, and against all your treacheries, which are more: That you did never good, but to do ill; But ill of all sorts, free and for itself: That (like a murdering piece, making lanes in armies, The first man of a rank, the whole rank falling) If you have once wronged one man, you are so far From making him amends, that all his race, Friends and associates fall into your chase: That you are for perjuries the very prince Of all intelligencers; and your voice Is like an eastern wind, that where it flies, Knits nets of caterpillars, with which you catch The prime of all the fruits the kingdom yields. That your political head is the cursed fount Of all the violence, rapine, cruelty, Tyranny and atheism flowing through the realm. That you have a tongue to scandalous, it will cut A perfect crystal; and a breath that will Kill to that wall a spider; you will jest With god, and your soul to the devil tender For lust; kiss horror, and with death engender. That your foul body is a lernean fen Of all the maladies breeding in all men. That you are utterly without a soul: And, for your life, the thread of that was spun When clotho slept, and let her breathing rock Fall in the dirt; and lachesis still draws it, Dipping her twisting fingers in a bowl Defiled, and crowned with virtue's forced soul. And lastly (which i must for gratitude Ever remember) that of all my height And dearest life, you are the only spring, Only in royal hope to kill the king. Mons Why now i see thou lovest me, come to the banquet. ChaBuDa4.1 Hen Ladies, ye have not done our banquet right, Nor looked upon it with those cheerful rays That lately turned your breath to floods of gold; Your looks, methinks, are not drawn out with thoughts So clear and free as heretofore, but fare As if the thick complexions of men Governed within them. Buss it is not like, my lord, That men in women rule; but contrary, For as the moon (of all things god created) Not only is the most appropriate image Or glass to shew them how they wax and wane, But in her light and motion, likewise bears Imperial influences that command In all their powers, and make them wax and wane; So women, that (of all things made of nothing) Are the most perfect images of the moon (or still-unweaned sweet moon-calves with white faces), Not only are patterns of change to men: But as the tender moonshine of their beauties Clears or is cloudy, make men glad or sad. Mons But here the moons are changed (as the king notes) And either men rule in them, or some power Beyond their voluntary motions: For nothing can recover their lost faces. Buss None can be always one: our griefs and joys Hold several sceptres in us, and have times For their predominance: which grief now, in them Doth claim, as proper to his diadem: And grief is a natural sickness of the blood, That time to part asks, as his coming had; Only slight fools grieved, suddenly are glad; A man may say to a dead man, be revived, As well as to one sorrowful, be not grieved. And therefore, princely mistress, in all wars Against these base foes that insult on weakness, And still fight housed behind the shield of nature, Of tyrannous law, treachery, or beastly need, Your servant cannot help; authority here Goes with corruption; something like some states, That back worst men: valour to them must creep That (to themselves left) would fear him asleep. Duch Ye all take that for granted, that doth rest Yet to be proved; we all are as we were, As merry, and as free in thought as ever. Gui And why then can ye not disclose your thoughts? Tam Methinks the man hath answered for us well. Mons The man? why madam do thee not know his name? Tam Man is a name of honour for a king: Additions take away from each chief thing; The school of modesty, not to learn, learns dames: They sit in high forms there, that know men's names. Mons Hark sweetheart, here is a bound set to your valour: It cannot enter here; no, not to notice Of what your name is; your great eagle's beak (should you fly at her) had as good encounter An albion cliff, as her more craggy liver. Buss I will not attempt her sir; her sight and name (by which i only know her) doth deter me. Hen So do they all men else. Mons you would say so If you knew all. Tam knew all my lord? what mean you? Mons All that i know madam. Tam that you know? speak it. Mons No it is enough i feel it. Hen but methinks Her courtship is more pure than heretofore: True courtiers should be modest, but not nice: Bold, but not impudent: pleasure love, not vice. Mons sweetheart: come hither, what if one should make Horns at montsurry? would it strike him jealous Through all the proofs of his chaste lady's virtues? Buss No i think not. Mons not if i named the man With whom i would make him suspicious His wife hath armed his forehead? Buss so, you might Have your great nose made less indeed: and slit: Your eyes thrust out. Mons peace, peace, i pray thee peace. Who dares do that? the brother of his king? Buss Were your king brother in you: all your powers (stretched in the arms of great men and their bawds) Set close down by you; all your stormy laws (spouted with lawyers' mouths; and gushing blood, Like to so many torrents); all your glories (making you terrible, like enchanted flames Fed with bare coxcombs and with crooked hams); All your prerogatives, your shames and tortures: All daring heaven, and opening hell about you - Were i the man ye wronged so and provoked: (though never so much beneath you) like a box-tree I would (out of the toughness of my root) Ram hardness in my lowness, and like death Mounted on earthquakes, i would trot through all Honours and horrors: through foul and fair, And from your whole strength toss you into air. Mons Go, thou art a devil; such another spirit Could not be stilled, from all the armenian dragons. O my love's glory: heir to all i have - That is all i can say, and that all i swear - If thou outlive me, as i know thou must, Or else hath nature no proportioned end To her great labours: she hath breathed a spirit Into thy entrails, of effect to swell Into another great augustus caesar: Organs, and faculties fitted to her greatness: And should that perish like a common spirit, Nature is a courtier and regards no merit. Hen here is nought but whispering with us: like a calm Before a tempest, when the silent air Lays her soft ear close to the earth to hearken For that she fears is coming to afflict her; Some fate doth join our ears to hear it coming. Come, my brave eagle, let us to covert fly: I see almighty aether in the smoke Of all his clouds descending: and the sky Hid in the dim ostents of tragedy. Gui Now stir the humour, and begin the brawl. Mont The king and d'ambois now are grown all one. Mons Nay, they are two my lord. Mont how is that? Mont I must have more my lord. Mons what more than two? Mont How monstrous is this! Mons why? Mons Not i, it is a work without my power, Married men's ensigns are not made with fingers: Of divine fabric they are, not men's hands; Your wife, you know, is a mere cynthia, And she must fashion horns out of her nature. Mont But doth she? dare you charge her? speak, false prince. Mons I must not speak my lord: but if you will use The learning of a nobleman, and read, Here is something to those points: soft you must pawn Your honour having read it to return it. Mont Not i, i pawn mine honour, for a paper? Mons You must not buy it under. Mont keep it then! And keep fire in your bosom. Tam what says he? Mont You must make good the rest. Tam how fares my lord? Takes my love anything to heart he says? Mont Come you are a - Tam what my lord? Feast in his rotten entrails. Tam will you wreak Your anger's just cause given by him, on me? Mont By him? Tam by him my lord, i have admired You could all this time be at concord with him, That still hath played such discords on your honour. Mont Perhaps it is with some proud string of my wife's. Tam How is that, my lord? Mont your tongue will still admire, Till my head be the miracle of the world. Tam O woe is me. Pero what does your lordship mean? Madam, be comforted; my lord but tries you. Madam? help good my lord, are you not moved? Do your set looks print in your words, your thoughts? Sweet lord, clear up those eyes, for shame of noblesse: Merciless creature; but it is enough, You have shot home, your words are in her heart; She has not lived to bear a trial now. Mont Look up my love, and by this kiss receive My soul amongst thy spirits for supply To thine, chased with my fury. Tam o my lord, I have too long lived to hear this from you. It was from my troubled blood, and not from me - I know not how i fare; a sudden night Flows through my entrails, and a headlong chaos Murmurs within me, which i must digest; And not drown her in my confusions, That was my life's joy, being best informed. Sweet, you must needs forgive me, that my love (like to a fire disdaining his suppression) Raged being discouraged; my whole heart is wounded When any least thought in you is but touched, And shall be till i know your former merits, Your name and memory altogether crave In loathed oblivion their eternal grave; And then you must hear from me, there is no mean In any passion i shall feel for you: Love is a razor cleansing being well used, But fetcheth blood still being the least abused: To tell you briefly all; the man that left me When you appeared, did turn me worse than woman, And stabbed me to the heart thus, with his hand. Tam O happy woman! comes my stain from him? It is my beauty, and that innocence proves, That slew chimaera, rescued peleus From all the savage beasts in pelion, And raised the chaste athenian prince from hell: All suffering with me; they for women's lusts, I for a man's, that the augean stable Of his foul sin would empty in my lap: How his guilt shunned me! sacred innocence That where thou fearest, art dreadful; and his face Turned in flight from thee, that had thee in chase: Come, bring me to him: i will tell the serpent Even to his teeth (whence, in mine honour's soil, A pitched field starts up betwixt my lord and me) That his throat lies, and he shall curse his fingers, For being so governed by his filthy soul. Mont I know not, if himself will vaunt to have been The princely author of the slavish sin, Or any other; he would have resolved me, Had you not come; not by his word, but writing, Would i have sworn to give it him again, And pawned mine honour to him for a paper. Tam See how he flies me still: it is a foul heart That fears his own hand: good my lord make haste To see the dangerous paper: be not nice For any trifle, jewelled with your honour, To pawn your honour; and with it confer My nearest woman here, in all she knows; Who (if the sun or cerberus could have seen Any stain in me) might as much as they: And pero, here i charge thee by my love, And all proofs of it (which i might call bounties), By all that thou hast seen seem good in me, And all the ill which thou shouldst spit from thee, By pity of the wound my lord hath given me, Not as thy mistress now, but a poor woman (to death given over) : rid me of my pains, Pour on thy powder: clear thy breast of me: My lord is only here: here speak thy worst, Thy best will do me mischief; if thou sparest me, Never shine good thought on thy memory: Resolve my lord, and leave me desperate. Pero My lord? my lord hath played a prodigal's part, To break his stock for nothing; and an insolent, To cut a gordian when he could not loose it: What violence is this, to put true fire To a false train? to blow up long crowned peace With sudden outrage? and believe a man Sworn to the shame of women, against a woman Born to their honours: i will attend your lordship. Tam No, i will write (for i shall never more Speak with the fugitive), where i will defy him, Were he ten times the brother of my king. ChaBuDa4.2 Tam Away, deliver it: o may my lines (filled with the poison of a woman's hate When he shall open them) shrink up his eyes With torturous darkness, such as stands in hell Stuck full of inward horrors, never lighted; With which are all things to be feared, affrighted; Father? ChaBuDa4.2 Buss How is it with my honoured mistress? Tam O servant help, and save me from the gripes Of shame and infamy. Buss what insensate stock, Or rude inanimate vapour without fashion, Durst take into his epimethean breast A box of such plagues as the danger yields, Incurred in this discovery? he had better Ventured his breast in the consuming reach Of the hot surfeits cast out of the clouds, Or stood the bullets that (to wreak the sky) The cyclops ram in jove's artillery. Com We soon will take the darkness from his face That did that deed of darkness; we will know What now the monsieur and your husband do; What is contained within the secret paper Offered by monsieur, and your love's events: To which ends, honoured daughter, at your motion, I have put on these exorcising rites, And, by my power of learned holiness Vouchsafed me from above, i will command Our resolution of a raised spirit. Tam Good father raise him in some beauteous form, That with least terror i may brook his sight. Com Stand sure together then, whatever ye see, And stir not, as ye tender all our lives. Com Occidentalium legionum spiritalium imperator (magnus Ille behemoth) veni, veni, comitatus cum astaroth Locotenente invicto. adjuro te per stygis inscrutabilia Arcana, per ipsos irremeabiles anfractus averni: adesto O behemoth, tu cui pervia sunt magnatum scrinia; veni, Per noctis et tenebrarum abdita profundissima; Per labentia sidera; per ipsos motus horarum furtivos, Hecatesque altum silentium: appare in forma spiritali, Lucente splendida et amabili. Beh What would the holy friar? Com i would see What now the monsieur and montsurry do; And see the secret paper that the monsieur Offered to count montsurry, longing much To know on what events the secret loves Of these two honoured persons shall arrive. Beh Why calledst thou me to this accursed light To these light purposes? i am emperor Of that inscrutable darkness, where are hid All deepest truths, and secrets never seen, All which i know, and command legions Of knowing spirits that can do more than these: Any of this my guard that circle me In these blue fires, and out of whose dim fumes Vast murmurs use to break, and from their sounds Articulate voices, can do ten parts more Than open such slight truths, as you require. Com From the last night's black depth, i called up one Of the inferior ablest ministers, And he could not resolve me; send one then Out of thine own command, to fetch the paper That monsieur hath to shew to count montsurry. Beh I will: cartophylax, thou that properly Hast in thy power all papers so inscribed, Glide through all bars to it and fetch that paper. Cart I will. Com till he returns, great prince of darkness, Tell me, if monsieur and the count montsurry Are yet encountered. Beh both them and the guise Are now together. Com shew us all their persons, And represent the place, with all their actions. Beh The spirit will straight return: and then i will shew thee: See he is come; why broughtest thou not the paper? Cart He hath prevented me, and got a spirit Raised by another, great in our command, To take the guard of it before i came. Beh This is your slackness, not to invoke our powers When first your acts set forth to their effects; Yet shall you see it, and themselves: behold They come here and the earl now holds the paper. Buss May we not hear them? Com no, be still and see. Buss I will go fetch the paper. Com do not stir: There is too much distance and too many locks Betwixt you and them (how near soever they seem) For any man to interrupt their secrets. Tam O honoured spirit: fly into the fancy Of my offended lord: and do not let him Believe what there the wicked man hath written. Beh Persuasion hath already entered him Beyond reflection, peace till their departure. Mons There is a glass of ink wherein you see How to make ready black-faced tragedy: You now discern, i hope, through all her paintings Her gasping wrinkles, and fame's sepulchres. Gui Think you he feigns my lord? what hold you now? Do we malign your wife: or honour you? Mons What stricken dumb? nay fie, lord be not daunted: Your case is common: were it never so rare Bear it as rarely: now to laugh were manly: A worthy man should imitate the weather That sings in tempests: and being clear is silent. Gui go home my lord, and force your wife to write Such loving stuff to d'ambois as she used When she desired his presence. Mons do my lord, And make her name her concealed messenger, That close and most inennarable pandar That passeth all our studies to exquire: By whom convey the letter to her love: And so you shall be sure to have him come Within the thirsty reach of your revenge; Before which, lodge an ambush in her chamber Behind the arras, of your stoutest men All close and soundly armed: and let them share A spirit amongst them, that would serve a thousand. Gui Yet stay a little: see she sends for you. Mons Poor, loving lady, she will make all good yet, Think you not so my lord? Gui alas poor soul. Mons This was ill done in faith. Pero it was nobly done. And i forgive his lordship from my soul. Mons Then much good do it thee pero: hast a letter? Pero I hope it be, at least, if not a volume Of worthy curses for your perjury. Mons Now out upon her. Gui let me see my lord. Mons You shall presently: how fares my pero? Who is there? take in this maid, she has caught a clap: And fetch my surgeon to her; come my lord, We will now peruse our letter. Pero furies rise Out of the black lines, and torment his soul. Tam Hath my lord slain my woman? Beh no, she lives. Com What shall become of us? Beh all i can say Being called thus late, is brief, and darkly this: If d'ambois' mistress stain not her white hand With his forced blood, he shall remain untouched: So father, shall yourself, but by yourself: To make this augury plainer, when the voice Of d'ambois shall invoke me i will rise, Shining in greater light: and shew him all That will betide ye all; meantime be wise, And let him curb his rage, with policy. Buss Will he appear to me, when i invoke him? Com He will: be sure. Buss it must be shortly then: For his dark words have tied my thoughts on knots Till he dissolve, and free them. Tam in meantime Dear servant, till your powerful voice revoke him, Be sure to use the policy he advised: Lest fury in your too quick knowledge taken Of our abuse, and your defence of me Accuse me more than any enemy: And father, you must on my lord impose Your holiest charges, and the church's power To temper his hot spirit: and disperse The cruelty and the blood i know his hand Will shower upon our heads, if you put not Your finger to the storm, and hold it up, As my dear servant here must do with monsieur. Buss I will soothe his plots: and strew my hate with smiles Till all at once the close mines of my heart Rise at full date, and rush into his blood: I will bind his arm in silk, and rub his flesh To make the vein swell, that his soul may gush Into some kennel, where it longs to lie, And policy shall be flanked with policy. Yet shall the feeling centre where we meet Groan with the weight of my approaching feet: I will make the inspired threshals of his court Sweat with the weather of my horrid steps Before i enter: yet will i appear Like calm security, before a ruin; A politician, must like lightning melt The very marrow, and not print the skin: His ways must not be seen: the superficies Of the green centre must not taste his feet, When hell is ploughed up with his wounding tracts: And all his harvest reaped, from hellish facts. ChaBuDa5.1 Com My lord remember that your soul must seek Her peace, as well as your revengeful blood: You ever, to this hour have proved yourself A noble, zealous, and obedient son To our holy mother: be not an apostate: Your wife's offence serves not (were it the worst You can imagine, without greater proofs) To sever your eternal bonds, and hearts; Much less to touch her with a bloody hand: Nor is it manly (much less husbandly) To expiate any frailty in your wife, With churlish strokes, or beastly odds of strength: The stony birth of clouds will touch no laurel, Nor any sleeper; your wife is your laurel And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then: Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour, To her that is more gentle than it rude; In whom kind nature suffered one offence But to set off her other excellence. Mont Good father leave us: interrupt no more The course i must run for mine honour sake. Rely on my love to her, which her fault Cannot extinguish; will she but disclose Who was the hateful minister of her love, And through what maze he served it, we are friends. Com It is a damned work to pursue those secrets That would ope more sin, and prove springs of slaughter; Nor is it a path for christian feet to touch; But out of all way to the health of souls, A sin impossible to be forgiven: Which he that dares commit - Mont good father cease: Tempt not a man distracted; i am apt To outrages that i shall ever rue: I will not pass the verge that bounds a christian, Nor break the limits of a man nor husband. Com Then god inspire ye both with thoughts and deeds Worthy his high respect, and your own souls. Mont Who shall remove the mountain from my heart, Ope the seventimes-heat furnace of my thoughts, And set fit outcries for a soul in hell? O now it nothing fits my cares to speak, But thunder, or to take into my throat The trump of heaven; with whose determinate blasts The winds shall burst, and the enraged seas Be drunk up in his sounds; that my hot woes (vented enough) i might convert to vapour, Ascending from my infamy unseen; Shorten the world, preventing the last breath That kills the living, and regenerates death. Tam My lord, my fault (as you may censure it With too strong arguments) is past your pardon: But how the circumstances may excuse me God knows, and your more temperate mind hereafter May let my penitent miseries make you know. Mont Hereafter? it is a supposed infinite, That from this point will rise eternally: Fame grows in going; in the escapades of virtue Excuses damn her: they be fires in cities Enraged with those winds that less lights extinguish. Come siren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffian galley, laden for thy lust: Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice, With which thou drewest into thy strumpet's lap The spawn of venus; and in which ye danced; That, in thy lap's stead, i may dig his tomb, And quit his manhood with a woman's sleight, Who never is deceived in her deceit. Sing (that is, write), and then take from mine eyes The mists that hide the most inscrutable pandar That ever lapped up an adulterous vomit: That i may see the devil, and survive To be a devil, and then learn to wive: That i may hang him, and then cut him down, Then cut him up, and with my soul's beams search The cranks and caverns of his brain, and study The errant wilderness of a woman's face; Where men cannot get out, for all the comets That have been lighted at it; though they know That adders lie a-sunning in their smiles, That basilisks drink their poison from their eyes, And no way there to coast out to their hearts; Yet still they wander there, and are not stayed Till they be fettered, nor secure before All cares distract them; nor in human state Till they embrace within their wives' two breasts All pelion and cythaeron with their beasts. Why write you not? Tam o good my lord forbear In wreak of great sins, to engender greater, And make my love's corruption generate murder. Mont It follows needfully as child and parent; The chain-shot of thy lust is yet aloft, And it must murder; it is thine own dear twin: No man can add height to a woman's sin. Vice never doth her just hate so provoke, As when she rageth under virtue's cloak. Write: for it must be; by this ruthless steel, By this impartial torture, and the death Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails, To quicken life in dying, and hold up The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve Torments in ashes, that will ever last. Speak: will you write? Tam sweet lord enjoin my sin Some other penance than what makes it worse: Hide in some gloomy dungeon my loathed face, And let condemned murderers let me down (stopping their noses) my abhorred food. Hang me in chains, and let me eat these arms That have offended: bind me face to face To some dead woman, taken from the cart Of execution, till death and time In grains of dust dissolve me; i will endure: Or any torture that your wrath's invention Can fright all pity from the world withal: But to betray a friend with shew of friendship, That is too common for the rare revenge Your rage affecteth; here then are my breasts, Last night your pillows; here my wretched arms, As late the wished confines of your life: Now break them as you please, and all the bounds Of manhood, noblesse, and religion. Mont Where all these have been broken, they are kept In doing their justice there: thine arms have lost Their privilege in lust, and in their torture Thus they must pay it. Tam o lord. I will write in wounds (my wrongs' fit characters) Thy right of sufferance. write. Tam o kill me, kill me: Dear husband be not crueller than death; You have beheld some gorgon: feel, o feel How you are turned to stone; with my heart blood Dissolve yourself again, or you will grow Into the image of all tyranny. Mont As thou art of adultery, i will still Prove thee my like in ill, being most a monster: Thus i express thee yet. Tam and yet i live. Mont Ay, for thy monstrous idol is not done yet: This tool hath wrought enough: now torture use This other engine on the habituate powers Of her thrice damnned and whorish fortitude. Use the most madding pains in her that ever Thy venoms soaked through, making most of death; That she may weigh her wrongs with them, and then Stand vengeance on thy steepest rock, a victor. Tam O who is turned into my lord and husband? Husband? my lord? none but my lord and husband. Heaven, i ask thee remission of my sins, Not of my pains: husband, o help me husband. Com What rape of honour and religion? O wrack of nature. Tam poor man: o my father, Father? look up; o let me down my lord, And i will write. Mont author of prodigies! What new flame breaks out of the firmament, That turns up counsels never known before? Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still; Even heaven itself must see and suffer ill: The too huge bias of the world hath swayed Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves This hemisphere, that long her mouth hath mocked: The gravity of her religious face (now grown too weighty with her sacrilege And here discerned sophisticate enough) Turns to the antipodes: and all the forms That her illusions have impressed in her, Have eaten through her back: and now all see, How she is riveted with hypocrisy: Was this the way? was he the man betwixt you? Tam He was, he was, kind innocent man he was. Mont Write, write a word or two. Tam i will, i will. I will write, but in my blood that he may see, These lines come from my wounds and not from me. Mont Well might he die for thought: methinks the frame And shaken joints of the whole world should crack To see her parts so disproportionate; And that his general beauty cannot stand Without these stains in the particular man. Why wander i so far? here here was she That was a whole world without spot to me: Though now a world of spots; o what a lightning Is man's delight in women! what a bubble, He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries! Since all earth's pleasures are so short and small, The way to enjoy it, is to abjure it all: Enough: i must be messenger myself, Disguised like this strange creature: in, i will after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes, And to the world sing new impieties. ChaBuDa5.2 Buss Sit up to-night, and watch, i will speak with none But the old friar, who bring to me. ChaBuDa5.2 Page we will sir. Buss What violent heat is this? methinks the fire Of twenty lives doth on a sudden flash Through all my faculties: the air goes high In this close chamber, and the frighted earth Trembles, and shrinks beneath me: the whole house Cracks with his shaken burden; bless me, heaven. GhostNote what i want, my son, and be forwarned: O there are bloody deeds past and to come, I cannot stay: a fate doth ravish me: I will meet thee in the chamber of thy love. Buss What dismal change is here? the good old friar Is murdered; being made known to serve my love; Note what he wants? he wants his utmost weed, He wants his life, and body: which of these Should be the want he means, and may supply me With any fit forewarning? this strange vision (together with the dark prediction Used by the prince of darkness that was raised By this embodied shadow) stir my thoughts With reminiscion of the spirit's promise; Who told me, that by any invocation I should have power to raise him; though it wanted The powerful words, and decent rites of art; Never had my set brain such need of spirit To instruct and cheer it; now then, i will claim Performance of his free and gentle vow, To appear in greater light; and make more plain His rugged oracle: i long to know How my dear mistress fares; and be informed What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord: methought the spirit (when he had uttered his perplexed presage), Threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds; His forehead bent, as it would hide his face; He knocked his chin against his darkened breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers - Terror of darkness: o thou king of flames, That with thy music-footed horse dost strike The clear light out of crystal, on dark earth; And hurlest instructive fire about the world: Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night, That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle: Or thou great prince of shades where never sun Sticks his far-darted beams (whose eyes are made To see in darkness: and see ever best Where sense is blindest) open now the heart Of thy abashed oracle, that for fear Of some ill it includes would fain lie hid, And rise thou with it in thy greater light. Beh Thus to observe my vow of apparition In greater light, and explicate thy fate, I come; and tell thee that if thou obey The summons that thy mistress next will send thee, Her hand shall be thy death. Buss when will she send? Beh Soon as i set again, where late i rose. Buss Is the old friar slain? Beh no, and yet lives not. Buss Died he a natural death? Beh he did. Will my dear mistress send? Beh i must not tell thee. Buss Who lets thee? Beh fate. Beh The guise and monsieur. Buss a fit pair of shears To cut the threads of kings, and kingly spirits, And consorts fit to sound forth harmony, Set to the falls of kingdoms: shall the hand Of my kind mistress kill me? Beh if thou yield To her next summons; you are fair warned: farewell. Buss I must fare well, how ever: though i die, My death consenting with his augury; Should not my powers obey when she commands, My motion must be rebel to my will: My will, to life: if when i have obeyed, Her hand should so reward me, they must arm it, Bind me and force it: or i lay my soul She rather would convert it many times On her own bosom, even to many deaths: But were there danger of such violence, I know it is far from her intent to send: And who she should send, is as far from thought Since he is dead, whose only mean she used. Who is there? look to the door: and let him in, Though politic monsieur, or the violent guise. Mont Hail to my worthy son. Buss O lying spirit: welcome loved father, How fares my dearest mistress? Mont well, as ever, Being well as ever thought on by her lord: Whereof she sends this witness in her hand And prays, for urgent cause, your speediest presence. Buss What? writ in blood? Mont ay, it is the ink of lovers. Buss O it is a sacred witness of her love. So much elixir of her blood as this Dropped in the lightest dame, would make her firm As heat to fire: and like to all the signs, Commands the life confined in all my veins; O how it multiplies my blood with spirit, And makes me apt to encounter death and hell: But, come kind father; you fetch me to heaven, And to that end your holy weed was given. ChaBuDa5.3 Mons Now shall we see, that nature hath no end In her great works, responsive to their worths, That she who makes so many eyes, and souls, To see and foresee, is stark blind herself: And as illiterate men say latin prayers By rote of heart, and daily iteration; In whose hot zeal, a man would think they knew What they ran so away with, and were sure To have rewards proportioned to their labours; Yet may implore their own confusions For anything they know, which oftentimes It falls out they incur: so nature lays A mass of stuff together, and by use, Or by the mere necessity of matter, Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty Of strength, or virtue, error or clear truth; Not knowing what she does; but usually Gives that which we call merit to a man (and believe should arrive him on huge riches, Honour, and happiness), that effects his ruin; Right as in ships of war, whole lasts of powder Are laid (men think) to make them last, and guard them: When a disordered spark that powder taking, Blows up with sudden violence and horror Ships that kept empty, had sailed long with terror. Gui He that observes, but like a worldly man, That which doth oft succeed, and by the events Values the worth of things; will think it true, That nature works at random, just with you: But with as much decorum she may make A thing that from the feet up to the throat Hath all the wondrous fabric man should have, And leave it headless for an absolute man, As give a whole man valour, virtue, learning, Without an end more excellent than those On whom she no such worthy part bestows. Mons Why you shall see it here, here will be one Young, learned, valiant, virtuous, and full manned; One on whom nature spent so rich a hand, That, with an ominous eye, she wept to see So much consumed her virtuous treasury; Yet, as the winds sing through a hollow tree, And (since it lets them pass through) let it stand; But a tree solid, since it gives no way To their wild rages, they rend up by the root: So this full creature now shall reel and fall, Before the frantic puffs of purblind chance That pipes through empty men, and makes them dance: Not so the sea raves on the lybian sands, Tumbling her billows in each other's neck - Not so the surges of the euxine sea (near to the frosty pole, where free bootes From those dark-deep waves turns his radiant team) Swell being enraged, even from their inmost drop - As fortune swings about the restless state Of virtue, now thrown into all men's hate. GhostRevive those stupid thoughts, and sit not thus, Gathering the horrors of your servant's slaughter (so urged by your hand, and so imminent) Into an idle fancy; but devise How to prevent it; watch when he shall rise, And with a sudden outcry of his murder, Blow his retreat before he be engaged. Tam O father, have my dumb woes waked your death? When will our human griefs be at their height? Man is a tree, that hath no top in cares; No root in comforts; all his power to live Is given to no end, but to have power to grieve. GhostIt is the just curse of our abused creation, Which we must suffer here, and escape hereafter: He hath the great mind that submits to all He sees inevitable; he the small That carps at earth, and her foundation-shaker, And rather than himself, will mend his maker. Tam Away, my love, away, thou wilt be murdered. Buss Murdered? i know not what that hebrew means: That word had never been named had all been d'ambois. Murdered? by heaven he is my murderer That shews me not a murderer; what such bug Abhorreth not the very sleep of d'ambois? Murdered? who dares give all the room i see To d'ambois' reach? or look with any odds His fight in the face, upon whose hand sits death; Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth? Let in my politic visitants, let them in, Though entering like so many moving armours; Fate is more strong than arms, and sly than treason, And i at all parts buckled in my fate: Dare they not come? ChaBuDa5.3 GhostBack coward murderers, back. All defend us heaven. MurdiCome ye not on? Buss no, slave, nor goest thou off. Stand you so firm? will it not enter here? You have a face yet: so in thy life's flame I burn the first rites to my mistress' fame. GhostBreathe thee brave son against the other charge. Buss O is it true then that my sense first told me? Is my kind father dead? Tam he is my love. It was the earl my husband in his weed that brought thee. Buss That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled. Where is that angry earl my lord? come forth And shew your own face in your own affair; Take not into your noble veins the blood Of these base villains, nor the light reports Of blistered tongues, for clear and weighty truth: But me against the world, in pure defence Of your rare lady, to whose spotless name I stand here as a bulwark; and project A life to her renown, that ever yet Hath been untainted even in envy's eye, And where it would protect, a sanctuary. Brave earl come forth, and keep your scandal in: It is not our fault if you enforce the spot, Nor the wreak yours if you perform it not. Mont Cowards, a fiend or spirit beat ye off? They are your own faint spirits that have forged The fearful shadows that your eyes deluded: The fiend was in you; cast him out then thus - Tam Favour my lord, my love, o favour him. Buss I will not touch him: take your life, my lord, And be appeased: o then the coward fates Have maimed themselves, and ever lost their honour. GhostWhat have ye done slaves? irreligious lord! Buss Forbear them, father; it is enough for me That guise and monsieur, death and destiny Come behind d'ambois: is my body then But penetrable flesh? and must my mind Follow my blood? can my divine part add No aid to the earthly in extremity? Then these divines are but for form, not fact: Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact; A mistress and a servant: let my death Define life nothing but a courtier's breath. Nothing is made of nought, of all things made; Their abstract being a dream but of a shade. I will not complain to earth yet, but to heaven, And (like a man) look upwards even in death. Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done: The equal thought i bear of life and death, Shall make me faint on no side; i am up Here like a roman statue; i will stand Till death hath made me marble: o my fame Live in despite of murder: take thy wings And haste thee where the gray-eyed morn perfines Her rosy chariot with sabaean spices; Fly, where the evening from the iberian vales Takes on her swarthy shoulders hecate Crowned with a grove of oaks; fly where men feel The burning axletree, and those that suffer Beneath the chariot of the snowy bear: And tell them all that d'ambois now is hasting To the eternal dwellers; that a thunder Of all their sighs together (for their frailties Beheld in me) may quit my worthless fall With a fit volley for my funeral. GhostForgive thy murderers. Buss i forgive them all; And you my lord, their fautor; for true sign Of which unfeigned remission, take my sword; Take it, and only give it motion, And it shall find the way to victory By his own brightness, and the inherent valour My fight hath stilled into it, with charms of spirit. And let me pray you, that my weighty blood Laid in one scale of your impartial spleen May sway the forfeit of my worthy love Weighed in the other: and be reconciled With all forgiveness to your matchless wife. Tam Forgive thou me dear servant, and this hand That led thy life to this unworthy end, Forgive it, for the blood with which it is stained In which i writ the summons of thy death: The forced summons, by this bleeding wound, By this here in my bosom: and by this That makes me hold up both my hands imbrued For thy dear pardon. Buss o, my heart is broken. Fate, nor these murderers, monsieur, nor the guise, Have any glory in my death, but this: This killing spectacle: this prodigy: My sun is turned to blood against whose red beams Pindus and ossa (hid in endless snow), Laid on my heart and liver, from their veins Melt like two hungry torrents: eating rocks Into the ocean of all human life, And make it bitter, only with my blood: O frail condition of strength, valour, virtue, In me like warning fire upon the top Of some steep beacon, on a steeper hill; Made to express it like a falling star Silently glanced - that like a thunderbolt Looked to have stuck, and shook the firmament. GhostSon of the earth, whom my unrested soul Rues to have begotten in the faith of heaven (since thy revengeful spirit hath rejected The charity it commands, and the remission, To serve and worship the blind rage of blood): Assay to gratulate and pacify The soul fled from this worthy by performing The christian reconcilement he besought Betwixt thee and thy lady, let her wounds Manlessly digged in her, be eased and cured With balm of thine own tears: or be assured Never to rest free from my haunt and horror. Mont See how she merits this: still sitting by And mourning his fall, more than her own fault. GhostRemove, dear daughter, and content thy husband: So piety wills thee, and thy servant's peace. Tam O wretched piety, that art so distract In thine own constancy; and in thy right Must be unrighteous: if i right my friend I wrong my husband: if his wrong i shun, The duty of my friend i leave undone; Ill plays on both sides; here and there, it riseth; No place, no good so good, but ill compriseth; My soul more scruple breeds, than my blood, sin, Virtue imposeth more than any stepdame: O had i never married but for form, Never vowed faith but purposed to deceive: Never made conscience of any sin, But cloaked it privately and made it common: Nor never honoured been, in blood, or mind; Happy had i been then, as others are Of the like licence; i had then been honoured: Lived without envy: custom had benumbed All sense of scruple, and all note of frailty: My fame had been untouched, my heart unbroken: But (shunning all) i strike on all offence - O husband? dear friend? o my conscience! Mont I must not yield to pity nor to love So servile and so traitorous: cease my blood To wrestle with my honour, fame and judgement: Away, forsake my house, forbear complaints Where thou hast bred them: here are all things full Of their own shame and sorrow, leave my house. Tam Sweet lord forgive me, and i will be gone, And till these wounds, that never balm shall close Till death hath entered at them (so i love them, Being opened by your hands) by death be cured, I never more will grieve you with my sight: Never endure that any roof shall part Mine eyes and heaven: but to the open deserts (like to hunted tigers) i will fly: Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men, And look on no side till i be arrived. Mont I do forgive thee, and upon my knees (with hands held up to heaven) wish that mine honour Would suffer reconcilement to my love: But since it will not, honour, never serve My love with flourishing object till it starve: And as this taper, though it upwards look, Downwards must needs consume, so let our love; As having lost his honey, the sweet taste Runs into savour, and will needs retain A spice of his first parents, till (like life) It sees and dies; so let our love: and lastly, As when the flame is suffered to look up It keeps his lustre: but, being thus turned down (his natural course of useful light inverted) His own stuff puts it out: so let our love Now turn from me, as here i turn from thee, And may both points of heaven's straight axletree Conjoin in one, before thyself and me. GhostMy terrors are struck inward, and no more My penance will allow they shall enforce Earthly afflictions but upon myself: Farewell brave relicts of a complete man: Look up and see thy spirit made a star, Join flames with hercules: and when thou setest Thy radiant forehead in the firmament, Make the vast continent, cracked with thy receipt, Spread to a world of fire: and the aged sky, Cheer with new sparks of old humanity.