[A great shout and flourish.
W. Knight. Ambitious, covetous,
Luxurious falsehood!
W. Duke. Dissembler includes all.
B. Queen. Miserable condition!
Enter White King, White Queen, White Bishop, White Queen’s Pawn, and other White Pawns.
W. King. O, let me bless mine arms with this dear treasure,
Truth’s glorious masterpiece! See, Queen of sweetness,
He’s in my bosom safe; and this fair structure
Of comely honour, his true blest assistant.
[Embracing W. Knight and W. Duke.
W. Queen. May their integrities ever possess
That powerful sanctuary!
W. Knight. As ’twas a game, sir,
Won with much hazard, so with much more triumph
We[845] gave him check-mate by discovery, sir.
W. King. Obscurity is now the fittest favour
Falsehood can sue for; it well suits perdition:
’Tis their best course that so have lost their fame
To put their heads into the bag for shame;
And there, behold, the bag, like hell-mouth,[846] opens
[The bag opens,[847] and the Fat Bishop and the Black lost Pawns appear in it.
To take her due, and the lost sons appear
Greedily gaping for increase of fellowship
In infamy, the last desire of wretches,
Advancing their perdition-branded foreheads
Like Envy’s issue, or a bed of snakes.
B. Jesting Pawn [in the bag]. They had need give you a whole bag by yourself:
'Sfoot, this Fat Bishop[850] hath so overlaid me,
So squelch’d[851] and squeez’d me, I've no verjuice left in me!
You shall find all my goodness, if you look for’t,
In the bottom of the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Thou malapert Pawn!
The Bishop must have room; he will have room,
And room to lie at pleasure.
B. Jesting Pawn [in the bag]. All the bag, I think,
Is room too scant for your Spalato[852] paunch.
B. B. Pawn [in the bag]. Down, viper of our order! I abhor thee:
Thou shew thy whorish front?
B. Q. Pawn [in the bag]. Yes, monster-holiness!
W. Knight. Contention in the pit! is hell divided?
W. King. You had need have some of majesty and power
To keep good rule amongst you: make room, Bishop.
[Puts B. King into the bag.
I scorn to stir for any king on earth.
W. Queen. Here comes the Queen; what say you then to her?
[Puts B. Queen into the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Indeed a Queen may make a Bishop stir.
W. Knight. Room for the mightiest Machiavel-politician
That e’er the devil hatch’d of a nun’s egg!
[Puts B. Knight into the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. He’ll pick a hole in the bag and get out shortly;
But I shall[854] be the last man that creeps out,
And that’s the misery of greatness ever.[855]
An olive-colour’d Ganymede! and that’s all
That’s worth the bagging.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Crowd in all you can,
The Bishop will be still uppermost man,
Maugre King, Queen, or politician.
W. King. So, let the bag close now, the fittest womb
For treachery, pride, and falsehood; whilst we, winner-like.
Destroying, through heaven’s power, what would destroy,
Welcome our White Knight with loud peals of joy.
[Exeunt omnes.
EPILOGUE
By White Queen’s Pawn.
My mistress, the White Queen, hath sent me forth,
And bade me bow thus low to all of worth,
That are true friends of the White House and cause,
Which she hopes most of this assembly draws:
For any else, by envy’s mark denoted,
To those night glow-worms in the bag devoted,
Where’er they sit, stand, or in private lurk,
They’ll be soon known by their depraving work;
But she’s assur’d what they’ll commit to bane,
Her White friends' hands will build up fair again.