Monsieur. Yet is my mistresse gratious?
Tam. Yet unanswered?50
Mons. Pray thee regard thine owne good, if not mine,
And cheere my love for that: you doe not know
What you may be by me, nor what without me;
I may have power t'advance and pull downe any.
Tam. That's not my study. One way I am sure55
You shall not pull downe me; my husbands height
Is crowne to all my hopes, and his retiring
To any meane state, shall be my aspiring.
Mine honour's in mine owne hands, spite of kings.
Mons. Honour, what's that? your second maydenhead:60
And what is that? a word: the word is gone,
The thing remaines; the rose is pluckt, the stalk
Abides: an easie losse where no lack's found.
Beleeve it, there's as small lack in the losse
As there is paine ith' losing. Archers ever65
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,70
With a firme husband joyning a lose friend.
Mons. Still you stand on your husband; so doe all
The common sex of you, when y'are encounter'd
With one ye cannot fancie: all men know
You live in Court here by your owne election,75
Frequenting all our common sports and triumphs,
All the most youthfull company of men.
And wherefore doe you this? To please your husband?
Tis grosse and fulsome: if your husbands pleasure
Be all your object, and you ayme at honour80
In living close to him, get you from Court,
You may have him at home; these common put-ofs
For common women serve: "my honour! husband!"
Dames maritorious ne're were meritorious:
Speak plaine, and say "I doe not like you, sir,85
Y'are an ill-favour'd fellow in my eye,"
And I am answer'd.
Tam. Then I pray be answer'd:
For in good faith, my lord, I doe not like you
In that sort you like.
Mons. Then have at you here!
Take (with a politique hand) this rope of pearle;90
And though you be not amorous, yet be wise:
Take me for wisedom; he that you can love
Is nere the further from you.
Tam. Now it comes
So ill prepar'd, that I may take a poyson
Under a medicine as good cheap as it:95
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,
Y'are a vile fellow; and Ile tell the King100
Your occupation of dishonouring ladies,
And of his Court. A lady cannot live
As she was borne, and with that sort of pleasure
That fits her state, but she must be defam'd
With an infamous lords detraction:105
Who would endure the Court if these attempts,
Of open and profest lust must be borne?—
Whose there? come on, dame, you are at your book
When men are at your mistresse; have I taught you
Any such waiting womans quality?110
Mons. Farewell, good "husband"! Exit Mons[ieur].
Tam. Farewell, wicked lord!
Enter Mont[surry].
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's the matter?
Tam. Matter of death, were I some husbands wife:115
I cannot live at quiet in my chamber
For oportunities almost to rapes
Offerd me by him.
Mont. Pray thee beare with him:
Thou know'st he is a bachelor, and a courtier,
I, and a Prince: and their prerogatives120
Are to their lawes, as to their pardons are
Their reservations, after Parliaments—
One quits another; forme gives all their essence.
That Prince doth high in vertues reckoning stand
That will entreat a vice, and not command:125
So farre beare with him; should another man
Trust to his priviledge, he should trust to death:
Take comfort then (my comfort), nay, triumph,
And crown thy selfe; thou part'st with victory:
My presence is so onely deare to thee130
That other mens appeare worse than they be:
For this night yet, beare with my forced absence:
Thou know'st my businesse; and with how much weight
My vow hath charged it.
Tam. True, my lord, and never
My fruitlesse love shall let your serious honour;135
Yet, sweet lord, do no stay; you know my soule
Is so long time with out me, and I dead,
As you are absent.
Mont. By this kisse, receive
My soule for hostage, till I see my love.
Tam. The morne shall let me see you?
Mont. With the sunne140
Ile visit thy more comfortable beauties.
Mont. Tis late night now, indeed: farewell, my light! Exit.
Tam. Farewell, my light and life! but not in him,145
In mine owne dark love and light bent to another.
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 fruitfull, one sinne gets another:150
Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine
When they goe out; most vice shewes most divine.
Goe, maid, to bed; lend me your book, I pray,
Not, like your selfe, for forme. Ile this night trouble
None of your services: make sure the dores,155
And call your other fellowes to their rest.
Per. I will—yet I will watch to know why you watch. Exit.
Tam. Now all yee peacefull regents of the night,
Silently-gliding exhalations,
Languishing windes, and murmuring falls of waters,160
Sadnesse of heart, and ominous securenesse,
Enchantments, dead sleepes, all the friends of rest,
That ever wrought upon the life of man,
Extend your utmost strengths, and this charm'd houre
Fix like the Center! make the violent wheeles165
Of Time and Fortune stand, and great Existens,
(The Makers treasurie) now not seeme to be
To all but my approaching friends and me!
They come, alas, they come! Feare, feare and hope
Of one thing, at one instant, fight in me:170
I love what most I loath, and cannot live,
Unlesse I compasse that which holds my death;
For life's meere death, loving one that loathes me,
And he I love will loath me, when he sees
I flie my sex, my vertue, my renowne,175
To runne so madly on a man unknowne. The Vault opens.
See, see, a vault is opening that was never
Knowne to my lord and husband, nor to any
But him that brings the man I love, and me.
How shall I looke on him? how shall I live,180
And not consume in blushes? I will in;
And cast my selfe off, as I ne're had beene. Exit.
Ascendit Frier and D'Ambois.
Friar. Come, worthiest sonne, I am past measure glad
That you (whose worth I have approv'd so long)
Should be the object of her fearefull love;185
Since both your wit and spirit can adapt
Their full force to supply her utmost weaknesse.
You know her worths and vertues, for report
Of all that know is to a man a knowledge:
You know besides that our affections storme,190
Rais'd in our blood, no reason can reforme.
Though she seeke then their satisfaction
(Which she must needs, or rest unsatisfied)
Your judgement will esteeme her peace thus wrought
Nothing lesse deare than if your selfe had sought:195
And (with another colour, which my art
Shall teach you to lay on) your selfe must seeme
The only agent, and the first orbe move
In this our set and cunning world of love.
Fri. Tis this, good sonne:—Lord Barrisor (whom you slew)
Did love her dearely, and with all fit meanes
Hath urg'd his acceptation, of all which
Shee keepes one letter written in his blood:205
You must say thus, then: that you heard from mee
How much her selfe was toucht in conscience
With a report (which is in truth disperst)
That your maine quarrell grew about her love,
Lord Barrisor imagining your courtship210
Of the great Guises Duchesse in the Presence
Was by you made to his elected mistresse:
And so made me your meane now to resolve her,
Chosing by my direction this nights depth,
For the more cleare avoiding of all note215
Of your presumed presence. And with this
(To cleare her hands of such a lovers blood)
She will so kindly thank and entertaine you
(Me thinks I see how), I, and ten to one,
Shew you the confirmation in his blood,220
Lest you should think report and she did faine,
That you shall so have circumstantiall meanes
To come to the direct, which must be used:
For the direct is crooked; love comes flying;
The height of love is still wonne with denying.225
Fri. Shee must never know
That you know any thing of any love
Sustain'd on her part: for, learne this of me,
In any thing a woman does alone,
If she dissemble, she thinks tis not done;230
If not dissemble, nor a little chide,
Give her her wish, she is not satisfi'd;
To have a man think that she never seekes
Does her more good than to have all she likes:
This frailty sticks in them beyond their sex,235
Which to reforme, reason is too perplex:
Urge reason to them, it will doe no good;
Humour (that is the charriot of our food
In every body) must in them be fed,
To carrie their affections by it bred.240
Stand close!
Enter Tamyra with a book.
Tam. Alas, I fear my strangenesse will retire him.
If he goe back, I die; I must prevent it,
And cheare his onset with my sight at least,
And that's the most; though every step he takes245
Goes to my heart. Ile rather die than seeme
Not to be strange to that I most esteeme.
Fri. Madam!
Fri. You will pardon me, I hope,
That so beyond your expectation,
(And at a time for visitants so unfit)250
I (with my noble friend here) visit you:
You know that my accesse at any time
Hath ever beene admitted; and that friend,
That my care will presume to bring with me,
Shall have all circumstance of worth in him255
To merit as free welcome as myselfe.
Tam. O father, but at this suspicious houre
You know how apt best men are to suspect us
In any cause that makes suspicious shadow
No greater than the shadow of a haire;260
And y'are to blame. What though my lord and husband
Lie forth to night, and since I cannot sleepe
When he is absent I sit up to night;
Though all the dores are sure, and all our servants
As sure bound with their sleepes; yet there is One265
That wakes above, whose eye no sleepe can binde:
He sees through dores, and darknesse, and our thoughts;
And therefore as we should avoid with feare
To think amisse our selves before his search,
So should we be as curious to shunne270
All cause that other think not ill of us.
Buss. Madam, 'tis farre from that: I only heard
By this my honour'd father that your conscience
Made some deepe scruple with a false report
That Barrisors blood should something touch your honour,275
Since he imagin'd I was courting you
When I was bold to change words with the Duchesse,
And therefore made his quarrell, his long love
And service, as I heare, beeing deepely vowed
To your perfections; which my ready presence,280
Presum'd 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?
Then crave I now your pardon and my fathers,285
And sweare your presence does me so much good
That all I have it bindes to your requitall.
Indeed sir, 'tis most true that a report
Is spread, alleadging that his love to me
Was reason of your quarrell; and because290
You shall not think I faine it for my glory
That he importun'd me for his Court service,
I'le shew you his own hand, set down in blood,
To that vaine purpose: good sir, then come in.
Father, I thank you now a thousand fold.295
Exit Tamyra and D'Amb[ois].
Fri. May it be worth it to you, honour'd daughter! Descendit Fryar.
Finis Actus Secundi.
1-49 He will . . . bloud. These lines and the direction, Montsur . . . Pyrha, are found in A only.
50 B, which begins the scene with this line, inserts before it: Enter Monsieur, Tamyra, and Pero with a booke.
71 joyning a lose. A, weighing a dissolute.
76 common. A, solemne.
135 honour. A, profit.
146 In . . . another. A omits.
147 wane. Emend., Dilke; Qq, wave.
158 yee. A, the.
172 which. A, that.
173 For life's . . . me. A, For love is hatefull without love againe.
The Vault opens. B places this after 173; A omits.
177-181 See . . . in. Instead of these lines, A has:—
with a book. A omits.
266 wakes. A, sits.
274 Made some deepe scruple. A, Was something troubled.
275 honour. A, hand.
278-280 his long love . . . perfections. A omits.
280 ready. A omits.
286 good. A, comfort.
[A Room in Montsurry's House.]
Enter D'Ambois, Tamyra, with a chaine of pearle.
Bussy. Sweet mistresse, cease! your conscience is too nice,
And bites too hotly of the Puritane spice.
Tamyra. O, my deare servant, in thy close embraces
I have set open all the dores of danger
To my encompast honour, and my life:5
Before I was secure against death and hell;
But now am subject to the heartlesse feare
Of every shadow, and of every breath,
And would change firmnesse with an aspen leafe:
So confident a spotlesse conscience is,10
So weake a guilty. O, the dangerous siege
Sinne layes about us, and the tyrannie
He exercises when he hath expugn'd!
Like to the horror of a winter's thunder,
Mixt with a gushing storme, that suffer nothing15
To stirre abroad on earth but their own rages,
Is sinne, when it hath gathered head above us;
No roofe, no shelter can secure us so,
But he will drowne our cheeks in feare or woe.
Buss. Sin is a coward, madam, and insults20
But on our weaknesse, in his truest valour:
And so our ignorance tames us, that we let
His shadowes fright us: and like empty clouds
In which our faulty apprehensions forge
The formes of dragons, lions, elephants,25
When they hold no proportion, the slie charmes
Of the witch policy makes him like a monster
Kept onely to shew men for servile money:
That false hagge often paints him in her cloth
Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth.30
In three of us the secret of our meeting
Is onely guarded, and three friends as one
Have ever beene esteem'd, as our three powers
That in our one soule are as one united:
Why should we feare then? for my selfe, I sweare,35
Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure,
And health be grievous to one long time sick,
Than the deare jewell of your fame in me
Be made an out-cast to your infamy;
Nor shall my value (sacred to your vertues)40
Onely give free course to it from my selfe,
But make it flie out of the mouths of Kings
In golden vapours, and with awfull wings.
Tam. It rests as all Kings seales were set in thee.
Now let us call my father, whom I sweare45
I could extreamly chide, but that I feare
To make him so suspicious of my love,
Of which (sweet servant) doe not let him know
For all the world.
Buss. Alas! he will not think it.
Tam. Come then—ho! Father, ope and take your friend.50
Ascendit Frier.
Fri. Now, honour'd daughter, is your doubt resolv'd?
Tam. I, father, but you went away too soone.
Fri. Too soone!
Tam. Indeed you did; you should have stayed;
Had not your worthy friend beene of your bringing,
And that containes all lawes to temper me,55
Not all the fearefull danger that besieged us
Had aw'd my throat from exclamation.
Fri. I know your serious disposition well.
Come, sonne, the morne comes on.
Tam. And you this chaine of pearle, and my love onely! Descendit Frier and D'Amb[ois].
It is not I, but urgent destiny
That (as great states-men for their generall end
In politique justice make poore men offend)
Enforceth my offence to make it just.65
What shall weak dames doe, when th' 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 layes still
Our powers to it, as to the line, the stone,70
Not to the stone, the line should be oppos'd.
We cannot keepe our constant course in vertue:
What is alike at all parts? every day
Differs from other, every houre and minute;
I, every thought in our false clock of life75
Oft times inverts the whole circumference:
We must be sometimes one, sometimes another.
Our bodies are but thick clouds to our soules,
Through which they cannot shine when they desire.
When all the starres, and even the sunne himselfe,80
Must stay the vapours times that he exhales
Before he can make good his beames to us,
O how can we, that are but motes to him,
Wandring at random in his ordered rayes,
Disperse our passions fumes, with our weak labours,85
That are more thick and black than all earths vapours?
Enter Mont[surry].
Mont. Good day, my love! what, up and ready too!
Tam. Both (my deare lord): not all this night made I
My selfe unready, or could sleep a wink.
Mont. Alas, what troubled my true love, my peace,90
From being at peace within her better selfe?
Or how could sleepe forbeare to seize thine eyes,
When he might challenge them as his just prise?
Tam. I am in no powre earthly, but in yours.
To what end should I goe to bed, my lord,95
That wholly mist the comfort of my bed?
Or how should sleepe possesse my faculties,
Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes?
Mont. Then will I never more sleepe night from thee:
All mine owne businesse, all the Kings affaires,100
Shall take the day to serve them; every night
Ile ever dedicate to thy delight.
Tam. Nay, good my lord, esteeme not my desires
Such doters on their humours that my judgement
Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure:105
A wives pleas'd husband must her object be
In all her acts, not her sooth'd fantasie.
Mont. Then come, my love, now pay those rites to sleepe
Thy faire eyes owe him: shall we now to bed?
Tam. O no, my lord! your holy frier sayes110
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. Hee's a most learned and religious man.115
Come to the Presence then, and see great D'Ambois
(Fortunes proud mushrome shot up in a night)
Stand like an Atlas under our Kings arme;
Which greatnesse with him Monsieur now envies
As bitterly and deadly as the Guise.120
Mont. Even the same.
Each naturall agent works but to this end,
To render that it works on like it selfe;
Which since the Monsieur in his act on D'Ambois125
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 Monsieurs aime on his owne breast,
He turnes his outward love to inward hate:130
A princes love is like the lightnings fume,
Which no man can embrace, but must consume. Exeunt.
Enter D'Ambois . . . pearle. A, Bucy, Tamyra.
1-2 Sweet . . . spice. A omits.
28 servile. A, Goddesse.
34 our one. So in A: B omits our.
35 selfe. A, truth.
37 one. A, men.
45-61 Now let . . . Descendit Frier and D'Amb[ois]. A omits.
92 thine eies. A, thy beauties.
118 under our Kings arme. A, underneath the King.
A room in the Court.]
Henry, D'Ambois, Monsieur, Guise, Dutches, Annabell, Charlot, Attendants.
Henry. Speak home, my Bussy! thy impartiall words
Are like brave faulcons that dare trusse a fowle
Much greater than themselves; flatterers are kites
That check at sparrowes; thou shalt be my eagle,
And beare my thunder underneath thy wings:5
Truths words like jewels hang in th'eares of kings.
Bussy. Would I might live to see no Jewes hang there
In steed of jewels—sycophants, I meane,
Who use Truth like the Devill, his true foe,
Cast by the angell to the pit of feares,10
And bound in chaines; Truth seldome decks kings eares.
Slave flattery (like a rippiers legs rowl'd up
In boots of hay-ropes) with kings soothed guts
Swadled and strappl'd, now lives onely free.
O, tis a subtle knave; how like the plague15
Unfelt he strikes into the braine of man,
And rageth in his entrailes when he can,
Worse than the poison of a red hair'd man.
Buss. Ile make you sport enough, then. Let me have
My lucerns too, or dogs inur'd to hunt
Beasts of most rapine, but to put them up,
And if I trusse not, let me not be trusted.
Shew me a great man (by the peoples voice,25
Which is the voice of God) that by his greatnesse
Bumbasts his private roofes with publique riches;
That affects royaltie, rising from a clapdish;
That rules so much more than his suffering King,
That he makes kings of his subordinate slaves:30
Himselfe 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 owne counsell keeping)35
Keepe all upright—let me but hawlk at him,
Ile play the vulture, and so thump his liver
That (like a huge unlading Argosea)
He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him.
Shew me a clergie man that is in voice40
A lark of heaven, in heart a mowle 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 phesants and your partriches;45
Venting their quintessence as men read Hebrew—
Let me but hawlk at him, and like the other,
He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him.
Shew me a lawyer that turnes sacred law
(The equall rendrer of each man his owne,50
The scourge of rapine and extortion,
The sanctuary and impregnable defence
Of retir'd learning and besieged vertue)
Into a Harpy, that eates all but's owne,
Into the damned sinnes it punisheth,55
Into the synagogue of theeves and atheists;
Blood into gold, and justice into lust:—
Let me but hawlk at him, as at the rest,
He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him.
Enter Mont-surrey, Tamira and Pero.
Gui. Where will you find such game as you would hawlk at?60
Buss. Ile hawlk about your house for one of them.
Gui. Come, y'are a glorious ruffin and runne proud
Of the Kings headlong graces; hold your breath,
Or, by that poyson'd vapour, not the King
Shall back your murtherous valour against me.65
Buss. I would the King would make his presence free
But for one bout betwixt us: by the reverence
Due to the sacred space twixt kings and subjects,
Here would I make thee cast that popular purple
In which thy proud soule sits and braves thy soveraigne.70
Mons. Peace, peace, I pray thee, peace!
Buss. Let him peace first
That made the first warre.
Mons. He's the better man.
Buss. And, therefore, may doe worst?
Mons. He has more titles.
Buss. So Hydra had more heads.
Mons. He's greater knowne.
Buss. His greatnesse is the peoples, mine's mine owne.75
Mons. He's noblier borne.
Buss. He is not; I am noble,
And noblesse in his blood hath no gradation,
But in his merit.
Gui. Th'art not nobly borne,
But bastard to the Cardinall of Ambois.
Buss. Still shall we chide, and fome upon this bit?
Is the Guise onely great in faction?
Stands he not by himselfe? Proves he th'opinion85
That mens soules are without them? Be a duke,
And lead me to the field.
Guis. Come, follow me.
Henr. Stay them! stay, D'Ambois! Cosen Guise, I wonder
Your honour'd disposition brooks so ill
A man so good that only would uphold90
Man in his native noblesse, from whose fall
All our dissentions rise; that in himselfe
(Without the outward patches of our frailty,
Riches and honour) knowes he comprehends
Worth with the greatest. Kings had never borne95
Such boundlesse empire over other men,
Had all maintain'd the spirit and state of D'Ambois;
Nor had the full impartiall hand of Nature,
That all things gave in her originall
Without these definite terms of Mine and Thine,100
Beene turn'd unjustly to the hand of Fortune,
Had all preserv'd her in her prime like D'Ambois;
No envie, no disjunction had dissolv'd,
Or pluck'd one stick out of the golden faggot
In which the world of Saturne bound our lifes,105
Had all beene held together with the nerves,
The genius, and th'ingenious soule of D'Ambois.
Let my hand therefore be the Hermean rod
To part and reconcile, and so conserve you,
As my combin'd embracers and supporters.110
Buss. Tis our Kings motion, and we shall not seeme
To worst eies womanish, though we change thus soone
Never so great grudge for his greater pleasure.
Gui. I seale to that, and so the manly freedome,
That you so much professe, hereafter prove not115
A bold and glorious licence to deprave,
To me his hand shall hold the Hermean vertue
His grace affects, in which submissive signe
On this his sacred right hand I lay mine.
Buss. Tis well, my lord, and so your worthy greatnesse120
Decline not to the greater insolence,
Nor make you think it a prerogative
To rack mens freedomes with the ruder wrongs,
My hand (stuck full of lawrell, in true signe
Tis wholly dedicate to righteous peace)125
In all submission kisseth th'other side.
Henr. Thanks to ye both: and kindly I invite ye
Both to a banquet where weele sacrifice
Full cups to confirmation of your loves;
At which (faire ladies) I entreat your presence;130
And hope you, madam, will take one carowse
For reconcilement of your lord and servant.
Duchess. If I should faile, my lord, some other lady
Would be found there to doe that for my servant.
Mons. Any of these here?
Buss. Think your thoughts like my mistresse, honour'd lady?
Tamyra. I think not on you, sir; y'are one I know not.
Montsurry. Oh sir, has she met you? Exeunt Henry, D'Amb[ois], Ladies.