Buss. What violent heat is this? me thinks the fire

Of twenty lives doth on a suddaine flash

Through all my faculties: the ayre goes high5

In this close chamber and the frighted earth Thunder.

Trembles and shrinks beneath me; the whole house

Nods with his shaken burthen.

Blesse me, heaven!

Umb[ra Friar]. Note what I want, deare sonne, and be fore-warn'd.

O there are bloudy deeds past and to come.10

I cannot stay; a fate doth ravish me;

Ile meet thee in the chamber of thy love. Exit.

Buss. What dismall change is here! the good old Frier

Is murther'd, being made knowne to serve my love;

And now his restlesse spirit would fore-warne me15

Of some plot dangerous, and imminent.

Note what he wants! He wants his upper weed,

He wants his life, and body: which of these

Should be the want he meanes, and may supply me

With any fit fore-warning? This strange vision,20

(Together with the dark prediction

Us'd by the Prince of Darknesse that was rais'd

By this embodied shadow) stirre my thoughts

With reminiscion of the Spirits promise,

Who told me that by any invocation25

I should have power to raise him, though it wanted

The powerfull words and decent rites of art.

Never had my set braine such need of spirit

T'instruct and cheere it; now then I will claime

Performance of his free and gentle vow30

T'appeare in greater light, and make more plain

His rugged oracle. I long to know

How my deare mistresse fares, and be inform'd

What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud

Of her incensed lord: me thought the Spirit35

(When he had utter'd his perplext presage)

Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds;

His forehead bent, as it would hide his face,

He knockt his chin against his darkned breast,

And struck a churlish silence through his pow'rs.40

Terror of darknesse! O, thou King of flames!

That with thy musique-footed horse dost strike

The cleare light out of chrystall on dark earth,

And hurlst instructive fire about the world,

Wake, wake, the drowsie and enchanted night45

That sleepes with dead eyes in this heavy riddle!

Or thou great Prince of Shades, where never sunne

Stickes his far-darted beames, whose eyes are made

To shine in darknesse, and see ever best

Where men are blindest, open now the heart50

Of thy abashed oracle, that, for feare

Of some ill it includes, would faine lie hid,

And rise thou with it in thy greater light!

Behemoth. Thus, to observe my vow of apparition

In greater light, and explicate thy fate,55

I come; and tell thee that, if thou obey

The summons that thy mistresse next will send thee,

Her hand shall be thy death.

Buss. When will she send?

Beh. Soone as I set againe, where late I rose.

Buss. Is the old Frier slaine?

Beh. No, and yet lives not. 60

Buss. Died he a naturall death?

Beh. He did.

Buss. Who then

Will my deare mistresse send?

Beh. I must not tell thee.

Buss. Who lets thee?

Beh. Fate.

Buss. Who are Fates ministers?

Beh. The Guise and Monsieur.

Buss. A fit paire of sheeres

To cut the threds of kings and kingly spirits,65

And consorts fit to sound forth harmony

Set to the fals of kingdomes. Shall the hand

Of my kind mistresse kill me?

Beh. If thou yeeld

To her next summons. Y'are faire warn'd; farewell! Thunders. Exit.

Buss. I must fare well, how ever, though I die,70

My death consenting with his augurie.

Should not my powers obay when she commands,

My motion must be rebell to my will,

My will to life; if, when I have obay'd,

Her hand should so reward me, they must arme it,75

Binde me, or force it; or, I lay my life,

She rather would convert it many times

On her owne bosome, even to many deaths.

But were there danger of such violence,

I know 'tis farre from her intent to send:80

And who she should send is as farre from thought,

Since he is dead whose only mean she us'd. Knocks.

Whose there? Look to the dore, and let him in,

Though politick Monsieur, or the violent Guise.

Mont. Haile to my worthy sonne!

Buss. O lying Spirit, 85

To say the Frier was dead! Ile now beleeve

Nothing of all his forg'd predictions.

My kinde and honour'd father, well reviv'd!

I have beene frighted with your death and mine,

And told my mistresse hand should be my death,90

If I obeyed this summons.

Mont. I beleev'd

Your love had bin much clearer then to give

Any such doubt a thought, for she is cleare,

And having freed her husbands jealousie

(Of which her much abus'd hand here is witnesse)95

She prayes, for urgent cause, your instant presence.

Buss. Why, then, your Prince of Spirits may be call'd

The Prince of lyers.

Mont. Holy Writ so calls him.

Buss. What! writ in bloud!

Mont. I, 'tis the ink of lovers.

Buss. O, 'tis a sacred witnesse of her love.100

So much elixer of her bloud as this,

Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firme

As heat to fire; and, like to all the signes,

Commands the life confinde in all my veines.

O, how it multiplies my bloud with spirit,105

And makes me apt t'encounter death and hell.

But come, kinde father; you fetch me to heaven,

And to that end your holy weed was given. Exeunt.

[Umbra] Friar. Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter,

And strike away this heartlesse trance of anguish:

Be like the sunne, and labour in eclipses.

Look to the end of woes: oh, can you sit

Mustering the horrors of your servants slaughter5

Before your contemplation, and not study

How to prevent it? Watch when he shall rise,

And, with a suddaine out-crie of his murther,

Blow his retreat before he be revenged.

Tamyra. O father, have my dumb woes wak'd your death?10

When will our humane griefes 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 t'have power to grieve.

Umb. Fri. It is the misery of our creation.15

Your true friend,

Led by your husband, shadowed in my weed,

Now enters the dark vault.

Tam. But, my dearest father,

Why will not you appeare to him your selfe,

And see that none of these deceits annoy him?20

Umb. Fri. My power is limited; alas! I cannot;

All that I can doe—See! the cave opens. Exit.

Tam. Away (my love) away! thou wilt be murther'd.

Bussy. Murther'd! I know not what that Hebrew means:

That word had ne're bin nam'd had all bin D'Ambois.25

Murther'd! By heaven, he is my murtherer

That shewes me not a murtherer: what such bugge

Abhorreth not the very sleepe of D'Amboys?

Murther'd! Who dares give all the room I see

To D'Ambois reach? or look with any odds30

His fight i'th' face, upon whose hand sits death,

Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth?

If I scape Monsieurs pothecarie shops,

Foutir for Guises shambles! 'Twas ill plotted;

They should have mall'd me here35

When I was rising. I am up and ready.

Let in my politique visitants, let them in,

Though entring like so many moving armours.

Fate is more strong than arms and slie than treason,

And I at all parts buckl'd in my fate.40

Mons. }

Guise. } Why enter not the coward villains?

Buss. Dare they not come?

Tam. They come.

First Murderer. Come, all at once!

[Umbra] Friar. Back, coward murtherers, back!

Omnes. Defend us heaven! Exeunt all but the first.

First Murd. Come ye not on?

Buss. No, slave! nor goest thou off.

Stand you so firme?

Will it not enter here? 45

You have a face yet. So! in thy lifes flame

I burne the first rites to my mistresse fame.

Tam. He is, my love; 50

'Twas the Earle, my husband, in his weed that brought thee.

Buss. That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled.

Where is that angry Earle? My lord! come forth,

And shew your owne face in your owne affaire;

Take not into your noble veines the blood55

Of these base villaines, nor the light reports

Of blister'd tongues for cleare and weighty truth:

But me against the world, in pure defence

Of your rare lady, to whose spotlesse name

I stand here as a bulwark, and project60

A life to her renowne that ever yet

Hath been untainted, even in envies eye,

And, where it would protect, a sanctuarie.

Brave Earle, come forth, and keep your scandall in!

'Tis not our fault, if you enforce the spot;65

Nor the wreak yours, if you performe it not.

Montsurry. Cowards! a fiend or spirit beat ye off!

They are your owne faint spirits that have forg'd

The fearefull shadowes that your eyes deluded:

The fiend was in you; cast him out, then, thus!70

Tam. Favour my lord, my love, O, favour him!

Buss. I will not touch him. Take your life, my lord,

And be appeas'd. Pistolls shot within.

O then the coward Fates

Have maim'd themselves, and ever lost their honour!

Umb. Fri. What have ye done, slaves! irreligious lord!75

Buss. Forbeare them, father; 'tis enough for me

That Guise and Monsieur, death and destinie,

Come behind D'Ambois. Is my body, then,

But penetrable flesh, and must my mind

Follow my blood? Can my divine part adde80

No ayd to th'earthly in extremity?

Then these divines are but for forme, not fact;

Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact,

A mistresse and a servant. Let my death

Define life nothing but a courtiers breath.85

Nothing is made of nought, of all things made

Their abstract being a dreame but of a shade.

Ile not complaine to earth yet, but to heaven,

And (like a man) look upwards even in death.

And if Vespasian thought in majestie90

An Emperour might die standing, why not I? She offers to help him.

Nay, without help, in which I will exceed him;

For he died splinted with his chamber groomes.

Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done!

The equall thought I beare of life and death95

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 despight of murther! take thy wings

And haste thee where the gray-ey'd morn perfumes100

Her rosie chariot with Sabæan spices!

Fly where the evening from th'Iberean vales

Takes on her swarthy shoulders Heccate

Crown'd with a grove of oakes! flie where men feele

The burning axeltree; and those that suffer105

Beneath the chariot of the snowy Beare:

And tell them all that D'Ambois now is hasting

To the eternall dwellers; that a thunder

Of all their sighes together (for their frailties

Beheld in me) may quit my worthlesse fall110

With a fit volley for my funerall.

Buss. I forgive them all;

And you, my lord, their fautor; for true signe

Of which unfain'd remission, take my sword;

Take it, and onely give it motion,115

And it shall finde the way to victory

By his owne brightnesse, and th'inherent valour

My fight hath still'd into't with charmes of spirit.

Now let me pray you that my weighty bloud,

Laid in one scale of your impertiall spleene,120

May sway the forfeit of my worthy love

Waid in the other: and be reconcil'd

With all forgivenesse to your matchlesse wife.

Tam. Forgive thou me, deare servant, and this hand

That lead thy life to this unworthy end;125

Forgive it for the bloud with which 'tis stain'd,

In which I writ the summons of thy death—

The forced summons—by this bleeding wound,

By this here in my bosome, and by this

That makes me hold up both my hands embrew'd130

For thy deare pardon.

Buss. O, my heart is broken.

Fate nor these murtherers, Monsieur nor the Guise,

Have any glory in my death, but this,

This killing spectacle, this prodigie.

My sunne is turn'd to blood, in whose red beams135

Pindus and Ossa (hid in drifts of snow

Laid on my heart and liver), from their veines

Melt, like two hungry torrents eating rocks,

Into the ocean of all humane life,

And make it bitter, only with my bloud.140

O fraile condition of strength, valour, vertue

In me (like warning fire upon the top

Of some steepe beacon, on a steeper hill)

Made to expresse it: like a falling starre

Silently glanc't, that like a thunderbolt145

Look't to have struck, and shook the firmament! Moritur.

Umb. Fri. Farewell! brave reliques of a compleat man,

Look up, and see thy spirit made a starre.

Joine flames with Hercules, and when thou set'st

Thy radiant forehead in the firmament,150

Make the vast chrystall crack with thy receipt;

Spread to a world of fire, and the aged skie

Cheere with new sparks of old humanity.

[To Montsurry.] Son of the earth, whom my unrested soule

Rues t'have begotten in the faith of heaven,155

Assay to gratulate and pacifie

The soule fled from this worthy by performing

The Christian reconcilement he besought

Betwixt thee and thy lady; let her wounds,

Manlessly digg'd in her, be eas'd and cur'd160

With balme of thine owne teares; or be assur'd

Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.

Mont. See how she merits this, still kneeling by,

And mourning his fall, more than her own fault!

Umb. Fri. Remove, deare daughter, and content thy husband:165

So piety wills thee, and thy servants peace.

Tam. O wretched piety, that art so distract

In thine owne constancie, and in thy right

Must be unrighteous. If I right my friend,

I wrong my husband; if his wrong I shunne,170

The duty of my friend I leave undone.

Ill playes on both sides; here and there it riseth;

No place, no good, so good, but ill compriseth.

O had I never married but for forme;

Never vow'd faith but purpos'd to deceive;175

Never made conscience of any sinne,

But clok't it privately and made it common;

Nor never honour'd beene in bloud or mind;

Happy had I beene then, as others are

Of the like licence; I had then beene honour'd,180

Liv'd without envie; custome had benumb'd

All sense of scruple and all note of frailty;

My fame had beene untouch'd, my heart unbroken:

But (shunning all) I strike on all offence.

O husband! deare friend! O my conscience!185

Mons. Come, let's away; my sences are not proofe

Against those plaints.

Mont. I must not yeeld to pity, nor to love

So servile and so trayterous: cease, my bloud,

To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgement.190

Away! forsake my house; forbeare complaints

Where thou hast bred them: here all things [are] full

Of their owne shame and sorrow—leave my house.

Tam. Sweet lord, forgive me, and I will be gone;

And till these wounds (that never balme shall close195

Till death hath enterd at them, so I love them,

Being opened by your hands) by death be cur'd,

I never more will grieve you with my sight;

Never endure that any roofe shall part

Mine eyes and heaven; but to the open deserts200

(Like to a hunted tygres) I will flie,

Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men,

And look on no side till I be arriv'd.

Mont. I doe forgive thee, and upon my knees

(With hands held up to heaven) wish that mine honour205

Would suffer reconcilement to my love:

But, since it will not, honour never serve

My love with flourishing object, till it sterve!

And as this taper, though it upwards look,

Downwards must needs consume, so let our love!210

As, having lost his hony, the sweet taste

Runnes into savour, and will needs retaine

A spice of his first parents, till (like life)

It sees and dies, so let our love! and, lastly,

As when the flame is suffer'd to look up215

It keepes his luster, but being thus turn'd downe

(His naturall course of usefull light inverted)

His owne stuffe puts it out, so let our love!

Now turne from me, as here I turne from thee;

And may both points of heavens strait axeltree220

Conjoyne in one, before thy selfe and me! Exeunt severally.