[Officers seize Third Player.

Third Play. With me? if it please your worship, ’twas my part.

Sim. But ’twas a foolish part as ever thou playedst in thy life: I’ll make thee smoke for it; I’ll teach thee to understand to play a clown; thou shalt know every man is not born to it.—Away with him quickly! He’ll have the other pocket picked else; I heard them say it with my own ears.

Re-enter Second Player as Second Cheater.

See, he’s come in another disguise to cheat thee again.

[Exit Third Player with Officers.

Second Play. Pish, whither goes he now?

Sim. Come on, sir, let us see what your knaveship can do at me now: you must not think you have a clown in hand. The fool I have committed too, for playing the part.

[Throws off his gown, discovering his doublet
with a satin forepart, and a canvass back.

Second Play. What’s here to do?

Glov. Fie, good sir, come away: will your worship base yourself to play a clown?

Second Play. I beseech your worship let us have our own clown; I know not how to go forwards else.

Sim. Knave, play out thy part with me, or I’ll lay thee by the heels all the days of thy life.—Why, how now, my masters, who is that laughed at me? cannot a man of worship play the clown a little for his pleasure, but he must be laughed at? Do you know who I am? Is the king’s deputy of no better account among you? Was I chosen to be laughed at?—Where’s my clerk?

Amin. Here, if it please your worship.

Sim. Take a note of all those that laugh at me, that when I have done, I may commit them. Let me see who dare do it now.—And now to you once again, sir cheater: look you, here are my purse-strings; I do defy thee.

Second Play. Good sir, tempt me not; my part is so written, that I should cheat your worship if you were my father.

Sim. I should have much joy to have such a rascal to my son.

Second Play. Therefore I beseech your worship pardon me; the part has more knavery in it than when your worship saw it at first: I assure you you’ll be deceived in it, sir; the new additions will take any man’s purse in Kent, or Kirsendom.[536]

Sim. If thou canst take my purse, I’ll give it thee freely:
And do thy worst, I charge thee, as thou’lt answer it.
Second Play. I shall offend your worship.
Sim. Knave, do it quickly.

Second Play. Say you so? then there’s for you, and here is for me.

[Throws meal in his face, takes his purse, and exit.
Sim. O bless me! neighbours, I am in a fog,
A cheater’s fog; I can see nobody.

Glov. Run, follow him, officers.

Sim. Away! let him go; he will have all your purses, if he come back. A pox on your new additions! they spoil all the plays that ever they come in: the old way had no such roguery in it. Call you this a merry comedy, when a man’s eyes are put out in’t? Brother Honeysuckle——

[Exit Aminadab.

Felt. What says your sweet worship?

Sim. I make you deputy, to rule the town till I can see again, which will be within these nine days at farthest. Nothing grieves me now, but that I hear Oliver the rebel laugh at me. A pox on your puritan face! this will make you in love with plays as long as you live; we shall not keep you from them now.

Oliv. In sincerity, I was never better pleased at an exercise.[537] Ha, ha, ha!

Sim. Neighbours, what colour was the dust the rascal threw in my face?

Glov. ’Twas meal, if it please your worship.

Sim.. Meal! I am glad of it; I’ll hang the miller for selling it.

Glov. Nay, ten to one the cheater never bought it; he stole it certainly.

Sim.. Why, then I’ll hang the cheater for stealing it, and the miller for being out of the way when he did it.

Felt. Ay, but your worship was in the fault yourself; you bid him do his worst.

Sim.. His worst? that’s true; but the rascal hath done his best; for I know not how a villain could put out a man’s eyes better, and leave them in his head, as he has done mine.

Re-enter Aminadab.

Amin. Where is my master’s worship?

Sim. How now, Aminadab? I hear thee, though I see thee not.

Amin. You are sure cozened, sir; they are all professed cheaters: they have stolen two silver spoons, and the clown took his heels with all celerity. They only take the name of country comedians to abuse simple people with a printed play or two, which they bought at Canterbury for sixpence; and what is worse, they speak but what they list of it, and fribble out the rest.

Sim.. Here’s no abuse[538] to the commonwealth, if a man could see to look into it!

But mark the cunning of these cheating slaves,
First they make justice blind, then play the knaves.

Heng. [without] Where’s master mayor?

Glov. Od’s precious, brother! the king of Kent is newly alighted.

Sim. The king of Kent!
Where is he? that I should live to this day,
And yet not live to see to bid him welcome!
Enter Hengist, attended.
Heng. Where is Simonides, our friendly host?
Sim. Ah, blind as one that had been fox’d[539] a seven-night!
Heng. Why, how now, man?
Sim. Faith, practising a clown’s part for your grace,
I have practis’d both my eyes out.
Heng. What need you practise that?

Sim. A man is never too old to learn; your grace will say so, when you hear the jest of it: the truth is, my lord, I meant to have been merry, and now it is my luck to weep water and oatmeal; I shall see again at supper, I make no doubt of it.

Heng. This is strange to me, sirs.

Enter a Gentleman.
Gent. Arm, arm, my lord!
Heng. What’s that?
Gent. With swiftest speed,
If ever you’ll behold the queen, your daughter,
Alive again.
Heng. Roxena?
Gent. They are besieg’d:
Aurelius Ambrose, and his brother Uther,
With numbers infinite of British forces,
Beset their castle, and they cannot ’scape
Without your speedy succour.
Heng. For her safety
I’ll forget food and rest; away!

Sim. I hope your worship will hear the jest ere you go.

Heng. The jest! torment me not.

Sim. I’ll follow you to Wales with a dog and a bell, but I will tell it you.

Heng. Unseasonable folly! [Exit with Attendants.

Sim. ’Tis sign of war when great men disagree.
Look to the rebel well, till I can see;
And when my sight’s[540] recover’d, I will have
His eyes pull’d out for a fortnight.
Oliv. My eyes? hang thee!
A deadly sin or two shall pluck them out first;
That is my resolution. Ha, ha, ha! [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Before a Castle in Wales.
Enter Aurelius and Uther, and Lords, with Soldiers.
Uth. My lord, the castle is so fortified—
Aur. Let wild-fire ruin it,
That his destruction may appear to him
In the figure of heaven’s wrath at the last day,
That murderer of our brother. Hence, away!
I’ll send my heart no peace till’t[541] be consum’d.
[Enter above Vortiger and Horsus.
Uth. There he appears again—behold, my lord!
Aur. O that the zealous fire on my soul’s altar,
To the high birth of virtue consecrated,
Would fit me with a lightning now to blast him,
Even as I look upon him!
Uth. Good my lord,
Your anger is too noble and too precious
To waste itself on guilt so foul as his:
Let ruin work her will.
Vort. Begirt all round?
Hor. All, all, my lord; ’tis folly to make doubt of’t:[542]
You question things, that horror long ago
Resolv’d[543] us on.
Vort. Give me leave, Horsus, though——
Hor. Do what you will, sir; question them again;
I’ll tell them to you.
Vort. Not so, sir;
I will not have them told again.
Hor. It rests then—
Vort. That’s an ill word put in, when thy heart knows
There is no rest at all, but torment waking.[544]
Hor. True; my heart finds it, that sits weeping blood now
For poor Roxena’s safety.—[Aside.] You’ll confess, my lord,
My love to you has brought me to this danger?
I could have liv’d, like Hengist king of Kent,
London, York, Lincoln, and Winchester,
Under the power of my command, the portion
Of my most just desert, enjoyèd now
By pettier deservers.
Vort. Say you so, sir?
And you’ll confess, since you began confession,
(A thing I should have died ere I had thought on),
You’ve marr’d the fashion of your affection utterly,
In your own wicked counsel, there you paid me:
You were bound in conscience to love me after;
You were bound to’t, as men in honesty,
That vitiate virgins, to give dowries to them:
My faith was pure before to a faithful woman.
Hor. My lord, my counsel—
Vort. Why, I’ll be judg’d by these
That knit death in their brows, and hold me now
Not worth the acception of a flattery;
Most of whose faces smil’d when I smil’d once.—
My lords!
Uth. Reply not, brother.
Vort. Seeds of scorn,
I mind you not; I speak to them alone
Whose force makes yours a power, which else were none.
Shew me the main food of your hate,
Which cannot be the murder of Constantius,
That crawls in your revenges, for your loves
Were violent long since that.
First Lord. And had been still,
If from that pagan wound thou’dst kept thee free;
But when thou fled’st from heaven, we fled from thee.
Vort. This was your counsel now.
Hor. Mine? ’twas the counsel
Of your own lust and blood; your appetite knows it.
Vort. May thunder strike me from these walls, my lords,
And leave me many leagues off from your eyes,
If this be not the man whose Stygian soul
Breath’d forth that counsel to me, and sole plotter
Of all those false injurious disgraces,
That have abus’d the virtuous patience
Of our religious queen.
Hor. A devil in madness!
Vort. Upon whose life I swear there sticks no stain
But what’s most wrongful: and where[545] now she thinks
A rape dwells on her honour, only I
Her ravisher was, and his the policy.
Aur. Inhuman practice![546]
Vort. Now you know the truth,
Will his death serve your fury?
Hor. My death?
Vort. Say, will it do it?
Hor. Say they should say ’twould do’t?
Vort. Why, then it must.
Hor. It must?
Vort. It shall.—
Speak but the word, it shall be yielded up.
Hor. Believe him not; he cannot do it.
Vort. Cannot?
Hor. ’Tis but a false and base insinuation
For his own life, and like his late submission.
Vort. O sting to honour! Alive or dead, thou goest
For that word’s rudeness only. [Stabs him.
First Lord. See, sin needs
No other destruction than [what] it breeds
In its own bosom.
Vort. Such another brings him.
Hor. What! has thy vile rage stampt a wound upon me?
I’ll send one to thy soul shall never heal for’t.
Vort. How, to my soul?
Hor. It shall be thy master torment,
Both for the pain and th’ everlastingness.
Vort. Ha, ha, ha!
Hor. Dost laugh? take leave of’t:[547] all eternity
Shall never see thee do so much again.
Know, thou’rt a cuckold.
Vort. What!
Hor. You change too soon, sir.
Roxena, whom thou’st rais’d to thy own ruin,
She was my whore in Germany.
Vort. Burst me open,
The violence of whirlwinds!
Hor. Hear me out first.
For her embrace, which my flesh yet sits warm in,
I was thy friend and follower.
Vort. Deafen me,
Thou most imperious noise that starts the world!
Hor. And to serve both our lusts, I practis’d with thee
Against thy virtuous queen.
Vort. Bane to all comforts!
Hor. Whose faithful sweetness, too precious for thy blood,
I made thee change for love’s hypocrisy.
Vort. Insufferable!
Hor. Only to make
My way to pleasure fearless, free, and fluent.
Vort. Hell’s trump is in that throat!
Hor. It shall sound shriller.
Vort. I’ll dam it up with death first.
[They stab each other. Enter Roxena above.
Rox. O for succour!
Who’s near me? Help me, save me! the flame follows me;
’Tis in the figure of young Vortimer, the prince,[548]
Whose life I took by poison.
Hor. Hold out, breath,
And I shall find thee quickly.
Vort. I will[549] tug
Thy soul out here.
Hor. Do, monster!
Rox. Vortiger!
Vort. Monster!
Rox. My lord!
Vort. Toad! Pagan!
Hor. Viper! Christian!
Rox. O hear me, O help me, my love, my lord! ’tis here!
Horsus, look up, if not to succour me,
To see me yet consum’d. O what is love,
When life is not regarded!
Vort. What strength’s left
I’ll fix upon thy throat.
Hor. I have some force yet.
[They stab each other, Horsus falls.
Rox. No way to ’scape? is this the end of glory?
Doubly beset with enemies’ wrath, and fire?
It comes nearer—rivers and fountains, fall!—
It sucks away my breath; I cannot give
A curse to sin, and hear’t out while I live.
Help, help! [Falls.
Vort. Burn, burn! Now I can tend thee.
Take time with her in torment, call her life
Afar off to thee, dry up her strumpet-blood,
And hardly parch the skin; let one heat strangle her,
Another fetch her to her sense again,
And the worst pain be only her reviving;
Follow her eternally! O mystical harlot,
Thou hast thy full due! Whom lust crown’d queen before,
Flames crown her now a most triumphant whore;
And that end crowns them all! [Falls.
Aur. Our peace is full
In yon usurper’s fall; nor have I known
A judgment meet [the bad] more fearfully.
Here, take this ring; deliver the good queen,
And those grave pledges of her murder’d honour,
Her worthy father and her noble uncle.
[Exit Second Lord with ring. Trumpets sound.
How now! the meaning of these sounds?
Enter Devonshire, Stafford, and Soldiers, with Hengist prisoner.
Hen. The consumer has been here; she’s gone, she’s lost;
In glowing cinders now lie all my joys:
The headlong fortune of my rash captivity
Strikes not so deep a wound into my hopes
As thy dear loss.
Aur. Her father and her uncle!
First Lord. They are indeed, my lord.
Aur. Part of my wishes.
What fortunate power has prevented[550] me,
And ere my love came, brought them victory?
First Lord. My wonder sticks in Hengist, king of Kent.
Devonshire. My lord, to make that plain which now I see
Fix’d in astonishment; the only name
Of your return and being, brought such gladness
To this distracted kingdom, that, to express
A thankfulness to heaven, it grew great
In charitable actions; from which goodness
We taste our liberty, who liv’d engag’d
Upon the innocence of woman’s honour,
(A kindness that even threaten’d to undo us):
And having newly but enjoy’d the benefit
And fruits of our enlargement, ’twas our happiness
To intercept this monster of ambition,
Bred in these times of usurpation,
The rankness of whose insolence and treason
Grew to such height, ’twas arm’d to bid you battle;
Whom, as our fame’s redemption, on our knees
We present captive.
Aur. Had it needed reason,
You richly came provided. I understood
Not your deserts till now.—My honour’d lords,
Is this that German Saxon, whose least thirst
Could not be satisfied under a province?
Heng. Had but my fate directed this bold arm
To thy life, the whole kingdom had been mine;
That was my hope’s great aim: I have a thirst
Could never have been full quench’d under all;
The whole must do’t, or nothing.
Aur. A strange drought!
And what a little ground shall death now teach you
To be content withal!
Heng. Why let it then,
For none else can; you’ve nam’d the only way
To limit my ambition; a full cure
For all my fading hopes and sickly fears;
Nor shall it be less welcome to me now,
Than a fresh acquisition would have been
Unto my new-built kingdoms. Life to me,
’Less it be glorious, is a misery.
Aur. That pleasure we will do you.—Lead him out:
And when we have inflicted our just doom
On his usurping head, it will become
Our pious care to see this realm secur’d
From the convulsions it hath long endur’d.
[Exeunt omnes.