Hast in thy power all papers so inscrib’d,
Glide through all barres to it, and fetch that paper.
Cartophylax. I will. A torch removes.
Fri. Till he returnes (great prince of darknesse)
Tell me if Monsieur and the Count Montsurry 90
Are yet encounter’d.
Beh. Both them and the Guise
Are now together.
Fri. Show us all their persons,
And represent the place, with all their actions.
Beh. The spirit will strait return, and then Ile shew thee.
See, he is come. Why brought’st thou not the paper? 95
Car. He hath prevented me, and got a spirit
Rais’d by another, great in our command,
To take the guard of it before I came.
Beh. This is your slacknesse, not t’invoke our powers
When first your acts set forth to their effects. 100
Yet shall you see it and themselves. Behold
They come here, & the Earle now holds the paper.
Ent[er] Mons[ieur], Gui[se], Mont[surry], with a
paper.
Buss. May we not heare them?
[Fri.] No, be still and see.
Buss. I will goe fetch the paper.
Fri. Doe not stirre.
There’s too much distance, and too many locks 105
Twixt you and them (how neere so e’re they seeme)
For any man to interrupt their secrets.
Tam. O honour’d spirit, flie into the fancie
Of my offended lord; and doe not let him
Beleeve what there the wicked man hath written. 110
Beh. Perswasion hath already enter’d him
Beyond reflection; peace, till their departure!
* * * * *
Monsieur. There is a glasse of ink where you may see
How to make ready black fac’d tragedy:
You now discerne, I hope, through all her paintings, 115
Her gasping wrinkles and fames sepulchres.
Guise. Think you he faines, my lord? what hold you now?
Doe we maligne your wife, or honour you?
Mons. What, stricken dumb! Nay fie, lord, be not danted:
Your case is common; were it ne’re so rare, 120
Beare it as rarely! Now to laugh were manly.
A worthy man should imitate the weather,
That sings in tempests, and being cleare, is silent.
Gui. Goe home, my lord, and force your wife to write
Such loving lines to D’Ambois as she us’d 125
When she desir’d his presence.
Mons. Doe, my lord,
And make her name her conceal’d messenger,
That close and most inennerable pander,
That passeth all our studies to exquire:
By whom convay the letter to her love; 130
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 arm’d; and let them share 135
A spirit amongst them that would serve a thousand.
Enter Pero with a letter.
Gui. Yet, stay a little: see, she sends for you.
Mons. Poore, loving lady, she’le make all good yet;
Think you not so, my lord? Mont[surry] stabs Pero, and exit.
Gui. Alas, poore soule!
Mons. This was cruelly done, y’faith.
Pero. T’was nobly done; 140
And I forgive his lordship from my soule.
Mons. Then much good doo’t thee, Pero! hast a letter?
Per. I hope it rather be a bitter volume
Of worthy curses for your perjury.
Gui. To you, my lord.
Mons. To me? Now out upon her! 145
Gui. Let me see, my lord.
Mons. You shall presently: how fares my Pero? Enter Servant.
Who’s there? Take in this maid, sh’as caught a clap,
And fetch my surgeon to her. Come, my lord,
We’l now peruse our letter.
Exeunt Mons[ieur], Guise. Lead her out.
Per. Furies rise 150
Out of the black lines, and torment his soule!
* * * * *
Tam. Hath my lord slaine my woman?
Beh. No, she lives.
Fri. What shall become of us?
Beh. All I can say,
Being call’d thus late, is briefe, and darkly this: —
If D’Ambois mistresse die not her white hand 155
In her forc’d bloud, he shall remaine untoucht:
So, father, shall your selfe, but by your selfe.
To make this augurie plainer, when the voyce
Of D’Amboys shall invoke me, I will rise
Shining in greater light, and shew him all 160
That will betide ye all. Meane time be wise,
And curb his valour with your policies. Descendit cum suis.
Buss. Will he appeare to me when I invoke him?
Fri. He will, be sure.
Buss. It must be shortly, then,
For his dark words have tyed my thoughts on knots 165
Till he dissolve and free them.
Tam. In meane time,
Deare servant, till your powerfull voice revoke him,
Be sure to use the policy he advis’d;
Lest fury in your too quick knowledge taken
Of our abuse, and your defence of me, 170
Accuse me more than any enemy.
And, father, you must on my lord impose
Your holiest charges, and the Churches power,
To temper his hot spirit, and disperse
The cruelty and the bloud I know his hand 175
Will showre upon our heads, if you put not
Your finger to the storme, and hold it up,
As my deare servant here must doe with Monsieur.
Buss. Ile sooth his plots, and strow my hate with smiles,
Till all at once the close mines of my heart 180
Rise at full date, and rush into his bloud:
Ile bind his arme in silk, and rub his flesh
To make the veine swell, that his soule may gush
Into some kennell where it longs to lie;
And policy shall be flanckt with policy. 185
Yet shall the feeling Center where we meet
Groane with the wait of my approaching feet:
Ile make th’inspired threshals of his Court
Sweat with the weather of my horrid steps,
Before I enter: yet will I appeare 190
Like calme security before a ruine.
A politician must, like lightning, melt
The very marrow, and not taint the skin:
His wayes must not be seene; the superficies
Of the greene Center must not taste his feet, 195
When hell is plow’d up with his wounding tracts,
And all his harvest reap’t by hellish facts. Exeunt.
Finis Actus Quarti.
ACTUS QUINTI.
SCENA PRIMA.
[A Room in Montsurry’s House.]
Montsurry bare, unbrac’t, pulling Tamyra in by the haire;
Frier; One bearing light, a standish, and paper, which sets
a table.
Tamyra. O, help me, father!
Friar. Impious earle, forbeare;
Take violent hand from her, or, by mine order,
The King shall force thee.
Montsurry. Tis not violent;
Come you not willingly?
Tam. Yes, good my lord.
Fri. My lord, remember that your soule must seek 5
Her peace as well as your revengefull bloud.
You ever to this houre have prov’d your selfe
A noble, zealous, and obedient sonne
T’our holy mother: be not an apost
ate.
Your wives offence serves not (were it the worst 10
You can imagine) without greater proofes
To sever your eternall bonds and hearts;
Much lesse to touch her with a bloudy hand.
Nor is it manly (much lesse husbandly)
To expiate any frailty in your wife 15
With churlish strokes, or beastly ods of strength.
The stony birth of clowds will touch no lawrell,
Nor any sleeper: your wife is your lawrell,
And sweetest sleeper; doe not touch her, then;
Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour 20
To her that is more gentle than that rude;
In whom kind nature suffer’d one offence
But to set off her other excellence.
Mont. Good father, leave us: interrupt no more
The course I must runne for mine honour sake. 25
Rely on my love to her, which her fault
Cannot extinguish. Will she but disclose
Who was the secret minister of her love,
And through what maze he serv’d it, we are friends.
Fri. It is a damn’d work to pursue those secrets 30
That would ope more sinne, and prove springs of slaughter;
Nor is’t a path for Christian feet to tread,
But out of all way to the health of soules;
A sinne impossible to be forgiven,
Which he that dares commit —
Mont. Good father, cease your terrors. 35
Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt
To outrages that I shall ever rue:
I will not passe the verge that bounds a Christian,
Nor break the limits of a man nor husband.
Fri. Then Heaven inspire you both with thoughts and deeds 40
Worthy his high respect, and your owne soules!
Tam. Father!
Fri. I warrant thee, my dearest daughter,
He will not touch thee; think’st thou him a pagan?
His honor and his soule lies for thy safety. Exit.
Mont. Who shall remove the mountaine from my brest, 45
Stand [in] the opening furnace of my thoughts,
And set fit out-cries for a soule in hell?
Mont[surry] turnes a key.
For now it nothing fits my woes to speak,
But thunder, or to take into my throat
The trump of Heaven, with whose determinate blasts 50
The windes shall burst and the devouring seas
Be drunk up in his sounds, that my hot woes
(Vented enough) I might convert to vapour
Ascending from my infamie unseene;
Shorten the world, preventing the last breath 55
That kils 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 mee,
Heaven knowes, and your more temperate minde hereafter 60
May let my penitent miseries make you know.
Mont. Hereafter! tis a suppos’d infinite
That from this point will rise eternally.
Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue
Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities 65
Enrag’d with those winds that lesse lights extinguish.
Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks
Thy ruffin gally rig’d with quench for lust:
Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice
With which thou drew’st into thy strumpets lap 70
The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc’d;
That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe,
And quit his manhood with a womans sleight,
Who never is deceiv’d in her deceit.
Sing (that is, write); and then take from mine eyes 75
The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander
That ever lapt up an adulterous vomit,
That I may see the devill, and survive
To be a devill, and then learne to wive!
That I may hang him, and then cut him downe, 80
Then cut him up, and with my soules beams search
The cranks and cavernes of his braine, and study
The errant wildernesse of a womans face,
Where men cannot get out, for all the comets
That have beene lighted at it. Though they know 85
That adders lie a sunning in their smiles,
That basilisks drink their poyson from their eyes,
And no way there to coast out to their hearts,
Yet still they wander there, and are not stay’d
Till they be fetter’d, nor secure before 90
All cares devoure them, nor in humane consort
Till they embrace within their wives two breasts
All Pelion and Cythæron with their beasts. —
Why write you not?
Tam. O, good my lord, forbeare
In wreak of great faults to engender greater, 95
And make my loves corruption generate murther.
Mont. It followes needfully as childe and parent;
The chaine-shot of thy lust is yet aloft,
And it must murther; tis thine owne deare twinne.
No man can adde height to a womans sinne. 100
Vice never doth her just hate so provoke,
As when she rageth under vertues cloake.
Write! for it must be — by this ruthlesse steele,
By this impartiall torture, and the death
Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails, 105
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, enjoyne my sinne
Some other penance than what makes it worse: 110
Hide in some gloomie dungeon my loth’d face,
And let condemned murtherers let me downe
(Stopping their noses) my abhorred food:
Hang me in chaines, and let me eat these armes
That have offended: binde me face to face 115
To some dead woman, taken from the cart
Of execution? — till death and time
In graines of dust dissolve me, Ile endure;
Or any torture that your wraths invention
Can fright all pitie from the world withall. 120
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 pillowes; here my wretched armes,
As late the wished confines of your life: 125
Now break them, as you please, and all the bounds
Of manhood, noblesse, and religion.
Mont. Where all these have bin broken, they are kept
In doing their justice there with any shew
Of the like cruell cruelty: thine armes have lost 130
Their priviledge in lust, and in their torture
Thus they must pay it. Stabs her.
Tam. O lord —
Mont. Till thou writ’st,
Ile write in wounds (my wrongs fit characters)
Thy right of sufferance. Write!
Tam. O kill me, kill me!
Deare husband, be not crueller than death! 135
You have beheld some Gorgon: feele, O feele
How you are turn’d to stone. With my heart blood
Dissolve your selfe againe, or you will grow
Into the image of all tyrannie.
Mont. As thou art of adultry; I will ever 140
Prove thee my parallel, being most a monster.
Thus I expresse thee yet. Stabs her againe.
Tam. And yet I live.
Mont. I, for thy monstrous idoll is not done yet.
/> This toole hath wrought enough. Now, Torture, use
Ent[er] Servants.
This other engine on th’habituate powers 145
Of her thrice damn’d and whorish fortitude:
Use the most madding paines in her that ever
Thy venoms sok’d through, making most of death,
That she may weigh her wrongs with them — and then
Stand, vengeance, on thy steepest rock, a victor! 150
Tam. O who is turn’d into my lord and husband?
Husband! my lord! None but my lord and husband!
Heaven, I ask thee remission of my sinnes,
Not of my paines: husband, O help me, husband!
Ascendit Frier with a sword drawne.
Fri. What rape of honour and religion! 155
O wrack of nature! Falls and dies.
Tam. Poore man! O, my father!
Father, look up! O, let me downe, my lord,
And I will write.
Mont. Author of prodigies!
What new flame breakes out of the firmament
That turnes up counsels never knowne before? 160
Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still;
Even heaven it selfe must see and suffer ill.
The too huge bias of the world hath sway’d
Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves
This hemisphere that long her mouth hath mockt: 165
The gravity of her religious face
(Now growne too waighty with her sacriledge,
And here discern’d sophisticate enough)
Turnes to th’Antipodes; and all the formes
That her illusions have imprest in her 170
Have eaten through her back; and now all see
How she is riveted with hypocrisie.
Was this the way? was he the mean betwixt you?
Tam. He was, he was, kind worthy man, he was.
Mont. Write, write a word or two.
Tam. I will, I will. 175
Ile write, but with my bloud, that he may see
These lines come from my wounds & not from me. Writes.
Mont. Well might he die for thought: methinks the frame
And shaken joynts of the whole world should crack
To see her parts so disproportionate; 180
And that his generall beauty cannot stand
Without these staines in the particular man.
Why wander I so farre? here, here was she
That was a whole world without spot to me,
Though now a world of spots. Oh what a lightning 185
Is mans delight in women! What a bubble
He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries!
Since all earths pleasures are so short and small,
The way t’enjoy it is t’abjure it all.
Enough! I must be messenger my selfe, 190
Disguis’d like this strange creature. In, Ile after,
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 210
