by Nigel Dennis
Crimer, absolve thy gritty soul.
Babble thy last excuse.
PRINCE: Hungry, I sought a goose.
DUKE: Peace, hunger; thou’lt seek no more.
To Captain.
Hast, too, a little line, or wilt thy tongue,
Silent, anticipate the gibbet’s purple?
CAPT: ’Twas thus, amazing peer and demi-Caesar:
I am a man of parts innumerous,
Cradled in Asia, reared in far Marsaylls,
Parlaying in Haver, sotto voice in Rome,
Was gibt’s in Hamburg, do-ye-do on Thames,
Amico, loving, shy, on every land. But,
On the decks, thwarting the furious surge
Of Neptune’s chariots, another man entire.
Upon my stance at helm a whole world waits,
Sighing and fretting, pacing the patio,
Murmuring: And doth his convoy come? Alas!
Sometimes, alone with the sea-god, he
Layeth finger on my thigh, and worsens
Me. So was it now. Consigned
By Antioch’s king to bear his son,
I struggled might and main to clench
My trust, was overborne, tossed brusquely on
Your sands. There, as I stood, peeling
Salt rainbows from my eyes, this vagabond
Strides up. Limpid, he cries:
Poor captain, chase with me, let’s snatch a dinner,
Behind’s rich territory. What! Poach
In Brittany, cried I? For shame, for shame!
Then he, aware my ethic, bends a smile,
Takes out red gems, bribes me to show the way
(For I am wise in ways). I’ll lead you
Captive to noble duke, threat I, and follow
Him. He takes the gander; I take
Him – or am about to, when
Your feal guard, blind with sweet ardour,
Snatch rat and cat together.
COUNT: A lie, a lie! Oh, my poor brother,
Hanged
On a cord of lies!
DUKE: Sew up thy lips, fool; we are solemn.
Investigate, my friends, the poacher’s pouch,
Duct his red rabbits.
CAPT: Fast in the pocket; there on t’other side!
Attendants discover the Prince’s rubies.
COUNT: Lord, dear Lord; allow me speak!
DUKE: Thou’rt hired to sing, not speak.
COUNT: Then here’s a song will save my brother’s windpipe!
Sings.
When by Ganges they are found,
India’s rubies are quite round.
China rubies are ellipt,
Ceylonese are somewhat tipp’d,
Persian gems are fat and fair,
But Antioch’s alone are square.
Only princes of the throne
May enjoy their blunt hedron.
So, logic says, the miscreant there
Is mother’s son and Antioch’s heir!
Embraces Prince.
DUKE: I see square rubies. Do I see two square princes?
PRINCE: ’Tis true, my lord. I, your poacher, am Prince of Antioch; he, your clown, is the Count of Baalbeck, my brother.
DUKE: And this fast sailor, what’s he? Mahomet himself in a pickle of salt?
COUNT: A venal rogue, my lord, fit to be hanged over and over: once were too lax to stop his gullet.
DUKE: We’ll hang him twice: once for his own sake; once for your disguises’.
CAPT: Ah, well! ’Twould have been a good play, had it but served.
DUKE: Thou prince and duke of Allah, welcome,
Who are to me in earthly rank, two brothers.
But what avails, alas, this brotherhood
When, in God’s eye thou art abominable?
Guarded, I’ll post thee to the diocese
Of Rouen, where the papal axe
Will chop thy heads for Christ. I
Much regret it.
COUNT: Good duke, thy piety is sweet
But vent it not on us. Had I
Not feared its rage, I long before
Had witnessed my true self.
Thou must believe that I, and
Brother dear, took secret dip
In Egypt’s font, and clasp the Cross, as you.
DUKE: Then all is fine and fair ’twixt you and me.
Stay, brothers, in my court till your return.
Beguile my stingey hours with florid talk
And we’ll all laugh at what the sea threw up.
Tomorrow morn, we’ll have a royal show,
Sit in our box and watch the poacher leap,
Thou’lt laugh the louder that it is not you.
PRINCE: Dear brother, Duke of Brittany,
Thy hospice will be sunny to our hearts.
Permit me, though, to crave a lease of life
For this convicted. Wise in the world’s
Ways, he is my mentor,
Chos’n upon your sands to armour me
In steely lore of life. Princes
Must learn from scoundrels, or
Their piety, begot in dreams,
Hems in and suffocates the growing craft.
In two short hours this lusty reprobate
Hath run me through the primer of his years.
It were a waste to throttle at the source
A sustenating Nile of savoir faire.
DUKE: Fair words and fair advice, sweet Prince. Take you the rogue.
COUNT: Oh, brother, brother, loving simpleton! Cheat’st thou the gallows, that thou mayst hang thyself? Heed him not, good duke.
PRINCE: Nay, nay, ’tis life to learn. Leave ignorance to the grave.
To Duke.
You sunburst cyclamen, august and wary,
Conjoin our rebel.
DUKE. What! What! How so? I, too, strive to become another?
PRINCE: Here’s the philosophy. What man
Is happy with the man he is?
Didst choose thy mother, Duke, didst
Seek thy sire? Nay. ’Twas their
Conjunction bred in the dark, occasioning
You, as plotters in a hedge had bred
Conspiracy. ’Tis faint, at start, this
Weakly, others’ plot, asks little of
Itself, content to suck, and be,
And trust who made it. At length,
It waxes, growing will and sinew.
And, looking in glass, shrinks back
From him it sees. Now comes
Resolve to be another, to smash
The silly, brittle plan and hew
A better. But where’s a form?
Oh, Duke, good Duke, this
Life’s astream with forms; we shape
Us how we will. There’s Time,
Calling us back to shapes made
Hon’rable by his dark shade, or,
Crying us forward to anticipate
Himself and grow new fangled.
There’s Place, which ever asks of us
A man that’s other than the man we are.
There’s Faith, which bids us hew
Down at the very base our inborn
Root, and climb anew. There’s
Reason, Chance Remark, there’s
Heroes of now and then, and Circumstance.
We bend them to our make.
COUNT: Or so we try. Like muscled trappers
We bend down the tree; but
Up it flies – and we with it;
Back as we were, not new but hurt.
PRINCE: Aye, brother, the chosen form’s
Not always in our clasp.
What wots it? One thing alone
We know: we’ll not endure
The foolish shell in which we did begin;
We’ll not be lame and sick, timid,
Hunchback’d. Or, if we’re strong,
We’ll yearn t’attain that weakness
Which woos the love of men.
Hairy, we would be smooth,
/> Or smooth, become uncouth.
COUNT: Happy, we would woo misery,
Content, find pain in frenzy.
Folly, folly, brother! Duke,
Have none of it! Wouldst take
A sailor’s form? Hath not
The world sailors enough
Without dukes float? I
That was Count to start was
Forced a clown, nor chose it.
Now, Count again, I’ll stay.
DUKE: And yet, I am engaged, dear Count.
Your princely brother’s words are
Sage or silly, do not ask me
Which. But this I know,
The desert that’s my life
Dreams to be green, and
Green I’d have it. Good
Prince, I’ll follow where you lead
In footsteps of this man,
Sit in his class and
Shape myself anew. What
Shall we name our mentor? Master
Of Horse? Prime Minister? Or
Duke himself?
PRINCE: Duke were the best, for true authority.
DUKE: Duke it shall be! What say you, Captain-Duke?
CAPT: I like the eminence; ’tis above the gallows.
COUNT: I fear a horrid consequence, oh Lord!
DUKE: Now, Count, take up thy silly fears;
Gather them in a bundle with
Thy old fool’s rig, and heave them
In the sea that’s made four friends.
Tonight we’ll dance roulades with gongs and lays,
Tomorrow twist our toes to sager ways.
Music
II.1
Scene: A courtyard for jousting, with hurdles. Enter the Prince of Antioch, the Count of Baalbeck, the Duke of Brittany, Captain, and Attendants.
CAPT: Now, smartly hearties; to it, to it: th’ next lesson! Stir your-dry joints, ’fleet shrewdness in your eyes; supple up. When tutor barks, lazybones get nipped in the hams!
DUKE: Oh my poor legs! Poor cracking meat! Is such the life led by men beneath the throne? Oh, oh! A hundred thrones seem pitched upon my shoulders!
PRINCE: Courage, courage! I too am fazed like a reed, but my swimming self is renaissant for sure.
COUNT: There’s ought but stillbirth in my poor cradle.
CAPT: Triple chatterers, save breath for acts! Now’s a lesson against thievery. Some teachers put it at the head of the book: I like it later, after experience. Suppose the Duke a fat farmer, back from market fatter than ’a went; elbows tight asides to dim the chink of coin. Prince, a slim rogue would pick his pockets, elbows despite. Count, the farmer’s friend, and would save him. Now! to it, all three! Strut, Duke, fat farmer! Up sly behind, rogue Prince! Run up distressed, country friend! (Prince picks Duke’s pocket.) Why, rogue, those paunchy fingers would wake the hibernating bear! Strike him, farmer! (Duke strikes Prince.) Now, rogue, run for thy life, or farmer and friend will have thee! Must jump those hedges in the way, or swing! (Prince runs, followed by Duke and Count.) Over, beauties, tuck up your calves, leap for the moon! (Prince, Duke, and Count try to jump the hurdle, fall in a heap with hurdle on top of them.) Sad, sad! I’ll brush you all, dough-legs: white bread and daffodils rise smarter.
PRINCE: My poor backbone is snapt through. Prithee, good Duke, regurge thy champing knee.
DUKE: Knee? I’ve no knee; ’tis smashed its cap right off. Good Count, reject thy belly from my nose.
COUNT: Good hurdle, depart in peace from off my neck.
CAPT: Next time, thou’lt all know better – pick neater, strike sharper, tuck up thy toes like hawks fresh up from the wrist.
PRINCE: Teacher’s a hard taskmaster and I a poor puffin: nevertheless, it delights me to see wisdom peer through the cracks in my bones.
DUKE: I’ll not be laggard; so I’ll say that every blue bruise on my poor flesh is worth a heap of purple.
CAPT: Hast breath to groan and yap, hast breath for the next lesson! Up, up and read! Now, ye are three scurvy soldiers, dropped by a flying rearguard, pikes and muskets a foot behind ye. Run, run for your lives; enemy is fierce on tail, and the first one caught must be whipped and stripped. Off, off!
Exeunt Prince, Count, and Duke, pursued by Attendants with cudgels.
II.2
Scene: Hermione’s boudoir. Enter Hermione, sewing lace, with Catriona.
HERM: Lente, lente – I have forgot the rest,
Save that it sadly treats of knights and horses.
CATRI: Glum, Madam?
HERM: Ay, glum to death and farther.
I’d find a cosy convent for retreat,
Were’t not that they of late are grown
So fashionable, there’s not a cell
That has no tender she. One little week
Of seven tiny days – speak not o’ nights –
And I am all flung out. The Duke’s
Insipid bride, convoyed from old
Artois, will take his marriage hand,
While I, his whilome ministress, must go,
Leaving my maidenhead
Upon the field I lost it.
CATRI: Courage, lady! Has not good Baalbeck’s
Count (like miracle disclosed as more than clown),
Cast orient eyes upon thy bust and
Groaned like smitten peer?
HERM: He hath indeed, but yet I have no rank,
Am nobody, am nothing, pas di too.
CATRI: In fables, Madam, when the sheep-girl sighs,
’Tis found in nick of time she is some queen,
Raised in the mercy of a shepherd’s crook
But always by a royal sire forsook.
Or else, what she presents is masquerade
Concealing blood as pure as marmalade.
HERM: No hope that way, I fear.
In latter days, disguise is grown so rife
That it is folly to expect a peer
To credit any more. ’Tis said
So many kings are now abroad
In shape of scullions, so many
Queens, got in whores’ clothings, that at taverns
Each looks on each in sharp soliloquy,
And dofféd caps must sure reveal gold crowns.
No, Catriona, I am soon gone out
In smock and clog which hide no more than me.
Yet do I love the Duke and wish him well.
It doth perturb me that his present whim
Is got so boistrous. Bound up
By that bad captain, he’s so rough,
So banged and crouchet-up, I
Fear that when his fair bride comes
He’ll ninny at her like a capon’d Jove.
CATRI: Fear not, dear lady.
Methinks the Duke’s prime blood
Will summon reassertion at the pinch.
And he, o’erjoyed by manhood, will bestow
A handsome purse to take you your long way.
HERM: Amen, amen. And yet, I would be counterfeit.
CATRI: Why so, Madam?
HERM: Nay, the better to lose him. I’ll not miss him if I’m not myself.
’Twill be another he’s pushed out.
CATRI: ’Twere better stay thyself, Madam. Thou’lt not love the Duke in his changed form, and so will be free of him. Shouldst thou change too, thou mightst do so into a new lady approximative to his new gentleman and then all would be grievous once again.
HERM: Hast experienced these things, Catriona, that thou speak’st so?
CATRI: Aye, Madam, as oft as I have lain with one. I have been mad with love for them until they have left me; thereafter, I have thought them mad, and myself in self-possession once more.
HERM: And didst thou not bewail these sad divisions?
CATRI: Wail, Madam? Why, forsooth, I wailed, that my eyes filled water-butts. But ’twas water, Madam, brook-water, pure as rain; ’twas not the bitter brine which I shed when my hare, Bobby, ate of green pears and was took by Colic the Hunter.
HERM: Fie, Cat! To set a hare abo
ve man in the open heart!
CATRI: Ay, and shut it fast up again when the hare was took out.
HERM: What’s the advice, then? That I do retain my old self and offer it anew?
CATRI: Surely, Madam, that’s the course. Has the Duke declared—outright he will cast you off?
HERM: Nay, not yet. A manly hesitation seals his lips.
CATRI: I know it well, that seal. I beg you, Madam, cast you him quickly, while you are still tied up.
HERM: And knot anew with Baalbeck?
CATRI: Why not, Madam? Baalbeck will love you more, that you have turned to him of your own will, not of compulsion. And the Duke will regret you, in that he has not had the privilege of putting you from him.
HERM: Is not this making a play of love?
CATRI: Ay, Madam, forsooth it is, and to play is a jolly thing – a very breeder of love. Your turn is come, to strike: I beg you, do not leave it to your opponent.
HERM: I’ll think on this, Catriona.
CATRI: Ay, Madam, and think well. There’s some say thought is fruitless: I have ever found much advantage in it.
II.3
Scene: The Ducal Chamber. Enter Captain, Duke, Prince, Count, and Attendants.
DUKE: A galling, squalid day: thank God ’tis done! If it’s thus my peasants live, then heaven’s all should occupy their dreams.
PRINCE: See, brother-duke, thou’rt learning piety as well as craft.
DUKE: Piety, too, may be bought too dear. I am smashed like a bowl of choice walnuts. Ah well, lesson’s over; I’m duke again for the night. What’s for supper?
ATTEND: Venison and Humphrey pasties, my lord, and muted cress in a wine coddle.
DUKE: Ha! Bring it straight: I’m fed to the teeth with suasion, but not so much as a sausage to bite on. (Attendant brings venison.) Sit, brother Prince, brother Count, here’s rich reward!
CAPT: What, sagged at the knees and greedy? Here’s lesson the twenty-fifth – to stay staunch and prime on a belly empty as a consul’s conscience.
DUKE: What, blackguard? I may not eat?
CAPT: Bring him black bread and a shrew’s-worth of cheap ale. Must suffer for thy own sake, Duke, and I, the diligent doctor, take my fee.
Eats venison. Attendants lay crusts of bread and cheap ale before Duke, Prince, and Count.
PRINCE (eating): Like much morality, ’tis bitter bread, meant for the soul not the stomach. Therein is its worth.
DUKE (eating): It rankles me: nevertheless, I doubt not but your words are fit and right.
