SCENE VI.

_Enter_ ELEAZAR, ALVERO, RODERIGO, CHRISTOFERO, _and other Lords_.

ELE. What, I imprison! Who?

ALL. Philip and Hortenzo.

ELE. Philip and Hortenzo! ha, ha, ha!

ROD. Why laughs the Moor?

ELE. I laugh, because you jest: Laugh at a jest. Who, I imprison them? I prize their lives with weights, their necks with chains, Their hands with manacles! do I all this? Because my face is in night's colour dyed, Think you my conscience and my soul is so? Black faces may have hearts as white as snow; And 'tis a general rule in moral schools,[76] The whitest faces have the blackest souls.

ALV. But touching my Hortenzo----

ELE. Good old man, I never touch'd him; do not touch me then With thy Hortenzo.

CHRIS. Where's Philip too?

ELE. And where is Philip too? I pray, I pray, is Philip a tame Spaniard? What, can I Philip him hither, hither make him fly? First, where's Hortenzo? Where's Philip too?

ROD. And where is Isabel? She was with you.

ELE. And where is Isabel? She was with me!

_Enter_ PHILIP _and_ HORTENZO, _like Moors_.

And so are you; yet are you well, you see: But in good time, see where their keepers come. Come hither, Zarack; Balthazar, come hither: Zarack, old Lord Alvero asks of thee Where young Hortenzo is.

HOR. My lord, set free.

ELE. O, is he so? Come hither, Balthazar: Lord Christofero here would ask of thee Where Prince Philippo is.

PHIL. My lord, set free.

ELE. O, is he so? Roderigo asketh me for Isabel.

PHIL. I say, my lord, she's free.

ELE. O, is she so?

PHIL. Believe me, lords.

HOR. And me.

PHIL. I set Philippo----

HOR. I, Hortenzo free.

ELE. My lords, because you shall believe me too, Go to the castle: I will follow you.

ALV. Thanks to the mighty Moor; and, for his fame, Be more in honour than thou art in name: But let me wish the other prisoners well, The queen and cardinal: let all have right, Let law absolve them, or dissolve them quite.

ELE. Grave man, thy grey hairs paint out gravity, Thy counsels wisdom, thy wit policy. There let us meet, and with a general brain Erect the peace of spirit and of Spain.

ALV. Then will Spain flourish.

ELE. Ay, when it is mine.

ROD. O heavenly meeting!

ELE. We must part in hell.

[_Aside._

CHRIS. True peace of joy.

[_Exeunt._

_Manent_ ELEAZAR, PHILIP, _and_ HORTENZO.

ELE. 'Tis a dissembling knell; Farewell, my lords; meet there; so, ha, ha, ha!

[_Draws his rapier._

Now, tragedy, thou minion of the night, Rhamnusia's[77] pew-fellow, to thee I'll sing Upon a harp made of dead Spanish bones, The proudest instrument the world affords; When thou in crimson jollity shalt bathe Thy limbs, as black as mine, in springs of blood Still gushing from the conduit-head of Spain. To thee, that never blushest, though thy cheeks Are full of blood--O Saint Revenge, to thee I consecrate my murders, all my stabs, My bloody labours, tortures, stratagems, The volume of all wounds that wound from me; Mine is the stage, thine is the tragedy. Where am I now? O, at the prison; true. Zarack and Balthazar, come hither; see, Survey my library. I study, ha, Whilst you two sleep; marry, 'tis villany. Here's a good book, Zarack, behold it well, It's deeply written, for 'twas made in hell: Now, Balthazar, a better book for thee; But for myself, this, this, the best of all; And therefore do I claim it every day, For fear the readers steal the art away. Where thou stand'st now, there must Hortenzo hang, Like Tantalus in a maw-eating pang. There, Balthazar, must Prince Philip stand, Like damn'd Prometheus; and to act his part, Shall have a dagger sticking at his heart. But in my room I'll set the cardinal, And he shall preach repentance to them all. Ha, ha, ha!

PHIL. Damnation tickles him; he laughs again. Philip must stand there, and bleed to death. Well, villain, I only laugh to see That we shall live to outlaugh him and thee.

ELE. O, fit, fit, fit! stay, a rare jest, rare jest! Zarack, suppose thou art Hortenzo now; I pray thee stand in passion of a pang, To see, by thee, how quaintly he would hang.

HOR. I am Hortenzo; tut, tut, fear not, man; Thou lookest like Zarack.

[_Aside._

ELE. Ay, Hortenzo, He shall hang here, i' faith; come, Zarack, come, And, Balthazar, take thou Philippo's room: First let me see you plac'd.

PHIL. We're plac'd.

ELE. Slaves; ha, ha, ha! You are but players, that[78] must end the play; How like Hortenzo and Philippo! ha! Stand my two slaves, were they as black as you. Well, Zarack, I'll unfix thee first of all, Thou shalt help me to play the cardinal: This iron engine on his head I'll clap, Like a pope's mitre or a cardinal's cap; Then manacle his hands, as thou dost mine; So, so, I pray thee, Zarack, set him free, That both of you may stand and laugh at me.

PHIL. 'Tis fine, i' faith; call in more company; Alvero, Roderigo, and the rest: Who will not laugh at Eleazar's jest?

ELE. What? Zarack, Balthazar!

PHIL. Ah! anon, anon; We have not laugh'd enough: it's but begun.

[_Knocking._

Who knocks?

ELE. Unmanacle my hands, I say.

PHIL. Then shall we mar our mirth, and spoil the play.

[_Knocking again._

Who knocks?

ALV. [_Within._] Alvero.

PHIL. Let Alvero in.

ELE. And let me out.

_Enter all below._

PHIL. I thank you for that flout,[79] To let Alvero in, and let you out.

ELE. Villains! slaves! am not I your lord, the Moor? And Eleazar?

QUEEN-M. And the devil of hell; And more than that, and Eleazar too.

ELE. And, devil's dam, what do I here with you?

QUEEN-M. My tongue shall torture thee.

ELE. I know thee then; All women's tongues are tortures unto men.

QUEEN-M. Spaniards, this was the villain; this is he Who, through enticements of alluring lust And glory, which makes silly women proud And men malicious, did incense my spirit Beyond the limits of a woman's mind To wrong myself and that lord cardinal; And (that which sticks more near unto my blood), He that was nearest to my blood, my son, To dispossess him of his right by wrong: O, that I might embrace him on this breast, Which did enclose him, when he first was born: No greater happiness can heav'n show'r upon Me than to circle in these arms of mine That son, whose royal blood I did defame, To crown with honour an ambitious Moor.

PHIL. Thus then thy happiness is complete;

[_Embraces her._

Behold thy Philip ransom'd from that prison, In which the Moor had cloistered him.

HOR. And here's Hortenzo.

ELE. Then am I betrayed and cosen'd in My own designs: I did contrive Their ruin; but their subtle policy Hath blasted my ambitious thoughts. Villains! Where's Zarack? Where's Balthazar? What have you done with them?

PHIL. They're gone to Pluto's kingdom, to provide A place for thee, and to attend thee there. But, lest they should be tired with too long Expecting hopes, come, brave spirits of Spain, This is the Moor, the actor of these evils; Thus thrust him down to act among the devils.

[_Stabs him._

ELE. And am I thus despatch'd! Had I but breath'd the space of one hour longer, I would have fully acted my revenge: But O, now pallid death bids me prepare, And haste to Charon for to be his fare. I come, I come: but ere my glass is run, I'll curse you all, and, cursing, end my life. May'st thou, lascivious queen, whose damned charms Bewitch'd me to the circle of thy arms, Unpiti'd die, consum'd with loathed lust, Which thy venereous mind hath basely nurs'd: And for you, Philip, may your days be long, But clouded with perpetual misery: May thou, Hortenzo, and thy Isabel Be fetch'd alive by furies into hell, There to be damn'd for ever. O, I faint; Devils, come claim your right, and when I am Confin'd within your kingdom, then shall I Outact you all in perfect villany.

[_Dies._

PHIL. Take down his body, while his blood streams forth; His acts are pass'd, and our last act is done. Now do I challenge my hereditary right To the roy'l Spanish throne, usurp'd by him, In which, in all your sights, I thus do plant myself. Lord Cardinal, and you the queen my mother, I pardon all those crimes you have committed.

QUEEN-M. I'll now repose myself in peaceful rest, And fly unto some solitary residence, Where I'll spin out the remnant of my life In true contrition for my pass'd offences.

PHIL. And now, Hortenzo, to close up your wound, I here contract my sister unto thee, With comic joy to end a tragedy. And, for the barbarous Moor and his black train, Let all the Moors be banished from Spain.

* * * * *

ANDROMANA

OR

THE MERCHANT'S WIFE.

_EDITION._

_Andromana; or, The Merchant's Wife. The Scene Iberia. By J. S. London: Printed for John Bellinger; and are to be sold at his shop, in Clifford's Inn Lane, in Fleet-street. 1660. 4^o._

This play was printed in the year 1660, and has the letters J. S. in the title-page. Chetwood, in his "British Theatre," p. 47, says that it was revived in 1671, when a prologue was spoken before it, in which were the following lines--

"'Twas Shirley's muse that labour'd for its birth, Though now the sire rests in the silent earth."

[But there is in fact no authority whatever for believing it to be from Shirley's pen; nor is it included in Gifford and Dyce's edition of that writer.[80]]

The plot is taken from the story of Plangus, in Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia." The same subject had before been made use of by Beaumont and Fletcher in their play of "Cupid's Revenge."

DRAMATIS PERSONA†.

EPHORBAS, _King of Iberia_. PLANGUS, _his son_. EUBULUS, } ANAMEDES, } _three lords, and councillors to the king_. RINATUS, } INOPHILUS, _son to Rinatus, and friend to the prince_. ZOPIRO, } NICETES, } _captains_. ARAMNES, } ARTESIO, _an informing courtier_. ANDROMANA, _a merchant's wife_. LIBACER, _her servant_. _Messenger._ _Captains and Soldiers._

_Scene, Iberia._

ANDROMANA

OR

THE FATAL AND DESERVED END OF DISLOYALTY AND AMBITION.