SCENE I.[1064

MONTSURRY _bare, unbraced, pulling_ TAMYRA _in by the hair;_ Friar. _One bearing light, a standish[1065] and paper, which sets a table._

_Ta._ Oh, help me, father.

_Fr._ Impious earl, forbear. Take violent hand from her, or by mine order The King shall force thee.

_Mont._ ’T is not violent; Come you not willingly?

_Ta._ Yes, good my lord.

_Fr._ My lord, remember that your soul must seek 5 Her peace, as well as your revengeful blood. You ever to this hour have prov’d yourself A noble, zealous, and obedient son, T’ our holy mother; be not an apostate. Your wife’s offence serves not, were it the worst 10 You can imagine, without greater proofs, To sever your eternal bonds and hearts; Much less to touch her with a bloody hand; Nor is it manly, much less husbandly, To expiate any frailty in your wife 15 With churlish strokes or beastly odds of strength. The stony birth of clouds[1066] will touch no laurel, Nor any sleeper; your wife is your laurel, And sweetest sleeper; do 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 run 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.

_Fr._ It is a damn’d work to pursue those secrets 30 That would ope more sin, and prove springs of slaughter; Nor is ’t a path for Christian feet to tread, But out of all way to the health of souls, A sin impossible to be forgiven; Which he that dares commit—— 35

_Mont._ Good father, cease your terrors; Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt To outrages that I shall ever rue; I will not pass the verge that bounds a Christian, Nor break the limits of a man nor husband. 40

_Fr._ Then Heaven inspire you both with thoughts and deeds Worthy his high respect, and your own souls.

_Ta._ Father!

_Fr._ I warrant thee, my dearest daughter, He will not touch thee; think’st thou him a pagan? His honour and his soul lies for thy safety. 45 _Exit._

_Mont._ Who shall remove the mountain from my breast? Stand [in][1067] the opening furnace of my thoughts, And set fit outcries for a soul in hell? MONTSURRY _turns a key._ For now it nothing fits my woes to speak But thunder, or to take into my throat 50 The trump of heaven, with whose determinate[1068] blast The winds 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 infamy unseen; 55 Shorten the world, preventing[1069] the last breath That kills the living and regenerates death.[1070]

_Ta._ My lord, my fault (as you may censure[1071] it With too strong arguments) is past your pardon: But how the circumstances may excuse me 60 Heaven knows, and your more temperate mind hereafter May let my penitent miseries make you know.

_Mont._ Hereafter? ’T is a suppos’d infinite, That from this point will rise eternally. Fame grows in going; in the scapes[1072] of virtue 60 Excuses damn her: they be fires in cities Enrag’d with those winds that less lights extinguish. Come, syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffian galley, rigg’d with quench for lust; Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice 70 With which thou drew’st into thy strumpet’s lap The spawn of Venus; and in which ye danc’d; That, in thy lap’s stead, I may dig his tomb, And quit his manhood with a woman’s sleight, Who never is deceiv’d in her deceit. 75 Sing (that is, write), and then take from mine eyes The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander That ever lapt up[1073] an adulterous vomit, That I may see the devil, and survive To be a devil, and then learn to wive; 80 That I may hang him, and then cut him down, Then cut him up, and with my soul’s beams search The cranks and caverns of his brain, and study The errant wilderness of a woman’s face; Where men cannot get out, for[1074] all the comets 85 That have been lighted at it; though they know That adders lie a-sunning in their smiles, That basilisks drink their poison from their eyes, And no way there to coast out to their hearts; Yet still they wander there, and are not stay’d 90 Till they be fetter’d, nor secure before All cares devour them; nor in human consort Till they embrace within their wife’s two breasts All Pelion and Cythaeron with their beasts. 94 Why write you not?

_Ta._ O good my lord, forbear In wreak[1075] of great faults, to engender greater, And make my love’s corruption generate murder.

_Mont._ It follows needfully as child and parent; The chain-shot of thy lust is yet aloft, And it must murder; ’tis thine own dear twin: 100 No man can add height to a woman’s sin. Vice never doth her just hate so provoke, As when she rageth under virtue’s cloak. Write! for it must be—by this ruthless steel, By this impartial torture, and the death 105 Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails, To quicken life in dying, and hold up The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve, Torments in ashes, that will ever last. 109 Speak! Will you write?

_Ta._ Sweet lord, enjoin my sin Some other penance than what makes it worse; Hide in some gloomy dungeon my loath’d face, And let condemned murderers let me down (Stopping their noses) my abhorred food: Hang me in chains, and let me eat these arms That have offended; bind me face to face 116 To some dead woman, taken from the cart Of execution, till death and time In grains of dust dissolve me; I’ll endure; Or any torture that your wrath’s invention 120 Can fright all pity from the world withal; But to betray a friend with show of friendship, That is too common for the rare revenge Your rage affecteth. Here then are my breasts, Last night your pillows; here my wretched arms, 125 As late the wished confines of your life; Now break them as you please, and all the bounds Of manhood, noblesse, and religion.

_Mont._ Where all these have been broken, they are kept, In doing their justice there with any show 130 Of the like cruel cruelty; thine arms have lost Their privilege in lust, and in their torture Thus they must pay it. _Stabs her._

_Ta._ O Lord!

_Mont._ Till thou writest, I’ll write in wounds (my wrong’s fit characters) Thy right of sufferance. Write.

_Ta._ Oh, kill me, kill me; 135 Dear husband, be not crueller than death. You have beheld some Gorgon; feel, oh, feel How you are turn’d to stone. With my heart-blood Dissolve yourself again, or you will grow Into the image of all tyranny. 140

_Mont._ As thou art of adultery; I will ever Prove thee my parallel, being most a monster; Thus I express thee yet. _Stabs her again._

_Ta._ And yet I live.

_Mont._ Ay, for thy monstrous idol is not done yet; This tool hath wrought enough; now, torture, use 145 _Enter_ Servants. This other engine[1076] on th’ habituate powers Of her thrice-damn’d and whorish fortitude. Use the most madding pains in her that ever Thy venoms soak’d through, making most of death; That she may weigh her wrongs with them, and then 150 Stand vengeance on thy steepest rock, a victor.

_Ta._ Oh, 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 sins, Not of my pains; husband, oh, help me, husband! 155

_Ascendit_ Friar _with a sword drawn._

_Fr._ What rape of honour and religion— Oh, wrack of nature! _Falls and dies._

_Ta._ Poor man; oh, my father. Father, look up; oh, let me down, my lord, And I will write.

_Mont._ Author of prodigies! What new flame breaks out of the firmament, 160 That turns up counsels never known before? Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still; Even heaven itself must see and suffer ill. The too huge bias of the world hath sway’d Her back part upwards, and with that she braves 165 This hemisphere, that long her mouth hath mockt; The gravity of her religious face, (Now grown too weighty with her sacrilege, And here discern’d sophisticate enough) Turns to th’ antipodes; and all the forms 170 That her illusions have imprest in her, Have eaten through her back; and now all see, How she is riveted with hypocrisy. Was this the way? Was he the mean betwixt you?

_Ta._ He was, he was, kind worthy man, he was. 175

_Mont._ Write, write a word or two.

_Ta._ I will, I will. I’ll write, but with my blood, that he may see These lines come from my wounds, and not from me. _Writes._

_Mont._ Well might he die for thought; methinks the frame And shaken joints of the whole world should crack 180 To see her parts so disproportionate; And that his[1077] general beauty cannot stand Without these stains in the particular man. Why wander I so far? 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 man’s delight in women! What a bubble He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries! Since all earth’s pleasures are so short and small, The way t’ enjoy it, is t’ abjure it all. 190 Enough! I must be messenger myself, Disguis’d like this strange creature. In, I’ll after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes, And to the world sing new impieties.

_He puts the_ Friar _in the vault and follows. She wraps herself in the arras. Exeunt_ [_servants_].

[SCENE II.][1078]

_Enter_ Monsieur _and_ GUISE.

_Mo._ Now shall we see that Nature hath no end In her great works responsive to their worths, That she, that makes so many eyes and souls To see and foresee, is stark blind herself; And as illiterate men say Latin prayers 5 By rote of heart and daily iteration, Not knowing what they say,[1079] so Nature lays A deal of stuff together, and by use, Or by the mere necessity of matter, Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty 10 Of strength or virtue, error or clear truth, Not knowing what she does; but usually Gives that which she calls merit to a man, And belief must arrive[1080] him on huge riches, Honour, and happiness, that effects his ruin; 15 Even as in ships of war, whose lasts[1081] of powder Are laid, men think,[1082] to make them last, and guard them, When a disorder’d spark, that powder taking, Blows up with sudden violence and horror Ships that kept empty; had sail’d long, with terror.[1083] 20

_Gu._ He that observes, but like a worldly man, That which doth oft succeed, and by th’ events Values the worth of things, will think it true That Nature works at random, just with you; But with as much proportion she may make 25 A thing that from the feet up to the throat Hath all the wondrous fabric man should have, And leave it headless, for a perfect man, As give a full man valour, virtue, learning, Without an end more excellent than those, 30 On whom she no such worthy part bestows.

_Mo._ Yet shall you see it here; here will be one Young, learned, valiant, virtuous, and full mann’d; One on whom Nature spent so rich a hand That with an ominous eye she wept to see 35 So much consum’d her virtuous treasury.[1084] Yet, as the winds sing through a hollow tree, And (since it lets them pass through) lets it stand; But a tree solid (since it gives no way To their wild rage) they rend up by the root; 40 So this whole man, (That will not wind with every crooked way, Trod by the servile world) shall reel and fall Before the frantic puffs of blind-born chance, That pipes through empty men, and makes them dance. 45 Not so the sea raves on the Lybian sands, Tumbling her billows in each other’s neck; Not so the surges of the Euxine sea (Near to the frosty pole, where free Boötes From those dark deep waves turns his radiant team) 50 Swell, being enrag’d even from their inmost drop, As Fortune swings about the restless state Of virtue, now thrown into all men’s hate. _Enter_ MONTSURRY _disguis’d with the_ Murderers. Away, my lord, you are perfectly disguis’d, 54 Leave us to lodge your ambush.

_Mont._ Speed me, vengeance. _Exit._

_Mo._ Resolve, my masters, you shall meet with one Will try what proofs your privy coats[1085] are made on; When he is ent’red, and you hear us stamp, Approach, and make all sure.

_Murd._ We will, my lord. _Exeunt._

[SCENE III.][1086]

D’AMBOIS _with two_ Pages _with tapers_.

_Bu._ Sit up to-night, and watch; I’ll speak with none But the old Friar, who bring to me.

_Pa._ We will, sir. _Exeunt._

_Bu._ What violent heat is this? Methinks the fire Of twenty lives doth on a sudden flash Through all my faculties; the air goes high 5 In this close chamber, and the frighted earth _Thunder._ Trembles, and shrinks beneath me; the whole house Nods with his shaken burthen. _Enter_ Umbra Friar. Bless me, heaven!

_Um._ Note what I want, dear son, and be forewarn’d; O there are bloody deeds past and to come. 10 I cannot stay; a fate doth ravish me; I’ll meet thee in the chamber of thy love. _Exit._

_Bu._ What dismal change is here; the good old Friar Is murder’d; being made known to serve my love; 14 And now his restless spirit would forewarn me 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 means, and may supply me 19 With any fit forewarning? This strange vision (Together with the dark prediction Us’d by the Prince of Darkness that was rais’d By this embodied shadow) stir my thoughts With reminiscion[1087] of the spirit’s promise, Who told me that by any invocation 25 I should have power to raise him, though it wanted The powerful words and decent rights of art. Never had my set brain such need of spirit T’ instruct and cheer it; now, then, I will claim Performance of his free and gentle vow 30 T’ appear in greater light, and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my dear mistress fares, and be inform’d What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed lord. Methought the spirit 35 (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 dark’ned breast, And struck a churlish silence through his powers. 40 Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames! That with thy music-footed horse dost strike The clear light out of crystal on dark earth, And hurl’st instructive fire about the world, 44 Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night, That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle! Or thou great prince of shades, where never sun Sticks his far-darted beams, whose eyes are made To shine in darkness, and see ever best Where men are blindest, open now the heart 50 Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid, And rise thou with it in thy greater light. _Thunders. Surgit Spiritus cum suis._

_Beh._ 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 mistress next will send thee, Her hand shall be thy death.

_Bu._ When will she send?

_Beh._ Soon as I set again, where late I rose. 59

_Bu._ Is the old Friar slain?

_Beh._ No, and yet lives not.

_Bu._ Died he a natural death?

_Beh._ He did.

_Bu._ Who then Will my dear mistress send?

_Beh._ I must not tell thee.

_Bu._ Who lets[1088] thee?

_Beh._ Fate.

_Bu._ Who are fate’s ministers?

_Beh._ The Guise and Monsieur.

_Bu._ A fit pair of shears To cut the threads of kings and kingly spirits, And consorts fit to sound forth harmony, 65 Set to the falls of kingdoms: shall the hand Of my kind mistress kill me?

_Beh._ If thou yield To her next summons, y’are fair-warn’d: farewell! _Thunders. Exit._

_Bu._ I must fare well, however, though I die, My death consenting[1089] with his augury. 71 Should not my powers obey when she commands, My motion must be rebel to my will, My will to life: if, when I have obey’d, Her hand should so reward me, they must arm it, 75 Bind me or force it: or, I lay my life, She rather would convert it many times On her own bosom, even to many deaths; But were there danger of such violence, I know ’tis far from her intent to send; 80 And who she should send is as far from thought, Since he is dead, whose only mean she us’d. _Knocks._ Who’s there! Look to the door, and let him in, Though politic Monsieur or the violent Guise.

_Enter_ MONTSURRY, _like the_ Friar, _with a letter written in blood_.

_Mont._ Hail to my worthy son.

_Bu._ Oh, lying spirit![1090] To say the Friar was dead; I’ll now believe 86 Nothing of all his forg’d predictions. My kind and honour’d father, well reviv’d, I have been frighted with your death and mine, And told my mistress’ hand should be my death If I obey’d this summons.

_Mont._ I believ’d 91 Your love had been much clearer than to give Any such doubt a thought, for she is clear, And having freed her husband’s jealousy (Of which her much abus’d hand here is witness) She prays, for urgent cause, your instant presence. 96

_Bu._ Why, then your prince of spirits may be call’d The prince of liars.

_Mont._ Holy Writ so calls him.

_Bu._ What, writ in blood?

_Mont._ Ay, ’tis the ink of lovers.

_Bu._ O, ’tis a sacred witness of her love. 100 So much elixir of her blood as this Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firm As heat to fire; and, like to all the signs,[1091] Commands the life confin’d in all my veins. O, how it multiplies my blood with spirit, 105 And makes me apt t’ encounter death and hell. But come, kind father, you fetch me to heaven, And to that end your holy weed was given. _Exeunt._

[SCENE IV.][1092]

_Thunder. Intrat_ Umbra Friar, _and discovers_ TAMYRA.

_Um._ Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter, And strike away this heartless trance of anguish. Be like the sun, and labour in eclipses; Look to the end of woes: oh, can you sit Mustering the horrors of your servant’s slaughter 5 Before your contemplation, and not study[1093] How to prevent it? Watch when he shall rise, And with a sudden outcry of his murder, Blow[1094] his retreat before he be revenged.

_Ta._ O father, have my dumb woes wak’d your death? 10 When will our human griefs 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.

_Um._ It is the misery of our creation. 15 Your true friend, Led by your husband, shadowed in my weed, Now enters the dark vault.

_Ta._ But, my dearest father, Why will not you appear to him yourself, And see that none of these deceits annoy him?

_Um._ My power is limited; alas! I cannot. 21 All that I can do—See, the cave opens. _Exit._ D’AMBOIS _at the gulf_.

_Ta._ Away, my love, away; thou wilt be murder’d!

_Enter_ Monsieur _and_ GUISE _above_.

_Bu._ Murder’d; I know not what that Hebrew means: That word had ne’er been nam’d had all been D’Ambois. 25 Murder’d? By heaven he is my murderer That shows me not a murderer; what such bug[1095] Abhorreth not the very sleep of D’Ambois? Murder’d? Who dares give all the room I see To D’Ambois’ reach? or look with any odds 30 His fight i’ th’ face, upon whose hand sits death; Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth? If I scape Monsieur’s ’pothecary shops, Foutre[1096] for Guise’s shambles! ’T was ill plotted; They should have maul’d me here, 35 When I was rising. I am up and ready. Let in my politic visitants, let them in, Though ent’ring like so many moving armours, Fate is more strong than arms and sly than treason, And I at all parts huckl’d in my fate. 40

_Mo._} Why enter not the coward villains? _Gu._}

_Bu._ Dare they not come?

_Enter_ Murderers _with_ Friar _at the other door._

_Ta._ They come.

_1 Mur._ Come all at once.

_Um._ Back, coward murderers, back.

_Omn._ Defend us, heaven. _Exeunt all but the first._

_1 Mur._ Come ye not on?

_Bu._ No, slave, nor goest thou off. [_Strikes at him._] Stand you so firm? Will it not enter here? 45 You have a face yet; so in thy life’s flame I burn the first rites to my mistress’ fame.

_Um._ Breathe thee, brave son, against the other charge.

_Bu._ Oh, is it true then that my sense first told me? Is my kind father dead?

_Ta._ He is, my love. 50 ’T was the Earl, my husband, in his weed that brought thee.

_Bu._ That was a speeding sleight,[1097] and well resembled. Where is that angry Earl? My lord, come forth And show your own face in your own affair; Take not into your noble veins the blood 55 Of these base villains, nor the light reports Of blister’d tongues for clear and weighty truth: But me against the world, in pure defence Of your rare lady, to whose spotless name I stand here as a bulwark, and project 60 A life to her renown, that ever yet Hath been untainted, even in envy’s eye, And where it would protect a sanctuary. Brave Earl, come forth, and keep your scandal in; ’Tis not our fault if you enforce the spot 65 Nor the wreak[1098] yours if you perform it not.

_Enter_ MONTSURRY, _with all the_ Murderers.

_Mont._ Cowards, a fiend or spirit beat ye off! They are your own faint spirits that have forg’d The fearful shadows that your eyes deluded. 69 The fiend was in you; cast him out then, thus. D’AMBOIS _hath_ MONT. _down_.

_Ta._ Favour my lord, my love, O, favour him!

_Bu._ I will not touch him: take your life, my lord, And be appeas’d. _Pistols shot within._ O, then the coward Fates Have maim’d themselves, and ever lost their honour.

_Um._ What have ye done, slaves? Irreligious lord! 76

_Bu._ Forbear them, father; ’tis enough for me That Guise and Monsieur, death and destiny, Come behind D’Ambois. Is my body, then, But penetrable flesh? And must my mind Follow my blood? Can my divine part add No aid to th’ earthly in extremity? 81 Then these divines are but for form, not fact.[1099] Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact, A mistress and a servant; let my death Define life nothing but a courtier’s breath. 85 Nothing is made of nought, of all things made, Their abstract being a dream but of a shade. I’ll not complain to earth yet, but to heaven, And, like a man, look upwards even in death. And if Vespasian thought in majesty 90 An emperor 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 grooms. Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done: The equal thought I bear of life and death 95 Shall make me faint on no side; I am up. Here like a Roman statue I will stand Till death hath made me marble. Oh, my fame, Live in despite of murder; take thy wings And haste thee where the grey-ey’d morn perfumes 100 Her rosy chariot with Sabaean spices; Fly, where the evening from th’ Iberian vales, Takes on her swarthy shoulders Hecate, Crown’d with a grove of oaks; fly where men feel The burning axletree; and those that suffer 105 Beneath the chariot of the snowy Bear; And tell them all that D’Ambois now is hasting To the eternal dwellers; that a thunder Of all their sighs together (for their frailties Beheld in me) may quit my worthless fall 110 With a fit volley for my funeral.

_Um._ Forgive thy murderers.

_Bu._ I forgive them all; And you, my lord, their fautor;[1100] for true sign Of which unfeign’d remission, take my sword; Take it, and only give it motion, 115 And it shall find the way to victory By his own brightness, and th’ inherent valour My fight hath ’still’d into ’t, with charms of spirit. Now let me pray you that my weighty blood Laid in one scale of your impartial spleen, 120 May sway the forfeit of my worthy love Weigh’d in the other; and be reconcil’d With all forgiveness to your matchless wife.

_Ta._ Forgive thou me, dear servant, and this hand That led thy life to this unworthy end; 125 Forgive it, for the blood 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 bosom; and by this That makes me hold up both my hands imbru’d 130 For thy dear pardon.

_Bu._ O, my heart is broken. Fate, nor these murderers, Monsieur, nor the Guise, Have any glory in my death, but this, This killing spectacle, this prodigy. My sun is turn’d to blood, in whose red beams Pindus and Ossa, hid in drifts of snow 136 Laid on my heart and liver, from their veins Melt like two hungry torrents, eating rocks Into the ocean of all human life, And make it bitter, only with my blood. 140 O frail condition of strength, valour, virtue, In me (like warning fire upon the top Of some steep beacon on a steeper hill) Made to express it: like a falling star Silently glanc’d, that like a thunderbolt 145 Lookt to have struck[1101] and shook the firmament. _Moritur._

_Um._ [My terrors are struck inward, and no more My penance will allow they shall enforce Earthly afflictions but upon myself.][1102] Farewell, brave relics of a complete man! 150 Look up and see thy spirit made a star, Join flames with Hercules, and when thou sett’st Thy radiant forehead in the firmament, Make the vast crystal crack with thy receipt; Spread to a world of fire; and th’ aged sky 155 Cheer with new sparks of old humanity. [_To_ MONT.] Son of the earth, whom my unrested soul, Rues t’ have begotten in the faith of heaven; [Since thy revengeful spirit hath rejected The charity it commands, and the remission 160 To serve and worship the blind rage of blood][1102] Assay to gratulate[1103] and pacify The soul fled from this worthy by performing The Christian reconcilement he besought 164 Betwixt thee and thy lady. Let her wounds Manlessly[1104] digg’d in her, be eas’d and cur’d With balm of thine own tears; or be assur’d Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.

_Mont._ See how she merits this, still kneeling by, 169 And mourning his fall more than her own fault.

_Um._ Remove, dear daughter, and content thy husband; So piety wills thee, and thy servant’s peace.

_Ta._ O wretched piety, that art so distract In thine own constancy, and in thy right Must be unrighteous. If I right my friend, 175 I wrong my husband; if his wrong I shun, The duty of my friend I leave undone. Ill plays on both sides; here and there it riseth; No place, no good, so good but ill compriseth. [My soul more scruple breeds, than my blood, sin, 180 Virtue imposeth more than any stepdame;][1105] O had I never married but for form, Never vow’d faith but purpos’d to deceive, Never made conscience of any sin. But cloak’d it privately and made it common; Nor never honour’d been in blood or mind, 186 Happy had I been then, as others are Of the like licence; I had then been honour’d; Liv’d without envy; custom had benumb’d All sense of scruple, and all note of frailty; 190 My fame had been untouch’d, my heart unbroken: But (shunning all) I strike on all offence, O husband! Dear friend! O my conscience!

_Mo._ Come, let’s away; my senses are not proof 194 Against those plaints. _Exeunt_ GUISE, Monsieur: D’AMBOIS _is borne off_.

_Mont._ I must not yield to pity, nor to love So servile and so traitorous. Cease, my blood, To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgment.— Away! Forsake my house; forbear complaints Where thou hast bred them: here all things [are] full 200 Of their own shame and sorrow; leave my house.

_Ta._ Sweet lord, forgive me, and I will be gone, And till these wounds, that never balm shall close Till death hath enter’d 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, 206 Never endure that any roof shall part Mine eyes and heaven; but to the open deserts (Like to a hunted tigress) I will fly, Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men, And look on no side till I be arriv’d. 211

_Mont._ I do forgive thee, and upon my knees, With hands held up to heaven, wish that mine honour Would suffer reconcilement to my love; But since it will not, honour never serve My love with flourishing object till it sterve:[1106] And as this taper, though it upwards look, 217 Downwards must needs consume, so let our love; As having lost his honey, the sweet taste Runs into savour, and will needs retain 220 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 up, It keeps his lustre, but, being thus turn’d down, (His natural course of useful light inverted), 225 His own stuff puts it out; so let our love. Now turn from me, as here I turn from thee, And may both points of heaven’s straight axletree Conjoin in one, before thyself and me. _Exeunt severally._

EPILOGUE

With many hands you have seen D’Ambois slain, Yet by your grace he may revive again, And every day grow stronger in his skill To please, as we presume he is in will. The best deserving actors of the time 5 Had their ascents, and by degrees did climb To their full height, a place to study due. To make him tread in their path lies in you; He’ll not forget his makers, but still prove His thankfulness as you increase your love. 10

EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR

BY BEN JONSON

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

KNOWELL, an old Gentleman. EDWARD KNOWELL, his Son. BRAINWORM, the Father’s Man. [GEORGE] DOWNRIGHT, a plain Squire. WELLBRED, his Half-Brother. KITELY, a Merchant. CAPTAIN BOBADILL, a Paul’s Man.[1107] MASTER STEPHEN, a Country Gull. MASTER MATHEW, the Town Gull. [THOMAS] CASH, Kitely’s Man. [OLIVER] COB, a Water-bearer. JUSTICE CLEMENT, an old merry Magistrate. ROGER FORMAL, his Clerk. [Wellbred’s Servant.]

DAME KITELY, Kitely’s Wife. MISTRESS BRIDGET, his Sister. TIB, Cob’s Wife.

[Servants, etc.]

SCENE.—_London._

PROLOGUE

Though need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better’d much; Yet ours for want hath not so lov’d the stage, As he dare serve th’ ill customs of the age, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, 5 As, for it, he himself must justly hate: To make a child now swaddled, to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot-and-half-foot words, 10 Fight over York and Lancaster’s long jars, And in the tyring-house[1108] bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleas’d to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o’er the seas, 15 Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor roll’d bullet heard To Bay, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come; 20 But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the tunes, And sport with human follies, not with crimes; Except we make ’em such, by loving still 25 Our popular errors, when we know they’re ill. I mean such errors as you’ll all confess, By laughing at them, they deserve no less: Which when you heartily do, there’s hope left then, You, that have so grac’d monsters, may like men. 30