Chapter 5

Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons.

BALTHAZAR Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee honour. Mercer's <12> books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than are a cats muschatoes <13>, these pied-winged butterflies had known me then. Another fly-boat! <14> Save thee illustrious Don.

Enter Don Rodrigo.

Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier?

RODRIGO No

BALTHAZAR No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! <15>

Enter Cockadillio.

Signor, is the King at leisure?

COCKADILLO To do what?

BALTHAZAR To hear a soldier speak.

COCKADILLO I am no ear picker To sound his hearing that way.

BALTHAZAR Are you of court sir?

COCKADILLO Yes, the King's barber.

BALTHAZAR That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray.

COCKADILLO Don Cockadillio If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court, I shall descend so low as to betray Thy paper to the hand Royal.

BALTHAZAR I beg, you whorson muscod <16>! My petition is written on my bosom in red wounds.

COCKADILLO I am no barber-surgeon.

Exit Cockadillio.

BALTHAZAR You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor give his coat with a difference from a gentleman?

Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio.

KING My Balthazar! Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered? Do you not know him?

ALANZO Yes Sir, the brave soldier Employed against the Moors

KING Half turned Moor! I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors.

BALTHAZAR My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors, blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined <17> tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match instead of bays.

KING On to the battle.

BALTHAZAR 'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van, this the vaw <18>, these the wings, here we fight, there they fly, here they insconce <19>, and here our sconces <20> lay seventeen moons on the cold earth.

KING This satisfies my eye, but now my ear Must have his music too. Describe the battle.

BALTHAZAR The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums, petronels <21>, muskets, culverin <22> and cannon. These are our roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten, our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the day of battle.

KING So.

BALTHAZAR

To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici.

KING A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine, And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man, Demand what we can give thee and 'tis thine.

BALTHAZAR Only your love.

KING 'Tis thine, rise soldier's best accord When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword.

Onaelia knocks loudly at the door.

ONAELIA Let me come in, I'll kill the treacherous King, The murderer of mine honour, let me come in.

KING What woman's voice is that?

ALL Medina's niece.

KING Bar out that fiend.

ONAELIA I'll tear him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me.

KING Keep her from following me. A guard.

ALANZO They are ready, sir.

KING Let a quick summons call our Lords together, This disease kills me.

BALTHAZAR Sir, I would be private with you.

KING Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded.

Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain].

BALTHAZAR Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech?

KING Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, 'tis pardoned.

BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home?

KING What kingdom?

BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour.

KING Wherein?

BALTHAZAR I'll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now.

KING Ha, ha, ha!

BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven's face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss.

KING Any more?

BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when 'tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom.

KING Nay, spit thy venom.

BALTHAZAR 'Tis Aqua Coelestis <23>, no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there's no playing at spurn-point <24> with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must.

KING No more.

BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces.

KING The barber that draws out a lion's tooth Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou.

BALTHAZAR I care not.

KING Because you have beaten a few base-born moors, Me think'st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon, Because I made the key to unlock thy railing; But if thou dar'st once more be so untuned I'll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there, How now?

Enter [guards and attendants] drawn.

ALL In danger, Sir?

KING Yes, yes, I am, but 'tis no point of weapon Can rescue me. Go presently and summon All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords Of Spain to meet in Council instantly. We called you forth to execute a business Of another strain - but 'tis no matter now. Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow.

BALTHAZAR So, die!

Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco.

KING I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose, I'll practice only counter-charms of fire, And blow the spells of lightening into smoke: Fetch burning tapers.

[Exit attendant who returns with light.]

CARDINAL Give me audience, Sir. My apprehension opens me a way To a close fatal mischief, worse than this You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours Alone shall give your dangers life, which else Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read A book here closed up, which too late you opened, Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes.

KING Art frantic?

CARDINAL You are so, Sir.

KING If I be, Then here's my first mad fit.

CARDINAL For honour's sake, For love you bear to conscience -

KING Reach the flames: Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond?

ALL Our hands are to it.

DAENIA 'Tis your confirmed contract With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir, Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence To have it mourn in ashes?

KING Marquis Daenia We'll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak.

CARDINAL Dear Sir!

KING I am deaf, Played the full concert of the spheres unto me Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch Who would dry up the tree of all Spain's glories, But that I purge her sorceries by fire.

[Burns contract.]

Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles Now laugh at me if I have been deceived By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father, Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury?

CARDINAL Fury indeed, you give it proper name. What have you done? Closed up a festering wound Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon, Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote, You thrust the eye clean out.

KING Th'art mad ex tempore: What eye? Which is that wound?

CARDINAL That scroll, which now You make the black indenture of your lust Although eat up in flames, is printed here, In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it, In all that ever did but hear 'twas yours. The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift Which gives your sin a flame greater than that You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire, Cast Oil upon it.

KING Oil to blood shall turn, I'll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn.

Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain.

DAENIA He's mad with rage or joy.

ALBA With both; with rage To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy Because he hopes his contract is cut off, Which divine justice more exemplifies.

Enter Medina.

MEDINA Where's the King?

DAENIA Wrapped up in clouds of lightning.

MEDINA What has he done? Saw you the contract torn? As I did here a minion swear he threatened.

ALBA He tore it not, but burned it.

MEDINA Openly!

DAENIA And heaven with us to witness.

MEDINA Well, that fire Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom.

ALBA Meet and consult.

MEDINA No more, trust not the air With our projections, let us all revenge Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman. Action is honours language, swords are tongues, Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs.

Exeunt.