Chapter 13

MALICORN _standing by._

_Mal._ This is the solemn annual feast I keep, As this day twelve year, on this very hour, I signed the contract for my soul with hell. I bartered it for honours, wealth, and pleasure, Three things which mortal men do covet most; And 'faith, I over-sold it to the fiend: What, one-and-twenty years, nine yet to come! How can a soul be worth so much to devils? O how I hug myself, to out-wit these fools of hell! And yet a sudden damp, I know not why, Has seized my spirits, and, like a heavy weight, Hangs on their active springs. I want a song To rouse me; my blood freezes.--Music there.

A SONG BETWIXT A SHEPHERD AND SHEPHERDESS.

Shepherdess.

_Tell me, Thyrsis, tell your anguish, Why you sigh, and why you languish; When the nymph whom you adore, Grants the blessing Of possessing, What can love and I do more?_

Shepherd.

_Think it's love beyond all measure, Makes me faint away with pleasure; Strength of cordial may destroy. And the blessing Of possessing, Kills me with excess of joy._

Shepherdess.

_Thyrsis, how can I believe you! But confess, and I'll forgive you; Men are false, and so are you, Never nature Framed a creature To enjoy, and yet be true._

Shepherd.

_Mine's a flame beyond expiring, Still possessing, still desiring, Fit for love's imperial crown; Ever shining, And refining, Still the more 'tis melted down._

Chorus together.

_Mine's a flame beyond expiring. Still possessing, still desiring, Fit for love's imperial crown; Ever shining, And refining, Still the more 'tis melted down._

_After a Song and Dance, loud knocking at the Door,_

_Enter a Servant._

_Mal._ What noise is that?

_Serv._ An ill-looked surly man, With a hoarse voice, says he must speak with you.

_Mal._ Tell him I dedicate this day to pleasure. I neither have, nor will have, business with him. [_Exit_ SERV. What, louder yet? what saucy slave is this? [_Knock louder._

_Re-enter Servant._

_Serv._ He says you have, and must have, business with him. Come out, or he'll come in, and spoil your mirth.

_Mal._ I will not.

_Serv._ Sir, I dare not tell him so; [_Knocking again more fiercely._ My hair stands up in bristles when I see him; The dogs run into corners; the spay'd bitch Bays at his back, and howls[20].

_Mal._ Bid him enter, and go off thyself. [_Exit Serv._

SCENE _closes upon the company._

_Enter_ MELANAX, _an hour-glass in his hand, almost empty._

How dar'st thou interrupt my softer hours? By heaven, I'll ram thee in some knotted oak, Where thou shalt sigh, and groan to whistling winds, Upon the lonely plain. Or I'll confine thee deep in the red sea, groveling on the sands, Ten thousand billows rolling o'er thy head.

_Mel._ Hoh, hoh, hoh!

_Mal._ Laughest thou, malicious fiend? I'll ope my book of bloody characters, Shall rumple up thy tender airy limbs, Like parchment in a flame.

_Mel._ Thou can'st not do it. Behold this hour-glass.

_Mal._ Well, and what of that?

_Mel._ Seest thou these ebbing sands? They run for thee, and when their race is run, Thy lungs, the bellows of thy mortal breath, Shall sink for ever down, and heave no more.

_Mal._ What, resty, fiend? Nine years thou hast to serve.

_Mel._ Not full nine minutes.

_Mal._ Thou liest; look on thy bond, and view the date.

_Mel._ Then, wilt thou stand to that without appeal?

_Mal.._ I will, so help me heaven!

_Mel._ So take thee hell. [_Gives him the bond._ There, fool; behold who lies, the devil, or thou?

_Mal._ Ha! one-and-twenty years are shrunk to twelve! Do my eyes dazzle?

_Mel._ No, they see too true: They dazzled once, I cast a mist before them, So what was figured twelve, to thy dull sight Appeared full twenty-one.

_Mal._ There's equity in heaven for this, a cheat.

_Mel._ Fool, thou hast quitted thy appeal to heaven, To stand to this.

_Mal._ Then I am lost for ever!

_Mel._ Thou art.

_Mal._ O why was I not warned before?

_Mel._ Yes, to repent; then thou hadst cheated me.

_Mal._ Add but a day, but half a day, an hour: For sixty minutes, I'll forgive nine years.

_Mel._ No, not a moment's thought beyond my time. Dispatch; 'tis much below me to attend For one poor single fare.

_Mal._ So pitiless? But yet I may command thee, and I will: I love the Guise, even with my latest breath, Beyond my soul, and my lost hopes of heaven: I charge thee, by my short-lived power, disclose What fate attends my master.

_Mel._ If he goes To council when he next is called, he dies.

_Mal._ Who waits?

_Enter Servant._

Go, give my lord my last adieu; Say, I shall never see his eyes again; But if he goes, when next he's called, to council, Bid him believe my latest breath, he dies.-- [_Exit Serv._ The sands run yet.--O do not shake the glass!-- [_Devil shakes the glass._ I shall be thine too soon!--Could I repent!-- Heaven's not confined to moments.--Mercy, mercy!

_Mel._ I see thy prayers dispersed into the winds, And heaven has past them by. I was an angel once of foremost rank, Stood next the shining throne, and winked but half; So almost gazed I glory in the face, That I could bear it, and stared farther in; 'Twas but a moment's pride, and yet I fell, For ever fell; but man, base earth-born man, Sins past a sum, and might be pardoned more: And yet 'tis just; for we were perfect light, And saw our crimes; man, in his body's mire, Half soul, half clod, sinks blindfold into sin, Betrayed by frauds without, and lusts within.

_Mel._ Then I have hope.

_Mal._ Not so; I preached on purpose To make thee lose this moment of thy prayer. Thy sand creeps low; despair, despair, despair!

_Mal._ Where am I now? upon the brink of life, The gulph before me, devils to push me on, And heaven behind me closing all its doors. A thousand years for every hour I've past, O could I 'scape so cheap! but ever, ever! Still to begin an endless round of woes, To be renewed for pains, and last for hell! Yet can pains last, when bodies cannot last? Can earthy substance endless flames endure? Or, when one body wears and flits away, Do souls thrust forth another crust of clay, To fence and guard their tender forms from fire? I feel my heart-strings rend!--I'm here,--I'm gone! Thus men, too careless of their future state, Dispute, know nothing, and believe too late. [_A flash of lightning, they sink together._