Scene III.

_Monk._ True centre of this wide circumference, Sacred commandress of the destinies, Our tongues shall only sound thy excellence.

_The Others._ Thy excellence our tongues shall only sound.

_2nd King._ Thou painted strumpet, that with honeyed smiles, Openest the gates of Heaven and criest, “Come in;” Whose glories being seen, thou with one frown, In pride, lower than hell tumblest us down.

_The Kings._ Ever, for ever, will we ban thy name.

_Fortune._ How sweet your howlings relish in mine ears! [_She comes down._

Stand by! now rise,--behold, here lies a wretch, To vex your souls, this beggar I’ll advance Beyond the sway of thought; take instruments, And let the raptures of choice harmony, Thorough the hollow windings of his ear, Carry their sacred sounds, and wake each sense, To stand amazed at our bright eminence. [_Music._ FORTUNATUS _wakes_.

_Fort._ Oh, how am I transported? Is this earth? Or blest Elysium?

_Fortune._ Fortunatus, rise.

_Fort._ Dread goddess, how should such a wretch as I Be known to such a glorious deity? Oh pardon me: for to this place I come, Led by my fate, not folly; in this wood With weary sorrow have I wanderèd, And three times seen the sweating sun take rest, And three times frantic Cynthia naked ride About the rusty highways of the skies Stuck full of burning stars, which lent her light To court her negro paramour grim Night.

_Fortune._ This travel now expires: yet from this circle, Where I and these with fairy troops abide, Thou canst not stir, unless I be thy guide. I the world’s empress am, Fortune my name, This hand hath written in thick leaves of steel An everlasting book of changeless fate, Showing who’s happy, who unfortunate.

_Fort._ If every name, dread queen, be there writ down I am sure mine stands in characters of black; Though happiness herself lie in my name, I am Sorrow’s heir, and eldest son to Shame.

_The Kings._ No, we are sons to Shame, and Sorrow’s heirs.

_Fortune._ Thou shalt be one of Fortune’s minions: Behold these four chained like Tartarian slaves, These I created emperors and kings, And these are now my basest underlings: This sometimes was a German emperor, Henry the Fifth,[335] who being first deposed, Was after thrust into a dungeon, And thus in silver chains shall rot to death. This Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor Of Almaine[336] once: but by Pope Alexander[337] Now spurned and trod on when he takes his horse, And in these fetters shall he die his slave. This wretch once wore the diadem of France, Lewis the meek,[338] but through his children’s pride, Thus have I caused him to be famishèd. Here stands the very soul of misery, Poor Bajazet, old Turkish Emperor, And once the greatest monarch in the East;[339] Fortune herself is said to view thy fall, And grieves to see thee glad to lick up crumbs At the proud feet of that great Scythian swain, Fortune’s best minion, warlike Tamburlaine: Yet must thou in a cage of iron be drawn In triumph at his heels, and there in grief Dash out thy brains.

[335] The description corresponds rather to Henry IV. of Germany, who died in 1106.

[336] Frederick I. called Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, _i.e._ Allemagne (Almaine), the grandson of Henry IV.

[337] Alexander III.

[338] Louis I. called Le Débonnaire, son of Charlemagne, d. 840.

[339] Bajazet I. called Yilderim, _i.e._ Lightning, because of the rapidity of his movement in the field of war, first Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, who was humiliated by Timur (Tamburlaine). Compare Marlowe’s _Tamburlaine the Great_.

_4th King._ Oh miserable me!

_Fortune._ No tears can melt the heart of destiny: These have I ruined and exalted those. These hands have conquered Spain, these brows fill up The golden circle of rich Portugal,-- Viriat a monarch now, but born a shepherd;[340] This Primislaus, a Bohemian king, Last day a carter;[341] this monk, Gregory,[342] Now lifted to the Papal dignity;-- Wretches,[343] why gnaw you not your fingers off, And tear your tongues out, seeing yourselves trod down, And this Dutch botcher[344] wearing Munster’s crown, John Leyden,[345] born in Holland poor and base, Now rich in empery and Fortune’s grace? As these I have advanced, so will I thee. Six gifts I spend upon mortality, Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches, Out of my bounty: one of these is thine,-- Choose then which likes thee best.

[340] Viriathus, a shepherd who became a famous Lusitanian chief in the 2nd century B.C., and long warred successfully against the Romans in Spain.

[341] Primislaus, a country labourer, who became first Duke of Bohemia, having married the daughter of Croc who founded the city of Prague.

[342] Gregory VII. (1013-1085).

[343] Fortune here turns and addresses the four deposed kings again.

[344] Tailor. See _The Devil’s Answer to Pierce Pennylesse_ (Dekker’s non-dramatic works, The Huth Library, edited by the Rev. A. B. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 147), “That botcher I preferred to be Lucifer’s tailor, because he works with a hot needle and burnt thread.”

[345] John of Leyden (John Beccold), b. 1510, d. 1536, a tailor, who became a leader of the Anabaptists and at their head took extraordinary possession of the city of Munster, and ruled for a brief space as king there, before constitutional authority was restored and he was seized and put to death.

_Fort._ Oh most divine! Give me but leave to borrow wonder’s eye, To look amazed at thy bright majesty, Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches.

_Fortune._ Before thy soul at this deep lottery Draw forth her prize, ordained by destiny, Know that here’s no recanting a first choice. Choose then discreetly for the laws of Fate, Being graven in steel, must stand inviolate.

_Fort._ Daughters of Jove and the unblemished Night, Most righteous Parcae,[346] guide my genius right, Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches.

[346] The Three Destinies, to whom Fortune herself was sometimes added as a fourth. Fortunatus here seems to be addressing Fortune and her two attendant nymphs, for no stage direction is specially given for the entrance of the Three Destinies, as in