Nor nothing straining past right for their right.
Raigne justly, and raigne safely. Policie
Is but a guard corrupted, and a way 50
Venter’d in desarts, without guide or path.
Kings punish subjects errors with their owne.
Kings are like archers, and their subjects, shafts:
For as when archers let their arrowes flye,
They call to them, and bid them flye or fall, 55
As if twere in the free power of the shaft
To flye or fall, when onely tis the strength,
Straight shooting, compasse given it by the archer,
That makes it hit or misse; and doing eyther,
Hee’s to be prais’d or blam’d, and not the shaft: 60
So Kings to subjects crying, “Doe, doe not this,”
Must to them by their owne examples strength,
The straightnesse of their acts, and equall compasse,
Give subjects power t’obey them in the like;
Not shoote them forth with faultie ayme and strength, 65
And lay the fault in them for flying amisse.
Aum. But for your servant, I dare sweare him guiltlesse.
Count. Hee would not for his kingdome traitor be;
His lawes are not so true to him, as he.
O knew I how to free him, by way forc’d 70
Through all their armie, I would flye, and doe it:
And had I of my courage and resolve
But tenne such more, they should not all retaine him.
But I will never die, before I give
Maillard an hundred slashes with a sword, 75
Chalon an hundred breaches with a pistoll.
They could not all have taken Clermont D’Ambois
Without their treacherie; he had bought his bands out
With their slave blouds: but he was credulous;
Hee would beleeve, since he would be beleev’d; 80
Your noblest natures are most credulous.
Who gives no trust, all trust is apt to breake;
Hate like hell mouth who thinke not what they speake.
Aum. Well, madame, I must tender my attendance
On him againe. Will’t please you to returne 85
No service to him by me?
Count. Fetch me straight
My little cabinet. Exit Ancil[la].
Tis little, tell him,
And much too little for his matchlesse love:
But as in him the worths of many men
Are close contracted, (Intr[at] Ancil[la.]) so in this are
jewels 90
Worth many cabinets. Here, with this (good sir)
Commend my kindest service to my servant,
Thanke him, with all my comforts, and, in them,
With all my life for them; all sent from him
In his remembrance of mee and true love. 95
And looke you tell him, tell him how I lye
She kneeles downe at his feete.
Prostrate at feet of his accurst misfortune,
Pouring my teares out, which shall ever fall,
Till I have pour’d for him out eyes and all.
Aum. O madame, this will kill him; comfort you 100
With full assurance of his quicke acquitall;
Be not so passionate; rise, cease your teares.
Coun. Then must my life cease. Teares are all the vent
My life hath to scape death. Teares please me better
Then all lifes comforts, being the naturall seede 105
Of heartie sorrow. As a tree fruit beares,
So doth an undissembled sorrow, teares.
Hee raises her, and leades her out. Exe[unt].
Usher. This might have beene before, and sav’d much charge.
Exit.
SCÆNA QUARTA.
A Room at the Court in Paris.]
Enter Henry, Guise, Baligny, Esp[ernone], Soisson.
Pericot with pen, incke, and paper.
Guise. Now, sir, I hope you’re much abus’d eyes see
In my word for my Clermont, what a villaine
Hee was that whisper’d in your jealous eare
His owne blacke treason in suggesting Clermonts,
Colour’d with nothing but being great with mee. 5
Signe then this writ for his deliverie;
Your hand was never urg’d with worthier boldnesse:
Come, pray, sir, signe it. Why should Kings be praid
To acts of justice? tis a reverence
Makes them despis’d, and showes they sticke and tyre 10
In what their free powers should be hot as fire.
Henry. Well, take your will, sir; — Ile have mine ere long. —
Aversus.
But wherein is this Clermont such a rare one?
Gui. In his most gentle and unwearied minde,
Rightly to vertue fram’d in very nature; 15
In his most firme inexorable spirit
To be remov’d from any thing hee chuseth
For worthinesse; or beare the lest perswasion
To what is base, or fitteth not his object;
In his contempt of riches, and of greatnesse 20
In estimation of th’idolatrous vulgar;
His scorne of all things servile and ignoble,
Though they could gaine him never such advancement;
His liberall kinde of speaking what is truth,
In spight of temporising; the great rising 25
And learning of his soule so much the more
Against ill fortune, as shee set her selfe
Sharpe against him or would present most hard,
To shunne the malice of her deadliest charge;
His detestation of his speciall friends, 30
When he perceiv’d their tyrannous will to doe,
Or their abjection basely to sustaine
Any injustice that they could revenge;
The flexibilitie of his most anger,
Even in the maine careere and fury of it, 35
When any object of desertfull pittie
Offers it selfe to him; his sweet disposure,
As much abhorring to behold as doe
Any unnaturall and bloudy action;
His just contempt of jesters, parasites, 40
Servile observers, and polluted tongues —
In short, this Senecall man is found in him,
Hee may with heavens immortall powers compare,
To whom the day and fortune equall are;
Come faire or foule, whatever chance can fall, 45
Fixt in himselfe, hee still is one to all.
Hen. Showes he to others thus?
Omnes. To all that know him.
Hen. And apprehend I this man for a traitor?
Gui. These are your Machevilian villaines,
Your bastard Teucers, that, their mischiefes done, 50
Runne to your shield for shelter; Cacusses
That cut their too large murtherous theveries
To their dens length still. Woe be to that state
Where treacherie guards, and ruine makes men great!
Hen. Goe, take my letters for him, and release him. 55
Om. Thankes to your Highnesse; ever live your Highnesse!
Exeunt.
Baligny. Better a man were buried quicke then live
A propertie for state and spoile to thrive. Exit.
SCÆNA QUINTA.
A Country Road, between Cambrai and Paris.]
Enter Clermont, Mail[lard], Chal[on] with Souldiers.
Maillard. Wee joy you take a chance so ill, so well.
Clermont. Who ever saw me differ in acceptance
Of eyther fortune?
Chalon. What, love bad like good!
How should one learne that?
Cler. To love nothing outward,
Or not within our owne powers to command; 5
And so being sure of every thing we love,
Who cares to lose the rest? if any man
Would neyther live nor dye in his free choise,
But as hee sees necessitie will have it
(Which if hee would resist, he strives in vaine) 10
What can come neere him that hee doth not well?
And if in worst events his will be done,
How can the best be better? all is one.
Mail. Me thinkes tis prettie.
Cler. Put no difference
If you have this, or not this; but as children 15
Playing at coites ever regard their game,
And care not for their coites, so let a man
The things themselves that touch him not esteeme,
But his free power in well disposing them.
Chal. Prettie, from toyes!
Cler. Me thinkes this double disticke 20
Seemes prettily too to stay superfluous longings:
“Not to have want, what riches doth exceede?
Not to be subject, what superiour thing?
He that to nought aspires, doth nothing neede;
Who breakes no law is subject to no King.” 25
Mail. This goes to mine eare well, I promise you.
Chal. O, but tis passing hard to stay one thus.
Cler. Tis so; rancke custome raps men so beyond it.
And as tis hard so well mens dores to barre
To keepe the cat out and th’adulterer: 30
So tis as hard to curbe affections so
Wee let in nought to make them over-flow.
And as of Homers verses, many critickes
On those stand of which times old moth hath eaten
The first or last feete, and the perfect parts 35
Of his unmatched poeme sinke beneath,
With upright gasping and sloath dull as death:
So the unprofitable things of life,
And those we cannot compasse, we affect;
All that doth profit and wee have, neglect, 40
Like covetous and basely getting men
That, gathering much, use never what they keepe;
But for the least they loose, extreamely weepe.
Mail. This prettie talking, and our horses walking
Downe this steepe hill, spends time with equall profit. 45
Cler. Tis well bestow’d on ye; meate and men sicke
Agree like this and you: and yet even this
Is th’end of all skill, power, wealth, all that is.
Chal. I long to heare, sir, how your mistresse takes this.
Enter Aumal with a cabinet.
Mail. Wee soone shall know it; see Aumall return’d. 50
Aumale. Ease to your bands, sir!
Cler. Welcome, worthy friend!
Chal. How tooke his noblest mistresse your sad message?
Aum. As great rich men take sodaine povertie.
I never witness’d a more noble love,
Nor a more ruthfull sorrow: I well wisht 55
Some other had beene master of my message.
Mail. Y’are happy, sir, in all things, but this one
Of your unhappy apprehension.
Cler. This is to mee, compar’d with her much mone,
As one teare is to her whole passion. 60
Aum. Sir, shee commends her kindest service to you,
And this rich cabinet.
Chal. O happy man!
This may enough hold to redeeme your bands.
Cler. These clouds, I doubt not, will be soone blowne over.
Enter Baligny, with his discharge: Renel, and others.
Aum. Your hope is just and happy; see, sir, both 65
In both the looks of these.
Baligny. Here’s a discharge
For this your prisoner, my good Lord Lieutenant.
Mail. Alas, sir, I usurpe that stile, enforc’t,
And hope you know it was not my aspiring.
Bal. Well, sir, my wrong aspir’d past all mens hopes. 70
Mail. I sorrow for it, sir.
Renel. You see, sir, there
Your prisoners discharge autenticall.
Mail. It is, sir, and I yeeld it him with gladnesse.
Bal. Brother, I brought you downe to much good purpose.
Cler. Repeate not that, sir; the amends makes all. 75
Ren. I joy in it, my best and worthiest friend;
O, y’have a princely fautor of the Guise.
Bal. I thinke I did my part to.
Ren. Well, sir, all
Is in the issue well: and (worthiest friend)
Here’s from your friend, the Guise; here from the Countesse, 80
Your brothers mistresse, the contents whereof
I know, and must prepare you now to please
Th’unrested spirit of your slaughtered brother,
If it be true, as you imagin’d once,
His apparition show’d it. The complot 85
Is now laid sure betwixt us; therefore haste
Both to your great friend (who hath some use waightie
For your repaire to him) and to the Countesse,
Whose satisfaction is no lesse important.
Cler. I see all, and will haste as it importeth. 90
And good friend, since I must delay a little
My wisht attendance on my noblest mistresse,
Excuse me to her, with returne of this,
And endlesse protestation of my service;
And now become as glad a messenger, 95
As you were late a wofull.
Aum. Happy change!
I ever will salute thee with my service. Exit.
Bal. Yet more newes, brother; the late jesting Monsieur
Makes now your brothers dying prophesie equall
At all parts, being dead as he presag’d. 100
Ren. Heaven shield the Guise from seconding that truth
With what he likewise prophesied on him!
Cler. It hath enough, twas grac’d with truth in one;
To’th other falshood and confusion!
Leade to the Court, sir.
Bal. You Ile leade no more; 105
It was to ominous and foule before. Exeunt.
Finis Actus quarti.
ACTUS QUINTI.
SCÆNA PRIMA.
[A Room in the Palace of the Duke of Guise.]
Ascendit Umbra Bussi.
Umbra Bussi. Up from the chaos of eternall night
(To which the whole digestion of the world
Is now returning) once more I ascend,
And bide the cold dampe of this piercing ayre,
To urge the justice whose almightie word 5
Measures the bloudy acts of impious men
With equall pennance, who in th’act it selfe
Includes th’infliction, which like chained shot
Batter together still; though (as the thunder
Seemes, by mens duller hearing then their sight, 10
To breake a great time after lightning forth,
Yet both at one time teare the labouring cloud)
So men thinke pennance of their ils is slow,
Though th’ill and pennance still together goe.
Reforme, yee ignorant men, your manlesse lives 15
Whose lawes yee thinke are nothing but your lusts;
When leaving (but for supposition sake)
The body of felicitie, religion,
Set in the midst of Christendome, and her head
Cleft to her bosome, one halfe one way swaying, 20
Another th’other, all the Christian world
And all her lawes whose observation
Stands upon faith, above the power of reason —
Leaving (I say) all these, this might suffice
To fray yee from your vicious swindge in ill 25
And set you more on fire to doe more good;
That since the world (as which of you denies?)
Stands by proportion, all may thence conclude
That all the joynts and nerves su
staining nature
As well may breake, and yet the world abide, 30
As any one good unrewarded die,
Or any one ill scape his penaltie. The Ghost stands close.
Enter Guise, Clermont.
Guise. Thus (friend) thou seest how all good men would thrive,
Did not the good thou prompt’st me with prevent
The jealous ill pursuing them in others. 35
But now thy dangers are dispatcht, note mine.
Hast thou not heard of that admired voyce
That at the barricadoes spake to mee,
(No person seene) “Let’s leade my lord to Reimes”?
Clermont. Nor could you learne the person?
Gui. By no meanes. 40
Cler. Twas but your fancie, then, a waking dreame:
For as in sleepe, which bindes both th’outward senses
And the sense common to, th’imagining power
(Stird up by formes hid in the memories store,
Or by the vapours of o’er-flowing humours 45
In bodies full and foule, and mixt with spirits)
Faines many strange, miraculous images,
In which act it so painfully applyes
It selfe to those formes that the common sense
It actuates with his motion, and thereby 50
Those fictions true seeme and have reall act:
So, in the strength of our conceits awake,
The cause alike doth [oft] like fictions make.
Gui. Be what it will, twas a presage of something
Waightie and secret, which th’advertisements 55
I have receiv’d from all parts, both without
And in this kingdome, as from Rome and Spaine,
Lorraine and Savoye, gives me cause to thinke,
All writing that our plots catastrophe,
For propagation of the Catholique cause, 60
Will bloudy prove, dissolving all our counsailes.
Cler. Retyre, then, from them all.
Gui. I must not doe so.
The Arch-Bishop of Lyons tels me plaine
I shall be said then to abandon France
In so important an occasion; 65
And that mine enemies (their profit making
Of my faint absence) soone would let that fall,
That all my paines did to this height exhale.
Cler. Let all fall that would rise unlawfully!
Make not your forward spirit in vertues right 70
A property for vice, by thrusting on
Further then all your powers can fetch you off.
It is enough, your will is infinite
To all things vertuous and religious,
Which, within limits kept, may without danger 75
Let vertue some good from your graces gather.
Avarice of all is ever nothings father.
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 218