by John Dryden
I may as well suspect design from you.
Luc. Design! of giving you my love more freely;
Of making you a title to my heart,
Where you by force would reign.
Duke. O that I could believe you! But your words
Are not enough disorder’d for true love;
They are not plain, and hearty, as are mine;
But full of art, and close insinuation:
You promise all, but give me not one proof
Of love before; not the least earnest of it.
Luc. And what is then this midnight conversation?
These silent hours divided from my sleep?
Nay, more, stolen from my prayers with sacrilege,
And here transferred to you? This guilty hand,
Which should be used in dropping holy beads,
But now bequeathed to yours? This heaving heart,
Which only should be throbbing for my sins,
But which now beats uneven time for you?
These are my arts! and these are my designs!
Duke. I love you more, Lucretia, than my soul;
Nay, than yours too; for I would venture both,
That I might now enjoy you; and if what
You ask me, did not make me fear to lose you,
Though it were even my life, you should not be denied it.
Luc. Then I will ask no more.
Keep still my letter, to upbraid me with it:
To say, when I am sullied with your lust,
And fit to be forsaken, — Go, Lucretia,
To your first love; for this, for this, I leave you.
Duke. Oh, madam, never think that day can come!
Luc. It must, it will; I read it in your looks;
You will betray me, when I’m once engaged.
Duke. If not my faith, your beauty will secure you.
Luc. My beauty is a flower upon the stalk,
Goodly to see; but, gathered for the scent,
And once with eagerness pressed to your nostrils,
The sweets drawn out, ’tis thrown with scorn away.
But I am glad I find you out so soon;
I simply loved, and meant (with shame I own it)
To trust my virgin honour in your hands.
I asked not wealth for hire; and, but by chance,
(I wonder that I thought on’t) begged one trial,
And, but for form, to have pretence to yield,
And that you have denied me. Farewell! I could
Have loved you, and yet, perhaps, I —
Duke. O speak, speak out, and do not drown that word;
It seemed as if it would have been a kind one;
And yours are much too precious to be lost.
Luc. Perhaps — I cannot yet leave loving you.
There ’twas. But I recalled it in my mind,
And made it false before I gave it air.
Once more, farewell — I wo’not, —
Now I can say I wo’not, wo’not love you. [Going.
Duke. You shall; and this shall be the seal of my affection. [Gives the letter.
There take it, my Lucretia: I give it with more joy,
Than I with grief received it.
Luc. Good night; I’ll thank you for’t some other time.
Duke. You’ll not abuse my love?
Luc. No; but secure my honour.
Duke. I’ll force it from your hands. [Lucretia runs.
Luc. Help, help, or I am ravished! help, for heaven’s sake!
Hippolita, Laura, and Violetta, within, at several places.
Within. Help, help Lucretia! they bear away Lucretia by force.
Duke. I think there’s a devil in every corner.
Enter Valerio.
Val. Sir, the design was laid on purpose for you, and all the women placed to cry. Make haste away; avoid the shame, for heaven’s sake.
Duke. [going.] O, I could fire this monastery!
Enter Frederick and Ascanio.
[Frederick, entering, speaks as to some behind him.]
Fred. Pain of your lives, let none of you presume to enter but myself.
Duke. My son! — O, I could burst with spite, and die with shame, to be thus apprehended! this is the baseness and cowardice of guilt: an army now were not so dreadful to me as that son, o’er whom the right of nature gives me power.
Fred. Sir, I am come —
Duke. To laugh at first, and then to blaze abroad,
The weakness and the follies of your father.
Val. Sir, he has men in arms attending him.
Duke. I know my doom then. You have taken a popular occasion; I am now a ravisher of chastity, fit to be made prisoner first, and then deposed.
Fred. You will not hear me, sir.
Duke. No, I confess I have deserved my fate;
For, what had these grey hairs to do with love?
Or, if the unseemly folly would possess me,
Why should I chuse to make my son my rival?
Fred. Sir, you may add, you banished me from Rome,
And, from the light of it, Lucretia’s eyes.
Duke. Nay, if thou aggravat’st my crimes, thou giv’st
Me right to justify them: thou doubly art my slave,
Both son and subject. I can do thee no wrong,
Nor hast thou right to arraign or punish me:
But thou inquir’st into thy father’s years;
Thy swift ambition could not stay my death,
But must ride post to empire. Lead me now;
Thy crimes have made me guiltless to myself,
And given me face to bear the public scorn.
You have a guard without?
Fred. I have some friends.
Duke. Speak plainly your intent.
I love not a sophisticated truth,
With an allay of lie in’t.
Fred. [Kneeling.]
This is not, sir, the posture of a rebel,
But of a suppliant; if the name of son
Be too much honour to me.
What first I purpos’d, I scarce know myself.
Love, anger, and revenge, then rolled within me,
And yet, even then, I was not hurried farther
Than to preserve my own.
Duke. Your own! What mean you?
Fred. My love, and my Lucretia, which I thought,
In my then boiling passion, you pursued
With some injustice, and much violence;
This led me to repel that force by force.
’Twas easy to surprise you, when I knew
Of your intended visit.
Duke. Thank my folly.
Fred. But reason now has reassumed its place,
And makes me see how black a crime it is
To use a force upon my prince and father.
Duke. You give me hope you will resign Lucretia.
Fred. Ah no; I never can resign her to you:
But, sir, I can my life; which, on my knees,
I tender, as the atoning sacrifice:
Or if your hand (because you are a father)
Be loth to take away that life you gave,
I will redeem your crime, by making it
My own: So you shall still be innocent, and I
Die blessed, and unindebted for my being.
Duke. O Frederick, you are too much a son, [Embracing him.
And I too little am a father: you,
And you alone, have merited Lucretia;
’Tis now my only grief,
I can do nothing to requite this virtue:
For to restore her to you,
Is not an act of generosity,
But a scant, niggard justice; yet I love her
So much, that even this little, which I do,
Is like the bounty of an usurer;
High to be priz’d from me,
Because ’tis drawn from such a wretched mind.
Fred. You give me now a second, better life; [Kissing his hand.
Consider, sir, Lucretia did not love you, —
I fear to say, ne’er would.
Duke. You do well to help me to o’ercome that difficulty:
I’ll weigh that, too, hereafter. For a love,
So violent as mine, will ask long time,
And much of reason, to effect the cure.
My present care shall be to make you happy;
For that will make my wish impossible,
And then the remedies will be more easy.
Enter Sophronia, Lucretia, Violetta, Laura, Hippolita.
Soph. I have, with joy, o’erheard this happy change,
And come with blessings to applaud your conquest
Over the greatest of mankind, yourself.
Duke. I hope ‘twill be a full and lasting one.
Luc. Thus, let me kneel, and pay my thanks and duty, [Kneeling.
Both to my prince and father.
Duke. Rise, rise, too charming maid, for yet I cannot
Call you my daughter: that first name, Lucretia,
Hangs on my lips, and would be still pronounced.
Look not too kindly on me; one sweet glance,
Perhaps, would ruin both: therefore, I’ll go
And try to get new strength to bear your eyes.
‘Till then, farewell. Be sure you love my Frederick,
And do not hate his father. [Exeunt Duke and Valerio.
Fred. [At the door.] Now, friends, you may appear.
Enter Aurelian, Camillo, Benito.
Your pardon, madam, that we thus intrude
On holy ground: yourself best know it could not
Be avoided, and it shall be my care it be excused.
Soph. Though sovereign princes bear a privilege
Of entering when they please within our walls,
In others ’tis a crime past dispensation;
And therefore, to avoid a public scandal,
Be pleased, sir, to retire, and quit this garden.
Aur. We shall obey you, madam; but that we may do it with less regret, we hope you will give these ladies leave to accompany us.
Soph. They shall.
And, nieces, for myself, I only ask you
To justify my conduct to the world,
That none may think I have betrayed a trust,
But freed you from a tyranny.
Lau. Our duty binds us to acknowledge it.
Cam. And our gratitude to witness it.
Vio. With a holy and lasting remembrance of your favour.
Fred. And it shall be my care, either by reason to bend your uncle’s will, or, by my father’s interest, to force your dowry from his hands.
Ben. [To Aur.] Pray, sir, let us make haste over these walls again; these gardens are unlucky to me; I have lost my reputation of music in one of them, and of wit in the other.
Aur. [To Lau.] Now, Laura, you may take your choice betwixt the two Benito’s, and consider whether you had rather he should serenade you in the garden, or I in bed to-night.
Lau. You may be sure I shall give sentence for Benito; for the effect of your serenading would be to make me pay the music nine months hence.
Hip. [To Asca.] You see, brother, here’s a general gaol-delivery: there has been a great deal of bustle and disturbance in the cloister to-night; enough to distract a soul which is given up, like me, to contemplation: and therefore, if you think fit, I could even be content to retire, with you, into the world; and, by way of penance, to marry you; which, as husbands and wives go now, is a greater mortification than a nunnery.
Asca. No, sister; if you love me, keep to your monastery: I’ll come now and then to the grate, and beg you a recreation. But I know myself so well, that if I had you one twelvemonth in the world, I should run myself into a cloister, to be rid of you.
Soph. Nieces, once more farewell. Adieu, Lucretia:
My wishes and my prayers attend you all.
Luc. to Fred. I am so fearful,
That, though I gladly run to your embraces,
Yet, venturing in the world a second time,
Methinks I put to sea in a rough storm,
With shipwrecks round about me.
Fred. My dear, be kinder to yourself and me,
And let not fear fright back our coming joys;
For we, at length, stand reconciled to fate:
And now to fear, when to such bliss we move,
Were not to doubt our fortune, but our love. [Exeunt.
EPILOGUE
Some have expected, from our bills to-day,
To find a satire in our poet’s play.
The zealous route from Coleman-street did run,
To see the story of the Friar and Nun;
Or tales, yet more ridiculous to hear,
Vouched by their vicar of ten pounds a-year, —
Of Nuns, who did against temptation pray,
And discipline laid on the pleasant way:
Or that, to please the malice of the town,
Our poet should in some close cell have shown
Some sister, playing at content alone:
This they did hope; the other side did fear;
And both, you see, alike are cozened here.
Some thought the title of our play to blame;
They liked the thing, but yet abhorred the name:
Like modest punks, who all you ask afford,
But, for the world, they would not name that word.
Yet, if you’ll credit what I heard him say,
Our poet meant no scandal in his play;
His Nuns are good, which on the stage are shown,
And, sure, behind our scenes you’ll look for none.
AMBOYNA
OR, THE CRUELTIES OF THE DUTCH TO THE ENGLISH MERCHANTS.
A TRAGEDY.
— Manet altâ mente repostum.
The tragedy of Amboyna, as it was justly termed by the English of the seventeenth century, was of itself too dreadful to be heightened by the mimic horrors of the stage. The reader may be reminded, that by three several treaties in the years 1613, 1615, and 1619, it was agreed betwixt England and Holland, that the English should enjoy one-third of the trade of the spice islands. For this purpose, factories were established on behalf of the English East India Company at the Molucca Islands, at Banda, and at Amboyna. At the latter island the Dutch had a castle, with a garrison, both of Europeans and natives. It has been always remarked, that the Dutchman, in his eastern settlements, loses the mercantile probity of his European character, while he retains its cold-blooded phlegm and avaricious selfishness. Of this the Amboyna government gave a notable proof. About the 11th of Feb. 1622, old stile, under pretence of a plot laid between the English of the factory and some Japanese soldiers to seize the castle, the former were arrested by the Dutch, and subjected to the most horrible tortures, to extort confession of their pretended guilt. Upon some they poured water into a cloth previously secured round their necks and shoulders, until suffocation ensued; others were tortured with lighted matches, and torches applied to the most tender and sensible parts of the body. But I will not pollute my page with this monstrous and disgusting detail. Upon confessions, inconsistent with each other, with common sense and ordinary probability, extorted also by torments of the mind or body, or both, Captain Gabriel Towerson, and nine other English merchants of consideration, were executed; and, to add insult to atrocity, the bloody cloth, on which Towerson kneeled at his death, was put down to the account of the English Company. The reader may find the whole history in the second volume of Purchas’s “Pilgrim.” The news of this horrible massacre reached King James, while he was negociating with the Dutch concerning the assistance which they then implored against the Spaniards; and the affairs of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, appeared to render an union with Holland so peremptorily necessary, that the massacre of Amboyna was allowed to remain unrevenged.
But the Dutch war, which was declared in 1672, the o
bject of which seems to have been the annihilation of the United Provinces as an independent state, a century sooner than Providence had decreed that calamitous event, met with great opposition in England, and every engine was put to work to satisfy the people of the truth of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury’s averment, that the “States of Holland were England’s eternal enemies, both by interest and inclination.” Dryden, with the avowed intention of exasperating the nation against the Dutch, assumed from choice, or by command, the unpromising subject of the Amboyna massacre as the foundation of the following play. Exclusive of the horrible nature of the subject, the colours are laid on too thick to produce the desired effect. The monstrous caricatures, which are exhibited as just paintings of the Dutch character, unrelieved even by the grandeur of wickedness, and degraded into actual brutality, must have produced disgust, instead of an animated hatred and detestation. For the horrible spectacle of tortures and mangled limbs exhibited on the stage, the author might plead the custom of his age. A stage direction in Ravenscroft’s alteration of “Titus Andronicus,” bears, “A curtain drawn, discovers the heads and hands of Demetrius and Chiron hanging up against the wall; their bodies in chairs, in bloody linen.” And in an interlude, called the “Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru,” written by D’Avenant, “a doleful pavin is played to prepare the change of the scene, which represents a dark prison at a great distance; and farther to the view are discerned racks and other engines of torment, with which the Spaniards are tormenting the natives and English mariners, who may be supposed to be lately landed there to discover the coast. Two Spaniards are likewise discovered sitting in their cloaks, and appearing more solemn in ruffs, with rapiers and daggers by their sides; the one turning a spit, while the other is basting an Indian prince, who is roasted at an artificial fire.” The rape of Isabinda is stated by Langbaine to have been borrowed from a novel in the Decamerone of Cinthio Giraldi.
This play is beneath criticism; and I can hardly hesitate to term it the worst production Dryden ever wrote. It was acted and printed in 1673.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
ACT I.
ACT II.
ACT III.
ACT IV.
ACT V.
EPILOGUE
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH.
My Lord,
After so many favours, and those so great, conferred on me by your lordship these many years, — which I may call more properly one continued act of your generosity and goodness, — I know not whether I should appear either more ungrateful in my silence, or more extravagantly vain in my endeavours to acknowledge them: For, since all acknowledgements bear a face of payment, it may be thought, that I have flattered myself into an opinion of being able to return some part of my obligements to you; — the just despair of which attempt, and the due veneration I have for his person, to whom I must address, have almost driven me to receive only with a profound submission the effects of that virtue, which is never to be comprehended but by admiration; and the greatest note of admiration is silence. It is that noble passion, to which poets raise their audience in highest subjects, and they have then gained over them the greatest victory, when they are ravished into a pleasure which is not to be expressed by words. To this pitch, my lord, the sense of my gratitude had almost raised me: to receive your favours, as the Jews of old received their law, with a mute wonder; to think, that the loudness of acclamation was only the praise of men to men, and that the secret homage of the soul was a greater mark of reverence, than an outward ceremonious joy, which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its tumult. Neither, my lord, have I a particular right to pay you my acknowledgements: You have been a good so universal, that almost every man in the three nations may think me injurious to his propriety, that I invade your praises, in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and that I have assumed to myself a patron, who was no more to be circumscribed than the sun and elements, which are of public benefit to human kind.