by John Dryden
But drink deep draughts of love, and lose them all. [Exeunt Tor. with the Queen.
Raym. No matter yet, he has my hook within him.
Now let him frisk and flounce, and run and roll,
And think to break his hold; he toils in vain.
This love, the bait he gorged so greedily,
Will make him sick, and then I have him sure.
Enter Alphonso and Pedro.
Alph. Brother, there’s news from Bertran; he desires
Admittance to the king, and cries aloud, —
This day shall end our fears of civil war! —
For his safe conduct he entreats your presence,
And begs you would be speedy.
Raym. Though I loath
The traitor’s sight, I’ll go. Attend us here.[Exit.
Enter Gomez, Elvira, Dominick, with Officers, to make the Stage as full as possible.
Ped. Why, how now, Gomez? what mak’st thou here, with a whole brotherhood of city-bailiffs? Why, thou look’st like Adam in Paradise, with his guard of beasts about him.
Gom. Ay, and a man had need of them, Don Pedro; for here are the two old seducers, a wife and priest, — that’s Eve and the serpent, — at my elbow.
Dom. Take notice how uncharitably he talks of churchmen.
Gom. Indeed, you are a charitable belswagger! My wife cried out,— “Fire, fire!” and you brought out your church-buckets, and called for engines to play against it.
Alph. I am sorry you are come hither to accuse your wife; her education has been virtuous, her nature mild and easy.
Gom. Yes! she’s easy, with a vengeance; there’s a certain colonel has found her so.
Alph. She came a spotless virgin to your bed.
Gom. And she’s a spotless virgin still for me — she’s 478 never the worse for my wearing, I’ll take my oath on’t. I have lived with her with all the innocence of a man of threescore, like a peaceable bed-fellow as I am.
Elv. Indeed, sir, I have no reason to complain of him for disturbing of my sleep.
Dom. A fine commendation you have given yourself; the church did not marry you for that.
Ped. Come, come, your grievances, your grievances.
Dom. Why, noble sir, I’ll tell you.
Gom. Peace, friar! and let me speak first. I am the plaintiff. Sure you think you are in the pulpit, where you preach by hours.
Dom. And you edify by minutes.
Gom. Where you make doctrines for the people, and uses and applications for yourselves.
Ped. Gomez, give way to the old gentleman in black.
Gom. No! the t’other old gentleman in black shall take me if I do; I will speak first! — Nay, I will, friar, for all your verbum sacerdotis. I’ll speak truth in few words, and then you may come afterwards and lie by the clock as you use to do. — For, let me tell you, gentlemen, he shall lie and forswear himself with any friar in all Spain; that’s a bold word now. —
Dom. Let him alone; let him alone; I shall fetch him back with a circum-bendibus, I warrant him.
Alph. Well, what have you to say against your wife, Gomez?
Gom. Why, I say, in the first place, that I and all men are married for our sins, and that our wives are a judgment; that a batchelor-cobler is a happier man than a prince in wedlock; that we are all visited 479 with a household plague, and, Lord have mercy upon us should be written on all our doors.
Dom. Now he reviles marriage, which is one of the seven blessed sacraments.
Gom. ’Tis liker one of the seven deadly sins: but make your best on’t, I care not; ’tis but binding a man neck and heels, for all that. But, as for my wife, that crocodile of Nilus, she has wickedly and traitorously conspired the cuckoldom of me, her anointed sovereign lord; and, with the help of the aforesaid friar, whom heaven confound, and with the limbs of one colonel Hernando, cuckold-maker of this city, devilishly contrived to steal herself away, and under her arm feloniously to bear one casket of diamonds, pearls, and other jewels, to the value of 30,000 pistoles. — Guilty, or not guilty? how sayest thou, culprit?
Dom. False and scandalous! Give me the book. I’ll take my corporal oath point-blank against every particular of this charge.
Elv. And so will I.
Dom. As I was walking in the streets, telling my beads, and praying to myself, according to my usual custom, I heard a foul out-cry before Gomez’ portal; and his wife, my penitent, making doleful lamentations: thereupon, making what haste my limbs would suffer me, that are crippled with often kneeling, I saw him spurning and listing her most unmercifully; whereupon, using Christian arguments with him to desist, he fell violently upon me, without respect to my sacerdotal orders, pushed me from him, and turned me about with a finger 480 and a thumb, just as a man would set up a top. Mercy! quoth I. — Damme! quoth he; — and still continued labouring me, until a good-minded colonel came by, whom, as heaven shall save me, I had never seen before.
Gom. O Lord! O Lord!
Dom. Ay, and O lady! O lady too! — I redouble my oath, I had never seen him. Well, this noble colonel, like a true gentleman, was for taking the weaker part, you may be sure; whereupon this Gomez flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado upon bastinado, and buffet upon buffet, which the poor meek colonel, being prostrate, suffered with a most Christian patience.
Gom. Who? he meek? I’m sure I quake at the very thought of him; why, he’s as fierce as Rhodomont; he made assault and battery upon my person, beat me into all the colours of the rainbow; and every word this abominable priest has uttered is as false as the Alcoran. But if you want a thorough-paced liar, that will swear through thick and thin, commend me to a friar.
Enter Lorenzo, who comes behind the Company, and stands at his Fathers back unseen, over-against Gomez.
Lor. How now! What’s here to do? my cause a trying, as I live, and that before my own father. — Now fourscore take him for an old bawdy magistrate, that stands like the picture of madam Justice, with a pair of scales in his hand, to weigh lechery by ounces!
[Aside.
Alph. Well — but all this while, who is this colonel Hernando?
Gom. He’s the first begotten of Beelzebub, with a face as terrible as Demogorgon.
[Lorenzo peeps over Alphonso’s Head, and stares at Gomez.
No! I lie, I lie. He’s a very proper handsome fellow! well proportioned, and clean shaped, with a face like a cherubin.
Ped. What, backward and forward, Gomez! dost thou hunt counter?
Alph. Had this colonel any former design upon your wife? for, if that be proved, you shall have justice.
Gom. [Aside.] Now I dare speak, — let him look as dreadfully as he will. — I say, sir, and I will prove it, that he had a lewd design upon her body, and attempted to corrupt her honesty.
[Lorenzo lifts up his fist clenched at him.
I confess my wife was as willing — as himself; and, I believe, ’twas she corrupted him; for I have known him formerly a very civil and modest person.
Elv. You see, sir, he contradicts himself at every word; he’s plainly mad.
Alph. Speak boldly, man! and say what thou wilt stand by: did he strike thee?
Gom. I will speak boldly; he struck me on the face before my own threshold, that the very walls cried shame to him.
[Lorenzo holds up again.
’Tis true, I gave him provocation, for the man’s as peaceable a gentleman as any is in all Spain.
Dom. Now the truth comes out, in spite of him.
Ped. I believe the friar has bewitched him.
Alph. For my part, I see no wrong that has been offered him.
Gom. How? no wrong? why, he ravished me, with the help of two soldiers, carried me away vi et 482 armis, and would put me into a plot against government.
[Lorenzo holds up again.
I confess, I never could endure the government, because it was tyrannical; but my sides and shoulders are black and blue, as I can strip and show the marks of them
.
[LORENZO again.
But that might happen, too, by a fall that I got yesterday upon the pebbles.[All laugh.
Dom. Fresh straw, and a dark chamber; a most manifest judgment! there never comes better of railing against the church.
Gom. Why, what will you have me say? I think you’ll make me mad: truth has been at my tongue’s end this half hour, and I have not power to bring it out, for fear of this bloody-minded colonel.
Alph. What colonel?
Gom. Why, my colonel — I mean my wife’s colonel, that appears there to me like my malus genius, terrifies me.
Alph. [Turning.] Now you are mad indeed, Gomez; this is my son Lorenzo.
Gom. How? your son Lorenzo! it is impossible.
Alph. As true as your wife Elvira is my daughter.
Lor. What, have I taken all this pains about a sister?
Gom. No, you have taken some about me; I am sure, if you are her brother, my sides can show the tokens of our alliance.
Alph. to Lor. You know I put your sister into a nunnery, with a strict command not to see you, for fear you should have wrought upon her to have taken the habit, which was never my intention; and consequently, I married her without your knowledge, that it might not be in your power to prevent it.
Elv. You see, brother, I had a natural affection to you.
Lor. What a delicious harlot have I lost! Now, pox upon me, for being so near a-kin to thee!
Elv. However, we are both beholden to friar Dominick; the church is an indulgent mother, she never fails to do her part.
Dom. Heavens! what will become of me?
Gom. Why, you are not like to trouble heaven; those fat guts were never made for mounting.
Lor. I shall make bold to disburden him of my hundred pistoles, to make him the lighter for his journey: indeed, ’tis partly out of conscience, that I may not be accessory to his breaking his vow of poverty.
Alph. I have no secular power to reward the pains you have taken with my daughter; but I shall do it by proxy, friar: your bishop’s my friend, and is too honest to let such as you infect a cloister.
Gom. Ay, do, father-in-law, let him be stript of his habit, and disordered. — I would fain see him walk in querpo, like a cased rabbit, without his holy fur upon his back, that the world may once behold the inside of a friar.
Dom. Farewell, kind gentlemen; I give you all my blessing before I go. — May your sisters, wives, and daughters, be so naturally lewd, that they may have no occasion for a devil to tempt, or a friar to pimp for them.
[Exeunt, with a rabble pushing him.
Enter Torrismond, Leonora, Bertran, Raymond, Teresa, &c.
Tor. He lives! he lives! my royal father lives!
Let every one partake the general joy.
Some angel with a golden trumpet sound,
King Sancho lives! and let the echoing skies
From pole to pole resound, king Sancho lives! —
Bertran, oh! no more my foe, but brother;
One act like this blots out a thousand crimes.
Bert. Bad men, when ’tis their interest, may do good.
I must confess, I counselled Sancho’s murder;
And urged the queen by specious arguments:
But, still suspecting that her love was changed,
I spread abroad the rumour of his death,
To sound the very soul of her designs.
The event, you know, was answering to my fears;
She threw the odium of the fact on me,
And publicly avowed her love to you.
Raym. Heaven guided all, to save the innocent.
Bert. I plead no merit, but a bare forgiveness.
Tor. Not only that, but favour. Sancho’s life,
Whether by virtue or design preserved,
Claims all within my power.
Leo. My prayers are heard;
And I have nothing farther to desire,
But Sancho’s leave to authorise our marriage.
Tor. Oh! fear not him! pity and he are one;
So merciful a king did never live;
Loth to revenge, and easy to forgive.
But let the bold conspirator beware,
For heaven makes princes its peculiar care.[Exeunt.
EPILOGUE.
BY A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR’S.
There’s none, I’m sure, who is a friend to love,
But will our Friar’s character approve:
The ablest spark among you sometimes needs
Such pious help, for charitable deeds.
Our church, alas! (as Rome objects) does want
These ghostly comforts for the falling saint:
This gains them their whore-converts, and may be
One reason of the growth of popery.
So Mahomet’s religion came in fashion,
By the large leave it gave to fornication.
Fear not the guilt, if you can pay for’t well;
There is no Dives in the Roman Hell:
Gold opens the strait gate, and lets him in;
But want of money is a mortal sin.
For all besides you may discount to heaven,
And drop a bead to keep the tallies even.
How are men cozened still with shows of good!
The bawd’s best mask is the grave friar’s hood;
Though vice no more a clergyman displeases,
Than doctors can be thought to hate diseases.
’Tis by your living ill, that they live well,
By your debauches, their fat paunches swell.
’Tis a mock-war between the priest and devil;
When they think fit, they can be very civil.
As some, who did French counsels most advance,
To blind the world, have railed in print at France,
Thus do the clergy at your vices bawl,
That with more ease they may engross them all.
By damning yours, they do their own maintain;
A churchman’s godliness is always gain:
Hence to their prince they will superior be;
And civil treason grows church loyalty.
They boast the gift of heaven is in their power;
Well may they give the god, they can devour!
Still to the sick and dead their claims they lay;
For ’tis on carrion that the vermin prey.
Nor have they less dominion on our life,
They trot the husband, and they pace the wife.
Rouse up, you cuckolds of the northern climes,
And learn from Sweden to prevent such crimes.
Unman the Friar, and leave the holy drone
To hum in his forsaken hive alone;
He’ll work no honey, when his sting is gone.
Your wives and daughters soon will leave the cells,
When they have lost the sound of Aaron’s bells.
THE DUKE OF GUISE
A TRAGEDY.
Ουτως δε φιλοτιμοι φυσεις εν ταις πολιτειαις το αγαν μη φυλαξαμεναι, τωι
αγαθου μειζον το κακον εχουσι.
Plutarch. in Agesilao.
In the latter part of Charles the Second’s reign, the stage, as well as every other engine which could affect the popular mind, was eagerly employed in the service of the contending factions. Settle and Shadwell had, in tragedy and comedy, contributed their mite to the support of the popular cause. In the stormy session of parliament, in 1680, the famous bill was moved, for the exclusion of the Duke of York, as a papist, from the succession, and accompanied by others of a nature equally peremptory and determined. The most remarkable was a bill to order an association for the safety of his majesty’s person, for defence of the protestant religion, for the preservation of the protestant liege subjects against invasion and opposition, and for preventing any papist from succeeding to the throne of England. To recommend these rigid measures, and to keep up that zealous hatred and terror of the catholic re
ligion, which the plot had inspired, Settle wrote his forgotten tragedy of “Pope Joan,” in which he revives the old fable of a female pope, and loads her with all the crimes of which a priest, or a woman, could possibly be guilty. Shadwell’s comedy of the “Lancashire Witches” was levelled more immediately at the papists, but interspersed with most gross and scurrilous reflections upon the English divines of the high church party. Otway, Lee, and Dryden were the formidable antagonists, whom the court opposed to the whig poets. Thus arrayed and confronted, the stage absolutely foamed with politics; the prologues and epilogues, in particular formed channels, through which the tenets of the opposite parties were frequently assailed, and the persons of their leaders and their poets exposed to scandal and derision.
In the middle of these political broils, Dryden was called upon, as he informs us, by Lee, to return the assistance which that poet had afforded in composing “Œdipus.” The history of the Duke of Guise had formerly occupied his attention, as an acceptable subject to the court after the Restoration. A League, formed under pretence of religion, and in defence of the king’s authority, against his person, presented facilities of application to the late civil wars, to which, we may be sure, our poet was by no 004 means insensible. But however apt these allusions might have been in 1665, the events which had taken place in 1681-2 admitted of a closer parallel, and excited a deeper interest. The unbounded power which Shaftesbury had acquired in the city of London, and its state of factious fermentation, had been equalled by nothing but the sway exercised by the leaders of the League in the metropolis of France. The intrigues by which the Council of Sixteen placed and displaced, flattered or libelled, those popular officers of Paris, whom the French call echevins, admitted of a direct and immediate comparison with the contest between the court and the whigs, for the election of the sheriffs of London; contests which attained so great violence, that, at one time, there was little reason to hope they would have terminated without bloodshed. The tumultuous day of the barricades, when Henry the second, after having in vain called in the assistance of his guards, was obliged to abandon his capital to the Duke of Guise and his faction, and assemble the states of his kingdom at Blois, was not entirely without a parallel in the annals of 1681. The violence of the parliament at London had led to its dissolution; and, in order to insure the tractability of their successors, they were assembled, by the king, at Oxford, where a concurrence of circumstances rendered the royal authority more paramount than in any other city of the kingdom. To this parliament the members came in an array, which more resembled the parliament of the White Bands, in the reign of Edward the second, than any that had since taken place. Yet, though armed, and attended by their retainers and the more ardent of their favourers, the leaders of opposition expressed their apprehensions of danger from the royal party. The sixteen whig peers, in their memorable petition against this removal, complained, that the parliament would at Oxford be exposed to the bloody machinations of the papists and their adherents, “of whom too many had crept into his majesty’s guards.” The aid of ballads and libellous prints was called in, to represent this alteration of the usual place of meeting as a manœuvre to throw the parliament, its members, and its votes, at the feet of an arbitrary monarch. It is probable that this meeting, 005 which rather resembled a Polish diet than a British parliament, would not have separated without some signal, and perhaps bloody catastrophe, if the political art of Halifax, who was at the head of the small moderate party, called Trimmers, joined to the reluctance of either faction to commence hostilities against an enemy as fully prepared as themselves, had not averted so eminent a crisis. 006 In all particulars, excepting the actual assassination, the parliament of Oxford resembled the assembly of the States General at Blois. The general character of the Duke of Monmouth certainly had not many points of similarity to that of the Duke of Guise; but in one particular incident his conduct had been formed on that model, and it is an incident which makes a considerable figure in 007 the tragedy. In September l679, after the king’s illness, Monmouth was disgraced, and obliged to leave the kingdom. He retired to Holland, where he resided until the intrigues of Shaftesbury assured him the support of a party so strongly popular, that he might return, in open defiance of the court. In the November following, he conceived his presence necessary to animate his partizans; and, without the king’s permission for his return, he embarked at the Brill, and landed at London on the 27th, at midnight, where the tumultuous rejoicings of the popular party more than compensated for the obscurity of his departure. This 008 bold step was, in all its circumstances, very similar to the return of the Duke of Guise from his government to Paris, against the express command of Henry the second, together with his reception by the populace, whom he came prepared to head in insurrection. Above all, the bill of exclusion bore a striking resemblance to the proceedings of the League against the King of Navarre, presumptive heir of the throne, whom, on account of his attachment to the protestant faith, they threatened to deprive of the succession.