One that adores him, with no less zeal
Then rich men gold, or true religious heaven.
Dissemble cunningly, and thou shalt prove
The minion of my thoughts, friend to my love. Exit.
Lorrique. Well sir, ne’er fear me. This is an excellent fellow, a true villain fitter for me than better company: this is Hans Hoffman’s son that stole down his father’s anatomy from the
100 gallows at Luningberg. Ay, ’tis the same! Upon the dead skull there’s the iron crown that burnt his brains out. What will come of this I neither know nor care; but here comes my lord.
Enter Otho.
How cheers my most noble, most honourable, my most gracious: yea, my most grieved prince?
Otho. A fearful storm.
Lorrique. And full of horror.
Otho. Trust me Lorrique; besides the inly grief
That swallows my content when I perceive
110 How greedily the fierce, unpitying sea and waves
Devoured our friends, another trouble grieves my vexed eyes:
With ghastly apparitions, strange aspects,
Which either I do certainly behold,
Or else my soul, divining some sad fate,
Fills my imaginary powers with shapes
Hideous and horrid.
Lorrique. My lord, let your heart have no commerce with that mart of idle imaginations, rouse up your nobleness to apprehend comfort, kindness, ease and what otherwise
120 entertained in so solitary a place as this, can the ancient subject of the state of Luningberg collect – ’tis, I take it, the son to that vice-admiral that turned a terrible pirate!
Otho. Let us turn back into the sea again
Yielding our bodies to the ruthless sound
That hath divided us and our late friends,
Rather than see choice Hoffman.
Lorrique. courage, brave Otho, he’ll use thee kindly.
Enter Hoffman.
Here he comes: sweet host, here is the duke’s heir of Luning-berg. Do homage, and after entertain him and me his
130 follower with the most conspictious pleasures that lies in thy poor hability.
Hoffman. Before I speak to my most sacred lord,
I join my soft lips to the solid earth,
And with an honoured benison I bless
The hour, the place, the time of your arrive.
For now my savage life, led amongst beasts,
Shall be turned civil by your gracious help.
Otho. I see thy true heart’s love drop down in tears
And this embrace shows I am free from fears.
140 My disturbed blood runs smoothly through my veins
And I am bold to call thee friend, bold to entreat
Food – for by wreck I have lost ship, friends and meat.
Hoffman. You that attend my lord, enter the cave:
Bring forth the homely cakes these hands prepared,
While I entreat his excellence sit down.
Villain, bring nothing but a burning crown.
Exit [Lorrique].
Otho. What’s that thou bidst him bring, a burning crown?
Hoffman. Still you suspect my harmless innocence.
What, though your father with the Pomer state
150 And your just uncle, duke of Prussia,
After my father had in thirty fights
Filled all their treasures with foemen’s spoils,
And paid poor soldiers from his treasury;
What though for this his merits he was named
A proscript outlaw for a little debt,
compelled to fly into the Belgic sound
And live a pirate?
Otho. Prithee speak no more:
Thou raisest new doubts in my troubled heart,
160 By repetition of thy father’s wrongs.
Hoffman. Then he was wronged, you grant, but not by you:
You, virtuous gentleman,
Sat like a just judge of the under-shades,
And with an unchanged Rhadamantine look,
Beheld the flesh, mangled with many scars,
Pared from the bones of my offended father.
And when he was a bare anatomy,
You saw him chained unto the common gallows.
Otho. Hoffman –
170 Hoffman. Nay hear me patiently, kind lord.
My innocent youth, as guilty of his sin,
Was in a dungeon hidden from the sun,
And there I was condemned to endless night
Except I passed my vow never to steal
My father’s fleshless bones from that base tree.
I know not who it was, I guess your mother,
She kneeled and wept for me, but you did not,
Beseeching from that vow I might be freed;
Then did I swear if nation’s sovereign power
180 compelled me to take down those chains,
Never entomb them, but immediately
Remove them from that gallows to a tree.
I kept mine oath: look Luningberg, ’tis done
Behold a father hanged up by his son!
Otho. O, horrible aspect: murderer stand off!
I know thou mean’st me wrong.
Hoffman. My lord, behold these precious twins of light
Burnt out by day, eclipsed when as the sun
For shame obscured himself this deed was done;
190 Where none but screech owls sing, thou receptacle,
Thou organ of the soul.
Rest, go rest, and you most lovely couplets,
Legs and arms reside, for ever here.
This is my last farewell. What, do you weep?
Otho. Oh lorrique, I am betrayed! Slave, touch me not.
Hoffman. Not touch thee? yes, and thus trip down thy pride:
You placed my father in a chair of state.
This earth shall be your throne. Villain, come forth.
Enter lorrique [with burning crown].
And as thou mean’st to save thy forfeit life,
200 Fix on thy master’s head my burning crown,
While in these cords I in eternal bands
Bind fast his base and coward trembling hands.
Otho. lorrique, art thou turned villain to my life?
Lorrique. I’ll turn anything sir, rather than nothing, I was taken; life promised to betray you, and I love life so well, that I would not lose it for a kingdom, for a king’s crown, an empire.
Hoffman. On with the crown.
Otho. O torture above measure!
210 Hoffman. My father felt this pain, when thou hadst pleasure.
Otho. Thy father died for piracy.
Hoffman. Oh peace, had he been judge himself, he would have showed
He had been clearer than the crystal morn!
But wretches sentenced never find defence,
How ever guiltless be their innocence.
No more did he, no more shalt thou, no ruth
Pitied his winter age, none helps thy youth.
Otho. O, lorrique torture! I feel an Etna burn
Within my brains, and all my body else
220 Is like a hall of ice; all these Belgic seas
That now surround us cannot quench this flame.
Death like a tyrant seizeth me unawares;
My sinews shrink like leaves parched with the sun;
My blood dissolves, veins and tendons fail;
Each part’s disjointed, and my breath expires!
Mount soul to heaven, my body burns in fire. [He dies.]
Lorrique. He’s gone.
Hoffman. Go, let him. Come, lorrique:
This but the prologue to the ensuing play,
230 The first step to revenge. This scene is done
Father, I offer thee thy murderer’s son. Exeunt.
[Act 1
Scene 2]
Flourish. Enter Ferdinand, Rodorick, lodowick, Mathias, lucibel, Jerome, Stilt, attendants.
Ferdinand. Prince
s of Saxony and Austria,
Though your own words are of sufficient weight
To justify the honourable love borne by lodowick to bright lucibel,
Yet since your parents live and as I hear
There is between them some dissension,
Blame us not for detaining you thus long
Till we had notice how the business stood.
Lodowick. Your royal entertain, great Ferdinand,
Exceeding expectation in our stay,
10 Bind us to thanks, and if my brother please
To hold his challenge for a tournament
In praise of lucibella’s excellence,
No doubt our father and the Austrian duke
Will be in person at so royal sport.
Ferdinand. We trust they will.
Rodorick. I do assure your grace,
The Austrian and the duke of Saxony –
By true report of pilgrims at my cell –
From either of their courts set hitherward
20 Some six days hence.
Ferdinand. Thanks Rodorick, for this news.
They are more welcome than the sad discourse
Of luningberg our nephew’s timeless wreck,
Which addeth sorrow to the mourning griefs
Abound in us for our duchess’ death.
Jerome. Ay truly, princes: my father has had but hard luck since your coming to his court. For aught I know you are bred of ill weather, come before you are sent for. Yet, if my most gracious father say you are welcome, I his more gracious son
30 take you by the hands; though I can tell you my mother’s death comes somewhat near my heart; but I am a prince, and princes have power more than common people to subdue their passions.
Mathias. We know your worthiness is experienced in all true wisdom.
Jerome. True, I am no fool, I have been at Wittenberg, where wit grows.
Ferdinand. Peace, thou unshapen honour, my state’s shame
My age’s corsive, and my black sins’ curse!
40 Oh hadst thou never been, I had been then
A happy childless man; now among men
I am the most unhappy, one that knows
No end of mine and of my people’s woes.
I tell you, princess, and most gracious maid:
I do not wear these sable ornaments
For Isabella’s death, though she were dear,
Nor are my eyelids overflown with tears,
For Otho at luningberg, wrecked in the sound,
Though he were all my hope; but here’s my care:
50 A witless fool must needs be Prussia’s heir.
Jerome.Well, and you were not my father, – ’snails, and I would not draw rather than put up the fool, would I might never win this lady at tilt and tournament. As knights, I defy you both, for her; even you, lodowick, that loves her, and your brother that loves you. look to me: Stilt and I have practised these two days: ’snails – God forgive me to swear, she shall not be carried away so.
Mathias. We are glad to hear your grace so resolute.
Jerome. As I am a prince, and a duke’s heir, though I say it
60 myself, I am as full of resolution as the proudest of you all.
Lucibella. I thank Prince lodowick, he has bound my youth
To be the conqueror’s prize, and if my stars
Allot me to be yours, I will be proud:
For howsoe’er you seem not fashioned
Like many cunning courtiers, I protest,
By some small love I bear thee in mine eye,
You’re worthy beauty, wealth and dignity.
Jerome. Heart, you would not unhorse Hercules for her, father? I’ll practise again at Dantzig, you say in the duke’s mead? I’ll
70 meet thee, Mathias: there’s my glove for a gauntlet. Though my father count me a fool, you shall find me none.
Exit.
Enter lorrique.
Lorrique. Health to the right gracious, generous, virtuous, and valorous Ferdinand, duke of Prussia.
Ferdinand. Hermit, dost thou not know this young man’s face?
Is’t not lorrique, that met us at thy cell
With letters from our brother luningberg?
Rodorick. It is that gentleman.
Lorrique.I am no less.
Ferdinand. Thou said’st thou wast my nephew’s playfellow,
80 Appointed to await his virtuous person.
How is it then thou wert so ill advised
To take the land-way, and forsake thy lord?
Whom I have never seen, nor never may,
Though in his life my hope and comfort lay.
Lorrique. Be it known, right gracious: lorrique had never so little grace, as to leave his loved lord for weather or water, for torture or fire, for death or for life since I first came to move in a pilgrim’s proportion – much disguised, being so proper a man – but only for these six words: that I was sent
90 wholly to give notice of his coming.
Ferdinand. But thou hast left him now sunk in the sea.
Lorrique. I left the ship sunk, and his highness saved. For when all hope had left, master and pilot, sailor and swabber, I caused my lord to leap into the cock. And for fear she should be sunk with too much company, I capered out, and cut the cable. ‘Rouse!’ quoth the ship against the rocks; ‘Roomer!’ cry I in the cock: my lord wept for the company; I laughed to comfort him. last, by the power of heaven, goodness of stars, kindness of winds, mercy of the waves, our cock and
100 we were cast ashore under Resshopscur, we clambered up.
But, having ’scaped drowning, were in danger of killing –
Ferdinand. What there betided you?
Lorrique. Marry, my lord: a young villain, son of a damned pirate, a maid ravisher.
Ferdinand. Be brief: what was he?
Lorrique. Clois Hoffman.
Ferdinand. Oh my heart! Did the false rebel hurt his sovereign’s son?
Lorrique. No my lord, the prince so houghed and hoffed him,
110 that he had no other help but to his heels; then I, my good lord, being roe-footed, outstripped him in running, tripped him by strength, and in fine, finely cut’s throat.
Ferdinand. Where is the villain’s body?
Lorrique. Marry, even heaved over the scar, and sent a-swimming toward Burtholme, his old habitation; if it be not intercepted by some seal, shark, sturgeon or suchlike.
Ferdinand. Where is our nephew?
Lorrique. He intends to stay at the same hermitage where I saluted your excellence, with news of my lord’s excellency’s
120 intent, to visit you: for that his apparel is somewhat seasick, and he wants shift.
Ferdinand. A chariot, and rich robes attend lorrique.
And for his reward be thirteen hundred dollars,
For he hath driven dolour from our heart.
Princes and princess, in your kindest love,
Attend our person to the hermitage,
Where we shall meet the heir of two great states:
Rich luningberg and warlike Prussia.
Otho living, we’ll disinherit our fond son,
130 And bless all Dantzig, by our son elect.
Hermit, you have at home a guest of ours,
Your little cell is a great prince’s court:
Had you been there to entertain young Otho,
He would have took your welcome thankfully,
Where now he mourns, for want of company.
Rodorick. I will go on before my gracious lord.
Ferdinand. Nay, I am jealous of my approaching joy,
And fearful any eye but mine should gain
The pleasure of my glad divining soul.
140 Forward come all, in my delight take part;
He that’s now glad, adds joy to gladness’ heart. Exeunt.
[Act 1
Scene 3]
Enter Clois Hoffman [and reveals the skeleton].
Hoffman. If there live e’er a surgeon that dare say<
br />
He could do better, I’ll play Mercury,
And like fond Marsyas flay the quacksalver.
There were a sort of filthy mountebanks,
Expert in nothing but in idle words,
Made a day’s work with their incision knives
On my oppressed poor father, silly man;
Thrusting their dastard fingers in his flesh,
That durst not while he lived behold his face.
10 I have fitted my anatomy
In a fair chain too: father, this youth scorned
When he was set in an ascending throne,
To have you stand by him; would he could see
How the case alters! You shall hang by him,
And hang afore him too, for all his pride.
[Hangs up Otho’s skeleton.]
come, image of bare death, join side to side
With my long-injured father’s naked bones.
He was the prologue to a tragedy,
That, if my destinies deny me not,
20 Shall pass those of Thyestes, Tereus,
Jocasta, or duke Jason’s jealous wife.
So shut our stage up: there is one act done,
Ended in Otho’s death; ’twas somewhat single.
I’ll fill the other fuller, if lorrique
That I have late sworn to be murder’s slave,
Swears he will protest me to be Otho,
Whom Prussia his uncle unknown loves;
If I be taken for him, well: oh then!
Sweet vengeance make me happiest of all men.
30 Prussia, I come, as comets against change:
As apparitions before mortal ends.
If thou accept me for thy nephew, so:
Uncle, I’ll uncle thee of thy proud life.
Father farewell, I’ll to the hermitage,
Where if I be received for luningberg,
I will have thy dry bones, sanguined all o’er
With thy foe’s blood. Rhamnusia, help thy priest:
My wrong thou know’st, my willingness thou seest.
Act 2
Scene 1
Enter Jerome and Stilt.
Jerome. come Stilt: bestir your stumps. You know I must be a tilter.
Stilt. Ay, my lord, I know you should be one, but I hope you are not so mad.
Jerome. What, dost thou count it madness to run a tilt?
Stilt. Ay, my lord, for you that cannot fit a hobby, you’ll hardly manage your tilt-horse.
Jerome. Why, they say, Stilt, that stone-mares are gentler, see if thou canst get me one of them.
10 Stilt. Not afore next grass. I could help you now to a stone-mule, a stone-ass.
Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio's Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger's Tragedy (Penguin Classics) Page 25