Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker

by Thomas Dekker

  KING

  Yes, yes, I am, but ’tis no point of weapon

  Can rescue me. Go presently and summon

  All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords

  Of Spain to meet in Council instantly.

  We called you forth to execute a business

  Of another strain - but ’tis no matter now.

  Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow.

  BALTHAZAR

  So, die!

  Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco.

  KING

  I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments

  Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose,

  I’ll practice only counter-charms of fire,

  And blow the spells of lightening into smoke:

  Fetch burning tapers.

  [Exit attendant who returns with light.]

  CARDINAL

  Give me audience, Sir.

  My apprehension opens me a way

  To a close fatal mischief, worse than this

  You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours

  Alone shall give your dangers life, which else

  Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read

  A book here closed up, which too late you opened,

  Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes.

  KING

  Art frantic?

  CARDINAL

  You are so, Sir.

  KING

  If I be,

  Then here’s my first mad fit.

  CARDINAL

  For honour’s sake,

  For love you bear to conscience -

  KING

  Reach the flames:

  Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all

  What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond?

  ALL

  Our hands are to it.

  DAENIA

  ’Tis your confirmed contract

  With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir,

  Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence

  To have it mourn in ashes?

  KING

  Marquis Daenia

  We’ll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak.

  CARDINAL

  Dear Sir!

  KING

  I am deaf,

  Played the full concert of the spheres unto me

  Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch

  Who would dry up the tree of all Spain’s glories,

  But that I purge her sorceries by fire.

  [Burns contract.]

  Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles

  Now laugh at me if I have been deceived

  By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father,

  Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal

  Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury?

  CARDINAL

  Fury indeed, you give it proper name.

  What have you done? Closed up a festering wound

  Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon,

  Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote,

  You thrust the eye clean out.

  KING

  Th’art mad ex tempore:

  What eye? Which is that wound?

  CARDINAL

  That scroll, which now

  You make the black indenture of your lust

  Although eat up in flames, is printed here,

  In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it,

  In all that ever did but hear ’twas yours.

  The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon

  Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift

  Which gives your sin a flame greater than that

  You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire,

  Cast Oil upon it.

  KING

  Oil to blood shall turn,

  I’ll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn.

  Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain.

  DAENIA

  He’s mad with rage or joy.

  ALBA

  With both; with rage

  To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy

  Because he hopes his contract is cut off,

  Which divine justice more exemplifies.

  Enter Medina.

  MEDINA

  Where’s the King?

  DAENIA

  Wrapped up in clouds of lightning.

  MEDINA

  What has he done? Saw you the contract torn?

  As I did here a minion swear he threatened.

  ALBA

  He tore it not, but burned it.

  MEDINA

  Openly!

  DAENIA

  And heaven with us to witness.

  MEDINA

  Well, that fire

  Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom.

  ALBA

  Meet and consult.

  MEDINA

  No more, trust not the air

  With our projections, let us all revenge

  Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman.

  Action is honours language, swords are tongues,

  Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs.

  Exeunt.

  ACT II SCENE 2

  ENTER ONAELIA FROM one way, Cornego another.

  CORNEGO

  Madam, there’s a bear without to speak with you

  ONAELIA

  A bear?

  CORNEGO

  It’s a man all hair, and that’s as bad.

  ONAELIA

  Who is it?

  CORNEGO

  ’Tis one Master Captain Balthazar.

  ONAELIA

  I do not know that Balthazar.

  CORNEGO He desires to see you: and if you love a water-spaniel before he be shorn, see him.

  ONAELIA

  Let him come in.

  Enter Balthazar.

  CORNEGO

  Hist; a duck, a duck. There she is, Sir.

  BALTHAZAR

  A soldier’s good wish bless you lady.

  ONAELIA

  Good wishes are most welcome Sir, to me,

  So many bad ones blast me.

  BALTHAZAR

  Do you not know me?

  ONAELIA

  I scarce know myself.

  BALTHAZAR I have been at tennis Madam, with the king. I gave him fifteen and all his faults, which is much, and now I come to toss a ball with you.

  ONAELIA

  I am bandied too much up and down already.

  CORNEGO

  Yes, she has been struck under line, master soldier.

  BALTHAZAR

  I conceit you, dare you trust yourself alone with me?

  ONAELIA

  I have been laden with such weights of wrong

  That heavier cannot press me. Hence Cornego.

  CORNEGO

  Hence Cornego? Stay Captain? When man and woman are put together,

  Some egg of villainy is sure to be sat upon.

  Exit Cornego.

  BALTHAZAR What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured?

  ONAELIA

  Oh, I would Crown him

  With thanks, praise, gold and tender of my life.

  BALTHAZAR Shall I be that German fencer, and beat all the knocking boys before me? Shall I kill him?

  ONAELIA

  There’s music in the tongue that dares but speak it.

  BALTHAZAR That fiddle then is in me, this arm can do it, by poniard, poison or pistol: but shall I do it indeed?

  ONAELIA

  One step to human bliss is sweet revenge.

  BALTHAZAR

  Stay. What made you love him?

  ONAELIA

  His most goodly shape

  Married to royal virtues of his mind.

  BALTHAZAR Yet now you would divorce all that goodness; and why? For a little lechery of revenge? It’s a lie. The burr that sticks in your throat is a throne. Let him out of his mess of kingdoms cut out but one,
and lay Sicily, Aragon or Naples or any else upon your trencher , and you will praise bastard for the sweetest wine in the world, and call for another quart of it. ’Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be that mads you. A she- cuckold is an untameable monster.

  ONAELIA

  Monster of men thou are, thou bloody villain,

  Traitor to him who never injured thee.

  Dost thou profess arms, and art bound in honour

  To stand up like a brazen wall to guard

  Thy king and country, and would’st thou ruin both?

  BALTHAZAR

  You spur me on to it.

  ONAELIA

  True;

  Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell

  To murder him who I once loved too well:

  For thou I could run mad, and tear my hair,

  And kill that godless man that turned me vile,

  Though I am cheated by a purjurious Prince

  Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven

  Shakes when the sun beholds it, O yet I’d rather

  Ten thousand poisoned poniards stab my breast

  Than one should touch his. Bloody slave! I’ll play

  Myself the hangman, and will butcher thee

  If thou but prickest his finger.

  BALTHAZAR Sayest thou me so! Give me thy goll , thou are a noble girl. I did play the Devil’s part, and roar in a feigned voice, but I am the honestest Devil that ever spat fire. I would not drink that infernal draft of a King’s blood, to go reeling to damnation, for the weight of the world in diamonds.

  ONAELIA

  Art thou not counterfeit?

  BALTHAZAR

  Now by my scars I am not.

  ONAELIA

  I’ll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee

  To be an often visitant.

  BALTHAZAR

  Your servant,

  Yet must I be a stone upon a hill,

  For thou I do no good, I’ll not lie still.

  Exeunt.

  ACT III SCENE ONE

  ENTER MALATESTE AND the Queen.

  MALATESTE

  When first you came from Florence, would the world

  Had with a universal dire eclipse

  Been overwhelmed, no more to gaze on day,

  That you to Spain had never found the way,

  Here to be lost forever.

  QUEEN

  We from one climate

  Drew suspiration . As thou then hast eyes

  To read my wrongs, so be thy head an engine

  To raise up ponderous mischief to the height,

  And then thy hands, the executioners.

  A true Italian spirit is a ball

  Of wild-fire, hurting most when it seems spent.

  Great ships on small rocks, beating oft are rent.

  And so, let Spain by us. But Malateste,

  Why from the presence did you single me

  Into this gallery?

  MALATESTE

  To show you Madam,

  The picture of yourself, but so defaced,

  And mangled by proud Spaniards, it would whet

  A sword to arm the poorest Florentine

  In your just wrongs.

  QUEEN

  As how? Let’s see that picture.

  MALATESTE

  Here ’tis then: time is not scarce four days old,

  Since I, and certain Dons, sharp-witted fellows,

  And of good rank, were with two Jesuits

  Grave profound scholars, in deep argument

  Of various propositions. At the last,

  Question was moved touching your marriage

  And the King’s pre-contract.

  QUEEN

  So, and what followed?

  MALATESTE

  Whether it were a question moved by chance,

  Or spitefully of purpose, I being there,

  And your own Countryman, I cannot tell.

  But when much tossing had bandied both the King

  And you, as pleased those that took up the racquets.

  In conclusion, the Father Jesuits,

  To whose subtle music every ear there

  Was tied, stood with their lives in stiff defence

  Of this opinion - oh pardon me

  If I must speak their language.

  QUEEN

  Say on.

  MALATESTE

  That the most Catholic king in marrying you,

  Keeps you but as his whore.

  QUEEN

  Are we their themes?

  MALATESTE

  And that Medina’s niece, Onaelia,

  Is his true wife. Her bastard son they said

  The King being dead, should claim and wear the crown,

  And whatsoever children you shall bear,

  To be but bastards in the highest degree,

  As being begotten in adultery.

  QUEEN

  We will not grieve at this, but with hot vengeance

  Beat down this armed mischief. Malateste!

  What whirlwinds can we raise to blow this storm

  Back in their faces who thus shoot at me?

  MALATESTE

  If I were fit to be your councillor,

  Thus would I speak - feign that you are with child.

  The mother of the maids, and some worn ladies

  Who oft have guilty being to court great bellies,

  May though it not be so, get you with child

  With swearing that ’tis true.

  QUEEN

  Say ’tis believed,

  Or that it so doth prove?

  MALATESTE

  The joy thereof,

  Together with these earthquakes, which will shake

  All Spain, if they their Prince do disinherit,

  So borne, of such a Queen, being only daughter

  To such a brave spirit as Duke of Florence.

  All this buzzed into the King, he cannot choose

  But charge that all the bells in Spain echo up

  This joy to heaven, that bonfires change the night

  To a high noon, with beams of sparkling flames;

  And that in Churches, organs, charmed with prayers,

  Speak loud for your most safe delivery.

  QUEEN

  What fruits grow out of these?

  MALATESTE

  These; you must stick,

  As here and there spring weeds in banks of flowers,

  Spies amongst the people, who shall lay their ears

  To every mouth, and seal to you their whispering.

  QUEEN

  So.

  MALATESTE

  ’Tis a plummet to sound Spanish hearts

  How deeply they are yours. Besides a guesse

  Is hereby made of any faction

  That shall combine against you, which the King seeing,

  If then he will not rouse him like a dragon

  To guard his golden fleece, and rid his harlot

  And her base bastard hence, either by death,

  Or in some traps of state ensnare them both,

  Let his own ruins crush him.

  QUEEN

  This goes to trial.

  Be thou my magic book, which reading o’er

  Their counterspells we’ll break; or if the King

  Will not by strong hand fix me in his Throne,

  But that I must be held Spain’s blazing star,

  Be it an ominous charm to call up war.

  ACT III SCENE TWO

  ENTER CORNEGO AND Onaelia.

  CORNEGO Here’s a parcel of man’s flesh has been hanging up and down all this morning to speak with you.

  ONAELIA

  Is’t not some executioner?

  CORNEGO

  I see nothing about him to hang in but his garters.

  ONAELIA

  Sent from the King to warn me of my death:

  I prithee bid him welcome.

  CORNEGO

  He says he is
a poet.

  ONAELIA

  Then bid him better welcome.

  Belike he’s come to write my epitaph,

  Some scurvy thing I’ll warrant. Welcome Sir.

  Enter Poet.

  POET

  Madam, my love presents this book unto you.

  ONAELIA

  To me? I am not worthy of a line,

  Unless at that Line hang some hook to choke me:

  [Onaelia reads book.]

  To the Most Honoured Lady - Onaelia.

  Fellow thou liest, I’m most dishonoured:

  Thou should’st have writ to the most wronged Lady.

  The title of this book is not to me,

  I tear it therefore as mine honour’s torn.

  CORNEGO

  Your verses are lamed in some of their feet, Master poet.

  ONAELIA

  What does it treat of?

  POET

  Of the solemn triumphs

  Set forth at coronation of the Queen.

  ONAELIA

  Hissing, the poet’s whirlwind, blast thy lines!

  Com’st thou to mock my tortures with her triumphs?

  POET

  ‘Las Madam!

  ONAELIA

  When her funerals are past,

  Crown thou a dedication to my joys,

  And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse.

  Cornego, burn this idol.

  CORNGO

  Your book shall come to light, Sir.

  Exit Cornego [with book.]

  ONAELIA

  I have read legends of disastrous dames;

  Will none set pen to paper for poor me?

  Canst write a bitter satire? Brainless people

  Do call them libels. Darest thou write a libel?

  POET

  I dare mix gall and poison with my ink.

  ONAELIA

  Do it then for me.

  POET

  And every line must be

  A whip to draw blood.

  ONAELIA

  Better.

  POET

  And to dare

  The stab from him it touches. He that writes

  Such libels, as you call them, must launch wide

  The sores of men’s corruptions, and even search

  To the quick for dead flesh, or for rotten cores:

  A poet’s ink can better cure some sores

  Than surgeon’s balsam.

  ONAELIA

  Undertake that cure

  And crown thy verse with bays.

  POET

  Madam, I’ll do it,

  But I must have the party’s character.

  ONAELIA

  The King.

  POET

  I do not love to pluck the quills,

  With which I make pens, out of a lion’s claw.

  The King! Should I be bitter ‘gainst the King,

  I shall have scurvy ballads made of me,

  Sung to the hanging tune. I dare not, Madam.

  ONAELIA

  This baseness follows your profession.

  You are like common beadles, apt to lash