CAMPEIUS
Name, Campeius.
THIRD KING
[Aside.] Campeius, umh!Capeius?A lucky planet
Strikes out this hour.Capeius!Babylon
His name hath in her tables.On his forehead
Our queen hath set her mark.It is a mold
Fit to cast mischief in.None sooner rent
A church in two than scholars discontent.
I must not lose this martin’s nest.[Aloud.] Once more,
Y’are happily met.
CAMPEIUS
[Aside.] This burr still hangs on me!
[Aloud.] And you, sir.
THIRD KING
Tell me, pray,
Did you never taste — I’m bold — did you ne’er taste
Those clear and redolent fountains that do nourish
In vive and fresh humidity those plants
That grow on t’other side, our opposites,
Those that to us here are th’antipodes,
Clean against us in grounds — you feel me — say
Ne’er drunk you of that nectar?
CAMPEIUS
Never.
THIRD KING
Never!
I wish you had.I gather from your eyes,
What your disease is.I ha’ been yourself;
This was Campeius once, though not so learn’d,
For I was bred, as you, in Fairy Land.
A country!Well, but ’tis our country, and so
Good to breed beggars.She starves arts, fats fools,
She sets up drinking rooms, and pulls down schools.
CAMPEIUS
So, sir.
THIRD KING
No more but so, sir?This discourse
Palates you not.
CAMPEIUS
Yes.
THIRD KING
Nothing hath passed me
I hope, against my country, or the state,
That any can take hold of.
CAMPEIUS
If they could,
’Tis but mine aye, to your no.
THIRD KING
Y’are too sour,
Unmellowed.You stand here in the shade
Out of the warmth of those blest ripening beams.
Go to.I grieve that such a blossom —
CAMPEIUS
Sir, I know you not.This thing which you have raz’d
Affrights me; scholars of weak temper need
To fear, as they on sunbanks lie to read,
Adders i’th’highest grass.These leaves but turn’d
Like willow sticks hard rubb’d may kindle fire,
Cities with sparks as small have oft been burn’d.
THIRD KING
Do you take me for a hangman?
CAMPEIUS
I would be loath,
For any harsh tune that my tongue may warble,
To have the instrument unstrung.
THIRD KING
You shall not.
Welfare unto you.
CAMPEIUS
And to you.A word, sir.
Bred in this country?
THIRD KING
Yes.
CAMPEIUS
I am no bird
To break mine own nest down.What flight soever
Your words make through this air, though it be troubled,
Mine ear, sir, is no reaching fowling piece,
What passes through it, kills.You may proceed.
Perhaps you would wound that.I wish should bleed.
You have th’advantage now.
I put the longest weapon into your hands.
THIRD KING
It shall guard you.
You draw me by this line; let’s private walk.
CAMPEIUS
This path’s unbruis’d.Go on, sir.
THIRD KING
Sir, I love you.
The dragons that keep learning’s golden tree,
As you now have, I fought with, conquered them,
Got to the highest bough, eat of the fruit,
And gathered of the seven-fold leaves of art,
What I desir’d; and yet for all the moons
That I have seen wax old and pine for anger,
I had outwatched them; and for all the candles
I wasted out on long and frozen nights,
To thaw them into day, I fill’d my head
With books, but scarce could fill my mouth with bread.
I had the Muses’ smile, but moneys frown,
And never could get out of such a gown.
CAMPEIUS
How did you change your star?
THIRD KING
By changing air.
The god of waves wash’d of my poverty,
I sought out a new sun beyond the seas
Whose beams begat me gold.
CAMPEIUS
O me!Dull ass!
I am nail’d down by willful beggary,
Yet feel not where it enters.Like a horse
My hoofs are par’d to’th’quick, even till they bleed,
To make me run from hence.Yet this tortoise shell,
My country, lies so heavy on my back,
Pressing my worth down, that I slowly creep
Through base and slimy ways.
THIRD KING
Country!
CAMPEIUS
She hangs
Her own brats at her back, to teach them beg,
And in her lap sits strangers.
THIRD KING
Yet your country.
CAMPEIUS
I was not born to this, not school’d to this.
My parents spent not wealth on me to this.
I will not stay here long.
THIRD KING
Do not.
CAMPEIUS
Being hence,
I’ll write in gall and poison gainst my nurse,
This Fairy Land, for not rewarding merit.
If ever I come back I’l lbe a calthrop
To prick my country’s feet that tread on me.
THIRD KING
O, she’s unkind!Hard-hearted!
CAMPEIUS
In disputation
I dare for Latin, Hebrew and the Greek,
Challenge an university.Yes, O evil hap!
Three learned languages cannot set a nap
Upon this threadbare gown.How is art curs’d?
She ha’s the sweetest limbs, and goes the worst,
Like common fiddlers, drawing down others’ meat
With lickerish tunes, whilst they on scraps do eat.
THIRD KING
Shake then these servile fetters off.
CAMPEIUS
But how?
THIRD KING
Play the mule’s part now thou hast suck’d a dam,
Dry and unwholesome; kick her sides.
CAMPEIUS
Her heart, her very heart,
Would it were dried to dust, to strew upon
Th’invenomed paper upon which I’ll write.
THIRD KING
Know you the court of Babylon?
CAMPEIUS
I have read
How great it is, how glorious, and would venture
A soul to get but thither.
THIRD KING
Get then thither.
You venture none, but save a soul going thither.
The Queen of Babylon rides on a beast
That carries up seven heads.
CAMPEIUS
Rare!
THIRD KING
Each head crown’d.
Enter his Man like a sailor with rich attires under his arm.
CAMPEIUS
O admirable!
THIRD KING
She, with her own hand
Will fill thee wine out of a golden bowl.
There’s angels to conduct thee.Get to sea,
Steal o’er, behold.Here’s one to waft thee hence.
Take leave of none, tell none; th’art made.Farewell.
CAMPEIU
S
This to meet heaven, who would not wade through hell?
[Exeunt CAMPEIUS and Sailor.Manent THIRD KING.
Enter Sailor presently.
THIRD KING
To flee off this hypocrisy, ’tis time,
Lest worn too long, the foxes skin be known.
In out dissembling now we must be brave,
Make me a courtier, come.Asses I see
In nothing but in trappings, different be
From footcloth nags, on which gay fellows ride,
Save that such gallants gallop in more pride.
Away.Stow under hatches that light stuff.
’Tis to be worn in Babylon.[Exit Sailor.
At this grove,
And much about this hour, a slave well moulded
In profound learned villainy, gave oath
To meet me.
Enter Conjurer.
Art thou come?Can thy black art
This wonder bring to pass?
CONJURER
See, it is done.
THIRD KING
Titania’s picture right!
CONJURER
This virgin wax
Bury I will in slimy putrid ground
Where it may piecemeal rot.As this consumes,
So shall she pine, and, after languor, die.
These pins shall stick like daggers to her heart,
And eating through her breast, turn there to gripings,
Cramp-like convulsions, shrinking up her nerves
As into this they eat.
THIRD KING
Thou art famed for ever.
If these thy holy labours well succeed,
Statues of molten brass shall rear thy name;
The Babylonian Empress shall thee honour.
And, for this, each day shalt thou go in chains.
Where wilt thou bury it?
CONJURER
Upon this dunghill.
THIRD KING
Good.
And bind it down with most effectual charms,
That whosoever with unhallowed hands,
Shall dare to take it hence, may rave and die.
CONJURER
Leave me.
THIRD KING
Farewell, and prosper.Be blind, you skies.
You look on things unlawful with sore ears. [Exit.
Dumb show.The hautboys sound, and whilst he is burying the picture, TRUTH and TIME enter, FIDELI, PARTHENOPHIL, ELFIRON, and a Guard following aloof.They discover the fellow; he is taken; the picture found; he kneels for mercy, but they, making sounds of refusal, he snatcheth at some weapon to kill himself, is prevented, and led away.
Act Three, Scene One
ENTER THE EMPRESS, Cardinals, First and Second KINGS, &c.
EMPRESS
Who sets those tunes to mock us?Stay them!
OMNES
Peace.
FIRST KING
Peace there.
FIRST CARDINAL
No more; your music must be dumb.
EMPRESS
When those celestial bodies that do move
Within the sacred spheres of prince’s bosoms
Go out of order, ’tis as if yon regiment
Were all in uproar.Heaven should then be vex’d.
Methinks such indignation should resemble
Dreadful eclipses, that portend dire plagues
To nations, fall to empires, death to kings,
To cities devastation, to the world,
That universal hot calamity
Of the last horror.But our royal blood
Beats in our veins like seas struggling for bounds.
Ætna burns in us.Bearded comets shoot
Their vengeance through our eyes.Our breath is lightning,
Thunder our voice; yet, as the idle cannon,
Strikes at the air’s invulnerable breast,
Our darts are phillip’d back in mockery
Wanting the points to wound.
FIRST KING
Too near the heart,
Most royal Empress, these distempers sit.
So please you, we’ll again assail her beauty
In varied shapes, and work on subtler charms.
Again love’s poisoned arrows we’ll let fly.
EMPRESS
No.Proud spirits once denying, still deny.
FIRST CARDINAL
Then be yourself, a woman.Change those overtures
You made to her of an unusual peace,
To an unused defiance; give your revenge
A full and swelling sail, as from your greatness
You took, in veiling to her; you have been
Too cold in punishment, too soft in chiding,
And like a mother, cause her years are green,
Have wink’d at errors, hoping time, or councel,
Or her own guilt, seeing how she goes awry,
Would straighten all.You find the contrary.
EMPRESS
What follows?
FIRST CARDINAL
Sharp chastisement; leave the mother
And be the stepdame.Wanton her no more
On you indulgent knee.Sing no more pardons
To her off-fallings, and her flyings out.
But let it be a meritorious act;
Make it a ladder for the soul to climb;
Lift from the hinges all the gates of heaven
To make way for him that shall kill her.
OMNES
Good.
FIRST CARDINAL
Give him an office in yon star-chamber,
Or else a saint’s place, and canonize him.
So sanctify the arm that takes her life,
That silly souls may go on pilgrimage,
Only to kiss the instrument that strikes,
As a most reverent relic.
EMPRESS
Be it so.
FIRST KING
In that one word she expires.
EMPRESS
Her Fairy lords,
That play the pilots now and steer her kingdom
In foulest weather, as white bearded corn
Bows his proud head before th’imperial winds,
Shall so lie groveling here when that day comes.
FIRST KING
And that it shall come, Fates themselves prepare.
EMPRESS
True, but old lions hardly fall into the snare.
FIRST KING
Is not the good and politic Satyran,
Our leagued brother and your vassal sworn,
Even now, this very minute, sucking close
Their fairest bosoms?If his trains take well,
They have strange workings, downwards, into hell.
EMPRESS
That Satyran is this hand; his brains a forge
Still working for us; he’s the true set clock
By which we go, and of our hours doth keep
The numbered strokes, when we lie bound in sleep.
FIRST CARDINAL
Besides such voluntaries as will serve
Under your holy colours and forsake
The Fairy standard; all such fugitives
Whose hearts are Babylonized; all the mutineers;
All the damn’d crew that would for gold tear off
The devil’s beard; all scholars that do eat
The bread of sorrow, want and discontent,
Wise Satyran takes up, presses apparels
Their backs like innocent lambs, their minds like wolves,
Rubs o’er their tongues with poison which they spet
Against their own anointed, their own country,
Their very parent.And thus ships ’em hither
To make ’em yours.
EMPRESS
To use.
FIRST CARDINAL
Only to employ them
As bees, whilst they have stings, and bring thighs laden
With honey, hive them when they are drones, destroy them.
FIRST KING
<
br /> The earnest which he give you, adored Empress,
Are two fit engines for us.
EMPRESS
Are they wrought?
SECOND KING
They are, and wait in court your utmost pleasure.
Out of your cup made we them drink with wines
To sound their hearts, which they with such devotion
Received down, that even whilst Bacchus swum
From lip to lip in midst of taking healths,
They took their own damnation if their blood,
As those grapes, stream’d not forth to effect your good.
EMPRESS
Let us behold these fireworks that mustrun
Upon short lines of life, yet will we use them
Like instruments of music, play on them
A while for pleasure, and then hang them by;
Who princes can upbraid, ’tis good they die.
For as in building sumptuous palaces,
We climb by base and slender scaffoldings
Till we have raised the frame; and that being done,
To grace the work, we take the scaffolds down;
So must we these.We know they love us not,
But swallow-like when their own summer’s past,
Here seek for heat, or like slight travellers,
Swoll’n with vainglory or with lust to see,
They come to observe fashions and not me.
FIRST KING
As travellers use them then, till they be gone,
Look cheerfully, backs turn’d, n more throught upon.
EMPRESS
What are they that fly hither, to our bosom,
But such as hang the wing, such as want nests;
Such as have no sound feathers; birds so poor
They scarce are worth the killing; with the lark,
The morning’s falconer, so they may mount high,
Care not how base and low their risings be?
What are they but lean hungry crows that tire
Upon the mangled quarters of a realm?
And on the housetops of nobility,
If there they can but sir, like fatal ravens,
Or screech-owls, croak their falls and hoarsely bode
Nothing but scaffolds and unhallowed graves?
FIRST KING
Fitter for us, yet sit they here like doves.
EMPRESS
True; like corrupted churchmen they are doves
That have eat carrion.Home we’ll therefore send
Those busy-working spiders to the walls
Of their own country, when their venomous bags,
Which they shall stuff with scandals, libels, treasons,
Are full and upon bursting.Let them there
Weave in their politic looms nets to catch flies.
To us they are put pothecary drugs,
Which we will take as physical pills, not food.
Use them as lancets to let others blood,
That have foul bodies; care not whom you wound,
Not what parts you cut off to keep this sound.
OMNES
Here come they.
Enter CAMPEIUS and ROPUS.
EMPRESS
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 43