That’s drunk all day with brimstone.Come, suck, weasel,
Suck your own teat, you!Pray, thou art preserv’d.
TITANIA
From what?From whom?
FIDELI
Look to that glister-pipe.
One crown does serve thy turn, but here’s a thief
That must have fifty thousand crowns to steal
Thy life.Here ’tis in black and white.Thy life,
Sirrah, thou urinal, Tynoco, Gama,
Andrada and Ibarra!Names of devils.
ROPUS
Oh, me!O, mercy, mercy!I confess.
FIDELI
Well said.Thou shalt be hang’d then.
TITANIA
Have we for this
Heap’d favours on thee? [She reads the letter.
FILELI
Heap halters on him.Call the guard.Out, polecat!
Enter Guard.
He smells.Thy conscience stinks.Doctor, go purge
Thy soul, for ’tis diseased.Away with Ropus.
OMNES
Away with him; foh!
ROPUS
Hear but my tale out.
FIDELI
There’s too much out already.
ROPUS
Oh, me accursed and most miserable! [Exit with Guard.
TITANIA
Goodness of virtue!Is my blood so sweet
That they would pay so dear for’t?
FIDELI
To suck lambs,
What would not wolves do?He that this paper writ
Had never meaning we should finger it.
TITANIA
Our mercy makes them cruel.Hunt out these leopards.
Their own spots will betray them.They build caves
Even in our parks.To them, him, and the rest,
Let death be sent, but sent in such a shape
As may not be too frightful.Alack!What glory
Is it to buffet wretches bound in gyves?
The debt is dearly paid that’s paid with lives.
Oh!Leave us all!
Enter ELFIRON and PARIDEL.
FIDELI
More doctors!If this do
As well as t’other, best to hang him too.
[Exeunt FIDELI, PARTHENPHIL, and ELFIRON.Manent TITANIA,PARIDEL and FLORIMELL.
Florimell, stay, but give us liberty. [FLORIMEL stands aloof.
PARIDEL
This is the blessed day for which, through want
Of those bright rays that sparkle from your eyes,
My frozen soul hath languish’d.Goddess complete,
If you, a wretch so mean, will bid to speak,
I shall unclasp a book whose very first line,
Being not well pointed, is my doom to death.
But if your sacred judgement, on the margin,
Control all wresting comments, all your subjects
Will fold me in their bosoms.
TITANIA
Give your mind.
PARIDEL
A pilgrim have I been on foreign shores;
Your gracious hand allow’d it.In my wand’ring
With monsters I encountered of strange shape:
Some that suck’d poison up, and spet it forth
Upon your land; some that shot forked stings
At your most godlike person.All were giants
Fighting against the heaven of your blest reign.
With these, oh pardon me, with these I hald
A politic league, the lines of all their treasons,
Drawn from one damned circle, met in me
My heart became the center, and the point
Was this.I dare not tell it.
TITANIA
Speak.
PARIDEL
To kill you.
TITANIA
How durst you, being our subject, wade so far?
PARIDEL
Your ear of mercy.I became a sponge
To drink up all their mischief, and lay drown’d
In their infected waters, with much loathing,
Only that I before you might wring out
This their corruption, and myself make clear.
And now, immortal maid, I’m not unlike
A casket wherein papers stuff’d with danger
Have close been lock’d, but those ta’en out, the chest
Serves to good use, so may my loyal breast.
For from their flinty hearts what sparks I got
Were but to fire themselves.
TITANIA
I praise your plot.
You make us now your debtor, but a day
Will come when we shall pay.My lord, we want your arm.
PARIDEL
Umh!I fear —
TITANIA
Doctor, we’ll have, sir, other dialogues.[Exeunt TITANIA andFLORIMELL.
PARIDEL
O, shallow fool, thou hast thyself undone.
She’s hardened and thou melted at one sun.[Exit.
Act Four, Scene Three
ENTER FIRST CARDINAL and THREE KINGS.
FIRST CARDINAL
Our eyes have lusted for you, and your presence
Comes as the light of day, showers to the spring,
Or health to sick men.
THIRD KING
Thanks, most reverend father.
FIRST KING
Our blood ran all to water, yea, our souls
Strove all at once t’expire when it was blown
Hither from Fairy Land, that all the darts
Which ours here, and your arm delivered there,
Fell either short, or lighted upon ice,
Lest you had lost blood in the enterprise.
THIRD KING
No, I wear stronger armour.Gamester-like
I saw the dogs brought forth, and set them on
Till the devil parted them; but pluck’d off none.
I kept aloof out of the reach of paws.
Better to fight with lions than with laws.
What drums are these?
SECOND KING
Music of heaven.
FIRST CARDINAL
The dancers
Revel in steel.
FIRST KING
These march to fill our fleet.
THIRD KING
From whence we’ll march with proud victorious feet
And walk on Fairy’s hearts; their beaten ways
With their own heads we’ll pave, whilst ours with bays
And oak, the conquering soldiers wreath, we crown.
These hooks, or none, must pull their cities down;
Invasion is the fire.See, see, i’th’air
Angels hang beckoning us to make more haste.
Vengeance deferr’d grows weak, and runs to waste.
What this?
Enter a Herald before one; sounds once and stays.
FIRST CARDINAL
Ere we take ship, we must to court.
OMNES
Away.
THIRD KING
In thunder.’Tis the soldiers sport. [Exeunt CARDINAL and KINGS.
HERALD
[Reads.] “It is the empirical pleasure, decree, peremptory edict, and dreadful command, upon pain of a curse to be denounced upon him that is disobedient, from her who hath power given her to make the back of stubborn kings her footstools and emperors her vassals; the mother of nations, the triple-crowned head of the world; the purple-rider of the glorious beast; the most high, most supreme, and most adored Empress of Babylon; that no captain, generals or armies, generals of squadrons, admirals, colonels, captains, or any other officers or her magnificent, incomparable, formidable, and invincible armada, which is ordained to swallow up the kingdom of Fairy, shall presume to set one foot on shipboard till her sacred hand hath blessed the enterprise by sealing them all on the forehead, and by bowing their knees before the beast.Sound.Go on. [Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene Four
Dumb show:EMPRESS on the Beast.Then enter FIRST CARDINAL and the THREE KINGS.
EMPRESS
Feels the base earth our weight?Is’t common air
We suck in and respire?Do servile clouds,
Whose azure wings spread over graves and tombs,
Our glorious body circumvolve?Dare night
Cast her black nets into day’s crystal streams,
To draw up darkness on our golden beams
And us t’eclipse? Why is not Babylon
In a contorted chair made all of stars
Would up by wheels as high, nay ‘bove the thrones
Supernal, which with Jove’s own seat stand even,
That we might ride here as the queen of heaven,
And with a spurn from our controlling foot
That should like thunder shake th’etherial floor
Of life and heaven both at once bereave
That thither up dare climb without our leave.
FIRST CARDINAL
You do.You ride there now.This is your sphere.
Earth is all one with heaven when you are here.
THIRD KING
Yet there’s a hell on earth or if not hell.
Devils there are or worse than devils, that roar
Only at you.
EMPRESS
At us?What, dare they roar?
THIRD KING
Your pardon, and I’ll tell it.
EMPRESS
Tell.We fear
No spots, the orb we shine in is so clear.
THIRD KING
Thus then:the Fairy adders hiss; they call you
The superstitious harlot, purple whore,
The whore that rides on the rose-coloured beast;
The great whore that on many waters sitteth,
Which they call many nations, whilst their kings
Are slaves to sate your lust and that their blood,
When with them you have done, serves as a flood
For you to drink or swim in.
OMNES
O, profane!
EMPRESS
Go on; the searching small wounds is no pain.
THIRD KING
These cowards thus when your back’s turn’d, that strike,
Follow their blow and swear that where you claim
Supremacy monarchical over kings
’Tis but your tyrannous pride and not your due.
EMPRESS
But what yourselves give, what have we from you?
You say we are your mother, and if so,
Must not sons kneel?They pay but what they owe.
THIRD KING
They say the robes of purple which you wear,
Your scarlet veils and mantles are not given you
As types of honour and regality,
But dyed so deep with blood upon them spilt,
And that, all o’er y’are with red murder gilt.
The drink even in that golden cup, they swear,
Is wine sophisticated that does run
Low on the lees of error, which in taste,
Is sweet and like the neat and wholesome juice
Of the true grape, but ’tis rank poison down.
OMNES
Have we not all it tasted?
EMPRESS
Nay, utter all.
Out of their lips you see flows naught but gall.
THIRD KING
What can my breath do more to blast your cheeks
And leave them glowing as red gads of steel?
My tongue’s already blistered sounding this,
Yet must I whisper to your sacred ear
That on your brow, they say, is writ a name
In letters mystical, which they interpret,
“Confusion,” by great Babylon they mean
The city of confusion.
EMPRESS
View our forehead.
Where are we printed with such characters?
Point out these marks.Which of you all can lay
A finger on that mole that marks our face?
THIRD KING
They say you can throw mists before our eyes
To make us think you fair.
OMNES
Damn’d blasphemies!
FIRST CARDINAL
You shall with rods of iron scourge these treasons.
FIRST KING
The mace is in your hand; grind them to dust.
SECOND KING
And let your blows be sound.
THIRD KING
For they are just.
EMPRESS
Let’s hear with what loud throats our thunder speaks.
Repeat our vengeance o’er, which to hear kings
Must not fly o’er the seas with linen wings.
FIRST CARDINAL
Our galleons, galleasses, zabras, galleys,
Ships, pinnaces, pataches,huge carvels,
For number, rib, and belly are so great
That they should want a sea near Fairy Land
Of depth to bear them up; they in their wombs
Might swim with a sea thunder.Here are briefs
Of your imperial army.
EMPRESS
Read them loud.
Thunder ne’er speaks but the voice cracks a cloud.
FIRST CARDINAL
In the first squadron twelve great galleons
Float like twelve moving castles; zabras two,
Habilimented gloriously for war
With soldiers, seamen, shot and ordinance.
This squadron stout Medina does command,
Who of the main is captain general.
The second squadron brave Ricalde leads,
Being admiral to fourteen galleons.
Flores de Valdes, that tried warrior.
Oquendo in the fifth front cries a charge.
Bretandona brings up the Levantines
With his sixth squadron.Gomes de Medina
Wafts up the seventh like the god of war.
The eighth obeys Mendoza, and the ninth
Fierce Ugo de Montada.All these squadrons
For vessels numbered are one hundred thirty;
The sight of soldiers, mariners, and slaves,
Twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred thirty-three.
Pieces of brass for battery these,
Six hundred thirty; add to these galleons
Twenty carvels and salves ten, which make
The whole Armada eightscore lusty sail.
Add to all these your generals of armies,
Your captains, ensign bearers, which in role
Are eightscore and eleven, the voluntaries
With officers and servants, then the regiments
That are in pay.To these, all men of orders,
All ministers of justice, and to these
Supplies of forces that must second us
And last that host of stars which from the moon
Will fall to guide us on.These totall’d up,
You shall a hundred thousand swords behold,
Brandish’d at once, whose { } stands
Men will seem born with weapons in their hands.
EMPRESS
Go.Cut the salt foam with your mooned keels
And let our galleons feel even child-birth pangs
Till their great bellies be delivered
On the soft Fairy shores; captive their queen
That we may thus take off her crown, whilst she
Kneels to these glorious wonders, or be trampled
To death for her contempt.Burn, batter, kill,
Blow up, pull down, ruin all; let not white hairs
Nor red cheeks blunt your wrath; snatch babes from breasts
And when they cry for milk, let them suck blood;
Turn all their fields to lakes of jellied gore
That seamen one day sailing by the land
May say, “There Fairy kingdom once did stand.”
OMNES
They shall!
THIRD KING
’Tis done already.
EMPRESS
To be sure,
You all are ours; bow and adore the beast
On whom we ride.
OMNES
We fall beneath his feet.
EMPRESS
Be blest; obedience is in sons most sweet.
O strange, to you he stoops as you before him.
Humility, he bows whilst you adore him.
To kindle lusty fires in all your blood
A health to all!And as our cup goes round,
Draw near; we’ll mark you for our chosen flock
Who builds on hearts confirm’d, builds on a rock
The seal of heaven!Who on their foreheads wear it,
We choose for counsel; on their hands who bear it
We mark for action.Here, a health to all!
OMNES
Brave health!To pledge it, see kings prostrate fall. [Kneel.
EMPRESS
On!
OMNES
On!
THIRD KING
Sing, war, thy loud and loftiest notes.
We win; our ships meet none but fisher-boats. [Exeunt.
Act Five, Scene One
ENTER PARIDEL AND his Kinsman.
PARIDEL
What if I show you a foundation
Firm as Earth’s fixed center?A strong warrant
To strike the head off; an injunction
That bids me do’t.A dispensation
For what i do.A pardon sign’d, that gives
Indulgence plenary, and full remission,
For any criminal breach of the highest law,
After ’tis done, nay more, a voice as clear
As that of angels, which proclaims the act
Good, honourable, meritorious,
Lawful, and pious; what if I show you this?
COUSIN
Come, come, you cannot; then let riotous heirs
Beg patents to kill fathers.Grant but this,
Murder may be a fair monopoly
And princes stabb’d by acts of parliament.
Who i’st dare that thing meritorious call
Which fiends themselves count diabolical?
PARIDEL
Your coldness makes me wonder.Why should you
Run up to th’neck from drowning to save her
That treads upon your head, your throat, to sink you?
COUSIN
Say you should wound me.Should I, in revenge,
Murder myself?For what can be the close
But death, dishonour, yea damnation
To an act so base, nay, so impossible?
PARIDEL
Impossible.The parting of the air
Is not more easy.Look upon the court
Trough narrow sights and she’s the fairest mark
And soonest his of any; like the Turk,
She walks not with a janissary guard,
Nor, as the Russian, with foul big boned slaves,
Strutting on each side with the slicing axe
Like to a pair of hangmen.No, alas,
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 46