VOLTIMAR
I care not.
KING
Because you ha’ beaten a few base French peasants,
Methinkst thou to chastise.What’s part, I pardon,
But if thou darst once more be so untun’d,
I’ll send thee to the galleys.
VOLTIMAR
No, to to th’gallows.Upon a ladder a man may talk freely and never be sent to prison.I had a raw stomach before, and now ’tis eas’d.Hang me, draw me, quarter me, cut me, carbonado me.This, pish!
KING
Is your half hour run out now?
VOLTIMAR
Yes, I am quiet.
KING
Prithee no more of this.Thou shalt not ask
The thing which I’ll deny thee, and since th’ast waded
For me thus up to th’middle, on now, dear Voltimar.
VOLTIMAR
Ay, ay, over shoes, over boots, anything.Any more throats to cut?
KING
None, only at her father’s wind thyself
Into this ladies company, sad Armante.
She’s mad with rage, and in her desperate vengeance
May plot against my life.Sound her for that.
VOLTIMAR
That all?I am both you line and plummet.
Enter CORNWALL and CHESTER.
KING
I’m haunted with a fury.Yon young witch
Who with her bastard both lays claim to me
And to my crown.I have no way to scape
From being still blaster by her, but to marry,
And marry out of hand.
CHESTER
But where’s a lady
Fit for your royal bed?
KING
A kinswoman
To every one of you, Penda’s noble wife
Who died in France.
CORNWALL
I would she were so happy
To have her loss in him repar’d so fairly.
CHESTER
There’s not a man here who to see his family
Crown’d with such royal honours, but would spend
Half his estate to grace the nuptials.
KING
It is the voice of all of you that I
Should call you noble kinsmen?
OMNES
Sir, of all.
KING
We all must bandy with that faction then
Her father and her frenzy shall give fire to.
One blow they have already.See, I have got
My contract from her.
OMNES
Keep it.
KING
Keep it?No.
In paper I’ll no longer wrap my fears.
Enter WINCHESTER.
WINCHESTER
Had you none else but me to brand i’th’forehead
With infamy, with treachery, with perjury?
KING
Art frantic?
WINCHESTER
You are so, sir.
KING
Rave thy fill.
King’s subjects are to none but their own will.[Exeunt.Manent WINCHESTER.
Enter COLCHESTER and KENT.
BOTH
Where’s the king?
WINCHESTER
Wrapp’d up in clouds of lightening.
KENT
What, is he turn’d Jove?
Let him.We’ll thunder too.
COLCHESTER
We heard, my lord of Winchester, he chang’d
You to a stalking horse.You were his hook,
And your sweet words the fly at which my poor girl
Armante nibbling; you strangled her, got from her
The contract he was tied in.
KENT
What’s done with it?
WINCHESTER
I know not.In sight of Cornwall,
Chester and others, when he had baffled me,
Made me his property to wrong the lady,
And speaking home, he bade me rave my fill.
KENT
Why then in sight of Colchester, her father,
Winchester, and Kent — men high in blood as they —
His perjury shall be his ruin.
WINCHESTER
Or ours.
Thus I fall from the duty he has blasted
To
KENT
KENT
Action is honour’s language; swords are tongues
Which both speak best, and best do write our wrongs.
COLCHESTER
Those tongues shall scold then. [Exeunt.
Act Two, Scene Two
ENTER VOLTIMAR AND ARMANTE.
VOLTIMAR
The king has done you infinite wrong.
ARMANTE
Infinite.
VOLTIMAR
And no question you ha’ done him some.
ARMANTE
Never any.
VOLTIMAR
No?Yes, sure, for had not those two balls of wildfire in your head burnt him into dotage, had you not embrothered your face with wanton glances, he had been quiet, yourself not tormented.A lady of your birth, fortune, friends, and spiri
ARMANTE
He must not.
VOLTIMAR
Jeer at you.
ARMANTE
He dares not.
VOLTIMAR
Baffle you and your noble family.
ARMANTE
He cannot.
VOLTIMAR
What would you say to him should kill this man that hath you so dishonoured?
ARMANTE
Oh, I would crown him
With thanks, praise, gold, and tender of my life.
VOLTIMAR
This is he shall do’t.
ARMANTE
There’s music in the tongue that dares but speak it.
VOLTIMAR
Your fiddler then am I.Let me see; poniard, poison; any revenge.
ARMANTE
One step to human bliss is sweet revenge.
VOLTIMAR
Revenge; ’tis milk, ’tis honey, ’tis balm; delicate in the mouth, precious in the hand, nourishing to the stomach, life to the soul; so shed is an elizer, so drunk a julip; it fattens. It battens. Revenge!Oh, stay, stay!One question.What made you love him?
ARMANTE
His most goodly shape,
Married to royal virtues of his mind.
VOLTIMAR
Did it so?And now you would divorce all that goodness.But why?For liquorishness of revenge?’Tis a lie.
ARMANTE
Bless me, this grim fellow frights me!
VOLTIMAR
I’ll not hurt you.For revenge?No, the burr that sticks in your throat is a throne.Had he a mess of kingdoms and laid but one upon your trencher, you’d praise bastard for the sweetest wine i’th’world and call for another quart.’Tis not because the man has left you, but because you are not the woman you would be.I shoot my bolt now to our market; what’s my wages when I ha’ done?
ARMANTE
The wages of a slave — despair and death.
Monster of men thou art, thou bloody villain,
Traitor to him who never injur’d thee,
Dost thou profess arms and art bound by honour
To stand up like a brazen wall to guard
The kind and country, and wouldst run both?
VOLTIMAR
For gold any, you, him, no matter whom, do you clap spurs to my sides yet rein me hard in?Am I rid with a martingale?
ARMANTE
Hence!Though I could run mad and tear my hair
And kill that godless man that turn’d me strumpet;
Though I am cheated by a perjurous prince
Who has done wickedn
ess at which even heaven
Shakes when the sun beholds it; oh, yet I’d rather
Ten thousand poison’d poniards struck my breast
Than one should touch his.
VOLTIMAR
Are you in earnest?
ARMANTE
Leave me or I shall do my best to mischief thee.
VOLTIMAR
Live wretched still then.
ARMANTE
Out of mine eye, I prithee!
VOLTIMAR
Your eye — I’m gone.Give me thy goll.Thou art a noble girl.I did bu
ARMANTE
Art thou in earnest?
VOLTIMAR
As you are lady.
ARMANTE
Are not you one of the king’s uai
VOLTIMAR
I am not.Crack me, though my shell be rough, there’s a wholesome meat within me.
ARMANTE
I’ll call thee honest soldier then, and woo thee
To be an often visitant.
VOLTIMAR
Your servant.
ARMANTE
Come like a gentle gale to cool my wrongs
And call my roof thine own. [Exit.
VOLTIMAR
I’ll be nothing else.
Enter KING, CORNWALL, CHESTER; EDMOND, ELDRED and PENDA following.
KING
Step you before, my lord.Tell her we are coming. [Exit CORNWALL.
Pray, trouble me not.I’m busy.
ALL THREE
You promis’d us employment.
KING
We ha’ no wars.When the drum beats, call to us.
EDMOND
Maybe, sir, you stop your ears with wool and can hardly hear a soldier’s call.
CHESTER
Y’are saucy.
ELDRED
Saucy?You allow us no meat to our sauce.
PENDA
We are restiff for want of exercise.
EDMOND
And pursue at heart for want of ridding.
ELDRED
Good spurs clapp’d to our sides would show our mettle.
KING
Voltimar, rid me of these flies.’Tis a summer of peace, and we need more sickles than swords. [Exeunt KING and CHESTER.
PENDA
Flies, marry buzz.
VOLTIMAR
Ha, ha, did I not tell you?
EDMOND
More sickles than swords.He would have us turn reapers.
ELDRED
No, no, we’ll fall to thrashing.
VOLTIMAR
’Tis a summer of peace, and soldiers you may take a purse in winter and be hanged ere next spring.
PENDA
The best is though he plucks us on like straight boots, he does not yet complain where we pinch him.
VOLTIMAR
Did not I steer your course well at out coming out of France to land you in Wales, though t’were the fardest way about?
EDMOND
A witch could not have foretold the weather better.
VOLTIMAR
Will you gentry then to the twinkling of that Welsh harp I tun’d you for in Shropshire or no?
OMNES
By any means.
PENDA
Why else have I these letters of credence from the Welsh king — Howell by name — to bring only a message of love unto Athelstane till the tribute of Wales be sent of so many runts, so many hawks, so many hounds, so many pounds of gold and so many of silver, and that will be about a month hence.
EDMOND
Your Welsh mountain of authority will be digg’d down to a molehill before that time
ELDRED
Walk upon no lower stilts than those of an embassador.
VOLTIMAR
I’ll fit your followers, cutting boys, roaring soldadoes that if need be shall eat fire.
ELDRED
At the end of the last battle in Wales, I drunk healths in metheglin among ’em, never met nobler companions, and never stayed so long.I could gabble very handsomely, so that for a sentill man of Wales, one of my lord embassador’s followers; if I fail, flee me.
EDMOND
What must I do?I’ll be a bowl in your ally too, but not of you bias; no Welsh I.Wert in Ireland with the kerns and gallowglasses could I have good sport.You talk of metheglin.Morrogh mac Breean, the king of Leinster, Dermont, king of Ulster, with Mac Dermond king of Connacht, who wear all three in that battle against us, when the fight was done and all friends, so souct me in usquebagh my very brains burnt blue, so that ifaatle for an Irishman get but a tailor to fit me, and pluck my tongue out if I run not glib away with it.
PENDA
Run, why will you not come as some great Irish lord?
EDMOND
Pshew, there’s no pleasure in state.I had rather have a scrambling hunter’s breakfast than a cardinal’s dinner.Lord, no, only a footman to
VOLTIMAR
W
PENDA
For a comedy of disguises, let’s then arm,
Which though it do no good, can do no harm. [Exeunt.
Act Two, Scene Three
ENTER CORNWALL AND CARINTHA veil’d in black.
CORNWALL
The king in person comes to dry your tears
And will, I think, pull you to his royal bed.
If he does, fasten him; though your former husband,
Penda my son, was dear to me as life,
He cannot be call’d back; yet for his sake
I shall be glad to see your fortunes rais’d.
A queen is a brave name; be wise and catch
Time’s lock of it be given you.See, he comes.
Enter KING and CHESTER.
KING
A pious deed, my lord, comfort the sick.
She’s sick at soul, poor heart.Pray, dare you trust
The widow and me together?
CHESTER
And wish that you, sir,
May have the skill to make those clouds clear up
Which darken so her beauty.
KING
Chester, I’ll try it.
CHESTER
A lucky hand may you have. [Exeunt CORNWALL and CHESTER.
KING
Dost mourn in sadness?
CARINTHA
Do any mourn in jest?
KING
Shone like thyself and drive away these mists
In which I cannot see thee.
CARINTHA
’Tis for your sake,
I counterfeit this sorrow that the court —
Especially old Cornwall, Penda’s father —
Might not reprove me for a careless lady
To lose so brave a husband and not weep
Mine eyes out for him.
KING
But I hope thou dost not.
CARINTHA
Never wet thus much of a hankercher.
KING
I got my contract from yon scolding creature
And that thine eyes may witness, I speak truth.
Do with it what thyself wilt.
CARINTHA
I’ll red it o’er, and tear it then to pieces.
KING
Please thyself in it.
’Tis to the lords thy noble friends made known
That I wishyou my queen.They are proud of it.
CARINTHA
They are?
KING
And give consent.Come, prithee no longer
Lock thyself up thus in a tragic room.
CARINTHA
I am now so us’d to’t, I could be content
To live and die here.
KING
Out upon’t!What pleasure
; Can dwell between two melancholy walls?
What objects hast thou here to feed the eye?
CARINTHA
Yes, rare ones.
KING
Rare ones?
CARINTHA
See else.
Shows PENDA, above, with a leading staff; VOLTIMAR at his back, his sword in him.
KING
Ha!What’s this?
CARINTHA
By Penda’s picture I a workman hir’d
To carve that statue for me.Oh, sir, I pleas’d
His father highly in it.
KING
But what’s he
That stands behind him in that dangerous posture?
CARINTHA
I know not what he is.
KING
No?’Tis the shape
Of a most honest soldier, his name Voltimar.
CARINTHA
I now remember.When I had desire
To figure out that devil which slew my Penda,
By chance a fellow fashioned just like this
Past by, my workman eyed him, and cut this.
A more ill-favoured slave I ne’er beheld,
And such a one methought was that ro
That kill’d my lord, and so this stand fo
KING
Alter it, prithee.He whom it resembles
Is a most honest man.
CARINTHA
Is he?I am sorry,
I’ll then show him — no, I ha funeral masques too
Of fire drakes, ghosts, and witches, and oft times
At midnight dance they round about the room
To nuzzle me in melancholy, and so please you
I’ll call in one of those masques.[Close scene above.
KING
Oh, by no means.
I have enough of this.One night to live thus
Would turn me mad.Forsake the charnel-house
And change it to a court; the name of widow
Into a wife and queen.
CARINTHA
I shall be haunted with your old sweet heart.
KING
For her head she dares not.
CARINTHA
I am at your disposure.
KING
In that word thou dost include thy coronation.
My lords you may come in now.We ha done.
Enter CHESTER, CORNWALL, and VOLTIMAR.
CHESTER
Are the fates gentle to you,
To spin you golden threads of happiness
By marriage with this lady?Have you brought her
To handle Cupid’s bow?
KING
And to shoot, Chester,
His arrows too; so you upon her lay
No black aspiration of neglect or lightness
For her so sudden casting of her sorrow
For a most noble husband.She is content
To fill my court with gladness by her presence.
CORNWALL
It is a day I wish for.
CHESTER
So do we all.
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 63