End here all rites then of this funeral.
KING
And for them Hymen shall by his pure fires
Purge th’air, and add new flames to our desires.
Accompany the lady.Voltimar.
[Exeunt omnes; Manent KING and VOLTIMAR.
VOLTIMAR
There’s a Welsh embassador, sir, a-coming.
KING
I care not who is coming.How dost find her?
VOLTIMAR
Full of mischief, her spittle poison, breath a whirlwind, words thunder, and voice lightning.
KING
The furies at my wedding of this lady then
Will dance about our court.
VOLTIMAR
Furies?Alas, poor dove, she has no gall; loves you too well to hear you ill-nam’d; she sees you slight her, and she cares not for you.Though she be not full weight, in my conscience you might put her away in game.Some young rake would snap at her.
KING
Oh, Voltimar, our gamesters are too subtle.
No man of note that knows our court and her,
Will throw at such false coin, and her great heart
Scorns to be pass’d away to a base groom.
VOLTIMAR
The sound of this Welsh embassador makes, methinks, such a singing in my head, if you could fasten this fish upon that hook.
KING
Ha?
VOLTIMAR
Make ready you your angel.At the line hang lordships, shires, half your exchequer, to make him bite for her, to make her nibble.Let me alone to play the fire.
KING
My Voltimar, do this and thou shalt be
A sharer in my kingdom.
VOLTIMAR
Half a share shall serve me. [Exeunt.
Act Three, Scene One
ENTER ARMANTE AND Clown.
ARMANTE
What is’t thou so art scribbling?Art making ballads?
CLOWN
Ballads?No, madam.My muse drinks neither four shilling nor six shilling beer.The liquor I take in is from the French Hippocrenian hogshead. I lap out of Minerva’s milk-bowl.
ARMANTE
CLOWN
<> a hobberde hoy of helicon, and madam, I fear I must be
ARMANTE
Th’art mad, sure.
CLOWN
I am mad with keeping you company.The Nine Muses are all women, and nine women are able to make nine score men mad.
ARMANTE
Come, leave the fooleries.I am cold this morning.Let’s toss.
CLOWN
And tumble too, lady, if you please, but before I say “B” to this baddledore, I’ll tell your ladyship what I am turn’d into.
ARMANTE
If into no terrible monster, I’ll look upon it.
CLOWN
No loggerhead elephant, I’ll assure you, for a penny-loaf serves me two days when I eat least.
ARMANTE
Well, sir, what are you turn’d into?
CLOWN
Oh, madam, my head is a mere bagpudding.
ARMANTE
Good meat.
CLOWN
My brains the flower that makes it, my sweet concipts the plums.When I sweat in my invention, that’s the suet, jests the salt, my wit the gross pepper.
ARMANTE
A wise pudding.Has it no eggs?
CLOWN
Yes.My eagerness is writing are the eggs I put into it and my skull is the iron pot in which I seethe this pudding.
ARMANTE
And when comes it to’th’table?
CLOWN
When you see my piping hot then look for a lick at me.My pudding is wholly at your service.
ARMANTE
To put you into a heat then, play.
CLOWN
My cock is up longer than yours for a shilling.
ARMANTE
Done, sir, you are down before me.
CLOWN
I think so.A man in nothing in a woman’s hands.
ARMANTE
I ha lost the king quite for I ne’er was merry
When my thoughts lighten on him.I’ll toss from me
As I do this.Trust me, this shuttlecock’s
Are pretty fine invention.
CLOWN
Oh, very fine.They’ll put colour into your honourable cheeks, make your legs supple, your arms soluble, quickens the eye, sharpens the stomach — I could eat oats like a horse now — and it the only sword and buckler fight against the green sickness, which I’m sure you feel not.
Enter the PRINCE.
PRINCE
Mother, my grandsire and a heap of lords
Are rush’d into your lodgings.
Enter COLCHESTER, WINCHESTER, and KENT.
COLCHESTER
All strangers leave the room.
CLOWN
No English men stir a foot.
WINCHESTER
Hence with this trivial fellow.
KENT
What makes he here?
CLOWN
I am this young gentleman’s tutor for battledoring and shittlecockery.
WINCHESTER
Away, fool.Be packing.
CLOWN
Take heed you never fall under the dreary dint of my goosequill.I will pack and peck if you do. [Exit.
ARMANTE
Whence shoots this thunder?
COLCHESTER
The king takes Penda’s widow to his queen.
ARMANTE
When?
WINCHESTER
Instantly, and there’s a murmur flies
Your son the prince, like to a branch lopp’d off,
Must be snatch’d from you, if you refuse to send him,
For fetch’d he will be.
KENT
Whilst you from court retir’d
Must give o’er housekeeping.
ARMANTE
Any more arrows?
COLCHESTER
Are not these three enow?Does not the first —
The marriage most unlawful — cleave the heart?
Dost not the second wound this child to death,
Else why should he be sent for?He that hates
The mother seldom smiles upon the son.
Thou hast a north star yet to steer thy course by.
There’s but one shore of safety, thousands of ruin.
ARMANTE
And which that one to safety?
WINCHESTER
For you, dear lady,
To shut yourself up ‘mongst some cloister’d nuns.
Danger dares there not look in; and for the prince
To keep him from the king.
ARMANTE
The king?
PRINCE
My father?
What braver wings can o’er an eaglet spread
Then the old eagles?I do not think my father
Would hurt me were I with him.
ARMANTE
I will not tread
That path you beat of safety.Should a destiny
Bring me a lea of brass graven with the deaths
Of me and my poor boy, as the king’s act,
I’d spit i’th’face of fate, and swear she lies.
No king makes his own son a sacrifice.
COLCHESTER
Be wilful then, and rue it.
Enter VOLTIMAR.
WINCHESTER
Here’s the king’s earwig.
VOLTIMAR
Health to your lordships.If it were still water before I came, I am sorry the wind of my mouth must raise a storm.I come from the king, and though I am no thief, yet I must see your house broken up, sweet lady, and your gates, after the noble men’s way, to stand shut; your number of chimneys are to cozen the beggars and make ’em fall
a-cursing, to see no smoke in ’em.Madam, I am to discharge all your followers.
PRINCE
All, and me too.I am one, sir.
VOLTIMAR
Yes, and you too.I am the king’s lamb taker, and this must with me.
PRINCE
Save me, good grandsire!Save me, mother!My lords, this man has a dog’s look.
COLCHESTER
Touch but his nail, thou better wert to draw —
VOLTIMAR
What?
COLCHESTER
A lion’s tooth out.
VOLTIMAR
Dare you draw upon me?
COLCHESTER
Yes, and will draw thy heart out!Kill the villain.
VOLTIMAR
Come.Have I been a butt-full of arrows to fear your weak bows?Whom I paw, I tear.Death in a white beard is no bugbear to fright me.Your dudgeon’s this for ’em, my doublet has had oylet-holes in’t with sharper bodkins.Will you fight, I challenge you at all these weapons, but if you’ll talk like justices of the peace, look you.I am a quiet man, only hear this:’tis the king’s hand puts him into mine, my lords.
COLCHESTER
And ours takes him out of the king’s and thine.
So tell him.Say ’tis Colchester that speaks it.
[Exeunt COLCHESTER and KENT with PRINCE.
ARMANTE
My lord of Winchester, pray stop their madness.
The king and I made up a stock of love,
A royal stock, and putting it to use,
My child must be sent home for interest.
Shall he not have his own? [Exit WINCHESTER.
VOLTIMAR
Let ’em go, lady.When the whirligigs of their brains have done spinning they’ll stand still.Do you hold me honest?
ARMANTE
I find thee full weight yet.
VOLTIMAR
When any other music sounds me, split my pipe.The king will marry.
ARMANTE
Let him.
VOLTIMAR
No, I will not let him nor shall you.A Welsh embassador is come to court.The king means to put you upon him, him upon you — fine hot-cockles— ’tis my plot, my grinding.
ARMANTE
Upon me put his Welshman?
VOLTIMAR
Pshew!There’s a dial for your hours to go by.He will court you in Welsh and broken English; he speaks both.The devil understands all languages.I’ll, to do you good, be one of this scholars.Why not?Scrubbing fencers teach fine men to play, and greasy cooks dress lords’ dinners.I am your scullion.How like you that gamoth?
ARMANTE
Well, very wondrous well.
VOLTIMAR
Get that little king’s fisher, your son, out of the lords’ net.Be but rul’d and you shall be merry.
ARMANTE
I’ll tread this maze.’Tis walking still the round,
Or if I fall lower, ’tis but to the ground. [Exeunt.
Act Three, Scene Two
FLOURISH; ENTER KING, CORNWALL and CHESTER.
KING
This is the day of audience.Fetch him in
With an addition of such regal state
As may inflame the Welsh men not to bow
Their knees for fear, but love, and not repine
To pay us tribute.Nations even most rude
Stroke’d gently feel no weight of servitude.
What is he?
CORNWALL
Troth, sir, a goodly gentleman;
Take that rough bark away his country gives him —
Yet grows he straight and smooth — yourself would swear
Natu
KING
’Tis fitter for the mould in which we’ll cast him,
Cornwall, for that great work, which in your care
I builded lately.
CORNWALL
Touching Armante.
KING
That.
CORNWALL
The wheels must have no palsy hands to guide ’em.
KING
An engineer’s, the sinewy Voltimar’s.
Mankind shows not his equal.
CORNWALL
Is he trusty?
KING
As the tir’d Atlas that upshoulders heaven.
Bring in that rarity of nations,
Our Welsh Embassador.How now, Voltimar?[Exit CHESTER.
Enter VOLTIMAR.
What speaks the almanac in Armante’s eyes?
VOLTIMAR
Great winds, blust’ring awhile, but —
KING
Out with it, man, aloud.The noble Cornwall
Is in our plot a partner.
VOLTIMAR
Why then, sir, I ha’ so plied the lady with warm persuasions.She’s supple; if your bold Briton dares plant his ram of battery, she’ll abide the assault.
KING
My excellent soldier,
We must use art to arm him, and take time.
VOLTIMAR
That great grumbling organ pipe likewise of mutiny, the lords of her faction, by a trick that I turn’d ’em with, are all musical and come to court, to honour your entertainment of the strangers with their presences.
CORNWALL
Rather to spy.
KING
No matter.We’ll have eyes
As piercing as their own.Be quiet, they come.
Hoboys.Enter WINCHESTER, COLCHESTER, CESTER, KENT, then PENDA the Welsh Embassador brave; ELDRED as a Welsh Servingman; WINCHESTER and his faction kiss the KING’s hand, and then place themselves for audience.
PENDA
Awl the showers above us, power down upon your mighty heads.
VOLTIMAR
[Aside.] We shall be sure to have rain enough then.
PENDA
Her benedictions and remunerations, and exultations of all monarchal dignities.
VOLTIMAR
[Aside.] There’s no harm in this.
PENDA
In Wales, oh magnanimous King Athelstanes, we have no universities to tawg in uplandish Greeks and Latins; we are not so full of our rhetorics as you have here, and therefore your great and masestical ears was not to look for filed oratories and pig high stiles.
KING
We do not.
PENDA
You are landlord of Wales, my master a prince of royal Prittish plod your tenants; he and awl the sentilmen of Wales send commendations to you awl and swear with true Welse hearts, and long Welse hook, to fide upon your side when they can stand, till our bardles play on twinkling harps the praveries of your victories.
KING
We are beholding to them.Is not the day
Of paying their tribute yearly now at hand?
OMNES
It is, sir.
PENDA
And was come to give significations to king Athelstan’s that awl our tributes is here py and py upon ten day’s hence to come.
ELDRED
‘Twill be awl here upom Lammas Day was senight.
VOLTIMAR
[Aside.] Later Lammas, ha, ha!
PENDA
Why is your teehees and weehees?Is hobby-horse here or shacknapes, or loggerhead elephant with flapping poptail snowtes?
CORNWALL
Grow not, my lord, to cholar.
PENDA
Collars?Had I the petter of us awl in Powis land to fleer and seer and sneer in our faces was a good to eat a Welse goat, hairs and horns, and puddings and awl in her pelly piping hot.
KING
Who is it that dares jeer?
ELDRED
Pray, tell her who it is, shall find, diggon, from Welse hook to a prick no longer as this of a putchers when any tares sallenge my lord or Reese his man upon duellos and combats and batallios and pells mells.Welse plod is up and can canog and roar.
COLCHESTER
Is that your man,
my lord?
PENDA
Yes, and a sentil man of an old as any Wales.
KENT
He’s very furious.
ELDRED
Furies, a true Welse man scorns redicles and laughins.
PENDA
And is mighty sellous of grinnings, and is loose her best plod in < > wounds sooner as loose an inse, inse, nay a crum‘s we
KING
I fain would know who u
VOLTIMAR
I laughed, but not at him, royal sir.
PENDA
You logh; would us two both now were on the bald pate of Penmawer!
VOLTIMAR
Would we were.
ELDRED
Should try who was finest tumbler down, on’s neck must cry twang for’t.
PENDA
Good Reese, be wise.
KENT
What your follower’s name?
ELDRED
’Tis Reese ap Meridith, ap Sean, ap Llewellin, ap Morris, yet no dancers.For awl you are English lords, you are made of no petter whole than a Welseman, a little finer spun and petter carded that’s awl.Our plod is as well-died, and our spirits as good a nap upon her.
KING
’Tis so, we like your spirits and have tried them.
PENDA
Your kinglines had two fine sentilmen your brothers, one Prince Edmonds and Prince Edreds; they did kanaw our Prittish spirits; they fought in Wales very finely upon us.Reese, you saw them all ploody adbout Clanvelthin.
ELDRED
Yes, and after the drink metheglin diggon.
PENDA
And was mighty merry.
ELDRED
And love to gabble a little Welse too.
PENDA
Pray, sir, what treads of life does they two sentlemen spin now?
KING
None.They both died i’th’field.
PENDA
Mercy upon us!In fields as beggars do?
VOLTIMAR
No, maser comrogue, in a battle.
KING
In a French noble field those princes fell.
PENDA
Was prave men.Pogs on knog’d ’em down.
KING
Though they are lost, here sits a brother king
To bid you welcome.Call our English court
Your own, England your Wales.We are so strung
We will in nothing differ but in tongue.
PENDA
Welse tongue I can tell you is lofty tongue.
ELDRED
And prave sentlemen as are in the ‘orld tawg it
KING
Show to this noble lord what rarities
Our court is furnish’d with.
PENDA
Follow, Reese.
ELDRED
Not as moust in seese, I warrant her.
[Flourish.Exeunt PENDA, ELDRED, and VOLTIMAR.
KING
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 64