Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 65
Whilst I bestow
My second thanks upon these worthy ords
By whom our court — a heaven eclipsed before —
Recovers a new light.
COLCHESTER
What light we give is borrow’d from your sunbeams.
KING
I am proud to see your brows so smooth.
OMNES
Our brows are as our hearts.
Enter VOLTIMAR and EDMOND like an Irishman.
VOLTIMAR
Look, sirrah, that’s the king.
KING
What’s he?
VOLTIMAR
The embassador’s Irish footman full of desire to see how much you and an Irish king differ in state.Which of the Irish kings know you, sirrah?
EDMOND
I once serve and run along my Morogh man Breean, king of Lienster, and I know all de oder Irish princes.
KING
How does the king of Lienster?
EDMOND
I’faitla, passing merry.He loves dee dearly.Dærdæry his queen too speak well of dee, and Osha hanassah de king’s broder wid Dermot Lave-yarach tell me and I come into England to give dee a towsand comendacons.
KING
What’s the name?
EDMOND
Teage mac Breean.
KING
How far canst run in a day?
EDMOND
I’faitla, I shall be loat to have dine own horse run so far in a day as I can.Ever since I came away from de salt water into Wales and out of Wales hidder, my toes and my feet nefer stawnd still, for bee my gossip’s hawnd I had a great desire to see dee, and dat sweet face a dine.
KING
The kind of Lienster is a noble soldier.
EDMOND
Crees sa me, he does not care for de devil.
VOLTIMAR
Wiser man he.
KING
The queen is wondrous fair, sirrah, is she not?
EDMOND
Queen Dærdæry i’faith now as white as de inside of a pome water, and as upright as any dart in Ireland.
COLCHESTER
Goes your kind in such clothes?
EDMOND
[Exeunt KING, CORNWALL, CHESTER, VOLTIMAR, and EDMOND.
COLCHESTER
So th’ice is thaw’d and though the water run
Smooth, yet ’tis deep.Our torrent must roar on.
OMNES
On. [Exeunt.
Act Three, Scene Three
ENTER CARINTHA AT a table reading.
CARINTHA
A contract sign’d by his own royal hand,
The judges that were by, beside her father,
Two dukes, and all these earls, a full grand jury
To pass upon the life and death of honour.
Yet he stands laughing at the bar.This lady
He wore as a rich jewel, on his very heart.
Now ’tis by him defact and broke in pieces
And swept away like rubbish from his court.
Wicked man, had fate a hand to give me to him —
How fast soever in a golden charm
My finger should be bound — his wand’ring eye
Meeting new beauties, would in scorn view mine,
And then, as hers, my joys should cease to shine.
’Tis better as it is.
Enter a Servant.
SERVANT
Here’s a gentlewoman servant come to see you.
CARINTHA
What gentlewoman?
SERVANT
She looks like a lady of the time.
CARINTHA
Why, how looks a lady of the time?
SERVANT
She looks like a poor lady, for she has ne’er a man, but only a shrimping boy, and her cheeks are as thin as if she had not din’d.
CARINTHA
Bring her in, sir.
Enter ARMANTE and PRINCE.
SERVANT
There’s my lady.
CARINTHA
Get you gone. [Exit Servant.
Ha’ are you the wrong’d Armante?
ARMANTE
And you the queen
Of the ascendant now?Love has resign’d
The glories of his reign, his troth and honour,
To a fresh bird, whilst we who are the scorn
Of his neglect and foils for your uprising
Are hurl’d down lower than the eyes of pity
Can shed a tear for.I am the wrong’d Armante.
CARINTHA
You come arm’d in hate.
Tempests of woman’s malice and revenge
Muster upon your forehead.Is this your son?
PRINCE
Yes, marry am I, madam.
CARINTHA
His very brow
Is bent with frowns upon me.
PRINCE
I never heard any say that I ever frown’d yet.
CARINTHA
There may be danger
For me to trust me in your companies.
PRINCE
I am no fighter, lady, and my mother —
My poor wrong’s mother — is too full of sorrow
Now to turn swaggerer.Neither of us both
Carry a knife about us.
ARMANTE
Look, gentle lady,
On this fair branch sprung from a royal tree,
But now grown crooked; for th’unnatural root
Keeps back the vigour that should give it growth.
What think you I come for?
CARINTHA
I cannot guess.
ARMANTE
The general voice thinks you the king’s mistress.
CARINTHA
King’s mistress, so?
ARMANTE
Queen of the times, the star of England’s court,
The glorious sphere in which the king, once mine,
Moves, and there only.Oh, as you are a woman,
The daughter of a mother, as you can
Partake the sense of passion — griefs and pity —
The torments of contempt — disgrace and ruin —
The miseries of honour — scorn and baseness —
Let me beseech you ere you tread the path —
The path that must conduct you to the monument
Of a lost name — remember by whose fall
You climb to a king’s bed; think on’t what ’tis
To sleep in sheets forbidden; on a stol’n pillow
A royal concubine can be no more
Than a great glorious uncontrolled whore.
She who for freedom in that state will thrive
Must plead her patent by prerogative.
CARINTHA
I snatch no patent from you.
PRINCE
Lady, methinks your brow is not bent with frowns.
ARMANTE
If not for my sake,
Yet for my child’s sake, pity me.
PRINCE
Pray do,
For sure there can be none my father’s wife
But she who is my mother.
CARINTHA
What first tempted
Your blood to that impression which stamp’d on you
The seal of these deep sorrows?
ARMANTE
Kingly perjuries,
Contracted falsehood; there’s a true bond drawn
Between the king and me in a fair letter
And ’tis enroll’d in yonder court, by time
Never to be rac’d out.
CARINTHA
Curs’d be the hand —
Should here the writing lie — would cross one line out.
I am so far from vexing you I’ll rather
Spin out a widowhood in stretched miseries
Then play the royal thief and steal from you
What’s yours, a king’s embr
ace and name of queen.
’Twas never near my thought.
PRINCE
Why la’ you, mother?This lady is a good woman.
CARINTHA
To clear your doubts, behold this very letter
I now was writing, was directed, lady,
To your own hands.Pray, read it.
ARMANTE
Excellent goodness. [Reads.
CARINTHA
Sweet prince, oh, that thy father on thy cheeks
Would read the story of a hopeful issue!
He cannot be so cruel in the view
Of himself here, but to the world make known
That ruining thy life he shakes his own.
PRINCE
I would my father were so good a man
As you are a woman, madam.If he be not,
‘Twill be the worse for me.
CARINTHA
Dear soul, a guard of angels will wait on thee.
PRINCE
Will they truly?When shall I see them, pray?
CARINTHA
When thou shalt need them. [To ARMANTE.] You have perus’d my letter?
ARMANTE
I have and am astonish’d.You lock this secret
Within a chest of adamant?
CARINTHA
With it lock this.
See the king’s hand which himself snatch’d away
I put again in yours.
ARMANTE
This brings new life,
And all that life I trust you with.
CARINTHA
Then with your leave
My purpose is to entertain the king
With all the fullness of his hopes; nay, urge him
To speed the height of his desires, be instant
To have him crown me queen, but let me die
In name, die in my comforts, in the thoughts
Of all that honour virtue, if my plots
Aim farther than your peace, and to awake
The king out of this dream.
PRINCE
Y’are a brave lady.I may be a kind one day and then —
ARMANTE
Aught but my prayers I have not left to thank you.
PRINCE
Yes, and mine too.
ARMANTE
I can show to you other wheels set going
Whose motion the king dreams not of.
CARINTHA
’Tis happy.
Shall I direct you?
ARMANTE
Gladly.
CARINTHA
Ere we then part,
We’ll join our councils by what art we can
To turn a great king to a great good man. [Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene One
Flourish.Enter KING, CORNWALL, CHESTER and PENDA.
KING
How does my noble Powis like the lady?
PENDA
Lige her lady out of awl cry.
CORNWALL
Come she up close?Wilt be a match or no?
PENDA
Close?Shall make her come close enough or pull her to with a long Welse hood I have in corners.
CHESTER
Does she understand your meaning?
PENDA
I make no dumb signs to her; no winks, nor pinks.
CHESTER
I she a hawk fit for the game, or no?
PENDA
Kanaw not that, for never can I fly up yet.
CHESTER
Ha’ you touch’d her home with amours parliance?
PENDA
Toush her home?Has toush’d her and tows’d her, and mowze her to upon her soft peds in fine wanton kanaveries, so as lords do ladies, but no dishonesties; for awl my lord Powis is come to buy as a shapman, was scorn to take her lady ware upon trust, unless her will herself.
KING
Beside her beauteous building to the eye,
The ornaments within her are much fairer.
PENDA
Shall tire what is in her ornaments, I warrant her.
CORNWALL
She’s of high birth too. Colcester’s only daughter.
KING
And to that golden scale in which her father
Shall lay her portion, our royal hand shall add
Any two shires in England next to Wales
To you and yours forever.
PENDA
Two shires.’Tis a great teal of ground to fatten Welse runt upon.
KING
Why does she stay thus long, knowing we are come
To make the music of her free consent
Fuller and sweeter, knowing but how she’s tun’d.
PENDA
She putting fine kanags upon her head, and is come away py and py.Harg you , is her laty Armante a right maid, I trow?
CORNWALL
Think you the king would so himself dishonour
Or we blast our own names to set before you
A glass that’s false and crack, to bid you drink
In a cup that has held poison?
PENDA
I kanaw not, for your greatest men now and then are greatest whoremasters.
Enter ARMANTE and ELDRED.
KING
She’s come!How fresh she looks; there’s in her eyes
Sunbeams of power to bring to life again
A summer, were it dying.
ARMANTE
Sir, all my wishes
Are that mine eyes may serve but as two stars
To guide this noble navigator safely
To that blest haven of marriage, to which he tells me
He’s honourably bound, for though your ovice
Is a sufficient charm to tune my thoughts
To any limitation, yet this gentleman
Has those good parts in him.
PENDA
See not awl her parts neither.
ARMANTE
Got such a conquest
Over my maiden yielding, that what fortress
My chaste heart hold to him I must surrender
On promis’d composition.
KING
I am glad to hear it.
PENDA
Was not a fine pinckanies laty and tauge out acry well?
CHESTER
Oh, she’s an excellent creature!
KING
We shall ha’ no more thund’ring?
ARMANTE
Not a clap.
KING
Your heart dwells in your tongue?
ARMANTE
Are chamber fellows.
KING
So.
PENDA
And when is it the pleasures of
KING
The self same day in which I take my queen,
You shall, my lord, be call’d my fellow bridegroom.
OMNES
‘Twill be a princely honour.
PENDA
’Tis no more to do then, but when her tay come to walk to surch and marry and dance and fest, and then to ride away to Wales and show her fine wife.Sidannen was never more look upon so.
CORNWALL
‘Twill be a glorious triumph.
PENDA
Pray, sir, let awl her writings be drawn for portions and towries and agreements and put the two shires in.
KING
By any means.
PENDA
And when the scrivenary pills is awl pend down our laty and herself shall put our marks to it together.
ARMANTE
You promis’d me, my lord, that I should hear
Some of your poetry, a sonnet you would write
In praise of something in me, but what I know not
Because nothing is worth praising.
PENDA
Will you awl hear her Welse muses palled or madrigals?
OMNES
Rather than any other.
PENDA
Tawson then.
Would you kanaw her mistress’ face?
Se the moon wi
th stars in shace.
Would you kanaw her mistress’ nyes?
Lure down a goshawk from her skies.
KING
Good.
PENDA
Would you kanaw her mistress’ nose?
’Tis fine pridge o’er which pewty goes.
ARMANTE
A flattering painter.
CORNWALL
Nay, on.
PENDA
Would you kanaw her mistress’ seeks?
’Tis satin white and red as leeks.
CORNWALL
How, how, red?Leeks are green.
PENDA
And green is young, and her mistress is young too, so leeks in seeks is fine young tender ones.
KING
Nay, nay, ’tis well.A Welsh metaphor bears it.More.
PENDA
Would you kanaw her mistress’ lip?
Your fingers in metheglin dip.
OMNES
Excellent!
PENDA
Here’s pest.
Oh, would you feel her mistress’ skin?
Buy kidsleather gloves and so put in.
CORNWALL
Passing good.
PENDA
Would you hear her mistress’ tongue?
Let twinkling Welse harp well be strung.
CHESTER
Brave.
PENDA
Her mistress’ tugs would you see pare?
Ask Cupit where his pillows are.
CHESTER
By my troth.
PENDA
Marge here now.
Sweter as goat’s milk would you tipple?
You then must suck her mistress’ nipple.
CORNWALL
How, suck her nipple?
ARMANTE
She’s beholding to you.Would you have your mistress
Give suck before she has a child?
PENDA
She’ll get her with child one day and ’tis awl one.
KING
Is there any more?
PENDA
More, here’s pravest of awl:
Would you stroke her mistress’ pelly?
Oh, ’tis smooth as sweet warm jelly.
Being come now to her mistress’ thighs,
Turn again lain in that part lies,
And so I dare go no farder.
CORNWALL
You have gone wondrous well.
KING
An excellent poet too.
Come, we your muse with heighten with rich wines,
And drink to Hymen who sweet love combines. [Flourish.Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene Two
ENTER VOLTIMAR AND the Clown.
VOLTIMAR
How say’st thou, turn’d away?
CLOWN
Just as a cutpurse turn’d of the ladder of the law, so was I that very day when you came and told my lady she must give up housekeeping.Within an hour after, that old mumblecrust lord her father coited me out of doors.
But the kind and she are in tune again and thou may’st feed upon her.
The devil feed upon her.They say the Welsh embassador will have her, and