Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 84
“Lupo Vindicados.” Umh! Nay, we shall employ you;
Merit went never from us with a forehead,
Wrinkled or sullen; what place would you serve in?
GAZETTO
Any, but one of your turn broaches. I would not be one of your black guard, there’s too much fire in me already.
KING
You say you have the languages?
GAZETTO
Yes.
KING
What think you of an intelligencer? We’ll send you —
GAZETTO
To th’gallows; I love not to be hang’d in state.
KING
You having travell’d, as you said, so far,
And knowing so much, I muse thou art so poor.
GAZETTO
Had the confusion of all tongues began
In building me, could I sing sweet in all,
I might go beg and hand. I ha’ seen Turks
And Jews, and Christians, but of all, the Christians
Have driest hands; they’ll see a brother starve,
But give ducks to a water-spaniel.
KING
Well observ’d.
Come, sir, faith let’s crow together. In what stamp
Dost thou coin all thy languages?
GAZETTO
I do speak English
When I’d most pity; when dissemble, Irish,
Dutch when I reel, and though I feed on scallions;
If I should brag gentility, I’d gabble Welch;
If I betray, I’m French; if full of braves,
They swell in lofty Spanish; in neat Italian
I court my wench; my mess is all serv’d up.
KING
Of what religion art thou?
GAZETTO
Of yours.
KING
When you were in France?
GAZETTO
French.
KING
Without there!
Enter ALPHONSO.
ALPHONSO
Sir?
KING
Give this gentleman five hundred pistolets.
Be near us.
GAZETTO
[Aside to KING.] In thy bosom, for thy pistolets
I’ll give thee pistols, in a peace might ha’ been mine
Thou shootst or meanst to shoot, but I’ll charge thine.
Thy heart off goes it in thunder.
KING
Through the gallery
Unseen convey him hither; give us leave, sir.
GAZETTO
Leave have you. [Exeunt GAZETTO and ALPHONSO.
Enter DOCTOR, VALASCO and ALPHONSO after them.
VALASCO
I’m glad to see your majesty.
KING
You have reason.
VALASCO
I was going to cry all hid.
KING
Come hither,
Dead man, you’ll justify this treason?
VALASCO
To his teeth,
Throat, mouth to mouth, body to body.
KING
So.
Enter IAGO.
IAGO
Don John of Castille’s come.
KING
A chair. Stand you
Full here and stir not; front him, bring him in.
How now, did a hare cross your way?
Enter JOHN.
JOHN
[Aside.] The devil!
[Aloud.] Doctor, I’ll give you a purge for this. I’ll make
Your highness laugh.
KING
You must tickle me soundly then.
JOHN
In this retreat of mine from court, my body,
Which was before a clean stream, growing foul
By my mind’s trouble, through your high displeasure
Which went to th’bottom of my heart; I call’d
That sound card to me, gave him fees and bid him,
By all the fairest props that art could rear,
To keep my health from falling, which I felt
Tottering and shaken, but my uninalist,
As if he sate in barber-surgeon’s hall
Reading anatomy lectures, left to artery
Unstretch’d upon the tenters.
KING
So he vex’d you to the guts.
JOHN
My bowels were his conjuring rooms; to quit him,
I tempted him to poison a great man.
I, knowing this my honourable friend —
VALASCO
Keep back! He’ll poison my glove else.
JOHN
Coming to visit me,
This was the man must die.
KING
Why did you this?
JOHN
Only to hatch a jest on my pill’d doddy.
I knew he durst not do’t.
KING
But say he had?
VALASCO
Then he had been hang’d.
JOHN
That had made me more glad.
DOCTOR
I am bound to your lordship.
JOHN
Being a doctor, you may loose yourself.
KING
Men’s lives, then, are your balls. Disarm him.
JOHN
How!
Not all thy kingdom can! [Draws.
KING
Hew him in pieces!
Our guard, s’death kill him.
JOHN
See then, I put myself into your den.
What does the lion now with me?
KING
Thou’rt a traitor!
JOHN
I am none.
KING
No!
VALASCO
Yes, an arrant traitor!
JOHN
You, sir,
Spit all thy poison forth.
VALASCO
No, I drank none, sir.
KING
Come to your proofs, and see you put ’em home.
VALASCO
You and I one day, being in conference,
You nam’d this noble king, my sovereign,
A tyrant; bid me strike, ’twas now my time,
Spake of a piece charg’d, and of shooting off,
Of stirring up the rascals to rebel,
And to be short, to kill thee.
JOHN
I speak this!
VALASCO
Yes, traitor, thou!
JOHN
Where?
VALASCO
In your chamber.
JOHN
Chamber!
Was it not when you told me that the king
Had got a strumpet?
KING
Ha!
VALASCO
How?
JOHN
A citizen’s wife;
’Twas when you swore to play him soundly.
VALASCO
See, see!
JOHN
The people’s hearts were full.
VALASCO
Pox a’ my heart then!
JOHN
Or was’t not when you threaten’d to take all
Into your own hands?
VALASCO
There’s my glove, thou liest!
KING
Good stuff; I shall find traitors of you both;
If you are, be so; with my finger, thus,
I fan away the dust flying in mine eyes
Rais’d by a little wind; I laugh at these now,
’Tis smoke, and yet because you shall not think
We’ll dance in earthquakes, or throw squibs at thunder,
I charge you both keep your chambers for a day
Or so.
VALASCO
Your will. [Exit.
JOHN
Chambers!
KING
We bid it.
JOHN
You may. [Exit.
Enter QUEEN and Ladies.
OMNES
T
he queen!
QUEEN
I thank you highness for the bird you gave me.
KING
What bird?
QUEEN
Your tassel gentle; she’s lur’d off
And gone.
KING
How, gone? What, gone!
QUEEN
Your woman’s fled,
Whom you prefer’d to me; she’s stol’n from the court.
KING
You jest.
QUEEN
Be it so. [Goes away.
KING
I have hotter news for you:
Your father’s head lies here; art thou still shooting
Thy stings into my sides? Now do you look
I should turn wild and send through all the winds
Horsemen in quest of her, because you wear
A kind of yellow stocking. Let her fly.
If Jove, forsooth, would fix a star in heaven,
Juno runs mad; thou better mightst have spurn’d
The gates of hell ope, then to look into
Our bosom.
QUEEN
Where your trull lies.
KING
Y’are a toad.
QUEEN
Woman’s revenge awake thee; thou has stirr’d
A blood as hot and high as is thine own.
Raise no more storms; your treasure is not gone.
I fear’d the sea was dangerous, and did sound it.
Mischief but half up, is with ease confounded. [Exit.
KING
In thine own ruin; me canst thou hit
But with one finger which can do no harm,
But when a king strikes, ’tis with his whole arm. [Exit.
Act Three, Scene Three
ENTER QUEEN AND TORMIELLA.
QUEEN
Make fast the closet. So — give me the key;
I mean to kill thee.
TORMIELLA
Kill me! For what cause?
QUEEN
Guess.
TORMIELLA
I know none, unless the lamb should ask
The butcher why he comes to cut his throat.
QUEEN
I could through loopholes hit thee, or hire slaves
And send death to thee twenty secret ways.
TORMIELLA
Why would you do all this?
QUEEN
Or, as the hart
Draws serpents from their den, with subtle breath
I could allure thee to sit down and banquet
With me as with the king thou hast.
TORMIELLA
Oh, never!
QUEEN
Yet poison you most sweetly.
TORMIELLA
Now you do it.
QUEEN
And I could make thee a queen’s bedfellow
As thou hast been a king’s.
TORMIELLA
Never, by —
QUEEN
Swear,
Yet stifle you in a pillow; but I scorn
To strike at thee blindfold; only thou shalt know
An eagle’s nest disdains to hatch a crow.
Why are all mouths in Spain fill’d to the brim,
Flowing o’er with court news only of you and him,
The king I mean, where lies the court?
TORMIELLA
Sure, here.
QUEEN
It remov’d last, to th’shop of a milliner.
The guests are so set down, because you ride
Like us, and steal our fashions and our tires,
You’ll have our courtiers to turn shopkeepers,
And fall to trading with you, ha!
TORMIELLA
Alas,
The court to me is an enchanted tower
Wherein I’m lock’d by force, and bound by spells;
A heaven to some; to me ten thousand hells.
I drink but poison in gold, stick on the top
Of a high pinnacle like an idle vane,
As the wind turns, by every breath being toss’d,
And once blown down, not miss’d, but for ever lost.
QUEEN
Out, crocodile! [Spurn her.
TORMIELLA
You will not murder me!
QUEEN
I’ll cure you of the king’s evil. [Draw two knives.
TORMIELLA
To one woman,
Another should be pitiful. Here me speak!
QUEEN
How dares so base a flower follow my sun
At’s rising to his setting?
TORMIELLA
I follow none.
QUEEN
How dar’st thou, serpent, wind about a tree
That’s mine?
TORMIELLA
I do not.
QUEEN
Or to shake the leaves?
TORMIELLA
By heaven, not any!
QUEEN
Or once to taste the fruit
Though thrown into thy lap; if from a harlot
Prayers ever came, pray, for thou diest.
TORMIELLA
Then kill me.
QUEEN
How did my husband win thee?
TORMIELLA
By mere force.
A bawd betray’d me to him.
QUEEN
Worse and worse.
TORMIELLA
If ever I have wrong’d your royal bed
In act, in thought, nail me for ever fast
To scape this tiger of the king’s fierce lust;
I will do anything; I will speak treason
Or drink a cup of poison, which may blast
My enticing face, and make it leprous foul.
Ruin you all this, so you keep up my soul.
That’s all the wealth I care for.
QUEEN
I have now
No heart left to kill thee. Rise; thou and I
Will like two quarrelling gallants faster tie
A knot of love. We both i’th’field being wounded.
Since we must needs be sharers, use me kindly
And play not the right citizen, to undo
Your partner, who i’th’stock has more than you.
A noise within. Enter the KING.
KING
Must you be closeted?
QUEEN
No.
KING
What are you doing?
QUEEN
Not getting children.
KING
Naked knives; for what?
Speak, s’death, speak you.
TORMIELLA
They both fell from her side.
KING
[To the QUEEN.] You lie; away.
QUEEN
Must you be closeted?
KING
Yes.
QUEEN
When heart breakst thou, thou dost to much swell.
This aspish biting is incurable. [Exit.
KING
Be true to me, I charge you. Did the Queen
Offer no violence to you.
TORMIELLA
None at all.
KING
Why were these drawn?
TORMIELLA
I know not.
KING
Know not. What’s here?
Why is this rose dimm’d with a pearled tear
When the sun shines so warm; you know not that too.
The lamb has tam’d the lion; the vulture tires
Upon the eagle’s heart; these subtle wires
Chain Jove; these balls, from whose flames Cupid drew
His wild fire burns here; this you know not too?
I love you, that you knot not neither. Y’are coy
And proud, and fair; you know this?
TORMIELLA
I beseech you,
Let me shake off the golden fetters you tie
About my body; you enjoy a body
Without a soul, for I am now not here.
; KING
Where then?
TORMIELLA
At home in my poor husband’s arms.
This is your court, that mine.
KING
Your husband’s arms;
Thou art his whore. He play’d the thief and robb’d
Another of thee, and to spoil the spoiler
Is kingly justice. ’Tis a lawful prize
That’s ta’an from pirates; theirs are fellow wives.
TORMIELLA
Which of your subjects, which abroad adore
Your state, your greatness, presence and your throne
Of sun beams, think you now are with a wanton,
Or working a chaste wife to become one?
KING
I work thee not to be so, for when time
Shall jog his glass and make those sands lie low
Which now are at the top, thyself shalt grow
In self same place my queen does.
TORMIELLA
What tree ever stood
Long and deep rooted that was set in blood?
I will not be your whore to wear your crown,
Nor call any king my husband, but mine own.
KING
No!
TORMIELLA
No, ‘twere shame ‘mongst all our city dames
If one could not scape free, their blasted fames.
KING
The sound of bells and timbrels make you mad
As it does a tiger; the softer that I stroke you
The worse you bite; your father and your husband
Are at my sending come to court. I’ll lay
Honours on both their back here they shall stay
Because I’ll keep you here; if you do frown,
The engine which rears up, shall pluck all down.
I’ll fetch ’em to you myself. [Exit.
TORMIELLA
Oh, who can stifling scape in baser throngs
When princes’ courts threaten the self same wrongs? [Exit.
Act Four, Scene One
FLOURISH. ENTER KING, MALEVENTO, CORDOLENTE, IAGO, ALPHONSO, GAZETTO (disguised as LUPO), and TORMIELLO.
KING
Y’are the best welcome which the court can yield,
For the king gives it you.
MALEVENTO
Your grace is gracious.
KING
[To TORMIELLA.] Is this your father?
MALEVENTO
My proper flash and blood, sir.
KING
And that your husband?
CORDOLENTE
Not I, sir. I married an honest wench that went in a cap, no whim-whams. I did but shuffle the first dealing, you cut last, and dealt last; by the same token you turn’d up a court card.
KING
Is the man jealous?
CORDOLENTE
No, but a little troubles with the yellow jaundice, and you know if it get to the crown of the head, a man’s gone.
KING
We send not for you hither to be brav’d,
Sirrah; cast your darts elsewhere.
CORDOLENTE
Amongst the wild Irish, sir, hereafter.
KING
’Tis our queen’s pleasure that your wife be call’d
Her woman, and because she will not loose her,
She hath importun’d us to raise you both.
Your name, sir?