TORMIELLA
My shoemaker.
KING
Oh, hast fitted her? So, hence, sir.
CORDOLENTE
As a worm on my belly. What, should the ant
On his poor mole-hill brave the elephant?
No, Signior, no.
No brains to stay, but saves a head to go. [Exit.
KING
Let me have no more of this; have not we eyes
Pointed like sunbeams? Go to, get you in.
TORMIELLA
Angel from heaven, fall’n a king’s concubine. [Exit.
Enter MARTINES.
MARTINES
May it please your grace —
KING
Ha!
MARTINES
Her highness drown’d in sorrow that your brow
Has been so long contracted into frowns,
Wishing to die unless she see it smooth’d,
Commends her best love to you in this jewel,
The image of her heart.
KING
My Lord Admiral,
My wife’s grown kind, see?
VALASCO
One of the happiest hours
Mine age e’er numbered. Would your highness now
Would fetch up the red blood her cheeks hath lost
By sending her some symbol of your love.
KING
Pray, step yourself unto her; say I lock
My heart up in your bosom to her use,
And give it her.
VALASCO
I’ll lend it in your name.
KING
Do.
VALASCO
She shall pay her heart for it in interest. [Exit.
KING
I’ll see her anon.
Leave us. Stay you and set that table there.
[Exeunt. Manent KING and MARTINES.
A chair; none trouble us. Do you serve the Queen?
MARTINES
Yes, sir.
KING
We know you now; y’are in our eye.
Are the doors fast?
MARTINES
They are, sir.
KING
Nearer yet.
Do not you know of a conspiracy
To take away my life upon Saunt — tush,
No matter for the day. You know the plot, sir?
MARTINES
By heaven, I know of none!
KING
Blushing does you stain.
MARTINES
It is not guilt but anger.
KING
Y’ave all fix’d
Your hands and seals to an indenture drawn
By such a day to kill me.
MARTINES
For my part,
My loyalty like a rough diamond shines
The more ’tis cut. I have no hand in that
Or any baseness else against your life
Or kingdom.
KING
No?
MARTINES
None.
KING
Fetch me ink and paper.
I soon shall try that. Come, sir, write your name.
Stay; your own words shall choke you; ’twas a letter
Wrapp’d up in hidden characters and sent
Enclos’d in a pomgranet to a great Don,
And thus subscrib’d, “At your pleasure, your obsequious vassal.”
Write this, and then your name here.
MARTINES
[Writes.] “At your pleasure” —
KING
Thy hand shakes.
MARTINES
No, sir. [Writes.] “Your obsequious vassal.”
KING
Here, sir, your name now there so low it stood.
MARTINES
[Writes.] “Martines Cazalla de Barameda.”
KING
There’s in thy face to traitor. I cannot tell.
Good mouths have given thee to me, on your life
Be not you like a wolf’s skin drom to fright
The whole herd by your sound. I will compare
Your hand with this, that’s all. But, sir, beware
You prate to none of what ‘twixt us is past.
MARTINES
Were I i’th’world above, I would desire
To come from thence, to give that man the lie,
That once should dare to blot my loyalty.
KING
Here, take this key; meet me some half hour hence
I’th’privy gallery with two naked poniards.
MARTINES
Two poniards. [Exit.
Enter GAZETTO as LUPO.
KING
Yes, go send somebody in. Stay, Lupo,
Can you write?
GAZETTO
Yes.
KING
Indite a letter— ‘sdeath, sir — here begin.
GAZETTO
After my hearty commendations, so, sir.
KING
How! Write, “My most admired mistress.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “–mired mistress.”
KING
“With the fire you first kindled in me, still I am burnt.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “Still I am burnt.”
KING
“So that thunder shall not hinder me from climbing the highest step of the ladder.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “Climbing the highest step of the ladder.”
KING
“Of your perfections, though I be confounded forever.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “Be confounded forever.”
KING
“Your high pleasures are mine, mine yours.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “Mine yours.”
KING
“And I die everlastingly until I be in your bosom.”
GAZETTO
[Writes.] “And I die — until I be in your bosom.”
KING
So.
GAZETTO
So.
KING
Hold.
GAZETTO
Here, sir.
KING
Where are the gentlemen of our chamber?
GAZETTO
Without, sir.
KING
Bid them attend us close.
GAZETTO
I shall. [Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene Five
ENTER MARTINES WITH two poniards.
MARTINES
Would this day’s work were done. I do not like
To see a bull to a wild fig tree tied
To make him tame; beasts licking ‘gainst the hair
Forshow some storm, and I foresee some snare.
His sword is dipp’d in oil, yet does it wound
Deadly; yet stand it, innocence wrong’d is crown’d.
Enter KING, ALPHONSO, and GAZETTO as LUPO, and others.
OMNES
Treason!
KING
Where?
OMNES
Kill the villain! [All draw.
KING
Stay! None touch him
On you lives! On king’s shoulders stand
The heads of the colossi of the gods,
Above the reach of traitors, were the beds
Of twenty thousand snakes laid in this bosom,
There’s thunder in our looks to break them all.
Leave us.
OMNES
You are too venturous. [Exeunt. Manent KING and MARTINES.
KING
Jove cannot fall;
Both person, place and business were quite lost
Out of our memory. Lay aside these poniards.
We have alter’d now our business; you shall bear, sir,
Our salutation to the Queen. Not seal’d!
‘Sfoot, nor endors’d! Some ink; come let thy forehead
Have no more wrinkles in’t. But this, to the Queen,
Write it.
MARTINES
>
To the Queen, no more!
KING
No, no, ’tis well.
Hast thou no seal about thee? If my wife
Exceptions take missing our royal signet.
Say that not having that, I borrowed yours.
MARTINES
I shall, sir. [Exit.
KING
Hide it, go. Without there!
Enter All.
OMNES
Sir.
KING
You met him, did you not? How look’d the slave?
OMNES
Most strangely.
KING
Unparelled villain! Devils could not set
To hatch such spiteful mischief. Guard me closely;
When you see him at the stake than worry him.
Are all weapon’d?
OMNES
All, all.
KING
When darts invisible fly,
A slave may kill a lion in the eye. [Exeunt.
Act Four, Scene Six
ENTER QUEEN AND TORMIELLA.
QUEEN
Who gave you this?
TORMIELLA
A gentleman of your chamber.
QUEEN
Call in the villain.
Enter MARTINES.
Thou audacious serpent!
How dar’st thou wind in knotted curls thy lust
About our honour. Where hadst thou this letter?
MARTINES
I had it from the king.
QUEEN
Out, impudent traitor!
Enter KING, IAGO, GAZETTO as LUPO, and APHONSO.
KING
How now at barley-break? Who art in hell?
What’s that? To the Queen? What queen?
QUEEN
Me! ’Tis to me!
Your mistress there the messenger; her secretary,
He here.
KING
‘Uds death!
QUEEN
Your trull and he have laid
Trains to blow up mine honour. I am betray’d.
KING
Lupo, fasten her.
QUEEN
Fasten me!
KING
Iago, see.
Look all; bind fast this devil. Is there no circle
To be damn’d in but mine?
QUEEN
Slave, let me go.
KING
Oh, thou lustful harlot!
QUEEN
Guard me, heaven.
MARTINES
I’m sold.
QUEEN
Thou villain, speak truth!
KING
Keep her off.
MARTINES
Most basely
Betray’d and baffled. Is that letter the same
I sent in to the Queen?
TORMIELLA
The very same.
KING
Is this thy hand?
MARTINES
’Tis, sir, but hear me.
KING
And this thy name, thy hand?
MARTINES
My name, my hand.
QUEEN
Save him and let him spit
His blackest poison forth.
KING
Spare him. Unhand her.
QUEEN
Let me have justice as thou art a king!
KING
To prison with them both.
QUEEN
As I am thy wife,
Make not thyself a strumpet of me.
KING
Hence, guard her.
QUEEN
I come, heaven, guarded with innocence. [Exit.
KING
Follow your mistress, go.
TORMIELLA
Yes, to her grave.
Oh, that I now were swallowed in some wave! [Exit.
KING
Oh, that I
Should in a woman’s lap my kingdom lay;
Honour and life, and she should all betray
To a groom, a slave.
IAGO
Let not her poison run
Too near your heart.
KING
Iago, I have done.
Pray, let my grief want company; this wrack
So great shall make th’whole kingdom mourn in black. [Exeunt Court.
Lupo!
GAZETTO
Did your highness call?
KING
Yes. Hark thee, Lupo.
It may be th’art a serpent dull of sight;
Be quick of hearing; maybe th’art a hare,
And canst see sideways; let me lock up here
Whatever’s laid in there.
GAZETTO
I am strongly charm’d.
KING
Wilt venture for me?
GAZETTO
To the threshold of hell.
KING
May I trust thee?
GAZETTO
Else employ me not.
KING
Didst ever kill a scorpion?
GAZETTO
Never. I ha’ been stung by one.
KING
Didst never bait a wild bull?
GAZETTO
That’s the pastime I most love and follow.
KING
A strange disease
Hangs on me and our doctors say the blook
Only of these two beast must do me good.
Dar’st thou attempt to kill them?
GAZETTO
Were they devils
With heads of iron and claws jointed with brass,
Encounter them I shall. In what park run they?
KING
The Queen that scorpion is. Tormiella’s husband,
The mad ox broken loose. In a small volume,
What mischief may be writ! In a maze.
GAZETTO
No, in a muse.
I’m plotting how to do’t, and to come off.
KING
This does it, but this key burst ope all doors
That can betray thee; done, be sure to rise.
Let a king’s royal breath send thee hence flying.
GAZETTO
As powder does the bullet.
KING
Heap’d up honours
Are schedules to thine enterprise annex’d.
Do it and mount.
GAZETTO
[Aside.] To th’gallows.
KING
[Aside.] Thyself goes next. [Exit.
GAZETTO
I scorn to be thy bloodhound.
Why should I vex a soul did never grieve me?
The Queen’s an honest lady; should I kill her
It were as if I pull’d a temple down
And from the ruins of that built up a stews.
She lives, but butcher like the ox I’ll use. [Exit.
Act Five, Scene One
ENTER KING; AT another door VALASCO, MALEVENTO and IAGO.
MALEVENTO
Oh, royal sir, my daughter Tomiella
Has lost her use of reason and run mad.
KING
When?
MALEVENTO
Not half an hour since.
KING
Mad now! Now frantic!
When all my hopes are at their highest pitch
T’enjoy her beauties! Take no more; thou liest.
Enter GAZETTO as LUPO.
GAZETTO
May it please your majesty —
KING
Curses consume thee! Oh! [Strikes.
GAZETTO
It is dispatch’d; the Queen is lost, never to be found.
KING
Wave upon wave.
Hard-hearted furies, when will you dig my grave.
You do not hear him, thunder shakes heaven first
Before dull earth can feel it.
My dear, dearest Queen is dead.
VALASCO
Ha!
OMNES
The Queen dead!
KING
What said she l
ast?
GAZETTO
Commend me to the king,
And tell him this: mine honour is not wrack’d,
Though his love be.
KING
And so her heart-strings crack’d!
VALASCO
Some trick, upon my life. State-conjuring
To raise up devils in prisons, and i’th’dark.
If she be dead, I’ll see her.
KING
Villainous man,
Thou see what we have enjoy’d, thou impudent fool
Away, Iago, give this tumbling whale
Empty barrels to play with till this troublous seas,
Which he more raging makes, good heaven appease.
VALASCO
Well, I say nothing. Birds in cages mourn
At first, but as last sing. I will take my turn. [Exit.
KING
My Queen dead! I shall now have rhyming slaves
Libel upon us giving her innocent wings;
But say we murdered her, scandal dare strike kings.
Then here’s another moon of Spain eclips’d,
One whom our best lov’d Queen put in her bosom,
For sweetness of pure life, integrity,
And, in court beauties wondrous, honesty.
She’s mad too, Lupo, Tormiella’s mad!
GAZETTO
Mad!
IAGO
[Aside.] As a March whore.
GAZETTO
Mad, shall I work upon her?
KING
Use thy skill. [Exit GAZETTO.
IAGO
I would to heaven your highness —
KING
Ha! The Queen! Was she not at my elbow?
OMNES
Here was nothing.
KING
I must not live thus, Iago, if I lie
After the kingly fashion without a woman
I shall run mad at midnight. I will marry
The lunatic lady, she shall be my queen.
Proclaim her so.
IAGO
Your highness does but jest!
KING
All the world’s frantic, mad with mad are best. [Exit.
IAGO
Wretched state of kings, that standing high,
Their faults are marks shot at by every eye. [Exeunt.
Act Five, Scene Two
ENTER TORMIELLA, MALEVENTO, and GAZETTO disguised as a Doctor.
GAZETTO
Give me the key. Make all fast. Leave us. I’ll screw her wits to the right place.
MALEVENTO
Apollo bless thee! [Exit.
TORMIELLA
Are not you a woollen-draper?
GAZETTO
Yes.
TORMIELLA
Whether is a woman’s life measured by the ell or the yard?
GAZETTO
All women by the yard, sure; it’s no life else.
TORMIELLA
I’m not near seventeen years old. If I should die at these years am I not a fool?
GAZETTO
Yes, marry you are, for the law allows none to be of discretion till they come to twenty-one.
TORMIELLA
Out upon you! You are a lawyer; pray, get you hence, for you’ll not leave me clothes to my back if I keep you company. I’m mad enough now, and you’ll make me stark mad.
Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker Page 86