Complete Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker
Page 101
Still to run true, till death.Now, sir, if not
She forfeits my rich blessing and is fin’d
With an eternal curse.Then I tell you
She shall die now, now whilst her soul is true.
TERILL
Die?
CÆLESTINE
Ay, I am death’s echo.
SIR QUINTILIAN
O, my son,
I am her father; every tear I shed
Is threescore ten year old.I weep and smile
Two kind of tears:I weep that she must die,
I smile that she must die a virgin.This
We joyful men mock tears, and tears mock us.
TERILL
What speaks that cup?
SIR QUINTILIAN
White wine and poison.
TERILL
Oh,
That very name of poison poisons me.
Thou winter of a man, thou walking grave
Whose life is like a dying taper, how
Canst thou define a lover’s labouring thoughts?
What scent hast thou but death?What taste but earth?
The breath that purls from thee is like the steam
Of a new-open’d vault.I know thy drift,
Because thou art travelling to the land of graves,
Thou covetst company, and hither bringst
A health of poison to pledge death.A poison
For this sweet spring; this element is mine;
This is the air I breath.Corrupt it not.
This heaven is mine, I bought it with my soul
Of him that sells a heaven, to buy a soul.
SIR QUINTILIAN
Well, let her go.She’s thine; thou callst her thine.
Thy element, the air thou breathst; thou knowst
The air thou breathst si common, make her so.
Perhaps thou’t day none but the king shall wear
Thy night gown; she that laps thee warm with love
And that kings are not common.Then to show
By consequences he cannot make her so,
Indeed, she may promote her shame and thine,
And with your shames, speak a good word for mine.
The king shining so clear, and we so dim,
Our dark disgraces will be seen through him.
Imagine her the cup of thy moist life;
What man would pledge a king in his own wife?
TERILL
She dies.That sentence poisons her.O life!
What slave would pledge a king in his own wife?
CÆLESTINE
Welcome, O poison, physic against lust;
Thou wholesome medicine to a constant blood;
Thou rare apothecary that canst keep
My chastity preserv’d within this box
Of tempting dust, this painted earthen pot
That stands upon the stall of the white soul
To set the shop out like a flatterer,
To draw the customers of sin.Come, come,
Thou art no poison, but a diet-drink
To moderate my blood.White innocent wine,
Art thou made guilty of my death?Oh no,
For thou thyself art poinson’d; take me hence
For innocence shall murder innocence. [Drinks.
TERILL
Hold, hold, thou shalt not die, my bride, my wife.
O stop that speedy messenger of death;
O let him not run down that narrow path
Which leads unto they heart, nor carry news
To thy removing soul, that thou must die.
CÆLESTINE
’Tis done already; the spiritual court
Is breaking up; all offices discharg’d;
My soul removes from this weak standing bouse
Of frail mortality.Dear father, bless
Me now and ever.Dearer man, farewell.
I jointly take my leave of thee and life.
Go, tell the king thou hast a constant wife.
TERILL
I had a constant wife I’ll tell the king,
Until the king — What, dost thou smile?Art thou
A father?
SIR QUINTILIAN
Yea, smiles on my cheeks arise
To see how sweetly a true virgin dies.
Enter BLUNT, CRISPINUS, DEMETRIUS, PHILOCALIA, DICACHE, and PETULA, lights before them.
CRISPINUS
Sir Walter Terill, gallants, are all ready?
TERILL
All ready.
DEMETRIUS
Well said.Come, come, where’s the bride?
TERILL
She’s going to forbid the banns again.
She’ll die a maid; and see, she keeps her oath.
ALL THE MEN
Fair Cælestine!
LADIES
The bride!
TERILL
She that was fair,
Whom I call’d fair and Cælestine.
OMNES
Dead!
SIR QUINTALIAN
Dead; she’s Death’s bride; he hath her maidenhead.
CRISINUS
Sir Walter Terill.
OMNES
Tell us how.
TERILL
All cease;
The subject that we treat of now is peace.
If you demand how, I can tell; if why,
Ask the king that; he was the cause, not I.
Let it suffice, she’d dead, she’s kept her vow.
Ask the king why, and then I’ll tell you how.
Nay, give your revels life, though she be gone
To court with all your preparation.
Lead on, and lead her on; if any ask
The mystery, say death presents a masque.
Ring peals of music; you are London’s bells.
The loss of one heaven brings a thousand hells. [Exeunt.
Act Five Scene Two
ENTER AN ARM’D Sewer, after him the service of a banquet; the KING at another door meets them; they exeunt.
KING
Why so, even thus the mercury of heaven
Ushers th’ambrosiate banquet of the gods,
When a long train of angels in a rank
Serve the first course, and bow their crystal knees
Before the silver table; where loves page,
Sweet Ganymede fills nectar; when the gods
Drink healths to kings, they pledge them; none but kings
Dare pledge the gods; none but gods drink to kings.
Men of our house, are we prepar’d?
Enter Servants.
SERVANT
My liege,
All wait the presence of the bride.
KING
The bride?
Yea, every senseless thing which she beholds
Will look on her again; her eyes’ reflection
Will make the walls all eyes with her perfection.
Observe me now because of masques and revels
And many nuptial ceremonies.Mark,
This i create the presence, here the state,
Out kingdom’s seat shall sit in honour’s pride
Like pleasure’s queen; there will I place the bride.
Be gone, be speedy, let me see it done. [Exeunt.
A king in love is steward to himself,
And never scorns the office; myself buy
All glances from the market of her eye.
[Soft music; chair is set under a canopy.
Sound music, thou sweet suitor to the air,
Now woo the air again; this is the hourWrit in the calendar of time, thishour,
Music shall spend, the next and next the bride.
Her tongue will read the music-lecture.Wat,
I love thee, Wat, because thou art not wise;
Not deep-read in the volume of a man,
Thou never sawst a thought, pour soul, thou thinkst
The heart and tongue is cut out of one piece,
But th’art deceived; the world hath a false light:
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Fools think ’tis day, when wise men know ’tis night.
Enter SIR QUINTILIAN.
SIR QUINTILIAN
My liege, they’re come.A masque of gallants.
KING
Now, the spirit of love ushers my blood.
SIR QUINTILIAN
They come.
The watch-word in a masque is the bold drum.
Enter BLUNT, CRISPINUS, DEMETRIUS, PHILOCALIA, PETULA, DICACHE, all mask’d, two and two with lights like masquers;CÆLESTINE in a chair.
TERILL
All pleasures guard my king.I here present
My oath upon the knew of duty; knees
Are made for kings; they are the subject’s fees.
KING
Wat Terill, th’art ill-suited, ill made up,
In sable colours, like a night piece dyed.
Com’st thou the prologue of a masque in black?
Thy body is ill shap’d.A bridegroom too?
Look how the day is dresss’d in silver cloth
Laud round about with golden sunbeams.So,
As white as heaven, should a fresh bridegroom go.
What?Cælestine the bride in the same task?
Nay then i see there’s mystery in this masque.
Prithee, resolve me, Wat.
TERILL
My gracious lord,
That part is hers, she acts it; only I
Present the prologue, she the mystery.
KING
Come, bride, the scene of blushing enter’d first,
Your cheeks are settled now, and past the worst. [Unmasks her.
A mystery?Oh, none plays here but death!
This is death’s motion, motionless.Speak you,
Flatter no longer.Thou, her bridegroom; thou
Her father, speak!
SIR QUINTILIAN
Dead.
TERILL
Dead.
KING
How?
SIR QUINTILIAN
Poison’d.
KING
And poison’d?
What villainy dust blaspheme her beauties, or
Profane the clear religion of her eyes?
TERILL
Now, King, I enter; now the scene is mine.
My tongue is tipp’d with poison.Know who speaks
And look into my thoughts.I blush not, King,
To call thee tyrant.Death hath set my face
And made my blood bold.Hear me, spirits of men,
And place your ears upon your hearts.The day,
The fellow to this night, saw her and me
Shake hands together, for the book of heaven
Made us eternal friends; thus, man and wife.
This man of men, the King, what are not kings?
Was my chief guest, my royal guest; his grace
Grac’ed all the table and did well become
The upper end, where say my bride.In brief,
He tainted her chaste ears; she yet unknown
His breath was treason, though his words were none,
Treason to her and me.He dar’d me then,
Under the covert of a flattering smile,
To bring her where she is, not as she is,
Alive for lust, not dead for chastity,
The resolution of my soul out-dar’d,
I swore and tax’d my faith with a sad oath,
Which I maintain;here, take her, she was mine
When she was living, but now dead, she’s thine.
KING
Do not confound me quite, for mine own guilt
Speaks more within me than thy tongue contains.
Thy sorrow is my shame, yet herein springs
Joy out of sorrow, boldness out of shame,
For I by this have found, once in my life
A faithful subject, thou a constant wife.
CÆLESTINE
A constant wife.
KING
Am I confounded twice,
Blasted with wonder?
TERILL
O, delude me not!
Thou art too true to live again, too fair
To be my Cælestine, too constant far
To be a woman.
CÆLESTINE
Not to be thy wife,
But first I plead my duty, and salute
The world again.
SIR QUINTILIAN
My King, my son, know all.
I am an actor in this mystery,
And bear the chiefest part.The father I,
’Twas I that ministered to her chaste blood
A true somniferous potion, which did steal
Her thoughts to sleep, and flattered her with death.
I call’d it a quick poison’d drug, to try
The bridegroom’s hove, and the bride’s constancy.
He in the passion of his love did fight
A combat with affection; so did both;
She for the poison strove, he for his oath.
Thus like a happy father, I have won
A constant daughter and a loving son.
KING
Mirror of maidens, wonder of thy name,
I give thee that art given, pure, chaste, the same.
Here, Wat, I would not part, for the world’s pride,
So true a bridegroom and so chaste a bride.
CRISPINUS
My liege, to wed a comical event
To presupposed tragic argument,
Vouchsafe to exercise your eyes and see
A humorous dreadful poet take degree.
KING
Dreadful in his proportion or his pen?
CRISPINUS
In both; he calls himself the whip of men.
KING
If a clear merit stand upon his praise,
Reach him a poet’s crown, the honour’d bays,
But if he claim it, wanting right thereto,
As many bastard sons of poesy do,
Race down his usurpation to the ground.
True poets are with art and nature crown’d.
But in what mold so ere this man be cast,
We make him thine, Crispinus.Wit and judgement
Shine in thy numbers, and thy soul, I know,
Will not go arm’d in passion ‘gainst my foe.
Therefore be thou ourself, whilst ourself sit
But as spectator of this scene of wit.
CRISPINUS
Thanks, royal lord, for these high honours done.
To me unworthy, my mind’s brightest fires
Shall all consume themselves in purest flame
On the alter of your dear eternal name.
KING
Not under us, but next us take thy seat.
“Arts nourished by kings make king more great.”
Use thy authority.
CRISPINUS
Demetrius,
Call in that self-creating Horace; bring
Him and his shadow forth.
DEMETRIUS
Both shall appear.
“No black-eyed star must stick in virtue’s sphere”
Enter SIR VAUGHAN.
SIR VAUGHAN
‘Ounds, did you see him?I pray let all hismajesty’s most excelend dogs be set at liberties and have their freedoms to smell him out.
DEMETTRIUS
Smell whom?
SIR VAUGHAN
Whom?The composer, the prince of poets, Horace, Horace, he’s departed.In God’s name and the King’s, I sarge you to ring it out from all our ears, for Horace’s body is departed.Master hue and cry shall.God bless King Williams.I cry you mercy and ask forgiveness for mind eyes did not find in their hearts to look upon your majesty.
KING
What news with thee, Sir Vaughan?
SIR VAUGHAN
News?God, ’tis as ‘orse news as i can desire to bring about me.Out unhandsome-fac’d poet does play at bo-peeps with yoru grace and cries all-hilde as boys do.
OFFICERS
Stand by, room there,
back, room for the poet.
SIR VAUGHAN
He’s reprehended and taken.By Sesu, I rejoice very near as much as if I had discover’d a new-found land or the North and East Indies.
Enter TUCCA, his Boy after him with two pictures under his cloak, and a wreath of nettles.HORACE and ASINIUS pull’d in by th’horns bound, both like satyrs.SIR ADAM following, MISTRESS MINIVER with him, wearing TUCCA’s chain.
TUCCA
So tug, tug, pull the mad bull in by th’horns.So, bait one at that stke my place-nouth yelpers and one at that stake gurnet’s head.
KING
What busy fellow’s this?
TUCCA
Save thee, my most gracious King, a heart’s save thee.Allhats and caps are thine, and therefore I vail; for but to thee great sultan Solomon, I scorn to be thus put off or deliver up this sconce, I would.
KING
Sir Vaughan, what’s this jolly Captain’s name?
SIR VAUGHAN
Has a very sufficient name, and is am an has done God and his country as good as any hot service, in conquering this vile monster poet, as ever did Saint George his horse hack about the dragon.
TUCCA
I sweat for’t, but tawsoone, hold thy tongue, mon deau, if thou’t praise me, do’t behind my back.I am, my weighty sovereign, one of thy grains, thy valiant vassal.Ask not what I am, but read, turn over, unclasp thy chronicles.There thou shalt find buff-jerkin; there read my points of way.I am one a’ thy mandilian-leaders; one that enters into thy royal bands for thee.Pantilius Tucca; one of thy kingdom’s chiefest quarrellers; one a’ thy most faithful — fi — fi — fi —
SIR VAUGHAN
Drunkard, I hold my life.
TUCCA
No, whirligig, one of his faithful fighters; thy drawer, O royal Tamer Cham.
SIR VAUGHAN
Go to, I pray, Captain Tucca, give us all leave to do our business before the King.
TUCCA
With all my heart.Sh — sh — sh — shake that bear-whelp when thou would.
SIR VAUGHAN
Horace and Bubo, pray send an answer into his masesty’s ear why you go thus in Ovid’s Mortermorphesis and strange fashions of apparel.
TUCCA
Cur, why?
ASINIUS
My lords, I was drawn into this beastly suit by head and shoulders only for love I bare to my Ningle.
TUCCA
Speak, Ningle; thy mouth’s next.Belch out, belch, why —
HORACE
I did it to retire me from the world
And turn my muse into a Timonist,
Loathing the general leprosy of sin
Which like a plague runs through the souls of men.
I did it but to —
TUCCA
But to bite every motley-head vice by’th’nose, you did it, Ningle, to play the bugbear satyr and make a camp royal of fashion-mongers quake at your paper bullets; you nasty tortoise, you and your itchy poetry break out like Christmas, but once a year, and then you keep a revelling and arraigning and a scratching of men’s faces as though you were Tiber, the long-tail’d prince of rats, do you?