Percy Bysshe Shelley
Page 125
Primate of England. With your Grace’s leave,
He lives in his own world; and, like a parrot 100
Hung in his gilded prison from the window
Of a queen’s bower over the public way,
Blasphemes with a bird’s mind: — his words, like arrows
Which know no aim beyond the archer’s wit,
Strike sometimes what eludes philosophy. — 105
[TO ARCHY.]
Go, sirrah, and repent of your offence
Ten minutes in the rain; be it your penance
To bring news how the world goes there.
[EXIT ARCHY.]
Poor Archy!
He weaves about himself a world of mirth
Out of the wreck of ours. 110
NOTES: 99 With your Grace’s leave 1870; omitted 1824. 106-110 Go…ours spoken by THE QUEEN, 1824.
LAUD:
I take with patience, as my Master did,
All scoffs permitted from above.
KING:
My lord,
Pray overlook these papers. Archy’s words
Had wings, but these have talons.
QUEEN:
And the lion
That wears them must be tamed. My dearest lord, 115
I see the new-born courage in your eye
Armed to strike dead the Spirit of the Time,
Which spurs to rage the many-headed beast.
Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou hadst still remained 120
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose, 125
And be that tempered as the Ebro’s steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace
And not betray thee with a traitor’s kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels, 130
Who think that she is Fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle
In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream
Out of our worshipped state.
KING:
Beloved friend,
God is my witness that this weight of power, 135
Which He sets me my earthly task to wield
Under His law, is my delight and pride
Only because thou lovest that and me.
For a king bears the office of a God
To all the under world; and to his God 140
Alone he must deliver up his trust,
Unshorn of its permitted attributes.
[It seems] now as the baser elements
Had mutinied against the golden sun
That kindles them to harmony, and quells 145
Their self-destroying rapine. The wild million
Strike at the eye that guides them; like as humours
Of the distempered body that conspire
Against the spirit of life throned in the heart, —
And thus become the prey of one another, 150
And last of death —
STRAFFORD:
That which would be ambition in a subject
Is duty in a sovereign; for on him,
As on a keystone, hangs the arch of life,
Whose safety is its strength. Degree and form, 155
And all that makes the age of reasoning man
More memorable than a beast’s, depend on this —
That Right should fence itself inviolably
With Power; in which respect the state of England
From usurpation by the insolent commons 160
Cries for reform.
Get treason, and spare treasure. Fee with coin
The loudest murmurers; feed with jealousies
Opposing factions, — be thyself of none;
And borrow gold of many, for those who lend 165
Will serve thee till thou payest them; and thus
Keep the fierce spirit of the hour at bay,
Till time, and its coming generations
Of nights and days unborn, bring some one chance,
…
Or war or pestilence or Nature’s self, — 170
By some distemperature or terrible sign,
Be as an arbiter betwixt themselves.
Nor let your Majesty
Doubt here the peril of the unseen event.
How did your brother Kings, coheritors 175
In your high interest in the subject earth,
Rise past such troubles to that height of power
Where now they sit, and awfully serene
Smile on the trembling world? Such popular storms
Philip the Second of Spain, this Lewis of France, 180
And late the German head of many bodies,
And every petty lord of Italy,
Quelled or by arts or arms. Is England poorer
Or feebler? or art thou who wield’st her power
Tamer than they? or shall this island be — 185
[Girdled] by its inviolable waters —
To the world present and the world to come
Sole pattern of extinguished monarchy?
Not if thou dost as I would have thee do.
KING:
Your words shall be my deeds: 190
You speak the image of my thought. My friend
(If Kings can have a friend, I call thee so),
Beyond the large commission which [belongs]
Under the great seal of the realm, take this:
And, for some obvious reasons, let there be 195
No seal on it, except my kingly word
And honour as I am a gentleman.
Be — as thou art within my heart and mind —
Another self, here and in Ireland:
Do what thou judgest well, take amplest licence, 200
And stick not even at questionable means.
Hear me, Wentworth. My word is as a wall
Between thee and this world thine enemy —
That hates thee, for thou lovest me.
STRAFFORD:
I own
No friend but thee, no enemies but thine: 205
Thy lightest thought is my eternal law.
How weak, how short, is life to pay —
KING:
Peace, peace.
Thou ow’st me nothing yet.
[TO LAUD.]
My lord, what say
Those papers?
LAUD:
Your Majesty has ever interposed, 210
In lenity towards your native soil,
Between the heavy vengeance of the Church
And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming
This brood of northern vipers in your bosom.
The rabble, instructed no doubt 215
By London, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll
(For the waves never menace heaven until
Scourged by the wind’s invisible tyranny),
Have in the very temple of the Lord
Done outrage to His chosen ministers. 220
They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church,
Refuse to obey her canons, and deny
The apostolic power with which the Spirit
Has filled its elect vessels, even from him
Who held the keys with power to loose and bind, 225
To him who now pleads in this royal presence. —
Let ample powers and new instructions be
Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland.
To death, imprisonment, and confiscation,
Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred 230
Of the offender, add the brand of infamy,
Add mutilation: and if this suffice not,
Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst
They may lick up that s
cum of schismatics.
I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring 235
What we possess, still prate of Christian peace,
As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers
Which play the part of God ‘twixt right and wrong,
Should be let loose against the innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields, 240
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride
(Where it indeed were Christian charity
To turn the cheek even to the smiter’s hand):
And, when our great Redeemer, when our God, 245
When He who gave, accepted, and retained
Himself in propitiation of our sins,
Is scorned in His immediate ministry,
With hazard of the inestimable loss
Of all the truth and discipline which is 250
Salvation to the extremest generation
Of men innumerable, they talk of peace!
Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now:
For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword,
Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command 255
To His disciples at the Passover
That each should sell his robe and buy a sword,-
Once strip that minister of naked wrath,
And it shall never sleep in peace again
Till Scotland bend or break.
KING:
My Lord Archbishop, 260
Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this.
Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King
Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm.
But we want money, and my mind misgives me
That for so great an enterprise, as yet, 265
We are unfurnished.
STRAFFORD:
Yet it may not long
Rest on our wills.
COTTINGTON:
The expenses
Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining
For every petty rate (for we encounter
A desperate opposition inch by inch 270
In every warehouse and on every farm),
Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts;
So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge
Upon the land, they stand us in small stead
As touches the receipt.
STRAFFORD:
‘Tis a conclusion 275
Most arithmetical: and thence you infer
Perhaps the assembling of a parliament.
Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies
T0 sit in licensed judgement on his life,
His Majesty might wisely take that course. 280
[ASIDE TO COTTINGTON.]
It is enough to expect from these lean imposts
That they perform the office of a scourge,
Without more profit.
[ALOUD.]
Fines and confiscations,
And a forced loan from the refractory city,
Will fill our coffers: and the golden love 285
Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends
For the worshipped father of our common country,
With contributions from the catholics,
Will make Rebellion pale in our excess.
Be these the expedients until time and wisdom 290
Shall frame a settled state of government.
LAUD:
And weak expedients they! Have we not drained
All, till the … which seemed
A mine exhaustless?
STRAFFORD:
And the love which IS,
If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold. 295
LAUD:
Both now grow barren: and I speak it not
As loving parliaments, which, as they have been
In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings
The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate.
Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. 300
STRAFFORD:
Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest:
With that, take all I held, but as in trust
For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but
This unprovided body for thy service,
And a mind dedicated to no care 305
Except thy safety: — but assemble not
A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me,
Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before —
KING:
No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas!
We should be too much out of love with Heaven, 310
Did this vile world show many such as thee,
Thou perfect, just, and honourable man!
Never shall it be said that Charles of England
Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns;
Nor will he so much misbecome his throne 315
As to impoverish those who most adorn
And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford,
Inclines me rather —
QUEEN:
To a parliament?
Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside
Over a knot of … censurers, 320
To the unswearing of thy best resolves,
And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon?
Plight not the worst before the worst must come.
Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes,
Dressed in their own usurped authority, 325
Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta’s fame?
It is enough! Thou lovest me no more!
[WEEPS.]
KING:
Oh, Henrietta!
[THEY TALK APART.]
COTTINGTON [TO LAUD]:
Money we have none:
And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford
Will scarcely meet the arrears.
LAUD:
Without delay 330
An army must be sent into the north;
Followed by a Commission of the Church,
With amplest power to quench in fire and blood,
And tears and terror, and the pity of hell,
The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give 335
Victory; and victory over Scotland give
The lion England tamed into our hands.
That will lend power, and power bring gold.
COTTINGTON:
Meanwhile
We must begin first where your Grace leaves off.
Gold must give power, or —
LAUD:
I am not averse 340
From the assembling of a parliament.
Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soon
The lesson to obey. And are they not
A bubble fashioned by the monarch’s mouth,
The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, 345
A word dissolves them.
STRAFFORD:
The engine of parliaments
Might be deferred until I can bring over
The Irish regiments: they will serve to assure
The issue of the war against the Scots.
And, this game won — which if lost, all is lost — 350
Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels,
And call them, if you will, a parliament.
KING:
Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood.
Guilty though it may be! I would still spare
The stubborn country of my birth, and ward 355
From countenances which I loved in youth
The wrathful Church’s lacerating hand.
[TO LAUD.]
Have you o’erlooked the other articles?
[ENTER ARCHY.]
LAUD:
Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane,
Cromwell, and other rebels of less note, 360
Intend to sail with the next favouring wind
For the Plantations.
Where they think to found
A commonwealth like Gonzalo’s in the play,
Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic.
KING:
What’s that, sirrah?
ARCHY:
New devil’s politics. 365
Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths:
Lucifer was the first republican.
Will you hear Merlin’s prophecy, how three [posts?]
‘In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full,
Shall sail round the world, and come back again: 370
Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull,
And come back again when the moon is at full:’ —
When, in spite of the Church,
They will hear homilies of whatever length
Or form they please. 375
[COTTINGTON?]:
So please your Majesty to sign this order
For their detention.
ARCHY: If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? 383
KING:
If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely;
But in this case — [WRITING]. Here, my lord, take the warrant,
And see it duly executed forthwith. —
That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. 387
[EXEUNT ALL BUT KING, QUEEN, AND ARCHY.]
ARCHY: Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud — who would reduce a verdict of ‘guilty, death,’ by famine, if it were impregnable by composition — all impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. 397
QUEEN:
Is the rain over, sirrah?
KING:
When it rains
And the sun shines, ‘twill rain again to-morrow:
And therefore never smile till you’ve done crying. 400
ARCHY: But ‘tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene.
QUEEN:
What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?
ARCHY: Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There’s a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for
‘A rainbow in the morning 407
Is the shepherd’s warning;’
and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. 411
KING: The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs.