Chapter XXXIII: Act III: Scene I.977

_Enter_ D’AMBOIS, TAMYRA, _with a chain of pearl_.

_Bu._ Sweet mistress, cease! Your conscience is too nice,[978]
And bites too hotly of the Puritan spice.

_Ta._ Oh, my dear servant,[979] in thy close embraces,
I have set open all the doors of danger
To my encompast honour, and my life. 5
Before I was secure against death and hell,
But now am subject to the heartless fear
Of every shadow and of every breath,
And would change firmness with an aspen leaf;
So confident a spotless conscience is, 10
So weak a guilty. Oh, the dangerous siege
Sin lays about us, and the tyranny
He exercises when he hath expugn’d![980]
Like to the horror of a winter’s thunder,
Mixt with a gushing storm, that suffer nothing
To stir abroad on earth but their own rages, 16
Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us:
No roof, no shelter can secure us so,
But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe.

_Bu._ Sin is a coward, madam, and insults 20
But on our weakness, in his truest valour;[981]
And so our ignorance tames us, that we let
His shadows fright us: and like empty clouds,
In which our faulty apprehensions forge
The forms of dragons, lions, elephants, 25
When they hold no proportion, the sly charms
Of the witch, Policy, makes him like a monster
Kept only to show men for servile money.
That false hag often paints him in her cloth
Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth. 30
In three of us, the secret of our meeting
Is only guarded, and three friends as one
Have ever been esteem’d: as our three powers
That in our one soul are as one united:
Why should we fear then? For myself I swear 35
Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure,
And health be grievous to one long time sick,
Than the dear jewel of your fame in me
Be made an outcast to your infamy;
Nor shall my value (sacred to your virtues) 40
Only give free course to it, from myself:
But make it fly out of the mouths of kings
In golden vapours and with awful wings.

_Ta._ It rests[982] as all kings’ seals were set in thee.
Now let us call my father, whom I swear 45
I could extremely chide, but that I fear
To make him so suspicious of my love
Of which, sweet servant, do not let him know
For all the world.

_Bu._ Alas! he will not think it. 49

_Ta._ Come, then—ho! Father, ope, and take your friend.
_Ascendit_ Friar.

_Fr._ Now, honour’d daughter, is your doubt resolv’d?

_Ta._ Ay, father, but you went away too soon.

_Fr._ Too soon?

_Ta._ Indeed you did, you should have stayed;
Had not your worthy friend been of your bringing,
And that contains all laws to temper me, 55
Not all the fearful danger that besieged us,
Had aw’d my throat from exclamation.

_Fr._ I know your serious disposition well.
Come, son, the morn comes on.

_Bu._ Now, honour’d mistress,
Till farther service call, all bliss supply you. 60

_Ta._ And you this chain of pearl, and my love only.
_Descendit_ Friar _and_ D’AMBOIS.
It is not I, but urgent destiny,
That (as great statesmen for their general end
In politic justice, make poor men offend)
Enforceth my offence to make it just. 65
What shall weak dames do, when th’ whole work of nature
Hath a strong finger in each one of us?
Needs must that sweep away the silly cobweb
Of our still-undone labours; that lays still
Our powers to it: as to the line, the stone, 70
Not to the stone, the line should be oppos’d;[983]
We cannot keep our constant course in virtue:
What is alike at all parts? Every day
Differs from other: every hour and minute,
Ay, every thought in our false clock of life 75
Ofttimes inverts the whole circumference:
We must be sometimes one, sometimes another.
Our bodies are but thick clonds to our souls,
Through which they cannot shine when they desire:
When all the stars, and even the sun himself, 80
Must stay the vapours’ times that he exhales
Before he can make good his beams to us;
Oh, how can we, that are but motes to him,
Wand’ring at random in his ordered rays,
Disperse our passions’ fumes, with our weak labours, 85
That are more thick and black than all earth’s vapours?

_Enter_ MONTSURRY.

_Mont._ Good day, my love; what, up and ready[984] too!

_Ta._ Both, my dear lord; not all this night made I
Myself unready, or could sleep a wink.

_Mont._ Alas! what troubled my true love, my peace, 90
From being at peace within her better self?
Or how could sleep forbear to seize thine eyes
When he might challenge them as his just prize?

_Ta._ I am in no power earthly, but in yours;
To what end should I go to bed, my lord, 95
That wholly mist the comfort of my bed?
Or how should sleep possess my faculties,
Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes?

_Mont._ Then will I never more sleep night from thee.
All mine own business, all the king’s affairs, 100
Shall take the day to serve them; every night
I’ll ever dedicate to thy delight.

_Ta._ Nay, good my lord, esteem not my desires
Such doters on their humours that my judgment
Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure;
A wife’s pleas’d husband must her object be 106
In all her acts, not her sooth’d fantasy.

_Mont._ Then come, my love, now pay those rites to sleep
Thy fair eyes owe him; shall we now to bed?

_Ta._ Oh, no, my lord; your holy friar says 110
All couplings in the day that touch the bed
Adulterous are, even in the married;
Whose grave and worthy doctrine, well I know,
Your faith in him will liberally allow.[985] 114

_Mont._ He’s a most learned and religious man;
Come to the presence then, and see great D’Ambois
(Fortune’s proud mushroom shot up in a night)
Stand like an Atlas under our King’s arm;
Which greatness[986] with him Monsieur now envies
As bitterly and deadly as the Guise. 120

_Ta._ What, he that was but yesterday his maker,
His raiser and preserver?

_Mont._ Even the same.
Each natural agent works but to this end,
To render that it works on like itself;
Which since the Monsieur in his act on D’Ambois 125
Cannot to his ambitious end effect,
But that, quite opposite, the King hath power
In his love borne to D’Ambois, to convert
The point of Monsieur’s aim on his own breast,
He turns his outward love to inward hate. 130
A prince’s love is like the lightning’s fume,
Which no man can embrace, but must consume. _Exeunt._

[SCENE II.][987]

_Enter_ HENRY, D’AMBOIS, Monsieur, GUISE, Duchess, ANNABELLE, CHARLOTTE, Attendants.

_He._ Speak home, my Bussy; thy impartial words
Are like brave falcons that dare truss[988] a fowl
Much greater than themselves; flatterers are kites
That check at[989] sparrows; thou shalt be my eagle,
And bear my thunder underneath thy wings;
Truth’s words like jewels hang in th’ ears of kings. 6

_Bu._ Would I might live to see no Jews hang there
Instead of jewels; sycophants, I mean,
Who use truth like the devil, his true foe,
Cast by the angel to the pit of fears, 10
And bound in chains; truth seldom decks kings’ ears.
Slave Flattery (like a rippier’s[990] legs roll’d up
In boots of hay ropes) with kings’ soothed guts
Swaddl’d and strappl’d,[991] now lives only free.
Oh, ’tis a subtle knave; how like the plague 15
Unfelt he strikes into the brain of man,
And rageth in his entrails, when he can,
Worse than the poison of a red-hair’d man![992]

_He._ Fly at him and his brood; I cast thee off,
And once more give thee surname of mine eagle. 20

_Bu._ I’ll make you sport enough, then; let me have
My lucerns[993] too, or dogs inur’d to hunt
Beasts of most rapine, but to put them up,[994]
And if I truss not, let me not be trusted.
Show me a great man by the people’s voice, 25
Which is the voice of God that by his greatness
Bombasts[995] his private roofs with public riches;
That affects royalty, rising from a clapdish;[996]
That rules so much more by[997] his suffering king,
That he makes kings of his subordinate slaves: 30
Himself and them graduate like woodmongers,
Piling a stack of billets from the earth,
Raising each other into steeples’ heights;
Let him convey this on the turning props
Of Protean law, and, his own counsel keeping,
Keep all upright; let me but hawk at him, 35
I’ll play the vulture, and so thump his liver,
That, like a huge unlading Argosy,
He shall confess all, and you then may hang him.
Show me a clergyman, that is in voice 40
A lark of heaven, in heart a mole of earth;
That hath good living, and a wicked life;
A temperate look, and a luxurious gut;
Turning the rents of his superfluous cures
Into your pheasants and your partridges; 45
Venting their quintessence as men read Hebrew;[998]
Let me but hawk at him, and, like the other,
He shall confess all, and you then may hang him.
Show me a lawyer that turns sacred law
(The equal rend’rer of each man his own, 50
The scourge of rapine and extortion,
The sanctuary and impregnable defence
Of retir’d learning and besieged virtue)
Into a harpy, that eats all but’s own,
Into the damned sins it punisheth; 55
Into the synagogue of thieves and atheists,
Blood into gold, and justice into lust;
Let me but hawk at him, as at the rest,
He shall confess all, and you then may hang him.

_Enter_ MONTSURRY, TAMYRA, _and_ PERO.

_Gu._ Where will you find such game as you would hawk at? 60

_Bu._ I’ll hawk about your house for one of them.

_Gu._ Come, y’ are a glorious[999] ruffian, and run proud
Of the King’s headlong graces. Hold your breath,
Or, by that poison’d vapour, not the King
Shall back your murderous valour against me.

_Bu._ I would the King would make his presence free 66
But for one bout betwixt us: by the reverence
Due to the sacred space ’twixt kings and subjects,
Here would I make thee cast that popular purple,
In which thy proud soul sits and braves thy sovereign. 70

_Mo._ Peace, peace, I pray thee peace.

_Bu._ Let him peace first
That made the first war.

_Mo._ He’s the better man.

_Bu._ And therefore may do worst?

_Mo._ He has more titles.

_Bu._ So Hydra had more heads.

_Mo._ He’s greater known.

_Bu._ His greatness is the people’s; mine’s mine own. 75

_Mo._ He’s nobler[1000] born.

_Bu._ He is not, I am noble;
And noblesse in his blood hath no gradation,
But in his merit.

_Gu._ Th’ art not nobly born,
But bastard to the Cardinal of Ambois.

_Bu._ Thou liest, proud Guiserd. Let me fly, my lord. 80

_He._ Not in my face, my eagle; violence flies
The sanctuaries of a prince’s eyes.

_Bu._ Still shall we chide and foam upon this bit?
Is the Guise only great in faction?
Stands he not by himself? Proves he th’ opinion 85
That men’s souls are without them? Be a duke,
And lead me to the field.

_Gu._ Come, follow me.

_He._ Stay them! Stay, D’Ambois. Cousin Guise, I wonder
Your honour’d disposition brooks so ill
A man so good, that only would uphold 90
Man in his native noblesse, from whose fall
All our dimensions rise; that in himself
(Without the outward patches of our frailty,
Riches and honour) knows he comprehends
Worth with the greatest. Kings had never borne 95
Such boundless empire over other men,
Had all maintain’d the spirit and state of D’Ambois;
Nor had the full impartial hand of nature
That all things gave in her original[1001] 99
Without these definite terms of mine and thine,
Been turn’d unjustly to the hand of Fortune,
Had all preserv’d her in her prime, like D’Ambois.
No envy, no disjunction had dissolv’d,
Or pluck’d one stick out of the golden faggot
In which the world of Saturn[1002] bound our lives,
Had all been held together with the nerves, 106
The genius, and th’ ingenious[1003] soul of D’Ambois.
Let my hand therefore be the Hermean rod[1004]
To part and reconcile, and so conserve you,
As my combin’d embracers and supporters. 110

_Bu._ ’Tis our king’s motion, and we shall not seem
To worst eyes womanish, though we change thus soon
Never so great grudge for his greater pleasure.

_Gu._ I seal to that; and, so the manly freedom
That you so much profess, hereafter prove not 115
A bold and glorious license to deprave,[1005]
To me his hand shall hold the Hermean virtue
His grace affects, in which submissive sign
On this his sacred right hand I lay mine.

_Bu._ ’Tis well, my lord, and so your worthy greatness 120
Decline not to the greater insolence,
Nor make you think it a prerogative
To rack men’s freedoms with the ruder wrongs;
My hand (stuck full of laurel, in true sign
’Tis wholly dedicate to righteous peace) 125
In all submission kisseth th’ other side.

_He._ Thanks to ye both; and kindly I invite ye
Both to a banquet, where we’ll sacrifice
Full cups to confirmation of your loves; 129
At which, fair ladies, I entreat your presence;
And hope you, madam, will take one carouse
For reconcilement of your lord and servant.

_Du._ If I should fail, my lord, some other lady
Would be found there to do that for my servant.

_Mo._ Any of these here?

_Du._ Nay, I know not that.

_Bu._ Think your thoughts like my mistress’, honour’d lady? 135

_Ta._ I think not on you, sir; y’ are one I know not.

_Bu._ Cry you mercy, madam.

_Mont._ Oh, sir, has she met you?
_Exeunt_ HENRY, D’AMBOIS, Ladies.

_Mo._ What had my bounty drunk when it rais’d him?

_Gu._ Y’ave stuck us up a very worthy flag, 140
That takes more wind than we with all our sails.

_Mo._ Oh, so he spreads and flourishes.

_Gu._ He must down;
Upstarts should never perch too near a crown.

_Mo._ ’Tis true, my lord; and as this doting hand, 144
Even out of earth, like Juno, struck this giant,
So Jove’s great ordinance shall be here impli’d
To strike him under th’ Etna of his pride;
To which work lend your hands, and let us cast[1006]
Where we may set snares for his ranging greatness. 149
I think it best, amongst our greatest women;
For there is no such trap to catch an upstart
As a loose downfall; for you know their falls
Are th’ ends of all men’s rising. If great men
And wise make scapes[1007] to please advantage[1008]
’Tis with a woman: women that worst may 155
Still hold men’s candles;[1009] they direct and know
All things amiss in all men; and their women[1010]
All things amiss in them; through whose charm’d mouths,
We may see all the close scapes[1011] of the Court.
When the most royal beast of chase, the hart,
(Being old and cunning in his lairs and haunts)
Can never be discovered to the bow, 162
The piece,[1012] or hound; yet where, behind some quitch,[1013]
He breaks his gall, and rutteth with his hind,
The place is markt, and by his venery 165
He still is taken. Shall we then attempt
The chiefest mean to that discovery here,
And court our greatest ladies’ chiefest women
With shows of love and liberal promises? 169
’Tis but our breath. If something given in hand
Sharpens their hopes of more, ’t will be well ventur’d.

_Gu._ No doubt of that; and ’tis the cunning’st point
Of your devis’d investigation.

_Mo._ I have broken
The ice to it already with the woman
Of your chaste lady, and conceive good hope 175
I shall wade thorough to some wished shore
At our next meeting.

_Mont._ Nay, there’s small hope there.

_Gu._ Take say[1014] of her, my lord, she comes most fitly.

_Mo._ Starting back?

_Enter_ CHARLOTTE, ANNABELLE, PERO.

_Gu._ Y’are engag’d, indeed. 180

_An._ Nay, pray, my lord, forbear.

_Mont._ What, skittish, servant?

_An._ No, my lord, I am not so fit for your service.

_Ch._ Pray pardon me now, my lord; my lady excepts me. 186

_Gu._ I’ll satisfy her expectation, as far as an uncle may.

_Mo._ Well said; a spirit of courtship of all hands. Now mine own
Pero, hast thou rememb’red (190) me for the discovery I entreated
thee make of thy mistress? Speak boldly, and be sure of all things I
have sworn to thee.

_Pe._ Building on that assurance, my lord, I may speak; and much the
rather, because (195) my lady hath not trusted me with that I can
tell you; for now I cannot be said to betray her.

_Mo._ That’s all one, so we reach our objects. Forth, I beseech thee.

_Pe._ To tell you truth, my lord, I have made a strange discovery.
(201)

_Mo._ Excellent, Pero, thou reviv’st me. May I sink quick to
perdition if my tongue discover[1015] it.

_Pe._ ’Tis thus, then: this last night, my lord lay forth, and I
watching my lady’s sitting (206) up, stole up at midnight from my
pallet; and (having before made a hole both through the wall and
arras to her inmost chamber) I saw D’Ambois and herself reading a
letter. 210

_Mo._ D’Ambois?

_Pe._ Even he, my lord.

_Mo._ Dost thou not dream, wench?

_Pe._ I swear he is the man.

_Mo._ The devil he is, and thy lady his (216) dam! Why, this was
the happiest shot that ever flew! The just plague of hypocrisy
levell’d it. Oh, the infinite regions betwixt a woman’s tongue and
her heart! Is this our goddess of (219) chastity? I thought I could
not be so slighted if she had not her fraught besides, and therefore
plotted this with her woman, never dreaming of D’Ambois. Dear Pero,
I will advance thee for ever; but tell me now,—God’s precious, it
transforms me with admiration[1016]— (225) sweet Pero, whom should
she trust with this conveyance? Or, all the doors being made sure,
how should his conveyance be made?

_Pe._ Nay, my lord, that amazes[1017] me; I cannot by any study so
much as guess at it. 230

_Mo._ Well, let’s favour our apprehensions with forbearing that
a little; for if my heart were not hoopt with adamant, the
conceit[1018] of this would have burst it. But hark thee. _Whispers._

[_Ch._ I swear to you grace, all that I can (235) conjecture touching
my lady your niece, is a strong affection she bears to the English
Mylor.

_Gu._ All, quod you? ’Tis enough, I assure you, but tell me.][1019]

_Mont._ I pray thee, resolve me: the duke (240) will never imagine
that I am busy about ’s wife: hath D’Ambois any privy access to her?

_An._ No, my lord; D’Ambois neglects her, as she takes it, and is
therefore suspicious that either your lady, or the Lady Beaupre 245
hath closely[1020] entertain’d him.

_Mont._ By ’r lady, a likely suspicion, and very near the life, [if
she marks it,][1021] especially of my wife.

_Mo._ Come, we’ll disguise all with seeming (250) only to have
courted.—–Away, dry palm[1022] sh’as a liver as dry as a biscuit; a
man may go a whole voyage with her, and get nothing but tempests from
her windpipe.

_Gu._ Here’s one, I think, has swallowed a (255) porcupine, she casts
pricks from her tongue so.

_Mont._ And here’s a peacock seems to have devour’d one of the Alps
she has so swelling a spirit, and is so cold of her kindness. 259

_Ch._ We are no windfalls, my lord; ye must gather us with the ladder
of matrimony, or we’ll hang till we be rotten.

_Mo._ Indeed, that’s the way to make ye right openarses.[1023] But,
alas! ye have no portions fit for such husbands as we wish you. 265

_Pe._ Portions, my lord? Yes, and such portions as your principality
cannot purchase.

_Mo._ What, woman? what are those portions?

_Pe._ Riddle my riddle, my lord.

_Mo._ Ay, marry, wench, I think thy portion (270) is a right
riddle, a man shall never find it out. But let’s hear it.

_Pe._ You shall, my lord.
_What’s that, that being most rare’s most cheap?
That when you sow, you never reap? 275
That when it grows most, most you thin[1024] it?
And still you lose it when you win it;
That when ’tis commonest, ’tis dearest,
And when ’tis farthest off, ’tis nearest?_

_Mo._ Is this your great portion? 280

_Pe._ Even this, my lord.

_Mo._ Believe me, I cannot riddle it.

_Pe._ No, my lord: ’tis my chastity, which you shall neither riddle
nor fiddle.

_Mo._ Your chastity? Let me begin with the (285) end of it; how is a
woman’s chastity nearest a man when ’tis furthest off?

_Pe._ Why, my lord, when you cannot get it, it goes to th’ heart on
you: and that, I think, comes most near you: and I am sure it 290
shall be far enough off. And so we leave you to our mercies. _Exeunt_
Women.

_Mo._ Farewell, riddle.

_Gu._ Farewell, medlar.

_Mont._ Farewell, winter plum. 295

_Mo._ Now, my lords, what fruit of our inquisition? Feel you nothing
budding yet? Speak, good my Lord Montsurry.

_Mont._ Nothing but this: D’Ambois is thought negligent in observing
the duchess, and (300) therefore she is suspicious that your niece or
my wife closely entertains him.

_Mo._ Your wife, my lord? Think you that possible?

_Mont._ Alas, I know she flies him like her last hour. 306

_Mo._ Her last hour? Why, that comes upon her the more she flies it.
Does D’Ambois so, think you?

_Mont._ That’s not worth the answering. ’Tis miraculous to think
with what monsters (311) women’s imaginations engross them when
they are once enamour’d, and what wonders they will work for their
satisfaction. They will make sheep valiant, a lion fearful. 315

_Mo._ [_Aside._] And an ass confident.—Well, my lord, more will come
forth shortly; get you to the banquet.

_Gu._ Come, my lord; I have the blind side of one of them.
_Exit_ GUISE _cum_ MONTSURRY. 320

_Mo._ Oh, the unsounded sea of women’s bloods,
That when ’tis calmest, is most dangerous;
Not any wrinkle creaming in their faces
When in their hearts are Scylla and Charybdis,
Which still are hid in dark and standing fogs, 325
Where never day shines, nothing never grows
But weeds and poisons, that no statesman knows,
Nor Cerberus ever saw the damned nooks
Hid with the veils of women’s virtuous looks.
[1025]But what a cloud of sulphur have I drawn 330
Up to my bosom in this dangerous secret!
Which if my haste with any spark should light,
Ere D’Ambois were engag’d in some sure plot,
I were blown up; he would be sure my death.
Would I had never known it, for before 335
I shall persuade th’ importance to Montsurry,
And make him with some studied stratagem
Train D’Ambois to his wreak, his maid may tell it,
Or I (out of my fiery thirst to play
With the fell tiger, up in darkness tied, 340
And give it some light) make it quite break loose.
I fear it, afore heaven, and will not see
D’Ambois again, till I have told Montsurry
And set a snare with him to free my fears:
Who’s there?

_Enter_ MAFFE.

_Ma._ My lord?

_Mo._ Go call the Count Montsurry,
And make the doors fast; I will speak with none 346
Till he come to me.

_Ma._ Well, my lord. _Exiturus._

_Mo._ Or else
Send you some other, and see all the doors
Made safe yourself, I pray; haste, fly about it.

_Ma._ You’ll speak with none but with the Count Montsurry? 351

_Mo._ With none but he, except it be the Guise.

_Ma._ See even by this, there’s one exception more!
Your grace must be more firm in the command,
Or else shall I as weakly execute. 355
The Guise shall speak with you?

_Mo._ He shall, I say.

_Ma._ And Count Montsurry?

_Mo._ Ay, and Count Montsurry.

_Ma._ Your grace must pardon me, that I am bold
To urge the clear and full sense of your pleasure;
Which whensoever I have known, I hope 360
Your grace will say, I hit it to a hair.

_Mo._ You have.

_Ma._ I hope so, or I would be glad—

_Mo._ I pray thee get thee gone, thou art so tedious
In the strict form of all thy services
That I had better have one negligent. 365
You hit my pleasure well, when D’Ambois hit you;
Did you not, think you?

_Ma._ D’Ambois? Why, my lord—

_Mo._ I pray thee talk no more, but shut the doors:
Do what I charge thee.

_Ma._ I will, my lord, and yet
I would be glad the wrong I had of D’Ambois—

_Mo._ Precious! then it is a fate that plagues me 371
In this man’s foolery; I may be murdered
While he stands on protection of his folly.
Avaunt about thy charge.

_Ma._ I go, my lord.—
I had my head broke in his faithful service; 375
I had no suit the more, nor any thanks,
And yet my teeth must still be hit with D’Ambois:
D’Ambois, my lord, shall know—

_Mo._ The devil and D’Ambois! _Exit_ MAFFE.
How am I tortur’d with this trusty fool!
Never was any curious in his place 380
To do things justly, but he was an ass;
We cannot find one trusty that is witty,[1026]
And therefore bear their disproportion.
Grant thou, great star and angel of my life,
A sure lease of it but for some few days, 385
That I may clear my bosom of the snake
I cherisht there, and I will then defy
All check to it but Nature’s, and her altars
Shall crack with vessels crown’d with every liquor
Drawn from her highest and most bloody humours. 390
I fear him strangely, his advanced valour
Is like a spirit rais’d without a circle,
Endangering him that ignorantly rais’d him,
And for whose fury he hath learnt no limit.

_Enter_ MAFFE _hastily_.

_Ma._ I cannot help it: what should I do more? 395
As I was gathering a fit guard to make
My passage to the doors, and the doors sure,
The man of blood is enter’d.

_Mo._ Rage of death!
If I had told the secret, and he knew it,
Thus had I been endanger’d.
_Enter_ D’AMBOIS.
My sweet heart!
How now, what leap’st thou at?

_Bu._ O royal object!

_Mo._ Thou dream’st, awake; object in th’ empty air? 402

_Bu._ Worthy the brows of Titan, worth his chair.

_Mo._ Pray thee, what mean’st thou?

_Bu._ See you not a crown
Impale the forehead of the great King Monsieur? 405

_Mo._ Oh, fie upon thee!

_Bu._ Prince, that is the subject
Of all these your retir’d and sole discourses.

_Mo._ Wilt thou not leave that wrongful supposition?

_Bu._ Why wrongful, to suppose the doubtless right
To the succession worth the thinking on? 410

_Mo._ Well, leave these jests. How I am overjoyed
With thy wish’d presence, and how fit thou com’st,
For of mine honour I was sending for thee.

_Bu._ To what end?

_Mo._ Only for thy company,
Which I have still in thought; but that’s no payment 415
On thy part made with personal appearance.
Thy absence so long suffered, oftentimes
Put me in some little doubt thou dost not love me.
Wilt thou do one thing therefore now sincerely?

_Bu._ Ay, anything, but killing of the King.

_Mo._ Still in that discord, and ill-taken note?
How most unseasonable thou play’st the cuckoo, 422
In this thy fall of friendship!

_Bu._ Then do not doubt,
That there is any act within my nerves
But killing of the King, that is not yours. 425

_Mo._ I will not, then; to prove which by my love
Shown to thy virtues, and by all fruits else
Already sprung from that still-flourishing tree,
With whatsoever may hereafter spring,
I charge thee utter (even with all the freedom
Both of thy noble nature and thy friendship) 431
The full and plain state of me in thy thoughts.

_Bu._ What, utter plainly what I think of you?

_Mo._ Plain as truth.

_Bu._ Why, this swims quite against the stream of greatness; 435
Great men would rather hear their flatteries,
And if they be not made fools, are not wise.

_Mo._ I am no such great fool, and therefore charge thee
Even from the root of thy free heart, display me.

_Bu._ Since you affect[1027] it in such serious terms,
If yourself first will tell me what you think 441
As freely and as heartily of me,
I’ll be as open in my thoughts of you.

_Mo._ A bargain, of mine honour; and make this,
That prove we in our full dissection 445
Never so foul, live still the sounder friends.

_Bu._ What else, sir? Come, pay me home; I’ll bide it bravely.

_Mo._ I will swear. I think thee then a man
That dares as much as a wild horse or tiger;
As headstrong and as bloody; and to feed 450
The ravenous wolf of thy most cannibal valour,
(Rather than not employ it) thou wouldst turn
Hackster[1028] to any whore, slave to a Jew
Or English usurer, to force possessions
(And cut men’s throats) of mortgaged estates;
Or thou wouldst ’tire thee like a tinker’s strumpet, 456
And murder market-folks, quarrel with sheep,
And run as mad as Ajax; serve a butcher,
Do anything but killing of the King;
That in thy valour th’art like other naturals[1029]
That have strange gifts in nature, but no soul 461
Diffus’d quite through, to make them of a piece,
But stop at humours that are more absurd,
Childish and villanous than that hackster, whore,
Slave, cut-throat, tinker’s bitch, compar’d before; 465
And in those humours wouldst envy, betray,
Slander, blaspheme, change each hour a religion;
Do anything but killing of the King:
That in thy valour (which is still the dung-hill,
To which hath reference all filth in thy house)
Th’art more ridiculous and vain-glorious 471
Than any mountebank, and impudent
Than any painted bawd; which, not to soothe
And glorify thee like a Jupiter Hammon,
Thou eat’st thy heart in vinegar; and thy gall
Turns all thy blood to poison, which is cause 476
Of that toad-pool that stands in thy complexion,
And makes thee with a cold and earthy moisture,
(Which is the dam of putrefaction)
As plague to thy damn’d pride, rot as thou liv’st; 480
To study calumnies and treacheries;
To thy friends’ slaughters like a screech-owl sing,
And do all mischiefs—but to kill the King.

_Bu._ So! have you said?

_Mo._ How think’st thou? Do I flatter?
Speak I not like a trusty friend to thee? 485

_Bu._ That ever any man was blest withal.
So here’s for me. I think you are (at worst)
No devil, since y’are like to be no king;
Of which, with any friend of yours, I’ll lay
This poor stillado[1030] here, ’gainst all the stars,
Ay, and ’gainst all your treacheries, which are more; 491
That you did never good, but to do ill;
But ill of all sorts, free and for itself:
That (like a murdering piece, making lanes in armies,
The first man of a rank, the whole rank falling)
If you have wrong’d one man, you are so far 495
From making him amends that all his race,
Friends, and associates, fall into your chase:
That y’are for perjuries the very prince
Of all intelligencers;[1031] and your voice 500
Is like an eastern wind, that where it flies
Knits nets of caterpillars, with which you catch
The prime of all the fruits the kingdom yields.
That your political head is the curst fount
Of all the violence, rapine, cruelty, 505
Tyranny, and atheism flowing through the realm.
That y’ave a tongue so scandalous, ’t will cut
The purest crystal; and a breath that will
Kill to[1032] that wall a spider. You will jest
With God, and your soul to the devil tender 510
For lust; kiss horror, and with death engender.
That your foul body is a Lernean fen
Of all the maladies breeding in all men;
That you are utterly without a soul; 514
And, for your life, the thread of that was spun
When Clotho slept, and let her breathing rock[1033]
Fall in the dirt; and Lachesis still draws it,
Dipping her twisting fingers in a bowl
Defil’d, and crown’d with virtue’s forced soul.
And lastly (which I must for gratitude 520
Ever remember) that of all my height
And dearest life, you are the only spring,
Only in royal hope to kill the king.

_Mo._ Why, now I see thou lov’st me. Come to the banquet. _Exeunt._