The presence chamber in the Duke of Ferrara’s palace
Enter Proditor and Phoenix.
PRODITOR
Now, Phoenix.
PHOENIX
Now, my lord.
PRODITOR
Let princely blood
Nourish our hopes; we bring confusion now.
PHOENIX
A terrible sudden blow.
PRODITOR
Ay; what day
Is this hangs over us?
PHOENIX
By th’ mass, Monday.
PRODITOR
As I could wish; my purpose will thrive best.
’Twas first my birthday, now my fortune’s day.
I see whom fate will raise needs never pray.
PHOENIX
Never.
PRODITOR
How is the air?
PHOENIX
Oh, full of trouble!
PRODITOR
Does not the sky look piteously black?
PHOENIX
As if ‘twere hung with rich men’s consciences.
PRODITOR
Ah, stuck not a comet like a curbuncle
Upon the dreadful brow of twelve last night?
PHOENIX
Twelve? No, ’twas about one.
PRODITOR
About one? Most proper,
For that’s the duke.
PHOENIX
[Aside] Well shifted from thyself.
PRODITOR
I could have wished it between one and two,
His son and him.
PHOENIX
I’ll give you comfort, then.
PRODITOR
Prithee.
PHOENIX
There was a villainous raven seen last night
Over the presence chamber in hard justle
With a young eaglet.
PRODITOR
A raven? That was I; what did the raven?
PHOENIX
Marry, my lord, the raven. To say truth,
I left the combat doubtful.
PRODITOR
So ’tis still,
For all is doubt till the deed crown the will.
Now bless thy loins with freedom, wealth, and honour;
Think all thy seed young lords, and by this act
Make a foot-cloth’d posterity; now imagine
Thou see’st thy daughters with their trains borne up,
Whom else despised want may curse to whoredom,
And public shames, which our state never threat:
She’s never lewd that is accounted great.
PHOENIX
[Aside] l’ll alter that court-axiom, thus renew’d:
She’s never great that is accounted lewd.
[Enter several Nobles.]
PRODITOR
Stand close; the presence fills. Here, here the place;
And at his rising let his fall be base,
Beneath thy foot.
PHOENIX
How for his guard, my lord?
PRODITOR
My gold and fear [keep] with the chief of them.
PHOENIX
That’s rarely well. [Hides behind the presence chair.]
PRODITOR
[Aside] Bold, heedless slave, that dares attempt a deed
Which shall in pieces rend him! —
Enter Lussurioso and Infesto.
My lords both!
LUSSURIOSO
The happiness of the day!
PHOENIX
[Aside] Time my returning;
Treasons have still the worst, yet still are spurning.
[Enter the Duke attended.]
PRODITOR
The duke!
PHOENIX
[Aside] I ne’er was gladder to behold him.
ALL
Long live your grace!
DUKE
I do not like that strain:
You know my age affords not to live long.
PRODITOR
[Aside] Spoke truer than you think for.
DUKE
Bestow that wish upon the prince our son.
PHOENIX
[Aside] Nay, he’s not to live long, neither.
PRODITOR
Him as the wealthy treasure of our hopes,
You as possession of our present comfort,
Both in one heart we reverence in one.
PHOENIX
[Aside] Oh, treason of a good complexion!
Horn winded. [Enter Fidelio.]
DUKE
How now, what fresher news fills the court’s ear?
PRODITOR
Fidelio!
FIDELIO
Glad tidings to your grace!
The prince is safe return’d, and in your court —
DUKE
Our joy breaks at our eyes; the prince is come!
PRODITOR
Soul-quicking news! [Aside] Pale vengeance to my blood!
FIDELIO
By me presenting to your serious view
A brief of all his travels. [Delivers a paper.]
DUKE
’Tis most welcome;
It shall be dear and precious to our eye.
PRODITOR
[Aside to Phoenix] He reads; I’m glad he reads.
Now, take thy opportunity, leave that place.
PHOENIX
At his first rising let his fall be base.
PRODITOR
That must be altered now.
PHOENIX
Which, his rising or his fall?
PRODITOR
Art thou dull now?
Thou hear’st the prince is come.
DUKE
What’s here?
PRODITOR
My lord?
DUKE
[Reads] “I have got such a large portion of knowledge, most worthy father, by the benefit of my travel” —
PRODITOR
And so he has, no doubt, my lord.
DUKE
[Reads] “That I am bold now to warn you of Lord Proditor’s insolent treason, who has irreligiously seduc’d a fellow and closely convey’d him e’en in the presence chair to murder you.”
PHOENIX
[Steps out and drops his dagger.] Oh, guilty, guilty!
DUKE
What was that fell? What’s he?
PHOENIX
I am the man.
PRODITOR
[Aside] Oh, slave!
PHOENIX
I have no power to strike.
PRODITOR
[Aside] I’m gone, I’m gone!
DUKE
Let me admire heaven’s wisdom in my son.
PHOENIX
I confess it; he hir’d me —
PRODITOR
This is a slave:
’Tis forg’d against mine honour and my life;
For in what part of reason can ‘t appear,
The prince, being travell’d, should know treasons here?
Plain counterfeit —
DUKE
Dost thou make false our son?
PRODITOR
I know the prince will not affirm it.
FIDELIO
He can
And will, my lord.
PHOENIX
Most just, he may.
DUKE
A guard.
LUSSURIOSO
We cannot but in loyal zeal ourselves
Lay hands on such a villain.
[Attendants secure Proditor.]
DUKE
Stay you; I find you here, too.
LUSSURIOSO
Us, my lord?
DUKE
[Reads] “Against Lussurioso and Infesto, who not only most riotously consume their houses in vicious gaming, mortgaging their livings to the merchant, whereby he with his heirs enter upon their lands; from whence this abuse comes, that in short time the son of the merchant has more lordships than the son of the nobleman, which else was never born to inheritance: but that which is more impious, they most adulterously train out young ladies to midnight banquets, to the utter defamation of their own honours and ridiculous abuse of their husbands.”
LUSSURIOSO
How could the prince hear that?
PHOENIX
Most true, my lord:
My conscience is a witness ‘gainst itself;
For to that execution of chaste honour
I was both hir’d and led.
LUSSURIOSO
I hope the prince, out of his piteous wisdom,
Will not give wrong to us; as for this fellow,
He’s poor, and cares not to be desperate.
Enter Justice Falso.
FALSO
Justice, my lord! I have my niece stol’n from me;
She’s left her dowry with me, but she’s gone;
I’d rather have had her love than her money, I.
This, this is one of them. Justice, my lord!
I know him by his face; this is the thief.
PRODITOR
Your grace may now to milder sense perceive
The wrong done to us by this impudent wretch,
Who has his hand fix’d at the throat of law,
And therefore durst be desperate of his life.
DUKE
Peace! You’re too foul; your crime is in excess:
One spot of him makes not your ulcers less.
PRODITOR
Oh!
DUKE
[To Phoenix] Did your violence force away his niece?
PHOENIX
No, my good lord, I’ll still confess what’s truth:
I did remove her from her many wrongs,
Which she was pleas’d to leave, they were so vile.
DUKE
[To Falso] What are you nam’d?
FALSO
Falso, my lord, Justice Falso;
I’m known by that name.
DUKE
Falso, you came fitly;
You are the very next that follows here.
FALSO
I hope so, my lord; my name is in all the records, I can assure your good grace.
[Enter Niece and Castiza behind.]
DUKE
[Reads] “Against Justice Falso” —
FALSO
Ah!
DUKE
[Reads] “Who, having had the honest charge of his niece committed to his trust by the last will and testament of her deceased father, and with her all the power of his wealth, not only against faith and conscience detains her dowry, but against nature and humanity assays to abuse her body.”
NIECE
[Coming forward] I’m present to affirm it, my lov’d lord.
FALSO
How? What make I here?
NIECE
Either I must agree
To loathed lust or despis’d beggary.
DUKE
[To Falso] Are you the plaintiff here?
FALSO
Ay, my good lord,
For fault of a better.
DUKE
Seldom comes a worse.
[Reads] “And moreover, not contain’d in this vice only, which is odious too much, but against the sacred use of justice, maintains three thieves to his men” —
FALSO
Cuds me!
DUKE
[Reads] “Who only take purses in their master’s liberty, where if any one chance to be taken, he appears before him in a false beard, and one of his own fellows takes his examination” —
FALSO
[Aside] By my troth, as true as can be, but he shall not know on’t.
DUKE
[Reads] “And in the end will execute justice so cruelly upon him, that he will not trust him in a prison, but commit him to his fellows’ chamber.”
FALSO
[Aside] Can a man do nothing i’ the country but ’tis told at court? There’s some busy informing knave abroad, o’ my life.
PHOENIX
That this is true, and these, and more, my lord,
Be it, under pardon, spoken for mine own;
He the disease of justice, these of honour
And this of loyalty and reverance:
The unswept venom of the palace.
PRODITOR
Slave!
PHOENIX
Behold the prince to approve it!
Discovers himself.
PRODITOR
Oh, where?
PHOENIX
Your eyes keep with your actions; both look wrong.
PRODITOR
An infernal to my spirit!
ALL
My lord, the prince!
PRODITOR
Tread me to dust, thou in whom wonder keeps!
Behold, the serpent on his belly creeps.
PHOENIX
Rankle not my foot; away!
Treason, we laugh at thy vain-labouring stings;
Above the foot thou hast no power o’er kings.
DUKE
I cannot with sufficient joy receive thee,
And yet my joy’s too much.
PHOENIX
My royal father,
To whose unnatural murder I was hir’d,
I thought it a more natural course of travel,
And answering future expectation,
To leave far countries and inquire mine own.
DUKE
To thee let reverence all her powers engage,
That art in youth a miracle to age.
State is but blindness; thou hadst piercing art:
We only saw the knee, but thou the heart.
To thee then power and dukedom we resign;
He’s fit to reign whose knowledge can refine.
PHOENIX
Forbid it my obedience!
DUKE
Our word’s not vain;
I know thee wise, canst both obey and reign.
The rest of life we dedicate to heaven.
ALL
A happy and safe reign to our new duke!
PHOENIX
Without your prayers safer and happier!
Fidelio.
FIDELIO
My royal lord.
PHOENIX
Here, take this diamond:
You know the virtue on’t; it can fetch vice.
Madam Castiza —
FIDELIO
She attends, my lord.
[Exit.]
PHOENIX
Place a guard near us. [To Castiza] Know you yon fellow, lady?
CASTIZA
[Coming forward] My honour’s evil!
PRODITOR
Torment again!
PHOENIX
So ugly are thy crimes,
Thine eye cannot endure ‘em.
And that thy face may stand perpetually
Turn’d so from ours, and thy abhorred self
Neither to threaten wrack of state or credit,
An everlasting banishment seize on thee!
PRODITOR
Oh, fiend!
PHOENIX
Thy life is such it is too bad to end.
PRODITOR
May thy rule, life, and all that’s in thee glad,
Have as short time as thy begetting had!
PHOENIX
Away! thy curse is idle.
Exit Proditor.
The rest are under reformation,
And therefore under pardon.
ALL
Our duties shall turn edge upon our crimes.
FALSO
[Aside] ‘Slid, I was afraid of nothing but that for my thievery and bawdery I should have been turn’d to an innkeeper.
Enter Jeweller’s Wife with Fidelio.
My daughter! I am asham’d her worship should see me.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
Who would not love a friend at court? What fine galleries and rooms am I brought through! I had thought my knight have shown his face here, I.
PHOENIX
Now, mother of pride and daughter of lust,
Which is your friend now?
JEWELLER’S WIFE
Ah, me!
PHOENIX
I’m sure you are not so unprovided to be without a friend here: you’ll pay enough for him first.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
This is the worst room that ever I came in!
PHOENIX
I am your servant, mistress; know you not me?
JEWELLER’S WIFE
Your worship is too great for me to know: I’m but a small-timbered woman when I’m out of my apparel, and dare not venture upon greatness.
PHOENIX
Do you deny me then? Know you this purse?
JEWELLER’S WIFE
That purse? Oh, death, has the Knight serv’d me so?
Given away my favours?
PHOENIX
Stand forth!
Thou one of those for whose close lusts
The plague never leaves the city.
Thou worse than common: private, subtle harlot,
That dost deceive three with one feigned lip:
Thy husband, the world’s eye, and the law’s whip.
Thy zeal is hot, for ’tis to lust and fraud,
And dost not dread to make thy book thy bawd.
Thou’rt curse enough to husband’s ill-got gains,
For whom the court rejects, his gold maintains.
How dear and rare was freedom wont to be!
Now few but are by their wives’ copies free,
And brought to such a head that now we see
City and suburbs wear one livery.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
’Tis ‘long of those, an’t like your grace, that come in upon us, and will never leave marrying of our widows till they make ‘em all as free as their first husbands.
PHOENIX
I perceive you can shift a point well.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
Let me have pardon, I beseech your grace, and I’ll peach ‘em all, all the close women that are; and upon my knowledge there’s above five thousand within the walls and the liberties.
PHOENIX
A band! They shall be sent against the Turk:
Infidels against infidels.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
I will hereafter live so modestly
I will not lie with mine own husband, nor
Come near a man in the way of honesty.
FALSO
[Kneeling] I’ll be her warrant, my lord.
PHOENIX
You are deceived;
You think you’re still a justice.
FALSO
‘Sfoot, worse than I was before I kneel’d! I am no justice now; I know I shall be some innkeeper at last.
JEWELLER’S WIFE
My father, ’tis mine own father!
PHOENIX
I should have wonder’d else, lust being so like.
NIECE
Her birth was kin to mine; she may prove modest:
For my sake, I beseech you, pardon her.
PHOENIX
For thy sake, I’ll do more: Fidelio, hand her.
My favours on you both; next, all that wealth
Which was committed to that perjur’d’s trust.
FALSO
I’m a beggar now; worse than an innkeeper!
Enter Tangle, mad.
TANGLE
Your mittimus shall not serve: I’ll set myself free with a deliberandum, with a deliberandum, mark you!
DUKE
What’s he? A guard!
PHOENIX
Under your sufferance,
Worthy father, his harm is to himself;
One that has lov’d vexation so much,
He cannot now be rid on’t:
He’s been so long in suits that he’s law-mad.
TANGLE
A judgment, I crave a judgment, yea! Nunc pro tunc, corruptione alicujus. I peep’d me a raven in the face, and I thought it had been my solicitor: oh, the pens prick me!
Enter Quieto.
PHOENIX
And here comes he, wonder for temperance,
Will take the cure upon him.
QUIETO
A blessing to this fair assembly.
TANGLE
Away! I’ll have none on’t; give me an audita querela, or a testificandum, or a dispatch in twelve terms: there’s a blessing, there’s a blessing!
PHOENIX
You see th’ unbounded rage of his disease.
QUIETO
’Tis the foul fiend, my lord, has got within him.
The rest are fair to this, this breeds in ink,
And to that colour turns the blood possess’d:
For instance, now your grace shall see him dress’d.
TANGLE
Ah hah! I rejoice then he’s puzzled, and muzzled too:
Is’t come to a cepi corpus?
QUIETO
Ah, good sir,
This is for want of patience.
TANGLE
That’s a fool:
She never saw the dogs and the bears fight;
A country thing!
QUIETO
This is for lack of grace.
TANGLE
I’ve other business, not so much idle time.
QUIETO
You never say your prayers.
TANGLE
I’m advis’d by my learned counsel.
QUIETO
The power of my charm come o’er thee,
Place by degrees thy wits before thee;
With silken patience here I bind thee,
Not to move till I unwind thee.
TANGLE
Yea! Is my cause so muddy? Do I stick, do I stick fast?
Advocate, here’s my hand; pull, art made of flint?
Wilt not help out? Alas, there’s nothing in’t!
PHOENIX
Oh, do you sluice the vein now?
QUIETO
Yes, my honour’d lord.
PHOENIX
Pray, let me see the issue.
QUIETO
I therefore seek to keep it.
[Opens Tangle’s vein over a basin.]
Now burst out,
Thou filthy stream of trouble, spite, and doubt!
TANGLE
Oh, an extent, a proclamation, a summons, a recognisance, a tachment, and injunction! A writ, a seizure, a writ of ‘praisement, an absolution, a quietus est.
QUIETO
You’re quieter, I hope, by so much dregs.
Behold, my lord.
PHOENIX
This! Why, it outfrowns ink.
QUIETO
’Tis the disease’s nature, the fiend’s drink.
TANGLE
Oh, sick, sick, Signior Plyfee, sick!
Lend me thy nightcap. Oh!
QUIETO
The balsam of a temperate brain
I pour into this thirsty vein,
And with this blessed oil of quiet,
Which is so cheap that few men buy it,
Thy stormy temples I allay:
Thou shalt give up the devil, and pray;
Forsake his works, they’re foul and black,
And keep thee bare in purse and back.
No more shalt thou in paper quarrel,
To dress up apes in good apparel.
He throws his stock and all his flock
Into a swallowing gulf
That sends his goose unto his fox,
His lamb unto his wolf.
Keep thy increase,
And live at peace,
For war’s not equal to this battle:
That eats but men, this men and cattle;
Therefore no more this combat choose,
Where he that wins does always lose,
And those that gain all, with this curse receive it,
From fools they get it, to their sons they leave it.
TANGLE
Hail, sacred patience! I begin to feel
I have a conscience now; truth in my words,
Compassion in my heart, and, above all,
In my blood peace’s music. Use me how you can,
You shall find me an honest, quiet man.
Oh, pardon, that I dare behold that face!
Now I’ve least law I hope I have most grace.
PHOENIX
We both admire the workman and his piece.
Thus, when all hearts are tun’d to honour’s strings,
There is no music to the quire of kings.
[Exeunt omnes.]