A banqueting room in the lodge
Soft music, a table with lights set out, arras spread. Enter Roxano leading Tymethes [hooded]. Mazeres meets them.
TYMETHES
How far lack I yet of my blind pilgrimage?
MAZERES
[Aside to Roxano] Whist! Roxano!
ROXANO
You are at your — [Aside to Mazeres] In, my lord,
Away; I’ll help you to a disguise.
MAZERES
[Aside to Roxano] Enough.
Exit.
TYMETHES
Methinks I walk in a vault all underground.
ROXANO
And now your long lost eyes again are found.
Good morrow, sir.
Pulls off the hood.
TYMETHES
By the mass, the day breaks!
ROXANO
Rest here, my lord, and you shall find content;
Catch your desires, stay here, they shall be sent.
TYMETHES
[Aside] Though it be night, ’tis morning to that night which brought me hither.
Ha! The ground spread with arras? What place is this?
Rich hangings? Faire room gloriously furnish’d?
Lights and their lustre? Riches and their splendour?
’Tis no mean creature, these dumb token witness;
Troth, I begin t’ affect my hostess better:
I love her in her absence, though unknown,
For courtly form that’s here observ’d and shown.
Loud music. Enter [the four Servants masked,] two with a banquet, other two with lights; they set ‘em down and depart, making observance. Roxano takes one of them [Valesta] aside.
ROXANO
Valesta? Yes, the same; ’tis my lady’s pleasure
You give to me your coat, and vizarded attend without
Till she employ you.
[Exit Valesta.]
So now this [disguise]
Serves for my Lord Mazeres, for he watches
[For] fit occasion. Lecher, now beware:
Securely sit and fearlessly quaff and eat;
You’ll find sour sauce still after your sweetmeat.
Exit.
TYMETHES
The servants all in vizards? By this light,
I do admire the carriage of her love,
For I account that woman above wife
Can sin and hide the shame from a man’s eyes.
They never do their easy sex more [wrong]
Than when they venture fame upon man’s tongue.
Yet I could swear concealment in love’s plot,
But happy woman that believes me not.
Whate’er is spoke or to be spoke seems fit;
All still concludes her happiness and wit.
Loud music. Enter Roxano, Mazeres [masked and wearing Valesta’s coat], and the [three other] Servants with dishes of sweetmeats; Roxano places them. Each having delivered his dish makes low obeisance to Tymethes. [Exeunt Servants.]
ROXANO
This banquet from her own hand received grace:
Herself prepar’d it for you, as appears
By the choice sweets it yields, able to move
A man past sense to the delights of love.
I bid you welcome as her most priz’d guest,
First to this banquet, next to pleasure’s feast.
TYMETHES
Whoe’er she be, we thank her, and commend
Her care and love to entertain a friend.
ROXANO
That speaks her sex’s rareness, for to woman
The darkest path love treads is clear and common;
She wishes your content may be as great
As if her presence fill’d that other seat.
TYMETHES
Convey my thanks to her, and fill some wine.
MAZERES
[Offering wine] My lord?
ROXANO
[Aside] My Lord Mazeres caught the office:
I can’t but laugh to see how well he plays
The devil in a vizard, damns where he crouches.
Little thinks the prince
Under that face lurks his life’s enemy,
Yet he but keeps the fashion: great men kill
As flatterers stab, who laugh when they mean ill.
MAZERES
[Aside] Now could I poison him fitly, aptly, rarely!
Enter a Lady with wine.
My vengeance speaks me happy: there it goes.
TYMETHES
Some wine?
MAZERES
It comes, my lord.
LADY
My lady begun to you, sir, and doth commend
This to your heart, and with it her affection.
TYMETHES
I’ll pledge her thankfully.
Spills the wine.
There, remove that.
MAZERES
[Aside] And in this my revenge must be remov’d
Where first I left it; now my abused wrath
Pursues thy ruin in this dangerous path.
ROXANO
[Aside] That cup hath quite dash’d my Lord Mazeres.
TYMETHES
[To the Lady] Return my faith, my reverence, my respect,
And tell her this, which courteously I find:
She hides her face, but lets me see her mind.
[Exit Lady.]
ROXANO
[Aside] I would not taste of such a banquet to feel that which follows it, for the love of an empress. ’Tis more dangerous to be a lecher than to enter upon a breach. Yet how securely he munches!
His thoughts are sweeter than the very meats before him;
He little dreams of his destruction,
His horrible, fearful ruin which cannot be withstood:
The end of venery is disease or blood.
Soft music. Enter the [Young] Queen masked in her nightgown, her maid with a shirt and a nightcap. [Maid gives Roxano the shirt and nightcap; the Young Queen and maid exeunt.]
TYMETHES
[Aside] I have not known one happier for his pleasure
Than in that state we are; ’tis a strange trick
And [sweetly] carried. By this light, a delicate creature,
And should have a good face if all hit right,
For they that have good bodies and bad faces
Were all mismatch’d and made up in blind places.
ROXANO
The wind and tide serve, sir; you have lighted upon a sea of pleasure. Here’s your sail, sir, and your top streamer, a fair wrought shirt and a nightcap.
TYMETHES
I shall make a sweet voyage of this.
ROXANO
Ay, if you knew all, sir.
TYMETHES
Is not all known yet? What’s to be told?
ROXANO
Five hundred crowns in the shirt sleeve of gold.
TYMETHES
How!
ROXANO
’Tis my good lady’s pleasure:
No clouds eclipse her bounty; she shines clear.
Some like that pleasure best that costs most dear;
Yet I think your lordship is not of that mind now:
You like that best that brings a banquet with it,
And five hundred crowns.
TYMETHES
Ay, by this light, do I,
And I think thou art of my mind.
ROXANO
We jump somewhat near, sir.
TYMETHES
But what does she mean to reward me aforehand?
I may prove an eunuch now for ought she knows.
ROXANO
Oh, sir, I ne’er knew any of your hair
But he was absolute at the game.
TYMETHES
Faith,
We are much of a colour. But here’s a note; what says it?
He reads.
“Our love and bounty shall increase
So long as you regard our peace;
Unless your life you would forgo,
Who we are seek not to know.
Enjoy me freely: for your sake
This dangerous shift I undertake.
Be therefore wise, keep safe your breath;
You cannot see me under death.”
I’d be loath to venture so far for the sight
Of any creature under heaven.
ROXANO
Nay, sir,
I think you may see a thousand faces better.
TYMETHES
Well, I will shift me instantly, and be content
With my groping fortune.
Exit.
ROXANO
Oh, sir, you’ll grope to purpose.
Exit.
MAZERES
I’ll after thee, and see the measure of my vengeance unheap’d.
His ruin is my charge; I have seen that
This night would make one blush through this vizard:
Like lightning in a tempest her lust shows,
Or drinking drunk in thunder, horrible,
For on this act a thousand dangers wait.
The king will seize him in his burning fury
And seal his vengeance on his reeking breast,
Though I make pander’s use of ear and eye,
No office vile to damn mine enemy.
This course is but the first, ‘twill not rest there:
The next shall change him into fire and air.
Exit.