A drawing-room in the lodge
Enter [Young] Queen and her maid with a light.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
So, leave us here awhile; bear back the light:
I would not be discovered if he come.
You know his entertainment, so be gone.
[Exit maid.]
I am not cheerful, troth, what point soe’er
My powers arrive at: I desire a league
With desolate [darkness] and disconsolate fancies;
There is no music in my soul tonight.
What should I fear when all my servants’ faiths
Sleep in my bounty, and no bribes nor threats
Can wake them from my safety? For the king,
He’s forty leagues rode forth; I heard it lately.
Yet heaviness, like a tyrant, proud in night,
Usurps my power, rules where it hath no right.
She sleeps. [Enter Roxano with Tymethes hoodwink’d.]
TYMETHES
Methinks this a longer voyage than the first.
ROXANO
Pleasure once tasted makes the next seem worse.
TYMETHES
Is that the trick?
ROXANO
Oh, sir, experience proves it:
You came at first to enjoy what you ne’er knew;
Now all is but the same, whate’er you do.
TYMETHES
[Aside] I’ll prove that false; the sight of her is new.
ROXANO
[Taking off Tymethes’s hood] I have forgot a business to my Lord Mazeres;
My safety to the king relies upon’t.
You are in the house, my lord; this is the withdrawing-room.
TYMETHES
I see nothing.
ROXANO
No matter, sir, as long as you have
Feeling enough.
TYMETHES
Is the hood off?
ROXANO
’Tis here in my hand, sir.
I must crave pardon, leave you here awhile,
But as you love my safety and your own,
Remove not from this room till my return.
TYMETHES
Well, here’s my hand I will not.
ROXANO
’Tis enough, sir.
Exit.
TYMETHES
Hist! Art gone? Then boldly I step forth,
Cunning discoverer of an unknown beauty
As subtle as her plot. Thou art mask’d too.
Show me a little comfort in this condensive darkness;
Play the flatterer, laugh in my face.
Opens a dark lanthorn.
Why, here’s enough to perfect all my wishes;
With this I taste of that forbidden fruit
Which, as she says, death follows: death, ‘twill sting.
Soft, what room’s this? Let’s see, ’tis not the former
I was entertain’d in; no, it somewhat differs:
Rich hangings still, court deckings, ay, and all —
He spies the [Young] Queen.
Oh, all that can be in man’s wish compris’d
Is in thy love immortal, in thy graces!
I am not the same flesh; my touch is alter’d.
She awakes.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Hast thou betray’d me? What hast thou attempted?
TYMETHES
Nothing that can be prejudicial
To the sweet peace of those illustrious graces.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, my most certain ruin!
TYMETHES
Admired lady, hear me, hear my vow.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, miserable youth, none saves thee now!
TYMETHES
By that which man holds dearest, dreadful queen,
And all that can be in a vow constrain’d,
I’ll prove as true, secret, and vigilant
As ever man observ’d with serious virtue
The dreadful call of his departing soul.
Your own soul to your secrets shall not prove more true
Than mine to it, to them, to all, to you.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, misery of affection built on breath!
Were I as far past my belief in heaven
As in man’s oaths, I were the foulest devil.
TYMETHES
May I eat and ne’er be nourished, live and know nothing,
Love without enjoying, if ever —
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Come, this is more than needs.
TYMETHES
There’s comfort then.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
You that profess such truth, shall I enjoin you
To one poor penance then to try your faith?
TYMETHES
Be’t what it will, command it.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Spend but this hour, wherein you have offended,
In true repentance of your sin and all
Your hasty youth stands guilty of, and being clear,
You shall enjoy that which you hold most dear.
TYMETHES
And if this penance I perform not truly,
May I henceforth ne’er be received to favour.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Why, then I’ll leave you to your tasks awhile.
[Aside] Most wretched, doubtful, strange, distracted woman,
E’en drawn in pieces betwixt love and fear,
I weep in thought of both. Bold, venturous youth!
Twice I writ death, yet would he seek to know me;
He’ll make no conscience where his oaths bestow me.
Exit.
TYMETHES
I’m glad all’s so well past, and she appeas’d;
I swear I did expect a harder penance
When she began to enjoin me. Why, this is wholesome
For soul and body, though I seldom use it:
Her wisdom is as pleasing as her beauty;
I never knew affection hastier borne,
With more true art and less suspicion.
It so amaz’d me to know her my mistress,
I had no power to close the light again,
Unhappy that I was —
Enter the [Young] Queen with two pistols.
Peace, here she comes;
Down to thy penance. — Think of thy whole youth,
From the first minute that the womb conceiv’d me
To this full-heaped hour; I do repent me,
With heart as penitent as a man dissolving,
Of all my sins, born with me and born of me,
Dishonest thoughts and sights, the paths of youth:
So thrive in mercy as I end in truth.
She shoots him dead.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Fly to thy wish; I pray it may be given:
Man in a twinkling is in earth and heaven.
I dealt not like a coward with thy soul,
Nor took it unprepar’d;
I gave him time to put his armour on,
And sent him forth like a celestial champion.
I lov’d thee with more care and truer moan,
Since thou must die to taste more deaths than one;
Too much by this pity and love confesses
Had any warning fasten’d on thy senses.
Rash, unadvised youth, whom my soul weeps for,
How oft I told thee this attempt was death;
Yet wouldst thou venture on, fond man, and knew.
But what destruction will not youth pursue?
Here long mightst thou have liv’d, been lov’d, enjoy’d,
Had not thy will thy happiness destroy’d.
Thoughtst thou by oaths to have thy deeds well borne?
Thou shouldst have come when man was ne’er forsworn:
They are dangerous now; witness this breach of thine.
Who’s false to his own faith will ne’er keep mine.
We must be safe, young man; the deed’s unknown:
There are more loves, honours, no, more than one.
Yet spite of death, I’ll kiss thee. [Kisses him.] Oh, strange ill,
That for our fears we should our comforts kill!
Whom shall I trust with this poor bleeding body?
Yonder’s a secret vault runs through the castle;
There for a while convey him. Hapless boy,
That never knew how dear ’twas to enjoy!
Enter tyrant [Armatrites] with a torch.
[Aside] Oh, I’m confounded everlastingly,
Damn’d to a thousand tortures in the sight!
What shall I frame? — My lord!
She runs to him.
[ARMATRITES]
What’s she?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, my sweet, dearest lord!
[ARMATRITES]
Thy name?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Thy poor, affrighted and endangered queen.
[ARMATRITES]
Oh, I know thee now!
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Did not your majesty hear the piteous shrieks
Of an enforced lady?
[ARMATRITES]
Yes, whose were they?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Mine, my most worthy lord: behold this villain,
Seal’d with his just desert. Light here, my king:
This violent youth, whom till this night I saw not,
Being, as it seems, acquainted with the footsteps
Of that dark passage, broke through the vault upon me,
And with a secret lanthorn search’d me out,
And seized me at my orisons alone,
And bringing me by violence to this room,
Far from my guard or any hope of rescue,
Intending here the ruin of my honour;
But in the strife, as the good gods ordain’d it,
Reaching for succour, I lighted on a pistol,
Which I presum’d was not without his charge.
Then I redeemed mine honour from his lust,
So he that sought my fall lies in the dust.
[ARMATRITES]
Oh, let me embrace thee for a brave, unmatchable,
Precious, unvalued, admirable whore!
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Ha! What says my lord?
[ARMATRITES]
Come hither; yet draw nearer. How came this man
To’s end? I would hear that; I would learn cunning.
Tell me that I may wonder and so [love] thee.
There is no art like this; let me partake
A subtly no devil can imitate.
Speak, why is all so contrary to time?
He down and you up? Ha, why thus?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
I am sorry for my lord, I understand him not.
[ARMATRITES]
The deed is not so monstrous in itself
As is the art which ponders home the deed;
The cunning doth amaze me past the sin,
That he should fall before my rage begin.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
My lord.
[ARMATRITES]
Come hither yet, one of those left hands give me:
Thou hast no right at all. [I will do nought,]
Nothing [but] put a ring upon a finger.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
That’s a wrong finger for a ring, my lord.
[ARMATRITES]
And what was he on whom you bounteously
Bestow’d this jewel?
[YOUNG] QUEEN aside
I do not like that word.
[ARMATRITES]
Look well upon’t: dost know it? Ay, and start.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, heaven, how came this hither?
Your highness gave me this; this is mine own.
[ARMATRITES]
’Tis the same ring, but yet not the same stone.
Mystical strumpet, dost thou yet presume
Upon thy subtle strength? Shak’st thou not yet?
Or is it only art makes women constant,
Whom nature makes so loose?
I look’d for gracious lightning from thy cheeks,
I see none yet, for a relenting eye,
I see no such sight: lust keeps in all.
My witness? Where’s my witness? Rise in the same form.
Enter from below Mazeres habited like Roxano.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, I’m betrayed!
[ARMATRITES]
Is not yon woman an adulteress?
MAZERES
Yes, my good lord.
[ARMATRITES]
Was not this fellow catch’d for her desire?
Brought in a mist? Banqueted and received
To all her amplest pleasures?
MAZERES
True, my lord;
I brought him, saw him feasted and receiv’d.
[ARMATRITES]
Down, down, we have too much!
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, ’tis Roxano!
MAZERES
[Aside] So, by this sleight I have deceiv’d them both;
I’m took for him I strive to make her loathe.
Exit.
[ARMATRITES]
Needs here more witnesses? I’ll call up more.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, no, here lies a witness ‘gainst myself,
Sooner believed than all their hired faiths.
Doom me unto my death, only except
The lingering execution of your look;
Let me not live tormented in that brow:
I do confess.
[ARMATRITES]
Oh, I felt no quick till now!
All witnesses to this were but dead flesh;
I was insensible of all but this.
Would I had given my kingdom so condition’d
That thou hadst ne’er confessed it!
Now I stand by the deed, see all in action:
The close conveyance, cunning passages,
The artful fetch, the [whispering], close disguising,
The hour, the banquet, and the bawdy tapers;
All stick in mine eye together. Yet thou shalt live.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Torment me not with life; it asks but death.
[ARMATRITES]
Oh, hadst thou not confess’d? Hadst thou no sleight?
Where was thy cunning there?
I see it now in thy confession.
Thou shalt not die as long as this is meet:
Thou kill’dst a buck, which thou thyself shalt eat.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Dear sir?
[ARMATRITES]
Here’s deer struck dead with thy own hand:
’Tis venison for thy own tooth; thou know’st the relish.
A dearer place hath been thy taster. Ho!
[Sextorio]! [Lodovicus]!
They enter.
AMBO
Here, sir.
[ARMATRITES]
Drag hence that body, see it quarter’d straight;
No living wrath can I extend upon’t,
Else torments, horrors, gibbets, racks and wheels
Had with a thousand deaths presented him
Ere he had tasted one.
[Exit Sextorio and Lodovicus with the body.]
Yet thou shalt live.
Here, take this taper lighted, kneel and weep;
I’ll try which is spent first, that or thine eye.
[The Young Queen kneels.]
I’ll provide food for thee; thou shalt not die.
If there be hell for sins that men commit,
Marry a strumpet and she keeps the pit.
Exit.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
I fear’d this misery long before it came;
My ominous dreams and fearful dreadfulness
Promis’d this issue long before ’twas born.
Enter Mazeres.
MAZERES
[Aside] Yonder she kneels, little suspecting me
The neat discoverer of her venery.
I were full safe had I Roxano’s life,
Which in this stream I fish for. — How now, lady?
So near the earth suits not a living queen.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Under the earth were safer and far happier.
MAZERES
What is’t that can drive you to such discomforts
To prize your glories at so mean a rate?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
The treachery of my servants, good my lord.
MAZERES
Dare they prove treacherous? Most ignoble vassals,
To the sweet peace of so divine a mistress?
[YOUNG] QUEEN
I’m sure one villain, whom I dearly lov’d,
Of whom my trust had made election chief,
Perfidiously betray’d me to the fury
Of my tempestuous, unappeased lord.
MAZERES
Let me but know him, that I may bestow
My service to your grace upon his heart
And thence deserve a mistress like yourself.
Enter Roxano from below.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Oh, me, too soon behold him!
MAZERES
Madam, stand by; let him not see the light.
ROXANO
[Aside] Now I expect reward.
MAZERES
He dies were he my kinsman for that guilt,
Though ‘twere as far to’s heart as ’tis to th’ hilt.
Runs at Roxano.
ROXANO
Ha? What was that? There’s a reward with a vengeance.
MAZERES
Fall, villain, for betraying of thy lady;
Such things must never creep about the earth
To poison the right use of service. A treacher!
[Kills Roxano.]
[YOUNG] QUEEN
This is some poor revenge; thanks, good my lord.
Into that cave with him from whence he rose
Not long since and betray’d me to the king.
MAZERES
Oh, villain, in and overtake thy soul.
[Drops Roxano’s body through the trapdoor.]
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Here’s a perplexed breast; let that warm steel
Perform but the like service upon me
And live the rarest friend to a queen’s wish.
MAZERES
Oh, pardon me, that were too full of evil;
I threat not angels, though I smite the devil.
Doubt not your peace: the king will be appeas’d;
There I’ll bestow my service.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
We are pleas’d.
MAZERES
[Aside] As much as comes to nothing; I’ll not sue
To urge the king from that he urg’d him to.
Exit.
[YOUNG] QUEEN
Betray’d where I repos’d most trust? Oh, heaven,
There is no misery, fit match for mine!
Enter tyrant [Armatrites, Sextorio, Lodovicus], bringing in Tymethes’ limbs.
[ARMATRITES]
So, bring ‘em forward yet; there, there bestow them,
Before her eyes lay the divided limbs
Of her desired paramour. So, y’are welcome,
Lady; you see your cheer, fine flesh, course fare:
Sweet was your lust; what can be bitter there?
By heaven, no other food thy taste shall have
Till in thy bowels those corpes find a grave,
Which, to be sure of, come, I’ll lock thee safe
From the world’s pity. Hang those quarters up;
The bottom drinks the worst in pleasure’s cup.
Exeunt omnes.