The court
Enter the new usurping Tyrant; the Nobles of his faction, Memphonius, Sophonirus, Helvetius, with others; the right heir Govianus, deposed. A sennet.
TYRANT
Thus high, my lords, your powers and constant loves
Hath fixed our glories like unmoved stars
That know not what it is to fall or err.
We’re now the kingdom’s love, and he that was
Flattered awhile so stands before us now
Readier for doom than dignity.
GOVIANUS
So much
Can the adulterate friendship of mankind,
False fortune’s sister, bring to pass on kings,
And lay usurpers sunning in their glories
Like adders in warm beams.
TYRANT
There was but one
In whom my heart took pleasure (amongst women),
One in the whole creation, and in her
You dared to be my rival. Was’t not bold?
Now we are king, she’ll leave the lower path
And find the way to us. Helvetius,
It is thy daughter. Happier than a king
And far above him, for she kneels to thee
Whom we have kneeled to, richer in one smile
That came from her than she in all thy blessings!
If thou be’st proud, thou art to be forgiven;
It is no deadly sin in thee. While she lives,
High lust is not more natural to youth
Than that to thee: be not afraid to die in’t;
’Tis but the sin of joy. There is no gladness
But has a pride it lives by — that’s the oil
That feeds it into flames. Let her be sent for,
And honourably attended, as beseems
Her that we make our queen. My [lords] Memphonius
And Sophonirus, take into your care
The royal business of my heart. Conduct her
With a respect equal with that to us.
If more, it shall be pardon’d; so still err.
You honour us, but ourself honours her.
MEMPHONIUS
[Aside] Strange fortune! Does he make his queen of her?
Exit Memphonius.
SOPHONIRUS
[Aside] I have a wife; would she were so preferred!
I could be but her subject; so I’m now.
I allow her her one friend to stop her mouth
And keep her quiet; give him his table free,
And the huge feeding of his great stone-horse
With which he rides in pomp about the city
Only to speak to gallants in bay-windows.
Marry, his lodging he pays dearly for:
He gets me all my children; there I save by’t.
Beside, I draw my life out by the bargain
Some twelve years longer than the times appointed,
When my young prodigal gallant kicks up’s heels
At one and thirty, and lies dead and rotten
Some five and forty years before I’m coffined.
’Tis the right way to keep a woman honest;
One friend is barricado to a hundred
And keeps ‘em out. Nay, more, a husband’s sure
To have his children all of one man’s getting,
And he that performs best can have no better.
I’m e’en as happy then that save a labour.
Exit Sophonirus.
TYRANT
Thy honours with thy daughter’s love shall rise;
I shall read thy deservings in her eyes.
HELVETIUS
Oh, may they be eternal books of pleasure,
To show you all delight!
GOVIANUS
The loss of her sits closer to my heart
Than that of kingdom or the whorish pomp
Of this world’s titles that with flattery swells us
And makes us die like beasts fat for destruction.
Oh, she’s a woman, and her eye will stand
Upon advancement, never weary yonder;
But when she turns her head by chance and sees
The fortunes that are my companions,
She’ll snatch her eyes off, and repent the looking.
TYRANT
’Tis well advised. We doom thee, Govianus,
To banishment forever from our kingdom.
GOVIANUS
What could be worse to one whose heart is locked
Up in another’s bosom? Banishment!
And why not death? Is that too easy for me?
TYRANT
But that the world would call our way to dignity
A path of blood,
It should be the first act in all our reign.
GOVIANUS
She’s lost forever. [To Nobles] Farewell, virtuous men,
Too honest for your greatness! Now y’are mightier
Than when we knew the kingdom, your styles heavier.
Then, ponderous nobility, farewell.
[FIRST] NOBLE
How’s that, sir?
GOVIANUS
Weighty and serious. Oh, sir, is it you?
I knew you one and twenty and a lord
When your discretion sucked. Is’t come from nurse yet?
You scorn to be a scholar; you were born better.
You have good lands; that’s the best grounds of learning.
If you can conster but your doctor’s bill,
Pierce your wife’s waiting-women, and decline your tenants
Till they’re all beggars, with new fines and rackings,
Y’are scholar good enough for a lady’s son
That’s born to living. If you list to read,
Ride but to th’ city and bestow your looks
On the court library, the mercers’ books;
They’ll quickly furnish you. Do but entertain
A tailor for your tutor, to expound
All the hard stuff to you, by what name and title
Soever they be called.
[FIRST] NOBLE
I thank you, sir.
GOVIANUS
’Tis happy you have learned so much manners,
Since you have so little wit. Fare you well, sir.
TYRANT
Let him be stayed awhile.
[SECOND] NOBLE
Stay!
[FIRST] NOBLE
You must stay, sir.
GOVIANUS
He’s not so honest, sure, to change his mind,
Revoke his doom. Hell has more hope on him.
TYRANT
We have not ended yet; the worst part’s coming.
Thy banishment were gentle were that all.
But, t’afflict thy soul, before thou goest
Thou shalt behold the heav’n that thou must lose,
In her that must be mine.
Then to be banished, then to be deprived,
Shows the full torment we provide for thee.
GOVIANUS
Here’s a right tyrant now; he will not bate me
Th’ affliction of my soul; he will have all parts
Suffer together.
Enter [Memphonius and Sophonirus] with the Lady clad in black.
Now I see my loss;
I never shall recover’t. My mind’s beggared.
TYRANT
Black! Whence risse that cloud? Can such a thing be seen
In honour’s glorious day, the sky so clear?
Why mourns the kingdom’s mistress? Does she come
To meet advancement in a funeral garment?
Back! She forgot herself. ’Twas too much joy
That bred this error, and we heartily pardon’t.
Go, bring me her hither like an illustrious bride
With her best beams about her: let her jewels
Be worth ten cities; that beseems our mistress,
And not a widow’s case, a suit to weep in.
LADY
I am not to be altered.
TYRANT
How!
LADY
I have a mind
That must be shifted ere I cast off these,
Or I shall wear strange colours. ’Tis not titles
Nor all the bastard honours of this frame
That I am taken with. I come not hither
To please the eye of glory, but of goodness,
And that concerns not you, sir; you’re for greatness.
I dare not deal with you. I have found my match,
And I will never loose him.
GOVIANUS
If there be man
Above a king in fortunes, read my story
And you shall find him there. Farewell, poor kingdom.
[To Tyrant] Take it to help thee; thou hast need on’t now.
I see thee in distress, more miserable
Than some thou lay’st taxations on, poor subjects.
Thou art all beset with storms, more overcast
Than ever any man that brightness flattered.
’Tis only wretchedness to be there with thee,
And happiness to be here.
TYRANT
Sure some dream crowned me.
If it were possible to be less than nothing,
I wake the man you seek for. There’s the kingdom
Within yon valley fixed, while I stand here
Kissing false hopes upon a frozen mountain,
Without the confines. I am he that’s banished;
The king walks yonder, chose by her affection,
Which is the surer side, for where she goes
Her eye removes the court. What is he here
Can spare a look? They’re all employed on her.
Helvetius! Thou art not worth the waking neither.
I lose but time in thee. Go sleep again.
Like an old man, thou canst do nothing;
Thou tak’st no pain at all to earn thine honours.
Which way shall we be able to pay thee
To thy content, when we receive not ours?
The master of the work must needs decay
When he wants means and sees his servant play.
HELVETIUS
[To Lady] Have I bestowed so many blessings on thee
And do they all return to me in a curse?
Is that the use I ha’ for ‘em? Be not to me
A burden ten times heavier than my years.
Thou’dst wont to be kind to me and observe
What I thought pleasing. Go, entreat the king.
LADY
I will do more for you, sir; y’are my father.
I’ll kiss him too.
[Kisses Govianus.]
HELVETIUS
How am I dealt withal!
LADY
Why, that’s the usurper, sir; this is the king.
I happened righter than you thought I had.
And were all kingdoms of the earth his own
As sure as this is not, and this dear gentleman
As poor as virtue and almost as friendless,
I would not change this misery for that sceptre,
Wherein I had part with him. Sir, be cheerful.
’Tis not the reeling fortune of great state
Or low condition that I cast mine eye at;
It is the man I seek, the rest I loose
As things unworthy to be kept or noted.
Fortunes are but the outsides of true worth;
It is the mind that sets his master forth.
TYRANT
Has there so many bodies been hewn down,
Like trees in progress, to cut out a way
That was ne’er known, for us and our affections,
And is our game so crossed? There stands the first
Of all her kind that ever refused greatness.
A woman to set light by sovereignty!
What age bring her forth and hide that book?
’Tis their desire most commonly to rule
More than their part comes to: sometimes their husbands.
HELVETIUS
’Tis in your power, my lord, to force her to you
And pluck her from his arms.
TYRANT
Thou talk’st unkindly;
That had been done before thy thought begot it
If my affection could be so hard-hearted
To stand upon such payment. It must come
Gently and kindly, like a debt of love,
Or ’tis not worth receiving.
GOVIANUS
Now, usurper,
I wish no happier freedom than the banishment
That thou hast laid upon me.
TYRANT
[Aside] Oh, he kills me
At mine own weapon! ’Tis I that live in exile
Should she forsake the land. I’ll feign some cause
Far from the grief itself to call it back. —
That doom of banishment was but lent to thee
To make a trial of thy factious spirit,
Which flames in thy desire. Thou wouldst be gone:
There is some combination betwixt thee
And foreign plots; thou hast some powers to raise,
Which to prevent, thy banishment we revoke,
Confine thee to thy house nearest our court,
And place a guard about thee. Lord Memphonius,
See it effected.
MEMPHONIUS
With best care, my lord.
GOVIANUS
Confine me? Here’s my liberty in mine arms;
I wish no better to bring me consent.
Love’s best freedom is close prisonment.
Exeunt Lady and Govianus [with Memphonius].
TYRANT
Methinks the day e’en darkens at her absence.
I stand as in a shade, when a great cloud
Muffles the sun, whose beams shine afar off
On tow’rs and mountains, but I keep the valleys,
The place that is last served.
HELVETIUS
My lord.
TYRANT
Your reason, sir.
HELVETIUS
Your grace is mild to all but your own bosom.
They should have both been sent to several prisons,
And not committed to each other’s arms.
There’s a hot durance. He’ll ne’er wish more freedom.
TYRANT
’Tis true; let ‘em be both forced back.
Stay, we command you!
Thou talk’st not like a statesman. Had my wrath
Took hold of such extremity at first,
They’d lived suspectful still, warned by their fears;
Where, now that liberty makes ‘em more secure,
I’ll take ‘em at my pleasure. It gives thee
Freer access to play the father for us
And ply her to our will.
HELVETIUS
Mass, so it does,
Let a man think on’t twice! Your grace hath happened
Upon a strange way, yet it proves the nearest.
TYRANT
Nay, more, to vex his soul give command straight
They be divided into several rooms,
Where he may only have a sight of her,
To his mind’s torment, but his arms and lips
Locked up like felons from her.
HELVETIUS
Now you win me.
I like that cruelty passing well, my lord.
TYRANT
Give order with all speed.
HELVETIUS
Though I be old,
I need no spur, my lord. Honour pricks me.
I do beseech your grace, look cheerfully.
You shall not want content, if it be locked
In any blood of mine: the key’s your own;
You shall command the wards.
TYRANT
Say’st thou so, sir?
I were ingrateful, then, should I see thee
Want honour, that provides content for me.
Exeunt. A flourish.