Enter Virgin White Queen’s Pawn [from the White House] with a book in her hand
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
And here again: (reading) ‘it is the daughter’s duty
To obey her confessor’s command in all things
Without exception or expostulation.’
It’s the most general rule that e’er I read of.
Yet when I think how boundless virtue is,
Goodness and grace, it’s gently reconciled,
And then it appears well to have the power
Of the dispenser as uncircumscribed.
[She reads silently.] Enter [from the Black House] Jesuit Black Bishop’s Pawn [apart]
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
[aside]
She’s hard upon’t. ’Twas the most modest key
That I could use to open my intents.
What little or no pains goes to some people!
[He finds a paper]
Ha? What have we here? A sealed note. Whence this?
‘To the Black Bishop’s Pawn, these.’ How? to me?
Strange. Who subscribes it? ‘The Black King’? What would he?
[He reads] the letter
‘Pawn! sufficiently holy, but unmeasurably politic. We had late intelligence from our most industrious servant famous in all parts of Europe (our Knight of the Black
House) that you have at this instant in chase the White Queen’s Pawn, and very likely by the carriage of your game to entrap and take her. These are therefore to require you, by the burning affection I bear to the rape of devotion, that speedily upon the surprisal of her by all watchful advantage you make some attempt upon the White Queen’s person, whose fall or prostitution our lust most violently rages for.’
Sir, after my desire has took a julep
For its own inflammation that yet scorches me,
I shall have cooler time to think of yours.
She’s passed the general rule, the large extent
Of our prescriptions for obedience,
And yet with what alacrity of soul
Her eye moves on the letters.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Holy sir,
Too long I’ve missed you. O your absence starves me.
Hasten for time’s redemption, worthy sir,
Lay your commands as thick and fast upon me
As you can speak ‘em. How I thirst to hear ‘em!
Set me to work upon this spacious virtue
Which the poor span of life’s too narrow for, boundless obedience,
The humblest yet the mightiest of all duties,
Well here set down a universal goodness.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
[aside]
By holiness of garment her safe innocence
Has frighted the full meaning from itself.
She’s farther off from understanding now
The language of my intent than at first meeting.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
For virtue’s sake, good sir, command me something.
Make trial of my duty in some small service,
And as you find the faith of my obedience there,
Then trust it with a greater.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
You speak sweetly.
I do command you first then —
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
With what joy
I do prepare my duty.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
To meet me
And seal a kiss of love upon my lip.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Ha?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
At first disobedient, in so little too?
How shall I trust you with a greater then? —
Which was your own request.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Pray send not back
My innocence to wound me. Be more courteous.
I must confess, much like an ignorant plaintiff
Who, presuming on the fair path of his meaning,
Goes rashly on, till on a sudden brought
Into the wilderness of law by words
Dropped unadvisedly, hurts his own cause
And gives the adversary advantage by’t —
Apply it you can best, sir. If my obedience
And your command can find no better way,
Fond men command, and wantons best obey.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
If I can at that distance send you a blessing,
Is it not nearer to you in my arms?
It flies from these lips dealt abroad in parcels,
And I to honour thee above all daughters
Invite thee home to th’ house, where thou mayst surfeit
On that which others miserably pine for,
A favour which the daughters of great potentates
Would look of Envy’s colour but to hear.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Good men may err sometimes. You are mistaken, sure,
If this be virtue’s path, ’tis a most strange one.
I never came this way before.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN That’s your ignorance —
And therefore shall that idiot still conduct you
That knows no way but one? nor ever seeks it?
If there be twenty ways to some poor village,
’Tis strange that virtue should be put to one.
Your fear is wondrous faulty. Cast it from you.
‘Twill gather else in time a disobedience
Too stubborn for my pardon.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Have I locked myself
At unawares into sin’s servitude
With more desire of goodness? Is this the top
Of all strict order? and the holiest
Of all Societies, the three-vowed people
For poverty, obedience, chastity
(The last the most forgot)? When a virgin’s ruined
I see the great work of obedience
Is better than half finished.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
What a stranger
Are you to duty grown! What distance keep you!
Must I bid you come forward to a happiness
Yourself should sue for. ’Twas never so with me.
I dare not let this stubbornness be known;
’Twould bring such fierce hate on you. Yet presume not
To make that courteous care a privilege
For wilful disobedience. It turns then
Into the blackness of a curse upon you.
Come, come, be nearer.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Nearer?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Was that scorn?
I would not have it prove so, for the hopes
Of the great monarchy. If it were like it,
Let it not dare to stir abroad again;
A stronger ill will cope with’t.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Bless me! Threatens me
And quite dismays the good strength that should help me.
I never was so doubtful of my safety.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
’Twas but my jealousy. Forgive me, sweetness.
Yon is the house of meekness, and no venom lives
Under that roof. Be nearer. Why so fearful?
Nearer the altar, the more safe and sacred.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
But nearer to the off’rer, oft more wicked.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
A plain and most insufferable contempt!
My glory I have lost upon this woman
In freely off’ring that she should have kneeled
A year in vain for. My respect is darkened.
Give me my reverence again thou’st robbed me of
In thy repulse; thou shalt not carry’t hence.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Sir —
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Thou’rt too great a winner to depart so
And I too deep a loser to give way to’t.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
O heaven!
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Lay me down reputation
Before thou stir’st. Thy nice virginity
Is recompense too little for my love.
’Tis well if I accept of that for both.
Thy loss is but thy own; there’s art to help thee
And fools to pass thee to. In my discovery
The whole Society suffers, and in that
The hope of absolute monarchy eclipsed.
Assurance thou canst make none for thy secrecy
But by thy honour’s loss; that act must awe thee.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
O my distressed condition!
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Dost thou weep?
If thou hadst any pity this necessity
Would wring it from thee. I must else destroy thee.
We must not trust the policy of Europe
Upon a woman’s tongue.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Then take my life, sir,
And leave my honour for my guide to heaven.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Take heed I take not both, which I’ve vowed since
If longer thou resist me.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’s PAWN
Help, O help!
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Art thou so cruel for an honour’s bubble
T’undo a whole fraternity, and disperse
The secrets of most nations locked in us?
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
For heaven and virtue’s sake —
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Must force confound noise?
A noise within
Ha! What’s that? Silence, if fair worth be in thee.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN [aside]
I’ll venture my escape upon all dangers now.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Who comes to take me? Let me see that pawn’s face
Or his proud tympanous master swelled with state wind
Which being once pricked i’th’ convocation house
The corrupt air puffs out and he falls shriveled.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
I will discover thee, arch-hypocrite,
To all the kindreds of the earth. Exit
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN Confusion!
In that voice rings th’alarum of my undoing.
How? Which way scaped she from me?
Enter Black Queen’s Pawn [from the Black House]
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
Are you mad?
Can lust infatuate a man so hopeful?
No patience in your blood? The dog-star reigns sure.
Time and fair temper would have wrought her pliant.
I spied a pawn of the White House walk near us,
And made that noise on purpose to give warning
(Aside) For mine own turn, which end in all I work for.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
Methinks I stand over a powder-vault
And the match now a-kindling. What’s to be done?
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
Ask the Black Bishop’s counsel. You’re his pawn.
It’s his own case. He will defend you mainly,
Enter Jesuit Black Bishop and Black Knight Gondomar [from the Black House]
And haply here he comes with the Black Knight too.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
[to his Pawn]
O you’ve made noble work for the White House.
This act will fill the adversary’s mouth
And blow the Luth’ran’s cheek till’t crack again.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
This will advance the great monarchal business
In all parts well and help the agents forward.
What I have sev’n years laboured to accomplish
One minute sets back by some codpiece college still.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
I dwell not, sir, alone in this default.
The Black House yields me partners.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
All more cautelous.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Qui caute, caste. That’s my motto ever.
I’ve travelled with that word over most kingdoms
And lain safe with all nations. Of a leaking bottom,
I have been as often tossed on Venus’ seas
As trimmer fresher barques, when sounder vessels
Have lain at anchor (that is, kept the door).
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP [to his Pawn]
She has no witness then?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
None, none.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR Gross! witness?
When went a man of his Society
To mischief with a witness?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP [to his pawn]
Be it thus then.
Away! Upon the wings of speed, take post-horse,
Cast thirty leagues of earth behind thee suddenly,
Leave letters antedated with our House
Ten days at least from this.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Bishop, I taste thee.
Good strong episcopal counsel. — Take a bottle on’t;
‘Twill serve thee all the journey.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN But, good sir,
How for my getting forth unspied?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP There’s check again.
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
No, I’ll help that!
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Well said, my bouncing Jesuitess!
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
There lies a secret vault.
[She reveals a trapdoor]
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[to Jesuit Black Bishop’s Pawn]
Away, make haste then!
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP’S PAWN
[to Black Queen’s Pawn]
Run for my cabinet of intelligences
For fear they search the house.
[Exit Jesuitess Black Queen’s Pawn]
Good Bishop, burn ‘em rather.
I cannot stand to pick ‘em now.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Be gone!
The danger’s all in you.
Exit Jesuit Black Bishop’s Pawn [by the trapdoor.
Enter Jesuitess Black Queen’s Pawn from the Black
House with a cabinet]
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Let me see, Queen’s Pawn.
[She gives him the cabinet]
How formally he’s packed up his intelligences!
He’s laid ‘em all in truckle-beds methinks,
And like court-harbingers he’s writ their names
In chalk upon their chambers. Anglical
O, this is the English House. What news there, trow?
Ha? By this hand, most of these are bawdy epistles.
Time they were burnt indeed, whole bundles of ‘em.
Here’s from his daughter Blanch and daughter Bridget
From their safe sanctuary in the Whitefriars;
These from two tender Sisters of Compassion
In the bowels of Bloomsbury;
These from the nunnery without Temple Bar.
A lire, a fire — go, Jesuitess, a fire!
[Exit Jesuitess Black Queen’s Pawn]
What have you there?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
A note, sir, of state policy,
And an exceeding safe one.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Pray, let’s see’t, sir.
‘To sell away all the powder in the kingdom
To prevent blowing up.’ That’s safe; I’ll able it. —
Here’s a facetious observation now
That suits my humour better. He writes here
Some wives in England will commit adult’ry
And then send to Rome for a bull for their husbands.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Have they those shifts?
[Enter Jesuitess Black Queen’s Pawn from the
Black House with fire]
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
O, no familiar breathing
Sweeter and subtler! — Here, wench, take these papers.
Scorch me ‘em soundly, burn ‘em to French russet,
And put ‘em in again.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Why, what’s your mystery?
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
O, sir, ‘twill mock the adversary strangely
If e’er the house be searched. ’Twas done in Venice
Upon the Jesuitical expulse there,
When the inquisitors came all spectacled
To pick out syllables out of the dung of treason
As children pick their cherrystones, yet found none
But what they made themselves with ends of letters. —
Do as I bid you, pawn.
Exeunt [Black Knight Gondomar and Jesuit Black Bishop]
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
Faith, not in all.
I love roguery too well to let it fall.
Enter Black Knight’s Pawn Gelder [from the Black House]
How now, what news with you?
BLACK KNIGHT’S PAWN GELDER
The sting of conscience
Afflicts me so for that inhuman violence
On the White Bishop’s Pawn, it takes away
My joy, my rest.
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
This ’tis to make an eunuch.
You made a sport on’t then.
BLACK KNIGHT’S PAWN GELDER
Cease, Aggravation.
I come to be absolved for’t. Where’s my confessor?
Why dost thou point to th’ ground?
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
‘Cause he went that way.
Come, come help me in with this cabinet,
And after I have singed these papers throughly
I’ll tell thee a strange story.
BLACK KNIGHT’S PAWN GELDER
If’t be sad,
It’s welcome.
JESUITESS BLACK QUEEN’S PAWN
’Tis not troubled with much mirth, sir.
Exeunt [with cabinet and fire]
Enter Fat Bishop of Spalato [from the White House, dressed in white, followed by his servant,] a [white] Pawn
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
Pawn!
FAT BISHOP’S PAWN
I attend at your great holiness’s service.
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
For ‘great’ I grant you, but for ‘greatly holy’,
There the soil alters. Fat cathedral bodies
Have very often but lean little souls,
Much like the lady in the lobster’s head,
A great deal of shell and garbage of all colours,
But the pure part that should take wings and mount —
That’s at last gasp, as if a man should gape i
And from this huge bulk let forth a butterfly,
Like those big-bellied mountains which the poet
Delivers, that are brought to bed with mouse-flesh.
Are my books printed, Pawn? My last invectives
‘Gainst the Black House.
FAT BISHOP’S PAWN
Ready for publication,
For I saw perfect books this morning, sir.
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
Fetch me a few, which I will instantly
Distribute ‘mongst the White House.
FAT BISHOP’S PAWN
With all speed, sir.
Exit Fat Bishop’s Pawn
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
It’s a most lordly life to rail at ease,
Sit, eat, and feed upon the fat of one kingdom
And rail upon another with the juice on’t.
I have writ this book out of the strength and marrow
Of six-and-thirty dishes at a meal.
Of all things I commend the White House best
For plenty and variety of victuals.
When I was one of the Black House professed,
My flesh fell half a cubit; time to turn
When my own ribs revolted. But to say truth,
I’ve no preferment yet that’s suitable
To th’ greatness of my person and my parts.
I grant I live at ease, for I am made
The Master of the Beds, the long-acre of beds,
But there’s no marigolds that shuts and opens,
Flower-gentles, Venus-baths, apples of love,
Pinks, hyacinths, honeysuckles, daffadowndillies.
There was a time I’d more such drabs than beds;
Now I’ve more beds than drabs.
Yet there’s no eminent trader deals in hole-sale
But she and I have clapped a bargain up,
Let in at Watergate, for which I’ve racked
My tenants’ purse-strings that they’ve twanged again.
Enter [from the Black House] Black Knight Gondomar with Jesuit Black Bishop [aloof off]
Yonder’s Black Knight, the fistula of Europe,
Whose disease once I undertook to cure
With a High Holborn halter. When he did
Vouchsafe to peep into my privileged lodgings,
He found good store of plate there, and rich hangings.
He knew I brought none to the White House with me.
I have not lost the use of my profession
Since I turned White House Bishop.
Enter [Fat Bishop’s] Pawn [from the White House] with books
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[apart to Jesuit Black Bishop]
Look, more books yet!
Yonder greasy gormandizing prelate
Has wrought our House more mischief by his scripts,
His fat and fulsome volumes,
Than the whole body of the adverse party.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
O ‘twere a masterpiece of serpent subtlety
To fetch him on this side again.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
And then damn him
Into the bag for ever, or expose him
Against the adverse part (which now he feeds upon),
And that would double-damn him. My revenge
Has prompted me already. I’ll confound him
On both sides for the physic he prescribed
And the base surgeon he provided for me.
I’ll tell you what a most uncatholic jest
He put upon me once, when my pain tortured me:
He told me he had found a present cure for me,
Which I grew proud of and observed him seriously.
What think you ’twas? Being execution day,
He showed the hangman to me out at window,
The common hangman.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
O insufferable!
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
I’ll make him the balloon-ball of the churches,
And both the sides shall toss him. He looks like one,
A thing swelled up with mingled drink and urine,
And will bound well from one side to another.
Come, you shall write: our second Bishop absent
(Which has yet no employment in the game,
Perhaps nor ever shall — it may be won
Without his motion; it rests most in ours),
He shall be flattered with sede vacante.
Make him believe he comes into his place,
And that will fetch him with a vengeance to us,
For I know powder is not more ambitious
When the match meets it than his mind for mounting;
As covetous and lecherous —
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
No more now, sir.
Enter [from] the White House [White King James, White Queen of Bohemia, White Bishop of Canterbury, White Knight Charles, White Duke of Buckingham, and white pawns,] and [from] the Black House [Black King Felipe, Black Queen Maria, Black Duke Olivares, and black pawns]
Both the sides fill.
[Fat Bishop of Spalato presents his book to White King James]
WHITE KING JAMES
This has been looked for long.
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
The stronger sting it shoots into the blood
Of the Black adversary. I’m ashamed now
I was theirs ever. What a lump was I
When I was led in ignorance and blindness!
I must confess, I’ve all my lifetime played
The fool till now.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[to Jesuit Black Bishop]
And now he plays two parts: the fool and knave.
FAT BISHOP OF SPALATO
[to White King James]
There’s my recantation in the last leaf,
Writ like a Ciceronian in pure Latin.
WHITE BISHOP
[OF CANTERBURY]
Pure honesty, the plainer Latin serves then.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[to Jesuit Black Bishop]
Plague of those pestilent pamphlets! Those are they
That wound our cause to th’ heart.
Enter Virgin White Queen’s Pawn [from the White House]
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Here comes more anger.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
But we come well provided for this storm.
WHITE QUEEN [OF BOHEMIA]
Is this my pawn? she that should guard our person?
Or some pale figure of dejection,
Her shape usurping? Sorrow and affrightment
Has prevailed strangely with her.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
King of integrity,
Queen of the same, and all the House professors
Of noble candor, uncorrupted justice
And truth of heart, through my alone discovery —
My truth and honour wondrously preserved —
I bring into your knowledge with my suffrings
(Fearful affrightments and heart-killing terrors)
The great incendiary of all Christendom,
The absolut’st abuser of true sanctity,
Fair peace and holy order, can be found
In any part o’th’ universal globe,
Who — making meek devotion keep the door,
His lips being full of holy zeal at first —
Would have committed a foul rape upon me.
WHITE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA
Ha?
WHITE KING JAMES
A rape? That’s foul indeed, the very sound
To our ear fouler than the offence itself
To some kings of the earth.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Sir, to proceed:
Gladly I offered life to preserve honour,
Which would not be accepted without both,
The chief of his ill aim being at my honour,
Till heaven was pleased by some unlooked-for accident
To give me courage to redeem myself.
WHITE KING JAMES
When we find desp’rate sins in ill men’s company,
We place a charitable sorrow there,
But custom and their leprous inclination
Quits us of wonder, for our expectation
Is answered in their lives; but to find sin —
Yea, and a masterpiece of darkness — sheltered
Under a robe of sanctity is able
To draw all wonder to that monster only
And leave created monsters unadmired.
The pride of him that took first fall for pride
Is to be angel-shaped and imitate
The form from which he fell, but this offender —
Far baser than sin’s master, fixed by vow
To holy order (which is angels’ method) —
Takes pride to use that shape to be a devil.
It grieves me that my knowledge must be tainted
With his infested name.
O rather with thy finger point him out.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
[pointing]
The place which he should fill is void, my lord;
His guilt has seized him — the Black Bishop’s Pawn.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Ha? Mine? My Pawn? The glory of his Order,
The prime and president zealot of the earth?
Impudent Pawn! For thy sake at this minute
Modesty suffers, all that’s virtuous blushes,
And truth’s self (like the sun vexed with a mist)
Looks red with anger.
WHITE BISHOP [OF CANTERBURY]
Be not thou drunk with rage too.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Sober sincerity! — nor you a cup
Spiced with hypocrisy.
WHITE KNIGHT CHARLES
You name there, Bishop,
But your own Christmas bowl, your morning’s draught
Next your episcopal heart all the twelve days,
Which smack you cannot leave all the year after.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
White Knight, there is acknowledged from our House
A reverence to you, and a respect
To that loved Duke stands next you. With the favour
Of the White King and th’aforenamed respected,
I combat with this cause. [To her] If with all speed —
Waste not one syllable, unfortunate Pawn,
Of what I speak — thou dost not plead distraction
(A plea which will but faintly take thee off neither
From this leviathan scandal that lies rolling
Upon the crystal waters of devotion)
Or, what may quit thee more — though enough, nothing —
Fall down and foam, and by that pang discover
The vexing spirit of falsehood strong within thee,
Make thyself ready for perdition.
There’s no remove in all the game to ‘scape it.
This Pawn, or this, the Bishop or myself,
Will take thee in the end, play how thou canst.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Spite of sin’s glorious ostentation
And all blood-threats (that thunder cracks of pride,
Ush’ring a storm of malice), House of impudence,
Craft and equivocation, my true cause
Shall keep the path it treads in.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
I play thus then:
Now in the hearing of this high assembly,
Bring forth the time of this attempt’s conception.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
‘Conception’? Lord! How tenderly you handle it!
WHITE BISHOP [OF CANTERBURY]
It seems, Black Knight, you are afraid to touch it.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Well, its ‘eruption’ — will you have it so then?
Or you, White Bishop, for her? The more unclean,
Vile and impious, that you urge the strain to,
The greater will her shames’ heap show i’th’ end
And the wronged meek man’s glory. The time, Pawn?
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Yesterday’s cursed evening —
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
O the treasure
Of my revenge I can’t spend all on thee;
Ruin enough to spare for all thy kindred too.
For honour’s sake, call in more slanderers.
I have such plentiful confusion,
I know not how to waste it. I’ll be nobler yet
And put her to her own House. — King of meekness,
Take the cause to thee, for our hand’s too heavy.
Our proofs will fall upon her like a tower
And grind her bones to powder.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
What new engine
Has the devil raised in him now?
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Is it he?
And that the time? Stand firm now to your scandal;
Pray, do not shift your slander.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Shift your treacheries.
They’ve worn one suit too long.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
That holy man,
So wrongfully accused by this lost Pawn,
Has not been seen these ten days in these parts.
WHITE KNIGHT CHARLES
How!
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Nay, at this instant thirty leagues from hence.
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Fathomless falsehood! Will it ‘scape unblasted?
WHITE KING JAMES
[to Black Knight Gondomar]
Can you make this appear?
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Light is not clearer.
By his own letters, most impartial monarch.
WHITE KING’S COUNSELLOR PAWN
[to White King James]
How wrongfully may sacred virtue suffer, sir.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[aside to Jesuit Black Bishop]
Bishop, we have a treasure of that false heart.
WHITE KING JAMES
[to White King’s Counsellor Pawn]
Step forth and reach those proofs.
[White King’s Counsellor Pawn advances toward
Black Knight Gondomar]
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
[aside]
Amazement covers me.
Can I be so forsaken of a cause
So strong in truth and equity? Will virtue
Send me no aid in this hard time of friendship?
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[aside to White King’s Pawn]
There’s an infallible staff and a red hat
Reserved for you.
[Black Knight Gondomar gives letters to White
King’s Counsellor Pawn]
WHITE KING’S COUNSELLOR PAWN
[aside to Black Knight]
O, sir endeared!
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[aside to White King’s Pawn]
A staff
That will not eas’ly break, you may trust to’t —
[White King’s Counsellor Pawn delivers letters to
White King James]
[Aside] And such a one had your corruption need of.
There’s a state fig for you now.
WHITE KING JAMES
Behold all,
How they cohere in one.
I always held a charity so good
To holiness professed, I ever believed rather
The accuser false than the profession vicious.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
A charity like all your virtues else,
Gracious and glorious.
WHITE KING JAMES
Where settles the offence,
Let the fault’s punishment be derived from thence.
We leave her to your censure.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Most just majesty!
[Exeunt all the White House but White Knight Charles, White Duke of Buckingham, and White Bishop’s Gelded Pawn, who stand aloof with the Virgin White Queen’s Pawn]
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Calamity of virtue! My Queen leave me too?
Am I cast off as th’olive casts her flower?
Poor friendless innocence, art thou left a prey
To the devourer?
WHITE KNIGHT CHARLES
No, thou art not lost.
Let ‘em put on their bloodiest resolutions,
If the fair policy I aim at prospers. —
Thy counsel, noble Duke?
WHITE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
For that work, cheerfully.
WHITE KNIGHT CHARLES
A man for speed now!
WHITE BISHOP’S GELDED PAWN
Let it be my honour, sir.
Make me that flight, that owes her my life’s service.
[Exeunt White Knight Charles, White Duke of
Buckingham, and White Bishop’s Gelded Pawn]
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
[to Black House]
Was not this brought about well for our honours?
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
Push! That Galician brain can work out wonders.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Let’s use her, as upon the like discovery
A maid was used at Venice: everyone
Be ready with a penance. Begin, majesty. —
[To her] Vessel of foolish scandal! Take thy freight.
Had there been in that cabinet of niceness
Half the virginities of th’earth locked up,
And all swept at one cast by the dexterity
Of a Jesuitical gamester, ‘t’ad not valued
The least part of that general worth thou’st tainted.
BLACK KING FELIPE
[to Virgin White Queen’s Pawn]
First, I enjoin thee to a three days’ fast for’t.
BLACK QUEEN MARIA
You’re too penurious, sir. I’ll make it four.
JESUIT BLACK BISHOP
I, to a twelve hours’ kneeling at one time.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
And in a room filled all with Aretine’s pictures,
More than the twice twelve labours of luxury.
Thou shalt not see so much as the chaste pommel
Of Lucrece’ dagger peeping. Nay, I’ll punish thee
For a discoverer: I’ll torment thy modesty.
BLACK DUKE OLIVARES
After that four days’ fast, to th’ Inquisition house,
Strengthened with bread and water, for worse penance.
BLACK KNIGHT GONDOMAR
Why, well said, Duke of our House, nobly aggravated!
VIRGIN WHITE QUEEN’S PAWN
Virtue, to show her influence more strong,
Fits me with patience mightier than my wrong.
Exeunt [into the Black House]
Finit Actus Secundus