 | The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois |  |
Scæna prima.
Henry, Baligny.Hen.
Come Baligny, we now are priuate: Say,
What seruice bring'st thou? make it short; the Guise
(Whose friend thou seem'st) is now in Court, and neare,
And may obserue vs.
Bal.
This sir, then in short.
The faction of the Guise (with which my policie,
For seruice to your Highnesse seemes to ioyne)
Growes ripe, and must be gather'd into hold;
Of which my Brother Clermont being a part
Exceeding capitall, deserues to haue
A capitall eye on him. And (as you may
With best aduantage, and your speediest charge,)
Command his apprehension: which (because
The Court, you know, is strong in his defence)
Wee must aske Country swindge and open fields.
And therefore I haue wrought him to goe downe
Your Highnesse bountie made mee your Lieutenant)
Where when I haue him, I will leaue my house,
And faine some seruice out about the confines,
When in the meane time, if you please to giue
Command to my Lieutenant, by your Letters,
To traine him to some muster, where he may
(Much to his honour) see for him, your forces
Put into Battaile; when hee comes, hee may
With some close stratageme be apprehended:
For otherwise your whole powers there will faile
To worke his apprehension: and with that
My hand needes neuer be discern'd therein.
Hen.
Thankes honest Baligny.
Bal.
Your Highnesse knowes
I will be honest; and betray for you
Brother and Father: for, I know (my Lord)
Treacherie for Kings is truest Loyaltie;
Nor is to beare the name of Treacherie,
But graue, deepe Policie. All acts that seeme
Ill in particular respects, are good
As they respect your vniuersall Rule.
As in the maine sway of the vniuerse
The supreame Rectors generall decrees,
To guard the mightie Globes of Earth and Heauen,
Since they make good that guard to preseruation
Of both those in their order and first end,
No mans particular (as hee thinkes) wrong
Must hold him wrong'd: no, not though all mens reasons,
All Law, all conscience, concludes it wrong.
Nor is comparison a flatterer
To liken you here to the King of kings;
Nor any mans particular offence
Against the worlds sway; to offence at yours
In any subiect; who as little may
Grudge at their particular wrong; if so it seeme
For th'vniuersall right of your estate.
As (being a Subiect of the Worlds whole sway
To whom Heauen promises defence, and blessing,
Brought to decay, disgrace, and quite defencelesse)
Hee may complaine of Heauen for wrong to him.
Hen.
Tis true: the Simile at all parts holds,
As all good Subiects hold, that loue our fauour.
Bal.
Which is our Heauen here; and a miserie
Incomparable, and most truely Hellish
To liue depriu'd of our Kings grace and countenance,
Without which best conditions are most cursed:
Life of that nature, howsoeuer short,
Is a most lingering, and tedious life;
Or rather no life, but a languishing,
And an abuse of life.
Hen.
Tis well conceited.
Bal.
I thought it not amisse to yeeld your Highnesse
A reason of my speeches; lest perhaps
You might conceiue I flatter'd: which (I know)
Of all ils vnder heauen you most abhorre.
Hen.
Still thou art right, my vertuous Baligny,
For which I thanke and loue thee. Thy aduise
Ile not forget: Haste to thy Gouernment,
And carry D'Ambois with thee. So farewell.
Exit.
Bal.
Your Maiestie fare euer like it selfe.
Enter Guise.
Guise.
My sure Friend Baligny!
Bal.
Noblest of Princes!
Guise.
How stands the State of Cambray?
Bal.
Strong, my Lord,
And fit for seruice: for whose readinesse
Your creature Clermont D'Ambois, and my selfe
Ride shortly downe.
Guise.
That Clermont is my loue;
France neuer bred a nobler Gentleman
For all parts: he exceedes his Brother Bussy.
Bal.
I, my Lord?
Guise.
Farre: because (besides his valour)
Which Learning is; and that so true and vertuous,
That it giues power to doe, as well as say
What euer fits a most accomplisht man;
Which Bussy, for his valours season, lackt;
And so was rapt with outrage oftentimes
Beyond Decorum; where this absolute Clermont,
Though (onely for his naturall zeale to right)
Hee will be fiery, when hee sees it crost;
And in defence of it; yet when he lists
Hee can containe that fire, as hid in Embers.
Bal.
No question, hee's a true, learn'd, Gentleman.
Guise.
He is as true as Tides, or any Starre
Is in his motion: And for his rare learning,
Hee is not (as all else are that seeke knowledge)
Of taste so much deprau'd, that they had rather
Delight, and satisfie themselues to drinke
Of the streame troubled, wandring ne'er so farre
From the cleare fount, then of the fount itselfe.
In all; Romes Brutus is reuiu'd in him,
Whom hee of industry doth imitate.
Or rather, as great Troys Euphorbus was
After Pithagoras; so is Brutus, Clermont.
And (were not Brutus a Conspirator)
Bal.
Conspirator, my Lord? Doth that empaire him?
Cæsar beganne to tyrannize; and when vertue,
Nor the religion of the Gods could serue
To curbe the insolence of his proud Lawes,
Brutus would be the Gods iust instrument.
What said the Princesse (sweet Antigone)
In the graue Greeke Tragedian, when the question
Twixt her and Creon is, for lawes of Kings?
Which when he vrges, shee replies on him;
Though his Lawes were a Kings, they were not Gods;
Nor would shee value Creons written Lawes
With Gods vnwrit Edicts: since they last not
This day and the next, but euery day and euer;
Where Kings Lawes alter euery day and houre,
Guise.
Well, let vs leaue these vaine disputings what
Is to be done, and fall to doing something.
When are you for your Gouernment in Cambray?
Bal.
When you command, my Lord.
Guise.
Nay, that's not fit.
Continue your designements with the King,
With all your seruice; onely if I send
Respect me as your friend, and loue my Clermont.
Bal.
Your Highnesse knowes my vowes.
Guise.
I, tis enough.
Exit Guise. Manet Bal.
Bal.
Thus must wee play on both sides, and thus harten
In any ill those men whose good we hate.
Kings may doe what they list: and for Kings, Subiects,
Eyther exempt from censure or exception:
For, as no mans worth can be iustly iudg'd
But when he shines in some authoritie;
So no authoritie should suffer censure
But by a man of more authoritie.
Great vessels into lesse are emptied neuer,
There's a redoundance past their continent euer.
These virtuosi are the poorest creatures;
For looke how Spinners weaue out of themselues
Webs, whose strange matter none before can see;
So these, out of an vnseene good in vertue,
Make arguments of right, and comfort, in her,
That clothe them like the poore web of a Spinner.
Enter Clermont.
Cler.
Now, to my Challenge. What's the place, the weapon?
Bal.
Soft sir: let first your Challenge be receiued.
Hee would not touch, nor see it.
Cler.
Possible!
How did you then?
Bal.
Left it, in his despight.
But when hee saw mee enter so expectlesse,
To heare his base exclaimes of murther, murther,
Made me thinke Noblesse lost, in him quicke buried.
They are the breathing Sepulchres of Noblesse:
No trulier noble men, then Lions pictures
Hung vp for signes, are Lions. Who knowes not,
That Lyons the more soft kept, are more seruile?
And looke how Lyons close kept, fed by hand,
Lose quite th'innatiue fire of spirit and greatnesse
That Lyons free breathe, forraging for prey;
And grow so grosse, that mastifes, curs, and mungrils
Haue spirit to cow them: So our soft French Nobles
Chain'd vp in ease and numbd securitie,
Their spirits shrunke vp like their couetous fists,
And neuer opened but Domitian-like,
And all his base obsequious minions
When they were catching, though it were but flyes.
Besotted with their pezzants loue of gaine,
Rusting at home, and on each other preying,
Are for their greatnesse but the greater slaues,
And none is noble but who scrapes and saues.
Bal.
Tis base, tis base; and yet they thinke them high.
Cler.
So Children mounted on their hobby-horse,
Thinke they are riding, when with wanton toile
They beare what should beare them. A man may well
Compare them to those foolish great-spleen'd Cammels,
That to their high heads, beg'd of loue hornes higher;
Whose most vncomely, and ridiculous pride
When hee had satisfied, they could not vse,
But where they went vpright before, they stoopt,
And bore their heads much lower for their hornes.
As these high men doe, low in all true grace,
Their height being priuiledge to all things base.
And as the foolish Poet that still writ
All his most selfe-lou'd verse in paper royall,
Or Partchment rul'd with Lead, smooth'd with the Pumice;
Bound richly vp, and strung with Crimson strings;
Neuer so blest as when hee writ and read
The Ape-lou'd issue of his braine; and neuer
But ioying in himselfe; admiring euer:
Yet in his workes behold him, and hee show'd
All set on out-side, looke vpon within,
And not a pezzants entrailes you shall finde
More foule and mezel'd, nor more steru'd of minde.
Bal.
That makes their bodies fat. I faine would know
How many millions of our other Nobles
Would make one Guise. There is a true tenth Worthy,
Who (did not one act onely blemish him.)
Cler.
One act? what one?
Bal.
One, that (though yeeres past done)
Stickes by him still, and will distaine him euer.
Cler.
Good Heauen! wherein? what one act can you name
Suppos'd his staine, that Ile not proue his luster?
Bal.
To satisfie you, twas the Massacre.
Cler.
The Massacre? I thought twas some such blemish.
Bal.
O it was hainous.
Cler.
To a brutish sense,
But not a manly reason. Wee so tender
The vile part in vs, that the part diuine
We see in hell, and shrinke not. Who was first
Head of that Massacre?
Bal.
The Guise.
Cler.
Tis nothing so.
Who was in fault for all the slaughters made
In Ilion, and about it? Were the Greekes?
Was it not Paris rauishing the Queene
Of Lacædemon? Breach of shame and faith?
And all the lawes of Hospitalitie?
This is the Beastly slaughter made of men,
When Truth is ouer-throwne, his Lawes corrupted;
When soules are smother'd in the flatter'd flesh,
Slaine bodies are no more then Oxen slaine.
Bal.
Differ not men from Oxen?
Cler.
Who sayes so?
But see wherein; In the vnderstanding rules
Of their opinions, liues, and actions;
In their communities of faith and reason.
Was not the Wolfe that nourisht Romulus
Bal.
That makes against you.
Cler.
Not sir, if you note
That by that deede, the actions difference make
Twixt men and beasts, and not their names nor formes.
Had faith, nor shame, all hospitable rights
Beene broke by Troy, Greece had not made that slaughter.
Had that beene sau'd (sayes a Philosopher)
The Iliads and Odysses had beene lost,
Had Faith and true Religion beene prefer'd,
Religious Guise had neuer massacerd,
Bal.
Well sir, I cannot when I meete with you
But thus digresse a little, for my learning,
From any other businesse I entend.
But now the voyage, we resolu'd for Cambray,
I told the Guise beginnes; and wee must haste.
And till the Lord Renel hath found some meane
(Conspiring with the Countesse) to make sure
Your sworne wreake on her Husband (though this fail'd)
In my so braue Command, wee'll spend the time,
Sometimes in training out in Skirmishes,
And Battailes, all our Troopes and Companies;
And sometimes breathe your braue Scotch running horse,
That great Guise gaue you, that all th'horse in France
Farre ouer-runnes at euery race and hunting
Both of the Hare and Deere. You shall be honor'd
Like the great Guise himselfe, aboue the King.
And (can you but appease your great-spleen'd Sister,
For our delaid wreake of your Brothers slaughter)
At all parts you'll be welcom'd to your wonder.
Cler.
Ile see my Lord the Guise againe before
Wee take our iourney.
Bal.
O sir, by all meanes,
You cannot be too carefull of his loue,
That euer takes occasion to be raising
Your virtues, past the reaches of this age,
And rankes you with the best of th'ancient Romanes.
Cler.
That praise at no part moues mee, but the worth
Bal.
Hee yet is thought to entertaine strange aymes.
Cler.
He may be well; yet not as you thinke strange.
His strange Aymes are to crosse the common Custome
Of Seruile Nobles; in which hee's so rauisht,
That quite the Earth he leaues, and vp hee leapes,
On Atlas shoulders, and from thence lookes downe,
Viewing how farre off other high ones creepe:
Rich, poore of reason, wander; All pale looking,
And trembling but to thinke of their sure deaths,
Their liues so base are, and so rancke their breaths.
Which I teach Guise to heighten, and make sweet
With lifes deare odors, a good minde and name;
For which, hee onely loues me, and deserues
My loue and life, which through all deaths I vow:
Resoluing this, (what euer change can be)
Thou hast created, thou hast ruinde mee.
Exit.
| The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois | |