 | The Death of Marlowe |  |
SCENE III.
A room in a tavern: Marlowe, Heywood, Middleton, and Gentlemen.A Gent.
I do rejoice to find myself among
The choicest spirits of the age: health, sirs!
I would commend your fame to future years,
But that I know ere this ye must be old
In the conviction, and that ye full oft
With sure posterity have shaken hands
Over the unstable bridge of present time.
Mar.
Not so: we write from the full heart within,
And leave posterity to find her own.
Health, sir!—your good deeds laurel you in heaven!
Mid.
'Twere best men left their fame to chance and fashion
As birds bequeath their eggs to the sun's hatching,
Since genius can make no will.
Mar.
Troth, can it!
But, for the consequences of the deed,
Say, you do love a woman—do adore her—
You may embalm the memory of her worth
And chronicle her beauty to all time,
In words whereat great Jove himself might flush,
And feel Olympus tremble at his thoughts;
Yet where is your security? Some clerk
Wanting a fool's-cap, or some boy a kite,
Some housewife fuel, or some sportsman wadding
To wrap a ball (which hits the poet's brain
By merest accident) seizes your record,
And to the winds thus scatters all your will,
Or, rather, your will's object. Thus, our pride
Swings like a planet by a single hair,
Obedient to God's breath. More wine! more wine!
I preach—and I grow melancholy—wine!
Enter Drawer, with a tankard.
A Gent.
(rising).
We're wending homeward—gentlemen, good night!
Mar.
Not yet—not yet—the night has scarce begun—
Nay, Master Heywood—Middleton, you'll stay!
Bright skies to those who go—high thoughts go with ye,
And constant youth!
Gent.
We thank you, sir—good night!
[Exeunt Gentlemen.
Hey.
Let's follow—'tis near morning.
Mar.
Do not go.
I'm ill at ease, touching a certain matter
I've taken to heart—don't speak of't—and besides
I have a sort of horror of my bed.
Last night a squadron charged me in a dream,
With Isis and Osiris at the flanks,
Towering and waving their colossal arms,
Wherein a woman stood—I knew her well—
Who seem'd but newly risen from the grave.
She whirl'd a javelin at me, and methought
I woke; when, slowly at the foot o'the bed
The mist-like curtains parted, and upon me
Did learned Faustus look! He shook his head
With grave reproof, but more of sympathy,
As though his past humanity came o'er him—
Then went away with a low, gushing sigh,
That startled e'en his own cold breast, and seem'd
As from a marble urn where passion's ashes
Their sleepless vigil keep.
Hey.
Pray you, no more.
Mar.
Lived he not greatly! think what was his power!
All knowledge at his beck—the very Devil
His common slave. And, oh! brought he not back,
Through the thick-million'd catacombs of ages,
Helen's unsullied loveliness to his arms!
Mid.
Well—let us have more wine then!
Hey.
Spirit enough
Springs from thee, Master Marlowe—what need more?
Mar.
Drawer! lift up thy slumberous poppy-head!
Up, man!—where art?
Hey.
I hear his steps approach.
Jacconot,
singing outside,
Ram up the link, boys; ho, boys!
There's day-light in the sky!
While the trenchers strew the floor,
And the worn-out grey-beards snore,
Jolly throats continue dry!
Ram up the link, boys, &c.
Jac.
Ever awake and shining, my masters; and here am I,
your twin lustre, always ready to herald and anoint your pleasures
like a true Master of the Revels. I ha' just stepped over
the drawer's body, laid nose and heels together on the doormat
asleep, and here's wherewith to continue the glory.
Mid.
We need not your help.
Hey.
We thank you, Jack-o'-night: we would be alone.
Jac.
What say you, Master Marlowe? you look as grim as
a sign-painter's first sketch on a tavern-bill after his ninth
tankard.
Mid.
Cease your death-rattle, night-hawk!
Mar.
That's well said.
Jac.
Is it! so 'tis, my gallants—a night-bird like yourselves,
am I.
Mar.
Beast!—we know you.
Jac.
Your merry health, Master Kit Marlowe! I'll bring
a loud pair of palms to cheer your soul the next time you strut
in red paint with a wooden weapon at your thigh.
Mar.
Who sent for you, dorr-hawk?—go!
Jac.
Go! aha!—I remember the word—same tone, same
gesture—or as like as the two profiles of a monkey, or as two
squeaks for one pinch. Go!—not I—here's to all your
healths! One pull more! There, I've done—take it,
Master Marlowe; and pledge me as the true knight of London's
rarest beauties!
Mar.
I will!
[Dashes the tankard at his head.
Jac.
(stooping quickly).
A miss, 'fore-gad!—the wall has
got it! See, where it trickles down like the long robe of
some dainty fair one. And look you here—and there again, look
you—what make you of the picture he hath presented?
Mar.
O subtle Nature! who hath so compounded
Our senses, playing into each other's wheels,
That feeling oft acts substitute for sight,
As sight becomes obedient to the thought—
Of every wretch that crawls! I feel—I see!
Jac.
(singing).
Ram up the link, boys; ho, boys!
The blear-eyed morning's here;
Let us wander through the streets,
And kiss whoe'er one meets;
St Cecil is my dear!
Ram up the link, boys, &c.
Mar.
(drawing).
Lightning come up from hell and
strangle thee!
Mid. and Hey.
Nay, Marlowe! Marlowe!
[They hold him back.
Mid.
Away, thou bestial villain!
Jac.
(singing).
St Cecil is my dear!
Mar.
(furiously).
Blast! blast and scatter
Thy body to ashes! Off! I'll have his ghost!
[Rushes at Jacconot. They fight. Marlowe disarms him; but Jacconot wrests Marlowe's own sword from his hand, and stabs him. Marlowe falls.
Mid.
See! see!
Mar.
Who's down?—answer me, friends—Is't I?—
Or in the maze of some delirious trance,
Some realm unknown, or passion newly born—
Ne'er felt before—am I transported thus?
My fingers paddle too, in blood—is't mine?
Jac.
Oh, content you, Master Marplot—it's you that's
down, drunk or sober; and that's your own blood on your
fingers, running from a three-inch groove in your ribs for the
devil's imps to slide into you. Ugh! cry grammercy! for its
all over with your rhyming!
Hey.
Oh, heartless mischief!
Mid.
Hence, thou rabid cur!
What demon in the air with unseen arm
Hath turn'd my unchain'd fury 'gainst myself!
Recoiling dragon! thy resistless force
Scatters thy mortal master in his pride,
To teach him, with self-knowledge, to fear thee.
Forgetful of all corporal conditions,
My passion hath destroy'd me!
Jac.
No such matter; it was my doing. You shouldn't
ha' ran at me in that fashion with a real sword—I thought it
had been one o'your sham ones.
Mid.
Away!
Hey.
See! his face changes—lift him up.
[They raise and support him.
Here—place your hand upon his side,
Close over mine, and stanch the flowing wound.
Mar.
Bright is the day—the air with glory teems—
And eagles wanton in the smile of Jove:
Can these things be, and Marlowe live no more!
Oh, Heywood! Heywood! I had a world of hopes
About that woman—now in my heart they rise
Confused, as flames from my life's coloured map,
That burns until with wrinkling agony
Its ashes flatten, separate, and drift
Thro' gusty Darkness. Hold me fast by the arm!
A little aid will save me:—see! she's here:
I clasp thy form—I feel thy breath, my love;
And know thee for a sweet saint come to save me!
Save!—is it death I feel—it cannot be death?
Jac.
(half aside).
Marry, but it can!—or else your
sword's a foolish dog that dar'n't bite his owner.
Mar.
Oh, friends—dear friends—this is a sorry end—
A most unworthy end! To think—oh, God!
To think that I should fall by the hand of one
Whose office, like his nature, is all baseness,
Gives death ten thousand stings, and to the grave
A galling—shameful—ignominious end!
[Sinks down.
Oh, mighty heart! Oh, full and orbed heart,
Flee to thy kindred sun, rolling on high!
Or let the hoary and eternal sea
Sweep me away, and swallow body and soul!
Jac.
There'll be no ‘encore’ to either, I wot; for thou'st
led an ill life, Master Marlowe; and so the sweet saint thou
spok'st of will remain my fair game—behind the scenes.
Mar.
Liar! slave! sla—Kind Master Heywood,
You will not see me die thus!—thus by the hand
And maddening tongue of such a beast as that!
Haste if you love me—fetch a leech to help me—
Here—Middleton—sweet friend—a bandage here—
I cannot die by such a hand—I will not—
I say I will not die by that vile hand!
Go bring Cecilia to me—bring the leech—
Close—close this wound—you know I did it myself—
Bring sweet Cecilia—haste—haste—instantly—
Bring life and time—bring Heaven—Oh, I am dying—
Some water—stay beside me—maddening death,
By such a hand! Oh, villain! from the grave
I constantly will rise—to curse! curse! curse thee!
[Rises—and falls dead.
Mid.
Terrible end!
Hey.
Oh, God!—he is quite gone!
Jac.
'Twas dreadful—'twas. Christ help us! and lull him
to sleep in's grave. I stand up for mine own nature none the
less. What noise was that?
Enter Officers.
Chief Offi.
This is our man—ha! murder has been here!
You are our prisoner—the gallows waits you.
Jac.
What have I done to be hung up like a pear? The
hemp's not sown, nor the ladder-wood grown, that shall help
fools to finish me! He did it himself! He said so with his
them to their Testament if he said not he did it himself?
Ch. Offi.
Who is it lies here?—methinks that I should know him,
But for the fierce distortion of his face!
Mid.
He who erewhile wrote with a brand of fire,
Now, in his passionate blood, floats tow'rds the grave!
The present time is ever ignorant—
We lack clear vision in our self-love's maze;
But Marlowe in the future will stand great,
Whom this—the lowest caitiff in the world—
A nothing, save in grossness, hath destroy'd.
Jac.
‘Caitiff’ back again in your throat! and ‘gross
nothing’ to boot—may you have it to live upon for a month,
and die mad and starving! Would'st swear my life away so
lightly! Tut! who was he? I could always find the soundings
of a quart tankard, or empty a pasty in half his time, and
swear as rare oaths between whiles—who was he? I too ha'
writ my odes and Pindar-jigs with the twinkling of a bed-post,
to the sound of the harp and hurdy-gurdy, while Capricornus
wagged his fiery beard; I ha' sung songs to the faint moon's
echoes at day-break, and danced here away and there away, like
the lightning though a forest! As to your sword and dagger-play,
I've got the trick o'the eye and wrist—who was he?
What's all his gods—his goddesses and lies?—the first a'nt
worth a word; and for the latter, I was always a prince of
both! Caitiff! and beast! and nothing!—who was he?
Ch. Offi.
You're ours, for sundry villanies committed,
Sufficient each to bring your vice to an end:
The law hath got you safely in its grasp.
Jac.
Then may Vice and I sit crown'd in heaven—while
Law and Honesty stalk damned through hell! Now do I see the
thing very plain!—treachery—treachery, my masters! I know
the jade that hath betrayed me—I know her. 'Slud! who
cares? She was a fine woman, too—a rare person—and a good
virtuous, and a tell-tale, and I am to be turned to dust through
it—long, long before my time; and these princely limbs must
go make a dirt-pie—build up a mud-hut—or fatten an alderman's
garden! There! calf-heads—there's a lemon for your
mouths! Heard'st ever such a last dying speech and confession!
Write it in red ocre on a sheet of Irish, and send it
to Mistress Cecily for a death-winder. I know what you've
got against me—and I know you all deserve just the same
yourselves—but lead on, my masters!
[Exeunt Jacconot and Officers.
Mid.
Oh, Marlowe! can'st thou rise with power no more?
Can greatness die thus?
Hey.
Miserable sight!
(A shriek outside the house.)
Mid.
That cry!—what may that mean?
Hey.
I hear no cry.
Mid.
What is't comes hither, like a gust of wind?
Cecilia rushes in.
Cec.
Where—where? Oh, then, 'tis true—and he is dead!
All's over now—there's nothing in the world—
For he who raised my heart up from the dust,
And show'd me noble lights in mine own soul,
Has fled my gratitude and growing love—
I never knew how deep it was till now!
Through me, too!—do not curse me!—I was the cause—
Yet do not curse me—No! no! not the cause,
But that it happen'd so. This the reward
Of Marlowe's love!—why, why did I delay?
Oh, gentlemen, pray for me! I have been
Lifted in heavenly air—and suddenly
The arm that placed me, and with strength sustain'd me,
Is snatch'd up, star-ward: I can neither follow,
Nor can I touch the gross earth any more!
Let not a blessing sweeten your dread prayers—
I wish no blessings—nor could bear their weight;
For I am left I know not where or how:
But, pray for me—my soul is buried here.
[Sinks down upon the body.
Mid.
“Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
“And burned is Apollo's laurel bough!”
| The Death of Marlowe | |