University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

A Conjurer's Cell. Apparatus for magic.
Eleanor disguised, and the Conjurer.
Eleanor.
Make me to see her who doth own this ring
In what so cloudy and disfigurate form
You will,—but make me see her.

Conjurer.
Give me the jewel
First: there is nothing can be done without
The jewel.

Eleanor.
There!—Shew me her in the arms
Of Satan's self, burning in his embraces,
If possible, good Wizard!

Conjurer.
Madam, whoe'er
You boast yourself, your accents are more terrible
Than those I conjure with! They scare my wits,
And make me use wrong mixtures. Yea, they seem
To scare the very demon I would summon,
Mine own familiar!

Eleanor.
Cite him again! It is
My heart-wrung groans to Vengeance make me hoarse,
Tearing my gorge:—cite him again, I say!

Conjurer.
Then keep you silence!— (Aside)
The shebandog's throat
Is furr'd and dry, she breathes so hot for blood!
Such horrible and hollow, hell-drawn sounds,
Ne'er came from sepulchre unconsecrate,
At whose dark bottom moan the tortured dead.
Bless me from this grim harridan!

Eleanor.
Thou caitiff!
What keep'st thou muttering there thy husky charms?
Shriek out thy incantations and commands
Till the deaf adders of the pit shall hear thee!

Conjurer.
She's more a domineerer over demons,
Than I!—Is't Hecate's self?—Madam, perchance
My black-bird would come to your chirrup rather?
(Aside.)
So wrapt she is in fardingales, I cannot
See by her foot if she's the Devil's dam,
But truly I do think it!—Let me stand
Safe in my circle—

[Gets within his circle of gallipots.
Eleanor.
Slaverer! idiot!
Mumbling thy mummeries, and dropping drivel
Into thy row of potsherds, raise me a fume
Blood red and black as the two elements
That make hell's atmosphere,—where I may see
Some Power of Darkness, who shall give me light,
Volume himself abroad!

Conjurer.
I will! I will!— (Aside.)

Fulgor ex fumo is beyond my art,
However I must raise a good thick smoke
To smother her, if but to stop her noise.—
(Muttering.)

[A volume of lurid smoke rises: in the midst a fiendlike shape appears.
Conjurer.
Who art thou, villain!—Mark with what respect
He'll take my greeting—

A Voice.
Thy familiar spirit!
Full of thy nature! thy swart other self!
Therefore most truly—villanous!

[Dwerga comes forth, the fiend-shape flies.
Conjurer.
Mercy!—I never
Raised such a real devil before!—Avaunt!

[Quits his circle, and runs behind the Queen.
Dwerga
(getting into the circle).
Hu! hu! hex! hex! Now I'll be conjurer!
First let me lay this gibbering, ghost-like form
In a Red-Sea—of ruddle!—
[Dashing a gallipot at him.
There's pot-luck for thee!
(Dashing another.)
There's a hot cordial to keep life in thee,
Thou bloodless wretch! that even at thy birth
Wert a half dead-born thing!—Mistress, I 'll spit him
On his own rod, and roast the tame goose here
With his pale liver stuck beneath his arm-pit—

Eleanor.
Forbear!—

Dwerga.
I 'll do him a nice delicate brown
Upon the sulphur, a tit-bit for Baal!

Eleanor.
Bring not the people in with this strange hurley—

[Exit Conjurer.
Dwerga.
Hu! hu! hex! hex!—He could not charm an owl
Out of an ivy-tod to play the wiseacre,
Or screech wild oracles!—I have more craft
In this hard, knotted skull, than deep-read dunce
Ere drew from his dry parchments!—His familiar?
Ay!—she has been—for 'twas a female spirit
Gross as a male—familiar enow with him!
Six white-faced imps, as like to both of them
As tadpoles are to toads, squat by the fire
Under that trap-door, whence your fine diabolus
Rose vapouring in rank perfume, from a pile
Of pitchwood; o'er whose blaze in cauldron huge
Welter'd their soup of cabbage. I'd have scratch'd
Those pap-soft faces while within my claw,
But fear'd to make them squall.

Eleanor.
How got you there?

Dwerga.
From outside, where you left me snivelling.
Worse than a beggar's brat, with cold, I scamper'd
On all fours, like a black cat, in the dusk,
Down their blind stairs, into their reeky kitchen,
When you stept up aloft: there sat I squinting
Out of a rat's nest, and saw all.

Eleanor.
And am I
The dupe of such poor tricksters, then?

Dwerga.
No, grandam;
Of thy own folly rather!—But take comfort:
It is not the first wife has play'd the devil
In her own house—
[Clutching up the Ring.
Ho! ho! a prize! a prize!

Eleanor.
Reptile! render me that.—

Dwerga.
Not till I've lick'd it
[Scrambling to the roof.
Clean from the colley, and decypher'd it.
I'm out o' thy reach among the rafters. Nay,
Whirl aught at me, I 'll tear a hole in the roof,
And blazon shrill as the crack'd trumpet blows,—
The Queen of England in a Conjurer's garret!
Thou wert best let me alone. I'll suck the virtue
Out of this talisman, and spirt it down
Upon you, grandam!

Eleanor.
Thou art all lie! a warp
Of subtleties! all malice, mockery!
As treacherous and unreliable
As the parch'd reed is to a drowning man!
I cannot trust one word thou say'st, except it
Condemn thyself.

Dwerga.
Or thee, thou mayst trust that too!—
But hey?—What 's here?—A Rose within a Snake
[Examining the device.
Coil'd huge about her: good!—in a love-symbol,
The serpent aye should couch him by the rose!
What's this again that twists the flower around,
Strangling her, as the ivy doth the elm
In his lithe arms? A feather'd sprig, with blossom
Shaped like a cockle-fish or butterfly:
Why there's your secret!

Eleanor.
Where? tell me! I'll give thee
Comfits made from the whites of deadmen's eyes!—

Dwerga.
Pish on thy comfits and thy deadmen's eyes!
Let me torment these lovers for thy meed.

Eleanor.
What lovers? who?

Dwerga.
The Broom-sprig and the Rose,
Thou silly Queen!—Malice and silliness
Make up earth's meanest creature!—Who is now
The sprig that bears the cockled-butterfly,
But thy Plantagenet—planta-genista?

Eleanor.
And who the rose?

Dwerga.
That 's more a riddle to me.—
Sweat brain!—Perchance some trull whose name is Rose,
Or Rosalind, or—stop! it lightens on me!—
This undulous snake cut here, great Jormungandr—
As Runic rhymesters call him—doth set forth
Ocean, that ever on his belly rolling,
Coils round the convex world; which world the rim
Doth therefore stand for: whence the Rose itself
In our quaint stone-cutter's device but means,
Rose of the World,—that is, plain Rosa-Mundi;
Plantagenet and Rosamond are the lovers!

Eleanor.
But there may be many Rosamonds in the realm?

Dwerga.
Seek the most fair: that's she. Plantagenet hath
A hawk's eye for sweet duckling, though he stopp'd
His maw with fishy thee.

Eleanor.
Would I could do
Without thy hateful service!

Dwerga.
Thou canst not:
A weak and wicked mind must ever have
A cunning, evil-loving minister
To work its ends; must be the jest at once,
Hatred and scorn and tool of its own slave.
I 've a rare merit for a minister,—
Sincerity! What think ye, grandam?—Go you
Now to the wise-folk to collogue with them
Who Rosamond, the fair unknown, may be?

Eleanor.
I must gulp this,
Howe'er so bitter; but the long, large draught
Of honey-sweet revenge will drown it all!

[Exit.
Dwerga.
Go on, good grandam! I'll stick in thy skirts,
Like a live burr; Fear not! Hu! hu! hex! hex!
[Sings as she follows.