 | Bussy D'Ambois, [1607] |  |
Actus Quinti
Scena Prima.
Montsurry bare, vnbrac't, pulling Tamyra in, Comolet, One bearing light, a standish and paper, which sets a Table.Com.
My Lord remember that your soule must seeke
Her peace, as well as your reuengefull bloud:
You euer, to this houre haue prou'd your selfe
A noble, zealous, and obedient sonne,
T'our holy mother: be not an apostate:
Your wiues offence serues not, (were it the woorst
You can imagine, without greater proofes)
To seuer your eternall bonds, and harts;
Much lesse to touch her with a bloudy hand:
Nor is it manly (much lesse husbandly)
To expiate any frailty in your wife,
With churlish strokes, or beastly ods of strength:
The stony birth of clowds, will touch no lawrell:
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And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then
Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapor,
To her that is more gentle than it rude;
In whom kind nature sufferd one offence
But to set of, her other excellence.
Mont.
Good father leaue vs: interrupt no more
The course I must run for mine honour sake.
Relie on my loue to her, which her fault
Cannot extinguish; will she but disclose
Who was the hatefull minister of her loue,
And through what maze he seru'd it, we are friends.
Com.
It is a damn'd worke to pursue those secrets,
That would ope more sinne, and prooue springs of slaughter;
Nor is't a path for Christian feete to touch;
But out of all way to the health of soules,
A sinne impossible to be forgiuen:
Which he that dares commit;
Mont.
Good father cease:
Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt
To outrages that I shall euer rue:
I will not passe the verge that boundes a Christian,
Nor breake the limits of a man nor husband.
Com.
Then God inspire ye both with thoughts and deedes
Worthie his high respect, and your owne soules.
Exit Com.
Mont.
Who shall remooue the mountaine from my heart,
Ope the seuentimes-heat furnace of my thoughts,
And set fit outcries for a soule in hell?
Mont. turnes a key.
O now it nothing fits my cares to speake,
But thunder, or to take into my throat
The trumpe of Heauen; with whose determinate blasts
The windes shall burst, and the enraged seas
Be drunke vp in his soundes; that my hot woes
(Vented enough) I might conuert to vapour,
Ascending from my infamie vnseene;
Shorten the world, preuenting the last breath
That kils the liuing, and regenerates death.
Tamy.
My Lord, my fault (as you may censure it
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But how the circumstances may excuse mee
God knowes, and your more temperate minde heereafter
May let my penitent miseries make you know.
Mont.
Heereafter? Tis a suppos'd infinite,
That from this point will rise eternally:
Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue
Excuses damne her: They be fires in Cities
Enrag'd with those windes that lesse lights extinguish.
Come Syren, sing, and dash against my rockes
Thy ruffin Gallie, laden for thy lust:
Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice,
With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lappe
The spawne of Venus; and in which ye danc'd;
That, in thy laps steede, I may digge his toombe,
And quit his manhoode with a womans sleight,
Who neuer is deceiu'd in her deceit.
Sing, (that is, write) and then take from mine eies
The mists that hide the most inscrutable Pandar
That euer lapt vp an adulterous vomit:
That I may see the diuell, and suruiue
To be a diuell, and then learne to wiue:
That I may hang him, and then cut him downe,
Then cut him vp, and with my soules beams search
The crankes and cauernes of his braine, and studie
The errant wildernesse of a womans face;
Where men cannot get out, for all the Comets
That haue beene lighted at it; though they know
That Adders lie a sunning in their smiles,
That Basilisks drinke their poison from their eies,
And now way there to coast out to their hearts;
Yet still they wander there, and are not stai'd
Till they be fetter'd, nor secure before
All cares distract them; nor in humane state
Till they embrace within their wiues two breasts
All Pelion and Cythæron with their beasts.
Why write you not?
Tam.
O good my Lord forbeare
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And make my loues corruption generate murther.
Mont.
It followes needefully as childe and parent;
The chaine-shot of thy lust is yet aloft,
And it must murther; tis thine owne deare twinne:
No man can adde height to a womans sinne.
Vice neuer doth her iust hate so prouoke,
As when she rageth vnder vertues cloake.
Write: For it must be; by this ruthlesse steele,
By this impartiall torture, and the death
Thy tyrannies haue inuented in my entrailes,
To quicken life in dying, and hold vp
The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserue
Torments in ashes, that will euer last.
Speake: Will you write?
Tam.
Sweete Lord enioine my sinne
Some other penance than what makes it worse:
Hide in some gloomie dungeon my loth'd face,
And let condemned murtherers let me downe
(Stopping their noses) my abhorred foode.
Hang me in chaines, and let me eat these armes
That haue offended: Binde me face to face
To some dead woman, taken from the Cart
Of Execution, till death and time
In graines of dust dissolue me; Ile endure:
Or any torture that your wraths inuention
Can fright all pittie from the world withall:
But to betray a friend with shew of friendship,
That is too common, for the rare reuenge
Your rage affecteth; heere then are my breasts,
Last night your pillowes; heere my wretched armes,
As late the wished confines of your life:
Now breake them as you please, and all the boundes
Of manhoode, noblesse, and religion.
Mont.
Where all these haue beene broken, they are kept,
In doing their iustice there: Thine armes haue lost
Their priuiledge in lust, and in their torture
Thus they must pay it.
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O Lord.
Mont.
Till thou writ'st
Ile write in wounds (my wrongs fit characters)
Thy right of sufferance. Write.
Tam.
O kill me, kill me:
Deare husband be not crueller than death;
You haue beheld some Gorgon: Feele, ô feele
How you are turn'd to stone; with my heart blood
Dissolue your selfe againe, or you will grow
Into the image of all Tyrannie.
Mont.
As thou art of adulterie, I will still
Prooue thee my like in ill, being most a monster:
Thus I expresse thee yet.
Tam.
And yet I liue.
Mont.
I, for thy monstrous idoll is not done yet:
This toole hath wrought enough: now Torture vse
This other engine on th'habituate powers
Of her thrice damn'd and whorish fortitude.
Vse the most madding paines in her that euer
Thy venoms sok'd through, making most of death;
That she may weigh her wrongs with them, and then
Stand vengeance on thy steepest rocke, a victor.
Tamy.
O who is turn'd into my Lord and husband?
Husband? My Lord? None but my Lord and husband.
Heauen, I aske thee remission of my sinnes,
Not of my paines: husband, ô helpe me husband.
Ascendit Comolet.
Com.
What rape of honour and religion?
O wracke of nature.
Tam.
Poore man: ô my father,
Father? looke vp; ô let me downe my Lord,
And I will write.
Mont.
Author of prodigies!
What new flame breakes out of the firmament,
That turnes vp counsels neuer knowne before?
Now is it true, earth mooues, and heauen stands still;
Euen Heauen it selfe must see and suffer ill:
The too huge bias of the world hath swai'd
Her backe-part vpwards, and with that she braues
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The grauitie of her religious face:
(Now growne too waighty with her sacriledge
And here discernd sophisticate enough)
Turnes to th'Antipodes: and all the formes
That her illusions haue imprest in her,
Haue eaten through her backe: and now all see,
How she is riueted with hypocrisie:
Was this the way? was he the meane betwixt you?
Tam.
He was, he was, kind innocent man he was.
Mont.
Write, write a word or two.
Tamy.
I will, I will.
Ile write, but in my bloud that he may see,
These lines come from my wounds and not from me.
Mont.
Well might he die for thought: me thinkes the frame
And shaken ioints of the whole world should crack
To see her parts so disproportionate;
And that his generall beauty cannot stand
Without these staines in the particular man.
Why wander I so farre? heere heere was she
That was a whole world without spot to me:
Though now a world of spots; oh what a lightning
Is mans delight in women? what a bubble,
He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries?
Since all earths pleasures are so short and small,
The way t'nioy it, is t'abiure it all:
Enough: I must be messenger my selfe,
Disguis'd like this strange creature: in, Ile after,
To see what guilty light giues this caue eies,
And to the world sing new impieties.
D'Ambois with two Pages.
D'Amb.
Sit vp to night, and watch, Ile speake with none
But the old frier, who bring to me.
Pa.
We will Sir.
Exit.
D'Amb.
What violent heat is this? me thinks the fire
Of twenty liues doth on a sudden flash
Through all my faculties: the aire goes high
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Trembles, and shrinkes beneath me: the whole house
Crackes with his shaken burthen; blesse me, heauen.
Enter Vmb. Comol.
Vmb.
Note what I want, my sonne, and be forewarnd:
O there are bloudy deeds past and to come,
I cannot stay: a fate doth rauish me:
Ile meet thee in the chamber of thy loue.
Exit.
D'Amb.
What dismall change is heere? the good old Frier
Is murtherd; being made knowne to serue my loue;
Note what he wants? he wants his vtmost weed,
He wants his life, and body: which of these
Should be the want he meanes, and may supplie me
With any fit forewarning? this strange vision,
(Together with the darke prediction
Vs'd by the Prince of darknesse that was raisd
By this embodied shadowe) stir my thoughts
With reminiscion of the Spirits promise;
Who told me, that by any inuocation
I should haue power to raise him; though it wanted
The powerfull words, and decent rites of art;
Neuer had my set braine such need of spirit,
T'instruct and cheere it; now then, I will claime,
Performance of his free and gentle vow,
T'appeare in greater light; and make more plain,
His rugged oracle: I long to know
How my deare mistresse fares; and be informd
What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud
Of her incensed Lord: me thought the Spirit,
(When he had vtterd his perplext presage)
Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clowdes;
His forehead bent, as it would hide his face;
He knockt his chin against his darkned breast,
And strooke a churlish silence through his powrs;
Terror of darknesse: O thou King of flames,
That with thy Musique-footed horse dost strike
The cleere light out of chrystall, on darke earth;
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Wake, wake, the drowsie and enchanted night;
That sleepes with dead eies in this heauy riddle:
Or thou great Prince of shades where neuer sunne
Stickes his far-darted beames: whose eies are made,
To see in darknesse: and see euer best
Where sense is blindest: open now the heart
Of thy abashed oracle: that for feare,
Of some ill it includes, would faine lie hid,
And rise thou with it in thy greater light.
Surgit Spiritus cum suis:
Sp.
Thus to obserue my vow of apparition,
In greater light: and explicate thy fate:
I come; and tell thee that if thou obay
The summons that thy mistresse next wil send thee,
Her hand shalbe thy death.
D'Amb.
When will she send?
Sp.
Soone as I set againe, where late I rose.
D'Amb.
Is the old Frier slaine?
Sp.
No, and yet liues not.
D'Amb.
Died he a naturall death?
Sp.
He did.
D'Amb.
Who then,
Will my deare mistresse send?
Sp.
I must not tell thee.
D'Amb.
Who lets thee?
Sp.
Fate.
D'Am.
Who are fates ministers?
Sp.
The Guise and Monsieur.
D'Amb.
A fit paire of sheeres
To cut the threds of kings, and kingly spirits,
And consorts fit to sound forth harmony,
Set to the fals of kingdomes: shall the hand
Of my kinde Mistresse kill me?
Sp.
If thou yeeld,
To her next summons, y'are faire warnd: farewell.
Exit.
D'Amb.
I must fare well, how euer: though I die
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Should not my powers obay, when she commands
My motion must be rebell to my will:
My will: to life, If when I haue obaid,
Her hand should so reward me: they must arme it,
Binde me and force it: or I lay my soule
She rather would conuert it, many times
On her owne bosome: euen to many deaths:
But were there danger of such violence,
I know tis far from her intent to send:
And who she should send, is as far from thought
Since he is dead, whose only meane she vsde.
Whose there? looke to the dore: and let him in,
Though politicke Monsieur, or the violent Guise.
Enter Montsurry like the Frier.
Mont.
Haile to my worthy sonne.
D'Amb.
O lying Spirit: welcome loued father
How fares my dearest mistresse?
Mont.
Well, as euer
Being well as euer thought on by her Lord:
Whereof she sends this witnesse in her hand
And praies, for vrgent cause, your speediest presence.
D'Amb.
What? writ in bloud?
Mont.
I, tis the inke of louers.
D'Amb.
O tis a sacred witnesse of her loue.
So much elixer of her bloud as this
Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firme
As heat to fire: and like to all the signes,
Commands the life confinde in all my vaines;
O how it multiplies my bloud with spirit,
And makes me apt t'encounter death and hell:
But, come kinde Father; you fetch me to heauen,
And to that end your holy weed was giuen.
Exit.
Enter Monsieur, Guise aboue.
Mons.
Now shall we see, that nature hath no end,
In her great workes, responsiue to their worths,
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To see and foresee, is starke blinde herselfe:
And as illiterate men say Latine praiers
By roote of heart, and daily iteration;
In whose hot zeale, a man would thinke they knew
What they ranne so away with, and were sure
To haue rewards proportion'd to their labours;
Yet may implore their owne confusions
For any thing they know, which oftentimes
It fals out they incurre: So nature laies
A masse of stuffe together, and by vse,
Or by the meere necessitie of matter,
Ends such a worke, fils it, or leaues it emptie,
Of strength, or vertue, error or cleere truth;
Not knowing what she does; but vsually
Giues that which wee call merit to a man,
And beleeue should arriue him on huge riches,
Honour, and happinesse, that effects his ruine;
Right as in ships of warre, whole lasts of powder
Are laid (men thinke) to make them last, and gard them;
When a disorder'd sparke that powder taking,
Blowes vp with sudden violence and horror
Ships that kept emptie, had sail'd long with terror.
Gui.
He that obserues, but like a worldly man,
That which doth oft succeede, and by th'euents
Values the worth of things; will thinke it true,
That nature workes at randome iust with you:
But with as much decorum she may make
A thing that from the feete vp to the throat
Hath all the wondrous fabrike man should haue,
And leaue it headlesse for an absolute man,
As giue a whole man valour, vertue, learning,
Without an end more excellent than those,
On whom she no such worthie part bestowes.
Mons.
Why you shall see it here, here will be one
Yoong, learned, valiant, vertuous, and full mand;
One on whom Nature spent so rich a hand,
That, with an ominous eie, she wept to see
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Yet, as the windes sing through a hollow tree,
And (since it lets them passe through) let it stand
But a tree solid, since it giues no way
To their wilde rages, they rend vp by th'roote:
So this full creature now shall reele and fall,
Before the franticke pufs of purblinde chance
That pipes thorow emptie men, and makes them dance:
Not so the Sea raues on the Lybian sandes,
Tumbling her billowes in each others necke:
Not so the surges of the euxine Sea
(Neere to the frostie Pole, where free Bootes
From those darke-deepe waues turns his radiant Teame)
Swell being enrag'd, euen from their inmost drop,
As Fortune swings about the restlesse state
Of vertue, now throwne into all mens hate.
Intrat vmbra, Comolet to the Countesse, wrapt in a Canapie.
Reuiue those stupid thoughts, and sit not thus,
Gathering the horrors of your seruants slaughter,
(So vrg'd by your hand, and so imminent)
Into an idle fancie; but deuise
How to preuent it; watch when he shall rise,
And with a sudden outcrie of his murther,
Blow his retreat before he be engag'd.
Count.
O father, haue my dumbe woes wak'd your death?
When will our humane griefes be at their height?
Man is a tree, that hath no toppe in cares;
No roote in comforts; all his power to liue
Is giuen to no end, but t'haue power to grieue.
Vmb.
Tis the iust curse of our abus'd creation,
Which wee must suffer heere, and scape heereafter:
He hath the great mind that submits to all,
He sees ineuitable; he the small
That carps at earth, and her foundation shaker,
And rather than himselfe, will mend his maker.
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Count.
Away, (my loue) away, thou wilt be murther'd.
Buss.
Murther'd? I know not what that Hebrew meanes:
That word had ne're beene nam'd had all beene D'Ambois.
Murther'd? By heauen he is my murtherer
That shewes me not a murtherer; what such bugge
Abhorreth not the very sleepe of D'Ambois?
Murther'd? Who dares giue all the roome I see
To D'Ambois reach? or looke with any oddes
His fight ith'face, vpon whose hand sits death;
Whose sword hath wings, and euerie feather pierceth?
Let in my politique visitants, let them in,
Though entring like so many mouing armours,
Fate is more strong than arms, and slie than treason,
And I at all parts buckl'd in my Fate:
Dare they not come?
Tam.
They come.
1.
Come all at once.
Vmb.
Backe coward murtherers, backe.
Omn.
Defend vs heauen.
Exeunt.
1.
Come ye not on?
Buss.
No, slaue, nor goest thou off.
Stand you so firme? Will it not enter heere?
You haue a face yet: so in thy lifes flame
I burne the first rites to my mistresse fame.
Vmb.
Breath thee braue sonne against the other charge.
Buss.
O is it true then that my sense first told mee?
Is my kinde father dead?
Tam.
He is my loue.
Twas the Earle my husband in his weede that brought thee.
Buss.
That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled.
Where is that angrie Earle my Lord? Come forth
And shew your owne face in your owne affaire;
Take not into your noble veines the blood
Of these base villans, nor the light reports
Of blister'd tongues, for cleere and weightie truth:
But me against the world, in pure defence
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I stand heere as a bulwarke, and proiect
A life to her renowne, that euer yet
Hath beene vntainted euen in enuies eie,
And where it would protect a sanctuarie.
Braue Earle come forth, and keepe your scandall in:
Tis not our fault if you enforce the spot,
Nor the wreake yours if you performe it not.
Enter Mont with others.
Mont.
Cowards, a fiend or spirit beat ye off?
They are your owne faint spirits that haue forg'd
The fearefull shadowes that your eies deluded:
The fiend was in you; cast him out then thus.
Tam.
Fauour (my Lord) my loue, ô fauour him.
Buss.
I will not touch him: Take your life, my Lord,
And be appeas'd: O then the coward fates
Haue maim'd themselues, and euer lost their honour.
Vmb.
What haue ye done slaues? irreligious Lord?
Buss.
Forbeare them, father; tis enough for me
That Guise and Monsieur, death and destinie
Come behinde D'Ambois: is my bodie then
But penetrable flesh? And must my minde
Follow my blood? Can my diuine part adde
No aide to th'earthly in extremitie?
Then these diuines are but for forme, not fact:
Man is of two sweet Courtly friends compact;
A mistresse and a seruant: let my death
Define life nothing but a Courtiers breath.
Nothing is made of nought, of all things made,
Their abstract being a dreame but of a shade.
Ile not complaine to earth yet, but to heauen,
And (like a man) looke vpwards euen in death.
Proppe me, true sword, as thou hast euer done:
The equall thought I beare of life and death,
Shall make me faint on no side; I am vp
Heere like a Roman Statue; I will stand
Till death hath made me marble: ô my fame
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And haste thee where the gray-eyd morne perfines,
Her Rosie chariot with Sabæan spices,
Flie, where the euening from th'Iberean vales,
Takes on her swarthy shoulders, Heccate
Cround with a groue of oakes: flie where men feele
The burning axeltree: and those that suffer
Beneath the chariot of the Snowy Beare:
And tell them all that D'Ambois now is hasting
To the eternall dwellers; that a thunder
Of all their sighes together (for their frailties
Beheld in me) may quit my worthlesse fall
With a fit volley for my funerall.
Vmb.
Forgiue thy murtherers.
Buss.
I forgiue them all;
And you my Lord, their fautor; for true signe
Of which vnfain'd remission, take my sword;
Take it, and only giue it motion,
And it shall finde the way to victorie
By his owne brightnesse, and th'inherent valour
My fight hath still'd into't, with charmes of spirit.
Bus.
And let me pray you, that my weighty bloud
Laid in one skale of your impertiall splene
May sway the forfeit of my worthy loue
Waid in the other: and be reconcilde
With all forgiuenesse to your matchlesse wife.
Tam.
Forgiue thou me deare seruant, and this hand
That lead thy life to this vnworthy end,
Forgiue it, for the bloud with which tis staind
In which I writ the summons of thy death:
The forced summons, by this bleeding wound,
By this heere in my bosome: and by this
That makes me hold vp both my hands embrewd
For thy deare pardon.
Bus.
O, my heart is broken
Fate, nor these murtherers, Monsieur, nor the Guise.
Haue any glorie in my death, but this:
This killing spectacle: this prodigie:
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Pindus and Ossa (hid in endlesse snow
Laid on my heart and liuer; from their vains)
Melt like two hungrie torrents: eating rockes
Into the Ocean of all humane life,
And make it bitter, only with my bloud:
O fraile condition of strength, valure; vertue,
In me (like warning fire vpon the top
Of some steepe Beakon, on a steeper hill)
Made to expresse it: like a falling starre
Silently glanc't, that like a thunderbolt,
Lookt to haue stucke and shooke the firmament.
Vmb.
Son of the earth, whom my vnrested soule,
Rues t'haue begotten in the faith of heauen;
(Since thy reuengefull Spirit hath reiected
The charitie it commands, and the remission
To serue and worship, the blind rage of bloud)
Assay to gratulate and pacifie,
The soule fled from this worthy by performing
The Christian reconcilement he besought
Betwixt thee and thy Lady, let her wounds
Manlesly digd in her, be easd and cur'd
With balme of thine owne teares: or be assur'd
Neuer to rest free from my haunt and horror.
Mont.
See how she merits this: still sitting by
And mourning his fall, more than her owne fault.
Vmb.
Remoue, deare daughter, and content thy husband:
So piety wils thee, and thy seruants peace.
Tamy.
O wretched piety, that art so distract
In thine owne constancy; and in thy right
Must be vnrighteous: if I right my friend
I wrong my husband: if his wrong I shunne,
The duty of my friend I leaue vndone;
Ill plays on both sides; heere and there, it riseth;
No place: no good so good, but ill compriseth;
My soule more scruple breeds, than my bloud, sinne,
Vertue imposeth more than any stepdame:
O had I neuer married but for forme,
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Neuer made conscience of any sinne,
But clok't it priuately and made it common:
Nor neuer honord beene, in blood, or mind,
Happy had I beene then, as others are
Of the like licence; I had then beene honord:
Liu'd without enuy: custome had benumbd
All sense of scruple, and all note of frailty:
My fame had beene vntoucht, my heart vnbroken:
But (shunning all) I strike on all offence,
O husband? deare friend? O my conscience?
Mont.
I must not yeeld to pity nor to loue
So seruile and so traiterous: cease my bloud
To wrastle with my honour, fame and iudgement:
Away, forsake my house, forbeare complaints
Where thou hast bred them: heere all things full,
Of their owne shame and sorrow, leaue my house.
Tam.
Sweet Lord forgiue me, and I will be gone,
And till these wounds, that neuer balme shall close
Till death hath enterd at them (so I loue them
Being opened by your hands) by death be cur'd
I neuer more will grieue you with my sight:
Neuer endure that any roofe shall part
Mine eies and heauen: but to the open deserts
(Like to hunted Tygres) I will flie:
Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men,
And looke on no side till I be arriu'd.
Mont.
I do forgiue thee, and vpon my knees
With hands (held vp to heauen) wish that mine honor
Would suffer reconcilement to my loue:
But since it will not, honor, neuer serue
My Loue with flourishing obiect till it sterue:
And as this Taper, though it vpwards looke,
Downwards must needs consume, so let our loue;
As hauing lost his hony, the sweet taste
Runs into sauor, and will needs retaine
A spice of his first parents, till (like life)
It sees and dies; so let our loue: and lastly,
70
It keepes his luster: but, being thus turnd downe
(His naturall course of vsefull light inuerted)
His owne stuffe puts it out: so let our loue,
Now turne from me, as heere I turne from thee,
And may both points of heauens strait axeltree
Conioine in one, before thy selfe and me.
Vmb.
My terrors are strook inward, and no more
My pennance will allow they shall enforce
Earthly afflictions but vpon my selfe:
Farewell braue relicts of a compleat man:
Looke vp and see thy spirit made a star,
Ioine flames with Hercules: and when thou setst
Thy radiant forhead in the firmament,
Make the vast continent, cracke with thy receit,
Spred to a world of fire: and th'aged skie,
Chere with new sparkes of old humanity.
Finis Actus Quinti & vltimi.
| Bussy D'Ambois, [1607] | |