 | Bussy D'Ambois, [1641] |  |
Actus Quinti
Scena Prima.
Montsurry bare, unbrac't, pulling Tamyra in by the haire, Frier, One bearing light, a standish and paper, which sets a Table.Tamy.
O help me Father.
Frier.
Impious Earle forbeare.
Take violent hand from her, or by mine order
The King shall force thee.
Monts.
Tis not violent; come you not willingly?
Tamy.
Yes good my Lord.
Frier.
My Lord remember that your soule must seek,
Her peace, as well as your revengefull bloud:
You ever to this houre have prov'd your selfe
A noble, zealous, and obedient sonne,
T'our holy mother: be not an Apostate:
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You can imagine, without greater proofes)
To sever your eternall bonds, and hearts;
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,
Nor any sleeper; your wife is your lawrell,
And sweetest sleeper; doe not touch her then
Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour,
To her that is more gentle than that rude;
In whom kind nature suffer'd one offence
But to set off her other excellence.
Mont.
Good Father leave us: interrupt no more
The course I must runne for mine honour sake.
Rely on my love to her, which her fault
Cannot extinguish: will she but disclose
Who was the secret minister of her love,
And through what maze he serv'd it, we are friends.
Frier.
It is a damn'd work to pursue those secrets,
That would ope more sinne, and prove springs of slaughter;
Nor is't a path for Christian feet to tread;
But out of all way to the health of soules;
A sinne impossible to be forgiven:
Which he that dares commit—,
Mont.
Good Father cease: your terrors
Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt
To outrages that I shall ever rue:
I will not passe the verge that bounds a Christian,
Nor break the limits of a man nor husband.
Com.
Then heaven inspire you both with thoughts and deeds
Worthy his high respect, and your owne soules.
Tamy.
Father.
Frier.
I warrant thee my dearest daughter
He will not touch thee, think'st thou him a Pagan;
His honor and his soule lies for thy safety.
Exit.
Mont.
Who shall remove the mountaine from my brest,
Stand the opening furnace of my thoughts,
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Mont. turnes a key.
For now it nothing fits my woes to speak,
But thunder, or to take into my throat
The trump of Heaven; with whose determinate blasts
The windes shall burst, and the devouring seas
Be drunk up in his sounds; that my hot woes
(Vented enough) I might convert to vapour,
Ascending from my infamie unseene;
Shorten the world, preventing the last breath
That kils the living, and regenerates death.
Tamy.
My Lord, my fault (as you may censure it
With too strong arguments) is past your pardon:
But how the circumstances may excuse mee
Heaven knowes, and your more temperate minde hereafter
May let my penitent miseries make you know.
Mont.
Hereafter? 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 winds that lesse lights extinguish.
Come Syren, sing, and dash against my rocks
Thy ruffin Gally, rig'd with quench for lust:
Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice,
With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap
The spawne of Uenus; and in which ye danc'd;
That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe,
And quit his manhood with a womans sleight,
Who never is deceiv'd in her deceit.
Sing, (that is, write) and then take from mine eyes
The mists that hide the most inscrutable Pandar
That ever lapt up an adulterous vomit:
That I may see the devill, and survive
To be a devill, and then learne to wive:
That I may hang him, and then cut him downe,
Then cut him up, and with my soules beams search
The cranks and cavernes of his braine, and study
The errant wildernesse of a womans face;
Where men cannot get out, for all the Comets
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That Adders lie a sunning in their smiles,
That Basilisks drink their poyson from their eyes,
And no way there to coast out to their hearts;
Yet still they wander there, and are not stay'd
Till they be fetter'd, nor secure before
All cares devoure them, nor in humane Consort
Till they embrace within their wives two breasts
All Pelion and Cythæron with their beasts.
Why write you not?
Tam.
O, good my Lord forbeare
In wreak of great faults to engender greater,
And make my Loves corruption generate murther.
Mont.
It followes needfully 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 never doth her just hate so provoke,
As when she rageth under vertues cloake.
Write; For it must be: by this ruthlesse steele,
By this impartiall torture, and the death
Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails,
To quicken life in dying, and hold up
The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve
Torments in ashes, that will ever last.
Speak: Will you write?
Tam.
Sweet Lord enjoyne my sinn:
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 food.
Hang me in chaines, and let me eat these armes
That have offended: Binde me face to face
To some dead woman, taken from the Cart
Of Execution, till death and time
In graines of dust dissolve me; Ile endure:
Or any torture that your wraths invention
Can fright all pitie from the world withall:
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That is too common for the rare revenge
Your rage affecteth; here then are my breasts,
Last night your pillowes; here my vvretched armes,
As late the wished confines of your life:
Now break them as you please, and all the bounds
Of manhood, noblesse, and religion.
Mont.
Where all these have bin broken, they are kept,
In doing their justice there with any shew
Of the like cruell cruelty: Thine armes have lost
Their priviledge in lust, and in their torture
Thus they must pay it.
Stabs her.
Tam.
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 have behold some Gorgon: Feele, O feele
How you are turn'd to stone; with my beart blood
Dissolve your selfe againe, or you will grow
Into the image of all Tyrannie.
Mont.
As thou art of adultry, I will ever
Prove thee my parallel, being most a monster:
Thus I expresse thee yet.
Stabs her againe.
Tam.
And yet I live.
Mont.
I, for thy monstrous idoll is not done yet,
This toole hath wrought enough: now Torture use
Ent. servants
This other engine on th'habituate powers
Of her thrice damn'd and whorish fortitude,
Use the most madding paines in her that ever
Thy venom-sok'd through, making most of death;
That she may weigh her wrongs with them, and then
Stand vengeance on thy steepest rock a victor.
Tamy.
O who is turn'd into my Lord and husband?
Husband? My Lord? None but my Lord and husband?
Heaven, I ask thee remission of my sinnes,
Not of my paines: husband, O help me husband.
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Frier.
What rape of honour and religion?
O wrack of nature!
Falls and dies.
Tam.
Poore man: O my Father,
Father, look up; O let me downe my Lord,
And I will write.
Mont.
Author of prodigies!
What new flame breakes out of the firmament,
That turnes up counsels never knowne before?
Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still;
Even Heaven it selfe must see and suffer ill:
The too huge bias of the world hath sway'd
Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves
This Hemisphere, that long her mouth hath mockt:
The gravity of her religious face,
(Now growne too waighty with her sacriledge,
And here discern'd sophisticate enough)
Turnes to th' Antipodes: and all the formes
That her illusions have imprest in her,
Have eaten through her back: and now all see,
How she is riveted with hypocrisie:
Was this the way? was he the mean betwixt you?
Tam.
He was, he was, kind worthy man he was.
Mont.
Write, write a word or two.
Tamy.
I will, I will.
Ile write, but with my bloud that he may see,
These lines come from my wounds & not from me.
Writes.
Mont.
Well might he die for thought: me thinks the frame
And shaken joynts 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? here, here 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,
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Enough: I must be messenger my selfe,
Disguis'd like this strange creature: in, Ile after,
To see what guilty light gives this Cave eyes,
And to the world sing new impieties.
Exeunt.
He puts the Frier in the vault and follows, She raps her self in the Arras.
Enter Monsieur and Guise.
Mons.
Now shall we see that nature hath no end
In her great works, responsive to their worths,
That she that makes so many eyes and soules
To see, and fore-see, is stark blind her selfe,
And as illiterate men say Latine prayers
By rote of heart, and dayly iteration,
Not knowing what they say; so Nature layes
A deale of stuffe together, and by use
Or by the meere necessity of matter
Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty
Of strength, or vertue error, or cleare truth,
Not knowing what she does, but usually
Gives that which she calls merit to a man,
And beliefe must arrive him on huge riches,
Honour, and happinesse, that effects his ruine.
Even as in ships of warre whole lasts of powder
Are laid (me thinks) to make them last and guard,
When a disorder'd spark that powder taking,
Blowes up with sodaine violence and horror
Ships that (kept empty) had sayl'd long with terror.
Guise.
He that observes but like a worldly man
That which doth oft succeed, and by th'events
Values the worth of things, will think it true
That Nature works at random, just with you:
But with as much proportion she may make
A thing that from the feet up to the throat
Hath all the wondrous fabrique man should have,
And leave it beadlesse for a perfect man;
As give a full man valour, vertue, learning,
Without an end more excellent then those
On whom she no such worthy part bestowes.
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Yet shall you see it here, here will be one
Young, learned, valiant, vertuous, and full mann'd,
One on whom nature spent so rich a hand,
That with an ominous eye she wept to see
So much consum'd her vertuous treasurie.
Yet as the winds sing through a hollow tree,
And (since it lets them passe through) let's it stand;
But a tree solid (since it gives no way
To their wild rage) they rend up by the root:
So this whole man
(That will not wind with every crooked way,
Trod by the servile world) shall reele and fall
Before the frantick puffes of blind borne chance,
That pipes through empty men, and makes them dance.
Not so the Sea raves on the Libian sands,
Tumbling her billowes in each others neck:
Not so the surges of the Euxian Sea
(Neere to the frosty pole, where free Bootes
From those dark deep vvaves turnes his radiant teame,)
Swell (being enrag'd even from their inmost drop)
As fortune swings about the restlesse state
Of vertue, now throwne into all mens hate.
Enter Montsurry disguis'd with the murtherers.
Away my Lord, you are perfectly disguis'd,
Leave us to lodge your ambush.
Monts.
Speed me vengeance.
Exit.
Mons.
Resolve my Masters, you shall meet with one
Will try what proofes your privy coats are made on:
When he is entred, and you heare us stamp,
Approach, and make all sure.
Murth.
We vvill my Lord.
Exeunt.
D' Ambois with two Pages with Tapers.
D' Amb.
Sit up to night, and vvatch, Ile speak vvith none
But the old Frier, who bring to me.
Pa.
We will Sir.
Exeunt.
D' Amb.
What violent heat is this? me thinks the fire
Of twenty lives doth on a suddaine flash
Through all my faculties: the ayre goes high
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Thunder.
Trembles, and shrinks beneath me; the whole house
Nods with his shaken burthen: blesse me, heaven.
Enter Umb. Frier.
Vmb.
Note what I want deare sonne, and be fore-warn'd.
O there are bloudy deeds past and to come:
I cannot stay, a fate doth ravish me:
Ile meet thee in the chamber of thy love.
Exit.
D' Amb.
What dismall change is here? the good old Frier
Is murther'd; being made knowne to serve my love;
And now his restlesse spirit would fore-warne me
Of some plot dangerous, and imminent.
Note what he wants? he wants his upper weed,
He wants his life, and body: which of these
Should be the want he meanes, and may supply me
With any fit fore-warning? this strange vision,
(Together with the dark prediction
Us'd by the Prince of darknesse that was rais'd
By this embodied shadow) stirre my thoughts
With reminiscion of the Spirits promise,
Who told me, that by any invocation
I should have power to raise him; though it wanted
The powerfull vvords, and decent rites of Art;
Never 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 inform'd
What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud
Of her incensed Lord: me thought the Spirit
(When he had utter'd his perplext presage)
Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds;
His forehead bent, as it would hide his face;
He knockt his chin against his darkned breast,
And struck a churlish silence through his pow'rs.
Terror of darknesse, O thou King of flames,
That with thy Musique-footed horse dost strike
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And hurlst instructive fire about the world;
Wake, wake, the drowsie and enchanted night,
That sleepes with dead eyes in this heavy riddle;
Oh thou great Prince of shades where never sunne
Stickes his far-darted beames, whose eyes are made
To shine in darknesse, and see ever best
Where men are 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.
Thunders. Surgit Spiritus cum suis.
Sp.
Thus to observe my vow of apparition
In greater light, and explicate thy fate,
I come; and tell thee that if thou obey
The summons that thy mistresse next will send thee,
Her hand shall be 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 lives 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' Amb.
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 kind Mistresse kill me?
Sp.
If thou yeeld,
Thunders.
To her next summons; y'are faire warn'd: farewell.
Exit.
D' Amb.
I must fare well, how ever: 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 have obay'd,
Her hand should so reward me: they must arme it,
Binde me or force it: or I lay my life
She rather would convert it many times
On her owne bosome, even to many deaths:
But were there danger of such violence,
I know 'tis farre from her intent to send:
And who she should send is as farre from thought,
Since he is dead, whose only mean she us'd.
Knocks.
Whose there? look to the dore: and let him in,
Though politick Monsieur, or the violent Guise.
Enter Montsurry like the Frier, with a Letter written in bloud.
Mont.
Haile to my worthy sonne.
D' Amb.
O lying Spirit!
To say the Frier was dead; Ile now beleeve
Nothing of all his forg'd predictions.
My kinde and honour'd Father, well reviv'd,
I have beene frighted with your death, and mine,
And told my Mistresse hand should be my death
If I obeyed this summons.
Monts.
I beleev'd your love had bin much clearer, then to give
Any such doubt a thought, for she is cleare,
And having freed her husbands jealousie,
(Of which her much abus'd hand here is witness:)
She prayes for urgent cause your instant presence.
D' Amb.
Why then your prince of spirits may be call'd
The prince of lyers.
Monts.
Holy writ so calls him.
D' Amb.
What? writ in bloud?
Mont.
I, 'tis the ink of lovers.
D' Amb.
O, 'tis a sacred witnesse of her love.
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,
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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 heaven,
And to that end your holy weed was given.
Exeunt.
Thunder. Intrat Vmbra Frier, and discovers Tamyra.
Frier.
Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter,
And strike away this heartlesse trance of anguish,
Be like the Sunne, and labour in eclipses,
Look to the end of woes: oh can you sit
Mustering the horrors of your servants slaughter
Before your contemplation, and not study
How to prevent it? watch when he shall rise,
And with a suddaine out-crie of his murther,
Blow his retreat before he be revenged.
Tamyra.
O Father, have my dumb woes wak'd your death?
When will our humane griefes be at their height?
Man is a tree, that hath no top in cares;
No root in comforts; all his power to live
Is given to no end, but have power to grieve.
Frier.
It is the misery of our creation. Your true friend,
Led by your husband, shadowed in my weed,
Now enters the dark vault.
Tamyr.
But my dearest Father,
Why will not you appeare to him your selfe,
And see that none of these deceits annoy him.
Frier.
My power is limited, alas I cannot,
All that I can doe—See the Cave opens.
Exit.
D' Amboys at the gulfe.
Tamyr.
Away (my Love) away, thou wilt be murther'd.
Enter Monsieur and Guise above.
D' Amb.
Murther'd? I know not what that Hebrew means:
That word had ne're bin nam'd had all bin D' Ambois.
Murther'd? By heaven he is my murtherer
That shewes me not a murtherer: what such bugge
Abhorreth not the very sleepe of D' Amboys?
Murther'd? Who dares give all the room I see
T D' Ambois reach? or look with any odds
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Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth?
If I scape Monsieurs Pothecarie Shops,
Foutir, for Guises Shambles, 'twas ill plotted
They should have mall'd me here,
When I was rising, I am up and ready.
Let in my politique visitants, let them in,
Though entring like so many moving armours,
Fate is more strong than arms, and slie than treason,
And I at all parts buckl'd in my Fate:
Mons., Guise.
Why enter not the coward villains?
D' Amb.
Dare they not come?
Enter murtherers with Frier at the other dore.
Tam.
They come.
Murth. 1.
Come all at once.
Frier.
Back coward murtherers, back.
Omn.
Defend us heaven.
Exeunt all but the first.
1.
Come ye not on?
D' Amb.
No, slave, nor goest thou off.
Stand you so firme? Will it not enter here?
You have a face yet: so in thy lifes flame
I burne the first rites to my Mistresse fame.
Frier.
Breath thee brave sonne against the other charge.
D' Amb.
O is it true then that my sense first told me?
Is my kind Father dead?
Tam.
He is my Love.
'Twas the Earle my husband in his weed that brought thee.
Buss.
That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled.
Where is that angry 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 villaines, nor the light reports
Of blister'd tongues, for cleare and weighty truth:
But me against the world, in pure defence
Of your rare Lady, to whose spotlesse name
I stand here as a bulwark, and project
A life to her renowne, that ever yet
Hath beene untainted even in envies eye,
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Brave Earle come forth, and keep your scandall in:
'Tis not our fault if you enforce the spot,
Nor the wreak yours if you performe it not.
Enter Mont. with all the murtherers.
Mont.
Cowards, a fiend or spirit beat ye off?
They are your owne faint spirits that have forg'd
The fearefull shadowes that your eyes deluded:
The fiend was in you; cast him out then thus.
D' Ambois hath Montsurry downe.
Tam.
Favour (my Lord) my Love, O favour him.
Pistolis shot within.
D' Amb.
I will not touch him: Take your life, my Lord,
And be appeas'd: O then the coward Fates
Have maim'd themselves, and ever lost their honour.
Umb.
What have ye done slaves? irreligious Lord?
Buss.
Forbeare them, Father; 'tis enough for me
That Guise and Monsieur, death and destinie
Come behind D' Ambois: is my body then
But penetrable flesh? And must my mind
Follow my blood? Can my divine part adde
No ayd to th'earthly in extremity?
Then these divines are but for forme, not fact:
Man is of two sweet Courtly friends compact;
A Mistresse and a servant: 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 heaven,
And (like a man) look upwards even in death.
And if Vespasian thought in majestie
An Emperour might die standing, why not I?
Nay without help, in which I will exceed him;
For he died splinted with his chamber Groomes.
Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done:
She offers to help him.
The equall thought I beare of life and death,
Shall make me faint on no side; I am up
Here like a Roman Statue; I will stand
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Live in despight of murther; take thy wings
And haste thee where the gray-ey'd morn perfumes
Her Rosie chariot with Sabæan spices,
Fly, where the evening from th' Iberean vales,
Takes on her swarthy shoulders, Heccate
Crown'd with a Grove 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.
Forgive thy murtherers.
Buss.
I forgive them all;
And you my Lord, their fautor; for true signe
Of which unfain'd remission, take my sword;
Take it, and onely give it motion,
And it shall finde the way to victory
By his owne brightnesse, and th'inherent valour
My fight hath still'd into't, with charmes of spirit.
Now let me pray you, that my weighty bloud
Laid in one scale of your impertiall spleene,
May sway the forfeit of my worthy love
Waid in the other: and be reconcil'd
With all forgivenesse to your matchlesse wife.
Tam.
Forgive thou me deare servant, and this hand
That lead thy life to this unworthy end,
Forgive it, for the bloud with which 'tis stain'd,
In which I writ the summons of thy death:
The forced summons, by this bleeding wound,
By this here in my bosome: and by this
That makes me hold up both my hands embrew'd
For thy deare pardon.
Buss.
O, my heart is broken
Fate, nor these murtherers, Monsieur, nor the Guise,
Have any glory in my death, but this:
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My sunne is turn'd to blood in whose red beams
Pindus and Ossa (hid in drifts of snow
Laid on my heart and liver; from their veines)
Melt like two hungry torrents: eating rocks
Into the Ocean of all humane life,
And make it bitter, only with my bloud:
O fraile condition of strength, valour; vertue
In me (like warning fire upon the top
Of some steepe Beacon, on a steeper hill)
Made to expresse it: like a falling starre
Silently glanc't, that like a thunderbolt,
Look't to have stuck and shook the firmament.
Moritur.
Vmb., Frier.
Farewell brave reliques of a compleat man.
Look up and see thy spirit made a starre,
Jove flames with her rules, and when thou set'st
Thy radiant forehead in the firmament,
Make the vast chrystall crack with thy receipt:
Spread to a world of fire, and the aged skie
Cheere with new sparks of old humanity.
Frier.
Son of the earth, whom my unrested soule
Rues t'have begotten in the faith of heaven;
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 digg'd in her, be eas'd and cur'd
With balme of thine owne teares: or be assur'd
Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.
Mont.
See how she merits this: still kneeling by
And mourning his fall, more than her own fault.
Vmb.
Remove, deare daughter, and content thy husband:
So piety wills thee, and thy servants peace.
Tamy.
O wretched piety, that art so distract
In thine owne constancie; and in thy right
Must be unrighteous: if I right my friend
I wrong my husband: if his wrong I shunne,
The duty of my friend I leave undone;
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No place: no good so good, but ill compriseth;
O had I never married but for forme,
Never vow'd faith but purpos'd to deceive:
Never made conscience of any sinne,
But clok't it privately, and made it common:
Nor never honour'd beene, in blood, or mind,
Happy had I beene then, as others are
Of the like licence; I had then beene honour'd:
Liv'd without envie: custome had benumb'd
All sense of scruple, and all note of frailty:
My fame had beene untouch'd, my heart unbroken:
But (shunning all) I strike on all offence,
O husband? deare friend? O my conscience!
Mons.
Come let's away, my sences are not proofe
Against those plaints.—
Exeunt Guise, Mons. D' Ambois is borne off.
Mont.
I must not yeeld to pity nor to love
So servile and so trayterous: cease my bloud
To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgement:
Away, forsake my house, forbeare complaints
Where thou hast bred them: here all things full,
Of their owne shame and sorrow, leave my house.
Tam.
Sweet Lord forgive me, and I will be gone,
And till these wounds, that never balme shall close
Till death hath enterr'd at them, so I love them
(Being opened by your hands) by death be cur'd
I never more will grieve you with my sight:
Never endure that any roofe shall part
Mine eyes and heaven: but to the open Deserts
(Like to a hunted Tygres) I will flie:
Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men,
And look on no side till I be arriv'd.
Mont.
I doe forgive thee, and upon my knees
With hands (held up to heaven) wish that mine honour
Would suffer reconcilement to my Love:
But since it will not, honour, never serve
My Love with flourishing object till it sterve:
74
Downwards must needs consume, so let our love;
As having lost his hony, the sweet taste
Runnes into savour, and will needs retaine
A spice of his first parents, till (like life)
It sees and dies; so let our love: And lastly,
As when the flame is suffer'd to look up,
It keepes his luster: but, being thus turn'd downe
(His naturall course of usefull light inverted)
His owne stuffe puts it out: so let our love
Now turne from me, as here I turne from thee,
And may both points of heavens strait axeltree
Conjoyne in one, before thy selfe and me.
Exeunt severally.
Finis Actus Quinti & ultimi.
| Bussy D'Ambois, [1641] | |