University of Virginia Library

The Scene is chang'd into a Representation of a general Assault given to the Town; the greatest fury of the Army being discern'd at the English Station.
The Entry is again prepar'd by Instrumental Musick.
The Fifth Entry.
Enter Pirrhus.
Pirrhus.
Traverse the Cannon! Mount the Batt'ries higher!
More Gabions, and renew the Blinds!
Like dust they powder spend,
And to our faces send
The heat of all the Element of fire;
And to their Backs have all the winds.

Enter Mustapha.
Musta.
More Ladders, and reliefs to scale!
The Fire-crooks are too short! Help, help to hale!
That Battlement is loose, and strait will down!
Point well the Cannon, and play fast!
Their fury is too hot to last.
That Rampire shakes, they fly into the Town.

Pirrh.
March up with those Reserves to that Redout!
Faint slaves! the Janizaries reel!
They bend, they bend! and seem to feel
The Terrours of a Rout.

Musta.
Old Zanger halts, and re-inforcement lacks!

Pirrh.
March on!

Musta.
Advance those Pikes, and charge their Backs!

Enter Solyman.
Solym.
Those Plat-forms are too low to reach!
Haste, haste! call Haly to the Breach!
Can my domestique Janizaries flye!
And not adventure life for victory!
Whose child-hood with my Palace milk I fed:
Their youth, as if I were their Parent, bred.
What is this Monster Death, that our poor Slaves,
Still vext with toyl, are loth to rest in Graves?

Musta.
If life so pretious be, why do not they,
Who in war's trade can only live by prey,
Their own afflicted lives expose
To take the happier from their Foes.

Pirrh.
Our Troops renew the Fight!
And those that sally'd out
To give the Rout,
Are now return'd in flight!

Solym.
Follow, follow, follow, make good the Line!
In, Pirrhus, in! Look, we have sprung the Mine?

Exit Pirrhus.
Musta.
Those desp'rate English ne'r will fly!
Their firmness still does hinder others flight,
As if their Mistresses were by
To see and praise them whilst they fight.

Solym.
That flame of valour in Alphonso's eyes,
Outshines the light of all my Victories!
Those who were slain when they his Bulwark storm'd,
Contented fell,
As vanquish'd well;
Those who were left alive may now,
Because their valour is by his reform'd,
Hope to make others bow.

Musta.
E'r while I in the English station saw
Beauty, that did my wonder forward draw,
Whose valour did my Forces back disperse;
Fairer than Woman, and than man more fierce:
It shew'd such courage as disdain'd to yield,
And yet seem'd willing to be kil'd.

Solym.
This Vision did to me appear:
Which mov'd my pitty and my fear:
It had a Dress much like the Imag'rie
For Heroes drawn, and may Ianthe be.

Enter Pirrhus.
Pirrh.
Fall on! the English stoop when they give fire!
They seem to furl their Colours and retire!

Solym.
Advance! I onely would the Honour have
To conquer two, whom I by force would save.

Enter Alphonso with his Sword drawn.
Alph.
My Reason by my Courage is misled!
Why chase I those who would from dying fly,
Enforcing them to sleep amongst the dead,
Yet keep my self unslain that fain would die?
Do not the Pris'ners whom we take declare
How Solyman proclaim'd through all his Host,
That they Ianthe's life and mine should spare?
Life ill preserv'd, is worse than basely lost.
Mine by dispatch of war he will not take,
But means to leave it lingring on the Rack;
That in his Palace I might live, and know
Her shame, and be afraid to call it so.
Tyrants and Divels think all pleasures vain,
But what are still deriv'd from others pain.

Enter Admiral.
Adm.
Renown'd Alphonso, thou hast fought to day,
As if all Asia were thy valour's prey.
But now thou must do more
Than thou hast done before;
Else the important life of Rhodes is gone.

Alph.
Why from the peacefull grave
Should I still strive to save
The lives of others, that would lose mine own?

Adm.
The Souldiers call, Alphonso! thou hast taught
The way to all the wonders they have wrought;
Who now refuse to fight
But in thy Valour's sight.

Alphon.
I would to none example be to fly;
But fain would teach all human kind to dye.

Adm.
Haste, haste! Ianthe in disguise
At th'English Bulwark wounded lies;
And in the French, our old great Master strives
From many hands to rescue many lives.

Alphon.
Ianthe wounded? where? alas!
Has mourning Pitty hid her face?
Let Pitty fly, fly far from the opprest,
Since she removes her Lodging from my brest!

Adm.
You have but too great cruelties to chuse
By staying here; you must Ianthe lose,
Who ventur'd life and fame for you;
Or your great Master quite forsake,
Who to your childhood first did shew
The ways you did to Honour take.

Alphon.
Ianthe cannot be
In safer company:
For what will not the valiant English do
When Beauty is distress'd and Vertue too.

Adm.
Dispatch your choice, if you will either save
Occasion bids you run;
You must redeem the one
And I the other from a common grave.
Alphonso, haste!

Alphon.
Thou urgest me too fast.
This Riddle is too sad and intricate;
The hardest that was e're propos'd by Fate.
Honour and pitty have
Of both too short a time to choose!
Honour the one would save,
Pitty, would not the other lose.

Adm.
A way, brave Duke, away!
Both Perish by our stay.

Alph.
I to my Noble Master owe
All that my Youth did Nobly do:
He in War's School my Master was,
The Ruler of my Life;
She my lov'd Mistriss; but, alass,
My now suspected Wife.

Adm.
By this delay we both of them forsake!
Which of their rescues wilt thou undertake?

Alph.
Hence Admiral, and to thy Master hy!
I will as swiftly to my Mistris fly;
Through Ambush, Fire, and all impediments
The witty cruelty of War invents:
For there does yet some taste of kindness last,
Still relishing the vertue that is past.
But how, Ianthe, can my sword successful prove,
Where honour stops, and only pitty leads my love?

Exeunt, several wayes.
Enter Pirrhus.
Pirrhus.
O suddain change! repulst in all the heat
Of Victory, and forc'd to lose retreat!
Seven Crescents, fixt on their Redouts, are gone!
Horse, horse! we fly
From Victory!
Wheel, wheel from their Reserves, and charge our own!
Divide that VVing!
More succours bring!
Rally the Fled,
And quit out Dead!
Rescue that Ensign and that Drum!
Bold slaves! they to our Trenches come:
Though still our Army does in posture stay
Drawn up to judge, not act, the business of the day;
As Rome, in Theaters, saw Fencers play.

Enter Mustapha.
Musta.
Who can be loud enough to give command?
Stand, Haly, make a stand!
Those Horses to that Carriage span! Drive, drive!
Zanger is shot agen, yet still alive!
Coyns for the Culv'rin, then give fire
To cleer the Turn-Pikes, and let Zanger in!
Look, Pirrhus, look, they all begin
To alter their bold Count'nance, and retire!

The Scene returns to that of the Castle on Mount Philermus.
Enter Solyman.
Soly.
How cowardly my num'rous slaves fall back:
Slow to Assault, but dext'rous when they sack.
Wild Wolves in times of peace they are;
Tame sheep, and harmless, in the VVar.
Crowds fit to stop up breaches; and prevail
But so as shoals of Herrings choak a Whale.
This Dragon-Duke so nimbly fought to day,
As if he wings had got to stoop at Prey.
Ianthe is triumphant, but not gone;
And sees Rhodes still beleaguer'd, though not won.
Audacious Town! thou keep'st thy station still;
And so my Castle tarries on that Hill,
Where I will dwell till Famine enter Thee;
And prove more fatal than my Sword could be.
Nor shall Ianthe from my favours run,
But stay to meet and praise what she did shun.

The Scene is chang'd to that of the Town Besieg'd.
Enter Villerius, Admiral, Ianthe.
She in a Night-Gown and a Chair is brought in.
Viller.
Fair Vertne, we have found
No danger in your Wound.
Securely live,
And credit give
To us, and to the Surgeons Art.

Iant.
Alas i my wound is in the Heart;
Or else, where e're it be,
Imprison'd life it comes to free,
By seconding a worser wound that hid doth lie:
What practice can assure
That Patient of a Cure,
Whose kind of grief still makes her doubt the remedy?

Adm.
The wounded that would soon be eas'd
Should keep their spirits tun'd and pleas'd;
No discords should their mind subdue:
And who in such distress
As this, ought to express
More joyful harmony than you?
'Tis not alone that we assure
Your certain cure;
But pray remember that your blood's expence
Was in defence
Of Rhodes, which gain'd to day a most important Victory:
For our success, repelling this Assault,
Has taught the Ottomans to halt;
Who may, wasting their heavy body, learn to fly.

Adm.
Not only this should hasten your content,
But you shall joy to know the instrument
That wrought the triumph of this day;
Alphonso did the Sally sway;
To whom our Rhodes, all that she is does owe,
And all that from her Root of Hope can grow.

Ianthe.
Has he so greatly done?
Indeed he us'd to run
As swift in Honour's Race as any He
Who thinks he merits Wreaths for Victory.
This is to all a comfort, and should be,
If he were kind, the greatest joy to me.
Where is my alter'd Lord? I cannot tell
If I may ask, if he be safe and well?
For whil'st all strangers may his actions boast,
VVho in their Songs repeat
The Triumphs he does get,
I only must lament his favours lost.

Vill.
Some wounds he has; none desperate but yours;
Ianthe cur'd, his own he quickly cures.

Ianthe.
If his be little, mine will soon grow less.
Ay me! What Sword
Durst give my Lord
Those wounds, which now Ianthe cannot dress?

Adm.
Ianthe will rejoyce when she did hear
How greater than himself he does appear
In rescue of her Life; all acts were slight,
And cold, even in our hottest Fight,
Compar'd to what he did,
When with Death's Vizard she her Beauty hid.

Vill.
Love urg'd his anger, till it made such haste
And rusht so swiftly in,
That scarce he did begin
Ere we could say, the mighty work was past.

Ianthe.
All this for me? somthing he did for you:
But when his Sword begun
Much more it would have done
If he, alas! had thought Ianthe true.

Adm.
Be kind, Ianthe, and be well!
It is too pittifull to tell
What way of dying is exprest
When he that Letter read
You wrote before your Wounds were drest;
When you and we dispair'd you could recover:
Then he was more than dead,
And much out-wept a Husband and a Lover.

Enter Alphonso wounded, led in by two Mutes.
Alphon.
Tear up my wounds! I had a passion coorse
And rude enough to strengthen Jealousie;
But want that more refin'd and quicker force
Which does out-wrestle Nature when we dye.
Turn to a Tempest all my inward strife:
Let it not last,
But in a blast
Spend this infectious vapour, Life!

Ianthe.
It is my Lord! Enough of strength I feel,
To bear me to him, or but let me kneel.
He bled for me when he atchiev'd for you
This days success; and much from me is due.
Let me but bless him for his Victory,
And hasten to forgive him e'r I dye.

Alphon.
Be not too rash, Ianthe, to forgive.
Who knows but I ill use may make
Of pardons which I could not take
For they may move me to desire to live.

Ianthe.
If ought can make Ianthe worthy grow
Of having pow'r of pard'ning you
It is, because she perfectly doth know
That no such pow'r to her is due.
Who never can forget her self, since she
Unkindly did resent your Jealousie.
A passion against which you nobly strove:
I know it was but over-cautious love.

Alphon.
Accursed crime! Oh, let it have no name
Till I recover Bloud to shew my shame.

Ianthe.
VVhy stay we at such distance when we treat?
As Monarchs children, making Love
By Proxy, to each other move,
And by advice of tedious Councils meet.

Alphon.
Keep back, Ianthe, for my strength does fail
VVhen on thy cheeks I see thy Roses pale.
Draw all the Curtains, and then lead her in;
Let me in darkness mourn away my sin.

Exeunt.
Enter Roxolana, and Women Attendants.
Soly.
Your looks express a triumph at our loss.

Roxol.
Can I forsake the Crescent for the Cross?

Soly.
You wish my spreading Crescent shrunk to less.

Roxol.
Sultan, I would not lose by your Success.

Soly.
You are a friend to the Besiegers grown!

Roxol.
I wish your Sword may thrive,
Yet would not have you strive
To take Ianthe rather than the Town.

Soly.
Too much on wand'ring Rumour you rely;
Your foolish women teach you Jealousie.

1 Wom.
We should too blindly confident appear,
If, when the Empress fears, we should not fear.

2 Wom.
The Camp does breed that loud report
Which wakens Eccho in the Court.

1 Wom.
The world our Duty will approve,
If, for our Mistress sake,
We ever are awake
To watch the wand'rings of your Love.

Soly.
My war with Rhodes will never have success,
Till I at home, Roxana, make my peace.
I will be kind, if you'l grow wise;
Go, chide your Whisp'rers and your Spies,
Be satisfy'd with liberty to think;
And, when you should not see me, learn to wink.

Chorus of Souldiers.