 | The Female Rebelion |  |
SCEN: 2d.
App: A Park.Enter Antiopa with a Medal about her neck; Penthesilea and Celeno (from the right.)
Pen.
And shall our men Injure us too unpunished?
This wrong on wrong enslaves us unto slaves.
Anti.
Affronts come now in clusters, therefore I
Before the Queen, with oily adulation,
But skinn'd the wound, that it might rankle inwards.
Cel.
Honesty's a weed makes the ground unprofitable where it
grows, and these silly acts of good Nature to me are unnatural: I
hold it the only knavery to cheat ones self.
Ant.
Since profit is your aim, what readyer way
Can lead to wealth, than specious Reformation?
Had Fortune eys she could not spy Inferiors,
Those Giants of the Court, our Royal Oaks,
The humble shrubs will quickly spread their Arms
To hug the sunbeams, and rise up to meet 'em;
Then with each gale bow down in reverence to 'em.
Pen.
Nicostrate, that Earwig, must be crusht.
Ant.
She stops the Queens ears from us all, yet wriggles
Into the closet of her thoughts; and sells
The sight of her, as if she were a monster.
Cel.
She is the sound, thrô which all preferments pass and pay
double custome.
Ant.
We are names writ o'th'backside of her memory.
Cel.
Why did you e're know, Officers that had a glance of Court
favours, but took it for a commission to storm their betters abroad?
Pen.
Yet the sword may carve out our satisfaction.
Cel.
Then why should her courteous arrogance attain the unconscionable
monoply of Benefits? I long to be so civil to our gouty
Grandees, as to ease them of the drudgery of their offices, and draw
our patent for't out of our scabberds; can there be a stronger Title to
any thing than strength itself? Allow but the sword cheif Judge of
Pleas, I'll mutiny with the busiest Assembler of them all; nay, for a
need, I can be seditious against my own side, and at last most heartily
fall out with my self.
Ant.
Doubt not of mony; first we'll sooth the Rabble,
Our patient Beast, out of their Plate and Jewells,
The Pride and wast of the City; transmute
Their silver to true horsemen with a Vote,
Promising them the Courts and Churches pillage,
With mounts of golden Impossibilitys.
Cel.
Spoke like a sanctify'd Polititian, thou Quintessence of
Hypocrisy, you may take even Protectors for Pupills to the Liberal
art of Dissimulation.
Ant.
We'll then contrive Petitions to our selves to licence Plunder,
Those guilty oft, who have most to loose.
That they which lend not some may forfeit all,
Slander 'em with faith thats most unpopular,
Then disinherit root and branch for Hereticks.
Cel.
Let me alone to shear those sheepsheads close enough, The
dull whelps of blīd obedience; I'll not leave 'em sustenance to keep
so much as their days of Pennance, Nor woolen sufficient to bury 'em
according to the Act; And plead a plenè Administravit of their
chattels before their Death.
Ant.
Then with strange Taxes next, and pious cheats,
(Which in the Godly party must be honest)
Draw down the Gentry to the Lees of Fortune:
Rise from a Fast to devour Palaces,
Then with demure looks consecrate our Frauds;
And triumph in the spoils of beggar'd Nations.
Cel.
Our Wills should be Peculiars subordinate to no Jurisdiction;
arbitrary obedience is the right Liberty of the subject.
Anti.
We fight not now like simple mercenarys
For Pay but Empire; all, all, must be ours.
Cel.
I know not whether Plundering or slaying be the veryer
Butchery, for the clowns pay mony so faintly, you'd think they bled
their Tribute, looking as pale as their departed silver: they politickly
starve themselves to save charges, and deserve to be buried with their
Faces downward, for their Life is but a lingering self murther.
Pen.
All this is only Lucre: I am for Revenge,
Why should the cursed Fiends below
Enjoy so sweet a morsel, more than we?
Ant.
If once the Seperatists were joyn'd with us
In League, whom we proscribed would soon be shades.
Pen.
But I'd at a word speak whom I list to death,
Blasting them as contagion with a breath;
And slaughter with my eys, like Scythian Dames,
Acting more mischeif than all others meant:
I am tormented, 'till I do torment.
Ant.
You both speak right, but Power deprives us of it.
How often have I mourn'd to see Religion,
And Property (our only pleas to this
And th'other world) both hast'ning towards their graves!
While I close mourner, fearing to be spy'd,
[she weeps.
Wept inwardly, & made my tears ebb back
Into their springs, which allmost d[r]own'd my heart!
Cel.
This suddain current of yr sorrow melts me.
Ant.
Then let us joyn our swords, & our right feet,
[They all draw and joyn their hilts and right feet, and lay their left hands on their right breasts, & kiss their hilts.
And laying our left hands on our seard breasts,
Conspire t'a thorough Reformation.
The Queens so mild we may securely covenant,
Or make Association, wars next neighbour,
And I've so gall'd the cāp with their late loss
Of Pillage, and 'cause she persists a Virgin,
But most for innovation in Religion,
(A Thing which all cry up, all practice down)
That the whole Army's one great Mutineer;
Faction's a Plague it grows quickly epidemical.
Pen.
Set me a task, I'll post like sunbeams to it,
Thô 'twere like them to fire the Globe again.
Ant.
Incense the country then, say the Queen Judges
[To Pen.
Sacrifice vain to Incorporeal Powers.
Do you enflame the City, cry their Taxes
[To Cel.
Are all quite cast away by her Indulgence;
Thus her cheif graces so renown'd by all,
We'll make the very engin of her Fall.
[Exeunt Penthesilea and Celeno (at the inner part of the right); and Antiopa (at the left.)
| The Female Rebelion | |