University of Virginia Library

SCÆNA. I.

Libacer Solus.
Lib.
What Politician was there ever yet
Who swimming through a sea of plots & treasons,
Sunk not at last ith' very havens mouth?
And shall I do so too? No, my thoughts prompt me,
I shall be told in story as the first
That stood secure upon the dreadful ruines
He had thrown down beneath him. Yet I am nigh
The precipice I strive to shun with so much care.
I have betray'd Plangus tis true, and still
Have found a growing fortune, but so long
As jealousie binds up Ephorbas thoughts
From searching deeper deeper; Tis not well
That Plangus lives at all, though he be disgrac't
H'has friends enow about the King, and they will finde
A time to pacifie him, which will be my undoing,
He must not therefore live. Andromana
Is of that minde too; but how to compass it—
Or when perhaps I have, what will become of me?
Nothing more usual then for those folks
Who have by sinister means reach't to the top
Oth' mountain of their hopes, but they throw down
And forget the power that rais'd them;
Indeed necessity enforceth them, lest others climb
By the same steps they did, and ruine them.
I must not therefore trust her woman-ship,
Who though I know she cannot stand without me now,
Yet when she's Queen alone
Fortune may alter her, and make her look upon me
As one whose life whispers unto her own guilt;
It is not safe to be the object of a Princes fear,
Then she will finde others will be as apt
To keep her up, as I to raise her;
I will prevent her first.
Time is not ripe yet, but when it is
(For I must walk on with her a little farther)
I will unravel all this Labyinth
E'ne to the King himself. Then let her accuse me,
Though she should damn her self to hell,
I know shee'l be beleev'd no more, then
Plangus hath been hitherto.
Thus shall I still grow great, though all the world
Be to a dreadful ruine madly hurld.

Exit.