 | The raging Tvrke, or Baiazet the second |  |
Scena Nona.
Enter Bajazet and Haman with a Booke and Candle.Baiaz.
Set downe the Booke and Candle, goe and prouide
The Potion to preuent my Feauer-fit,
Till when I meane to study: goe make ha?
Exit Haman.
Fortune I thanke thee, thou'rt a gracious Whore.
Thy happy anger hath immur'd a Prince
Within the walls of base security.
Farewell thou swelling sea of Gouernment,
On whose bright christall bosome floates along
The grauelled vessell of proud Maiestie.
Ambition empty all thy bagge of breath,
Send forth thy blast among the quiet waues,
And worke huge tempests to confound the Art
Of the vsurping Pilate Selymus.
Treason and enuie like to bickering windes,
Shake the vnsetled fabrick of his State,
That from my study windowes I may laugh,
To see his broken fortune swallowed vp
In the quick sands of danger, and the sayle
Puft with the calme breath of flattering Chance,
And peece-meale scattred through the Ocean:
But peace my chiding spirit; Come thou man
Of rare instinct, blest Author of a booke
Takes the booke.
Worthy the studies of a reading God,
Thou do'st present before my wearied eyes,
Tiberius sweating in his policies,
Dull Claudius gaged by dull flattery,
Nero vnbowelling Nobility,
Galba vndone by seruants hardly good,
Otho o're-whelm'd in loue, and drencht in blood,
Vittellius sleeping in the chayre of State,
Vespatian call'd to gouernment by Fate,
Still as thy Muse doth trauell o're their age,
A Princes care is writ in euery Page.
Thus I vnfold the volume of thy wit,
The chiefest solace of my mouing wit,
Cædes eo fuit nobilior, quia filius
He reades.
Patrem interfecit. Tacit. Hist. lib. 20.
Auaunt thou damn'd wizard, did thy god
Apollo teach thee to diuine my fall?
What hath thy cursed Genius tract my steps
Through the Meanders of darke Priuacie,
And will he dwell with me in these close shades
To vex my banisht soule, banisht from ioy,
Remoued from the worlds eye? I am accurs'd,
And hated by the Synode of the gods,
A knot of enuious deceites, the day will be
When they shall smart for this indignity.
Enter solemne Musicke, the Ghost of Mahometes, Zemes, Trizham, Mahomet, Achmetes, Caiubus, Asmehemides, with each a sword and burning Tapers, led in by Nemesis, with a sword, they encompasse Bajazet in his bed.
Nem.
Triumph my Plantiffes, Nemesis your Queene
Is Pierc'd quite through with your continuall groanes.
See, see, the prostrate body of a King,
Clad in the weedes of pining discontent,
Lyeth open to your wrath, and dolefull hate:
But I coniure you not to touch his skinne,
(Those frightfull sisters) told me they decree
For Baiazet another destinie:
But vex his soule with your deluding blowes,
And let him dreame of direfull anguishments,
Each in the proper order of his Fate,
Vent the comprest confusion of his hate.
One after another strike at Bajazet with their swords, Nemesis puts by their blowes. Exeunt in a solemne dance.
Nemes.
Awake, awake thou tortured Emperour,
Looke with the eye of fury on the heauens,
Threaten a downefall to this mortall stage,
And let it cracke with thee, thy life is runne
To the last Scene, thy Tragick part is done.
Exit.
Bajazet awakes in fury, ariseth.
You meager deuils, and infernall hagges,
Where are you? Ha? what vanisht? am I found?
Did I not feele them teare and rack my flesh,
And foreamble it amongst them? heauen and earth
I am deluded, what thin ayrie shapes
Durst fright my soule, I'le hunt about the world,
Search the remotest angles of the earth,
Till I'ue found out the climate hold these fiends,
Or build a bridge by Geometrick skill,
Whom lineall extension shall reach forth
To the declining borders of the skie,
On which I'le leade mortality along,
And breake a passage through those brazen walls,
From whence Ioue triumphs o're this lower world:
Then hauing got beyond the vtmost sphere,
Besiege the concaue of this vniuerse:
And hunger-starue the gods till they confesse
What furies did my sleeping soule oppresse.
Ha? did it lighten? or what nimble flame
Ha's crept into my blood? me thinkes it steales
Through my distemper'd ioynts, as if it fear'd
To vrge me to impatience.
Hamon, accursed Hamon, stand my soule
Aboue the power of these inuenom'd drugges:
Could not produce an heat so violent
As burnes within my body: Oh I feele
My heart drop into cindars, I am dust;
Ioue for thine owne sake Ioue, confine my soule
Within these wa'ls of earth: for in the skie
VVhen I am there, none shall be Ioue but I.
Still, still I boyle, and the continued flames
Are aggrauated: He is done, subdu'd
(By the base Art of a damn'd Emperick)
VVhose empty name sent terrour through the world:
Is not the heauen bespangl'd all with starres,
And blazing Meteors, whose bright glimmering flames
Like ceremoniall Tapers should adorne
My solemne Hearse? what doth the golden Sunne
Ride with it's wonted motion? are the waues
Bridled within their narrow Continent
No deluge? not an earthquake? Shall a Prince,
An Emperour, a Baiazet decease
And make no breach in nature? fright the world
With no prodigeous birth? Are you asleepe
You thundring beggards that so awe the world?
I'le hasten to reuenge this strong neglect
Of my deceasing spirits, mount my soule,
Brush off this cloddy heauy element:
So Ioue I come excorporate, diuine,
Immortall as thy selfe, I must contest
With thee proud god, with thee to arme my minde,
Onely my soule ascends earth stayes behinde.
Moritur.
Enter the Ghosts as before him, and beare him out.
| The raging Tvrke, or Baiazet the second | |