University of Virginia Library

Scæna. 2.

Orcanes, Gazellus, Vribassa with their traine.
Orcanes.
Gazellus, Vribassa, and the rest,
Now will we march from proud Orminus mount
To faire Natolia, where our neighbour kings
Expect our power and our royall presence,
T'incounter with the cruell tamburlain,
That nigh Larissa swaies a mighty hoste,
And with the thunder of his martial tooles
Makes Earthquakes in the hearts of men and heauen,

Gaz.
And now come we to make his sinowes shake,
With greater power than erst his pride hath felt,
An hundred kings by scores wil bid him armes,
And hundred thousands subiects to each score:
Which if a shower of wounding thunderbolts
Should breake out off the bowels of the clowdes
And fall as thick as haile vpon our heads,
In partiall aid of that proud Scythian,
Yet should our courages and steeled crestes,
And numbers more than infinit of men,
Be able to withstand and conquer him.

Vrib.
Me thinks I see how glad the christian King
Is made, for ioy of your admitted truce:
That could not but before be terrified:
With vnacquainted power of our hoste.

Enter a messenger.
Mess.
Arme dread Soueraign and my noble Lords
The treacherous army of the Christians,
Taking aduantage of your slender power,
Comes marching on vs, and determines straight,
To bid vs battaile for our dearest liues.

Orc.
Traitors, villaines, damned Christians.
Haue I not here the articles of peace,
And solemne couenants we haue both confirm'd,
He by his Christ, and I by Mahomet?

Gaz.
Hel and confusion light vpon their heads,
That with such treason seek our ouerthrow,
And cares so litle for their prophet Christ.

Orc.
Can there be such deceit in Christians,
Or treason in the fleshly heart of man,
Whose shape is figure of the highest God?
Then if there be a Christ, as Christians say,
But in their deeds deny him for their Christ:
If he be son to euerliuing Ioue,
And hath the power of his outstretched arme,
If he be iealous of his name and honor,
As is our holy prophet Mahomet,
Take here these papers as our sacrifice
And witnesse of thy seruants periury.
Open thou shining vaile of Cynthia
And make a passage from the imperiall heauen
That he that sits on high and neuer sleeps,
Nor in one place is circumscriptible,
But euery where fils euery Continent,
With strange infusion of his sacred vigor,
May in his endlesse power and puritie
Behold and venge this Traitors periury.
Thou Christ that art esteem'd omnipotent,
If thou wilt prooue thy selfe a perfect God,
Worthy the worship of all faithfull hearts,
Be now reueng'd vpon this Traitors soule,
And make the power I haue left behind
(Too litle to defend our guiltlesse liues)
Sufficient to discomfort and confound
The trustlesse force of those false Christians.
To armes my Lords, on Christ still let vs crie,
If there be Christ, we shall haue victorie.

Sound to the battell, and Sigismond comes out wounded.
Sig.
Discomfited is all the Christian hoste,
And God hath thundered vengeance from on high,
For my accurst and hatefull periurie.
O iust and dreadfull punisher of sinne,
Let the dishonor of the paines I feele,
In this my mortall well deserued wound,
End all my penance in my sodaine death,
And let this death wherein to sinne I die,
Conceiue a second life in endlesse mercie.

Enter Orcanes, Gazellus, Vribassa, with others.
Or.
Now lie the Christians bathing in their bloods,
And Christ or Mahomet hath bene my friend.

Gaz.
See here the periur'd traitor Hungary,
Bloody and breathlesse for his villany.

Orc.
Now shall his barbarous body be a pray
To beasts and foules, and al the winds shall breath
Through shady leaues of euery sencelesse tree,
Murmures and hisses for his hainous sin.
Now scaldes his soule in the Tartarian streames,
And feeds vpon the banefull tree of hell,
That zoacum, that fruit of bytternesse,
That in the midst of fire is ingraft,
Yet flourisheth as Flora in her pride,
With apples like the heads of damned Feends,
The Dyuils there in chaines of quencelesse flame,
Shall lead his soule through Orcus burning gulfe:
From paine to paine, whose change shal neuer end:
What saiest thou yet Gazellus to his foile:
Which we referd to iustice of his Christ,
And to his power, which here appeares as full
As raies of Cynthia to the clearest sight?

Gaz.
Tis but the fortune of the wars my Lord,
Whose power is often proou'd a myracle.

Orc.
Yet in my thoughts shall Christ he honoured,
Not dooing Mahomet an iniurie,
Whose power had share in this our victory:
And since this miscreant hath disgrac'd his faith,
And died a traitor both to heauen and earth,
We wil both watch and ward shall keepe his trunke
Amidst these plaines, for Foules to pray vpon.
Go Vribassa, giue it straight in charge.

Vri.
I will my Lord.

Exit Vrib.
Orc.
And now Gazellus, let vs haste and meete
Our Army and our brother of Ierusalem,
Of Soria, Trebizon and Amasia,
And happily with full Natolian bowles
Of Greekish wine now let vs celebrate
Our happy conquest, and his angry fate.

Exeunt.