University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

The Admiral's House.
Enter Coligny and La Rochefoucauld.
La R.
How do you yet, sir?

Co.
Ill, yea, very ill:
This snake has pricked me to the heart, to the quick,
To the keenest of it; I believe heartily
I shall not live to foil them. God mend some!
For live or die, and wounded flesh or whole,
There will be hard things done; we shall not see
Much more fair time.

La R.
Take better thoughts to you;
The king is steady; and the Guise wears eyes
Of such green anger and suspicious light
As cows his followers; even the queen-mother
Walks slower than her wont, with mouth drawn up,
And pinches whiter her thin face; Tavannes
Goes chewing either lip's hair with his teeth,
Churning his bearded spite, and wears the red
Set on his cheek more steady; the whole court
Flutters like birds before the rain begin;
Salcède, who hates no place in hell so much
As he loathes Guise, lets out his spleen at him
And wags his head more than its use was; yea,
The main set draws our way now the steel bit
Keeps hard inside their mouths: yea, they pull straight.

Co.
You lay too much upon them.

La R.
Not a whit over:
They are good men our side; no dog laps i' the trough
So deep as we do; the best men we have
That France has for us, the best mouths for a hunt,
To wind the quarry furthest; then to these
A clean cause, friends with iron on the hand,
The king to head, no less.

Co.
The king, no less?
Yea, there's a dog gives tongue, and tongue enough,
Too hot I doubt, too hot; strikes by the scent.

La R.
Will you think so? why, there be dog-leashes;
Pluck hard, you hold him. Come, I note you though;
None sticks in your throat but Venus the old brach.

Co.
True, there she sticks, sir; for your burden saith—
“Brach's feet and witch's nose
Breathe which way the quarry blows.”

La R.
She's old, sir, old; the teeth drop, the smell wears;
No breath in her by this.

Co.
Enough to breathe
The best of you that snuff about and yelp.
Who stops there in the street? look out.

La R.
The king!
So, get you ready; Catherine here and all,
God save my wits a taking! here you have them.

Enter the King, Queen-Mother, Guise, and Attendants.
Ch.
Do not rise up, sir; pray you keep your place;
Nay now, by God's face, look, the cloak slips off;
Nay, be more patient.

Co.
Dear and gracious lord,
If you be pleased to look on my disease
As not my will, but a constraint to me
Less native than my garments, I have hope
You may forgive it.

Ch.
Yea, we do, we do.

Ca.
It was not, sir, your sickness we took pains
To come and visit; what's no friend of yours
Is even as our own felt infirmity,
And should be held so.

Ch.
True, sir, by God it should.

Ca.
We therefore pray you have no care of that,
But as we do, respect it.

Ch.
Do not, sir.

Co.
Madam, a sick man has not breath or tongue
To answer salutation of such worth;
But even the very blood that pain makes war on
Is healed and sound by this. From stronger heart
Than ere I saw you was in me, now touched
And comforted by favour, I pay thanks
The best I have; and none so poor man pays
A rent of words more costly.

Ca.
My fair lord,
This compliment has relish of more health
Than was believed in you; I am most glad
That footless rumour which makes wing to go
Reports you something lesser than you seem;
So making keener with new spice to it
Our very edge of pleasure, the fine taste
That waits on sudden sweetness. Sir, nathless,
No compliment it was we came to beg,
No alms of language and frayed garb o' the court
That makes no wear for men; but to do grace indeed
Rather to us than you, whose worth no friend
Can top with favour.

Co.
It shows the more love in you.

Ca.
Also, my lord, for such poor part as mine,
I pray you be not jealous to receive
Assurance of me with how sore a hurt
Ill news of you made passage most unkind
Into my knowledge; and with how dear a price
I would have bought a chance to succour you
Whose wound was sickness to me. So God love my son,
As I have put my prayer for your good hap
Between two tears before him; yea, never shall he
Get worship of me but I'll speak of you
As the leader of my loves, the captain friend
Among my nearest. Sir, the king knows well
How I speak of you; see now, let him say
Whether I lie or no in loving you.

Ch.
Ay, sir, there's no such day or night-season
But she holds to you, none but the admiral,
That good lord, that best counsellor, strong ward
For any king to hang by; time has been, sir,
I have turned sick of hearing your grave name
So paddled over, handled so; my lord,
There's no man, none in the world, my mother mates with you
Save two, that's I and God.

Gui.
And that's a courtesy.

Co.
My lord of Guise, I saw you not; this day,
As men do shut the edges of a wound,
Shuts the loud lips of our contention; sir,
This grace you do me shall keep fast my thanks
To your name always.

Gui.
It is the king's good will
I should be made the servant to his act;
And what grace pleases him to bring me to
I take as title to me; this not least,
To call my poor name a friend's name of yours.

Co.
That makes mine honour.

Ch.
It was this we came
To see made well up from the Guise to you;
My thought was ever there, yea, nailed to it,
Fastened upon it; it was my meat and sleep,
Prayer at feast-season and my fast at noon,
To get this over.

Co.
It is well set now.
This hand is hurt I lay into your hand,
But the love whole and the good will as sound
As shall the peace be for us.

Gui.
I take it so;
Maimed be that hand which first shall loosen it,
Even beyond healing.

Co.
Pardon, my fair lord,
I am but old, you strain my wrist too much.

Ch.
Nay, you are worse hurt than they told us, then;
I pray you show me but the coat, I would
Fain see the coat where blood must stick of yours.

Co.
Sir, there it is.

Ch.
Ay, no more red than this?
I thank you; was it this way the slit came?
Yea, so, I see; yea, sideways in the sleeve.
Is that the admiral's blood indeed? Methinks,
Being issued from so famous veins as yours,
This should be redder. See, well above the wrist;
See, madam; yea, meseems I smell the stain.

Ca.
It is an ill sight.

Co.
I would give better, sir,
Spill the red residue some worthier way,
If you would heed me. Trust not each in all,
Nor sew your faith too thinly to men's sleeves;
There is a poisonous faith that eats right out
The sober and sweet heart of clean allegiance,
Leaving for witness of all royalty
Merely the baser flesh; beware of that.

Ch.
I will.—Is not this like men's blood?—I will.
Most like a common fool's; see you, lord Guise,
Here's a great soldier has no blood more worth
Than yours or mine. By God, how strange is that,
It makes me marvel. Is your wound near well?
Tush! no more hurt than shall a month see out.

Ca.
You have poor sense of sickness; I fear much
Our friend shall hardly feed on the larger air
This two months hence. You must keep close, dear lord,
Hide from the insolent and eager time;
And we not wrong you by the overstay
Of foolish friendship, thankworthy in this,
That it knows when to cease, what limit made
To measure its observance by. Farewell;
Think not worse of us that we trouble you,
But know we love you even too well to buy
Our further speech with danger of your hurt,
And had we sounder witness of our love
Would better prove it. Sir, God keep you well
And give us joy to see you.

Ch.
Farewell, dear father;
Doubt not but we will lay a present hand
On one that hath so stricken us in you,
And he shall find us sharp. In trust of that
Keep some thought of this poorest friend you have,
As we of you shall. Trouble not yourself.
Nay, have your cloak on; so; God give you help.
Come with me, my lord Guise; fair sir, good night.
Yea, night it is now; God send you good time of it.

[Exeunt, King, Queen-Mother, Guise, &c.
Co.
Good thanks, sir, and farewell.—So: gone, I think?

La R.
Fair words go with them! you have good time indeed;
What holidays of honey have they kept,
What a gold season of sentences to warm by,
Even past all summer! a sweet oil-season,
Kept ripe with periods of late wine to finish it!

Co.
Ay, the taste of them makes a bitter lip, sir.

La R.
Nay, mere feast-honey; did you mark the Guise once,
How his chin twisted and got rough with smiles,
Like a new cloth rained on? How the nose was wried of him,
What widow's cheeks he had, never well dried yet?
The sweet speech clung in his throat like a kernel swallowed
In sucking cherries.

Co.
You are too loud yet, too splenetive.

La R.
Tush! they are well gone, no fear of them; but verily
I doubt you saw not how like a dog's his face was,
A dog's you catch with meat in his teeth; by Christ,
I thought he would have cried or cursed outright,
His mouth so wrought.

Co.
Yea, either had done well.

La R.
A dog that snarls and shivers with back down,
With fearful slaver about his mouth; “weh, weh,
For God's sake do not beat me, sirs!” eh, Guise?—
With timid foam between his teeth; poor beast, too,
I could be sorry for him.

Co.
Be wise in time, sir,
And save your tears; this Guise has scope to mend,
Get past these matters; I not doubt the queen
Touches them with a finger-point of hers.

La R.
The queen gets kind; she lessens and goes out;
No woman holds a snake at breast so long,
But it must push its head between the plaits
And show across her throat's gold work. Fair sir,
Cure but your doubt, your blood is whole again
And pain washed out at once; it is the fret of that
Which fevers you so far.

Co.
This is not so.
I pray you mark: their fires are lit next room,
The smoke bites in our eyelids, air turns weak
And body trembles and breath sickens here.
Sir, I do know this danger to the heart,
To the shape and bone of it, the mouth and eyes,
The place and time, season and consequence;
By God's head, sir, now, this mere now, this day,
The peril ripens like a wound o' the flesh
That gathers poison; and we sleepy things
Let crawl up to our feet the heats that will
Turn fire to burn.

La R.
Your wisdom is too loud:
Doth it fear truly some court-card, some trick
That throws out honour?

Co.
Yea; for note me this,
These men so wholly hate us and so well
It would be honey to their lips, I think,
To have our death for the familiar word
They chatter between mass-time and the bed
Wet with wine, scented with a harlot's hair,
They lie so smooth in. When one hates like that,
So many of them, each a hand and mouth
To stab and lie and pray and poison with,
The bloodsmell quickens in the head, the scent
Feels gross upon the trail, and the steam turns
Thicker i' the noses of the crew; right soon
Shall their feet smoke in the red pasturing-place
And tongues lap hot; such cannot eat mere grass
Nor will drink water.

La R.
Are we stalled for them?
Are we their sheep? have we no steel? dumb sheep?

Co.
No steel; the most of us have watered blood,
Their nerves are threads of silk, their talk such cries
As babies babble through the suckling milk,
Put them by these.

La R.
I have a way to help;
A damsel of the queen-mother's loves me
More than her mistress; she has eyes to kiss
That can see well; I'll get us help of her.

Co.
Tell her no word.

La R.
Yea, many words, I think.

Co.
No word, sir, none.

La R.
This riddle sticks, my lord.

Co.
To say we stand in fear is perilous prate;
To kneel for help would maim us in the feet,
So could we neither stand in time nor fly,
Being caught both ways. Do not you speak with her.

La R.
I'll make help somehow yet; Yolande is good
And would not hurt us; a fair mouth too small
To let lies in and learn broad tricks of speech;
I'll get help, surely. Does not your wound hurt?

Co.
Not much; I pray you draw my cloak across;
So; the air chafes.

La R.
Go in and rest some while;
Your blood is hot even to the fingers.

Co.
True;
I shall sleep ill. Come in with me, fair lord.

[Exeunt.