 | The Queen-Mother |  |
ACT II.
Scene I.
The Louvre.Enter King and Denise.
Denise.
Nay, I shall know it.
Ch.
Tush! you trouble me.
Den.
O ay, I trouble you, my love's a thorn
To prick the patience of your flesh away
35
I will unlearn that love; yea, presently.
Ch.
What need I tell you?
Den.
Trouble not your lip;
I have no ear to carry the large news
That you shut up inside. Nay, go; nay, go;
It is mere pain, not love, that makes me dull;
Count not on love; be not assured of me;
Trust not a corner of the dangerous air
With some lean alms of speech; I may deceive you,
I may wear wicked colour in the soul
When the cheek keeps up red. Perchance I lie.
Ch.
Thou art the prettiest wonder of God's craft;
I think thy mother made thee out of milk,
Thy talk is such a maiden yet. Stay there—
Are hands too costly for my fingering? ha?
Den.
Now I could kill you here between the eyes,
Plant the steel's bare chill where I set my mouth,
Or prick you somewhere under the left side;
Why, thou man's face of cunning, thou live doubt,
Thou mere suspicion walking with man's feet!
Yea, I could search thy veins about with steel
Till in no corner of thy crannied blood
Were left to run red witness of a man,
No breath to test thee kinglier than dead flesh,
Sooner than lose this face to touch, this hair
To twist new curls in; yea, prove me verily,
Sift passion pure to the blind edge of pain,
And see if I will—yet what need, what need?
Kiss me! there now, am I no queen for you?
36
That would mould iron flat—eh, would not they?
Ch.
Ay, true, Denise, by God they can turn steel,
That's truth now—turn it like a bit of paste
Paddled each way—that's just short truth.
Den.
Well, now,
That I do pray you put some trust on me
For love's fair merit and faith's noble sake,
What holds your lips so fast? I should look proud,
Grave in the mouth, with wise accomplice eyes,
A piece of your great craft. Make place for me;
I pray you, place.
Ch.
This counsel is more grave
Than death's lean face; best your ear touch it not.
Den.
Nay then I will not; for I would not pluck
So rough a knowledge on. I am a child,
A show, a bauble kissed and laughed across;
You lay your face over my head and laugh,
Your slow laugh underbreath runs in my hair.
Talk me of love, now; there I understand,
Catch comprehension at the skirt of love,
Steal alms of it. Yet I would put love off
And rather make the time hard cover to me
Than miss trust utterly. But let that lie;
Therein walks danger with both eyes awake,
Therefore no more. Tell me not anything.
Ch.
Thou shalt have all.
Den.
Must I put violence
To war upon my words? Have they said wrong?
I was resolved not to distemper you.
37
Nay, I shall try your trust. Sit by me, so;
Lay your hands thus. By God how fair you are,
It does amaze me; surely God felt glad
The day he finished making you. Eh sweet,
You have the eyes men choose to paint, you know;
And just that soft turn in the little throat
And bluish colour in the lower lid
They make saints with.
Den.
True. A grave thing to hear.
Ch.
See yet, this matter you do fret me with
Seems no whit necessary, nor hath such weight,
Nor half the cost and value of a hair,
Poised with some perfect little wrath of yours
In fret of brows or lifting of the lip.
Indeed you are too precious for man's use,
Being past so far his extreme point of price,
His flawed and curious estimation,
As throws out all repute of words.
Den.
I would
My face were writhen like a witch! Make forth.
Ch.
Why, many a business feeds on blood i' the world,
And there goes many a knave to make a saint—
Den.
I shall be angry. Sir, I am no fool,
But you do treat me as a dog might fare
Coming too near the fire.
Ch.
Nay, keep dry lids;
I would not lose you for three days, to have
My place assured next God's. But see you now,
38
And men all mine in all of theirs—
Den.
I see.
Ch.
This France I have in fee as sure as God
Hath me and you—if this should fall to loss,
Were it no pity?
Den.
Yea, sir, it were much.
Ch.
Or now, this gold that makes me up a king,
This apprehensive note and mark of time,
This token'd kingdom, this well-tested worth,
Wherein my brows exult and are begirt
With the brave sum and sense of kingliness,
To have this melted from a narrow head
Or broken on the bare disfeatured brows,
And marred i' the very figure and fair place
Where it looked nobly—were this no shame to us?
Den.
Yea, this were piteous likewise.
Ch.
Think on it.
For I would have you pitiful as tears,
Would have you fill with pity as the moon
With perfect round of seasonable gold
Fills her starved sides at point of the yellow month;
For if you leave some foolish part, some break,
Some idle piece or angle of yourself,
Not filled with wise and fearful pity up,
Then shame to hear the means of mine effect
Shall change you stone for good.
Den.
I apprehend.
Ch.
For I, by God, when I turn thought on it,
Do feel a heavy trembling in my sense,
39
As perilous things did jar in me and make
Contention in my blood.
Den.
Nay, but speak more;
Speak forth. Good love, if I should flatter you—
Ch.
You see how hard and to what sharp revolt
The labour of the barren times is grown
Not in France merely, but in either land
That feels the sea's salt insolence on it;
The womb is split and shaken everywhere
That earth gets life of; and the taint therein
Doth like a venomous drug incite and sting
The sore unhealed rebellion in its house
To extreme working. Now to supplant this evil
Doth ask more evil; men kiss not snakes to death,
Nor have we heard of bodies plagued to ache
Made whole with eating honey. It is most good
That we should see how God doth physic time
Even to the quick and the afflictive blood
With stripes as keen as iron in the flesh.
Therefore—That is, you have to apprehend
I mean no evil, but a righteous help;
I hate blood, too; indeed I love it not
More than a girl does. Therefore it is hard.
Take note of me, I tell you it is hard.
Den.
I see. Make on.
Ch.
It was to bring all right—
And these men break God's smooth endurance up,
And he must hate them; and I love him so,
I and all friends, my mother here and all,
40
When God forbears his cause to quit himself,
And gives no sign aside.
Den.
I may well think
These are your Huguenots that you do loathe;
You will do right upon them, will you not?
Ch.
Ay, right, I will do right, nothing but right.
You are my absolute mistress and my choice,
The top and pearl of all mine ornament,
The golden and refined election
Of all the treasure I set hands to; well,
I do believe were you so mixed herein
As many are, many that I keep dear,
Dear and right precious in my just account,
And I had such a promise in God's ear
As I have now to see an end of these,
I might renounce you too and give him leave
To make you parcel of the execution
That shall be done on these.
Den.
I fear you much;
For I can smell the mother in your speech,
This argument hath colour of her eyes;
Where learnt you it?
Ch.
My brains do beat upon
The month's full time. Which day it is I know not;
It should look red upon the calendar,
And outblush its fierce use. The twenty-fourth of August—
We stumble near it unawares by this;
Give me the book.
41
What are you strayed upon?
Ch.
It is the time, the time—you come too late
To tear its thread across.
Den.
Pray you, what time?
Ch.
But this Bartholomew shall be inscribed
Beyond the first; the latter speech of time
Shall quench and make oblivious war upon
The former and defeated memories,
New histories teaching it. For there will be
Blood on the moist untimely lip of death,
And in the dusty hunger of his bones
A sudden marrow shall refresh itself
And spread to perfect sinew. There will stir
Even in the red and hollow heat of hell
A motion of sharp spirit, a quickened sense
Such as wine makes in us; yea, such a day
God hath not seen as I shall make for him.
Den.
You put fear in me; I can feel my blood
Go white with hearing you.
Ch.
We trap them all
In a great gin where the soul sticks as well.
Nay, there's no hair of any Huguenot
But makes up parcel of my work in blood,
Nor face that is not painted with our swords.
(I told you this should hurt). O, I could be
Most glad that I am taken to do this
And show the eyes of this lean world and time
The mould and the strong model of a king,
Not in the halting likeness of an ape
That fingers precious ware and knows it not,
42
Nay, as God stands beyond us twain, I will.
First Paris—note you, Paris helps in it,
I stand not singly nerved, but in mine arm
Have multiplied the sinew of all these;
France helps in it: the Guise has word to go
And take our admiral's patience by the throat
And finish the half issue of his blood;
See, this side goes Tavannes; here ride our men,
And here; no falcon starved to bones and beak
Is tempered keener than our citizens.
Den.
You will not murder them?
Ch.
Ay, will I not?
I pray you tell me, was this well devised?
Den.
You are changed foul with it: nay, stand more off;
Was it your meaning?
Ch.
Ay, mine, very mine;
I will not lose it.
Den.
Doth my sense hold fast?
It is not possible you should do this
And scape the smell of blood. Nay, I but dream;
For if I wake, the substance of my flesh,
This form and fast impression of the air,
Yea, the most holy sun, are counterfeit;
We stick yards deeper than the foot of hell.
You see not well how foul a face you have—
I will cry out on you.
Ch.
Are you fallen mad?
Den.
I will put proclamation in the wind
43
It shall sound harsh as murder. Do you think
God shall sit fast and blink at you?
Ch.
What more?
Get on; I do not chide you; nay, get breath;
Spare me no whit.
Den.
I hate you beyond death;
Somewhat I had to say; give ear to me.
—It is all lost now, spilt in water, runs
Into sick tears. Forgive me my loud words,
I have much erred against your gracious game,
Mistaking all of you; I do confess
This jest so said has proved me dull and thick;
Now say it was well played and let me go.
You have played well indeed, and such hard parts—
Now I shall slip into mad speech again
And fail myself.
Ch.
What is it you will do?
Den.
Alack, I see not that. Indeed I think
It is God's will to kill me first i' the brain
And after in the flesh. I am half mad.
But I can speak; yea surely, I can speak;
And I will cry in all the streets and make
Twinned correspondence 'twixt the tongued Seine banks
With sound and breath, clamour and noise of tears,
And windy witness of your enterprise.
Oh, you are moved now; keep on that better face
And I will find some weeping way to you,
Persuading sin to peace; you shall not do it;
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And noise of all just times and every place
That hath but any shape of good on it
Be sharp on you for ever.
Enter the Queen-Mother and Guise.
Ca.
So, you are loud,
I come betimes. Sir, if you spare me room,
I have two words to say.
Ch.
I am bound to you;
You have care of me indeed. Bid her go in.
Ca.
I would not be untimely.
Ch.
No, you are not,
You are a gracious mother, a good help.
(To Denise.)
I'll see you soon at night.
Den.
My lord, my lord—
Ca.
Give my son breath at least; you are impatient;
It suits you not.
Gui.
(To the King.)
I wait upon your highness.
Ch.
We are bounden to you too. Madam, go in.
(Exit Denise.)
Ca.
My son, you put too large a face on this.
Ch.
Mother, I put no face on it at all.
Come, pray you now, what do you look to get
By such a use of me?
Ca.
You take strange ways
To chide me with; I did expect your good.
Always it is the plague of love to be
Thus mated by some check. I will go play;
45
Ch.
Nay, now you shall not go. My lord,
Tell her I meant no shame, no red i' the cheek;
Say now I did not.
Ca.
I am content enough.
You may well see why we are come to you.
Ch.
Yea, that I see.
Gui.
The men are at full point;
Also the marshal helps us at all need
And some things over.
Ca.
You turn jealous of him.
Gui.
Madam, I wear no envy on my words.
Ca.
Sir, you are safe. Truly I am so glad
Now this thing clears i' the working and comes straight,
I could well jest and laugh.
Ch.
So could I not;
All's not squared yet; you are too hot on it.
Ca.
Too hot am I? Sir, you much wrong your honour
Taxing such heat in me; I have proof of you,
So hath the Guise, that you have wrought herein
As hard as any.
Gui.
I take your part as mine
For witness of my lord's free grace and will
Towards this matter.
Ch.
This matter—call it so;
Have you such honey in the mouth, my lord,
To make a milky matter of the name?
Why, if men are to call us murderers,
46
Skulking with beaten cheeks behind the word.
Gui.
(Aside to Cath.)
He is touched the wrong side yet.
Ca.
(Aside to Guise.)
I have stung myself;
This girl I set on him has thrown us out,
Played her own way. That we should pay such apes
To pinch us in the wrist!
Ch.
What are you saying?
Ca.
Take your best means: here's none shall cross you, sir.
We do but say if you will give them leave
To slit your throat with whispering—or abed
Take medicine of them—or wear gloves of theirs—
Or please your mouth with drinking after them—
It is no matter.
Ch.
Would you have me mad?
I have not heard of such a tax on them;
No, not since Florence taught us to use drugs
Has it been noised of these.
Ca.
I think indeed
That poison hath no Florence in the drug
Which puts the peril of so hard a speech
In my son's lip. Do not unsay it; no:
I do not bid you take the blur from me.
I am content to stay and take shame up
So I may suit you. O sweet son,—my lord,
Forgive me that my tongue so slips on you,
Catching the old name first—I pray you note
That I can be as patient as your ear
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That I shall ever take of words to push
Your just forbearance beyond use. I said
“Farewell” as idly as one says “good thanks”
To him that hath not earned it; but I see
Here is made room for a farewell indeed.
Now could I take it silently and go,
Turning my very passion to content
And no whit using it: I am not abashed,
Albeit I speak as one whom shame has marred;
That I am not I pray take no offence,
For should I show a penitent herein
I must do penance for much care of you,
And this I will not. Be not offended with me;
For God doth know, sweet son, that in my life
I have used many days in loving you.
Consider of it: I do not boast myself,
Seeing I but fall within the range and scope,
The limit and fair marge of a good law;
Yet if I have not been there excessive (as
I say not that I have one whit exceeded),
Surely I have not shortened its just room
Or narrowed in the sweet law's offices.
That I am so put off I say is well;
You are wise herein; for women at best count
Are the mere spoil of a male reason, lie
In his loosest thoughts outside. We are the chaff,
The gross unwinnowed husks of your fanned wheat;
I say that you do well to turn me off.
But this too for my witness I should say;
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Yea the thin grain of one particular word,
The same is worse than ill. I pardon it.
That I do love you, God shall do me right
To bring the credit will approve it me:
That I have sought your health yourself believe;
That I did love the state and would get ease
For its wried body, shall make smooth my name
In patient reputation of good men.
The end of that is come. Sir, this much yet;
Since you have thus delivered up your place,
Your worth and body to the love of these
That hate me deadly—wherein you do well,
For yet I will not say but you do well—
I will entreat such almsgiving of you
As for my son of Anjou and myself
May serve to make us a safe place away,
Where we may keep behind the perilous time
And house with simple peace. For I do know
That howsoe'er these fare as friends with you,
With us they will but fare as murderers do
That live between the sharpening of a knife
And the knife's edge embrued. This being made sure,
I take my leave of a most royal care
That has been precious pain to me, and is
No costlier than a pin. The end is here
That I have gladly answered.
Ch.
You say well;
I would not have you think so thinly of me
49
Prevail upon advice. I love you much.
But me she heeds not; tell her you, my lord,
I love no meddled policy of man's
Before her honour.
Ca.
I am perfect in your way.
Best let me part more quickly.
Ch.
You shall not go.
Gui.
Madam, your son is tempered graciously;
You see his will keeps good.
Ch.
Ay, so it doth;
I thank you, sir; you see my will is good.
Ca.
I had rather be a thing of labouring days
Than a so childed mother.
Gui.
You must give her way.
Ca.
It is not fit that I should wear your time.
Ch.
That year of mine is lame wherein you lack.
Ca.
Nay, there's no speech of silk will serve your turn,
You must be whole with me or break; I'll have
No patched alliance, lank allegiances,
Starved out of use.
Ch.
I do not like the business.
Ca.
Nay, but speak large; what is it you mislike?
Ch.
Keep you that way.
Ca.
Why this is what I said.
Ch.
I have thought of it, and have informed my heart
How pale distempering evil makes the blood
That ran full way before. I will not do it;
50
Now huddled in the rear and skirts of time
I must walk through, take whips into their hands
To bruise my shame withal.
Ca.
I heed you not.
It is the sick and infirm spite of fear
Makes your will insolent. But as it please you;
It is not I that shall wear death for it.
Gui.
You do both stray: give me some leave to speak,
And keep your patience whole. Right noble sir,
For my poor worth and special reverence here
I would not waste the price of half an hour;
Though I might say, and no man cross the lie,
That in the personal state of mine esteem
I have kept endurance on against a wrong
That might put blood i' the dead. My royal father,
Whose cost did earn the sum of such a name,
Yea, even to full repute; whose motive hand
Did the most inward ties of war unloose,
And pluck its joint away; this man so built,
So strained and clean of any weak revolt
That faith herself did set her tongue by his
And use his lesson for her proper text;
This bulk and nerve of all your services
Fashioned in one man's work; how he came dead
You twain are no whit less assured than I,
Who have thrown beyond conjecture. It is poor truth
To say we think that he fared treacherously;
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And proof no looser than a popular mouth,
Then we do know it. O, such a want we have,
So dear and so entire a loss in him,
As should make France the book of all men's griefs,
The mould wherein a very face of sorrow
Were cast indeed. That I have not avenged him,
Both you dare swear: that it is not my shame,
But my sore pain and burden of this time,
Both you do likewise see. How say you, sir!
Will you find sufferance smoother-faced than mine?
Have I borne much? or is there fault in me,
Who am the limit of endurances?
Now in this very point of patience here,
Even here, you take me; and considering this,
Commend the calm and heaviness in me
That lackeys your own purpose, runs before
Your proper care, pages your policy.
Now, sir,
Were I a poor man's dog the same were well;
Were I a sick man's fool the same were well;
Being thus, I doubt it is not well at all.
A father slain is more than so much bones
That worms and flies dishallow, being thin dust
And out of value; and personally to me
It is much more. I will not have this way;
Lest my most loving honour borne to you
Leave me ashamed, or service done disbark
All graces from me. You were strongly sworn,
Yea, with the assurance that all faith makes up,
52
But though you had more iron in your hand
Than you have yet, you cannot grasp therein
Two faiths, two sides, two justices at once.
Choose you, and put good will to choice; for me,
I am not thralled in your election.
Ch.
Madam, his talk flies far.
Ca.
True, he speaks right.
Ch.
Should I not answer with a lip more tame,
This friendship might turn slack.
Gui.
I keep still loyal.
Ch.
Yea, sir, we doubt you nothing, nothing at all:
You are our lawful friend; you speak all well;
You have had wrong, men use you grievously;
And I do love you for your bearing it.
Ca.
The man that slew Duke Francis has his breath.
Ch.
Ay, and his blood, some scantlings too of that:
We saw what tithe of it was spilled in him.
Still it is quaint that such a shaken scalp,
So grey as that, should cover so much red;
'Tis very strange and quaint; ha, think you not?
Ca.
(To Guise.)
All's clear again; he smells about the blood
That shall incense his madness to high strain;
Look, now he peers and fingers on his sleeve.
Gui.
Pish! it looks ugly.
Ca.
I must push him yet,
Make his sense warm. You see, blood is but blood;
Shed from the most renowned veins o' the world,
53
A blind broad way among the foolish heaps
That make a people up, takes no more pains
To finish the large work of highest men;
Take heart and patience to you; do but think
This thing shall be no heavier then, being done,
Than is our forward thought of it.
Ch.
Ay true,
But if men prate of blood—I'll none on me.
And yet I care not much. You are wise, mother,
You know me through, ay, and know God as well,
Whom I know not. This is a grave thing.
Ca.
Yea,
And graver should be if I gave you way.
What are you made God's friend for but to have
His hand over your head to keep it well
And warm the rainy weather through, when snow
Spoils half the world's work? shall I let you go
And slip your boy's neck from God's hold on it
To graze and get mere pasture like a beast?
Nay, child, there's nothing better for a man
Than to trust God; why, must I tell you that?
Is there more beard than blood in cheeks like this
Till some one smite them? Now I think, I think
And praise God for it, the next Huguenot
Who plucks you by the ear or smites on the face
Shall do no much work after.
Ch.
True, madam,
I need be king now; you speak true in that.
Ca.
I'll call you king then always, king and son,
54
And you are man indeed, and man enough
To teach command to the world and make its back
Stoop for allegiance. See you, my fair son,
This sweet face of authority is a mask
For slaves to rivet or undo the joint,
Except one wear it in the eyes of them
A witness to outbear shame and revolt
And maim resistance in the hands; you were
Never yet king, never had will to wear
That circle that completes the head with gold
And shuts up strength inside the hold of it;
You are now made man.
Ch.
And you made mother twice,
Not by gross generation of the womb
But issue of more princely consequence;
Set this day gold upon your writ of life,
The last of childbearing for you; so God
Give you good time of it!
Ca.
Ay, grace to thank
That grace that gives not mere deliverance
From unrespective burdens of the flesh,
But the keen spirit refines and recreates
To gracious labour. That God that made high things,
He wrought by purpose and secure design
The length of his contrivance; he set not tigers
In the mean seat of apes, nor the wild swine
I' the stabled post of horses; birds and dogs
Find portion of him, and he sets the fish
In washing waters; rain and the sweet sun
55
Hath he set upright and made larger eyes
To read some broken letters of this book
Which has the world at lesson; and for what,
If we not do the royallest good work,
If we not wear the worth of sovereignty
As attribute and raiment? At our feet
Lies reason like a hound, and faith is chained;
Lame expectation halts behind our ways,
The soundless secret of dead things is made
As naked shallows to us. It is for that
We owe strong service of the complete soul
To the most cunning fashioner that made
So good work of us; and except we serve,
We are mere beasts and lesser than a snake,
Not worth his pain at all; so might we shift
The soul as doth that worm his coloured back
And turn to herd with footless things that are
The spoil of dust and rain. To close up all,
Death takes the flesh in his abhorrèd hands
Of clean alike and unclean; but to die
Is sometime gracious, as to slip the chain
From wrist and ankle; only this is sad,
To be given up to change and the mere shame
Of its abominable and obscure work
With no good done, no clean thing in the soul
To sweeten against resurrection-time
This mire that made a body, lest we keep
No royalties at all, or in the flesh
The worm's toothed ravin touch the soul indeed.
56
Madam, I hold your sentence good to hear;
I'll do as you would have me. Pray you now,
Make no more record of my foolishness.
I have used idle words. Make count of me
As of your servant; for from this day forth
I'll hold no Huguenot's throat one whit more worth
Than is the cord upon it. Sir, good day.
[Exit King.
Ca.
I told you this before; sit down and laugh.
I told you this should be.
Gui.
We have worked well.
Ca.
Is this no better now than violent ways
To threaten the poor passage of his life
With the mean loss of some sick days and hours?
You would not let him fill his season up
And feed on all his portions cut i' the world;
You have iron in your policies, and hate
The unbound brows of composition;
But I, whose cheek is patient of all wrongs,
Who have endurance to my garment, worn
In face o' the smiters, I know through by heart
Each turn i' the crannies of the boy's spoilt mind
And corner used in it. Years gone, my lord,
Before the tender husk of time grew hard,
He would make pastime to tear birds to death
And pinch out life by nips in some sick beast;
And being a man, blood turns him white to see?
Believe me that, I'll praise you more for faith
Than I praise God for making him a fool.
What shall get done though hell stand up to hear
57
The rule of use rebel against its way,
The sense of things upon itself revolt,
To the undoing of man—this shall not fail
For the meek sake of his most female mouth
That would keep honey in.
Gui.
Have your way so:
I do not cross you; keep that fashion.
Ca.
Yea,
I think to have it certainly, fair sir;
Keen man he were that should cheat me of it.
Gui.
This screw of yours has wrenched him round our way;
Yet these may pinch the wax, new-mould his face,
Carve him a mouth, make here an eye or there;
Will you wring loose their fingers till he drop
Like a fruit caught, so, in one's hollowed hand?
You'll have some necks to break across ere that.
Why, Châtillon's grey chin keeps wagging down
Close at his ear; that demi-dog Soubise
Is made his formal mirth; fool Pardaillan
Struts with his throat up like a cock's, and brags
The king is kind—has secrets—he might say
Some grace was done him—would not miss his luck—
As for the merit—
Ca.
So far it goes by rote;
Were there no larger peril than hangs there,
I'd strangle it with but a hair of mine.
Gui.
Madam, I would be fain to understand.
Ca.
Sir, this it is; the woman I set on
58
Is very falsely made my thorn, and wears
Such fashions as a new-enfranchised slave
To beat his master for delivering him.
She is turned milk, would slit her web mis-made
Now it shows blood at edge.
Gui.
What ailed your judgment then
To light on her? had you some plague i' the eye
To choose so sickly?
Ca.
The king did lean to her,
And out of his good will I made this cord
To lead him by the ear. Do not you doubt me;
She has not slit the web so near across
But her own edge may turn upon her skin:
I have a plot to rid the time of her
For some slight days.
Gui.
Some trick to bite her life?
Ca.
Nay, I'll not lose her; no more weight shall be
Than a new time may lift from her again.
I shall but get a clog upon my court
Slily removed; a double good shall bud
Upon a most small evil. Go with me
And bring me to my women.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.
The Admiral's House.Enter Coligny and Attendant.
Co.
Carry these letters to my son and bid him
Attend me with La Noue. If you shall see
59
Pray him be with me too. This is a care
That I would have you diligent in; so shall you
Gather fresh good of me.
Att.
I will, my lord.
Co.
I shall be bound to you; the time that makes
Such ruin of us doth yet bequeath me this,
That where I find good service without break,
I hold it dearer than a prosperous man.
See you be speedy.
Att.
I am already hence.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
The Louvre.Enter La Rochefoucauld and Yolande de Montlitard.
La R.
You do not use me smoothly.
Yol.
Did I sue
That you would love me? I owe you nothing.
La R.
No?
But if I leave with you so much of me,
Do I not keep some petty part of you?
Yol.
Oh, not a whit; what would you do with it?
La R.
In faith, I know not.
Yol.
You have the holy way
Of cutting clean an oath; as you do coin it
A girl might use the like; your protestation
Is made out of the ravel of spoilt silk;
I trust no such tagged speech.
La R.
To do you pleasure
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And put shame out of use with violent breath.
But to my point.
Yol.
Shall I not say one thing?
La R.
So I would have you.
Yol.
Then I think, this breath
So spent on my vexation is not used
For love of me—nay, pray you keep that in—
But the keen service of your admiral
To whom I must be evidenced.
La R.
What then?
Are you too far in hate to do me good?
Yol.
Too far in faith to swell you with such help;
Put down i' the writing that a woman's trust
Is much belied with you; there's no such flaw
As male repute doth work to blot us with;
I swear I will not show you anything.
La R.
I do not beg such alms of you; come back;
Do words make all the sweet on so sweet lips?
Yol.
I did not bid you shift your note to this.
Sir, that ring's edge of yours has cut my glove.
[Exeunt.
| The Queen-Mother | |