[Scena Quarta
A Room in Montsurry’s House.]
Thunder. Intrat Umbra Frier and discovers Tamyra.
[Umbra] Friar. Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter,
And strike away this heartlesse trance of anguish:
Be like the sunne, and labour in eclipses.
Look to the end of woes: oh, can you sit
Mustering the horrors of your servants slaughter5
Before your contemplation, and not study
How to prevent it? Watch when he shall rise,
And, with a suddaine out-crie of his murther,
Blow his retreat before he be revenged.
Tamyra. O father, have my dumb woes wak’d your death?10
When will our humane griefes be at their height?
Man is a tree that hath no top in cares,
No root in comforts; all his power to live
Is given to no end but t’have power to grieve.
Umb. Fri. It is the misery of our creation.15
Your true friend,
Led by your husband, shadowed in my weed,
Now enters the dark vault.
Tam. But, my dearest father,
Why will not you appeare to him your selfe,
And see that none of these deceits annoy him?20
Umb. Fri. My power is limited; alas! I cannot;
All that I can doe—See! the cave opens. Exit.
D’Amboys at the gulfe.
Tam. Away (my love) away! thou wilt be murther’d.
Enter Monsieur and Guise above.
Bussy. Murther’d! I know not what that Hebrew means:
That word had ne’re bin nam’d had all bin D’Ambois.25
Murther’d! By heaven, he is my murtherer
That shewes me not a murtherer: what such bugge
Abhorreth not the very sleepe of D’Amboys?
Murther’d! Who dares give all the room I see
To D’Ambois reach? or look with any odds30
His fight i’th’ face, upon whose hand sits death,
Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth?
If I scape Monsieurs pothecarie shops,
Foutir for Guises shambles! ’Twas ill plotted;
They should have mall’d me here35
When I was rising. I am up and ready.
Let in my politique visitants, let them in,
Though entring like so many moving armours.
Fate is more strong than arms and slie than treason,
And I at all parts buckl’d in my fate.40
Mons. }
Guise. } Why enter not the coward villains?
Buss. Dare they not come?
Enter Murtherers, with [Umbra] Frier at the other dore.
Tam. They come.
First Murderer. Come, all at once!
[Umbra] Friar. Back, coward murtherers, back!
Omnes. Defend us heaven! Exeunt all but the first.
First Murd. Come ye not on?
Buss. No, slave! nor goest thou off.
Stand you so firme?
[Strikes at him with his sword.]
Will it not enter here? 45
You have a face yet. So! in thy lifes flame
I burne the first rites to my mistresse fame.
Umb. Fri. Breath thee, brave sonne, against the other charge.
Buss. O is it true, then, that my sense first told me?
Is my kind father dead?
Tam. He is, my love; 50
’Twas the Earle, my husband, in his weed that brought thee.
Buss. That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled.
Where is that angry Earle? My lord! come forth,
And shew your owne face in your owne affaire;
Take not into your noble veines the blood55
Of these base villaines, nor the light reports
Of blister’d tongues for cleare and weighty truth:
But me against the world, in pure defence
Of your rare lady, to whose spotlesse name
I stand here as a bulwark, and project60
A life to her renowne that ever yet
Hath been untainted, even in envies eye,
And, where it would protect, a sanctuarie.
Brave Earle, come forth, and keep your scandall in!
’Tis not our fault, if you enforce the spot;65
Nor the wreak yours, if you performe it not.
Enter Mont[surry] with all the murtherers.
Montsurry. Cowards! a fiend or spirit beat ye off!
They are your owne faint spirits that have forg’d
The fearefull shadowes that your eyes deluded:
The fiend was in you; cast him out, then, thus!70
[Montsurry fights with D’Ambois.] D’Ambois hath Montsurry downe.
Tam. Favour my lord, my love, O, favour him!
Buss. I will not touch him. Take your life, my lord,
And be appeas’d. Pistolls shot within.
O then the coward Fates
Have maim’d themselves, and ever lost their honour!
Umb. Fri. What have ye done, slaves! irreligious lord!75
Buss. Forbeare them, father; ’tis enough for me
That Guise and Monsieur, death and destinie,
Come behind D’Ambois. Is my body, then,
But penetrable flesh, and must my mind
Follow my blood? Can my divine part adde80
No ayd to th’earthly in extremity?
Then these divines are but for forme, not fact;
Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact,
A mistresse and a servant. Let my death
Define life nothing but a courtiers breath.85
Nothing is made of nought, of all things made
Their abstract being a dreame but of a shade.
Ile not complaine to earth yet, but to heaven,
And (like a man) look upwards even in death.
And if Vespasian thought in majestie90
An Emperour might die standing, why not I? She offers to help him.
Nay, without help, in which I will exceed him;
For he died splinted with his chamber groomes.
Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done!
The equall thought I beare of life and death95
Shall make me faint on no side; I am up.
Here, like a Roman statue, I will stand
Till death hath made me marble. O my fame
Live in despight of murther! take thy wings
And haste thee where the gray-ey’d morn perfumes100
Her rosie chariot with Sabæan spices!
Fly where the evening from th’Iberean vales
Takes on her swarthy shoulders Heccate
Crown’d with a grove of oakes! flie where men feele
The burning axeltree; and those that suffer105
Beneath the chariot of the snowy Beare:
And tell them all that D’Ambois now is hasting
To the eternall dwellers; that a thunder
Of all their sighes together (for their frailties
Beheld in me) may quit my worthlesse fall110
With a fit volley for my funerall.
Umb. Fri. Forgive thy murtherers.
Buss. I forgive them all;
And you, my lord, their fautor; for true signe
Of which unfain’d remission, take my sword;
Take it, and onely give it motion,115
And it shall finde the way to victory
By his owne brightnesse, and th’inherent valour
My fight hath still’d into’t with charmes of spirit.
Now let me pray you that my weighty bloud,
Laid in one scale of your impertiall spleene,120
May sway the forfeit of my worthy love
Waid in the other: and be reconcil’d
With all forgivenesse to your matchlesse wife.
Tam. Forgive thou me, deare servant, and this hand
That lead thy life to this unworthy end;125
Forgive it for the bloud with which ’tis stain’d,
In which I writ the summons of thy death—
The forced summons—by this bleeding wound,
By this here in my bosome, and by this
That makes me hold up both my hands embrew’d130
For thy deare pardon.
Buss. O, my heart is broken.
Fate nor these murtherers, Monsieur nor the Guise,
Have any glory in my death, but this,
This killing spectacle, this prodigie.
My sunne is turn’d to blood, in whose red beams135
Pindus and Ossa (hid in drifts of snow
Laid on my heart and liver), from their veines
Melt, like two hungry torrents eating rocks,
Into the ocean of all humane life,
And make it bitter, only with my bloud.140
O fraile condition of strength, valour, vertue
In me (like warning fire upon the top
Of some steepe beacon, on a steeper hill)
Made to expresse it: like a falling starre
Silently glanc’t, that like a thunderbolt145
Look’t to have struck, and shook the firmament! Moritur.
Umb. Fri. Farewell! brave reliques of a compleat man,
Look up, and see thy spirit made a starre.
Joine flames with Hercules, and when thou set’st
Thy radiant forehead in the firmament,150
Make the vast chrystall crack with thy receipt;
Spread to a world of fire, and the aged skie
Cheere with new sparks of old humanity.
[To Montsurry.] Son of the earth, whom my unrested soule
Rues t’have begotten in the faith of heaven,155
Assay to gratulate and pacifie
The soule fled from this worthy by performing
The Christian reconcilement he besought
Betwixt thee and thy lady; let her wounds,
Manlessly digg’d in her, be eas’d and cur’d160
With balme of thine owne teares; or be assur’d
Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.
Mont. See how she merits this, still kneeling by,
And mourning his fall, more than her own fault!
Umb. Fri. Remove, deare daughter, and content thy husband:165
So piety wills thee, and thy servants peace.
Tam. O wretched piety, that art so distract
In thine owne constancie, and in thy right
Must be unrighteous. If I right my friend,
I wrong my husband; if his wrong I shunne,170
The duty of my friend I leave undone.
Ill playes on both sides; here and there it riseth;
No place, no good, so good, but ill compriseth.
O had I never married but for forme;
Never vow’d faith but purpos’d to deceive;175
Never made conscience of any sinne,
But clok’t it privately and made it common;
Nor never honour’d beene in bloud or mind;
Happy had I beene then, as others are
Of the like licence; I had then beene honour’d,180
Liv’d without envie; custome had benumb’d
All sense of scruple and all note of frailty;
My fame had beene untouch’d, my heart unbroken:
But (shunning all) I strike on all offence.
O husband! deare friend! O my conscience!185
Mons. Come, let’s away; my sences are not proofe
Against those plaints.
Exeunt Guise, Mon[sieur above]. D’Ambois is borne off.
Mont. I must not yeeld to pity, nor to love
So servile and so trayterous: cease, my bloud,
To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgement.190
Away! forsake my house; forbeare complaints
Where thou hast bred them: here all things [are] full
Of their owne shame and sorrow—leave my house.
Tam. Sweet lord, forgive me, and I will be gone;
And till these wounds (that never balme shall close195
Till death hath enterd at them, so I love them,
Being opened by your hands) by death be cur’d,
I never more will grieve you with my sight;
Never endure that any roofe shall part
Mine eyes and heaven; but to the open deserts200
(Like to a hunted tygres) I will flie,
Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men,
And look on no side till I be arriv’d.
Mont. I doe forgive thee, and upon my knees
(With hands held up to heaven) wish that mine honour205
Would suffer reconcilement to my love:
But, since it will not, honour never serve
My love with flourishing object, till it sterve!
And as this taper, though it upwards look,
Downwards must needs consume, so let our love!210
As, having lost his hony, the sweet taste
Runnes into savour, and will needs retaine
A spice of his first parents, till (like life)
It sees and dies, so let our love! and, lastly,
As when the flame is suffer’d to look up215
It keepes his luster, but being thus turn’d downe
(His naturall course of usefull light inverted)
His owne stuffe puts it out, so let our love!
Now turne from me, as here I turne from thee;
And may both points of heavens strait axeltree220
Conjoyne in one, before thy selfe and me! Exeunt severally.
Finis Actus Quinti & Ultimi.
Linenotes
Thunder... Tamyra. A has: Intrat umbra Comolet to the Countesse, wrapt in a canapie.
1-6 Up... not study. Omitted in A, which has instead:—
Revive those stupid thoughts, and sit not thus,
Gathering the horrors of your servants slaughter
(So urg’d by your hand, and so imminent)
Into an idle fancie; but devise.
9 revenged. A, engaged.
14 t’have. A; B, have.
15-22 It is... opens. Omitted in A, which has instead:—
Umb. Tis the just curse of our abus’d creation,
Which wee must suffer heere, and scape heereafter:
He hath the great mind that submits to all
He sees inevitable; he the small
That carps at earth, and her foundation shaker,
And rather than himselfe, will mend his maker.
16 Your... friend. In B ends preceding line.
Enter... above. A omits.
30 To. Some copies of B have T.
33-36 If I... and ready. A omits.
41 Why... villains? A omits.
Enter... dore. A omits.
all but the first. A omits.
53 Qq punctuate wrongly:—Where is that angry Earle my lord? Come forth.
all the murtherers. A, others.
D’Ambois... downe. A omits.
Pistolls shot within. Inserted before 72 in B; A omits.
90-93 And if... groomes. A omits.
She offers to help him. Inserted before 95 in B. A omits.
119 Now. A, And.
135 in. A, gainst.
136 drifts of. A, endless.
146 struck. Emend. ed.; Qq, stuck.
Moritur. A omits.
147-153 Farewell... humanity. These lines are placed by A at the close of the Scene, and are preceded by three lines which B omits:—
My terrors are strook inward, and no more
My pennance will allow they shall enforce
Earthly afflictions but upon my selfe.
147 reliques. A, relicts.
149 Joine flames with Hercules. So in A; B, Jove flames with her rules.
151 chrystall. A, continent.
154 Son... soule. Before this line B has Frier.
155 Rues... heaven. After this line A inserts:—
Since thy revengefull spirit hath rejected
The charitie it commands, and the remission
To serve and worship the blind rage of bloud.
My soule more scruple breeds than my bloud sinne,
Vertue imposeth more than any stepdame.
186-187 Come... plaints. A omits.
192 [are]. Added by Dilke; Qq omit.
196 enterd. A; B, enterr’d.
201 a. A omits.
Notes
163 kneeling. A, sitting.
173 No place... compriseth. After this line A inserts:—