Actus Quinti Scæna Prima
[A Room in the Palace of the Duke of Guise.]
Ascendit Umbra Bussi.
Umbra Bussi. Up from the chaos of eternall night
(To which the whole digestion of the world
Is now returning) once more I ascend,
And bide the cold dampe of this piercing ayre,
To urge the justice whose almightie word5
Measures the bloudy acts of impious men
With equall pennance, who in th’act it selfe
Includes th’infliction, which like chained shot
Batter together still; though (as the thunder
Seemes, by mens duller hearing then their sight,10
To breake a great time after lightning forth,
Yet both at one time teare the labouring cloud)
So men thinke pennance of their ils is slow,
Though th’ill and pennance still together goe.
Reforme, yee ignorant men, your manlesse lives15
Whose lawes yee thinke are nothing but your lusts;
When leaving (but for supposition sake)
The body of felicitie, religion,
Set in the midst of Christendome, and her head
Cleft to her bosome, one halfe one way swaying,20
Another th’other, all the Christian world
And all her lawes whose observation
Stands upon faith, above the power of reason—
Leaving (I say) all these, this might suffice
To fray yee from your vicious swindge in ill25
And set you more on fire to doe more good;
That since the world (as which of you denies?)
Stands by proportion, all may thence conclude
That all the joynts and nerves sustaining nature
As well may breake, and yet the world abide,30
As any one good unrewarded die,
Or any one ill scape his penaltie. The Ghost stands close.
Enter Guise, Clermont.
Guise. Thus (friend) thou seest how all good men would thrive,
Did not the good thou prompt’st me with prevent
The jealous ill pursuing them in others.35
But now thy dangers are dispatcht, note mine.
Hast thou not heard of that admired voyce
That at the barricadoes spake to mee,
(No person seene) “Let’s leade my lord to Reimes”?
Clermont. Nor could you learne the person?
Cler. Twas but your fancie, then, a waking dreame:
For as in sleepe, which bindes both th’outward senses
And the sense common to, th’imagining power
(Stird up by formes hid in the memories store,
Or by the vapours of o’er-flowing humours45
In bodies full and foule, and mixt with spirits)
Faines many strange, miraculous images,
In which act it so painfully applyes
It selfe to those formes that the common sense
It actuates with his motion, and thereby50
Those fictions true seeme and have reall act:
So, in the strength of our conceits awake,
The cause alike doth [oft] like fictions make.
Gui. Be what it will, twas a presage of something
Waightie and secret, which th’advertisements55
I have receiv’d from all parts, both without
And in this kingdome, as from Rome and Spaine,
Lorraine and Savoye, gives me cause to thinke,
All writing that our plots catastrophe,
For propagation of the Catholique cause,60
Will bloudy prove, dissolving all our counsailes.
Cler. Retyre, then, from them all.
Gui. I must not doe so.
The Arch-Bishop of Lyons tels me plaine
I shall be said then to abandon France
In so important an occasion;65
And that mine enemies (their profit making
Of my faint absence) soone would let that fall,
That all my paines did to this height exhale.
Cler. Let all fall that would rise unlawfully!
Make not your forward spirit in vertues right70
A property for vice, by thrusting on
Further then all your powers can fetch you off.
It is enough, your will is infinite
To all things vertuous and religious,
Which, within limits kept, may without danger75
Let vertue some good from your graces gather.
Avarice of all is ever nothings father.
Umb. Danger (the spurre of all great mindes) is ever
The curbe to your tame spirits; you respect not
(With all your holinesse of life and learning)80
More then the present, like illiterate vulgars;
Your minde (you say) kept in your fleshes bounds
Showes that mans will must rul’d be by his power:
When by true doctrine you are taught to live
Rather without the body then within,85
And rather to your God still then your selfe.
To live to Him is to doe all things fitting
His image in which like Himselfe we live;
To be His image is to doe those things
That make us deathlesse, which by death is onely90
Doing those deedes that fit eternitie;
And those deedes are the perfecting that justice
That makes the world last, which proportion is
Of punishment and wreake for every wrong,
As well as for right a reward as strong:95
Away, then! use the meanes thou hast to right
The wrong I suffer’d. What corrupted law
Leaves unperform’d in Kings, doe thou supply,
And be above them all in dignitie. Exit.
Gui. Why stand’st thou still thus, and applyest thine eares100
And eyes to nothing?
Cler. Saw you nothing here?
Gui. Thou dream’st awake now; what was here to see?
Cler. My brothers spirit, urging his revenge.
Gui. Thy brothers spirit! pray thee mocke me not.
Cler. No, by my love and service.
Gui. Would he rise, 105
And not be thundring threates against the Guise?
Cler. You make amends for enmitie to him,
With tenne parts more love and desert of mee;
And as you make your hate to him no let
Of any love to mee, no more beares hee110
(Since you to me supply it) hate to you.
Which reason and which justice is perform’d
In spirits tenne parts more then fleshy men;
To whose fore-sights our acts and thoughts lie open:
And therefore, since hee saw the treacherie115
Late practis’d by my brother Baligny,
Hee would not honor his hand with the justice
(As hee esteemes it) of his blouds revenge,
To which my sister needes would have him sworne,
Before she would consent to marry him.120
Gui. O Baligny!—who would beleeve there were
A man that (onely since his lookes are rais’d
Upwards, and have but sacred heaven in sight)
Could beare a minde so more then divellish?
As for the painted glory of the countenance,125
Flitting in Kings, doth good for nought esteeme,
And the more ill hee does, the better seeme.
Cler. Wee easily may beleeve it, since we see
In this worlds practise few men better be.
Justice to live doth nought but justice neede,130
But policie must still on mischiefe feede.
Untruth, for all his ends, truths name doth sue in;
None safely live but those that study ruine.
A good man happy is a common good;
Ill men advanc’d live of the common bloud.135
Gui. But this thy brothers spirit startles mee,
These spirits seld or never hanting men
But some mishap ensues.
Cler. Ensue what can;
Tyrants may kill but never hurt a man;
All to his good makes, spight of death and hell.140
Enter Aumall.
Aumale. All the desert of good renowne your Highnesse!
Gui. Welcome, Aumall!
Cler. My good friend, friendly welcome!
How tooke my noblest mistresse the chang’d newes?
Aum. It came too late sir, for those loveliest eyes
(Through which a soule look’t so divinely loving,145
Teares nothing uttering her distresse enough)
She wept quite out, and, like two falling starres,
Their dearest sights quite vanisht with her teares.
Cler. All good forbid it!
Gui. What events are these!
Cler. All must be borne, my lord; and yet this chance150
Would willingly enforce a man to cast off
All power to beare with comfort, since hee sees
In this our comforts made our miseries.
Gui. How strangely thou art lov’d of both the sexes;
Yet thou lov’st neyther, but the good of both.155
Cler. In love of women my affection first
Takes fire out of the fraile parts of my bloud;
Which, till I have enjoy’d, is passionate
Like other lovers; but, fruition past,
I then love out of judgement, the desert160
Of her I love still sticking in my heart,
Though the desire and the delight be gone,
Which must chance still, since the comparison
Made upon tryall twixt what reason loves,
And what affection, makes in mee the best165
Ever preferd, what most love, valuing lest.
Gui. Thy love being judgement then, and of the minde,
Marry thy worthiest mistresse now being blinde.
Cler. If there were love in mariage, so I would;
But I denie that any man doth love,170
Affecting wives, maides, widowes, any women:
For neither flyes love milke, although they drowne
In greedy search thereof; nor doth the bee
Love honey, though the labour of her life
Is spent in gathering it; nor those that fat175
On beasts, or fowles, doe any thing therein
For any love: for as when onely nature
Moves men to meate, as farre as her power rules,
Shee doth it with a temperate appetite,
The too much men devoure abhorring nature,180
And in our most health is our most disease:
So, when humanitie rules men and women,
Tis for societie confinde in reason.
But what excites the beds desire in bloud,
By no meanes justly can be construed love;185
For when love kindles any knowing spirit,
It ends in vertue and effects divine,
And is in friendship chaste and masculine.
Gui. Thou shalt my mistresse be; me thinkes my bloud
Is taken up to all love with thy vertues.190
And howsoever other men despise
These paradoxes strange and too precise,
Since they hold on the right way of our reason,
I could attend them ever. Come, away;
Performe thy brothers thus importun’d wreake;195
And I will see what great affaires the King
Hath to employ my counsell which he seemes
Much to desire, and more and more esteemes. Exeunt.
Linenotes
53 doth oft like. Emended by ed.; Q, doth of like.
58 Lorraine. Emended by ed.; Q, Soccaine; see note on 55-61.
90 Repunctuated by ed.; Q has (;) at the end of the line.
141 All... renowne. Q, All the desert of good, renowne your Highnesse.
176 On. Shepherd, Phelps; Q, Or.