Balthazar
To that heat we came, our drums beat, pikes were shaken and shivered, swords and targets clashed and clattered, muskets rattled cannons roared, men died groaning, brave laced jerkings and feathers looked pale, tottered rascals fought pell mell. Here fell a wing, there heads were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own story: veni, vidi, vici.
KING
A pitched field, quickly fought. Our hand is thine,
And because thou shalt not murmur that thy blood
Was lavished forth for an ungrateful man,
Demand what we can give thee and ’tis thine.
BALTHAZAR
Only your love.
KING
’Tis thine, rise soldier’s best accord
When wounds of wrong are healed up by the sword.
Onaelia knocks loudly at the door.
ONAELIA
Let me come in, I’ll kill the treacherous King,
The murderer of mine honour, let me come in.
KING
What woman’s voice is that?
ALL
Medina’s niece.
KING
Bar out that fiend.
ONAELIA
I’ll tear him with my nails,
Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me.
KING
Keep her from following me. A guard.
ALANZO
They are ready, sir.
KING
Let a quick summons call our Lords together,
This disease kills me.
BALTHAZAR
Sir, I would be private with you.
KING
Forebear us, but see the doors are well guarded.
Exeunt [King and Balthazar remain].
BALTHAZAR
Will you, Sir, promise to give me freedom of speech?
KING
Yes, I will, take it, speak any thing, ’tis pardoned.
BALTHAZAR You are a whoremaster. Do you send me to win towns for you abroad and you lose a kingdom at home?
KING
What kingdom?
BALTHAZAR The fairest in the world, the kingdom of your fame, your honour.
KING
Wherein?
BALTHAZAR I’ll be plain with you. Much mischief is done by the mouth of a cannon, but the fire begins at a little touch-hole. You heard what nightingale sung to you even now.
KING
Ha, ha, ha!
BALTHAZAR Angels erred but once and fell, but you Sir, spit in heaven’s face every minute and laugh at it. Laugh still, follow your courses, do. Let your vices run like your kennels of hounds, yelping after you till they pluck down the fairest head in the herd, everlasting bliss.
KING
Any more?
BALTHAZAR Take sin as the English snuff tobacco, and scornfully blow the smoke in the eyes of heaven, the vapour flies up in clouds of bravery. But when ’tis out, the coal is black, your conscience, and the pipe stinks. A sea of rosewater cannot sweeten your corrupted bosom.
KING
Nay, spit thy venom.
BALTHAZAR ’Tis Aqua Coelestis <23>, no venom. For when you shall clasp up these two books, never to be opened again, when by letting fall that anchor which can never more be weighed up, your mortal navigation ends. Then there’s no playing at spurn-point <24> with thunderbolts. A vintner then for unconscionable reckoning or a tailor for unmeasurable items shall not answer in half that fear you must.
KING
No more.
BALTHAZAR I will follow truth at the heels, though her foot beat my gums in pieces.
KING
The barber that draws out a lion’s tooth
Curseth his trade; and so shalt thou.
BALTHAZAR
I care not.
KING
Because you have beaten a few base-born moors,
Me think’st thou to chastise? What is past I pardon,
Because I made the key to unlock thy railing;
But if thou dar’st once more be so untuned
I’ll sent thee to the galleys. Who are without there,
How now?
Enter [guards and attendants] drawn.
ALL
In danger, Sir?
KING
Yes, yes, I am, but ’tis no point of weapon
Can rescue me. Go presently and summon
All our chief Grandees, Cardinals, and Lords
Of Spain to meet in Council instantly.
We called you forth to execute a business
Of another strain - but ’tis no matter now.
Thou diest when next thou furrowest up our brow.
BALTHAZAR
So, die!
Exit Balthazar, enter Cardinal, Rodrigo, Alba, Daenia, Valasco.
KING
I find my sceptre shaken by enchantments
Charactered in this parchment, which to unloose,
I’ll practice only counter-charms of fire,
And blow the spells of lightening into smoke:
Fetch burning tapers.
[Exit attendant who returns with light.]
CARDINAL
Give me audience, Sir.
My apprehension opens me a way
To a close fatal mischief, worse than this
You strive to murder. Oh, this act of yours
Alone shall give your dangers life, which else
Can never grow to height. Do, Sir, but read
A book here closed up, which too late you opened,
Now blotted by you with foul marginal notes.
KING
Art frantic?
CARDINAL
You are so, Sir.
KING
If I be,
Then here’s my first mad fit.
CARDINAL
For honour’s sake,
For love you bear to conscience -
KING
Reach the flames:
Grandees and Lords of Spain be witness all
What here I cancel. Read, do you know this bond?
ALL
Our hands are to it.
DAENIA
’Tis your confirmed contract
With my sad kinswoman: but wherefore Sir,
Now is your rage on fire, in such a presence
To have it mourn in ashes?
KING
Marquis Daenia
We’ll lend that tongue, when this no more can speak.
CARDINAL
Dear Sir!
KING
I am deaf,
Played the full concert of the spheres unto me
Upon their loudest strings - so burn that witch
Who would dry up the tree of all Spain’s glories,
But that I purge her sorceries by fire.
[Burns contract.]
Troy lies in cinders. Let your Oracles
Now laugh at me if I have been deceived
By their ridiculous riddles. Why, good father,
Now you may freely chide, why was your zeal
Ready to burst in showers to quench our fury?
CARDINAL
Fury indeed, you give it proper name.
What have you done? Closed up a festering wound
Which rots the heart. Like a bad surgeon,
Labouring to pluck out from your eye a mote,
You thrust the eye clean out.
KING
Th’art mad ex tempore:
What eye? Which is that wound?
CARDINAL
That scroll, which now
You make the black indenture of your lust
Although eat up in flames, is printed here,
In me, in him, in these, in all that saw it,
In all that ever did but hear ’twas yours.
The scold of the whole world, fame, will anon
Rail with her thousand tongues at this poor shift
Which gives your sin a flame greater than that
You lend the paper. You to quench a wild fire,
Cast Oil upon it.
KING
Oil to blood shall turn,
I’ll lose a limb before the heart shall mourn.
Exeunt, Daenia and Alba remain.
DAENIA
He’s mad with rage or joy.
ALBA
With both; with rage
To see his follies checked, with fruitless joy
Because he hopes his contract is cut off,
Which divine justice more exemplifies.
Enter Medina.
MEDINA
Where’s the King?
DAENIA
Wrapped up in clouds of lightning.
MEDINA
What has he done? Saw you the contract torn?
As I did here a minion swear he threatened.
ALBA
He tore it not, but burned it.
MEDINA
Openly!
DAENIA
And heaven with us to witness.
MEDINA
Well, that fire
Will prove a catching flame to burn his kingdom.
ALBA
Meet and consult.
MEDINA
No more, trust not the air
With our projections, let us all revenge
Wrongs done to our most noble kinswoman.
Action is honours language, swords are tongues,
Which both speak best, and best do right our wrongs.
Exeunt.