Act Five Scene Three
Enter Queen, Malateste.
QUEEN
Must then his trul <57> be once more sphered in court
To triumph in my spoils, in my eclipses?
And I like moping Juno sit, whilst Jove
Varies his lust into five hundred shapes
To steal to his whore’s bed! No Malateste,
Italian fires of Jealousy burn my marrow.
For to delude my hopes, the lecherous king
Cuts out this robe of cunning marriage,
To cover his incontinence, which flames
Hot, as my fury, in his black desires.
I am swollen big with child of vengeance now,
And till delivered, feel the throws of hell.
MALATESTE
Just is your imagination, high and noble,
And the brave heat of a true Florentine:
For Spain trumpets abroad her interest
In the King’s heart, and with a black coal draws
On every wall your scoffed at injuries,
As one that has the refuse of her sheets,
And the sick Autumn of the weakened King,
Where she drunk pleasures up in the full spring.
QUEEN
That, Malateste, that, that torrent wracks me.
But Hymen’s torch, held downward, shall drop out,
And for it, the mad Furies swing their brands
About the bride-chamber.
MALATESTE
The priest that joins them,
Our twin born malediction.
QUEEN
Loud it may speak.
MALATESTE
The herbs and flowers to strew the wedding way,
Be cypress, eugh, cold colliquintida. <58>
QUEEN
Herbane and poppy, and that magical weed
Which hags at midnight watch to catch the seed. <59>
MALATESTE
To these our execrations, and what mischief
Hell can but hatch in a distracted brain,
I’ll be the executioner, though it look
So horrid it can fright even murder back.
QUEEN
Poison his whore today, for thou shalt wait
On the King’s cup, and when heated with wine
He calls to drink the bride’s health, marry her
Alive to a gaping grave.
MALATESTE
At board?
QUEEN
At board.
MALATESTE
When she being guarded round about with friends,
Like a fairy land, hemmed with rocks and seas,
What rescue shall I find?
QUEEN
Mine arms. Dost faint?
Stood all the Pyrenean hills that part
Spain and our country, on each others shoulders,
Burning with Aetnean flame, yet thou should’st on,
As being my steel of resolution,
First striking sparkles from my flinty breast.
Wert thou to catch the horses of the sun
Fast by their bridles, and to turn back day,
Would’st thou not do it, base coward, to make way
To the Italians second bliss, revenge?
MALATESTE
Were my bones threatened to the wheel of torture
I’ll do it.
Enter Lopez.
QUEEN
A raven’s voice, and it likes me well.
LOPEZ
The King expects your presence.
MALATESTE
So, so we come.
To turn this bride’s day to a day of doom.
Exeunt.