Act 1 Scene 2
A table set out covered with black. Two waxen tapers. The King’s [defaced] picture at one end and a crucifix at the other. Onaelia [dressed in black] walking discontentedly weeping to the crucifix.
A Song.
QUESTION
Oh sorrow, sorrow, say where do’st thou dwell?
ANSWER
In the lowest room of hell.
QUESTION
Art thou born of human race?
ANSWER
No, no. I have a fury’s <2> face.
QUESTION
Art thou in city, town or court?
ANSWER
I to every place resort.
QUESTION
O why into the world is sorrow sent?
ANSWER
Men afflicted best repent.
QUESTION
What dost thou feed on?
ANSWER
Broken sleep.
QUESTION
What takest thou take pleasure in?
ANSWER
To weep,
To sigh, to sob, to pine, to groan,
To wring my hands, to sit alone.
QUESTION
Oh when, oh when, shall sorrow quiet have?
ANSWER
Never, never, never, never,
Never till she finds a grave.
Enter Cornego.
CORNEGO No lesson Madam but Lacrymae’s? <3> If you had buried nine husbands, so much water as you might squeeze out of an onion had been tears enough to cast away upon fellows that cannot thank you. Come, be jovial.
ONAELIA
Sorrow becomes me best.
CORNEGO
A suit of laugh and lie down would wear better.
ONAELIA
What should I do to be merry, Cornego?
CORNGO
Be not sad.
ONELIA
But what’s the best mirth in the world?
CORNEGO Marry this, to see much, say little, do little, get little, spend little and want nothing.
ONELIA
Oh, but there is a mirth beyond all these;
This picture has so vexed me, I’m half mad,
To spite it therefore, I’ll sing any song
Thyself shall tune. Say then, what mirth is best?
CORNEGO Why then Madam, what I knock out now is the very marrowbone of mirth and this it is.
ONELIA
Say on.
CORNEGO The best mirth for a lawyer is to have fools to his clients; for citizens to have noblemen pay for their debts; for tailors to have store of satin brought in, for then how little soever their houses are, they will be sure to have large yards. The best mirth for bawds is to have fresh handsome whores, and for whores to have rich gulls come aboard their pinnaces <4>, for then they are sure to build galleasses <5>.
ONELIA
These to such souls are mirth, but to mine, none.
Away.
Exit Cornego, Enter Cardinal.
CARDINAL
Peace to you, Lady.
ONELIA
I will not sin so much as to hope for peace
And ’tis a mock ill suits your gravity.
CARDINAL
I come to knit the nerves of your lost strength,
To build your ruins up, to set you free
From this your voluntary banishment,
And give new being to your murdered fame.
ONELIA
What Aesculapius <6> can do this?
CARDINAL
’Tis from the King I come.
ONELIA
A name I hate.
Oh, I am deaf now to your embassy.
CARDINAL
Hear what I speak.
ONELIA
Your language breathed from him
Is death’s sad doom upon a wretch condemned.
CARDINAL
Is it such poison?
ONELIA
Yes, and were you crystal,
What the King fills you with would make you break.
You should my Lord, be like these robes you wear,
Pure as the dye, and like that reverend shape
Nurse thoughts as full of honour, zeal and purity.
You should be the court-dial, and direct
The King with constant motion, be ever beating,
Like to clock-hammers, on his iron heart
To make it sound clear and to feel remorse.
You should unlock his soul, wake his dead conscience
Which, like a drowsy sentinel, gives leave
For sin’s vast armies to beleaguer him.
His ruins will be asked for at your hands.
CARDINAL
I have raised up a scaffolding to save
Both him and you from falling. Do but hear me.
ONAELIA
Be dumb for ever.
CARDINAL
Let your fears thus die:
By all the sacred relics of the church
And by my holy orders, what I minister
Is even the spirit of health.
ONAELIA
I’ll drink it down into my soul at once.
CARDINAL
You shall.
ONAELIA
But swear.
CARDINAL
What conjurations can more bind my oath?
ONAELIA
But did you swear in earnest?
CARDINAL
Come, you trifle.
ONAELIA
No marvel, for my hopes have been so drowned
I still despair, say on.
CARDINAL
The King repents.
ONAELIA
Pray, that again my Lord.
CARDINAL
The King repents.
ONAELIA
His wrongs to me?
CARDINAL
His wrongs to you. The sense of sin
Has pierced his soul.
ONAELIA
Blessed penitence!
CARDINAL
Has turned his eyes <7> into his leprous bosom
And like a king vows execution
On all his traitorous passions.
ONAELIA
God-like justice!
CARDINAL
Intends in person presently to beg
Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you.
ONAELIA
Heaven pardon him. I shall.
CARDINAL
Will marry you.
ONAELIA
Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist?
When? When?
CARDINAL
Before the morrow sun hath rode
Half his day’s journey, will send home his Queen
As one that stains his bed, and can produce
Nothing but bastard issue to his crown.
Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement?
ONAELIA
I am so stored with joy that I can now
Strongly wear out more years of misery
Than I have lived.
Enter King.
CARDINAL
You need not: here is the King.
KING
Leave us.
Exit Cardinal.
ONAELIA
With pardon sir, I will prevent you
And charge upon you first.
KING
’Tis granted, do.
But stay, what mean these emblems of distress?
My picture so defaced, opposed against
A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you
Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral?
ONAELIA
Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then
The cause that now seems strange explains itself.
This and the image of my living wrongs
Is still confronted by me to beget
Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time.
This cross, the object of my wounded soul
To which I pray to keep me from despair;
That ever as the sight of one throws up
Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head.
Turning to that, mercy may check despair
And bind my hands from wilful violence.
KING
But who has played the tyrant with me thus,
And with such dangerous spite abused my picture?
ONAELIA
The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself
For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame,
Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity,
Made, by your act, the shame of all my house,
The hate of good men and the scorn of bad,
The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar,
And left alone to bear up all these ills
By you begun, my breast was filled with fire
And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman
On that dumb picture wreaked I my passions.
KING
And wished it had been I.
ONAELIA
Pardon me Sir,
My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high.
KING
I will descend and cease to be a King,
To leave my judging part, freely confessing
Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name.
And here to make thy apprehension full,
And seat thy reason in a sound belief
I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun
Begins his journey, with all ceremonies
Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials,
To prive <8> thy son with full consent of state,
Spain’s heir apparent, born in wedlock’s vows.
ONAELIA
And will you swear to this?
KING
By this I swear.
[Takes up Bible.]
ONAELIA
Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book!
KING
Why then, by this.
[Takes up crucifix.]
ONAELIA
Take heed you print it deeply:
How for your concubine, bride I cannot say,
She stains your bed with black adultery,
And though her fame masks in a fairer shape
Than <9> mine to the world’s eye, yet King, you know
Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers,
However butchered in opinion.
KING
This way for her, the contract which thou hast,
By best advice of all our Cardinals,
Today shall be enlarged till it be made
Past all dissolving. Then to our council table
Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told
The church commands her quick return for Florence
With such a dower as Spain received with her,
And that they will not hazard heaven’s dire curse
To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint
The issue of the King with bastardy.
This done, in state majestic come you forth,
Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers.
Are you resolved?
OMAELIA
To doubt of this were treason
Because the King has sworn it.
KING
And will keep it.
Deliver up the contract then, that I
May make this day end with thy misery.
ONAELIA
Here as the dearest Jewel of my fame
Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes.
This your indenture, held alone the life
Of my supposed dead honour; yet behold,
Into your hands I redeliver it.
Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow,
To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow.
[Onaelia passes the document to the King.]
KING
’Tis in the lion’s paw, and who dares snatch it?
Now to your beads and crucifix again.
ONAELIA
Defend me heaven!
KING
Pray there may come Embassadors from France
Their followers are good customers.
ONAELIA
Save me from madness!
KING
’Twill raise the price, being the King’s mistress.
ONAELIA
You do but counterfeit to mock my joys.
KING
Away bold strumpet!
ONAELIA
Are there eyes in heaven to see this?
KING
Call and try, here’s a whore’s curse
To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse.
Exit King, Enter Cornego.
CORNEGO How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman’s keeper. Why, Madam!
ONAELIA
Ha! Where is the King, thou slave?
[Clutches Cornego.]
CORNEGO
Let go your hold, or I’ll fall upon you as I am a man.
ONAELIA
Thou treacherous caitiff <10>, where is the King?
CORNEGO
He’s gone, but not so far as you are.
ONAELIA
Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements,
And grind me into powder
CORNEGO What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too.
ONAELIA
Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin?
Let it fall, now let it fall upon me!
CORNEGO
No, there has been too much fallen upon you already.
ONAELIA
Thou villain, leave thy hold, I’ll follow him
Like a raised ghost, I’ll haunt him, break his sleep,
Fright him as he is embracing his new leman <11>,
Til want of rest bids him run mad and die,
For making oaths bawds to his perjury.
CORNEGO Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill, for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already.
ONAELIA
I’m left quite naked now; all gone, all, all.
CORNEGO
No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me.
Here comes your Uncle.
Enter Medina.
ONAELIA
Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle?
MEDINA
More horrors yet?
ONAELIA
’Twas never full till now,
And in this torrent all my hopes lie drowned.
MEDINA
Instruct me in the cause.
ONAELIA
The King, the contract!
Exit Onaelia.
CORNEGO
That’s cud enough for you to chew upon.
Exit Cornego.
MEDINA
What’s this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract.
The mischief I divine which proving true,
Shall kindle fires in Spain to melt his crown
Even from his head. Here’s the decree of fate:
A black deed must a black deed expiate.
Exit Medina.