Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons.
BALTHAZAR
Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are bound to do thee
honour. Mercer's <12> books show men's devotions to thee. Heaven
cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know me because I'm
poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich hose, my
silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf pairs of
imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the faithful
shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber
perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than
are a cats muschatoes <13>, these pied-winged butterflies had known
me then. Another fly-boat! <14> Save thee illustrious Don.
Enter Don Rodrigo.
Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier?
RODRIGO
No
BALTHAZAR
No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I wish to have thee
but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for thy no, but
whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask thee
if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read
Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay
thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! <15>
Enter Cockadillio.
Signor, is the King at leisure?
COCKADILLO
To do what?
BALTHAZAR
To hear a soldier speak.
COCKADILLO
I am no ear picker
To sound his hearing that way.
BALTHAZAR
Are you of court sir?
COCKADILLO
Yes, the King's barber.
BALTHAZAR
That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray.
COCKADILLO
Don Cockadillio
If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg at court,
I shall descend so low as to betray
Thy paper to the hand Royal.
BALTHAZAR
I beg, you whorson muscod <16>! My petition is written on my bosom in
red wounds.
COCKADILLO
I am no barber-surgeon.
Exit Cockadillio.
BALTHAZAR
You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor things as these, only
made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken rags and 'pothecary
drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells, when their rank guts
stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned-
doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced
linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their
reign, in clothes were ever worth.
These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the
beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with
that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the
court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he
win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned
to be a fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the
world's right arm, be cut thus by the left, a courtier? Is the world
all ruff and feather and nothing else? Shall I never see a tailor
give his coat with a difference from a gentleman?
Enter King, Alanzo, Carlo, Cockadillio.
KING
My Balthazar!
Let us make haste to meet thee. How art thou altered?
Do you not know him?
ALANZO
Yes Sir, the brave soldier
Employed against the Moors
KING
Half turned Moor!
I'll honour thee, reach him a chair, that table
And now, Aeneas-like, let thine own trumpet
Sound forth thy battle with those slavish Moors.
BALTHAZAR
My music is a Cannon, a pitched field my stage, Furies the actors,
blood and vengeance the scene, death the story, a sword imbrued with
blood, the pen that writes, and the poet a terrible buskined <17>
tragical fellow, with a wreath about his head of burning match
instead of bays.
KING
On to the battle.
BALTHAZAR
'Tis here without bloodshed. This our main battalia, that the van,
this the vaw <18>, these the wings, here we fight, there they fly,
here they insconce <19>, and here our sconces <20> lay seventeen
moons on the cold earth.
KING
This satisfies my eye, but now my ear
Must have his music too. Describe the battle.
BALTHAZAR
The battle? Am I come from doing to talking? The hardest part for a
soldier to play is to prate well. Our tongues are fifes, drums,
petronels <21>, muskets, culverin <22> and cannon. These are our
roarers, the clocks which we go by are our hands. Thus we reckon ten,
our swords strike eleven and when steel targets of proof clatter one
against another, then 'tis noon that's the height and the heat of the
day of battle.
KING
So.
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.