English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Enter Medina, Daenia, Alba, Carlo and the Faction,
with Rosemary in their hats_.
_Med_. Keepe lock'd the doore and let none enter to us
But who shares in our fortunes.
_Daen_. Locke the dores.
_Alb_. What entertainment did the King bestow
Vpon your letters and the Cardinals?
_Med_. With a devouring eye he read 'em o're
Swallowing our offers into his empty bosome
As gladly as the parched earth drinks healths
Out of the cup of heaven.
_Carl_. Little suspecting
What dangers closely lye enambushed.
_Daen_. Let not us trust to that; there's in his brest
Both Fox and Lion, and both those beasts can bite:
We must not now behold the narrowest loope-hole
But presently suspect a winged bullet
Flyes whizzing by our eares.
_Med_. For when I let
The plummet fall to sound his very soule
In his close-chamber, being French-Doctor-like,
He to the Cardinals eare sung sorcerous notes;
The burthen of his song to mine was death,
_Onaelia's_ murder and _Sebastians_.
And thinke you his voyce alters now? 'Tis strange
To see how brave this Tyrant shewes in Court,
Throan'd like a god: great men are petty starres
Where his rayes shine; wonder fills up all eyes
By sight of him: let him but once checke sinne,
About him round all cry "oh excellent king!
Oh Saint-like man!" but let this King retire
Into his Closet to put off his robes,
He like a Player leaves his parte off, too:
Open his brest and with a Sunne-beame search it,
There's no such man; this King of gilded clay
Within is uglinesse, lust, treachery,
And a base soule tho reard Colossus-high.
(_Baltazar beats to come in_.)
_Daen_. None till he speakes and that we know his voyce:
Who are you?
_Within Bal_. An honest house-keeper in Rosemary-lane, too,
If you dwell in the same parish.
_Med_. Oh 'tis our honest Souldier, give him entrance.
_Enter Baltazar_.
_Bal_. Men show like coarses[215] for I meet few but are stuck with
Rosemary: everyone ask'd mee who was married to-day, and I told 'em
Adultery and Repentance, and that shame and a Hangman followed 'em
to Church.
_Med_. There's but two parts to play: shame has done hers
But execution must close up the Scaene,
And for that cause these sprigs are worne by all,
Badges of Mariage, now of Funerall,
For death this day turns Courtier.
_Bal_. Who must dance with him?
_Med_. The King, and all that are our opposites;
That dart or this must flye into the Court,
Either to shoote this blazing starre from Spaine
Or else so long to wrap him up in clouds
Till all the fatall fires in him burne out,
Leaving his State and conscience cleere from doubt
Of following uprores.
_Alb_. Kill not but surprize him.
_Carl_. Thats my voyce still.
_Med_. Thine, Souldier.
_Bal_. Oh, this Collicke of a kingdome! when the wind of treason gets
amongst the small guts, what a rumbling and a roaring it keepes! and
yet, make the best of it you can, it goes out stinking. Kill a King!
King!
_Daen_. Why?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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