JER. O fortunate hour! bless’d minute! happy day! Able to ravish even my sense away! Now I remember too--O sweet remembrance!-- This day my years strike fifty, and in Rome They call the fifty year the year of jubilee, The merry year, the peaceful year, [the] jocund year, A year of joy, of pleasure and delight; This shall be my year of jubilee, for ’tis my fifty. Age ushers honour; ’tis no shame; confess: Beard, thou art fifty full, not a hair less. _Enter an_ EMBASSADOR. SPAIN. How now? what news for[290] Spain? tribute returned? EMB. Tribute in words, my liege, but not in coin. SPAIN. Ha! dare he still procrastinate with Spain? Not tribute paid! not three years paid! ’Tis not at his coin, But his slack homage, that we most repine. JER. My liege, if my opinion might stand firm Within your highness’ thoughts---- SPAIN. Marshal, Our kingdom calls thee father; therefore speak free. Thy counsel I’ll embrace, as I do thee. JER. I thank your highness. Then, my gracious liege, I hold it meet, by way of embassage, To demand his mind, and the neglect of tribute. But, my liege, Here must be kind words, which doth oft besiege The ears of rough-hewn tyrants more than blows; O, a politic speech beguiles the ears of foes. Marry, my liege, mistake me not, I pray; If friendly phrases, honey’d speech, bewitching accent, Well-tuned melody, and all sweet gifts Of nature, cannot avail or win him to it, Then let him raise his gall up to his tongue, And be as bitter as physicians’ drugs, Stretch his mouth wider with big swoll’n phrases. O, here’s a lad of mettle, stout Don Andrea, Mettle to the crown, Would shake the king’s high court three handfuls down. SPAIN. And well picked out, Knight Marshal; speech well-strung; I’d rather choose Horatio, were he not so young. HOR. I humbly thank your highness, In placing me next unto his royal bosom. SPAIN. How stand ye, lords, to this election? OMNES. Right pleasing, our dread sovereign. MED. Only, with pardon, mighty sovereign---- CAST. I should have chosen Don Lorenzo. MED. I, Don Rogero. ROG. O no; not me, my lords, I am war’s champion, and my fees are swords. Pray, king, pray, peers, let it be Don Andrea; He is a worthy limb, Loves wars and soldiers; therefore I love him. JER. And I love him and thee, valiant Rogero. Noble spirits, gallant bloods; You are no wise, insinuating lords, You ha’ no tricks, you ha’ none of all their sleights. LOR. So, so, Andrea must be sent embassador; Lorenzo is not thought upon: good! I’ll wake the court, or startle out some blood. SPAIN. How stand you, lords, to this election? OMNES. Right pleasing, our dread sovereign. SPAIN. Then, Don Andrea---- AND. My approved liege. SPAIN. We make thee our lord high embassador.