Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'AmboisChapman, George
General
Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois
Chapman, George
Bussy d'Amboise, 1549?-1579 -- Drama; English drama -- 17th century; Revenge -- Drama; Tragedies (Drama)
_Buss._ Who are Fates ministers?
_Beh._ The Guise and Monsieur.
_Buss._ A fit paire of sheeres
To cut the threds of kings and kingly spirits, 65
And consorts fit to sound forth harmony
Set to the fals of kingdomes. Shall the hand
Of my kind mistresse kill me?
_Beh._ If thou yeeld
To her next summons. Y'are faire warn'd; farewell!
_Thunders. Exit._
_Buss._ I must fare well, how ever, though I die, 70
My death consenting with his augurie.
Should not my powers obay when she commands,
My motion must be rebell to my will,
My will to life; if, when I have obay'd,
Her hand should so reward me, they must arme it, 75
Binde me, or force it; or, I lay my life,
She rather would convert it many times
On her owne bosome, even to many deaths.
But were there danger of such violence,
I know 'tis farre from her intent to send: 80
And who she should send is as farre from thought,
Since he is dead whose only mean she us'd. _Knocks._
Whose there? Look to the dore, and let him in,
Though politick Monsieur, or the violent Guise.
_Enter Montsurry like the Frier, with a letter written
in bloud._
_Mont._ Haile to my worthy sonne!
_Buss._ O lying Spirit, 85
To say the Frier was dead! Ile now beleeve
Nothing of all his forg'd predictions.
My kinde and honour'd father, well reviv'd!
I have beene frighted with your death and mine,
And told my mistresse hand should be my death, 90
If I obeyed this summons.
_Mont._ I beleev'd
Your love had bin much clearer then to give
Any such doubt a thought, for she is cleare,
And having freed her husbands jealousie
(Of which her much abus'd hand here is witnesse) 95
She prayes, for urgent cause, your instant presence.
_Buss._ Why, then, your Prince of Spirits may be call'd
The Prince of lyers.
_Mont._ Holy Writ so calls him.
_Buss._ What! writ in bloud!
_Mont._ I, 'tis the ink of lovers.
_Buss._ O, 'tis a sacred witnesse of her love. 100
So much elixer of her bloud as this,
Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firme
As heat to fire; and, like to all the signes,
Commands the life confinde in all my veines.
O, how it multiplies my bloud with spirit, 105
And makes me apt t'encounter death and hell.
But come, kinde father; you fetch me to heaven,
And to that end your holy weed was given. _Exeunt._
LINENOTES:
_with tapers_. A omits.
_Thunder._ A omits.
8 _Nods_. A, Crackes.
_Enter . . . Frier_. Placed after _heaven_ in Qq.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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