THE DARK LADY. We shall see that, false lying hound, you and your filthy trull. _[With two vigorous cuffs, she knocks the pair asunder, sending the man, who is unlucky enough to receive a righthanded blow, sprawling an the flags]._ Take that, both of you! THE CLOAKED LADY. _[in towering wrath, throwing off her cloak and turning in outraged majesty on her assailant]_ High treason! THE DARK LADY. _[recognizing her and falling on her knees in abject terror]_ Will: I am lost: I have struck the Queen. THE MAN. _[sitting up as majestically as his ignominious posture allows]_ Woman: you have struck WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR. QUEEN ELIZABETH. _[stupent]_ Marry, come up!!! Struck William Shakespear quotha! And who in the name of all the sluts and jades and light-o'-loves and fly-by-nights that infest this palace of mine, may William Shakespear be? THE DARK LADY. Madam: he is but a player. Oh, I could have my hand cut off-- QUEEN ELIZABETH. Belike you will, mistress. Have you bethought you that I am like to have your head cut off as well? THE DARK LADY. Will: save me. Oh, save me. ELIZABETH. Save you! A likely savior, on my royal word! I had thought this fellow at least an esquire; for I had hoped that even the vilest of my ladies would not have dishonored my Court by wantoning with a baseborn servant. SHAKESPEAR. _[indignantly scrambling to his feet]_ Base-born! I, a Shakespear of Stratford! I, whose mother was an Arden! baseborn! You forget yourself, madam. ELIZABETH. _[furious]_ S'blood! do I so? I will teach you-- THE DARK LADY. _[rising from her knees and throwing herself between them]_ Will: in God's name anger her no further. It is death. Madam: do not listen to him. SHAKESPEAR. Not were it een to save your life, Mary, not to mention mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing. ELIZABETH. _[grimly]_ The son of your father shall learn his place in the presence of the daughter of Harry the Eighth. SHAKESPEAR. _[swelling with intolerant importance]_ Name not that inordinate man in the same breath with Stratford's worthiest alderman. John Shakespear wedded but once: Harry Tudor was married six times. You should blush to utter his name. THE DARK LADY. | Will: for pity's sake-- | _crying out_ | | _together_ ELIZABETH. | Insolent dog-- | SHAKESPEAR. _[cutting them short]_ How know you that King Harry was indeed your father? ELIZABETH. | Zounds! Now by-- | _[she stops to grind her teeth with rage]._