ELIZABETH. Be assured Had England chosen Marlowe, here to-night England had crowned him, and you in Surrey ditch Had lain where he lies, dead, my dead son, dead. Take you the kingship on you! SHAKESPEARE. A player-king-- ELIZABETH. As I a player-queen! I play my part Not ill, not ill. Judge me, my English peer, And witness for me, that I play not ill My part! And if by night, unseen, I weep, Scourging my spirit down the track of the years, Hating the name of Mary, as she said; Yet comes and goes my hour, and comes again, My hour, when I bear England in my breast As God Almighty bears His universe, England moves in me, I for England speak, As I speak now. It is not the shut door, But I, but England, holds you prisoner. SHAKESPEARE. But to what service, England, and what end? ELIZABETH. I send my ships where never ships have sailed, To break the barriers and make wide the ways For the after world. Send you your ships to the hidden lands of the soul, To break the barriers and make plain the ways Between man and man. Why else were we two born? SHAKESPEARE. What’s the worth of a play? ELIZABETH. My ships are not so great And ride not like firm islands of dry land As Philip’s do; yet these my cockle-boats Have used the vast world as a village pound, And fished for treasure above the planets’ bed In the drowned palaces where, water-bleached, Atlantis gleams as gleams the skull-white moon, Rolled in the overwhelming tides of time Hither and down the beaches of the sky. Send out your thoughts as I send out my men, To earn a world for England!--paying first The toll of the pioneer. I do not cheat. Here is the bill--reckon it ere you pay! SHAKESPEARE. Have I not paid?