Against your forces, kill, but if yield, save.

Be secret!

ALANZO

I am charmed, Sir.

Exit Alanzo.

KING

Watch Valasco.

If any wear a Cross, feather or glove,

Or such prodigious signs of a knit faction,

Table their names up. At our court-gate plant

Good strength to bar them out, if once they swarm.

Do this upon thy life.

VALASCO

Not death shall fright me.

Exit [Valasco and Lopez,] enter Balthazar.

BALTHAZAR

‘Tis done, Sir.

KING

Death! What’s Done?

BALTHAZAR

Young cub’s flayed, but the she-fox shifting her hole is fled. The little jackanapes, the boy’s brained.

KING

Sebastian?

BALTHAZAR

He shall ne’r speak more Spanish.

KING

Thou teachest me to curse thee.

BALTHAZAR

For a bargain you set your hand to.

KING

Half my crown I’d lose were it undone.

BALTHAZAR

But half a crown! That’s nothing.

His brains stick in my conscience more than yours.

KING

How lost I the French doctor?

BALTHAZAR

As Frenchmen lose their hair. Here was too hot staying for him.

KING

Get thou from my sight, the Queen would see thee.

BALTHAZAR

Your gold, Sir.

KING

Go with Judas and repent.

BALTHAZAR

So men hate whores after lust’s heat is spent.

I’m gone, Sir.

KING

Tell me true, is he dead?

BALTHAZAR

Dead.

KING

No matter. ‘Tis but morning of revenge,

The sunset shall be red and tragical.

Exit King.

BALTHAZAR

Sin is a raven croaking <52> her own fall.

Exit Balthazar.

ACT 5 SCENE 2

Enter Medina , Daenia, Alba, Carlo and The Faction with Rosemary <53> in their hats.

MEDINA

Keep locked the door, and let none enter to us

But who shares our fortunes.

DAENIA

Lock the doors.

ALBA

What entertainment did the King bestow

Upon your letters and the Cardinal’s?

MEDINA

With a devouring eye he read them o’er,

Swallowing our offers into his empty bosom,

As gladly as the parched earth drinks healths

Out of the cup of heaven.

CARLO

Little suspecting

What dangers closely lie enambushed.

DAENIA
Let us not trust to that. There’s in his breast

Both fox and lion, and both these beasts can bite.

We must not now behold the narrowest loop-hole,

But presently suspect a winged bullet

Flies whizzing by our ears.

MEDINA

For when I let

The plummet fall to sound his very soul

In his close-chamber, being French-Doctor like,

He to the Cardinal’s ear sung sorcerous notes,

The burden of his song, to mine, was death,

Onaelia’s murder, and Sebastian’s.

And think you his voice alters now? ‘Tis strange,

To see how brave this tyrant shows in court,

Throned like a god. Great men are pretty stars,

When his rays shine, wonder fills up all eyes

By sight of him, let him but once check sin,

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 part too.

Open his breast, and with a sunbeam search it,

There’s no such man. This King of gilded clay,

Within is ugliness, lust, treachery,

And a base soul, though reared Colossus-like.

Balthazar beats to come in.

DAENIA

None till he speaks, and that we know his voice.

Who are you?

BALTHAZAR (within)

An honest house-keeper in RosemaryLane<54> too, if you dwell in the same parish.

MEDINA

Oh ‘tis our honest soldier, give him entrance.

BALTHAZAR

Men show like coarses, for I meet few but are stuck with Rosemary. Every one asked me who was married today, and I told them Adultery and Repentance, and that Shame and a Hangman followed them to church.

MEDINA

There’s but two parts to play, shame has done hers,

But execution must close up the scene,

And for that cause these sprigs are worn by all,

Bags of marriage, now of funeral,

For death this day turns courtier.

BALTHAZAR

Who must dance with him?

MEDINA

The King, and all that are our opposites.

That dart or this must fly into the court

Either to shoot this blazing star from Spain,

Or else so long to wrap him up in clouds,

Till all the fatal fires in him burn out,

Leaving his state and conscience clear from doubt

Of following uproars.

ALBA

Kill not, but surprise him.

CARLO

That’s my voice still.

MEDINA

Thine, soldier?

BALTHAZAR

Oh, this colic of a kingdom, when the wind of treason gets amongst the small guts, what a rumbling and a roaring it keeps. And yet, make the best of it you can, it goes on stinking. Kill a King?

DAENIA

Why?

BALTHAZAR

If men should pull the sun out of heaven every time ‘tis eclipsed, not all the wax nor tallow in Spain would serve to make us candles for one year.

MEDINA

No way to purge

The sick state, but by opening a vein.

BALTHAZAR

Is that your French physic? If every one of us should be whipped according to our faults, to be lashed at a cart’s tail would be held but a flea biting.

Enter Signor No.

MEDINA  whispers

What are you? Come from the King?

NO

No.

BALTHAZAR

No? More no’s? I know him, let him enter.

MEDINA

Signor, I thank your kind intelligence,

The news long since was sent into our ears,

Yet we embrace your love, so fare you well.

CARLO

Will you smell to a sprig of rosemary?

NO

No.

BALTHAZAR

Will you be hanged?

NO

No.

BALTHAZAR

This is either Signor No, or no Signor.

MEDINA

He makes his love to us a warning piece

To arm ourselves against we come to court,

Because the guard is doubled.

ALL

Tush, we care not.

BALTHAZAR

If any here arms his hand to cut off the head, let him first pluck out my throat. In any noble act I’ll wade chin-deep with you. But to kill a King?

MEDINA

No hear me...

BALTHAZAR

You were better, my Lord, sail five hundred times to Bantam <55> in the West Indies , that once to Barathrum in the Low Countries . It’s hot going under the line there, the calenture <56> of the soul is a most miserable madness.

MEDINA

Turn then this wheel of fate from shedding blood

Till with her own hand Justice weighs all.

BALTHAZAR

Good.

Exeunt.

ACT 5 SCENE 3

Enter Queen, Malateste.

QUEEN

Must then his trul <57> be once more sphered in court

To triumph in my spoils, in my eclipses?

And I like moping Juno sit, whilst Jove

Varies his lust into five hundred shapes

To steal to his whore’s bed! No Malateste,

Italian fires of Jealousy burn my marrow.

For to delude my hopes, the lecherous king

Cuts out this robe of cunning marriage,

To cover his incontinence, which flames

Hot, as my fury, in his black desires.

I am swollen big with child of vengeance now,

And till delivered, feel the throws of hell.

MALATESTE

Just is your imagination, high and noble,

And the brave heat of a true Florentine:

For Spain trumpets abroad her interest

In the King’s heart, and with a black coal draws

On every wall your scoffed at injuries,

As one that has the refuse of her sheets,

And the sick Autumn of the weakened King,

Where she drunk pleasures up in the full spring.

QUEEN

That, Malateste, that, that torrent wracks me.

But Hymen’s torch, held downward, shall drop out,

And for it, the mad Furies swing their brands

About the bride-chamber.

MALATESTE

The priest that joins them,

Our twin born malediction.

QUEEN

Loud it may speak.

MALATESTE

The herbs and flowers to strew the wedding way,

Be cypress, eugh, cold colliquintida. <58>

QUEEN

Herbane and poppy, and that magical weed

Which hags at midnight watch to catch the seed. <59>

MALATESTE

To these our execrations, and what mischief

Hell can but hatch in a distracted brain,

I’ll be the executioner, though it look

So horrid it can fright even murder back.

QUEEN

Poison his whore today, for thou shalt wait

On the King’s cup, and when heated with wine

He calls to drink the bride’s health, marry her

Alive to a gaping grave.

MALATESTE

At board?

QUEEN

At board.

MALATESTE

When she being guarded round about with friends,

Like a fairy land, hemmed with rocks and seas,

What rescue shall I find?

QUEEN

Mine arms. Dost faint?

Stood all the Pyrenean hills that part

Spain and our country, on each others shoulders,

Burning with Aetnean flame, yet thou should’st on,

As being my steel of resolution,

First striking sparkles from my flinty breast.

Wert thou to catch the horses of the sun

Fast by their bridles, and to turn back day,

Would’st thou not do it, base coward, to make way

To the Italians second bliss, revenge?

MALATESTE

Were my bones threatened to the wheel of torture

I’ll do it.

Enter Lopez.

QUEEN

A raven’s voice, and it likes me well.

LOPEZ

The King expects your presence.

MALATESTE

So, so we come.

To turn this bride’s day to a day of doom.

Exeunt.

ACT 5 SCENE 4

A banquet set out, cornets sounding; enter at one door, Lopez, Valasco, Alanzo, No. After them King, Cardinal, with Don Cockadillio, Bridegroom, Queen and Malateste after. At the other door, Alba, Carlo, Roderigo, Medina and Daenia leading Onaelia as bride, Cornego, and Juanna after, Balthazar alone. The Bride and Bridegroom kiss, and by the Cardinal are joined hand in hand. The King is very merry, hugging Medina very lovingly.

KING

For half Spain’s weigh in ingots I’d not lose

This little man today.

MEDINA

Not for so much

Twice told Sir, would I miss your Kingly presence.

Mine eyes have lost the acquaintance of your face

So long, and I so little late read o’er

That index of the royal book your mind,

That scarce, without your comment, can I tell

When in those leaves you turn o’er smiles or frowns.

KING

‘Tis dimness of your sight, no fault i’the letter. 

Medina, you shall find that free from erratas,

And for a proof, if I could breathe my heart

In welcome forth, this hall should ring naught else.

Welcome Medina, Good Marquis Daenia,

Dons of Spain all welcome.

My dearest love and Queen, be it your place

To entertain the bride, and do her grace.

QUEEN

With all the love I can, whose fire is such,

To give her heat, I cannot burn too much.

KING

Contracted bride, and bridegroom sit,

Sweet flowers not plucked in season lose their scent,

So will our pleasures. Father Cardinal,

Methinks this morning new begins our reign.

CARDINAL

Peace had her Sabbath ne’r till now in Spain .

KING

Where is our noble soldier Balthazar?

So close in conference with that Signor?

NO

No.

KING

What think’st thou of this great day Balthazar?

BALTHAZAR

Of this day? Why as of a new play, if it ends well, all’s well. All but men are but actors, now if you being the King should be out of your part, or the Queen out of hers, or your Dons out if theirs, here’s No will never be out of his.

NO

No.

BALTHAZAR

‘Twere a lamentable piece of stuff to see great statesmen have vile exits, but I hope there are nothing but plaudities in all your eyes.

KING

Mine I protest are free.

QUEEN

And mine by heaven.

MALATESTE [Aside]

Free from one good look till the blow be given.

KING

Wine. A full cup crowned to Medina’s health.