SPINOLA

Reports may brand, although they be untrue. Our honour by opinion must subsist, I am not for my partly ambitious Of the dull fame of stupid patience, To be admired for wanting common sense, Like Cato, that could let one spit in's face, And when he should have wiped off the disgrace With his sharp Sword, he did it with a Jest And his soft handcarcheife: This was that spirit Thou liftest above great Alexanders merit. I Must needs make a strong pretence to worth, That dare pretend, Justinian, to thy love; But when I find how much I violate The sacred Jaws of friendship, that refuse T'anatomize my very Soul to thee; I am compled ta'cknowledge mine own shame Or to suspect thy known fidelity: The plot, wherewith I labour, can admit No Council, but a necessary faith In the bold Actor, whose subsistence binds him To resolution, and to secrecy; All friendly trust is folly, every man Has one, to whom he will commit as much As is to him committed: our designs When once they creep from our own private breasts Do in a moment through the City fly, Who tells his secret sells his liberty: But shall I suffer this black treachery To boil within my doubtful breast? mischief Though it be safe, can never be secure, Or shall I ease my thoughts, and give it vent? Yes; prick a full swollen bladder to relax it, Or boar a hold 'ith bottom of the ship To cool a Calenture? dull fool thy life Is with thy fame concerned: beside the base Rejection of thy Son (lodged deeply here) He wrought the Senate to confer the charge Of our late aid lent Savoy against France, On rash Marinò, so to blast thy merit, Be confident, he that durst often venture Taffront thee, meant to prosecute thy ruin; And t'is no greater hazard to attempt Death, than disgrace, that makes his life contemptible: On then, be bold and secret, Spinola, So shalt thou reap the double benefit Of safety and revenge: all wickedness Is counted virtue, when it's prosperous; Be not by any reconcilement led To trust thy so, th'art safe when he is dead. How's this? I will devise a stratagem, shall needs No other hand but this, which I'll conceal From my own self, till instant time of Actium; For if I should disclose it in a place Where there are trees, or flowers, I am betrayed: I would not breathe it forth, unless it were After a dreadful thunder, that had purged The air, and frighted thence those subtle spies, That to our foes by night betray our plots. No wild rebellion of my passion can Make me neglect the friendship of that man. Ye Furies, active ministers of hell, That have your heads environed with Snakes, And in your cruel hands be are fiery scourges, Lend me your bloody torches to find out, And punish author of my deer son murder, Assist Megaera with a new revenge, Such as even thou wouldst fear to execute: Let a vast sea of blood overflow his house, And never ebb till I shall pity him; Ease now infernal ghosts, remove the stone From the Attic thief, and lay it on his shoulders, Let the swift stream deceive his endless thirst, And let his hands wind the unquiet wheel, That hourly tortures the Thessalian King: Let Vultures tire upon his growing Liver, But let'um never be tired; and fince there is One of the fifty Danaan sisters wanting, Let them admit that man into her room, And with their Pitchers only load his arms; How am Isure it's he? or if it be? It is the law of Retribution, And is but just, my conscience tells me so: Hence childish conscience, shall I live his scorn? And the whole Cities Pasquill? I abhor it, Were he protected by the thunderer, I'de snatch him from his bosom, and in spite Of his revengeful thunder, throw him quick Into the throat of the infernal dog; Or if that monster be not yet released, Since great Alcides dragged him in a chain, Through the amazed towns of Greece, Enceladus That with his earthbred flames affrighteth heaven, Rather then he shall escape, shall fire the world: But I delay, and wear away the time With empty words, why do I call for Furies? That bear in mine own breast a greater fury Then Acheron and night did ever hatch; I'll dart my self Like winged lightning on him; Have I no friend? Wilt thou allow me to take vengeance, speak, But speak Justinian with thy wonted faith. I have no skill in Law, and as for Justice, Your learned Stoics make it but a fool, A very animal. Dear Justinian, Fortune hath nothing left that's worth my hope, But thy affection; at thy sole command, I would attempt to swim the midland sea, When Aeolus and Neptune are at wars, Expose my self to the fierce Dragons jaws, Enraged by the theft of Hercules; At thy command I'll live; hark, hark, what's that? It is the voice of my dead son, that calls For vengeance; see, see where he stands and points At his still-bleeding wound; he bids me think What he had done ere now, had we changed fates; Did you not see him? Could both mine eyes and ears be so deceived. Alas, what shall I do? If you will have it so, My passion in my breast shall silence keep, I'll be as tame, as (what you wish me) sleep. I must exact your promise. Set me my bounds, and see if I transgress. Like a Statue. Thy crime was but diversion of and evil, Whereof I hate the memory, and wish I could drink deep of Lethe, to forget That impious design, and for these villains, I'll study a new punishment, that shall Transcend Perillus Bull, and all the torments Invented by the fierce Sicilian tyrants. The Harpies are flown suddenly to hell, And hang already on that hideous rock; Where dreadful fiends lie gaping to receive him; But let me, sir, become your faithful guide To lead you to my house, where you shall live, And want no comfort love or cost can give. The hateful found of Imperiale's name Would strike me deaf, my deer Justinian, Were it not tempered by thy gentle tongue, That had the art to make m'embrace and trust A reconciled foe, who hath rejected With scorn my hopeful son, as if his birth, Fortune, and parts, had not deserved that flirt His gilded daughter; but I tax not thee, Whose friendship is a gem without a foil, And hardly can be valued, never matched: I know thy milder studies chiefly bent To weed out Rancour from the minds of men, Smoothing rough nature with morality, And this becomes Philosophers: but I That do profess the art of killing men, Encouraged by all States, imposed by some Must follow other precepts: he is sure Of many wrongs, that will but one endure. I know not how the rigid schools define A father's power, in their begged principles, As if the freedom of the will extended To silly wenches, to restrain the power Of them that gave them first and second being; No, it was only his inveterate malice That closely lurked under a new feigned friendship That stuck on me and mine this contumely, Which ought to be resented far above And injury, by any generous spirit; What is there that should wound and active spirit, Like base contempt? Should we not then be jealous of our fame? What earthquake? what prodigious spectacle Hath struck you both with horror? Why should that so amaze or you? or me? Since death must be the lot of every man. How does it concern him? I am undone. Overreached? In my own plot? the sword of my revenge Turned on my self? and drowned in mine own bowels? I am betrayed, yet cannot suspect how; It could not be by any mortal subtlety, It was some devil lurking in the air; How shall I be revenged? Oh that he would Assume a humane body, that I might Encounter him! but I have found the way, I'll study the black art, turn Conjurer, And then impose a labour on them all, Worse then Ixion, or the Belides Are said to undergo. Nay then I see You're villains hired, suborned to undermine me. First you confound me with your horrid news, And then confess you may be both mistaken: But I am armed with patience, if Imperial Retaining still his late abjured malice, Hath by some hellish art contrived this mischief, I may in just resentment of my wrongs, Implore heavens vengeance, on his perjured head, And this is all you're Like to screw from me. O that name is Like A precious balm to cure the wounds of fortune! Oh faithful soul, my deer Francisco's murdered. AS the fly Fouler, having over night, Set cunningly his artificial net, Early returns, with and assured hope To find the fowl insnar'd, so are my thoughts Wholly possessed with present expectation Of the glad news of my successful plot; The managing whereof, I never can Within my self sufficiently applaud: I have not Like rash Piso, foolishly Dispersed my trust, nor Like the sons of Brutus, Disclosed my secret, where a servant might Discover, and betray; my wariness In a safe garden whispered my design, And but to one, that if it should miscarry, And he through fear or punishment confess, Yet I am sure to have but one accuser, Whose testimony my power and bold denial Would easily convince; but these mistrusts Are altogether needless: I may be As confident as those Sicilians, Who when their chief confederate was surprised, So much relied upon his resolution, As that not any one of them would fly, And so conceal their bold conspiracy. Behold my kinsmen bringing joyful news. Thus shall my silence break, into remorse, Not into rage, that fever of the soul Is quite converted to and Apathy; Let me cry out to fate, as Hannibal At Can, to his bloody Soldiers, spare; Imperial knowest thou the voice of Spinola? By the most faithful head of my Justinian (Than which there cannot be a holier found) I truly am moved with pity, thy sad story Would melt a flinty leart into compassion; Procrustes, or the wild Inhabitants Of horrid Caucasus are mild to these.