SFORZA

But should we fail in the attempt? what then? He is always noble, But he'll undo us with a benefit, To give a kingdom is above requital. Excellent man, if to this welcome speech Thou givest as fair and answer. Exactly done. But leave us now, my noble Belgiosa, Till we may study a reward for thee. x. Belg. The twilight hastens, when Vitellio And Malatesta one of and high trust E Vitell. & . With our found Nephew, promised conference. And here they are. Is it decreed brave friends Shall it be swiftly done nay, 'tis no matter, Your colour says you dare not. Welcome Vitellio, thy hast is welcome: Nay compliment with him, whom thou wouldst kill, Be free to us as we do know thee true. Speak, yet I needs not bid thee, for thine eye Sparkles a joyful answer. It is done. Thou speakest true manhood: it's thy art alone That gives us certain honour: there are some Strive for Eternity with lose of life, At least with hazard of the lose of it, And think they are revenged when they are killed? These are our valiant duellists, and these Do bleed while we do conquer heal their wounds, While we receive none: then, at last, unfold (Man of deep Art, that canst prevent the Fates, And cut a thread, which they had thought to spun Forty years younger) thy wise mysteries. Thy constant, failing , Which cause a death, without a fear of death, Is this the liquour of Eternity? Ʋ itellio fallen as dead Then take thy ethe, and go sleep for ever. What Malatesta come? What Devil brought him hither? Oh cross stars Be sudden, Sforza, now, or thou art lost: He must believe out gilded was accident. M fa upon Ʋ itellio. Speak, my Vitellio Oh tune thy lips But to one syllable, but to one groan And I am satisfied. Shouldst thou die thus, how would my name be oil For though I am at guiltless of thy death, As Innocence, or if there be a name That hath less being: yet the envious world Will quit curft Fortune of so great a crime, And give it me: yet speak. Now, Malatesta, now When could unhappiness ra ne so, but now? As if he meant to be before his Lord, He had no sooner told the Prince must die, But he straight died. With thanks, a while, my Malatesta, leave us. x. Why should we longer think of other powers, And not bring offerings now to our own brain? Which gives us Agents of all kinds of men, And Kings alwell as poisoners: this w e King Must trouble Naples, who would trouble us, Divert invasions which are yet not made, And thus ou ends are cheaply brought about, We only at the charge of plot: they fight, And Galiazzo die, whom either King Were they not thus entangled, would preserve: We shall be conquerors without fighting thus, And their poor swords shall cut a way for us. S rg Vitellio. I'm for you France. HOW covetous thou art to learn mishap? Beatrice the answer kills thee. Dearest, I am lost, And in my ruin, thou. Oh what a busy torture woman is! I must say somewhat, but the main is silence, Vitellioes lose, yes, that hathlost me too: No sooner killed then lost, so strangely gone, As if the dead had learned a motion So to convey themselves unto the graven. Will you be still unkind? Alas, poor child, I could have wished thee longer life, but since Heavens willis otherwise, it blasphemy To storm at that which is the will of heaven. I hate that impotent rebellion. Noble friend Stand thou, and our State stands: o why do men Cry out on Age, on eating Age? as though Our many griefs were from our many years, And the last times were worst: we rather find That nothing is so dangerous to Kings As a young Principality: for 'tis With them almost as with young plants, which yield Unto the least entreaty of the wind, And needs no stronger blast, but gaining Age Scarce stoop to thunder: may we once arise Unto this happy firmness of estate, This blessed maturity of Prince, we stand Fearless of fallen, but if heaven envy us And have decreed our fuine with our rising, Yet such weel have it void of all base fears Our foes shall grieve our ruin was not theirs. I must once more be cruel, yet not I, This is the murder of Necessity: But what has he deserved, who has done nought But what we charged, and so performed our thought? Is Death endue to Obedience can this hand Yield to his Fate, that fe ed to his command? Yet he, or I must perish: shall I see My life, my honour, my Eternity Lie at his mercy, and be safe, so long As he is pleased to temper his rude tongue? Till he be drunk, or treacherous? I'll first Study amongst all actions, which is worst And overact it though our former deed Was from ambition, this is yet from needs: Death is too good reward for such a slave, Enter Mala testam. And sure there is no blabbing in the graven. But here he comes: why are thy looks so grim? Why, Malatesta, in thy urrow'd face See I the signs of Anger, or of Grief? Command thy face to a more smiling form, That I may think thee pleased when thou dost tell What does displease thee. First we thank Heaven, by whose most gracious aid We have the means, and reason to thank you. Now we begin to lift up our faint heads, And entertain, though scarce believe a peace: Now Italy at length has lost her yoke, Which she was wont to give, but never bear, And therefore wondered at the strangeness more Then at the weight of't: in this noble act Sforza claims nothing but the happiness, Which he acknowledges received from you. We know our self so underneath this praise, That could we but suspect untruth in you, Wee'd call all this but mockery. Sforza will never gain say the general voice, Your love I Like beyond your gift: kind Heavens! Show by my governments integrity You were the peoples prompter, and I'll show (If you but actuate my joust desires) I only am their Duke in goodness: since Milan hath chosen, it shall applaud her Prince. Why my Ascanio? Fortune is fearful of so foul a crime. Come nearer, my deer Cardinal, and tell In easier terms what 'tis that troubles you: Is Galeazzo is death divulged? You speak what you suspect, not what is true, Does speech come from the dead? can their dried nerves Borrow a tongue for accusation? This is no other then the voice of Gilded, The speech of our home-executioner: And yet I fear—and yet what should I fear? Blood hath strange organs to discourse withal, It is a clamorous Orator, and then Enter Sanse verin, Halber deers & Vitel. Even Nature will exceed her self to tell A crime so thwarting Nature. Thou art all goodness, and deservest of us Beyond the niggardly reward of thanks: But what are you that thus be cloud your face, Who, not unlike that over-bashful fowl, He discourse himself. Delight in darkness? Would! Vitellio! The wonder is resolved by a new wonder. Fool that I was, who thought to take thy life By that which nourished it: there's none so mad Would poison Serpents, I'll work surely now, Once more I'll try your immortality. Strangle the Monster. WE are not man, for such and empty thing Could not have this solidity of joy: Say the French King is dead, and say withal We are immortal, and ones happy truth, Shall expiate for the others flattery. But speak the manner too as well, as death Ascanio, you make him live too long, Tell how he died, without more circumstance. Who hearing this would not erect his soul To a contempt of Fortune! that blind wretch Whom only sottishness hath Deified? Man hath a nobler Godhead in himself, His virtue and his wisdom, unto these Bend all our knees let us still honour these: And count it comfort in our lowest state, He that is with e, would not be fortunate. WE leave it to your care, Sanseverin; But see the night grows old, good rest my Lords Why stayst thou my Aurelio? good boy I'll see no bed to night; then go, yet stay, If they have not escaped thy memory Sing me those verses which you made of sleep. Villain be dumb: we are too tamely mild That deadmen dare affront us, assume flesh, And we will make a second ghost of thee. WHat noise is this that from a foreign foe Recalls our anger? yet our purer hands Know not the die of blood: we should be loath To learn a valour on our subjects first. Whither villain? Oh envious heaven! why do you give Men such hard precepts of mortality, And take them hence before that they can learn? Must not she live, because she lived too well? Alas my wife! Who dared that groan? good Cardinal, no more, I know not what I could deny to thee: Take to thee all for what the French so toil, But kindly leave my grief unto my self. This is conspiracy: Caiazzo false? Tell me that contradictions then are true, Tell me the heavens no more do travel now Being grown inconstant to their motion: Or that the Earth pursy with too long ease Would with a walk at length refresh her self: Tell me that Princes may be fortunate, Those that Like me are credulous: or if You'd speak of things more hard to be believed, Tell me, there are, that birth of fear, called Gods, And if they be, that they do think of Man: Tell me, Oh prithee tell me somewhat else, Or I shall think thee false, and not Caiazzo, But I do know thee true, know thy wounds true, E Sanseu And must conclude Caiazzo is most false. I did expect this: was not man at first Placed on this curious Theater, to see How he could act all parts: do we not know What we can fear is nothing? providence Long since hath spent our fear; for a wise man, When he does found his happiness, forecasts Mischiefs, that Fate had never practised yet, Which if they happen, if they prove too true, They meet, not overtake him, and so find A scorn, because a preparation. I knew it might be thus, though I not feared, And know it may be better, though not hope: Yet let us never despair, nor by low thoughts Excuse Fate for her present injury. And when once more her favours we shall feel, Then say, that Fortune has no standing wheel. Oh What is man? and all that happiness That puffs him to security? to day One acts a Prince, and swelled with Majesty Fills a proud throne, from whence the Multitude Thinks he rules Fortune too, as well as them, While she in joust esteem of her own name, Makes him forgotten, or odious, that none Can be so miserably fooled, to wish His well-appareled misery: thus we That did enjoy beyond a Crown, a brain Able to meet, or challenge the worst chance: Yet in the space of a few days, a space Of too short lasting to expel a man (By the most subtle fetches of the Law) Out of a false inheritance: we lost, We were expelled out of a Monarchy; But does Fate make a stand at this? Oh no, She is not constant, no not in her curse, But giving most again, which once was mine She gives me too the capability Of a new curse. No more, my dearest friend: we loose all time Which we do save from fight, still there does flock New forces to our Army, and the French Are now as much amazed, as proud before: We lately took the Swizzers into pay, Those that dare fell their lives to any cause, Whom Gold hath armed for me: if they proceed In their first heat, we win: but if they fail We cannot be more wretched then we were: The vilest chance of luck can make us know But and Addition to and Overthrow. Yes they are passed: Thou art made up all of disloyalty, Reason hath nothing of thee: yet relate (If thou hast any relics left of sense, I'll not conjure thee by strange Honesty) Why dost thou leave the heavens, and us, and so For nothing dost commit a double Treason? Yet stay: what is the price That makes thee treacherous, I'll turn prodigal To buy thee to a virtue: stay: be rich, Without a curse, without a fault. Oh hard strait, Must Sforza impotently hide himself? Or can a Prince be hid? I have oft herd Sparks of Divinity adorn his face, To clear him from the multitude: why then, The being a Prince will make us be no Prince, We being betrayed by our own Majesty. Yet off you envied robes, fallen to the Earth, Oh fallen so low, that henceforth Man may scorn The labour of descent to take you up: On, on, you happy robes, that Like good clouds Do not obscure, but for a time defend The threatened Sun, that he may after shine With higher vigour: I have herd of some, That wear their flesh with haircloth for their crimes, As thinking to be good if they were rough, By such a wild repentance: be it so Enter Triulcio with the French. These robes offended, then there is and hope These rags may expiate heaven Oh my brain! Must subtlety perish by subtlery? And our high wisdom find a Conqueror? Make and end Nature, the great work is done, Sforza is overreached—weak, childish rage: Is this to lessen, or make misery? Can passion lose us, or a courteous tear Wash off our fetters? if it can, pour eyes, Pour out wet comfort; if it can, refuse The curse of slumber, but it cannot, then Covet a slumber everlastingly, And be Like , imprisoned in your lid . Convey us quickly hence, kind friends, you know Sforza can never be a prisoner here. Convey us thither where we are no Prince. And must we woo our Ruin? never man Is a true wretch, but when he loses all, And wants the sad Election of his fallen But had you it? Did not our enemies sharp espies desery The depth of our hid counsels? Then since we are alone, and in a place Free from the bold intrusion of and eye, Feign Us the Prince to whom we sent you forth, And speak our Embassy unto our self. We would gladly have A poison teach him linger to his death, And a month hence we shall expect his knell. Ex. Now are we entered, and now to retire Were the worse treason: Like and enraged fire The more we are opposed, the more we'll spread And make our foes our fuel: to be head We'll cut off any member, and condemn Virtue of folly for a Diadem, Banish Religion, and make blood as cheap As when two Armies turned into one heap Of carcases, lie grou ling, what care we For the slight tainture of disloyalty? None will commend the raze till it be run, And these are deeds not praised till they are done. I know thou speakest what thou thinkest best: but know, 'Tis wisdom to delay on equal fame: But when a foe has won opinion, Which draws all eyes, and hearts to him, Oh then A valiant desperation fits a man: For victory is not impossible, And honour necessary: my best friend, Call forth our Swizzers, and if happy swords Though few, may cut a way to glory, come: Enter Captain with Swiz: The purchase is above the pains: but here Come they that shall fill histories: brave friends Now is the time we shall employ your swords, And teach the world your valour. This Paper holds A strange perfume, of such a cunning virtue, That at a distance it scarce smells at all. And at the nose it gives the best of sents. Make the experiment: Stop that malignant throat.—Oh my Ascanio, Thus must they toil which work and hight by blood, How I could wish and innocent descent To new subjection? how I hate that wish How scorn all thoughts that have not danger in them Get us more Remora's, sweet Cardinal, Or rather then to droop to Idleness Wee'll work to be no Prince, our self recalling: In rising, most, some wit there is in falling. Pretty Philosophy! go boy, go sleep, x. Enjoy the good thou singest—this boy can sleep, Sleep quietly, and sing himself asleep: Making that gentle Rest unto his Song. But lle go read: what have we here? a Map? Welcome thou lively picture of the world: Now I'll peruse my large Dominions, What a vast compass they do fill in thee? How Poe is wearied with his tedious course, But running only through our Continent? Would! where is Poe? which is our Continent? If that my eyes deceive me not, I see My Empire is comprized within my nail: What a poor point I me Master of? a blot Made by the swiftest tincture of the Ink? But what did this point cost me? this small blot? My innocence, my conscience, my soul; I killed a Nephew, to obtain this blot. Oh horrid purchase! all this toil, this gilded For so despised a Nothing? let me see, Here is no room to fit, to walk, to stand, In all my land I cannot place my self, Nor be at all, where I would be the Duke. But the sad tapers do deny their light, And stranger fire supplies and horrid day Of Lightning: help us, heaven, make us confess, Asc umb. Gall There is a Power in your Mercy too. Sanseverin, thy fear is too too found, And Like the people, the Authority, Who make and impious confusion Of and high birth, and of and higher crime: Who in a saucy thwarting to their Prince, Count him still worst, whom he has made the best, As if we gave him, with his honours, crimes, And made him vicious, when fortunate. No, let them spend their breath in idle talk, Count thee or treacherous, or cowardly? While to thy Sforza thou art still the same, Most valiant, and with thy valour, wise, That by thy abstinence a while from war, Hast saved us forces for a victory. SForza as yet thou but beginnest to act, And yet beginnest to stagger: Wertenberg thou not A Princes son? why art thou not a Prince? Protectors are but subjects, and this staff But shows me under whose command I am. Is this our hindrance that our mother first Swelled with another? what her womb denied Our head shall give, or we will lose our head, What was her labour to a Crown? Perhaps A monster might have filled her first, a thing Of royal prodigy, and should this thing Grow to be hooted to a crown before us? Or if that Crowns be endue to the most years, Why should the Nephew be the Uncle's Lord? And Laws of Nations conquer those of Nature? Nature intended Sovereignty to them Of sovereign understanding; to the rest, How ever aged, but subjection, Which Isabella would detain us in: And while she trusts to Naples, our sad brow May sooner wear willow, then Diadems. E ter Belgiosa Returned so soon, my Belgiosa? thanks, Before I hear thy message, for thy hast. Thou shalt hear all The French have conquered Naples, and which draws Blood from our soul, without a drop of blood: When thus we plotted it, that when both Kings Had wearied out themselves with equal slaughter, And here Alphonso tottered, and there Charles; When lose had ceiz'd the conqueror, then we Would have amazed the conqueror afresh With new alarms: when by the flattery Of chance, France gets a kingdom without blood, And by dry victory has undone a plot Worth many Kingdoms: I presumed on this, Naples had soldiers enough to last Killing a year, in which space, we resolved To arm all Italy against the French, And cunningly driven out, whom we called in: Which, ere we could accomplish, is disclosed, And conquering France intends to hinder it, By our invasion: o my policy! Must I be wounded with the sword I gave? And find those enemies, whom only I Enabled to my injury? well; heaven, Your kindness is a miracle sometime, Beyond all reason, but your curse is wit, Enter Ascan. My fault is my faults punisher. How my Ascanio? Recall thy self, good Cardinal, what Duke? While Galeazzo lives? And what? Canst thou fear shadows? Heavens what a stillness here is? what a death Of the whole man at once? the wandering eye Now finds a station, and the busy pulse Is now for ever idle: where's the tongue That but even now could say as much as this, When that the soul could prompt it? but even now Here was a thing could speak, and poison too, That knew more ways to kill, then ever Heaven Did to make man: and could his subtlety, That could give death, not know to keep out death? Fie, what a bulk it is, what a great lump Of Nothing, that shall loose that nothing too? What a dead toy is Man, when his thin breath Flies to its kindred Air? o why at all Did Heaven bestow, or why at all bereave Man of this Vapour of Eternity? And must we one day be a stock Like this, Fit only to enrich the greedy Earth, And fill and house of Death, perhaps before We see the issue of another Plot? Must we lie subject to be trampled on, By some, perhaps not Politicians? Where's then our Wisdom? our deep Providence Are they dirt too? o heavens! but if they are Or dirt or nothing, I'll enjoy my fame. And rottenness shall ceize me, not my name. I find A certain grumbling against Fortune here: Which that I may whet to a lively rage, Repeat Maluezzo her last treachery Against the French, and Neopolitan. 'Tis true Not the world only but a man's a ball, Will Fortune never leave her tossing him My fact; None can be guilty of this crime, but I: That after Treason durst again trust treason. This very man, whose easy heart relents At a French death, and wisely is afraid His manners might be called in question, If he should put them off to sue again, To ask the second time, for what he held: Out of his zeal to virtue, and good luck, Did the Like act for us, and gave a strength Ent. Mal. wounded Which all our Duchy never could have forced. What more revolting yet? Speak low, Let not the air feel such a treason, know There is a power above us, and that power Thunders sometime, I know, thou darest not stand In contestation with the power of heaven: Revoke thy words.