SULEIMAN

What be his troops? And army, or a Train? Come they to dwell, or to go back again? Within the Port, or where does he attend? What's the aspect between his own, and ours? Gains he, or wains he by approaching power? Change hath prepared her moulds for Innovation. I see inferior wheels of practice move, Yet they prevail not on the Powers above. His worth rests constant, and yet works this motion, They to him, for him, sacrifice at random All which they have, and have not, in devotion. He is the Glass, in which their light affections Come to behold what image they shall take: If liberty they find, then Anarchy they make. On time, place, truth, these spirits never rest. His worth, thus innocent, how can I fear? Their thoughts, thus violent, can Power digest? Then Government! thy hand must cut between My fearful dangers, and his fearless praise. In all States, Power, which oppresses spir S, Imprisons Nature, Empire disinherits. This Throne grew not by delicate alliance, Combining State with State, all States to Laws, Of idle Princes, and base subjects cause. We grew by curious improving all; Our selves to people, people unto us; Worth, through our selves, in them we planted thus. And shall I help to make succession less, Blasting the births of Nature and Example, In narrow fears of self-unworthiness? No, No: The art of Monarchy is more: Princes must strength by such succession gather, With future Hope's all present smarts are eased; Age hath a veil, and Majesty is pleased. Who makes, can mar. Honour, reward, and fear, Are reins of Power: The ends inherent there. He now is in the hands of Power, and Time. His danger is to come, and ours is passed; Lets see into what moulds our own are cast. Rossa! you move me; yet remove I not. Man comprehends a man, but not a King. I feel my self (it's true) and I feel you; How to it self can Power then prove untrue? Succession on the present never wins, But by the death of body, or of spirit: All heirs by our mortality run in. Let not misprision wound me in thy love: Great inequality of worth you yield To them, you think can on my ruins built. Does Kings restraint of wrath appear Like fear? Shall our remissness suffer more than this? Can horror only, adoration bear? Behold, the World lays Homage at my feet, To them by sword, and fire I am known: Must Kings that change this likeness loose their own? Two States I bear; his Father, and his King; These two, being Relatives, have mutual bonds; Neglect in either, all in question brings. My Son climes up with wings of seeming Merit; His course, Applause; and mine, the scale of Order; By Dissolution, he builds up Content; And I displease, by planting Government. My Age spends on the stock of Honour won; Flesh hath her buds, her flowers, her fruit, her fallen; Work hath his time, and Rest is natural: His Youth hath hope for right; and Fame for end; Time for a stage; for rival Expectation; Ascending by the balance we descend. Let Youth affect goodwill, praise, reputation, Fashion it self to Times, or Times to it, Grow strong, and rich in men imagination: But when her Fame reflects scorn upon Kings, Her glory undermines, or else confounds Of Place, Time, Nature, all the reverend bounds. These crooked shadows no straight bodies have; Practice, Ambition, Pride, are here disguised. And shall Love be a chain, tied to my Crown, Either to help him up, or pull me down? No, No: This Father -language fits not Kings, " Whose public, universal providence " Of Things, not Persons, always must have sense. With Justice I these misty doubts will clear. And he that breaks divine, and humane Law, Shall no protection out of either draw. Then Achmat! Bid the Eunuchs do their charge. I wound my self in wounding of my Son; A Kings estates hath of a Father's won. Advantageous Ambition! hast thou learnt That present Government still gives offenses, And long life in the best Kings discontenteth? That discontentments Hope's live in succession? Well! False desires (which in false Glasses show That Princes Thrones are Like enchanted fires, Mighty to see, and easy to pass over:) By Mustapha's example, learn to know; No private thoughts can found Authority. Achmat! I mean that Mustapha shall die. Resolved I am. The form alone I doubt. Envy, and Murmur I desire to shun, With which yet great Examples must be done. Thought is with God and Act: Kings cannot see Th'intents of mischief, but with Jealousy. Below the danger of Omnipotence. In Princes lives, that may not suffer fear. Where Place unequal equally is weighed, There Power supreme is balanced, not obeyed. A joust advantage unto Kings allowed, Whose safeties do include a common good. Shall Error escape by Art? And shall a bore Stepmothers name, in her that speaks truth, Disguise, and shadow Parricide from blame? Intents are seeds, and actions they include. Princes, whose Sceptres must be feared of many, Are never safe that live in fear of any Thou art but one. The rest, in whom I trust, Discern his fault, and urge me to be joust. Traitor! Must I doubt all to credit thee? The greater number holds the safest parts. Thy counsel hazards all: Their course but one. Shall Power then loose her odds in any thing? He does for Fame, what Kings do but for awe. What, but Desert, makes those that praise accuse? Dare ought, but Truth, assail a Princes child? Speak plain, and free my soul from this di seize, That with the ruin of mine own would please. What King, or Man, loves fear, wrong, trea cheery? These be the things that now in question be. Well Achmat! Stay. I strive to rest my thoughts. Words rather stir, than quiet fixed impressions. Kings hearts must judge what Subjects hearts have wrought, Not your calm heart unthreatened, and upright. Such Bees fetch home from the self same Flower, Whence Spiders draw their deep envenomed power. No, No: Experience wounded is the School, Where man arnes piercing wisdom out of smart; Innocence includes the serpent, not the fool. The wager's great of being, or not being. These Crudities let me within digest; My Power shall take upon it all the rest. Ah Death! Is not thy self sufficient anguish, But thou must borrow Fear, that threatening Glass, Which, while it goodness hides, and mischief shows, Does lighten Wit to honours overthrows? But hushed: Methinks away Camena steals: Murder, belike, in me it self reveals. Camena! Whither now? Why haste you from me? Is it so strange a thing to be a Father? Or is it I that am so strange a Father? Who may presume with Father's, but their own, Whom Nature's law hath ever in protection, And guilds in good belief of deer affection? I think its true: Who know their children least, Have greatest reason to esteem them best. The life we gave them soon they do forget, While they think our lives do their Fortune's let. But streams back to their springs do never run. Does Nature teach them, in Ambitions strife, To seek his death, by whom they have their life? Monsters yet be; and being are believed. Mustapha is he that hath defiled his nest; The wrong the greater, for I Iou'd him best. He hath devised that all at once should die, Rosten, and Rossa, Zanger, thou, and I. Camena! Thy sweet Youth, that knows no ill, Cannot believe thine Elders, when they say, That good belief is great Estates decay. Let it suffice, that I, and Rossa too, Are privy what your Brother means to do. Is it no fault, or fault I may forgive, For Son to seek the Father should not live? If what were best for them that do offend Laws did inquire, the answer must be, Grace. If Mercy be so large, where's Justice place? God may forgive, whose being, and whose harms Are far removed from reach of fleshly arms: But if God Equals, or Successors had; Even God, of safe revenges would be glad. While he remains alive, I live in fear. None hath the power to end what he begun. Their Greatness, or their Worth is not so much. Thy Mother, or thy Brother are amiss: I am betrayed; and one of them it is. Well: deer Camena! keep this secretly: I will be well advised before he die. Come Achmat! to the Church: we will go pray God, to unfold this probability, Where Power, and Wit so much offend him may. In this disease of spirits, the true Appeal Is to that Judge that every spirit knows; For we by Error else may honour loose. His laws, the life, the Innocence, the State Of Son, and Father now in balance stand. Kings that have cause to fear, take leave to hate; Sons, that aspire, as easily lift their hands. If I fallen now, I give that scope to face, Our equal gage being only Nature's bans. Help comes alike to each of us too late, If ought between us, and advantage stand. Yet she, and you, a strife within me move, And rest I will with counsel from above. Fortune! hast thou not moulds enough of Sor row, But thou must those of Love, and Kindness borrow? Tell me: Out of what ground grows Rossa's passion? Declare what Storm is this? What Accident? Thy self-accusing does excuse intent. What threatening's this? what horror? what des pite? Kings thoughts to Jealousy are overtender. Rossa! what means this venom of thy breath? Then tell. Then tell, and die. What should be secret unto thoughts that love? What guiltiness cannot Goodwill forgive? Are thy faults to thy self, or unto me? Yet show me trust: it proves your heart is pure, To me, and all crimes else Kings can endure. These words are not of charge, but intercession, As arguing not your Gilded, but your Oppression. Yet least I fail, and error multiply, Declare what's done? What moves this agony? So strange a death includes some odious crime. Horror I apprehend, Danger, Despair: All these lie hidden in this word, Conspire. But tell: what made Camena think this thought? Or by whom could she think to have it wrought? Can this be true? Is humane Nature such, As in the worst partly none can think too much? Discover how these Treasons came to light. What scorns be these? how am I thus possessed? Hath Achmat other Greatness than by me? In Kings the secrets of Creation rest. I gave that to his Worth, Faith, Industry. What can his Age expect by innovation? His power hath no true Basis, but my Grace. Decrepit slave, vile creature of mine; Lies it in his base thoughts, and shaking hands, To move the props whereon my Empire stands? His Life, and Fortune stand upon my breath. But tell: How does their Treachery appear? Hath she confessed? Or who does them accuse? Expound: What is the meaning of this work, Under whose Art the arts of Mischief lurk? What said she, when you showed her this work? How brooked she that the wicked only fear? Her death (I mean) with what heart did she bear? I swear by Mahomet, my Son shall die. Revenge is Justice, and no cruelty. Beglerbie! attend. This glorious Phaeton here, That would at once subvert this State, and Me, Safe to the Eunuchs carried let him be. These spirits of practice, that contend with fate, Must, by their death's, do honour to a State. In what strange balance are men humours peised? Since each light change within us, or without. Turns fear to hope, and hope again to doubt. If thus it work in Man, much more in Thrones, Whose tender heights feel all thin airs that move, And work that change below they use above. For on the Axis of our humours turn Church-rites, and Laws; Subjects desire, and wit; All which, in all men come, and go with it. Rossa! a King ought therefore to suspect Fears, fearful counsels which incline to blood, Wherein, but truths, no Influence is good. Else will inferior practice ever cast Such glasly shadows upon all our errors, As he that sees not ruin, shall see terrors. Power therefore should affect the Peoples stamp, " Whose good, or ill thoughts, ever prove to Kings, " Like air, which either health, or sickness brings. Now Rossa! by these straight lines, if we found The hollow depths of Rostens mystery; He will the canker of this State be found. Long hath he waved betwixt my son, and me, Making succession sacred, while he felt Practice could not divide the bark, and tree: His end being not to find, or cherish truth, But rather vices, where his Art works ruth. Long hath he weighed our humours with his ends, To find which nature was the fittest mould For him, to bring to pass in, what he would. And though his power be on my old age built, Yet that, as slow to ruin, he dislikes: Gilded seeking shields for every blow it strikes. Now in my Son though active powers he find, Yet what he cannot govern, gives offence; From birth, or worth, still fearing competence. He grounds this work on jealousy of Kings, " Where hopeful goodnesses oft in Successors " Seem not strengths, as they be, but strong oppressors'. And when this Art could not procure his fallen, Nor shape our humours Like Procustes bed, Where all that fit him not, are ruined: Straight then he offers up unto my Son My life, my Crown, and all that I have won. Such slender props are Princes Favorites, " Who Like good Fortune's children, love their mother; " And never can be true to any other. In these nets shall he then catch him, and me, And so this high, and sovereign Scepter-power Sink into slaves by my infirmity? No, No: when Princes, by defect of mind, A pronesse feel, to sink into their slaves; Wherein they make their Creatures their graves: By Nature have they not a Phoenix -fire, From their own ashes to revive again, And in their children's honour, live, and reign Then Rossa! judge: My love hath made us one; And who can judge these humorists, but we; Since hope, and fear below lack eyes to see? Mustapha is through misprision hither come, Brought to the practice of this crafty slave, Careless in which he make the others tomb: His nets are laid; our thoughts for stales pitched down, To catch our selves in, and in us, the Crown. But Nature's laws have conquered Princes doubts; And between King, and man, what was begun, Concludes betwixt a Father and a Son. Rossa! I scorn there should be cause of fears In one men rage; for hard then were our state, That reins of all the world desire to bear: Yet thy disquiet shall increase my hate. Thy wishes vain to thee yet never were: For love, and Empire, both alike take pleasure, Partly of themselves upon deserts to measure. And, but that all my joys have sorrows image, I could say; I take pride in thine affection: For Power may be feared; Empire adored; Rewards may make knees bow; and selflove humble: But love is only that which Princes covet; And for they have it least, they most do love it. Care therefore for thy self; I hold thee deer; And as for me! Though Fortune be of glass, and apt to break; Kings life kept but in flesh, and easily pierced; Kings Crowns no higher than private arms may reach; Yet these all-daring spirits are rarely known, That upon Princes graves dare raise a Throne. I sent, he comes; and come is in my power. Wrong is not Princely; and much less is fear. This fear in women shows a kindness too; And is for men to thank, but not to do. Than to preserve the Fame of Power entire, Which often undermined is by fear. I do suspect, yet is there nothing done; I loose my Fame, if I so kill my Son. Though I yet know not he hath done amiss, I doubt; and heavy Princes doubting is. Though I resolve I will not kill him there; It mortal is if Kings see cause to fear. When Mustapha returns my jealous care Will very hardly danger oversee: Order alone holds States in Unity. Is Mustapha in health, and coming? Suspicion may inquire, but not conclude; Both hope, and fear; do with excess delude. Tell Beglerbie! how did he welcome thee? In your access what found you; pomp, or pride? Was he reserved; or else did he descend? Appeared I as his Sovereign; or his friend? What was his cheer? Didst thou observe his eyes, When thou declared'st my will to have him come? Tell me his manner. How, did he dispose His followers, and affairs till his return? The news of war against our Persian foes, I am sure, made not his undertakers mourn. What's the discourse of Court? and what the face? His carriage is it Royally severe, Reserved, Like us, by attributes of place, Or popular, as power in people were? Shapes he his course to rule, or gain a State? Is our course changed, or does he imitate? What does he in our Church, or law reprove? What error in our discipline of war? Mercy, and Love! you Phrases popular, Which undermine, and limit Princes Thrones, Go, seek the regions of Equality. Greatness must keep those Arts by which it grew, And ever what it wills, or fears, make true. Achmat! Go, charge the Basha's to as semble: God only is above me, and consulted. Take freedom; not, as oft Kings servants do, To bind Church, State, and all Power under you. Visions are these, or bodies which appeared? Raised from within, or from above descending? Did vows lift up my soul, or bring down these? God's not pleased with us, till our hearts find ease. What horror's this? Safety, Right, and a Crown, Thrones must neglect that will adore Gods light. His will, our good: Suppose it pluck us down; Revenge is his. Against the ill what right? What means that Glass born on those glorious wings, Whose piercing shadows on my self reflect Stains, which my vows against my children bring? My wrongs, and doubts, seem there despairs of Vice; My Power a Turret; built against my Maker; My danger, but disorders prejudice. This Glass, true Mirror of the Infinite, Shows all; yet can I nothing comprehend. This Empire, nay the World, seems shadows there; Which mysteries dissolve me into fear. I that without feel no Superior power, And feel within but what I will conceive, Distract; know neither what to take, nor leave. I, that was free before, am now captived; This Sacrifice hath raised me from my Earth, By that I should, from that I am deprived. In my affections Man, in knowledge more, Protected no where, far more disunited; Still King of Men, but of my Self no more. In my Sons death, it shows this Empires fallen; And in his life, my danger still included: To die, or kill, alike unnatural. My powers, and spirits, with prayer thus confused, Nor judge, nor rest, nor yield, nor reign I can: No God, no Devil, no constant King, nor Man. The Earth draws one way, and the sky another. If God work thus, Kings must look upwards still, And from these Powers they know not, choose a will. Or else believe themselves, their strength, occasion; Make wisdom conscience; and the world their sky: So have all Tyrants done; and so must I. Rossa! Th'e ternall wisdom does not covet Of man, his strength, or rea son, but his love. And not in vain: Since love, of all the powers, Is it which governs every thought of ours. I speak by Mustapha: For as a Father, How often deemed I those light-judging praises Of multitudes, whom my love taught to flatter, Truths oracles; and Mustapha's true stories? So dearly Nature bids our own be loved: So ill a Judge is love of things beloved. But is contempt the fruit of Parents care? Does kindness lessen Kings authority, Teaching our Children pride, our Vassals wit, To subject us, that subject are to it? This frailty in my self I conquer must, And stay the false untimely Hope's it works, Threatening the Father's ruin in the Son: Many with trust, with doubt few are undone. Sent for he is: Nor shall the painted shows Of fame, or kindness longer seel mine eyes? For since he strives to undermine my Crown, I will as firmly watch to keep him down. Wisdom is not unto it self in debt, That leaveth nothing, but a God, above it. Will he return from death unto the living?