LUCILIO

My Lord, I do acknowledge it a debt As to their loves: Only your Princely care To grace our new return hath so surpassed The former expectation we conceived, That I am forced now to confess I live A desperate bankrupt to your royal favours. Just as Virtue at the Court; For with the times affecting ignorance IT has banished true industrious labour thence; And vicious looseness finding none resist, Has so ingros'd the most refined wits, And by the terrors of her sensual threats, Bred such deluding Crocodiles in their brains, That Like the thirsty swift Egyptian dogs, They scarcely taste of those fair sevenfold streams, Into whose depth their industry should dive: And having only God a seeming face Of superficial knowledge, amongst the gross And beastlike sense-conceiving multitude, They most ambitiously seek and pursue Vulgar applause for their poor outside skill, "And by such mudwall stairs do often rise "Up to the top of abused dignities. As twinn-borne sisters, both do share alike Their equal portions in the world's esteem, For in those hallowed places, which a true And careful liberality did consecrate As pure religious shrines to God Like Skill, Where Virtue richly invested with her best And precious ornaments, might give a full And glorious lustre Like a noontide Sun; There ugly Vice, even in the basest forms, Climbing by steps of Art up to the height Of horror, stands in a praecipit , And thrust but one step farther, with her fallen Will crush her self, and overwhelm the world. Oh be prodigious then! And in despite of custom let the world See that it's possible a woman's mind Can rest in one: you must be valiant too, And dare th'affrighting dangers that we meet, I fear we have swelling passages to wade, "For we must feel amid a world of evils, "A woman's Spleen, worse than the worst of devils. How deep a conflict do my thoughts endure betwixt Love and Duty! Wertenberg not a mother's tongue That wronged thy worth Althea, I would have torn it From out th'injurious throat in thy revenge, "And held it to their eyes, to let them see "How it had wronged it self by wronging thee. Exit. Of what Antonio? Prithee forbear Antonio; let me in silence Vent out the cares that overwhelm my soul; Thou knowest how deep and angry mother's spleen Wounds the soft love that I am forced to bear To my Althea's virtues. How can I choose But weep away my youth, when I remember The dreadful oppositions which my soul Hath formerly sustained for her; the cares That have outrun my years, and Like to corrosives Have eat into my flesh, there seized upon All faculties of life, and spread their venom Through every vein and sinew of my heart? Antonio, thou mistakest the name of love In thy Lucilio, if thou conceivest it dull And sprightless melancholy, whose corroding humour Feeds on the faint dejection of a mind That dares not meet and apprehensive thought Of least misfortune, but it basely yields: I have held up, thou knowest, against all plots A woman's wit could manage or invent, Or cause the Duke my father countenance To blow out the chaste flame of my affection, Have laid my breast open to envy's spite, And suffered even to banishment it self; If I may tearm't a banishment from her Who is all things to me, divine Althea, Life, Country, fortune; all that this world calls happy. All which supposed remedies deer friend, Set the disease a working, much less cure it: True love, Antonio, is immutable, A divine Charter of affection Confirmed in heaven, and can by no prescript Of Art or Nature ever be restrained. — Nullis amor est medicabilis herbis, — Nec prosunt Arts. Call woes to woes, I am resolved to try The worst of spleen: and since her virtuous thoughts Have deigned to meet affection, that on wings Of true born faith hath raised it self, to clasp With her deserts, the most austerest tempest Envy can shower upon our innocent loves, Shall never disjoin us. Then prithee Antonio, let me in peace retire, I feel some strange events lie at my heart My thoughts cannot presage: I fear, my friend, I have but dreamed as yet, but now mine eyes Must wake to meet true solid Misery's. Let it suffice Antonio that thy friend Intreats thy silence; nor let thy curious love Question our farther projects; leave to inquire Till time and rumour shall disclose the Plot Of my intentions, whose unexpected end Shall stand beyond preventions murdering sighed, And turn the edge of spleen upon it self: Thus much I will impart unto thy faith; What fits thee not to know, leave to desire. Nay, now thou complement'st and dost afflict The tender love thy faith hath bred in me. I tell thee friend I must not trust the air betwixt thee and me; the nights concealing shades Shall never hear't disclosed: not that I fear Thy friendly silence; but the barren plot Of my invention, will admit but me Into the doubtful scene; I must alone Finish the Act my hopeless love began. Oh my Antonio! could my sorrows pour Into thy breast but half what I conceive, What could the spleen of potent envy add To the vast heaps of mischief, that do lie Upon my groveling Fortune's, now cast down Beneath the base of misery and grief? When I must stand Like to a senseless marble Frozen into a stone with strong respect Of filial duty, and see Althea die, Thrown down by my ambitious love, that aimed At her transcendent virtues. This wounds my heart, And puts a fire to the cold melancholy That hath so long possessed my chillied spirits, And bids them seek revenge, that when fraud thinks To seize upon the neck of innocence, The repercussive flame that will result From their abhorred deeds, shall sing their wings, And make them fallen as low as were their actions, Where they shall lie and view the ugly shapes Of all those mischiefs that attend oppression. But now conceal me friend, and be no more Inquisitive of the particulars, Report will soon divulge the scope of all. If absence cause inquiry after me. Let fallen some speeches that I am withdrawn To a retired privateness awhile, Until Althea's Tragedy be over, Not able to affront my ruined Hope's. Nor stand Spectator at her guiltless death. So fare thee well, and if we never meet Remember that I lived and died thy friend. So now Lucillo arm thy self for death, That from thy blood she may regain a life And freedom, whom thy weak affection sold To undeserved slaughter and black infamy. Immoved powers! we must not ask you why And yet methinks I could expostulate The reason of this mixture in the frame Of all our Universe! why every perfect good Is girded with such a multitude of ils? Not the most sacred and puissant Throne Of divine Justice (whose Majestic form Bears a resemblance of that Power Supreme That equals Kings and Slaves, by giving each Deserved vengeance for their actions Can stand secure, but all the brood of hell, Bribes, Respects, Envy, and what e'r perverts The strictest line of virtuous equity, Will press up to the Judgement Seat, and there Transform the beauteous picture of the Godhead Into the hateful shapes of tyranny, Of blood and murder—But I forget my self, And Like en angry woman, chide the Heavens, When I should do. Fortune and stealth assist My just adventures; and a friendly sleep Seize all the eyes and ears that would pursue Our harmless Stratagems. This is the window, If my directions fail not, that does imprison her, Whom Virtue, Nature, and the mild aspect Of all the Constellations sweat to make A freeborn Empress — Lucilio. How fares my Althea? Blood to their souls that thought it, for by The never appalled heart of innocence, The newborn babes first smiles were never more chaste Then was my breast from ̄ thoughts of murder. Oh Althea! What will a woman loath, that's all possessed With wrath, and has the killing voice of Justice Tuned to pronounce her merciless revenge? The sword by her steeled conscience edged to slaughter, And undefended lives to work upon? It was my seal, which by my mother's charge It's thought the Page stole out, without suspect, As I conceive, of mischief; all the rest Was merely counterfeit. But be advised, And I will choke the hungry throat of Treason, That gapes for blood, with such a working pill, As it shall loath to swallow, and vomit up Their bloody plots in sick repentance. Long mayest thou live until the gods, Althea, Shall summon thee from hence to make a star, And grant Commission to the winged Post Of heaven, to steal away thy soul in sleep: That Divine mould was not ordained to suffer A painful shipwreck in thy life's departure. Urge it no more, the very found of death Wished to thy innocence, comes Like a clap Of armed thunder to mine ears, and thou Shalt live, though I should search the utmost tortures Tyranny did ere invent, to find a death Might ransom thee: and therefore if thy love Does yet respect Lucîlios constancy, Resolve and second me: Dispute no more, But make some means to let me down a line, That I may fasten this disguise unto it. There draw it up, and put it on with speed, Suspicions eye dogs every step I tread. How strong is sad affliction on my State! When I must steal a death, and think me blessed if none Do interrupt my passage to destruction. O that the paths of Fate so strange and invious Should led us into life, and through a Maze Of chances, bring us to such unpassable periods, That we must leap the banks, and give our breath To shun the ills that do encounter us. Come, have you yet dispatched? Then once more lend your line. Fasten those Hooks to your window, and come down. A more troublesome descent then from the Rock, But your fallen gentler. So: Now fly Althea, And live as happy as my unhappy love Had made thee miserable: time may be More friendly to thee, and beget some means That thou mayest one day fit amid thy friends— Nay, do not weep Althea; thou shalt see This will work both our freedoms; and if I die, My silent Ghost shall in the pleasingst forms At midnoon days come oft to visit thee. Farewell— They kiss, and he offers to go up. To outrun treachery, and win a Goal That shall enrich my name, make envy swell, And drown her self in overflowing Gall. No more, for I have vowed what I intend, And if thou dost withstand it, to make this hour The last of breathing to me: therefore be gone; I'll lie at Stake my self, that you may steer No interrupted course; and since the law Gives Virgins leave to plead and die concealed, I with this Scarf here will be your Attorney: Hasten your flight, least mischief find you slow, We shall both fare the better. At the Parks end By a Fount that riseth from the Chalky Bank, Camilla stays with your Viaticum: Shee'll be thy partner in thy banishment. Once more farewell; and, if I die, for ever. Farewell Althea. Again farewell Althea! all the favours Of Guardian Angels, and mildest influences Propitious Heaven retains, wait on thy sufferings. Exeunt. Were it for life my Lord I stood to speak, I scarce would give the breath that I must spend To save that life: But since your Grace does know A woman's prejudice has doomed our death, For my names life I'll speak, and not for mine; If infamy might die when we do die, I would be silent: for know my gracious Lord. I scorn to beg a life, but come all armed In such a complete innocence, as dares Meet angry injustice in the jaws of death. And without trembling stand his violence. But that these Acts of blood, these horrid crimes Of parricide, of lust, and hellish sin, Which will outlive our Tombs, and make our names Come hateful to posterities Records. Should have a birth within a Virgins breast That never yet was conscious of a wish, against your desired safety; I must take leave To tell your Grace, that it was merely feigned By the bloody hand of Envy, to cut off That sacred band of love the Heavens have knit betwixt your sons heart and my chaste innocence. Nor do I tax your justice for my death, But do impute it most to his found love, That by protests of virtue and desire, Drew my believing soul to his affects; For when my fears urged these ensuing ils, His uncontained affection breaking forth In signs of extreme passion, so consumed My powers, that had my thoughts been cold as Snow, His zeal poured out in such inflaming vows Would melt them. I do my honoured Lord, Yet were that Hand and Seal never found guilty Of conceived wrong against or your Son or you. As sweet as cooling Due comes to the breast Of scorched Autumn, so Death's slumber falls On oppressed innocence. And good Antonio, Since it's your charge to see us dead, let me Entreat this favour that my body be Speedily interred: and pray you tell the Duke That I request his Grace not grieve too much Hereafter, for what I willingly now sought, And he against his will made me to find. Then that I may have a little space in private To bid the world farewell; and this is all A dying Virgin begs, and for your friend Lucilio's sake you must not now deny it. You are deceived, Dear friend; Lucilio's woes end with my life. Nor will a thought of grief, a tear or sighs Trouble his peaceful sleeps when I am dead. But I shall strain your patience too far, and give The Duke a cause to blame your too much favour. I thank your labour Master Damasippus, I hope my peace with heaven and earth's confirmed, And you shall needs trouble your self no farther. But you Antonio, whose deserving trust Must be a witness of the latest gasp Our fainting soul shall draw, tell to the world How undivided was the tender love Betwixt Althea and Lucilio's life: And let me vow't into thy full belief, That the soft Air faun'd with the cooling breath Of a mild Summers Evening from the West Was not less murderous than Althea's wish— Nay weep not man, we cannot weep our selves, We do entreat this death to end our woes, Not to increase them. Farewell Antonio; And if in after times you hear our friends Sighs for our hapless death, bid them desist; We did but quench the thirst envy had chased us into. —Come honest friend Discharge your Office, for sorrow begins to fit Heavy upon our heart that feign would rest. Which here I do As freely as I wish my wearied Ghost May find a fearless passage through the strange And uncouth shades that leads our souls to Rest Madam! do not afflict your self, nor let your cares Live from our death; Althea cannot die, But with her innocence does buy a life That shall extend her worth beyond the reach Of Time and Envy. Therefore as you respect Your daughters peaceful happiness, take truce With sorrow but till we be dead, and Heaven That still protects the innocent, will show How just it is in plaguing those that strive By treacherous plots to oppress innocent lives. Madam conceal me for Althea's love, Who lives, but banished only for a while; And let me die that she may freely live; To die as I am doomed, Therefore let me go. Then we must live to see those griefs alive Which death would end, and life will but revive. Antonio: know that I ever held thy faith till now True to thy friend, and thought thou wouldst assist His misery, which thou hadst richly done If I had died. Where be we now Antonio! is not this life On the far side of death, and Sinks beyond A non existens? Hadst thou not made thy friend Blessed in thy faith, if thou hadst yielded way To my desires, and I had clearly leapt From the main top of mischief, and fallen short Of these calamities? O the gross oversight Of our mistaking nature, that is so base To buy a draught of air with seas of ills! Or think we benefit a friend, when we Do turn his hourglasse to make life run; Though every minute hails down misfortune thick As it does Sand into the empty receptacle. Antonio, thou wouldst turn Philosopher To do thy friend a kindness; but it's not words Our business asks, we must have Actium now. Thou seest my father's anger for this freeing Althea from her death, swells Like a tide Half flown, that labours against and adverse wind, And does command us leave the Court awhile, And pass for Greece (as if our travail could Be Bawd unto the chastity of faith That's vowed to virtue) when my long wearied mind, Already's toiling in a pilgrimage Up to the shrine of Nature's rich perfections: Therefore Antonio thou must take the shape Of all (save misery) that I contain: And for I know my father's jealousy Will entertain all rumours that are left Where ere my name pass; thou must be Lucilio: And so my name travail alone with thee It will suffice; for fame does sometime gull The best intelligence. Then shape thy course Farthest from Athens, to those parts of Greece Where I am least known. By Heaven I will, And so resolve: yet for thy farther trust, I will be open to thee; my meaning is To put off name and habit for a while, Till I have found Althea, and knit that knot Which hell it self shall never violate; And therefore carry rumour still with thee, That it may have no leisure to descry What I embrace. Farewell Antonio! And prithee let this evening be the last Of thy delay: Heaven will be my friend, And send content, or give my woes and end. Slave to affliction, that must still pursue The shadows of my Hope's, clasping the winds To feed the hunger of my discontent, And set aloft by greatness, stand exposed To every clap of Fortune's thundering, Still banished from the sighed of sweet content That sits below me. Had my birth but been As free from height as from ambition: I might have slept under a silent roof, And eat securely of a Country Feast, Bound to no Ceremonious paths of State, Nor forced to torture mine affections, Or chain them till they starve to some deformed Remedy of love, and change our lives content For a bore title, that forsooth must come To edge a line of words, and make our names swell To fill ambitious thirst of greedy age— How easily could I forget my self By looking still upon thee, honest habit! And could I find her, whom the tyranny Of love hath made me seek, I would not tread So many weary steps back for a Dukedom. exit. Saving your mirth fair Lady, what preparation's this? 'Twas a marriage long since, my self was at the wedding: But be a little plainer, & tell me who it is to be married? A stranger in your City, a poor Husbandman. A very stranger here. To whom for loves sake? Antonio killed! Althea buried! Then thou hast lived Lucilio to behold The height of mischief, and the worst of chance, And thou mayest dare thy angry Stars to inflict What ere they can effect, that's worse than this. Murdered thy friends! ruined their ancient names! Hateful to thy Parents, loathsome to thy self! Oh it's high time to die, and I do wrong Althea's constancy to breath and hour After I know she has prevented me. Methinks I hear love chide my backwardness. And tell me how unworthy I am grown, To have two friends so firmly virtuous, Constant and loyal, and outlive them both, Yea be their Murderer, and stand alive Spectator at their funeral, as I would bid The rest weep on, whilst I give aim to tears, And mark who grieves most deep at my foul actions. You to sad cares, and we to penitence— Why then you'll feed upon the bitter fruits Of your ambition, and by experience find, Virtue, not Honour is heaven unto the mind. Dear Father, I conceive your grief, as true As is my love, and feel methinks a sting, That spurs me onward to prevent the plagues My lose will bring upon your hoary age, And makes me think I hear the frequent voice Of potent Nature whisper to mine ear The duty that I owe, and bids me meet Those mischiefs quickly, by discovering me: But the persuasion's weak when I must owe More then a duty, or all Nature's self To the chaste merits of Althea's love, Who was the first I murdered; then the name Of holy friendship, which my request abused In loved Antonio, whom I murdered next: My debt's above a life, which though I give, My ghost must be a slave to pay the rest, And their deserts stand yet unsatisfied. But o ye Spirits of truth! whose constant faiths Merit perhaps to hear these last laments My dying soul powers forth; be pleased to take The poor oblation of a loathsome life, Which I as gladly vow unto your loves, As misery would turn it self to bliss. And since I was a murderer to your worths, I'll choose that death that murderers do pass; And thou hadst lived Antonio, if thy love Had not before withheld me from the fallen, And saving only me hath murdered all. exit. What strange confused passion begin to raise A stormy combat betwixt my mind and death! Though safely now arrived within the Port Where for exchange of breath I shall regain The long desired presence of her soul That hovers in expectation of my coming. Lucilio! was it my found conceit? or else (my self Standing betwixt the bounds of life and death) Her ghost, that looks each minute for my approach, Thinks my stay long, and calls upon my name? I come Althea, swift as break the winds From out the Eolian Caves, give me but space To take my flight from off that — Bright Angel! Goddess! whatsoever thou art That hast assumed that shape to adorn thy state, And give a better lustre to thy Deity; Do not delude my woes, nor make my death More miserable then my self have done. Be what thou wilt; I know no spirit of night Durst to attempt that form, that never was made But to invest a soul more fair and pure Then are the Spheres. Ghost! Angel! Goddess! Nymph! Speak, dame a word to tell me what thou art, That thus appearest in such a glorious shape To intercept my death? Art thou and Angel That thus wouldst show the world what they have lost By seeing her heavenly form? Or art thou else Some spirit of Diviner excellence That hast put on that shadow, thine own nature To beautify? Or does Althea's ghost Come thus to meet and chide my slothfulness? Or has thy worth chaste Nymph, deserved to escape The hand of death, and made thy perfect self All soul, immortal, and and unmix spirit, That those rich virtues which great nature heaped In thy creation, might by envious death Never be dissolved, nor the cold senseless earth Embrace and taint thy pure delicious beauty, For which the Stars grew envious to the world? What ere thou art, if thou hast sense of grief But correspondent to the shape thou bearest, Add not more torment to the depth of woe That does accompany my death, and urge No more the sighed and memory of her Whom I have wronged; envy has left me nought But life to yield in satisfaction, Which here I come to tender as thy endue: Or if thou doubtest the payment, and didst come To take a view how willingly I died; Then be my witness that the chased Stag Flies not more swiftly to the cooling streams Then I to death — Speak. Speak, speak thou heavenly spirit, And tell me since thy self art made Divine, What makes thee come in confines of the wretched, And mix thy self with us whose earthly loads Detain us yet in life and misery? I know thou dost, thou Wertenberg not framed to die, Nor at thy birth, when Heaven and Nature joined To give thee those rich Dowries thou enjoyest, Did they intend to make such excellence Mortal and subject to the stroke of death. But where deficient Nature could extend Her force no farther to preserve thy life, Heaven would supply the want, and turn thy state To immortality, yet why shouldst thou, When I have seen thy Funerals performed, Come to afflict me, and augment my grief? No, no, the earth grew feeling of her lose, And grieving to be robbed of such a jemme, Refused to shut that treasure in her womb Where foul corruption must have tainted it: Or did my Fortune's yet beyond thy death Pursue thee farther, and bereaving first Thy innocent life, in some forsaken wood Leave thee unburied, and thy restless ghost Comes now to seek a Sepulcher of me? Lives my Althea then? Then live Althea still! But speak no more Lest the vast Tide of joy o'rwhelme my soul, And kill as quick as grief: Or my sad heart Unable to sustain this burden of wonder, Sink and yield vanquished. I have much to ask, But let it rest: yet tell me how thou far'dst In this long banishment?—stay, who comes yonder? Now the wind's turned, and Fortune's lavish hand Powers down content beyond expectation. Know that we are returned From out those Seats of Bliss where we were placed By your unjust proceedings, to make known That what you did was against the will of Fate. For see, what you denied upon the earth, The power of Heaven does grant, and has confirmed Our long-borne loves with and Eternal peace: Where our two souls in sweetest union knit, Enjoy their Nuptials out of Envies reach. Yet know there are some punishments reserved For the vile Treasons practised in pursuit Of our unmerited wrongs; and that their sin Is marked for plagues, that seek by force to break The League that Love and Faith do jointly knit. Father we will, but should we live again, You would not yet relent, and yield our loves The sufferance you see the Heavens have done. Then wee'll be ghosts no more, but ever sue For your mild sufferance of our happiness. Then joys would be complete had I not lost By thy vile murderous hand so deer a friend. Madam, not to yield what Nature makes us owe, Were to be made less reas'nable than beasts; And nothing's more against a generous mind, And freeborn spirit, than foul Ingratitude: Yet must your Grace remember that we take Nor all from Parents: the hand of heaven and Fate Does by the last infusion of the soul Give the rich form, and by a secret tract, And unavoided path, leads us to what Seems good to it; and though our minds be free In this impulse, we love by Destiny. I must confess I love; nor was the flame Of my affection, when it kindled first, Like to a paper fire, that with a blaze Of lust, begins and ends at once, and leaves Nought but black infamy behind: nor can The least dishonour stain our Dukedoms title From her, whose Blood stands firm by long descents, Even in the heart of unbought nobleness, Whose Reputation's found, Revenues fair, Beauty able to enrich a Dukedom, and deserts To be and Empress. Were then our Fortune's raised By those high steps to which I should aspire To join with greatness, I must join with vice, "For they are oft observed to join their hands, "And he not stoops that stays where Virtue stands. Thy words Antonio cannot add and Atom To the full love that's harboured in my breast Of thy true real worth: then be content. And leave me, for it's impossible that more Than my unhappy self can be contained Or have and Actium within the narrow limits Of my designs. Thou art curious still With our intentions, and mistakest me much. Beleev't Antonio if I might have died When the vast flood of spleen was at the full, And thought to overflow whole world's of love: When Envy stood a tiptoe to catch hold, And pull down innocence to trample on't, And sweet Revenge was at her on to speak From my bruised bones; then death had been a heaven: But now my head's turned brass, & speaks times passed, And hardened is against the worst of ils, Though every frown my angry mother gives Should come Like hammers against my forehead, Who's this? Fioretta the Lady Iulia's woman? My heart! what means her habit? Come Lovers bring your cares, Bring sigh-perfumed sweets, Bedew the grave with tears, Where death and virtue meets: Sighs for the hapless hour That knit two hearts in one, And only gave love power To die when 'twas begun. Say, Antonio, Was it not Banishment? that even when Jove Had licensed us in heaven, and meant to send Himen to earth in white and Priestly robes To join our hands, as Cupid had our hearts; Then to be taken hoodwinked from my Hope's, And sent in haste from Court, just in the harvest Of my desires, to combat with the Arts, The air and climb of Athens, whilst the Sun Trebled his course to the Celestial Ram.