BORGIAS

Alas my gracious and renowned Lords, I grieve to see your passion, Emptied of objects that heigh wrought upon: I am the Ambassador of heavy news, To you I am sure as heavy as to us. Oh it does press the Organs of my speech, And Like a lethargy does numb those motions should give it utterance. Scoff not my gracious Prince: the grief I see Will be as heavy on high now light head, As 'tis on mine: the Lady whom you love— Singing with Angels in the choir of heaven, The Requiem oh Saints. I Lords unto your loves. And now my Lords, seeing that she is dead, For whom you raised these arms against our walls, I hope your furious anger's live no longer. Laying aside all fear of what you may, Thus to your powers we do xpose our lives, Your wrongs we do confess might speak revenge, Did not this flood of sudden grief, take up All passion in it self: speak mighty Dukes, Lives Florence in your loves? with Julia's death Die the memorial of your former wrongs? Then are our City gates open to your loves, And beg a favour endue unto the dead: This night the funeral hearse of Julia, (I know that name is deer unto you both) Returns again to her creation. This night the ravenous mother of the world, (The all corrupting earth that eats her young) Swalloweth the body of your Julia. This night she takes a farewell of us all: Then let it be a witness of your loves, To give her hearse and honour with your presence. My love, the near alliance to her blood, The deer remembrance of my Sovereign dead, Whose love committed her unto my care, Makes me accept this honour done to me: And I stand bound in bonds of gratitude To both the r princely worths: in lieu of which, Let my emboldened weakness mighty Lords, Presume t'inuite you to a funeral supper, A banquet forced by ceremonious custom, As a endue obsequy. Your guards shall be my honour for this night, Your several armies during your stay in Florence, Shall be maintained at our Cities charge, In recompense of love to Julia. Nor give we expectation of proud pomp, Of shows, or Pageants, for your entertainment: Our bells ring forth our sorrows in sad peals, No pleasant changes to give Princes welcome, Our Churches stand not garnished with pictures, To please devoted superstition with, But mourn in black. Our Church men Leave their chanting Antheams, & their daily Mass, To sing continual requiems to her soul. Sorrow sits sad and weeping in our streets, All eyes are wet with tears, save those where grief Hath dried all moisture up. Our sucking infants Are pale and lean with hang ng on the breasts, Of griefe-spent mother's: If these may welcome you, W e'le give you prodigal welcome to our City. So do we mourn and weep for Julia. Led on unto the City: how slow paced is sorrow? Grief is a Tortoise to the nimble sense, And chils their motions, the officers of love, Live at our funeral, and in death do move. Exeunt. Amada. Alone? How fares Julia ? Dead: no more: Eunuchus ? You gave it out last night as I commanded Timoclea my wife was sick. When sets the Sun? To night will be to soon: to morrow morning Rumour't about the City, my wife is dead, Say abroad she is dead. So shall thy duty keep me bound to thee. Amada : some thing more I have to say, Prepare for marriage. Question me not, thou must be married, Mulleasses is thy husband, my word hath sealed it. Be still my Argus, and keep Julia. Death to my soul! Eunuc us Canst thou unknown (to any save thy self) Poison a groom to stuff a coffen with? Oh thou shalt please us highly! I have great use Of such a thing, I prithee do it: My wife last night was poisoned, her body The world believes is Julia's, supposed dead. Now for the second funeral of my wife. Her coffin must be filled up with some slave, He shall be hono worser princely to his graven. The funeral stays my presence: Amada See to my Julia, if Mulleasses move, Be kind and gentle to his proffered love. Exit Borgia . My honour, and that weak ability Our state affords, to do your graces service, Lies at your princely feet, for this your love Done to the dead: now is Julia shut For ever from your eyes: save that she lives Like a pure relic of some holy Saint, Shrind in our breasts for ever: let me now renew My first request, to sup with us to night, A ceremony endue at funerals. So shall you double honour unto me, In doing double honour unto her. I humbly thank your graces, please you led? Here lives a lasting memory of the dead. Exeunt. Thus far my pioning policies run even, And level with my aims: Julia lives, And in her hearse Timoclea my wife, Deludes the credulous Dukes: poisoned last night By Mulleasses, to make way for me, To marry Julia my brother's daughter, For which the Cardinal of Anjou my kinsman Solicits daily with his holiness, For dispensation with our bloods alliance: As for these weak men, whose pursuits in love, Die with my strong averring of her death, I can command their lives: and then maintain My actions with the sword: for which the Turk By Mulleasses made unto my purpose, Offers me forty thousand Janissaires To be my guard, gainst foreign outrages: And more: he'll make me king of Italy, To give him but command upon the straights, And land his force on this side Christendom And I will do it: on my faith to God And loyalty I owe unto the stars, Should there depend all Europe and the states Christened thereon: Idem sink them all, To gain those ends I have proposed my aims Religion (thou that ridst the backs of Slaves Into weak minds insinuating fear And superstitious cowardn S e) thou robbest Man of his chief bliss by bewitching reason. Nature at these my brows bend: thy mysteries Wrought by thine own hands in our active brains, Give us the use of good: thou art my God, If what I have of thee, or wit or art, Or Serpent sliding through the minds of men, Cunning confusion of all obstacles, Be they my children's lives, my dearest friends May gain me what I wish, I stoop at thy renown And think al's vacuum above a crown, For they that have the sovereignty of things, Do know no God at all, are none but Kings. Exit. A A Politician Proteus-like must altar His face and habit, and Like water seem Of the same colour that the vessel is That does contain it, varying his form With the Chameleon at each objects change. Twice Like a Serpent have I cast my skin, Once when with mourning sighs I wept for Julia, And made the two Dukes weep for Julia, That coat is cast: now Like and Amorist, I come in loving terms to court my Julia, And seem a lover but of all shapes This sits me worst: whose constellation Stamped in my rugged brow the signs of death, Envy and ruin: strong Antipa hies Gainst love and pleasure: yet must my tongue with passionate oaths and protestations, With sighs, smooth glances, and officious terms, Spread artificial mists before the eyes Of credulous simplieity: he that will be high, Must be a Parasite, to fawn and lie. How stand your thoughts affected to the marriage I lately did acquaint you with, are you resolved? I would see Julia, pray her company? Your presence is most welcome: Nought for the instant but a wooing scene, Prepare your wit my Lord to fight with words. The Champions straight approach, but two to two. Be as thy beauty seems, propitious, loving: More then a subject, and more humbly bent. I know your lights above me, yet let it shine Like the days beauty on the lowly plains. High comets from the earth draw up then nurture. Love Madam is importunate, you must hear: Your niceness makes me be abrupt: I love And must enjoy you. I by that power that made me. I will restore your honours and your life, I will return the duties of your birth: Duchess of Florence and my Sovereign, The Sovereign of my heart: and kneel to you, And make my thoughts as humble as my knees: See: I am not ambitious, 'tis not a crown The gorgeous title of a Sovereign, Makes me so evil in your thoughts: the poize of love Whom some term light, and gives him wings To soar all oft in me is but the same And makes me stoop thus low to Julia. Thus crossed by superstitious obstinacy, I'll use the power I have, and make—How thrives your suit? She cannot love? your reason Lady Is your blood holy? are you a sanctuary That none may violate. What ease of conscience Keeps you vnprophand? know that religion Binds your obedience minion to my will. Love him or I'll hate thee. I'll use no rhetoric Lady to your ears: But hear what I command and do my will, Or thou shalt hear what will displease thy will. But Madam for your love. A more soft style beseems a subjects tongue, I'll be no higher then my self: and not commaun'd Whats in my power. Will you resign your love? Be religious Madam still and rail not, Think of my honest suit: and think what power This hand does gripe: we are troublesome And leave you to your thoughts: these fits must end, Trees are as easy broke that will not bend. THus our presumption hath prolongd your stay At a changed ape banquet: did not the rites of love Exact your presence as a debt to Julia, Our boldness might have wanted and excuse Thus to detain you. Never till now was Borgias fully blessed: To lodge two mighty Princes in one night Under his roof: where my sons son may say, Here might Venic and F rrara lay. My Lord hese Tapers led you to your chamber, These great Ferrara unto yours. Sweet quiet be a guard v to you both, So may you sleep for ever. Eun c us : Remove with our attendance from our ears. Now my hearts treasurer what now remains? My resolution holds to murder them, And with that force the town may now afford, Practice some sudden stratagem on their powers. My Fortune's on thy council noble Turk. We'll climb together: my daughters heddy will Shall stoop unto thy pleasure: as for Julia's love She must or yield or die: he that is wise, Will tread on any that may make him rise. Exeunt. Guard me you joust and intellectual powers Thou triple & eternal essence. What dreadful summons calls on Borgias? What art thou? What wouldst thou, Hah. Terror to my soul: forbear those looks. Mayest thou be peaceful, in my prayers I wish it, Let them expiate my sin: if thou be'st a spirit Blessed and celestial: change that face of fear, Or leave infectious grossness of our air, And Like and Angel dance about the Spheres, Play with the Moon and make the Sun thy glass, To see thy beauty as thy beauy pass. Or if thou be'st— Then Like a Fury post to Tartarus, Fetch up the snackie curled Eumenides : From Orcus bottom where revengeful cares Grief, pale diseases, sad and crooked age Are ever resident: let them and their effects Let fierce Erennis with her brazen feet, Seize me at once, and strike me in my fallen, Lower then him that durst ascend the Sun. Only be thou appeased. Which thou deniest me: for thy fears keep in My trembling soul: it dares not leave my breast, Mount to the flaming girdle of the world, And fetch me lightnings, I will swallow it. Snatch from the Ciclops bals of Etnean fire And I will eat them: steal thunder from the clouds And dart it at me: quaff Stigian Nonocris I will pledge thee. What night or what dark Chaos can conceal My conscience horror? rather let me see The fear of Hercules : let the Cretian Bull Bellow and burst my brains: only may my ears Be deaf to thy exclaims. Then I can but fallen. He leaps down. Villain triumphest thou? Counterfeit! Lascivious strumpet. Incestuous Phedra. Cruel Medea. Whirl me you joust & more au piteous powers, Amongst the thick and thunder darting clouds, That being wrapped in flames I may be thrown, Like Aetnean bals from heaven and strike you down: Or would my dying breath were more infectious Then half rot bodies dug up from their graves, Or then those mists felt by the souls of men, When they descend that Acharusian fen. It should not strive within me, or be loath To leave my body might it blast you both. He feigns to die. Would, Are you gone: all clear, damnation cease you, I, a known practised politician, And thus outreacht: Oh my shallow brains. Fell I so high? would I had fallen from heaven: So, Like a Phaeton I had fired the world: Or Like a flash of lightning on your heads, Consumed you for these tricks: I died in time Like a true coward, counterfeited death, For fear to die indeed: well then for my life I am beholding yet unto my wit: But for my legs I know not how they stand, Are my bonesstiffe still, not broken? Would? Would would, would, yowl bear me to my bed, Then in your chamber laugh that I am dead. I live, and laugh vild slave to see thy fallen, This is the enclosure of a damned soul, Villain thou shalt not breath another word. Ferrara, would? true true, clap clap you furies Dance your black rounds, and with your iron whips, Fetching eternal lashes as you skip, Strike a loud sounding music through the air And make the nights Queen pale to hear your noise: You have my oath and promise for your guard: So wise men promise fools, but their reward Like thine Ferrara is the lose of breath. Mulleasses thinks me dead, and in his plots Goes on securely: I'll return his policies, And upon him transport Ferrara's murder. My wife he hath forsook: that sweetens danger That I but live to see revenge on her. My weak force built upon the Turkish fleet, I see is ruined, and I but undermined: No hope is left save in mine own command And power with the state: whose light credulity, I easily did delude with Julia's death. But yet Timoclea lives, and may perhaps Escape her false loves hate: which if she do, This black nights horror falls Like thunder on me: She must not live till day: be ever dark. Stand night upon the noonestead: and attend My fates security: if ever blackness pleased Or deeds to which men may resemble thee, Turn then thy sooty horse, and with their feet, Beat at the rising morn: & force the Sun, Forbear his lustre till this black deed's done. Exit. Error, within. Stained: Life. Death. Murder. Timoclea. The airy breath of him that sometime lived A tenant in the breast of Borgias, By thee driven out the frame and house of life. And now Like one whom stern oppression throws Naked out of all he did possess: being tobd and spoiled Of the warm covert he inhabited, I sighs my helpless wrongs and in the air Counting all hope I had, find all despair. And empty longings for and end of pain, Which I still wish and crave. Never. Ask it of the heavens, To whom my blood with ceasseles clamours calls For Justice and revenge. Death is the winter dombd unto thy soul Disrobe it of that warm and wanton flesh, The mouth of Justice bids Timoclea die. The morning's saffron horse breathes from the East Their spicy vapours, sucked from th'ndian plains And through the gentle air hurl their perfumes. I hear the Suns steeds trot towards the milky way, And in a Coach of flames draw up the day: Aurorat usher to the stars of night, Tells the approaching of the God of light: They gin to twinkle and take in their fires At their eclipse we spirits leave the air, And in a dismal vale of darkness groan, Under the burden of a thousand chains: I must away, thou only dost detain me, With want of vengeance, which thy death must gain me. I accept it wife. And thus return the fallen of Borgias. Nay nay repent not deer Timoclea, You're caught in faith: that n Like a Lioness Snared in the wary hunter's tangled toils, Grind the thin air: swell higher till thou burst, And let the breath that Like a vapour pressed Struggle within thy bosom, hurl the up. Soft—the time spends fast, & I have much to think of Before the telltale God displays his light, To show the world the horror of this night. First for thy death the lustful Turk must die, My rival in the love of Julia. Him I'll accuse for murdering thee. The Dukes Because his claim may alienate my Hope's Him in my accusation I will join As joint coagent in the Turk devises. As for that rumour of fair Julia's death, I'll first proclaim her life: and on Mulleasses (Who now detains her) will transfer the falsehood, As if my self had be by him deluded: These mazes when Like Theseus I have trod Fortune shall spread her wings to make me sails, And with a strong air cut the angry tide, That into mountains swells to stay my pride. H h! what heavy noise beats through my ears? Hang heavy Morpheus on the eyes of men, And make suspicion sleep. Heart of all mischief see the Court is up, Hell and the darkness keep me from their sighed. Up from the dark earth's exhalations Thicker then Lernas foggy mists and hide me: I cannot lose their sighed, hell of fear! Horror of oules I am surprised. Treason: I live: Devils and Furies I am slain. Grin'st hellish Antic? Hold up you broken organs of my soul Carry me high and make me stand as firm As Oaks on Ossa : that advance their tops Even till their roots break. Timoclea Blessed fates I thank you: I shall die revenged Fly, Jove loved Nemesis and at Justice feet Shake thy triumphal Ash: I slew Timoclea So they are. He killed my sl we And in his habit by this hand he died. Sink, sink Cytheron, high P ll ne tremble Green Tempe wither, and with me forgo Your place and being, this whole world of flesh With atall earthquakes totters. False Turk thy fate be but as cruel as is Borgias hate. moritur. SEt down that heavy load of misery, SO would the easing you, might ease my heart! Pure virgin Hark: Oh let it not impeach The gravity of age to let some tears Fallen at thy funeral: true relic of that love I did inherit from thy father's mouth, When to my charge he left his heir and Dukedom In thee I am deprived of all that honour I should have purchased by that thankful care Was endue unto thy father's memory: Did not my grief load all my powers of speech, O I could spend my age in commenting Of those rue virtues died with him and thee, But sorrow shuts my breast: Prier, thine office. Dukes to you both. The present and unlooked for cause of grief, That now hath took possession on our breasts, Cuts of the feeling of all outward fear: Our private griefs were desperate: did there not A pubike care of others burden us We think you wronged, I and the Senate here, Causes of both the nonsuits of your loves, Appeal unto remission. Sirrah Pantofle truss up my wardrobe: but withal publish my departure, I would willingly put my creditors to the charge of guarding me out of town. Thy mother's dead. Beauteous Madam.