BERTOLDO

With this Jewel Presented to Camiola, prepare This night a visit for me. I shall have Your company Gallants I perceive, if that The King will hear of war. And such may be useful To run away with, should we be defeated. You are well provided Signior By no means back they. Unless you know your courage sympathise With the daring of your horse. You will not leap then Over and outwork in your shirt You had rather stand A mark to try their muskets on? It's somewhat more Then roaring in a to verne, or a brothel, Or to steal a Constable from a sleeping watch; Then burn their halberds; or safe guarded by Your tenants sons, to carry away a Maypole From a neighbour village; you will not find there Your Master's of Dependencies to take up A drunken brawl, or to get you the names Of valiant Cheivaleirs, fellows that will be For a clo ke with thrice died velvet, and a cast suit Kicked down the stairs. A knave with half a britch there, And no shirt (being a thing superfluous, And worn ou of his memory) if you bear not Your selves both in, and upright with a provant sword Will slash your scarlets, and your plush a new way; Or with the hilts thunder about your ears Such music as will make your worships dance To the doleful tune of La yr ma, You are courteous. If forcing this sweet favour from your lips Fair Madam, argue me of too much boldness When you are pleased to understand, I take A parting kiss, if not excuse, at least It'll qualify the offence. Do you alone, And with and unexampled cruelty, Enforce my absence, and deprive me of Those blessings, which you with a polished phrase Seem to insinuate, that I do possess, And yet tax me as being guilty of My wilful exile? what are Titles to me? Or popular suffrage? or my nearness to The King in blood? or fruitful Sicily, Though it confessed no Sovereign but my self, When you that are the essence of my being, The anchor of my Hope's; the real substance Of my felicity, in your disdain Turn all to fading and deceiving shadows? You must confess it. But answer love with love, and seal the contract In the uniting of our souls, how gladly (though now I were in Actium, and assured, Following my fortune; that plumed victory Would make her glorious stand upon my tent) Would I put off my armour, in my heat Of conquest, and Like Anthony pursue My Cleopatra! will you yet look on me With and eye of Favour? If so, what diverts Your Favour from me? What then? A dispensation Lady Will easily absolve me. Is there no hope left me? And this is your Determinate sentence? Far well then fairest cruel. All thoughts in me Of Women perish. Let the glorious light Of noble war extinguish loves dimne taper That only lends me light to see my folly; Honour, be thou my everliving Mistress, And sond affection as thy bondslave serve thee. Exit Ber: Oh that mountains Were heaped upon me, that I might expire A wretch no more remembered. When you know me better, You will make void this promise: Can you call me Into your memory. Let me die with it, Upon my breast. This is no time, nor place for flaterry Sir, Pray you style me as I am, a wretch forsaken Of the world, as my self. I if that you want power Sir, Lip comfort cannot cure me, pray you leave me To mine own private thoughts. Have you Excun Roderig. Jaco. Anthon . Gaspar . Authority to lose their bonds, yet leave The brother of your King, whose worth disdains Comparison with such as these, in irons? If ransom may redeem them, I have lands, A patrimony of mine own assigned me, By my deceased sire to satisfy What ere can be demanded for my freedom. I find it now That misery never comes alone. But grant The King is yet inexorable, time May work him to a feeling of my sufferings. I have friends, that swore their lives and Fortune's were At my devotion, and among the rest Your self my lord, when forfeited to the Law For a foul murder, and in cold blood done, I made your life my gift, and reconciled you To this incensed king, and God your pardon. Beware ingratitude. I know you are rich And may pay down the Sum. And will Astutio prove then To please a passionate man, the kings no more, False to his maker and his reason? which Commands more then I ask? o summer friendship, Whose flattering leaves that shadowed us in Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off In autumn of adversity! How Like A prison is to a grave! when dead we are With solemn Pomp brought thither, and our heirs, (Masking their joy in false dissembled tears) Weep over the hearse, but earth no sooner covers The earth brought thither, but they turn away With inward smiles, the dead no more remembered. So entered in a prison. Pray you leave me, do; And tell the cruel king, that I will wear The e etters Till my flesh, and they are one Incorporated substance. In my self, As in a glass, I'll look on humane frailty, And curse the height of Royal blood: since I In being born near to Jove, am near his thunder. Cedars once shaken with a storm, their own Exit Astutio. Weight gr b their roots out. Le worser me where you please; I am his, not Fortune's martyr, and will die The great example of his cruelty. The relation Will not I fear deserve your thanks. Ministers of mercy Mock not calamity. Would! it's no vision! Or if it be, the happiest that ever Appeared to sinful flesh! who's here! His face Speaks him Adorni ! but some glorious Angel Concealing its divinity in his shape, Hath done this miracle, it being not and act For wolvish man. Resolve me, if thou lookest for Bent knees in adoration? If he has a name, Assoon as spoken, it's writ on my heart, I am his bound man. The whole sex For her S ke must be deified. How I wander In my imagination, yet cannot Guess who this Phoenix should be! Pray you sp ake't again, there's music in her name Once more I pray you Sir. Cursed Atheist that I was, Only to doubt it could be any other, Since she alone in the abstract of her self, Than small, but ravishing substance comprehends What ever , or can be wished, in the I deam of a woman. Oh what service, Or sacrifice of duty can I pay her! I not to live, and die her charities slave, Which is resolved already. This does engage me further, A payment! and increase of obligation! To marry her! 'twas my vil ultra ever! The end of my ambition! Oh that now The holy man, she present, were prepared To join our hands, but with that speed, my heart Wishes, mine eyes might see her. Swear it? Collect all oaths, and imprecations Whose least breach is damnation, and those Ministered to me in a form more dreadful, Set heaven, and hell before me, I will take they: False to Camiola ? Never. Shall I now Begin my vows to you? I know him. So much Sir As I am ever your's for't, now me thinks I walk in air! divine Camiola, But words cannot express thee. I'll built to thee And altar in my soul, on which I'll offer A still increasing sacrifice of duty. Exit Ber No, no, it cannot be, yet but Can I la, There is no stop between me and a crown, Then my ingratitude! a sin in which All sins are comprehended! Aid me virtue, Or I am lost. Then m so horrid oaths, And hell. deep I precations made against it. Walks she on woollen fee e! It is confessed, yet why should I to win From you, that hazard all to my poor nothing, By false play send you oh f a looser from me? I'am already too too much engaged To the king my brother's anger; and who knows But that his doubts, and politic fears, should you Make me his equal, may draw war upon Your rritories, were that breach made up I should with joy embrace, what now I fear To touch but with endue reverence. I am wholly yours. Indisposed, but I attend you. Exeunt I dare not entertain And ill one of your goodness. Oh I am blasted! In your pity My cruelty shows more monstrous, yet I am not, Though most ingratfull, grown to such a height Of impudence, as in my wishes only To ask your pardon. If as now I fallen Prostrate before your feet, you will vouchsafe To act your own revenge, treading upon me As a viper eating through the bowels of Your benefits, to whom with liberty I owe my being, it'll take from the burden That now is insupportable. I will do it, And what's more, in despite of sorrow, live To see my self undone, beyond all hope To be made up again. I'll live and die so. You'll find The Like instructions in the Camp. Cannot the beams Of honour thaw your icy fears? Sir, to be His living Chronicle, and to speak his praise Cannot deserve your anger. He e, Sir, in my heart. Let Sycopha ts, that feed upon your favours, Style coldness in you caution, and prefer Your ease before your honour; and conclude To eat and S eepe supinely, is the end Of humane blessings: I must tell you Sir, Virtue, if not in Actium, is a vice, And when we move not forward, we go backward; Nor is this peace (the nurse of drones, and cowards) Our health, but a disease. May you live long, Sir, The King of peace, so you deny not us The glory of the war; let not our nerves Shrink up with loath, nor for want of employment Make younger brother's thieves; it's their swords, Sir, Must sow and re pe their harvest; if examples May move you more then arguments, look on England, The Empress of the European Isles, And unto whom alone ours yields procedence, When did she flourish so, as when she was The Mistress of the Ocean. Her navies Putting a girdle round about the world, When the Iberian quaked, her worthies named; And the fair flower Deluc grew pale, set by The read Rose and the white: let not our armour Hung up, or our unrig'd Armada make us Ridiculous to the late poor snakes our neighbours Warmed in our bosoms, and to whom again We may be terrible: while we spend our hours Without variety, confined to drink, Dice, Cards, or whores. Rouse us, Sir, from the sleep Of idleness, and redeem our mortgaged honour . Your birth, and justly, claims my father's Kingdom; But his Heroic mind descends to me, I will confirm so much. We desire no more. Let him keep His smiles for his state Catamite, I care not. I have a business Requires dispatch, some two hours hence I'll meet you. Exeunt. Oh that I were no farther sensible Of my Misery's then you are! you Like beasts F ele only stings of hunge , and complain not But when you are empty: but your narrow souls (If you have any) cannot comprehend How insupportable the torments are, Which a free and oble soul made capti e, suffers: Most miserable men! and what am I then, That envy you? Fetters though made of gold, Express base thraldom and all delicates Prepared by Median cooks for Epicures, When not our own, are bitter quilts filled high With gossamire and roses, cannot yield The body soft repose, the mind kept waking With anguish and affliction. I wait, Madam, To know what your commands are; my designs Exact me in another place. This is Against the law of arms. I know no man, Madame, Enamoured of his fetter , or delighting In cold or hunger, or that would in reason Prefer straw in a worser ngeon, before A down bed in a Palace. And yet who can hold out Against such batteries, as her power and greatness Raise up against my weak defences! O, how have I strayed, And wilfully, out of the noble tract Marked me by virtue! till now, I was never Truly a prisoner; to excuse my late Captivity, I might allege the malice Of fortune; you that conquered me confessing Courage in my defence was no way wanting But now I have surrendered up my strengths Into the power of vice, and on my forehead Branded with mine own hand in capital letters Worser sloyall, and Ingrateful, though barred from Humane society, and hissed into Some desert never yet haunted with the curses Of men and women, sitting as a judge Upon my guilty self, I must confess It justly falls upon me, and one tear Shed in compassion of my sufferings more. Then I can hope for. No? they are useful For your imitation; I remember you When you came first to the Court, and talked of nothing But you rends, and your entradas; ever chiming The golden Bells' in your pockets, you believed The taking of the wall, as a tribute endue to Your gaudy clothes; and could not walk at m d-night Without a causeless quarrel, as if men Of courser outsides were in duty bound To suffer your affronts: but when you had been Cud ell'd well, twice or thrice, and from the doctrine Made profitable uses, you concluded The sovereign means to teach irregular heirs Civility, with conformity of manners, Were two or three found beatings. A thousand Not to be contradicted. But consider Where your command lies? It's not, Sir, in France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, but in Sicily, And Island, Sir. Here are no mines of gold, Or silver to enrich you, no worm spins Silk in her womb to make distinction Between you, and a Peasant, in your habits. No fish lives near our shores, who's blood can die Scarlet, or purple; all that we possess With beasts, we have in common: Nature did Design us robe warriors, and to break through Our ring the sea, by which we are environed; And we by force must fetch in what is wanting, Or precious to us. Add to this, we are A populous nation, and increase so fast, That if we by our providence, are not sent Abroad in colonies, or fallen by the sword, Not Sicily (though now, it were more fruitful, Then when 'twas stiled the granary of great Rome ) Can yield our numerous fry bred, we must starve, Or eat up one another. As the Princess grace To me is without limit, my endeavours With all obsequiousness to serve her pleasures Shall know no bounds, nor will I being made Her husband, forget the duty that I owe her as a servant. 'Tis here determined (great examples armed Winh arguments produced to make it good) That neither tyrants, nor the wrested laws; The peoples ranticke rage, sad ex le, want, Nor that which I endure, captivity, Can do a wise man any injury: Thus Seneca, when he wrote it, thought. But then Fecliity courted him; his wealth exceeding A private man's happy in the em races Of his chaste wife Paulina, ; his house ull Of children, enclyents, servants, flattering friends Soothing his lip-positions, and created Prince of the Senate, by the general voice, As his pupil news suffrage: then no doubt H held, and did believe this But no sooner The Princes frowns, and jealousies had thrown him Out of securities lap, and a centurion Had off red him what choice of death he pleased, But told him die he must: when straight the armour Of his so boasted fortitude, fell off Throws away the book . Complaining of his frailty. Can it then Be censured womanish weakness in me, if Thus clogged with irons, and the perjod To close up all calamities, denied me, (Which was presented Senica ) I wish I never had being, at least, never knew What happiness was, or argue with heavens justice? Tea king my locks, and in defiance throwing Dust in the air? or falling on the ground, thus With my nails, and teeth to dig a grave or rend The bowels of the earth, my stepmother, And not a natural parent? or thus practice To die, and as I were insensible, Believe I had no motion lies on his face Enter Gonzagam A orn. Jailer. It's in you Sign or A Christian resolution, and becomes you, But I will not discourage you. How you ruin What you would seem to built up. I know no Disparity between us, you are and heir Sprung from a noble family, fair, rich, young. And every way my equal. This I looked for, And am resolved to suffer. Is this in di ision Or pity of me? To the centre, Such a Sybilla guiding me. Exeunt Aurelia, Bertold Gracious Madam, Vouchsafe a little pause, for I am so r pt Beyond my self, that Till I have collected My scattered faculties, I cannot tender My resolution. A kind of brother, Sir, how ever your subject, Your father's Son, and one who blushes that You are not heir to his brave spirit, and vigour, As to his Kingdom. And where removed now? hath the Tyrant found out Worse usage for us? I am orewhelm'd with wonder! Thus once more, I sue for pardon It's true.