ONAELIA

Sorrow becomes me best. What should I do to be merry, Cornego? O but there is a mirth beyond all these: This Picture has so vexed me, I'm half mad, To spite it therefore I'll sing any song Thy self shalt tune; say then what mirth is best? Say on. These to such souls are mirth, but to mine none: Away. I will not sin so much as hope for peace, And 'tis a mock ill suits your gravity. What Aeseulapius can do this? A name I hate; O I am deaf now to your Embassy. Your language breathed from him Is death's sad doom upon a wretch condemned. Yes, and were you crystal, What the King fills you with, would make you break: You should (my Lord) be Like these robes you we are, (Pure as the Die) and Like that reverend shape; Nurse thoughts as full of honour, zeal, and purity; You should be the Court-dial, and direct The King with constant motion, be ever beating (Like to Clock-hammers) on his Iron heart To make it found clear, and to feel remorse You should unlock his soul, wake his dead conscience, Which Like a drowsy Centinel gives leave For sins vast army to beleaguer him; His ruins will be asked for at your hands. Be dumb for ever. I'll drink it down into my soul at once. But swear. But did you swear in earnest? No marvel, for my Hope's have been so drowned, I still despair: Say on. Pray hat again, my Lord. His wrongs to me? Blessed penitence! Godlike Justice! Heaven pardon him, I shall. Umh! marry me? will he turn Bigamist? When, when? I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Then I have lived. With pardon, Sir, I will prevent you, And charge upon you first. Look back upon your gilded (deer Sir) and then The cause that now seems strange, explains it self: This, and the Image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief Like my shame, whose length may outlive Time: This Cross, the object of my wounded soul, To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sighed of one throws up Mountains of sorrows on my accursed head: Turning to that, Mercy may check despair, And bind my hands from wilful violence. The gilded of that lays claim, Sir, to your self, For being by you ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour, and deer chastity, Made by you act the shame of all my house, The hate of good men, and the scorn of bade, The song of Broome-men, and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire, And wrapped in just disdain, and Like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my passion. Pardon me, Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high. And will you swear to this? Take heed you print it deeply: How for your Concubine (Bride I cannot say) She stains your bed with black Adultery: And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Then mine to the world's eye, yet (King) you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion. To doubt of this were Treason, Because the King has sworn it. Here, as the dearest Jewel of my fame, Locked I this parchment from all viewing eyes, This your Indenture held alone the life Of my supposed dead honour; yet (behold) Into your hands I redeliver it. O keep it, Sir, as you should keep that vow, To which (being signed by heaven) even Angels bow. Defend me heaven! Save me from madness! You do but counterfeit to mock my joys. Are there eyes in heaven to see this? Would! where is the King, thou slave? Thou treacherous caitiff, where's the King? Crack all in sunder, o you Battlements, And grind me into powder. Is there a vengegnce Yet lacking to my ruin? let it fallen, Now let it fallen upon me? Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him: Like a raised ghost I'll haunt him, break his sleep, Fright him as he's embracing his new Leman, Till want of rest bids him run mad and die, For making oaths Bawds to his perjury. I'm now left naked quite: All's gone, all, all. Attired in robes of veneeance, Are you, Uncle? It never full till now; And in this torrent all my Hope's lie drowned. The King, the Contract! Let me come in, I'll kill that treacherous King The murderer of mine honour, let me come in. I'll tea e him with my nails, Let me come in, let me come in, help, help me. Let him come in. Good wishes are most welcome (Sir) to me So many bade ones blast me. I scarce know my self. I am bandved too much up and down a ready. I have been laden with such weights of wrong, That heavier cannot press me: hence Cornego. O I wooed crown him With thanks, praise, gold, and tender of my life. There's music in the tongue that dares but speak it. One step to humane bliss is sweet revenge. His most goodly shape, Married to royal virtues of his mind. Monster of men thou art; thou bloody villain, Traitor to him who never injured thee; Dost thou profess Arms? and art bound in honour To stand up Like a brazen wall to guard Thy King and Country, and wouldst thou ruin both? Art thou not counterfeit? 'le call thee honest Soldier then, and woo thee To be and often Visitant. Is't not some executioner? Sent from the King to warn me of my death: I prethe bid him welcome. Then bid him better welcome: Belike he's come to write my Epitaph, Some scurvy thing I warrant; welcome Sir. To me? I am not worthy of a line, Unless at that line hang some hook to choke me: To the Most honoured Lady— Onaelia. Fellow thou liest, I'm most dishonoured: Thou shouldst have writ to the most wronged Lady. The Title of this book is not to me, I tear it therefore as mine Honour's torn. What does it treat of? Him king (the Poets whir e-wind) blast thy lines. Comest thou to mock my Tortures with her Triumphs? When her funerals are passed, Crown thou a Dedieation to my joys, And thou shalt swear each line a golden verse: Cornego, burn this Idol. I have read legends of disastrous Dams; Will none set pen to paper for poor me? Canst write a bitter Satire? brainless people Do Call Libels: darest thou write a Libel? Do it then for me. Better. The King. This baseness follows your profession: You are Like common Beadles, apt to lash Almost to death poor wretches not worth striking, But fawn with flavish flattery on damned vices, So great men act them: you clap hands at those, Where the true Poet indeed does scorn to guild A gawdy Tomb with glory of his Verse, Which Cos inns stinking Carrion: no, his lines Are free as his Invention; no base fear Can shake his pen to Temporize even with Kings, The blacker are their crimes, he louder sings. Go, go, thou canst not write: it's but my calling The Muses help, that I may be inspired: Cannot a woman be a Poet, Sir? Nay, but if I shoo'd write, I wooed tell truth: How might I reach a lofty strain? Are they born Po ts? Die they? My misery is then a Poet sure, For Time has given it and Eternity: What sorts of Poets are there? Great and small! Which do you call the great? the fat ones? Which in the kingdom now is the best Poet? Which the next? And which the worst? Say I turn Poet, what should I get? alas I have God too much of that already; Opinion is my Evidence, Judge, and Jury; Mine own gilded, and opinion, now condemn me; I'll therefore be no Poet; no, nor make Ten Muses of your nine; I swear for this; Verses, though freely born, Like slaves are sold, I Crown thy lines with Baize, thy love with gold: So fare thou well. What shall I do, Cornego? for this Poet Has filled me with a fury: I could write Strange Satyrs now against Adulterers, And Marriage-breakers. That word Revenge Startles my sleepy Soul, now thoroughly wakend By the fresh Object of my hapless child, Whose wrongs reach beyond mine. I have no partly in either. I care not much, so you but gently strike him, And that my Child escape the lightning. O not to kill him For twenty thousand world's. Pray rail not at him so. I, I, that's well; pray swear. A foolish memory of my passed ills Folds up my look in furrows of old care, But my heart's merry, Sir. O let him have Physicians. Doff that Friars course grey; And since he's crown worser a King, cloth him Like one. O I could die with him. But what's the best mirth in the world? O you have sworn false oaths upon that book. A Bear. Who is't? I do not know that Baltazar. True; Worse am I then the horridest fiend in hell To murder him whom once I loved too well: For though I could run mad, and tear my hair, And kill that godless man that turned me vile, Though I am cheated by a perjurous Prince Who has done wickedness, at which even heaven Shakes when the Sun beholds it, Oh yet I'de rather Ten thousand poyton'd poigniards stabbed my breast Than one should touch his: bloody slave! I'll play My self the H nginan, and will Butcher thee If thou but prick to his finger. Undertake that Cure, And crown thy verse with Baize. How does my prettiest boy?