PHEUDIPPE

I servile groom put forth small industry, Excepting what I owe in subjects duty. Ever obeisance to your Majesty. Your divine Majesty accumulates Honour, above the trite capacity Of all contemptuous age; that ancestors (Before thy hallowed birthday) did approve: (Great King) I have a kinsman, though obscure, Yet wealthy, whom (because obscure) I beg A small partly of your high magnificence, But to enroule amid the Catalogue Of those you least remember: Kings be wise, Their bounty will provoke a slave to rise. Women, women, women. Most women love to talk, To scatter tales, and yet swear silence too, To breed sedition, to deceive all those Who in simplicity are confident, Of honest meaning: o they do insult With a tyrannic boldness over one Who through bewithch'd opinion, does impart The substance of included secrecy. Oh they will dare the soul of such a man, Make him so subject to their base command, As if they had his heartstrings in their hand. 'Cry mercy wise, Good faith I did imagine Their wicked conversation, general, (All in good time be otherwise:) But wise, The painters of our age be culpable Of high abuse committed; they portrait. Each mental vice in habit of a whore, A Hag, a Witch, or Woman, at the least. For men to pause at a poor style of Dukes, Most frequent Lords, and yet more common knights Proclaims them base and trivial; if means Of more advantage may be thought upon: Thy father was a King L cilla. And shall the Chronicles of age report Lucilla was no Queen? Were I a woman— Shall live? Shall she outshine the beauty whom I love? Nature, nay Gods deny a double Moon, They both are ominous; they do import A prodigy of uproars and of death. Now spoke dame resolution: I adore Such credible engagement; and embrace Faction above all true felicity. I can discover yet a childish vice Within my nature, nam cowardice: I feel a fearful and familiar stamp That shows I am a coward: I recoil In thought of high achievements; I dissolve With repetition of a found so brave As conquest, and impartial victory; Yet would subdue Dominions; would enthral The vast Horizon of our universe: But I abhor the found of enemies; Of proud resistance: Ambiguities (With cowards) are begotten of each tale Of each fantastic rumour; idle care: A new suggestion will beget new fear. If notwithstanding women will be stout Women (the badge of damorous affrights) This would encourage slaves to victory, And shall encourage me; my wife is valiant, No creature living must ( Lucilla ) dare When twice two Moons have made a change in Greece; Dare to accost thy supereminence Nor with Like privilege (as now) affront My then sublimed authority: be judge Thou happy time, when that more haughty phrase Long live, shall be pronounced, with in non-Latin alphabet twice We'll then disclaim acquaintance; live recluse; Then if we are disposed to imitate Some lively gesture of disdainful grace, And peep into the public air awhile, The thronging City will be crowded up In a poor handful, to expatiate With rolling eyes our unaccustomed face. Nay first resolve of some associates: Three to a banquet, four beget a braule Says our instructive adage; but faith Five to a bloody banquet makes all square: A banquet (wise) a banquet, shall enthrone Our happy wishes and our hopeful joy: The King shall die. The Captain of his Guard will I corrupt With forceable engagement, and fair shows: (Chief architects in a design so rare, Sole agents for the great men of our age) Him if I do seduce; the Soldiers apt For innovation will obey betimes: My son A ill ar (by injunction bound) Must then remove thy opposite, the Queen: My faithful steward, sage M esie He (by commandment) shall engross the corn Which harvest hath afforded; and procure The famishment of those who may resist By insurrection our new seated bliss. New barns I'll built, erect new granaries, Which (open to their wants,) may well remove Crippled allegiance, and procure much love. We who work jointly, may ingeminate And others lose makes many fortunate. Captain, you have well eased my anxious fear But bounty shall remunerate thy care: The title Vize-roy (Captain) does attend To countervail thy meritorious act: The famine does already tyrannise. All insurrection do I disappoint, Subdue resistance, mollify the fierce And peevish overlooking multitude By a substraction of their usual food Which will discourage appetite to war: But unexpected liberality, And satisfaction of their empty maws With rich abundance after penury, It will enchain the base to loyalty. The chiefest onset does belong to you: Do you conceive a full advertisement For each proceeding? punctually relate How your conceit does apprehend me sir. Honest? Smooth Orator, Ingeniously well worded is thy speech: May not the sequel perish, now proceed. Captain, thy apprehension is acute Thus bounty will oblige men resolute: Withdraw, your several reward is future; A pregnant Pupil thrives without his Tutor. Am I then betrayed? Will my sage Steward turn delinquent? would? Does my dread Sovereign call? Beshrew my melancholic dumps I do; Which pretermit Menanders Majesty Without obeisance; while I walk secure In a blind corner thus extravagant. Some better Angel be auspicious Unto my naked answer; (mighty King) Your deep discretion may with ease collect; (Though I were dumb and did through silence purge This weighty accusation) that perforce To public censure all authority Is often subject: so irregular Be sudden apprehensions; as upright And politic proceedings are condemned; The Prudent am'd for ignominious M worser Authors, of sick innovation; (Though not resolved how this language means:) I do in ample, and with open terms Confess the crime supposed, not culpable, Though burdened with ambition) I confess A duteous love unto the Commonweal, Hath bred my damage; Oh er-diligence May summon active zeal to a defence, Which does appear in my ill-tuned event, As you perceive, or call me insolent. The famous Art of Mathe-maticke Rules, (Wherein my ignorance will never boast A singularity of knowledge, or conceit) Did by infallible demonstrations Foresignify this famine: o resolve When her then by the law of Nations I be account able unto the Gods For this pretended accusation; Seeing to the safety of our Commonweal, A providence conjectural hath urged, My whole endeavour? If unto the Gods I am excused; what impudence will dare With falsehood to accuse my innocence? For those designs which Gods allow, never can Be in themselves offensive unto man. Know therefore (upon hopeful prescience) I did engage a new dexterity To countervail the famishment foreknown, I did engross provision, did expend Twelvemonths revenue to accomplish corn: Ill be my pains acquitted, worse my love; Which, labours in the common cause may prove. Thus imputations are too usual, And bade constructions are authentical. Some Kings, (to manifest predominance) Accumulate on subjects, heavy wealth, Honour above demerit, offices, Popular Cities, and in-franchif'd Towns; Nay whole dominions, Dukedoms they'le bestow, And raise a simple Mushroom to the height Of any monarch's endue magnificence; Till by excess of labour, sweat of brains, He hath enriched his beggarly estate; Then (Like a full-ripe Orange; or indeed, Like a deceitful sponge, whose empty pores The owner does replenish) he must look To eel a sudden crush, a nip will squease Him; who pretends he may be rich and please: If then my Title (o judicious King) My now desertless wealth, or eminence, Which (by especial favour I enjoy, Which freely were bestowed long since), if these Shall be accounted error and offence, Or be imputed to my sauciness, I do submit, and will my crime con esse; If your unreprehended sapience Think it a policy expedient, Il'e run to exile, die in banishment, Live Like a screechowl in some secret cave, Turn errant caitiff, and so die a slave: If you suppose it be available Or to diminish, or annihilate To disannul, or to abbreviate My large allowance; if you do account The base degrading of a loyal peer Will give advantage and security To your successive regiment; (may which Continue to the world's eternity:) If thus you do imagine (dreaded Liege) Lo, I will prostrate fallen, and ask a boon, Beg that the heads-mans Axe may overtake, May with a bloody sentence, me salute, With willing voice, and a more willing arm, Would I the messenger of death regreet; Till then, most lowly kiss your graces feet: That my officious Captain of his guard The cunning wolf hath taught me to reward Denounce thy judgement with a milder tune, I come ( Maenander. ) Oh I am he, a spirit of despair, Compact (by loves decree) of cloudy air. I am the wretch, who was in life, a span; But in excess of crime, a crooked man. My tortures be above thy humane guess, The torment of my soul who may express? My comforts now be multitudes of pain, Viewing a number infinite of souls, Which stuste the dampish pit with piercing howls, Restless they tumble, hoping to get ease, And, more they move, outrage does more increase, We rail at our conception, curse the sky, And in the face of heaven spit blasphemy. We all enjoy a most impatient curse, Yet all suppose our own pain shall the worse; Motion does vex us, sitting still does vex, Torment, no age escapes, no sumptuous sex: My falsehood, slattery, and a Courtiers life, (The fountai es to all sorrow) did infect My ou e with a disease uncurable. But I am passed repentance (royal sir) And so thy pardon is Like bounty given To beggars dead, or medicines ill-bestowed On separated members, Like vain life Purchased by seals and writings after death, And execution of a guilty thief; There's no capacity for dead relief. Kings, clad with numerous titles, cannot give Promethean fire, to make a dead man live: Pardon of Kings no benefit may deal, Except it pass by a superior seal: Surfeits and rupture, to be dumb, and blind, Acknowledge Art; but surfeits of the mind And rupture in affections forcing ill, Know none above, but a free governed will: Which if it prove remiss, men powerful fate Carries him headlong to my damned estate; The shipwrecked Pilot may discern a shelf, But every fool vn-cheated, cheats himself: Advance thy pale desires, look fresh and big, Think on revenge, clear thy contracted brow, Be sensible of wrong, and (worthy) know My false copartners live, who did conspire, And frame the bellows of ambitious fire: Hamilcar lives (my some) Lucilla lives (Thy subtle sister) old Mantesio lives: All my adherents, all competitors In mischief, most wellknown conspirators; Yet all survive in safety, traitors live: Think on revenge, I do advise thee well; Sleep not upon thy projects, if thou want Opinion of a friend, hear me a supplicant: Level invention with a speedy aim, Till thou the cunning of such knaves reclaim. My absence is enforced through rising day. Pardon (deer Liege) least worthy I of all To be a Monarchs kinsman, less, to be called The brother of a Greekish King, your sell e. Are you so philosophical Faith? Well dost thou argue, for they sex and self. She hath a ripe conceit, and I approve Her subtle apprehension, out of love. I relish her deep judgement; for indeed, My railing laboured only to obtain Of wits reply the endue experience, That in our wisdom of credulity. We may impart a proud conspirasie. women shoot fair sometime, though seldom true Like whetstones they give edge to tricks a new. Brave Catiline for this cause did account Young Orestilla worthy to partake Of his attempt (though far above the brain Of woman to accomplish) he approved The talkative Sempronia: Thus will I Induce my wife through cunning circumstance, To give directions for a raw conceit: Though man is rather blessed, who may withhold His closet counsel from a woman's ear; Yet am I of such spongy clay compact, As till I am disburdened of my care, Nothing yields comfort: o I must unclasp A volume, which may prejudice my life; Happy's the man who dares believe his wife. This unexpected fume to pacify Let your good grace vouchsa e to dignify A Summer banquet, and I shall entreat You the Patricians to accept my love. R her then bounty; whom I will invite And east with my beloved Liege to night. Nay, if a plot so well-contrived, so square, So formal, so judicious, should prove Ill- eatur'd, and abortive, I'de forswear All crafty dealing; never would I move, Compassion with repentance; to obtain Most absolute forgiveness, though the King Do then release my criminal attempt, I'de not endear his donative, except With resolution to escape the law, And wreak more ample vengeance on my self, With my own proper hands, through violence. If a design so mature, so concealed, So rich in expectation, so obliged, May now miscarry, and repugnant prove; Il'e sure prevent the headsman, hang my self With expedition, hire a mount-bank, Some noted empr'icke, to anatomise My politician corpses, dissect my scull, Boil tongue and heart together in my blood, Effuse them into broth made of my brains, In which, my unctuous kidney-lease dissolved With my more luscious marrow, may compose A poultice, which will speedily contrive The downfall of erected favorites, Inflame desire-then disannul the ends Which that affection gapes for: I resolve Thus to be queath my members, to the sect Of those, who narrow inquisition make After each mystic virtue, physical; If our attempts prove ot effectual. Jealous the first night wife? The famished wolf (whom hunger oft endues With belly courage to be valiant) If by adventure his extremity Meets with a beast of more validity. Though less yrannicke rapi e then himself, He (practis worser in such skill perniti us) make his body ponderous; by a to to aequal nature's strength, Till he de sse, and overcome at length. By which his boo y once obtained, And easy natural does purge His lumpish maw of that despised earth; Which (after conquest) he thinks little worth: Even thus the Captain Il'e remunerate, And with contempt, Il'e recapitulate His humble service; so casheere the hope Of endue requital, with a good excuse, We entertain those agents but forvse. Here comes my faithful steward; speak what news? The ambush, the ambush; strike fellow, strike. My wounds are many, I degenerate, Lived villain-like, and die a reprobate. I come with meekness. A worser none but him, judgements encounter can, Although aspersions touch the honest man. Remember these my motives, morning peeps, The day no dilatory time does give, To echo forth at large, thy Queen does live. No (my most mindful & more sapient Prince) I am your vassal, drudge, obsequious, Not bountiful; for it's impossible That a dependant caiti e who does owe His whole endeavour, and essential partly, His poor existence, spirits animal, His function, his each power vegetal, To a supreme efficient, should obtain (After a free expense, to gratulate His all-respectiue patron, God, or Saint) One shred or title of Munificent, Of Bountiful, or Liberal, because Duty and love exact such obsequies For lawful Kings, in stead of sacrifice.