The Noble Spanish Soldier | Page 7

rode?Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen?As one that stains his bed, and can produce?Nothing but bastard issue to his crown.?Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement?
ONAELIA?I am so stored with joy that I can now?Strongly wear out more years of misery?Than I have lived.
Enter King.
CARDINAL?You need not: here is the King.
KING?Leave us.
Exit Cardinal.
ONAELIA?With pardon sir, I will prevent you?And charge upon you first.
KING?'Tis granted, do.?But stay, what mean these emblems of distress??My picture so defaced, opposed against?A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you?Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral?
ONAELIA?Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then?The cause that now seems strange explains itself.?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 sight of one throws up?Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head.?Turning to that, mercy may check despair?And bind my hands from wilful violence.
KING?But who has played the tyrant with me thus,?And with such dangerous spite abused my picture?
ONAELIA?The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself?For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame,?Robbed of mine honour and dear chastity,?Made, by your act, the shame of all my house,?The hate of good men and the scorn of bad,?The song of broom-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 passions.
KING?And wished it had been I.
ONAELIA?Pardon me Sir,?My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high.
KING?I will descend and cease to be a King,?To leave my judging part, freely confessing?Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name.?And here to make thy apprehension full,?And seat thy reason in a sound belief?I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun?Begins his journey, with all ceremonies?Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials,?To prive <8> thy son with full consent of state,?Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows.
ONAELIA?And will you swear to this?
KING?By this I swear.
[Takes up Bible.]
ONAELIA?Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book!
KING?Why then, by this.
[Takes up crucifix.]
ONAELIA?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?Than <9> mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know?Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers,?However butchered in opinion.
KING?This way for her, the contract which thou hast,?By best advice of all our Cardinals,?Today shall be enlarged till it be made?Past all dissolving. Then to our council table?Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told?The church commands her quick return for Florence?With such a dower as Spain received with her,?And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse?To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint?The issue of the King with bastardy.?This done, in state majestic come you forth,?Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers.?Are you resolved?
OMAELIA?To doubt of this were treason?Because the King has sworn it.
KING?And will keep it.?Deliver up the contract then, that I?May make this day end with thy misery.
ONAELIA?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.?Oh keep it Sir, as you should keep that vow,?To which, being signed by heaven, even angels bow.
[Onaelia passes the document to the King.]
KING?'Tis in the lion's paw, and who dares snatch it??Now to your beads and crucifix again.
ONAELIA?Defend me heaven!
KING?Pray there may come Embassadors from France?Their followers are good customers.
ONAELIA?Save me from madness!
KING?'Twill raise the price, being the King's mistress.
ONAELIA?You do but counterfeit to mock my joys.
KING?Away bold strumpet!
ONAELIA?Are there eyes in heaven to see this?
KING?Call and try, here's a whore's curse?To fall in that belief, which her sins nurse.
Exit King, Enter Cornego.
CORNEGO?How now? What quarter of the moon has she cut out now? My Lord puts me into a wise office to be a mad-woman's keeper. Why, Madam!
ONAELIA?Ha! Where is the King, thou slave?
[Clutches Cornego.]
CORNEGO?Let go your hold, or I'll fall upon you as I am a man.
ONAELIA?Thou treacherous caitiff <10>, where is the King?
CORNEGO?He's gone, but not so far as you are.
ONAELIA?Crack all in sunder, oh you battlements,?And grind me into powder
CORNEGO?What powder? Come, what powder? When did you ever see a woman grinded into powder? I am sure some of your sex powder men, and pepper them too.
ONAELIA?Is there a vengeance yet lacking to my ruin??Let it fall, now let it fall upon me!
CORNEGO?No, there has been too much fallen upon you already.
ONAELIA?Thou villain, leave thy hold, I'll follow him?Like a raised ghost, I'll haunt him, break his sleep,?Fright him as he