The Noble Spanish Soldier | Page 6

the seal of marriage. Good Onaelia,
Niece to our
Lord High Constable of Spain
Was precontracted mine.
CARDINAL
Yet when I stung
Your conscience with remembrance
of the act
Your ears were deaf to counsel.
KING
I confess it.
CARDINAL
Now to untie the knot with your new Queen
Would
shake your crown half from your head.
KING
Even Troy, though she has wept her eyes out,
Would find
tears to wail my kingdom's ruins.
CARDINAL
What will you do then?
KING
She has that contract written, sealed by you,
And other
churchmen witnesses unto it.
A kingdom should be given for that

paper.
CARDINAL
I would not, for what lies beneath the moon,
Be made
a wicked engine to break in pieces
That holy contract.
KING
'Tis my soul's aim
To tie it upon a faster knot.
CARDINAL
I do not see
How you can with safe conscience get it
from her.
KING
Oh I know
I wrestle with a lioness. To imprison her
And
force her to it, I dare not. Death! What King
Did ever say 'I dare not'?
I must have it;
A bastard have I by her, and that cock
Will have, I
fear, sharp spurs, if he crow after
Him that trod for him. Something
must be done
Both to the hen and the chicken. Haste you therefore

To sad Onaelia, tell her I'm resolved
To give my new hawk bells, and
let her fly.
My Queen, I'm weary of, and her will marry.
To this, our
text, add you what gloss you please;
The secret drifts of kings are
depthless seas.
Exeunt
ACT 1 SCENE 2
A table set out covered with black. Two waxen tapers. The King's
[defaced] picture at one end and a crucifix at the other. Onaelia
[dressed in black] walking discontentedly weeping to the crucifix.
A Song.
QUESTION
Oh sorrow, sorrow, say where do'st thou dwell?
ANSWER
In the lowest room of hell.
QUESTION
Art thou born of human race?
ANSWER
No, no. I have a fury's <2> face.

QUESTION
Art thou in city, town or court?
ANSWER
I to every place resort.
QUESTION
O why into the world is sorrow sent?
ANSWER
Men afflicted best repent.
QUESTION
What dost thou feed on?
ANSWER
Broken sleep.
QUESTION
What takest thou take pleasure in?
ANSWER
To weep,
To sigh, to sob, to pine, to groan,
To wring
my hands, to sit alone.
QUESTION
Oh when, oh when, shall sorrow quiet have?
ANSWER
Never, never, never, never,
Never till she finds a grave.
Enter Cornego.
CORNEGO
No lesson Madam but Lacrymae's? <3> If you had
buried nine husbands, so much water as you might squeeze out of an
onion had been tears enough to cast away upon fellows that cannot
thank you. Come, be jovial.
ONAELIA
Sorrow becomes me best.
CORNEGO
A suit of laugh and lie down would wear better.
ONAELIA
What should I do to be merry, Cornego?
CORNGO
Be not sad.
ONELIA
But what's the best mirth in the world?

CORNEGO
Marry this, to see much, say little, do little, get little,
spend little and want nothing.
ONELIA
Oh, 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

Thyself shall tune. Say then, what mirth is best?
CORNEGO
Why then Madam, what I knock out now is the very
marrowbone of mirth and this it is.
ONELIA
Say on.
CORNEGO
The best mirth for a lawyer is to have fools to his clients;
for citizens to have noblemen pay for their debts; for tailors to have
store of satin brought in, for then how little soever their houses are,
they will be sure to have large yards. The best mirth for bawds is to
have fresh handsome whores, and for whores to have rich gulls come
aboard their pinnaces <4>, for then they are sure to build galleasses
<5>.
ONELIA
These to such souls are mirth, but to mine, none.
Away.
Exit Cornego, Enter Cardinal.
CARDINAL
Peace to you, Lady.
ONELIA
I will not sin so much as to hope for peace
And 'tis a
mock ill suits your gravity.
CARDINAL
I come to knit the nerves of your lost strength,
To
build your ruins up, to set you free
From this your voluntary
banishment,
And give new being to your murdered fame.
ONELIA
What Aesculapius <6> can do this?
CARDINAL
'Tis from the King I come.

ONELIA
A name I hate.
Oh, I am deaf now to your embassy.
CARDINAL
Hear what I speak.
ONELIA
Your language breathed from him
Is death's sad doom
upon a wretch condemned.
CARDINAL
Is it such poison?
ONELIA
Yes, and were you crystal,
What the King fills you with
would make you break.
You should my Lord, be like these robes you
wear,
Pure as the dye, 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 sound clear and to feel
remorse.
You should unlock his soul, wake his dead conscience

Which, like a drowsy sentinel, gives leave
For sin's vast armies to
beleaguer him.
His ruins will be asked for at your hands.
CARDINAL
I have raised up a scaffolding to save
Both him and