The Noble Spanish Soldier | Page 7

Thomas Dekker

you from falling. Do but hear me.
ONAELIA
Be dumb for ever.
CARDINAL
Let your fears thus die:
By all the sacred relics of the
church
And by my holy orders, what I minister
Is even the spirit of
health.
ONAELIA
I'll drink it down into my soul at once.
CARDINAL
You shall.
ONAELIA
But swear.
CARDINAL
What conjurations can more bind my oath?

ONAELIA
But did you swear in earnest?
CARDINAL
Come, you trifle.
ONAELIA
No marvel, for my hopes have been so drowned
I still
despair, say on.
CARDINAL
The King repents.
ONAELIA
Pray, that again my Lord.
CARDINAL
The King repents.
ONAELIA
His wrongs to me?
CARDINAL
His wrongs to you. The sense of sin
Has pierced his
soul.
ONAELIA
Blessed penitence!
CARDINAL
Has turned his eyes <7> into his leprous bosom
And
like a king vows execution
On all his traitorous passions.
ONAELIA
God-like justice!
CARDINAL
Intends in person presently to beg
Forgiveness for his
acts from heaven and you.
ONAELIA
Heaven pardon him. I shall.
CARDINAL
Will marry you.
ONAELIA
Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist?
When?
When?
CARDINAL
Before the morrow sun hath 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
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