The Noble Spanish Soldier | Page 8

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 is
embracing his new leman <11>,
Til want of rest bids him run mad
and die,
For making oaths bawds to his perjury.
CORNEGO
Pray be more seasoned, if he make any bawds, he did ill,
for there is enough of that fly-blown flesh already.
ONAELIA
I'm left quite naked now; all gone, all, all.
CORNEGO
No Madam, not all, for you cannot be rid of me.
Here
comes your Uncle.
Enter Medina.
ONAELIA
Attired in robes of vengeance, are you uncle?
MEDINA
More horrors yet?
ONAELIA
'Twas never full till now,
And in this torrent all my
hopes lie drowned.
MEDINA
Instruct me in the cause.
ONAELIA
The King, the contract!
Exit Onaelia.
CORNEGO
That's cud enough for you to chew upon.
Exit Cornego.
MEDINA
What's this? A riddle. How? The King, the contract.
The
mischief I divine which proving true,
Shall kindle fires in Spain to
melt his crown
Even from his head. Here's the decree of fate:
A
black deed must a black deed expiate.

Exit Medina.
ACT 2 SCENE 1
Enter Balthazar, [having been] slighted by the Dons.
BALTHAZAR
Thou god of good apparel, what strange fellows are
bound to do thee honour. Mercer's <12> books show men's devotions
to thee. Heaven cannot hold a saint so stately. Do not my dons know
me because I'm poor in clothes? Stood my beaten tailor plaiting my rich
hose, my silk stocking man drawing upon my Lordship's courtly calf
pairs of imbroidered things, whose golden clocks strike deeper to the
faithful shop-keeper's heart, than into mine to pay him. Had my barber
perfumed my lousy thatch here and poked out me tusks more stiff than
are a cats muschatoes <13>, these pied-winged butterflies had known
me then. Another fly-boat! <14> Save thee illustrious Don.
Enter Don Rodrigo.
Sir, is the King at leisure to speak Spanish with a poor Soldier?
RODRIGO
No
BALTHAZAR
No, Sirah, you, no! You Don with the ochre face, I
wish to have thee but on a breach, stifling with smoke and fire. And for
thy no, but whiffing gunpowder out of an iron pipe, I would but ask
thee if thou would'st on, and if thou did'st cry no, thou should'st read
Canon Law. I'd make thee roar, and wear cut-beaten-satin. I would pay
thee though thou payest not thy mercer. Mere Spanish jennets! <15>
Enter Cockadillio.
Signor, is the King at leisure?
COCKADILLO
To do what?
BALTHAZAR
To hear a soldier speak.

COCKADILLO
I am no ear picker
To sound his hearing that way.
BALTHAZAR
Are you of court sir?
COCKADILLO
Yes, the King's barber.
BALTHAZAR
That's his ear picker. Your name, I pray.
COCKADILLO
Don Cockadillio
If, soldier, thou hast suits to beg
at court,
I shall descend so low as to betray
Thy paper to the hand
Royal.
BALTHAZAR
I beg, you whorson muscod <16>! My petition is
written on my bosom in red wounds.
COCKADILLO
I am no barber-surgeon.
Exit Cockadillio.
BALTHAZAR
You yellowhammer, why, shaver: that such poor
things as these, only made up of tailor's shreds and merchant's silken
rags and 'pothecary drugs to lend their breath sophisticated smells,
when their rank guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle.
Such whaleboneddoublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and
seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great
grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth.
These
excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams
of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that
court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates
twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns,
amongst the almsbasket-men! His best reward being scorned to be a
fellow to the blackguard. Why should a soldier, being the world's right
arm, be