Gom. Murder! murder! I give up the ghost! | I am destroyed! Help! murder! murder!

Dom. Away, colonel, let us fly for our lives: the neighbours are coming out with forks, and fire-shovels, and spits, and other domestic weapons: the militia of a whole alley is raised against

us.

Lor. This is but the interest of my debt, master usurer, the principal shall be paid you at our next meeting

Dom. Ah, if your soldiers had but dispatched him, his tongue had been laid asleep, colonel; but this comes of not following good counsel; ah [Exeunt LOR. and Friar severally. Gom. I'll be revenged of him, if I dare; but he's such a terrible fellow, that my mind misgives me; I shall tremble when I have him before the judge: all my misfortunes come together: I have been robbed and cuckolded, and ravished, and beaten, in one quarter of an hour; my poor limbs smart, and my poor head aches; ay, do, do, smart limb, ache head, and sprout horns; but I'll be hanged before I'll pity you: you must needs be married, must ye? There's for that, [Beats his own head.] and to a fine, young, modish lady, must ye? There's for that too; and, at threescore, you old, doting cuckold, take that remembrance- -A fine time of day for a man to be bound 'prentice, when he is past using his trade: to set up an equipage of noise, when he has most need of quiet; instead of her being under covert-baron, to be under covertfemme myself; to have my body disabled, and my head fortified; and lastly, to be crowded into a narrow box with a shrill treble,

That with one blast, through the whole house does bound,

And first taught speaking-trumpets how to sound.

SCENE II.-The Court.

[Exit.

Enter RAYMOND, ALPHONSO, and PEDRO. Pod Are the these, are these, ye powers, the promised joys,

With which I flattered my long, tedious absence, To find, at my return, my master murdered! Oh, that I could but weep, to vent my passion! But this dry sorrow burns up all my tears.

Alph. Mourn inward, brother; 'tis observed at court,

Who weeps, and who wears black; an your re

turn

Will fix all eyes on every act of yours,
To see how you resent King Sancho's death.
Ray. What generous man can live with that
constraint

Upon his soul, to bear, much less to flatter
A court like this! Can I sooth tyranny?
Seem pleased to see my royal master murder'd,
His crown usurp'd, a distaff in a throne,
A council made of such as dare not speak,
And could not, if they durst; whence honest men
Banish themselves, for shame of being there:
A government, that, knowing not true wisdom,

Is scorn'd abroad, and lives on tricks at home? Alph. Virtue must be thrown off; 'tis a coarse garment,

Too heavy for the sun-shine of a court.

Ray. Well then, I will dissemble for an end So great, so pious, as a just revenge: You'll join with me?

Alph. No honest man but must.

Ped. What title has this queen but lawless force?

And force must pull her down.

Alph. Truth is, I pity Leonora's case; Forced, for her safety, to commit a crime Which most her soul abhors.

Ray. All she has done, or e'er can do, of good, This one black deed has damned.

Ped. You'll hardly join your son to our design. Ray. Your reason for't?

Ped. I want time to unriddle it :

Put on your t'other face; the queen approaches. Enter the Queen, BERTRAN, and Attendants.

Ray. And that accursed Bertran Stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, Pressing to be employ'd. Stand, and observe

them.

Bert. No, I confess, you bade me not in words; The dial spoke not, but it made shrewd signs, And pointed full upon the stroke of murder ; Yet this you said,

You were a woman ignorant and weak,
So left it to my care.

Qu. What, if I said,

I was a woman ignorant and weak,
Were you to take the advantage of my sex,
And play the devil to tempt me? You contrived,
You urged, you drove me headlong to your toils;
And if, much tired, and frightened more, I pau-
sed,

Were you to make my doubts your own commission?

Bert This 'tis to serve a prince too faithfully; Who, free from laws himself, will have that done, Which, not performed, brings us to sure disgrace, And, if performed, to ruin.

Qu. This 'tis to counsel things that are unjust; First, to debauch a king to break his laws, (Which are his safety,) and then seek protection From him you have endangered; but just heaven, Where sins are judged, will damn the tempting devil,

More deep than those he tempted.

Bert. If princes not protect their ministers, What man will dare to serve them?

Qu. None will dare

To serve them ill, when they are left to laws;
But when a counsellor, to save himself,
Would lay miscarriages upon his prince,
Exposing him to public rage and hate,
O, 'tis an act as infamously base,
As, should a common soldier sculk behind,
And thrust his general in the front of war:
It shews, he only served himself before,

And had no sense of honour, country, king;
But centered on himself; and used his master,
As guardians do their wards, with shews of care,
But with intent to sell the public safety,
And pocket up his prince.

Ped. [Aside.] Well said, i'faith.
This speech is e'en too good for an usurper.
Bert. I see for whom I must be sacrificed;
And, had I not been sotted with my zeal,
I might have found it sooner.

Qu. From my sight!

The prince who bears an insolence like this,

Qu. [To RAY. who kisses her hand.] Welcome, welcome :

I saw you not before: one honest lord
Is hid with ease among a crowd of courtiers:
How can I be too grateful to the father
Of such a son as Torrismond?

Ray. His actions were but duty.
Qu. Yet, my lord,

All have not paid that debt, like noble Torrismond.

You hear, how Bertran brands me with a crime,
Of which, your son can witness, I am free;
I sent to stop the murder, but too late;
For crimes are swift, but penitence is slow.
The bloody Bertran, diligent in ill,
Flew to prevent the soft returns of pity.

Ray. O cursed haste, of making sure a sin!
Can you forgive the traitor?

Qu. Never, never;

'Tis written here in characters so deep,
That, seven years hence, (till then should I not
meet him,)

And in the temple then, I'll drag him thence,
Even from the holy altar to the block.

Ray. [Aside.] She's fired, as I would wish her.

Aid me, justice,

As all my ends are thine, to gain this point, And ruin both at once. It wounds indeed,

[To her.

To save my crown, as he will do to seize it.
You saw he came surrounded with his friends,
And knew, besides, our army was removed
To quarters too remote for sudden use.

Ray. Yet you may give commission
To some bold man, whose loyalty you trust,
And let him raise the train-bands of the city.
Qu. Gross-feeders, lion-talkers, lamb-like fight.
ers!

Ray. You do not know the virtues of your city, What pushing force they have; some popular chief,

More noisy than the rest, but cries halloo,
And in a trice, the bellowing herd come out;
The gates are barred, the ways are barricadocd,
And one and all's the word; true cocks o' th'

Against my palace walls?

Ray. But still their chief Must be some one whose loyalty you trust. Qu. And who more proper for that trust than you,

Whose interests, though unknown to you, are mine?

Alphonso, Pedro, haste to raise the rabble,
He shall appear to head 'em.

Ray. [Aside to ALPH. and PED.] First seize
Bertran,

And then insinuate to them, that I bring
Their lawful prince to place upon the throne.
Alph. Our lawful prince?

Ruy. Fear not I can produce him.

Ped. [To ALPH.] Now we want your son Lorenzo: what a mighty faction Would he make for us of the city wives, With,-O, dear husband, my sweet honey husband, Won't you be for the colonel? If you love me, Be for the colonel! O, he's the finest man! [Exit. Ray. [Aside.] So, now we have a plot behind the plot;

She thinks she's in the depth of my design,
And that it's all for her; but time shall show,
She only lives to help me ruin others,
And last, to fall herself.

Qu. Now to you, Raymond: Can you guess

no reason

Why I repose such confidence in you?
You needs must think

There's some more powerful cause than loyalty;
Will you not speak, to save a lady's blush?
Must I inform you 'tis for Torrismond
That all this grace is shewn?

Ray. [Aside. By all the powers, worse, worse, than what I feared.

Qu. And yet, what need I blush at such a
choice?

I love a man whom I am proud to love,
And am well pleased my inclination gives
What gratitude would force. O pardon me;
I ne'er was covetous of wealth before;
Yet think so vast a treasure as your son
Too great for any private man's possession:
And him too rich a jewel to be set
In vulgar metal, or for vulgar use.

Ray. Arm me with patience, heaven!
Qu. How, patience, Raymond?
What exercise of patience have you here?
What find you in my crown to be contemn'd,
Or in my person loath'd? Have I, a queen,
Pass'd by my fellow-rulers of the world,
Whose vying crowns lay glittering in my way,
As if the world were paved with diadems?
Have I refused their blood, to mix with yours,
And raise new kingdoms from so obscure a race,
Fate scarce knew where to find them when I call'd?
Have I heap'd on my person, crown, and state,
To load the scale, and weigh'd myself with earth,
For you to spurn the balance?

Ray. Bate the last, and 'tis what I would say: Can I, can any loyal subject, see

With patience such a stoop from sovereignty,
An ocean poured upon a narrow brook?
My zeal for you must lay the father by,
And plead my country's cause against my son.
What though his heart be great, his actions gal-
lant,

He wants a crown to poise against a crown,
Birth to match birth, and power to balance power.

Qu. All these I have, and these I can bestow, But he brings worth and virtue to my bed; And virtue is the wealth which tyrants want. I stand in need of one, whose glories may Redcem my crimes, ally me to his fame, Dispel the factions of my foes on earth, Disarm the justice of the powers above.

Ray. The people never will endure this choice.
Qu. If I endure it, what imports it you?
Go raise the ministers of my revenge,
Guide with your breath this whirling tempest
round,

And see its fury fall where I design;
At last a time for just revenge is given;
Revenge, the darling attribute of heaven:
But man, unlike his Maker, bears too long;
Still more exposed, the more he pardons wrong;
Great in forgiving, and in suffering brave,
To be a saint, he makes himself a slave. [Exit.
Ray. Marriage with Torrismond! it must not
be;

By Heaven, it must not be; or, if it be,
Law, justice, honour, bid farewell to earth,
For heaven leaves all to tyrants.

Enter TORRISMOND, who kneels to him.
Tor. O, ever welcome, sir,
But doubly now! You come in such a time,
As if propitious fortune took a care
To swell my tide of joys to their full height,
And leave me nothing farther to desire.

Ray. I hope I come in time, if not to make,
At least to save your fortune and your honour;
Take heed you steer your vessel right, my son:
This calm of heaven, this mermaid's melody,
Into an unseen whirlpool draws you fast,
And in a moment sinks you.

Tor. Fortune cannot,

Ray. Nay, if possessing her can make you happy,

'Tis granted; nothing hinders your design.

Tor. If she can make me blest! she only can:
Empire and wealth, and all she brings beside,
Are but the train and trappings of her love:
The sweetest, kindest, truest of her sex,

In whose possession years roll round on years,
And joys in circles meet new joys again :
Kisses, embraces, languishing, and death,
Still from each other to each other move,
To crown the various seasons of our love;
And doubt you if such love can make me happy?
Ray. Yes, for I think you love your honour

more.

Tor. And what can shock my honour in a queen?

Ray. A tyrant, an usurper!

Tor. Grant she be;

When from the conqueror we hold our lives, We yield ourselves his subjects from that hour; For mutual benefits make mutual ties.

Ray. Why, can you think I owe a thief my life, Because he took it not by lawless force? What, if he did not all the ill he could, Am I obliged by that to assist his rapines, And to maintain his murders?

Tor. Not to maintain, but bear them unrevenged.

Kings' titles commonly begin by force,

Which time wears off, and mellows into right;
So power, which in one age is tyranny,

Is ripened in the next to true succession:
She's in possession.

Ray. So diseases are:

Should not a lingering fever be removed,
Because it long has raged within my blood?
Do I rebel when I would thrust it out?
What, shall I think the world was made for one,
And men are born for kings, as beasts for men,
Not for protection, but to be devoured?
Mark those who dote on arbitrary power,
And you shall find them either hot-brained youth,
Or needy bankrupts, servile in their greatness,
And slaves to some, to lord it o'er the rest.
O baseness, to support a tyrant throne,
And crush your free-born brethren of the world!
Nay, to become a part of usurpation;
T' espouse the tyrant's person and her crimes,
And on a tyrant get a race of tyrants,
To be your country's curse in after-ages.

Tor. I see no crime in her whom I adore,
Or, if I do, her beauty makes it none;
Look on me as a man abandoned o'er
To an eternal lethargy of love;

To pull, and pinch, and wound me, cannot cure,
And but disturb the quiet of my death.

Ray. Oh, Virtue, Virtue! what art thou be

come,

That man should leave thee for that toy, a wo

man,

Made from the dross and refuse of a man! Heaven took him sleeping when he made her,

too:

Had man been waking, he had ne'er consented.

serve,

To be perused by you.

Tor. [Reads.] "I the king:

My youngest and alone surviving son,
Reported dead t' escape rebellious rage,

Till happier times shall call his courage forth
To break my fetters, or revenge my fate,
I will that Raymond educate as his,
And call him Torrismond."-

If I am he, that son, that Torrismond,
The world contains not so forlorn a wretch!
Let never man believe he can be happy;
For when I thought my fortune most secure,
One fatal moment tears me from my joys;
And when two hearts were joined by mutual
love,

The sword of justice cuts upon the knot,
And severs them for ever.

Ray. True, it must.

Tor. Oh, cruel man, to tell me that it must! If you have any pity in your breast, Redeem me from this labyrinth of fate, And plunge me in my first obscurity. The secret is alone between us two; And though you would not hide me from myself, Oh, yet be kind, conceal me from the world, And be my father still.

Ray. Your lot's too glorious, and the proofs too plain.

Now, in the name of honour, sir, I beg you,
(Since I must use authority no more)
On these old knees I beg you, ere I die,
That I may see your father's death revenged.
Tor. Why, 'tis the only business of my life;
My order's issued to recall the army,