A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xiv Part 51

'Twas chance, no policy of mine, betray'd his privacies: Ill-offices are not the engines I desire To rise by, only love to the young prince Makes me reveal them.

EPH. Nay, nay, without apology; If it were treason, it should not go down The sooner for all the gilded preparation.

Nor am I of so feminine a humour As to mistrust affection delivered bluntly: Plain meaning should be plainly told; Bad wares may have false lights, good can abide the day.

ART. But I know the nature of my office; Though kings still hug suspicion in their bosoms, They hate the causers; love to hear secrets too, Yet the revealers still fare the worse, Being either thought guilty of ends or weakness; And so esteem'd by those they tell them to Either unfit or dangerous to be trusted.

Perhaps, sir, when the prince and you are friends again You'll tell me that, had my love been real, I should have whisper'd the prince's errors to himself.

EPH. Without a syllable of prologue more, Or I shall verify your fears.

ART. In this brave city (take it as brief as may be) There lives a beauty, fit to command Them that command the world, And might be Alexander's mistress, were he yet alive, And had added empires as large as his desires: She's but a private merchant's wife; Yet the prince is so far gravell'd in her affection, I fear----

EPH. Then there is hopes I may recall him: Love is a childish evil, though the effects Are dangerous. A prince's errors grown public Will be scandalous. Poor boy! perhaps The jealous husband may commit a murder; I would not have him cut off so young: Love should be princes' recreation, not their business.

What physic must we give him for his cure?

ART. I dare not counsel you; But in my poor judgment some gentle Fatherly persuasions will work upon so good a nature.

EPH. Couldst thou but possibly effect, how I Might take him napping?

ART. That is beyond my skill: But I can show you the house and time he walks From hence in, which will be about an hour Hence; for then her husband comes home from The Rialto.

EPH. Time will not tarry for a king; let's go.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE IV.

INO. What is become of this young prince? or where Doth he bestow himself? Doth he walk invisible?

Where have I [not] been to look him? the horses Are in the stables, his page and I at home too, That us'd to be as inseparable companions.

_Enter_ NICETES, ARAMNES.

ARA. Well met, gentlemen! where is the hermit Plangus?

NIC. We cannot tell, nor have we been to seek him.

If at the court, we should hear presently; if not, We might be too officious in his search, and our Inquiry might make his absence But so much the more notorious; and I'm confident He's well: his virtue guards him still from all mischances.

INO. Though his company's the dearest thing I love, Yet for his good I could digest his absence, But that I doubt a mighty mischief might spring From this small grain of indiscretion.

The king is old, and there are knaves about the court That (if he knew it not) would tell him so: And men, conscious to themselves of a deficiency, Are still most jealous of a growing worth.

Perhaps a thinking father (for plodding Is old age's sickness) may take notice of His son's retirement, and misconstrue it so: Nothing is impossible: heaven send it otherwise!

ARA. This care becomes you, sir; but I dare swear 'Tis needless: the king is but an ill dissembler; and had he But the least thought of such a thing, he'd hide it Less than the sun conceals his brightness: Besides, a man as great as Ephorbas is, whose rule Of living hath been directed by the line Of virtue, cannot mistrust that vice in his Own son, of which himself was never guilty; Had his younger years been tainted with inordinate Desires, or had his crown been the effect Of some audacious crime, perhaps his guilty Conscience might have mistrusted.

But 'tis impossible, where there is no guilt, To fear a punishment.

INO. You speak my hopes: But this for certain, gentlemen: the king, Who was admired for his matchless sleeping, Whose night no noise disturb'd, and it was difficult To wake before his hour, sleeps but unquietly of late, Will start at midnight, and cry _Plangus_: Is greedy after news, and walks unevenly, And sometimes on the sudden looks behind him; And when one speaks to him, scarcely marks one syllable.

Surely the mind of some distemper shakes His soul into this looseness.

_Enter_ MESSENGER.

MES. My lord, the prince desires To meet you half an hour hence i' th' gallery.

INO. Me?

MES. Yes, my lord.

INO. I shall. Your servant, captains.

ALL. Yours, my lord.

[_Exeunt at several doors._

SCENE V.

PLANGUS, ANDROMANA.

PLAN. It cannot be so late.

AND. Believe't, the sun is set, my dear, And candles have usurp'd the office of the day.

PLAN. Indeed, methinks a certain mist, Like darkness, hangeth[81] on my eyelids.

But too great l.u.s.tre may undo the sight: A man may stare so long upon the sun That he may look his eyes out; and certainly 'Tis so with me: I have so greedily Swallow'd thy light that I have spoil'd my own.

AND. Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruin thus?

As if thy presence were less welcome to me Than day to one who, 'tis so long ago He saw the sun, hath forgot what light is.

Love of thy presence makes me wish this absence.

Phoebus himself must suffer an eclipse, And clouds are still foils to the brightest splendour: Some short departure will (like [to] a river Stopp'd) make the current of our pleasures run The higher at our next meeting.

PLAN. Alas, my dearest! tell those so That know not what it is to part from blessing; Bid not him surfeit to taste health's sweetness, That knows what 'tis to groan under a disease.

AND. Then let us stand and outface danger, Since you will have it so; despise report, And contemn scandals into nothing, Which vanish with the breath that utters 'em; Love is above these vanities. Should the Innocent thing my husband take thee here, He could not spite me but by growing jealous; And jealousy's black[est] effect would be a cloister, Perhaps to kill me too: but that's impossible-- I cannot die so long as Plangus loves me.

Yet say this piece of earth should play the coward, And fall at some unlucky stroke, Love would transport my better half to its centre [In] Plangus' heart, and I should live in him.

But, sir, you have a fame to lose, which should be A prince's only care and darling: which Should have an eternity beyond his life: If he should take that from you, I should be Killed indeed.

PLAN. Why dost thou use These arguments to bid me go, Yet chain me to thy tongue, while the angel-like Music of thy voice, ent'ring my thirsty ears, Charms up my fears to immobility?

'Tis more impossible for me to leave thee Than for this carcase to quoit[82] away its gravestone, When it lies dest.i.tute of a soul t' inform it.

Mariners might with far greater ease Hear whole shoals of Sirens singing, And not leap out to their destruction, Than I forsake so dangerous a sweetness.

AND. I will be dumb then.

PLAN. I will be deaf first. I have thought a way now, I'll run from hence, and leave my soul behind me.

It shall be so--and yet it shall not neither: What! shall a husband banish a prince his house For fear? A husband! 'tis but an airy t.i.tle; I will command there shall be no such thing, And then Andromana is mine, or his, Or any man's she will herself. These ceremonies Fetter the world, and I was born to free it.

Shall man, that n.o.ble creature, be afraid Of words, things himself made? Shall sounds, A thing of seven small letters, give check T'a prince's will?

AND. Did you not promise me, dear sir?

Have you not sworn, too, you would not stay beyond the time?

Have oaths no more validity with princes?

Let me not think so.