A King, and No King Part 8

Can you imagine that a longing maid When she beholds you, can be pull'd away With words from loving you?

_Tigr_.

Dispraise my health, my honesty, and tell her I am jealous.

_Spa_.

Why, I had rather lose you: can my heart Consent to let my tongue throw out such words, And I that ever yet spoke what I thought, Shall find it such a thing at first to lie?

_Tigr_.

Yet do thy best.

_Enter_ Bessus.

_Bes_.

What, is your Majesty ready?

_Tigr_.

There is the Lady, Captain.

_Bes_.

Sweet Lady, by your leave, I co[u]ld wish my self more full of Courts.h.i.+p for your fair sake.

_Spa_.

Sir I shall feel no want of that.

_Bes_.

Lady, you must hast, I have received new letters from the King that require more hast than I expected, he will follow me suddenly himself, and begins to call for your Majesty already.

_Tigr_.

He shall not do so long.

_Bes_.

Sweet Lady, shall I call you my Charge hereafter?

_Spa_.

I will not take upon me to govern your tongue Sir, you shall call me what you please.

_Actus Secundus_.

_Enter_ Gobrias, Bacurius, Arane, Panthe, _and_ Mandane, _ Waiting-women with Attendants_.

_Gob_.

My Lord Bacurius, you must have regard unto the Queen, she is your prisoner, 'tis at your peril if she make escape.

_Bac_.

My Lord, I know't, she is my prisoner from you committed; yet she is a woman, and so I keep her safe, you will not urge me to keep her close, I shall not shame to say I sorrow for her.

_Gob_.

So do I my Lord; I sorrow for her, that so little grace doth govern her: that she should stretch her arm against her King, so little womanhood and natural goodness, as to think the death of her own Son.

_ Ara_.

Thou knowst the reason why, dissembling as thou art, and wilt not speak.

_Gob_.

There is a Lady takes not after you, Her Father is within her, that good man Whose tears weigh'd down his sins, mark how she weeps, How well it does become her, and if you Can find no disposition in your self To sorrow, yet by gracefulness in her Find out the way, and by your reason weep: All this she does for you, and more she needs When for your self you will not lose a tear, Think how this want of grief discredits you, And you will weep, because you cannot weep.

_Ara_.

You talk to me as having got a time fit for your purpose; but you should be urg'd know I know you speak not what you think.

_Pan_.

I would my heart were Stone, before my softness Against my mother, a more troubled thought No Virgin bears about; should I excuse My Mothers fault, I should set light a life In losing which, a brother and a King Were taken from me, if I seek to save That life so lov'd, I lose another life That gave me being, I shall lose a Mother, A word of such a sound in a childs ears That it strikes reverence through it; may the will Of heaven be done, and if one needs must fall, Take a poor Virgins life to answer all.

_ Ara_.

But _Gobrias_ let us talk, you know this fault Is not in me as in another Mother.

_Gob_.

I know it is not.

_ Ara_.

Yet you make it so.

_Gob_.

Why, is not all that's past beyond your help?