Act 3 — Scene I.[977]

Bu. Sweet mistress, cease! Your conscience is too nice,[978] And bites too hotly of the Puritan spice. Ta. Oh, my dear servant,[979] in thy close embraces, I have set open all the doors of danger To my encompast honour, and my life.5 Before I was secure against death and hell, But now am subject to the heartless fear Of every shadow and of every breath, And would change firmness with an aspen leaf; So confident a spotless conscience is,10 So weak a guilty. Oh, the dangerous siege Sin lays about us, and the tyranny He exercises when he hath expugn’d![980] Like to the horror of a winter’s thunder, Mixt with a gushing storm, that suffer nothing To stir abroad on earth but their own rages,16 Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us: No roof, no shelter can secure us so, But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe. Bu. Sin is a coward, madam, and insults20 But on our weakness, in his truest valour;[981] And so our ignorance tames us, that we let His shadows fright us: and like empty clouds, In which our faulty apprehensions forge The forms of dragons, lions, elephants,25 When they hold no proportion, the sly charms Of the witch, Policy, makes him like a monster Kept only to show men for servile money. That false hag often paints him in her cloth Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth.30 In three of us, the secret of our meeting Is only guarded, and three friends as one Have ever been esteem’d: as our three powers That in our one soul are as one united: Why should we fear then? For myself I swear35 Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure, And health be grievous to one long time sick, Than the dear jewel of your fame in me Be made an outcast to your infamy; Nor shall my value (sacred to your virtues)40 Only give free course to it, from myself: But make it fly out of the mouths of kings In golden vapours and with awful wings. Ta. It rests[982] as all kings’ seals were set in thee. Now let us call my father, whom I swear45 I could extremely chide, but that I fear To make him so suspicious of my love Of which, sweet servant, do not let him know For all the world. Bu. Alas! he will not think it.49 Ta. Come, then—ho! Father, ope, and take your friend. Ascendit Friar. Fr. Now, honour’d daughter, is your doubt resolv’d? Ta. Ay, father, but you went away too soon. Fr. Too soon? Ta. Indeed you did, you should have stayed; Had not your worthy friend been of your bringing, And that contains all laws to temper me,55 Not all the fearful danger that besieged us, Had aw’d my throat from exclamation. Fr. I know your serious disposition well. Come, son, the morn comes on. Bu. Now, honour’d mistress, Till farther service call, all bliss supply you.60 Ta. And you this chain of pearl, and my love only. Descendit Friar and D’Ambois. It is not I, but urgent destiny, That (as great statesmen for their general end In politic justice, make poor men offend) Enforceth my offence to make it just.65 What shall weak dames do, when th’ whole work of nature Hath a strong finger in each one of us? Needs must that sweep away the silly cobweb Of our still-undone labours; that lays still Our powers to it: as to the line, the stone,70 Not to the stone, the line should be oppos’d;[983] We cannot keep our constant course in virtue: What is alike at all parts? Every day Differs from other: every hour and minute, Ay, every thought in our false clock of life75 Ofttimes inverts the whole circumference: We must be sometimes one, sometimes another. Our bodies are but thick clonds to our souls, Through which they cannot shine when they desire: When all the stars, and even the sun himself,80 Must stay the vapours’ times that he exhales Before he can make good his beams to us; Oh, how can we, that are but motes to him, Wand’ring at random in his ordered rays, Disperse our passions’ fumes, with our weak labours,85 That are more thick and black than all earth’s vapours?

Mont. Good day, my love; what, up and ready[984] too! Ta. Both, my dear lord; not all this night made I Myself unready, or could sleep a wink. Mont. Alas! what troubled my true love, my peace,90 From being at peace within her better self? Or how could sleep forbear to seize thine eyes When he might challenge them as his just prize? Ta. I am in no power earthly, but in yours; To what end should I go to bed, my lord,95 That wholly mist the comfort of my bed? Or how should sleep possess my faculties, Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes? Mont. Then will I never more sleep night from thee. All mine own business, all the king’s affairs,100 Shall take the day to serve them; every night I’ll ever dedicate to thy delight. Ta. Nay, good my lord, esteem not my desires Such doters on their humours that my judgment Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure; A wife’s pleas’d husband must her object be106 In all her acts, not her sooth’d fantasy. Mont. Then come, my love, now pay those rites to sleep Thy fair eyes owe him; shall we now to bed? Ta. Oh, no, my lord; your holy friar says110 All couplings in the day that touch the bed Adulterous are, even in the married; Whose grave and worthy doctrine, well I know, Your faith in him will liberally allow.[985]114 Mont. He’s a most learned and religious man; Come to the presence then, and see great D’Ambois (Fortune’s proud mushroom shot up in a night) Stand like an Atlas under our King’s arm; Which greatness[986] with him Monsieur now envies As bitterly and deadly as the Guise.120 Ta. What, he that was but yesterday his maker, His raiser and preserver? Mont. Even the same. Each natural agent works but to this end, To render that it works on like itself; Which since the Monsieur in his act on D’Ambois125 Cannot to his ambitious end effect, But that, quite opposite, the King hath power In his love borne to D’Ambois, to convert The point of Monsieur’s aim on his own breast, He turns his outward love to inward hate.130 A prince’s love is like the lightning’s fume, Which no man can embrace, but must consume. Exeunt.