Act 4 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
An apartment in the Black House.
Enter Black Knight and Black Knight’s Pawn.
B. Knight. Pawn, I have spoke to the Fat Bishop for thee;
I'll get thee absolution from his own mouth.
Reach me my chair of ease, my chair of cozenage;
Seven thousand pounds in women, reach me that:
I love a' life[740] to sit upon a bank
Of heretic gold. O, soft and gently, sirrah!
There’s a foul flaw[741] i' the bottom of my drum, Pawn:
I ne’er shall make sound soldier, but sound treacher[742]
With any he in Europe. How now? qualm?
Thou hast the puking’st soul that e’er I met with;
It cannot bear one suckling villany:
Mine can digest a monster without crudity,
A sin as weighty as an elephant,
And never wamble for’t.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Ay, you’ve been us’d to’t, sir;
That’s a great help. The swallow of my conscience
Hath but a narrow passage; you must think yet
It lies i' the penitent pipe, and will not down:
If I had got seven thousand pounds by offices,
381And gull’d[743] down that, the bore would have been bigger.
B. Knight. Nay, if thou prov’st facetious, I shall hug thee.
So ride upon thy conscience? I'm asham’d of thee.
Hadst thou betray’d the White House to the Black,
Beggar’d a kingdom by dissimulation,
Unjointed[746] the fair frame of peace and traffic,
Poison’d allegiance, set faith back, and wrought
Women’s soft souls even up to masculine malice,
To pursue truth to death, if the cause rous’d ’em,
That stares[747] and parrots are first taught to curse thee——
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Ay, marry, sir, here’s swapping sins indeed!
B. Knight. All these, and ten times trebled, hath this brain
Been parent to; they are my offsprings all.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. A goodly brood!
B. Knight. Yet I can jest as lightly,[748]
Laugh and tell stirring stories to court-madams,
Daughters of my seducement, with alacrity
As high and hearty as youth’s time of innocence
That never knew a sin to shape a sorrow by:
I feel no tempest, not a leaf wind-stirring
To shake a fault; my conscience is becalm’d rather.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. I'm sure there is a whirlwind huffs in mine, sir.
B. Knight. Sirrah, I've sold the groom-of-the stole six times,
382And receiv’d money of six several ladies
Ambitious to take place of baronets' wives:
To three[749] old mummy matrons I have promis’d
The mothership o' the maids: I've taught our friends too
To convey White-House gold to our Black kingdom
In cold bak’d pasties, and so cozen searchers:
For venting hallow’d oil, beads, medals, pardons,
Pictures, Veronica’s heads in private presses,
That’s done by one i' th' habit of a pedlar;
Letters convey’d in rolls, tobacco-balls:
When a restraint comes, by my politic counsel,
Some of our Jesuits turn[750] gentlemen-ushers,
Some falconers, some park-keepers, and some huntsmen;
One took the shape of an old lady’s cook once,
And despatch’d two chares[751] on a Sunday morning,
The altar and the dresser. Pray, what use
Put I my summer-recreation to,
But more t' inform my knowledge in the state
And strength of the White Kingdom? no fortification,
Haven, creek, landing-place about the White coast,
But I got draft and platform; learn’d[752] the depth
Of all their channels, knowledge of all sands,
Shelves, rocks, and rivers for invasion properest;
A catalogue of all the navy royal,
The burthen of each ship, the brassy murderers,[753]
The number of the men, to what cape bound:
Again, for the discovery of the inlands,
Never a shire but the state better known
383To me than to her breast[754]-inhabitants;
What power of men and horse, gentry’s revenues,
Who well affected to our side, who ill,
Who neither well nor ill, all the neutrality:
Thirty-eight thousand souls have been seduc’d, Pawn,
Since the jails[755] vomited with the pill I gave ’em.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Sure, you put oil of toad into[756] that physic, sir.
B. Knight. I'm now about a masterpiece of play
T' entrap the White Knight, and with false allurements
Entice him to the Black House,—more will follow,—
Whilst our Fat Bishop sets upon the Queen;
Then will our game lie sweetly.
Enter Fat Bishop with a book.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. He’s come now, sir.
F. Bishop. Here’s Taxa Pœnitentiaria, Knight,
The Book of General Pardons, of all prices:
I have been searching for his sin this half hour,
And cannot light upon’t.
B. Knight. That’s strange; let me see’t.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Wretched that I am! hath my rage done that
There is no precedent of pardon for?
B. Knight. [reads] For wilful murder thirteen pound four shillings
And sixpence,—that’s reasonable cheap,—For killing,
Killing, killing, killing, killing, killing—
Why, here’s nothing but killing, Bishop, on this side.
F. Bishop. Turn the sheet o’er, and you shall find adultery
And other trivial sins.
384B. Knight. Adultery? O,
I'm in’t now—[reads] For adultery a couple
Of shillings, and for fornication fivepence,—
Mass,[757] these are two good pennyworths! I cannot
See how a man can mend himself—For lying
With mother, sister, or[758] daughter,—ay, marry, sir,—
Thirty-three pounds three shillings and[759] threepence,—
The sin’s gradation right, paid all in threes too.
F. Bishop. You’ve read the story of that monster, sir,
That got his daughter, sister, and his wife
Of his own mother?
B. Knight. [reads] Simony, nine pound.
F. Bishop. They may thank me for that; it was nineteen
Before I came;
I've mitigated many of the sums.[760]
B. Knight. [reads] Sodomy, sixpence—you should put that sum
Ever on the backside of your book, Bishop.
F. Bishop. There’s few on’s very forward, sir.
B. Knight. What’s here, sir? [reads] Two old precedents of encouragement——
F. Bishop. Ay, those are ancient notes.
B. Knight. [reads] Given, as a gratuity, for the killing of an heretical prince with a poisoned knife, ducats five thousand.[761]
F. Bishop. True, sir; that was paid.
B. Knight. [reads] Promised also to doctor Lopez[762] for poisoning the maiden queen of the White Kingdom, 385ducats twenty thousand; which said sum was afterwards given as a meritorious alms to the nunnery at Lisbon, having at this present ten thousand pounds more at use in the town-house of Antwerp.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. What’s all this to my conscience, worthy holiness?
I sue for pardon; I've brought money with me.
386F. Bishop. You must depart; you see there is no precedent
Of any price or pardon for your fact.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. Most miserable! Are fouler sins remitted,
Killing, nay, wilful murder?
F. Bishop. True, there’s instance:
Were you to kill him, I would pardon you;
There’s precedent for that, and price set down,
But none for gelding.
B. Kt.'s Pawn. I've pick’d out understanding now for ever
Out of that cabalistic bloody riddle:
I'll make away all my estate,[763] and kill him,
And by that act obtain full absolution.
[Aside, and exit.
387Enter Black King.
B. King. Why, Bishop, Knight, where’s your removes, your traps?
Stand you now idle in the heat of game?
B. Knight. My life for yours, Black sovereign, the game’s ours;
I have wrought underhand for the White Knight
And his brave Duke, and find ’em coming both.
F. Bishop. Then for their sanctimonious Queen’s surprisal, sir,
In that state-puzzle and distracted hurry,
Trust my arch-subtlety with.
B. King.[764] O eagle pride!
Never was game more hopeful of our side.
[Exeunt B. King and F. Bishop.
As the men stand, I'll never trust art more. [Exit.