Act 4 — SCENE IV.
Reading edition
Field between the two Houses.
Enter White Knight and White Duke.
W. Knight. True, noble Duke, fair virtue’s[769] most endear’d one;
Let us prevent[770] their rank insinuation
With truth of cause and courage, meet their plots
With confident goodness that shall strike’em grovelling.
W. Duke. Sir, all the gins, traps, and alluring snares,
The devil hath been at work since eighty-eight[771] on,
Are laid for the great hope of this game only.
W. Knight. Why, the more noble will truth’s triumph be:
When they have wound about our constant courages
The glittering’st[772] serpent that e’er falsehood fashion’d,
And glorying most in his resplendent poisons,
Just heaven can find a bolt to bruise his head.
W. Duke. Look, would you see destruction lie a-sunning?
Enter Black Knight.
In yonder smile sit[773] blood and treachery basking;
In that perfidious model of face[774]-falsehood
Hell is drawn grinning.
W. Knight. What a pain it is
For truth to feign a little!
389B. Knight. O fair Knight,
The rising glory of that House of Candour,
Have I so many protestations lost,
Lost, lost, quite lost? am I not worth your confidence?
I that have vow’d the faculties of soul,
Life, spirit, and brain, to your sweet game of youth,
Your noble, fruitful game? Can you mistrust
Any foul play in me, that have been ever
The most submiss observer of your virtues,
And no way tainted with ambition,
Save only to be thought your[775] first admirer?
How often have I chang’d, for your delight,
The royal presentation of my place
Into a mimic jester, and become,
For your sake and th' expulsion of sad thoughts,
Of a grave state-sire[776] a light son of pastime,
Made three-score years a tomboy, a mere wanton!
I'll tell you what I told a Savoy dame once,
New-wed, high-plump, and lusting for an issue:
Within the year I promis’d her a child,
A relique kept at Mechlin: the next morning
One my followers' old hose[779] was convey’d
Into her chamber, where she tried the feat;
By that, and a court-friend, after grew great.
390W. Knight. Why, who could be without thee?
B. Knight. I will change
To any shape to please you; and my aim
Hath been to win your love in all this game.
W. Knight. Thou hast it nobly, and we long to see
The Black-House pleasure, state, and dignity.
B. Knight. Of honour you’ll so surfeit and delight,
You’ll ne’er desire again to see the White. [Exeunt.
Enter White Queen.
W. Queen. My love, my hope, my dearest! O, he’s gone,
Ensnar’d, entrapt, surpris’d amongst the Black ones!
I never felt extremity like this:
Thick darkness dwells upon this hour; integrity,
Like one of heaven’s bright luminaries, now
By error’s dullest element interpos’d,
Suffers a black eclipse. I never was
More sick of love than now I am of horror:
I shall be taken; the game’s lost, I'm set upon!—
Enter Fat Bishop.
O, ’tis the turncoat Bishop, having watch’d
Th' advantage of his play, comes now to seize on me!
O, I am hard beset, distrest most miserably!
F. Bishop. ’Tis vain to stir; remove which way you can,
I take you now; this is the time we’ve hop’d for:
Queen, you must down.
W. Queen. No rescue, no deliverance![780]
391F. Bishop. The Black King’s blood burns for thy prostitution,
And nothing but die spring of thy chaste virtue
Can cool his inflammation; instantly
Enter White Bishop.
He dies upon a plurisy of luxury,[781]
If he deflower thee not.
W. Queen. O strait of misery!
W. Bishop. And is your holiness his divine procurer?
F. Bishop. The devil’s in’t, I'm taken by a ring-dove!
Where stood this Bishop that I saw him not?
W. Bishop. O,[782] you were so ambitious you look’d o’er me!
You aim’d at no less person than the Queen,
The glory of the game; if she were won,
The way were open to the master-check,
Enter White King.
Which, look you, he and his live[783] to give you;
Honour and virtue guide him in his station!
W. Queen. O my safe sanctuary!
W. King. Let heaven’s blessings
Be mine no longer than I am thy sure one!
The dove’s house is not safer in the rock
Than thou in my firm bosom.
W. Queen. I am blest in’t.
W. King. Is it that lump of rank ingratitude,
Swell’d with the poison of hypocrisy?
Could he be so malicious, hath partaken
Of the sweet fertile blessings of our kingdom?—
392Bishop, thou’st done our White House gracious service,
And worthy the fair reverence of thy place.—
For thee, Black holiness, that work’st out thy death
As the blind mole, the properest son of earth,
Who, in the casting his ambitious hills up,
Is often taken and destroy’d i' the midst
Of his advancèd work; ’twere well with thee
If, like that verminous labourer, which thou imitat’st
In hills of pride and malice, when death puts thee up,
The silent grave might prove thy bag for ever;
No deeper pit than that: for thy vain hope
Of the White Knight and his most firm assistant,
Two princely pieces, which I know thy thoughts
Give lost for ever now, my strong assurance
Of their fix’d virtues, could you let in seas
Of populous untruths against that fort,
'Twould burst the proudest billows.
W. Queen. My fear’s past then.
W. King. Fear? you were never[784] guilty of an injury
To goodness, but in that.
W. Queen. It stay’d not with me, sir.
W. King. It was too much if it usurp’d a thought:
Place a strong[785] guard there.
W. Queen. Confidence is set, sir.
W. King. Take that prize hence; go, reverend of men,
Put covetousness into the bag again.
F. Bishop. The bag had need be sound, or’t goes to wrack;
Sin and my weight will make a strong one crack. [Exeunt.
393