Act 5 — ACT V. SCENE I.
Reading edition
Before the Black House.
Loud music.[786] Black Bishop’s Pawn discovered above: enter Black Knight in his litter,[787] as passing in haste over the stage.
B. Knight. Hold, hold!
Is the Black Bishop’s Pawn, the Jesuit,
Planted above for his concise oration?[788]
B. B. Pawn. Ecce triumphantis[789] me fixum Cæsaris arce!
B. Knight. Art there, my holy boy? sirrah, Bishop Tumbrel
Is snapt[790] i' the bag by this time.
B. B. Pawn. Hæretici pereant sic!
B. Knight. All Latin! sure th' oration hath infected him.
Away, away, make haste, they are coming.
Hautboys again.[791] Enter Black King, Black Queen, Black Duke, with Pawns, meeting White Knight and White Duke: Black Bishop’s Pawn from above entertains him[792] with this Latin oration:[793]
B. B. Pawn. Si quid mortalibus unquam oculis 394hilarem et gratum aperuit diem, si quid peramantibus amicorum animis gaudium attulit peperitve lætitiam, Eques Candidissime, prælucentissime, felicem profecto tuum a Domo Candoris ad Domum Nigritudinis accessum promisisse, peperisse, attulisse fatemur: omnes adventus tui conflagrantissimi, omni qua possumus lætitia, gaudio, congratulatione, acclamatione, animis observantissimis, affectibus devotissimis, obsequiis venerabundis, te sospitem congratulamur!
B. King. Sir, in this short congratulatory speech
You may conceive how the whole House affects you.
B. Knight. The colleges and sanctimonious seed-plots.
W. Knight. ’Tis clear and so acknowledg’d, royal sir.
B. King. What honours, pleasures, rarities, delights,
Your noble thought can think——
B. Queen. Your fair eye fix[794] on,
That’s comprehended in the spacious circuit
Of our Black Kingdom, they’re your servants all.
W. Knight. How amply you endear us!
W. Duke. They are favours
That equally enrich the royal giver,
As the receiver, in the free donation.
[Music. An altar is discovered with tapers unlit, and divers images about it.
B. Knight. Hark, to enlarge your welcome, from all parts
Is heard sweet-sounding airs! abstruse things open
Of voluntary freeness; and yon altar,
The seat of adoration, seems t' adore
The virtues you bring with you.
W. Knight. There’s a taste
Of the old vessel still.
395W. Duke. Th' erroneous relish.[795]
Song.
Wonder work some strange delight,
(This place was never yet without),
To welcome the fair[796] White-House Knight,
And to bring our hopes about!
May from the altar flames aspire,
Those tapers set themselves on fire!
May senseless things our joys approve,[797]
And those brazen statues move,
Quicken’d by some power above,
Or what more strange, to shew our love!
[Flames rise from the altar, the tapers take fire, and the images move in a dance.
B. Knight. A happy omen waits upon this hour;
All move portentously the right-hand way.
B. King.[798] Come, let’s set free all the most choice delights,
That ever adorn’d days or quicken’d nights. [Exeunt.