Act 5 — SCENE III.
Reading edition
In the Black House.
Enter Black King, Black Queen, Black Knight, Black Duke, Black Bishop, White Knight, and White Duke.
W. Knight. You have enrich’d my knowledge, royal[814] sir,
And my content together.
B. King. ’Stead of riot
We set you only welcome: surfeit is
A thing that’s seldom heard of in these parts.
W. Knight. I hear of the more virtue when I miss on’t.
B. Knight. We do not use to bury in our bellies
Two hundred thousand ducats, and then boast on’t;
Or exercise th' old Roman painful idleness
With care of fetching fishes far from home,
The golden-headed coracine out of Egypt,
The salpa from Ebusus,[815] or the pelamis,
Which some call summer-whiting, from Chalcedon,
Salmons from Aquitaine, helops from Rhodes,
Cockles from Chios, frank’d[816] and fatted up
402With far and sapa,[817] flour and cocted wine;
We cram no birds, nor, Epicurean[818]-like,
Enclose some creeks o' the sea, as Sergius Orata[819] did,
He that invented the first stews for oysters
And other sea-fish, who, besides the pleasure of his
Own throat, got large revenues by th' invention,
Whose fat example the nobility follow’d;
Nor do we imitate that arch-gormandiser
With two-and-twenty courses at one dinner,
And, betwixt every course, he and his guests
Wash’d and us’d women, then sat down and strengthen’d,
Lust swimming in their dishes, which no sooner
Was tasted but was ready to be vented.
W. Knight. Most impious epicures!
B. Knight. We commend rather,
Of two extremes, the parsimony of Pertinax,
Who had half-lettuces set up to serve again;
Or his successor Julian,[820] that would make
Three meals of a lean hare, and often[821] sup
With a green fig and wipe his beard, as we can.
The old bewailers of excess in those days
Complain’d there was more coin bid for a cook
Than for a war-horse; but now cooks are purchas’d
403After the rate of triumphs,[822] and some dishes
After the rate of cooks; which must needs make
Some of your White-House gormandizers, ’specially
Your wealthy plump plebeians, like the hogs
Which Scaliger cites,[823] that could not move for fat,
So insensible of either prick or goad,
That mice made holes to needle[824] in their buttocks,
And they ne’er felt ’em. There was once a ruler,
Cyrene’s governor,[825]] chok’d with his own paunch;
Which death fat Sanctius,[826] king of Castile, fearing,
Through his infinite mass of belly, rather chose
To be kill’d suddenly by a pernicious herb
Taken to make him lean, which old Corduba,
King of Morocco, counsell’d his fear to,
Than he would hazard to be stunk[827] to death,
As that huge cormorant that was chok’d before him.
W. Knight. Well, you’re as sound a spokesman, sir, for parsimony,
Clean abstinence, and scarce one meal a-day,
As ever spake with tongue.
404B. King. Censure him mildly, sir;
’Twas but to find discourse.
B. Queen. He’ll raise['t] of any thing.
W. Knight. I shall be half afraid to feed hereafter.
W. Duke. Or I, beshrew my heart, for I fear fatness,
The fog of fatness, as I fear a dragon:
The comeliness I wish for, that’s as glorious.
W. Knight. Your course is wondrous strict: I should transgress, sure,[828]
Were I to change my side, as you’ve much wrought me.
B. Knight. How you misprize! this is not meant to you-ward:
You that are wound up to the height of feeding
By clime and custom, are dispens’d withal;
You may eat kid, cabrito, calf, and tons,[829]
Eat and eat every day, twice, if you please;
Nay, the frank’d[830] hen, fatten’d with milk and corn,
A riot which th' inhabitants of Delos
Were first inventors of, or the cramm’d cockle.
W. Knight. Well, for the food I'm happily resolv’d[831] in;
But for the diet of my disposition,
There comes a trouble; you will hardly find
Food to please that.
B. Knight. It must be a strange nature
We cannot find a dish for, having Policy,
The master-cook of Christendom, to dress it:
Pray, name your nature’s diet.
405W. Knight. The first mess
Is hot ambition.
B. Knight. That’s but serv’d in puff-paste;
Alas, the meanest of our cardinals' cooks
Can dress that dinner: your ambition, sir,
Can fetch no further compass than the world?
W. Knight. That’s certain, sir.
B. Knight. We’re about that already;
And in the large feast of our vast ambition
We count but the White Kingdom, whence you come from,
The garden for our cook to pick his salads;
The food’s lean France, larded with Germany;
Before which comes the grave, chaste signiory
Of Venice, serv’d in, capon-like, in white broth;
From our chief oven, Italy, the bake-meats;
Savoy the salt, Geneva the chipt manchet;[832]
Below the salt[833] the Netherlands are plac’d,
A common dish at lower end a' the table,
For meaner pride to fall to: for our second course,
A spit of Portugals serv’d in for plovers;
Indians and Moors for blackbirds: all this while
Holland stands ready-melted to make sauce
On all occasions: when the voider[834] comes,
And with such cheer our full hopes we suffice,
Zealand says grace for fashion; then we rise.
W. Knight. Here’s meat enough, in[835] conscience, for ambition!
B. Knight. If there be any want, there’s Switzerland,
Polonia, and such pickled things will serve
To furnish out the table.
406W. Knight. You say well, sir:
But here’s the misery; when I've stopt the mouth
Of one vice, there’s another gapes for food;
I am as covetous as a barren womb,
The grave, or what’s more ravenous.
B. Knight. We’re for you, sir:
Call you that heinous, that’s good husbandry?
Why, we make money of our faith,[836] our prayers;
We make the very deathbed buy her comforts,
Most dearly pay for all her[837] pious counsels,
Leave rich revenues for a few weak orisons,
Or else they pass unreconcil’d without ’em:
Did you but view the vaults within our monasteries,
You’d swear then Plutus, whom[838] the fiction calls
The lord of riches, were entombèd there.[839]
W. Knight. Is’t possible?
B. Duke. You cannot walk for tuns.
W. Duke. But how shall I bestow the vice I bring, sirs?
You quite forget me; I shall be shut out
By your strict key of life.
B. Knight. Is yours so vild,[840] sir?
W. Duke. Some that are pleas’d to make a wanton on’t,
Call it infirmity of blood, flesh-frailty;
But certain there’s a worse name in your books for’t.
B. Knight. The trifle of all vices, the mere innocent,
The very novice of this house of clay,—venery:
If I but hug thee hard, I shew the worst on’t;
’Tis all the fruit we have here after supper;
407Nay, at the ruins of a[841] nunnery once,
Six thousand infants' heads found in a fish-pond.
W. Duke. How!
B. Knight. Ay, how? how came they thither, think you?
Huldrick, bishop of Augsburg, in’s Epistle[842]
To Nicholas the first, can tell you how;
May be he was at cleansing of the pond:
I can but smile to think how it would puzzle
All mother-maids that ever liv’d in those parts
To know their own child’s head. But is this all?
B. Duke. Are you ours yet?
W. Knight. One more, and I am silenc’d:
But this that comes now will divide us questionless;
’Tis ten times, ten times worse than the forerunners.
B. Knight. Is it so vild there is no name ordain’d for’t?
Toads have their titles, and creation gave
Serpents and adders those names to be known by.
408W. Knight. This of all others bears the hiddenest venom,
The smoothest poison; I'm an arch-dissembler, sir.
B. Knight. How?
W. Knight. ’Tis my nature’s brand; turn from me, sir;
The time is yet to come that e’er I spoke
What my heart meant.
B. Knight. And call you that a vice?—
Avoid all profanation, I beseech you,—
The only prime state-virtue upon earth,
The policy of empires; O, take heed, sir,
For fear it take displeasure and forsake you!
’Tis like a jewel of that precious value,
Whose worth’s not known but to the skilful lapidary;
The instrument that picks ope princes' hearts,
And locks up ours from them, with the same motion:
You never came so near our souls as now.
B. Duke. Now you’re a brother to us.
B. Knight. What we have done
Hath been dissemblance ever.
W. Knight. There you lie then,
And the game’s ours; we give thee check-mate by
Discovery, King, the noblest mate of all!
B. Knight.[843] I'm lost, I'm taken!
[A great shout and flourish.
W. Knight. Ambitious, covetous,
Luxurious falsehood!
W. Duke. Dissembler includes all.
B. King.[844] All hopes confounded!
B. Queen. Miserable condition!
409Enter White King, White Queen, White Bishop, White Queen’s Pawn, and other White Pawns.
W. King. O, let me bless mine arms with this dear treasure,
Truth’s glorious masterpiece! See, Queen of sweetness,
He’s in my bosom safe; and this fair structure
Of comely honour, his true blest assistant.
[Embracing W. Knight and W. Duke.
W. Queen. May their integrities ever possess
That powerful sanctuary!
W. Knight. As ’twas a game, sir,
Won with much hazard, so with much more triumph
We[845] gave him check-mate by discovery, sir.
W. King. Obscurity is now the fittest favour
Falsehood can sue for; it well suits perdition:
’Tis their best course that so have lost their fame
To put their heads into the bag for shame;
And there, behold, the bag, like hell-mouth,[846] opens
[The bag opens,[847] and the Fat Bishop and the Black lost Pawns appear in it.
To take her due, and the lost sons appear
Greedily gaping for increase of fellowship
In infamy, the last desire of wretches,
Advancing their perdition-branded foreheads
Like Envy’s issue, or a bed of snakes.
410B. B. Pawn [in the bag]. ’Tis too apparent; the game’s lost, King[848] taken.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. The White House hath given us the bag,[849] I thank ’em.
B. Jesting Pawn [in the bag]. They had need give you a whole bag by yourself:
'Sfoot, this Fat Bishop[850] hath so overlaid me,
So squelch’d[851] and squeez’d me, I've no verjuice left in me!
You shall find all my goodness, if you look for’t,
In the bottom of the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Thou malapert Pawn!
The Bishop must have room; he will have room,
And room to lie at pleasure.
B. Jesting Pawn [in the bag]. All the bag, I think,
Is room too scant for your Spalato[852] paunch.
B. B. Pawn [in the bag]. Down, viper of our order! I abhor thee:
Thou shew thy whorish front?
B. Q. Pawn [in the bag]. Yes, monster-holiness!
W. Knight. Contention in the pit! is hell divided?
W. King. You had need have some of majesty and power
To keep good rule amongst you: make room, Bishop.
[Puts B. King into the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. I'm not so[853] easily mov’d when I'm once set;
I scorn to stir for any king on earth.
411W. Queen. Here comes the Queen; what say you then to her?
[Puts B. Queen into the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Indeed a Queen may make a Bishop stir.
W. Knight. Room for the mightiest Machiavel-politician
That e’er the devil hatch’d of a nun’s egg!
[Puts B. Knight into the bag.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. He’ll pick a hole in the bag and get out shortly;
But I shall[854] be the last man that creeps out,
And that’s the misery of greatness ever.[855]
W. Duke. Room for[856] a sun-burnt, tansy-fac’d belov’d,
An olive-colour’d Ganymede! and that’s all
That’s worth the bagging.
F. Bishop [in the bag]. Crowd in all you can,
The Bishop will be still uppermost man,
Maugre King, Queen, or politician.
W. King. So, let the bag close now, the fittest womb
For treachery, pride, and falsehood; whilst we, winner-like.
Destroying, through heaven’s power, what would destroy,
Welcome our White Knight with loud peals of joy.
[Exeunt omnes.
412
EPILOGUE
By White Queen’s Pawn.
My mistress, the White Queen, hath sent me forth,
And bade me bow thus low to all of worth,
That are true friends of the White House and cause,
Which she hopes most of this assembly draws:
For any else, by envy’s mark denoted,
To those night glow-worms in the bag devoted,
Where’er they sit, stand, or in private lurk,
They’ll be soon known by their depraving work;
But she’s assur’d what they’ll commit to bane,
Her White friends' hands will build up fair again.
413