The Noble Spanish Soldier Part 3

ONAELIA Be dumb for ever.

CARDINAL Let your fears thus die: By all the sacred relics of the church And by my holy orders, what I minister Is even the spirit of health.

ONAELIA I'll drink it down into my soul at once.

CARDINAL You shall.

ONAELIA But swear.

CARDINAL What conjurations can more bind my oath?

ONAELIA But did you swear in earnest?

CARDINAL Come, you trifle.

ONAELIA No marvel, for my hopes have been so drowned I still despair, say on.

CARDINAL The King repents.

ONAELIA Pray, that again my Lord.

CARDINAL The King repents.

ONAELIA His wrongs to me?

CARDINAL His wrongs to you. The sense of sin Has pierced his soul.

ONAELIA Blessed penitence!

CARDINAL Has turned his eyes <7> into his leprous bosom And like a king vows execution On all his traitorous pa.s.sions.

ONAELIA G.o.d-like justice!

CARDINAL Intends in person presently to beg Forgiveness for his acts from heaven and you.

ONAELIA Heaven pardon him. I shall.

CARDINAL Will marry you.

ONAELIA Umh! Marry me? Will he turn bigamist?

When? When?

CARDINAL Before the morrow sun hath rode Half his day's journey, will send home his Queen As one that stains his bed, and can produce Nothing but b.a.s.t.a.r.d issue to his crown.

Why, how now? Lost in wonder and amazement?

ONAELIA I am so stored with joy that I can now Strongly wear out more years of misery Than I have lived.

Enter King.

CARDINAL You need not: here is the King.

KING Leave us.

Exit Cardinal.

ONAELIA With pardon sir, I will prevent you And charge upon you first.

KING 'Tis granted, do.

But stay, what mean these emblems of distress?

My picture so defaced, opposed against A holy cross! Room hung in black, and you Dressed like chief mourner at a funeral?

ONAELIA Look back upon your guilt, dear Sir, and then The cause that now seems strange explains itself.

This and the image of my living wrongs Is still confronted by me to beget Grief like my shame, whose length may outlive time.

This cross, the object of my wounded soul To which I pray to keep me from despair; That ever as the sight of one throws up Mountains of sorrow on my accursed head.

Turning to that, mercy may check despair And bind my hands from wilful violence.

KING But who has played the tyrant with me thus, And with such dangerous spite abused my picture?

ONAELIA The guilt of that lays claim sir, to yourself For being, by you, ransacked of all my fame, Robbed of mine honour and dear chast.i.ty, Made, by your act, the shame of all my house, The hate of good men and the scorn of bad, The song of broom-men and the murdering vulgar, And left alone to bear up all these ills By you begun, my breast was filled with fire And wrapped in just disdain, and like a woman On that dumb picture wreaked I my pa.s.sions.

KING And wished it had been I.

ONAELIA Pardon me Sir, My wrongs were great, and my revenge swelled high.

KING I will descend and cease to be a King, To leave my judging part, freely confessing Thou canst not give thy wrongs too ill a name.

And here to make thy apprehension full, And seat thy reason in a sound belief I vow tomorrow, ere the rising sun Begins his journey, with all ceremonies Due to the Church, to seal our nuptials, To prive <8> thy son with full consent of state, Spain's heir apparent, born in wedlock's vows.

ONAELIA And will you swear to this?

KING By this I swear.

[Takes up Bible.]

ONAELIA Oh, you have sworn false oaths upon that book!

KING Why then, by this.

[Takes up crucifix.]

ONAELIA Take heed you print it deeply: How for your concubine, bride I cannot say, She stains your bed with black adultery, And though her fame masks in a fairer shape Than <9> mine to the world's eye, yet King, you know Mine honour is less strumpeted than hers, However butchered in opinion.

KING This way for her, the contract which thou hast, By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with b.a.s.t.a.r.dy.

This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all our peers.

Are you resolved?

OMAELIA To doubt of this were treason Because the King has sworn it.

KING And will keep it.

Deliver up the contract then, that I May make this day end with thy misery.