The Noble Spanish Soldier Part 9

POET I do not love to pluck the quills, With which I make pens, out of a lion's claw.

The King! Should I be bitter 'gainst the King, I shall have scurvy ballads made of me, Sung to the hanging tune. I dare not, Madam.

ONAELIA This baseness follows your profession.

You are like common beadles, apt to lash Almost to death poor wretches not worth striking, But fawn with slavish flattery on d.a.m.ned vices So great men act them. You clap hands at those, Where the true poet indeed doth scorn to guild A gaudy tomb with glory of his verse, Which coffins stinking carrion. No, his lines Are free as his invention. No base fear Can shake his pen to temporise even with kings, The blacker are their crimes, he louder sings.

Go, go, thou canst not write: 'tis but my calling The muses help, that I may be inspired.

Canst a woman be a poet, Sir?

POET Yes, Madam, best of all. For poesie Is but feigning, feigning is to lie, And women practice lying more than men.

ONAELIA Nay, but if I should write, I would tell truth.

How might I reach a lofty strain?

POET Thus Madam: Books, music, wine, brave company and good cheer Make poets to soar high and sing most clear.

ONAELIA Are they born poets?

POET Yes.

ONAELIA Die they?

POET Oh, never die.

ONAELIA My misery is then a poet sure, For time has given it an eternity.

What sort of poets are there?

POET Two sorts lady: The great poets and the small poets.

ONAELIA Great and small!

Which do you call the great? The fat ones?

POET No: But such as have great heads, which emptied forth, Fill all the world with wonder at their lines; Fellows which swell big with the wind of praise.

The small ones are but shrimps of poesie.

ONAELIA Which in the kingdom now is the best poet?

POET Emulation.

ONAELIA Which the next?

POET Necessity.

ONAELIA And which the worst?

POET Self-love.

ONAELIA Say I turn poet, what should I get?

POET Opinion.

ONAELIA Alas, I have got too much of that already, Opinion is my evidence, judge and jury.

Mine own guilt and opinion now condemn me.

I'll therefore be no poet, no nor make Ten muses of your nine. I'll swear for this; Verses, though freely born, like slaves are sold, I crown thy lines with bays, thy love with gold: So fare thou well.

POET Our pen shall honour thee.

Exit Poet, enter Cornego.

CORNEGO The poet's book Madam, has got the inflammation of the liver, it died of a burning fever.

ONAELIA What shall I do, Cornego? For this poet Has filled me with a fury. I could write Strange satires now against adulterers, And marriage-breakers.

CORNEGO I believe you Madam - but here comes your uncle.

Enter Medina, Alanzo, Carlo, Alba, Sebastian, Daenia.

MEDINA Where's our niece?

Turn your brains round, and recollect your spirits, And see your n.o.ble friends and kinsmen ready To pay revenge his due.

ONAELIA That word revenge, Startles my sleepy soul, now thoroughly wakened By the fresh object of my hapless child Whose wrongs reach beyond mine.

SEBASTIAN How doth my sweet mother?

ONAELIA How doth my prettiest boy?

ALANZO Wrongs, like great whirlwinds, Shake highest battlements. Few for heaven would care, Should they be ever happy. They are half G.o.ds Who both in good days, and good fortune share.

ONAELIA I have no part in either.

CARLO You shall in both, Can swords but cut the way.

ONAELIA I care not much, so you but gently strike him, And that my child escape the lightening.

MEDINA For that our nerves are knit; is there not here A promising face of manly princely virtues, And shall so sweet a plant be rooted out By him that ought to fix it fast in the ground?

Sebastian, what will you do to him That hurts your mother?

SEBASTIAN The King my father shall kill him I trow.

DAENIA But sweet cousin, the King loves not your mother.

SEBASTIAN I'll make him love her when I am a King.

MEDINA La you, there's in him a king's heart already.

As therefore we before together vowed, Lay all your warlike hands upon my sword, And swear.

SEBASTIAN Will you swear to kill me, Uncle?

MEDINA Oh not for twenty worlds.