  [A Room in Montsurry's House.] Montsurry bare, unbrac't, pulling Tamyra in by the haire; Frier; One bearing light, a standish, and paper, which sets a table. Tamyra. O, help me, father! Friar. Impious earle, forbeare; Take violent hand from her, or, by mine order, The King shall force thee. Montsurry. Tis not violent; Come you not willingly? Tam. Yes, good my lord. Fri. My lord, remember that your soule must seek5 Her peace as well as your revengefull bloud. You ever to this houre have prov'd your selfe A noble, zealous, and obedient sonne T'our holy mother: be not an apostate. Your wives offence serves not (were it the worst10 You can imagine) without greater proofes To sever your eternall bonds and hearts; Much lesse to touch her with a bloudy hand. Nor is it manly (much lesse husbandly) To expiate any frailty in your wife With churlish strokes, or beastly ods of strength. The stony birth of clowds will touch no lawrell, Nor any sleeper: your wife is your lawrell, And sweetest sleeper; doe not touch her, then; Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour To her that is more gentle than that rude; In whom kind nature suffer'd one offence But to set off her other excellence. Mont. Good father, leave us: interrupt no more The course I must runne for mine honour sake. Rely on my love to her, which her fault Cannot extinguish. Will she but disclose Who was the secret minister of her love, And through what maze he serv'd it, we are friends. Fri. It is a damn'd work to pursue those secrets That would ope more sinne, and prove springs of slaughter; Nor is't a path for Christian feet to tread, But out of all way to the health of soules; A sinne impossible to be forgiven, Which he that dares commit— Mont. Good father, cease your terrors. Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt To outrages that I shall ever rue: I will not passe the verge that bounds a Christian, Nor break the limits of a man nor husband. Fri. Then Heaven inspire you both with thoughts and deeds Worthy his high respect, and your owne soules! Tam. Father! Fri. I warrant thee, my dearest daughter, He will not touch thee; think'st thou him a pagan? His honor and his soule lies for thy safety. Exit. Mont. Who shall remove the mountaine from my brest, Stand [in] the opening furnace of my thoughts, And set fit out-cries for a soule in hell? Mont[surry] turnes a key. For now it nothing fits my woes to speak, But thunder, or to take into my throat The trump of Heaven, with whose determinate blasts The windes shall burst and the devouring seas Be drunk up in his sounds, that my hot woes (Vented enough) I might convert to vapour Ascending from my infamie unseene; Shorten the world, preventing the last breath That kils the living, and regenerates death. Tam. My lord, my fault (as you may censure it With too strong arguments) is past your pardon. But how the circumstances may excuse mee, Heaven knowes, and your more temperate minde hereafter May let my penitent miseries make you know. Mont. Hereafter! tis a suppos'd infinite That from this point will rise eternally. Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities Enrag'd with those winds that lesse lights extinguish. Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffin gally rig'd with quench for lust: Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap70 The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc'd; That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe, And quit his manhood with a womans sleight, Who never is deceiv'd in her deceit. Sing (that is, write); and then take from mine eyes The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander That ever lapt up an adulterous vomit, That I may see the devill, and survive To be a devill, and then learne to wive! That I may hang him, and then cut him downe, Then cut him up, and with my soules beams search The cranks and cavernes of his braine, and study The errant wildernesse of a womans face, Where men cannot get out, for all the comets That have beene lighted at it. Though they know That adders lie a sunning in their smiles, That basilisks drink their poyson from their eyes, And no way there to coast out to their hearts, Yet still they wander there, and are not stay'd Till they be fetter'd, nor secure before All cares devoure them, nor in humane consort Till they embrace within their wives two breasts All Pelion and CythÆron with their beasts.— Why write you not? Tam. O, good my lord, forbeare In wreak of great faults to engender greater, And make my loves corruption generate murther. Mont. It followes needfully as childe and parent; The chaine-shot of thy lust is yet aloft, And it must murther; tis thine owne deare twinne. No man can adde height to a womans sinne.100 Vice never doth her just hate so provoke, As when she rageth under vertues cloake. Write! for it must be—by this ruthlesse steele, By this impartiall torture, and the death Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails,105 To quicken life in dying, and hold up The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve Torments in ashes that will ever last. Speak: will you write? Tam. Sweet lord, enjoyne my sinne Some other penance than what makes it worse:110 Hide in some gloomie dungeon my loth'd face, And let condemned murtherers let me downe (Stopping their noses) my abhorred food: Hang me in chaines, and let me eat these armes That have offended: binde me face to face115 To some dead woman, taken from the cart Of execution?—till death and time In graines of dust dissolve me, Ile endure; Or any torture that your wraths invention Can fright all pitie from the world withall.120 But to betray a friend with shew of friendship, That is too common for the rare revenge Your rage affecteth; here then are my breasts, Last night your pillowes; here my wretched armes, As late the wished confines of your life: Now break them, as you please, and all the bounds Of manhood, noblesse, and religion. Mont. Where all these have bin broken, they are kept In doing their justice there with any shew Of the like cruell cruelty: thine armes have lost130 Their priviledge in lust, and in their torture Thus they must pay it. Stabs her. Tam. O lord— Mont. Till thou writ'st, Ile write in wounds (my wrongs fit characters) Thy right of sufferance. Write! Tam. O kill me, kill me! Deare husband, be not crueller than death!135 You have beheld some Gorgon: feele, O feele How you are turn'd to stone. With my heart blood Dissolve your selfe againe, or you will grow Into the image of all tyrannie. Mont. As thou art of adultry; I will ever Prove thee my parallel, being most a monster. Thus I expresse thee yet. Stabs her againe. Tam. And yet I live. Mont. I, for thy monstrous idoll is not done yet. This toole hath wrought enough. Now, Torture, use Ent[er] Servants. This other engine on th'habituate powers Of her thrice damn'd and whorish fortitude: Use the most madding paines in her that ever Thy venoms sok'd through, making most of death, That she may weigh her wrongs with them—and then Stand, vengeance, on thy steepest rock, a victor! Tam. O who is turn'd into my lord and husband? Husband! my lord! None but my lord and husband! Heaven, I ask thee remission of my sinnes, Not of my paines: husband, O help me, husband! Ascendit Frier with a sword drawne. Fri. What rape of honour and religion! O wrack of nature! Falls and dies. Tam. Poore man! O, my father! Father, look up! O, let me downe, my lord, And I will write. Mont. Author of prodigies! What new flame breakes out of the firmament That turnes up counsels never knowne before? Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still; Even heaven it selfe must see and suffer ill. The too huge bias of the world hath sway'd Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves This hemisphere that long her mouth hath mockt:165 The gravity of her religious face (Now growne too waighty with her sacriledge, And here discern'd sophisticate enough) Turnes to th'Antipodes; and all the formes That her illusions have imprest in her Have eaten through her back; and now all see How she is riveted with hypocrisie. Was this the way? was he the mean betwixt you? Tam. He was, he was, kind worthy man, he was. Mont. Write, write a word or two. Tam. I will, I will. Ile write, but with my bloud, that he may see These lines come from my wounds & not from me. Writes. Mont. Well might he die for thought: methinks the frame And shaken joynts of the whole world should crack To see her parts so disproportionate; And that his generall beauty cannot stand Without these staines in the particular man. Why wander I so farre? here, here was she That was a whole world without spot to me, Though now a world of spots. Oh what a lightning185 Is mans delight in women! What a bubble He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries! Since all earths pleasures are so short and small, The way t'enjoy it is t'abjure it all. Enough! I must be messenger my selfe, Disguis'd like this strange creature. In, Ile after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes, And to the world sing new impieties. He puts the Frier in the vault and follows. She raps her self in the arras. Exeunt [Servants]. LINENOTES:by the haire. A omits. 1-4 O, help ... my lord. A omits. 35-6 Good ... distracted. B punctuates:— Good father cease: your terrors Tempt not a man distracted. 42-4 Father ... safety. A omits. 46 Stand [in] the opening. Emend, ed.; A, Ope the seven-times heat; B, Stand the opening. 48 woes. A, cares. 141 parallel. A, like in ill. |
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