The Queen-Mother
Persons Represented
Charles IX.
Henry, King of Navarre.
Catholic Nobles
Gaspard de Saulx, Marshal of Tavannes,
Henry, Duke of Guise,
Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbé de Brantôme,
Huguenot Nobles
The Admiral Coligny,
M. De La Noue,
M. De Teligny,
M. De La Rochefoucauld,
M. De Marsillac,
M. De Soubise,
M. De Pardaillan,
Cino Galli, Jester to the Queen-Mother.
Two Captains.
Catherine De’ Medici, Queen-Mother.
Margaret, Queen of Navarre.
Claude, Duchess of Lorraine.
Duchess of Guise.
Maids of Honor.
Denise De Maulévrier,
Yolande De Montlitard,
Anne De Saulx,
Renée De Barbezieux,
Soldiers, People, Attendants, & c. Scene, Paris. Time, Aug. 22-24, 1572.

The Queen Mother

Act I

Scene I.
Environs of the Louvre

Enter Marsillac, Pardaillan, Soubise, and
others, masked; the Duchess of Guise,
and other Ladies
Marsillac
No, not the king, sir, but my lord of Guise; I know him by the setting of his neck, The mask is wried there.
Pardaillan
Are not you the queen? By the head’s turn you should be; your hair too Has just the gold stamp of a crown on it.
Duchess
You do dispraise her by your scorn of me.
Pardaillan
Not the queen? then that hair’s real gold of yours And no white under?
Soubise
Speak low, sirs; the king See him there, down between the two big stems, Wearing a rose, some damozel with him In the queen’s colours
Marsillac
Ill colours those to wear ; I doubt some loose half of a Florentine, Clipt metal too.
Pardaillan
Lower: they are close by this ; Make space, I pray you; Christ, how thick they get !
[The Courtiers fall back.
Enter the King and Denise De Maulévrier
Charles
Why do you pluck your hands away from me? Have I said evil? does it hurt you so To let one love you?
Denise
Yea, hurts much, my lord.
Charles
Such soft small hands to hide in mine like birds— Poor child, she pulls so hard—hush now, Denise, The wrist will show a bruise, I doubt.
Denise
My wrist? This is a knight, a man gilt head and feet, And does such villainous things as that!
Charles
Yea now, Will you not weep too? will you cry for it? So, there, keep quiet; let one loose the mask; Show me the rivet.
Denise
No, no, not the mask; I pray you, sir—good love, let be the clasp, I will not show you—ah!
Charles
So, so, I said This was my lady, this one? let the rest Go chatter like sick flies, the rest of them, I have my gold-headed sweet bird by the foot To teach it words and feed it with my mouth. I would one had some silk to tie you with Softer than a man’s fingers be.
Denise
I too; Your finger pinches like a trap that shuts.
Charles
Come then, what penance do you think to get Now I have trapped you? No, my sweet Denise, No crying, no dear tears for it: no, love, I am not angry. Why did you break from me?
Denise
Because I would not have a touch of you Upon me somewhere; or a word of yours To make all music stupid in my ear. The least kiss ever put upon your lips Would throw me this side heaven, to live there. What, Am I to lose my better place i’ the world, Be stripped out of my girdled maiden’s gown And clad loose for the winter’s tooth to hurt, Because the man’s a king, and I—see now, There’s no good in me, I have no wit at all; I pray you by your mother’s eyes, my lord, Forbear me, let the foolish maiden go That will not love you; masterdom of us Gets no man praise: we are so more than poor, The dear’st of all our spoil would profit you Less than mere losing; so most more than weak It were but shame for one to smite us, who Could but weep louder.
Charles
But Denise, poor sweet, I mean you hurt, I smite you? by God’s head I’d give you half my blood to wash your feet.
[They pass.
Duchess
To speak truth, I’m a German offset, sir, And no high woman; I was born in Cleves, Where half the blood runs thick.
Pardaillan
Ay, with your tongue and head, Tell me of German! your silk hair, madam, Was spun in Paris, and your eyes that fill The velvet slit i’ the mask like two fair lamps, Set to shake spare gold loose about the dark— Tell me of German!
Duchess
See then in my hands; You have good skill at palm-reading, my lord?
Pardaillan
The glove smells sweet inside; that’s good to touch.
Duchess
Give me my glove back.
Pardaillan
By your hand, I will not.
Duchess
There is no potency of oath in that; My hands are weak, sir.
Pardaillan
By your eyes then, no.
Duchess
I pray you, for your courtesy, sweet lord, Leave me the glove yet.
Pardaillan
Bid me tear it first; I’ll wear this whether iron gird or silk, Let snatch at it who will; and whoso doth, I’ve a keen tongue ensheathed to answer with.
Duchess
I do beseech you, not my glove, fair sir, For your dear honour,—could you have such heart?
Pardaillan
Yea, truly; do but see me fasten it; Nay, it drops; help me to set in the wrist. The queen comes; I shall cross her sight with this: If you be woman, as you said, of hers, It will make sharp the inward of her soul To see it.
Enter the Queen-Mother, Guise, and Attendants; Cino Galli, and Ladies, masked
Catherine
So, Denise is caught by this; Alack, the wolf’s paw for the cat’s, fair son! That tall knight with a glove wrought curiously, Whose friend, think you?
Guise
Some lady’s here, no doubt; Not mine, as surely.
Pardaillan
Not yours, my lord of Guise.
Catherine
Your wife’s glove, is it? sewn with silk throughout, And some gold work, too: her glove, certainly.
Guise
Take no note of him, madam; let us go.
[They pass.
Pardaillan
You Catholics, her glove inside my cap, Look here, I tread it in the dirt: you, Guise, I tread a token under foot of mine You would be glad to wear about the heart. Here, madam, have it back; soiled in the seam Perhaps a little, but good enough to wear For any Guise I see yet.
Duchess
I keep it for him.
[Exit Duchess.
Cino
If he be wise I am no fool. One of you Bid him come sup with me.
Pardaillan
What fare, good fool?
Cino
A sacrament of eye-water and rye-bread Changed to mere foolish flesh and blood to sup, sir.
Yolande
’Ware stakes, my Cino; is this a head to roast? Think, my poor fool’s tongue with a nail through it, Were it no pity?
Cino
Fire goes out with rain, child. I do but think, too, if I were burnt to-morrow, What a waste of salt would there be! what a ruin of silk stuff! What sweet things would one have to hear of me, Being once got penitent! Suppose you my soul’s father, Here I come weeping, lame in the feet, mine eyes big— “Yea, my sin merely! be it not writ against me How the very devil in the shape of a cloth-of-gold skirt Lost me my soul with a mask, a most ungracious one, A velvet riddle; and how he set a mark on me, A red mark, father, here where the halter throttles, See there, Yolande writ broad;” yet, for all that, The queen might have worn worse paint, if it please you note me, If her physic-seller had kept hands cleaner, verily.
Yolande
Kind Cino! dost not look to be kissed for this now?
Cino
Be something modest, prithee: it was never good time Since the red ran out of the cheeks into the lips. You are not patient; to see how a good man’s beard May be worn out among you!
Anne
Virtuous Cino!
Cino
Tell me the right way from a fool to a woman, I’ll tell thee why I eat spiced meat on Fridays.
Yolande
As many feet as take the world twice round, sweet, Ere the fool come to the woman.
Cino
I am mocked, verily; None of these slippers but have lightened heels. I’ll sit in a hole of the ground, and eat rank berries.
Yolande
Why, Cino?
Cino
Because I would not have a swine’s mouth And eat sweetmeats as ye do. It is a wonder in heaven How women so nice-lipped, discreet of palate, Should be as easy for a thief to kiss As for a king’s son; like the common grass That lets in any sun or rain, and wears All favours the same way; it is a perfect wonder.
Yolande
A stole for Cino; pray for me, Fra Cino.
Cino
Vex me not, woman; I renounce the works of thee. I’ll give the serpent no meat, not my heel, To sweeten his tooth on. I marvel how your mother Died of her apple, seeing her own sense was So more pernicious; the man got but lean parings, And yet they hang too thick for him to swallow. Well, for some three or four poor sakes of yours, I’ll eat no honey.
Anne
Wherefore no honey, Cino? One saint ate honey before your head had eyes in it.
Cino
I would not think of kissing, and it remembers me. Here are two scraps of Venus’ nibbled meat; Keep out of the dish, as ye respect me, children, Let not love broil you on a gold spit for Sundays.
[They retire.
Re-enter the King and Denise
Charles
Nay, as you will then.
Denise
Not for love indeed, Not for love only, but your own fair name, The costliness and very price of it, I am bold to talk thus with you. The queen, suspicious And tempered full of seasonable fears, Does partly work me into this; truth is it, There’s no such holy secret but she knows As deep therein as any; all changes, hopes, Wherewith the seed-time of this year goes heavy, She holds and governs; and me, as all my fellows, Has she fed up with shreds and relics thrown From the full service and the board of time Where she sits guest, and sees the feast borne through; I have heard her say, with a sigh shaking her, There’s none more bound to pray for you than she, And her you love not; and how sore it seems To see the poisons mingle in your mouth, And not to stay them.
Charles
Will she say that indeed? Denise, I think if she be wise and kindly, And mixed of mother’s very milk and love, She would not say so.
Denise
I have a fear in me She doubts your timely speed and spur of blood; She thinks, being young, you shall but tax her care And liberal grace with practice and weak tricks; As thus, say, you conceive of me, fair lord, As one set on and haled by golden will (Such lust of hire as many souls hath burnt Who wear no heat outside) to do you wrong, To scourge and sting your lesser times with speech, Trailing you over by some tender lies On the queen’s party; which God doth well believe To lie as far from me as snow from sun, Or hence to the round sea.
Charles
There’s no trick meant me?
Denise
I pray, sir, think if I, so poor in wit The times rebuke me, and myself could chide With mine own heaviness of head, be fit To carry such a plot and spill none over To show the water’s colour I bear with me? All I lay care to is but talk of love, And put love from me I am emptier Than vessels broken in the use; I am sorry That where I would fain show some good, work somehow To suit with reason, I am thrown out merely, And prove no help; all other women’s praise Makes part up of my blame, and things of least account In them are all my praises. God help some! If women so much loving were kept wise, It were a world to live in.
Charles
Poor Denise, She loves not then so wisely? yea, sweet thing?
Denise
Did I say that? nay, by God’s light, my lord, It was ill jested—was not—verily, I see not whether I spake truth or no.
Charles
Ay, you play both sides on me?
Denise
It may prove so. I am an ill player, for truly between times It turns my heart sick.
Charles
Fear when one plays false, then.
Denise
As good play false when I make play so hardly. My hand is hurt, sir; I’ll no more with you.
Charles
Will you so cheat me?
Denise
Even so; God quit you, sir! But pardon me; and yet no pardon, for I’ll have no stay to find it: were pardon at my feet, I would not bow to gather it. Farewell.
[Exit Denise.
Charles
Even so? but I’ll have reason; eh, sweet mouth? But I’ll have reason of her, my Denise; How such can love one! all that pains to talk! What way ran out that rhyme I spun for her? To do just good to me, that talk! sweet pains. Yea, thus it fell: Dieu dit—yea, so it fell. Dieu dit; Choisis; tu dois mourir; Le monde vaut bien une femme. L’amour passe et fait bien souffrir. C’est ce que Dieu me dit, madame. Moi, je dis à Dieu; Je ne veux, Mon Dieu, que l’avoir dans ma couche, La baiser dans ses beaux cheveux, La baiser dans sa belle bouche.
[Exit the King.
Yolande
Now, Cino?
Cino
I am considering of that apple still; It hangs in the mouth yet sorely; I would fain know too Why nettles are not good to eat raw. Come, children, Come, my sweet scraps; come, painted pieces; come.
Anne
On after him; he is lean of speech and moody; Cunning for ill words at such winter-seasons That come i’ the snow like bitter berries. On.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.
In the Louvre

Enter King Henry and Margaret.
Margaret
Yea, let him say his will.
Henry
I will not bear him. This temperance grows half shame.
Margaret
I doubt God hath Fashioned our brother of like earth and fire As moulds you up; be patient; bear with him Some inches past your humour’s mark.
Henry
Bear what? By God I will have reason: tell me not; I love you with the soundest nerve i’ the heart, The cleanest part of blood in it; but him Even to the sharpest edge and tooth of hate That blood doth war upon.
Margaret
Keep in this chafe; Put me in counsel with you.
Henry
It is no matter.
Margaret
I never saw yet how you love and hate. Are you turned bitter to me? all old words Buried past reach for grief to feed upon As on dead friends? nay, but if this be, too, Stand you my friend; there is no crown i’ the world So good as patience; neither is any peace That God puts in our lips to drink as wine, More honey-pure, more worthy love’s own praise, Than that sweet-souled endurance which makes clean The iron hands of anger. A man being smitten That washes his abusèd cheek with blood Purges it nothing, gets no good at all, But is twice punished, and his insult wears A double colour; for where but one red was Another blots it over. Such mere heat I’ the brain and hand, even for a little stain, A summer insolence and waspish wound, Hurts honour to the heart, and makes that rent That none so gracious medicine made of earth Can heal and shut like patience. The gentle God That made us out of pain endurable And childbirth comforts, willed but mark therein How life, being perfect, should keep even hand Between a suffering and a flattered sense, Not fail for either.
Henry
You do think sweetly of him; But on this matter I could preach you out. For see, God made us weak and marred with shame Our mixed conception, to this end that we Should wear remembrance each alike, and carry Strait equal raiment of humility; Not bare base cheeks for wrong to spit across, Nor vex his print in us with such foul colours As would make bondsmen blush.
Margaret
Let him slip wrong, So you do reason; if such a half-king’d man Turn gross or wag lewd lips at you, for that Must anger strike us fool? ’Tis not the stamp, The purity and record of true blood, That makes Christ fair, but piteous humbleness, Wherein God witnesses for him, no prince Except a peasant and so poor a man God gives him painful bread, and for all wine Doth feed him on sharp salt of simple tears And bitter fast of blood.
Henry
Yea, well; yea, well; And I am patient with you Catholics; But this was God’s sweet son, nothing like me, Who have to get my right and wear it through Unhelped of justice; all do me wrong but I, And right I’ll make me.
Margaret
But all this wording-time I am not perfect where this wrong began; Last night it had no formal face to show, That’s now full-featured.
Henry
Ah! no matter, sweet; Nothing, pure nought.
Margaret
Have you no shame then current To pay this anger? Nay, as you are my lord, I’ll pluck it out by the lips.
Henry
A breath, a threat, A gesture, garment pulled this way; nothing.
Margaret
You do me wrong, sir, wrong.
Henry
Well, thus then it fell out; By God, though, when I turn to think on it, Shame takes me by the throat again; well, thus. King Charles, being red up to the eyes with wine, In the queen’s garden, meeting me—as chance Took me to walk six paces with some girl, Some damozel the queen’s choice dwells upon, Strayed somehow from the broader presence—
Margaret
Well—
Henry
I swear to you by faith and faith’s pure lip That I know—that I did not hear her name Save of his mouth.
Margaret
I did not ask her name.
Henry
Nor do I well remember it; forgive, I think it was not—
Margaret
Pass.
Henry
Alys de Saulx—
Margaret
Marshal Tavannes has no such name akin.
Henry
There’s Anne de Saulx wears longest hair of all; A maid with grey grave eyes—a right fair thing; Not she, I doubt me.
Margaret
Worse for you, my lord.
Henry
Ay, worse. Diane de Villequier is tall—
Margaret
Are we at riddles?—Agnès de Bacqueville?
Henry
Some such name, surely; either Châteauroux—
Margaret
Her name? as I am wedded woman, sir, I know you have it hidden in your mouth Like sugar; tell me; take it on the lip.
Henry
There was a D in it that kissed an M.
Margaret
Denise? a white long woman with thick hair, Gold, where the sun comes?
Henry
Ay, to the ends clean gold.
Margaret
Yea, not the lightest thing she has, that hair.
Henry
You hold for true—
Margaret
We have time to come for her. Keep in your story.
Henry
Nought, mere nought to tell: This just; the king comes, pulls her hand from mine—
Margaret
Ah! no more shame?
Henry
No more in him than that; Plucked her as hard—
Margaret
As she was glad to go.
Henry
Not so; she trembled to the feet, went white, Spoke hardly—
Margaret
Kept one hand of them your way?
Henry
Charles caught her wrist up, muttered next her ear, Bade me leave care—
Margaret
Nay, here’s more fool than we.
Enter Cino
Cino
The world was a wise man when he lived by bread only; There be sweet tricks now. How does my worthy sister?
Margaret
Not so much ill as to cease thanks for it. How does thy cap, fool?
Cino
Warm, I thank it, warm; I need not wear it patched as much as faith. I am fallen sick of heavy head; sad, sad; I am as sick as Lent.
Margaret
Dull, dull as dust; Thou hadst some nerve i’ the tongue.
Cino
Why, I am old; This white fool three days older in my beard Than is your wedding. But be not you cast down; For the mere sting is honourable in wedlock, And the gall salve: therefore I say, praise God.
Henry
We do not catch thy sense.
Cino
Let my sense be; I say I could weep off mine eye-cases, But for pity of some ladies who would run mad then. Do not you meddle.
Margaret
What wisdom mak’st thou here?
Cino
Why, a fool’s wisdom, to change wit with blocks. You were late railing; were she that you did gibe Clean as her mother made, I tell you verily The whitest point on you were grime and soil To her fair footsole.
Margaret
Ay, but she’s none such.
Cino
I care not what she be; do you not gibe, I care no whit. Let her take twelve or six, And waste the wicked’st part of time on them, She doth outstand you by ten elbow-lengths.
Henry
Hath love not played the knave with this fool’s eyes?
Cino
Let that lie shut, and put you thumb to lip; For kings are bone and blood; put flesh to that, You have the rind and raiment of a man. If you be wise, stay wise, even for my sake; Learn to lie smooth, be piteous and abashed, And though dirt fall upon your faith and you Keep your ear sober, chide not with its news, And use endurance well; so shall he thrive, That being a king doth crouch, and free doth wive. Farewell, fair king.
[Exit Cino
Henry
This fool is wried with wine.
Margaret
French air hath nipped his brains; what ailed my mother To have him north?
Henry
You bring her in my mind; Have you no service on the queen to-day?
Margaret
I think she would lie privately; she said She was not well.
Henry
I pray you then with me.
Margaret
I will not with my lord of Pardaillan; You shall not break me with the king.
Henry
Men say Guise hath some angry matter made with him That I would learn.
Margaret
I am with you by the way; I have some tricks to tell you of Denise.
[Exeunt.

Scene III.
A Cabinet

The Queen-Mother; Denise dressing her hair; Tavannes
Denise
Disait amour, voyant rire madame, Qui me baisait dessous mes yeux un jour; La rose est plus que fleur et moins que femme, Disait amour. Disait amour; m’est peine éclose en âme; Dieu veuille, hélas! qu’elle me baise un jour. Ayez merci, car je souffre, madame, Disait amour.
Catherine
Set the gold higher. So, my lord Tavannes, You have no answer of the king?
Tavannes
Not I; The devil would give over such hard work, I doubt, as you put me to.
Catherine
Ah well, well, I thank you for it. Tie the next more loose, You prick my forehead through the hair, Denise. Strange, my lord marshal, I show less grey spots Than gold thread in it, surely. Five years hence, These girls will put a speckled silver on, Because the queen’s hair turns to dust-colour. Eh, will not you, Denise?
Denise
If I wear white, Gold must be out of purchase; I’ll get gold Or wear my head shorn flat, and vex no combs.
Catherine
You put sweet powders in your own too much; There, stoop down—you may kiss me if you will— I smell the spice and orris-root in it. Fie, this will cheat your face, my poor Denise; This will bleach out the colours of your blood, And leave the hair half old. See you, lord marshal, This girl’s was never soft and thick like mine: Mine was so good to feel once, I know well Kings would have spent their lips in kissing it.
Tavannes
I have poor judgment of girls’ hair and cheeks; Most women doubtless have some gold and red Somewhere to handle, and for less or more I care not greatly.
Catherine
Yea, I do well think once I had such eyes as time did sleep in them, And age forbear the purple at their lids; And my mouth’s curve has been a gracious thing For kisses to fall near: none will say now That this was once. I may remember me That Scotswoman did fleer at my grey face; I marvel not what sort of hair she has.
Denise
The Queen of Scots lived gently in repute; She has much wrong.
Catherine
Put not your judgment to’t; The peril that enrings her place about Is her own whetting. I do something praise, Yet hardly from the outside of my heart, Our sister England; were I set like her, I might look so.
Tavannes
Yea so? mere heretic?
Catherine
Beseech you, pardon me; I am all shame That I so far misuse your holiness. I know as you are sharp in continence So are you hard in faith. Mark this, Denise, These swording-men are holier things than we; These would put no kiss on, these would not praise A girl’s hair—
Tavannes
Madam, do you jape at me?
Catherine
Scarce let the wine turn in their veins to blood; Strangle the knowledge and the note of sense, Deny that worth; these eat no grosser meat Than the cleanest water we dip fingers in; Endure beyond the very touch of man, Have none so soft use of the lip as makes it Affect the natural way. Sir, is this true?
Tavannes
Why, if men said you had more teeth than hairs They would just lie; and if they call me that They lie a something harder.
Catherine
Fie, my lord! Your good wit to a woman’s? will you say The dog licks where it bit you, if I say Forgive, Sir Gaspard, and be friends with me? Come, if I make you sit by me, fair knight, And say the king had never half the wit To choose you for his marshal? Ten years back, And maybe clap some other tens on that, I mind me well, sir, how you came up here To serve at Paris; we had a right king then, King Francis, with his close black beard and eyes Near half as royal as your own, I think. A fair page were you, and had yellow hair That was all burnt since into brown; your cheek Had felt no weather pinch it or sun bite, It was so red then: but you fought well, sir, Always fought well; it was good game to see Your hand that swung round, getting weight to throw, Feeling for room to strike; Gaspard, by God I would have paid gold coin to turn a man And get me bone to handle the good steel And nerves to fight with; but I doubt me, soon I should have had the dust to roll into, Though I were made six men to fight with you. Yet my arm ached for want of spears to smite— Eh? when you ran down that Montgommery That slew my lord with his side-prick i’ the eye? Yea surely; you were my best knight, De Saulx.
Tavannes
Madam—
Catherine
Nay, Gaspard, when I lie of you Then let your bit rasp at the mouth of me; I speak poor truth; why, this Denise of mine Would give time up and turn her gold hair grey To have seen out the season we two saw.
Denise
I would not;
(aside to Cath.)
my lord marshal is too lean
To be a fair man.
Catherine
So, your glove for his? We shall have larger passages of war Except I look to it. Pray you, Denise, Fetch me my glove—my spice-box—anything; I will not trust you with my lord; make in.
[Exit Denise.
How like you her?
Tavannes
A costly piece of white; Such perfumed heads can bear no weight inside I think, with all that waste of gold to bear Plaited each way; their roots do choke the brain.
Catherine
There your sense errs; though she be tender-made, Yet is there so much heart in her as could Wear danger out of patience. It is my son I fear Much more than I doubt her: the king my son Flutters not overmuch his female times With love enough to hurt, but turns and takes, Wears and lets go; yet if she springe him once, Click, quoth the gin; and there we trap him. See, This medicine I make out for him is sweet, More soft to handle than a poppy’s bud, And pleasant as a scented mouth to kiss.
Tavannes
Yea, I do see.
Catherine
Now at this turn of time He is not perfect; and I have a mean To bring him to our use. My lord of Guise—
Tavannes
Doth he make part of it?
Catherine
Fear you not him; He is the blazon patched upon our cloth To keep the pattern’s gold. For the king’s self, I have half possessed him of the deeds to be, And he hath nothing blenched.
Tavannes
But, to this girl— What way serves her in this?
Catherine
Being ignorant, She does the better work; for her own sake Trails him my way, assures herself the king Would pluck the reddest secret from his heart To show her, as you take the reddest rose To smell at, if the colour go by scent; That’s all her certainty. What foot is there?
Tavannes
The king, and hastily.
Catherine
Keep you by me; I know his cause. Let him come in.
Enter the King
Charles
Fair mother, Good morrow come upon your majesty.
Catherine
The morrow grows upon good night, fair son; That will salute me soon with sleep; you see I keep not well.
Charles
Ah, pale by God though, pale! I’m sorry—sir, good morrow—hurt at heart. Hear you my news? The admiral is hurt, Touched in the side—I lie now, not the side, But his arm hurt—I know not verily, But he is some way wounded.
Catherine
I am sorry, No goodness walks more clear. Sir, think you not That for a colour—say a colour, now—
Charles
I doubt you do not mean to visit him?
Catherine
But I do mean; and if your leave hold out We’ll bid the Guise with us.
Charles
Have your best way: Write me content thereof.
Catherine
I thank you, sir. Lord marshal, you shall pray the Guise for us.
Tavannes
Madam, I shall; God keep your grace’s health.
[Exeunt.

Scene IV.
The Admiral’s House

Enter Coligny and La Rochefoucauld
La Rochefoucauld
How do you yet, sir?
Coligny
Ill, yea, very ill: This snake has pricked me to the heart, to the quick, To the keenest of it; I believe heartily I shall not live to foil them. God mend some! For live or die, and wounded flesh or whole, There will be hard things done; we shall not see Much more fair time.
La Rochefoucauld
Take better thoughts to you; The king is steady; and the Guise wears eyes Of such green anger and suspicious light As cows his followers; even the queen-mother Walks slower than her wont, with mouth drawn up, And pinches whiter her thin face; Tavannes Goes chewing either lip’s hair with his teeth, Churning his bearded spite, and wears the red Set on his cheek more steady; the whole court Flutters like birds before the rain begin; Salcède, who hates no place in hell so much As he loathes Guise, lets out his spleen at him And wags his head more than its use was; yea, The main set draws our way now the steel bit Keeps hard inside their mouths: yea, they pull straight.
Coligny
You lay too much upon them.
La Rochefoucauld
Not a whit over: They are good men our side; no dog laps i’ the trough So deep as we do; the best men we have That France has for us, the best mouths for a hunt, To wind the quarry furthest; then to these A clean cause, friends with iron on the hand, The king to head, no less.
Coligny
The king, no less? Yea, there’s a dog gives tongue, and tongue enough, Too hot I doubt, too hot; strikes by the scent.
La Rochefoucauld
Will you think so? why, there be dog-leashes; Pluck hard, you hold him. Come, I note you though; None sticks in your throat but Venus the old brach.
Coligny
True, there she sticks, sir; for your burden saith— “Brach’s feet and witch’s nose Breathe which way the quarry blows.”
La Rochefoucauld
She’s old, sir, old; the teeth drop, the smell wears; No breath in her by this.
Coligny
Enough to breathe The best of you that snuff about and yelp. Who stops there in the street? look out.
La Rochefoucauld
The king! So, get you ready; Catherine here and all, God save my wits a taking! here you have them.
Enter the King, Queen-Mother, Guise, and Attendants
Charles
Do not rise up, sir; pray you keep your place; Nay now, by God’s face, look, the cloak slips off; Nay, be more patient.
Coligny
Dear and gracious lord, If you be pleased to look on my disease As not my will, but a constraint to me Less native than my garments, I have hope You may forgive it.
Charles
Yea, we do, we do.
Catherine
It was not, sir, your sickness we took pains To come and visit; what’s no friend of yours Is even as our own felt infirmity, And should be held so.
Charles
True, sir, by God it should.
Catherine
We therefore pray you have no care of that, But as we do, respect it.
Charles
Do not, sir.
Coligny
Madam, a sick man has not breath or tongue To answer salutation of such worth; But even the very blood that pain makes war on Is healed and sound by this. From stronger heart Than ere I saw you was in me, now touched And comforted by favour, I pay thanks The best I have; and none so poor man pays A rent of words more costly.
Catherine
My fair lord, This compliment has relish of more health Than was believed in you; I am most glad That footless rumour which makes wing to go Reports you something lesser than you seem; So making keener with new spice to it Our very edge of pleasure, the fine taste That waits on sudden sweetness. Sir, nathless, No compliment it was we came to beg, No alms of language and frayed garb o’ the court That makes no wear for men; but to do grace indeed Rather to us than you, whose worth no friend Can top with favour.
Coligny
It shows the more love in you.
Catherine
Also, my lord, for such poor part as mine, I pray you be not jealous to receive Assurance of me with how sore a hurt Ill news of you made passage most unkind Into my knowledge; and with how dear a price I would have bought a chance to succour you Whose wound was sickness to me. So God love my son, As I have put my prayer for your good hap Between two tears before him; yea, never shall he Get worship of me but I’ll speak of you As the leader of my loves, the captain friend Among my nearest. Sir, the king knows well How I speak of you; see now, let him say Whether I lie or no in loving you.
Charles
Ay, sir, there’s no such day or night-season But she holds to you, none but the admiral, That good lord, that best counsellor, strong ward For any king to hang by; time has been, sir, I have turned sick of hearing your grave name So paddled over, handled so; my lord, There’s no man, none in the world, my mother mates with you Save two, that’s I and God.
Guise
And that’s a courtesy.
Coligny
My lord of Guise, I saw you not; this day, As men do shut the edges of a wound, Shuts the loud lips of our contention; sir, This grace you do me shall keep fast my thanks To your name always.
Guise
It is the king’s good will I should be made the servant to his act; And what grace pleases him to bring me to I take as title to me; this not least, To call my poor name a friend’s name of yours.
Coligny
That makes mine honour.
Charles
It was this we came To see made well up from the Guise to you; My thought was ever there, yea, nailed to it, Fastened upon it; it was my meat and sleep, Prayer at feast-season and my fast at noon, To get this over.
Coligny
It is well set now. This hand is hurt I lay into your hand, But the love whole and the good will as sound As shall the peace be for us.
Guise
I take it so; Maimed be that hand which first shall loosen it, Even beyond healing.
Coligny
Pardon, my fair lord, I am but old, you strain my wrist too much.
Charles
Nay, you are worse hurt than they told us, then; I pray you show me but the coat, I would Fain see the coat where blood must stick of yours.
Coligny
Sir, there it is.
Charles
Ay, no more red than this? I thank you; was it this way the slit came? Yea, so, I see; yea, sideways in the sleeve. Is that the admiral’s blood indeed? Methinks, Being issued from so famous veins as yours, This should be redder. See, well above the wrist; See, madam; yea, meseems I smell the stain.
Catherine
It is an ill sight.
Coligny
I would give better, sir, Spill the red residue some worthier way, If you would heed me. Trust not each in all, Nor sew your faith too thinly to men’s sleeves; There is a poisonous faith that eats right out The sober and sweet heart of clean allegiance, Leaving for witness of all royalty Merely the baser flesh; beware of that.
Charles
I will.—Is not this like men’s blood?—I will. Most like a common fool’s; see you, lord Guise, Here’s a great soldier has no blood more worth Than yours or mine. By God, how strange is that, It makes me marvel. Is your wound near well? Tush! no more hurt than shall a month see out.
Catherine
You have poor sense of sickness; I fear much Our friend shall hardly feed on the larger air This two months hence. You must keep close, dear lord, Hide from the insolent and eager time; And we not wrong you by the overstay Of foolish friendship, thankworthy in this, That it knows when to cease, what limit made To measure its observance by. Farewell; Think not worse of us that we trouble you, But know we love you even too well to buy Our further speech with danger of your hurt, And had we sounder witness of our love Would better prove it. Sir, God keep you well And give us joy to see you.
Charles
Farewell, dear father; Doubt not but we will lay a present hand On one that hath so stricken us in you, And he shall find us sharp. In trust of that Keep some thought of this poorest friend you have, As we of you shall. Trouble not yourself. Nay, have your cloak on; so; God give you help. Come with me, my lord Guise; fair sir, good night. Yea, night it is now; God send you good time of it.
[Exeunt King, Queen-Mother, Guise, &c.
Coligny
Good thanks, sir, and farewell.—So: gone, I think?
La Rochefoucauld
Fair words go with them! you have good time indeed; What holidays of honey have they kept, What a gold season of sentences to warm by, Even past all summer! a sweet oil-season, Kept ripe with periods of late wine to finish it!
Coligny
Ay, the taste of them makes a bitter lip, sir.
La Rochefoucauld
Nay, mere feast-honey; did you mark the Guise once, How his chin twisted and got rough with smiles, Like a new cloth rained on? How the nose was wried of him, What widow’s cheeks he had, never well dried yet? The sweet speech clung in his throat like a kernel swallowed In sucking cherries.
Coligny
You are too loud yet, too splenetive.
La Rochefoucauld
Tush! they are well gone, no fear of them; but verily I doubt you saw not how like a dog’s his face was, A dog’s you catch with meat in his teeth; by Christ, I thought he would have cried or cursed outright, His mouth so wrought.
Coligny
Yea, either had done well.
La Rochefoucauld
A dog that snarls and shivers with back down, With fearful slaver about his mouth; “weh, weh, For God’s sake do not beat me, sirs!” eh, Guise?— With timid foam between his teeth; poor beast, too, I could be sorry for him.
Coligny
Be wise in time, sir, And save your tears; this Guise has scope to mend, Get past these matters; I not doubt the queen Touches them with a finger-point of hers.
La Rochefoucauld
The queen gets kind; she lessens and goes out; No woman holds a snake at breast so long, But it must push its head between the plaits And show across her throat’s gold work. Fair sir, Cure but your doubt, your blood is whole again And pain washed out at once; it is the fret of that Which fevers you so far.
Coligny
This is not so. I pray you mark: their fires are lit next room, The smoke bites in our eyelids, air turns weak And body trembles and breath sickens here. Sir, I do know this danger to the heart, To the shape and bone of it, the mouth and eyes, The place and time, season and consequence; By God’s head, sir, now, this mere now, this day, The peril ripens like a wound o’ the flesh That gathers poison; and we sleepy things Let crawl up to our feet the heats that will Turn fire to burn.
La Rochefoucauld
Your wisdom is too loud: Doth it fear truly some court-card, some trick That throws out honour?
Coligny
Yea; for note me this, These men so wholly hate us and so well It would be honey to their lips, I think, To have our death for the familiar word They chatter between mass-time and the bed Wet with wine, scented with a harlot’s hair, They lie so smooth in. When one hates like that, So many of them, each a hand and mouth To stab and lie and pray and poison with, The bloodsmell quickens in the head, the scent Feels gross upon the trail, and the steam turns Thicker i’ the noses of the crew; right soon Shall their feet smoke in the red pasturing-place And tongues lap hot; such cannot eat mere grass Nor will drink water.
La Rochefoucauld
Are we stalled for them? Are we their sheep? have we no steel? dumb sheep?
Coligny
No steel; the most of us have watered blood, Their nerves are threads of silk, their talk such cries As babies babble through the suckling milk, Put them by these.
La Rochefoucauld
I have a way to help; A damsel of the queen-mother’s loves me More than her mistress; she has eyes to kiss That can see well; I’ll get us help of her.
Coligny
Tell her no word.
La Rochefoucauld
Yea, many words, I think.
Coligny
No word, sir, none.
La Rochefoucauld
This riddle sticks, my lord.
Coligny
To say we stand in fear is perilous prate; To kneel for help would maim us in the feet, So could we neither stand in time nor fly, Being caught both ways. Do not you speak with her.
La Rochefoucauld
I’ll make help somehow yet; Yolande is good And would not hurt us; a fair mouth too small To let lies in and learn broad tricks of speech; I’ll get help, surely. Does not your wound hurt?
Coligny
Not much; I pray you draw my cloak across; So; the air chafes.
La Rochefoucauld
Go in and rest some while; Your blood is hot even to the fingers.
Coligny
True; I shall sleep ill. Come in with me, fair lord.
[Exeunt.

Act II

Scene I.
The Louvre

Enter King and Denise
Denise
Nay,I shall know it.
Charles
Tush! you trouble me.
Denise
O ay, I trouble you, my love’s a thorn To prick the patience of your flesh away And maim your silenced periods of whole sleep. I will unlearn that love; yea, presently.
Charles
What need I tell you?
Denise
Trouble not your lip; I have no ear to carry the large news That you shut up inside. Nay, go; nay, go; It is mere pain, not love, that makes me dull; Count not on love; be not assured of me; Trust not a corner of the dangerous air With some lean alms of speech; I may deceive you, I may wear wicked colour in the soul When the cheek keeps up red. Perchance I lie.
Charles
Thou art the prettiest wonder of God’s craft; I think thy mother made thee out of milk, Thy talk is such a maiden yet. Stay there— Are hands too costly for my fingering? ha?
Denise
Now I could kill you here between the eyes, Plant the steel’s bare chill where I set my mouth, Or prick you somewhere under the left side; Why, thou man’s face of cunning, thou live doubt, Thou mere suspicion walking with man’s feet! Yea, I could search thy veins about with steel Till in no corner of thy crannied blood Were left to run red witness of a man, No breath to test thee kinglier than dead flesh, Sooner than lose this face to touch, this hair To twist new curls in; yea, prove me verily, Sift passion pure to the blind edge of pain, And see if I will—yet what need, what need? Kiss me! there now, am I no queen for you? Here, take my fingers to mould flat in yours That would mould iron flat—eh, would not they?
Charles
Ay, true, Denise, by God they can turn steel, That’s truth now—turn it like a bit of paste Paddled each way—that’s just short truth.
Denise
Well, now, That I do pray you put some trust on me For love’s fair merit and faith’s noble sake, What holds your lips so fast? I should look proud, Grave in the mouth, with wise accomplice eyes, A piece of your great craft. Make place for me; I pray you, place.
Charles
This counsel is more grave Than death’s lean face; best your ear touch it not.
Denise
Nay then I will not; for I would not pluck So rough a knowledge on. I am a child, A show, a bauble kissed and laughed across; You lay your face over my head and laugh, Your slow laugh underbreath runs in my hair. Talk me of love, now; there I understand, Catch comprehension at the skirt of love, Steal alms of it. Yet I would put love off And rather make the time hard cover to me Than miss trust utterly. But let that lie; Therein walks danger with both eyes awake, Therefore no more. Tell me not anything.
Charles
Thou shalt have all.
Denise
Must I put violence To war upon my words? Have they said wrong? I was resolved not to distemper you.
Charles
Nay, I shall try your trust. Sit by me, so; Lay your hands thus. By God how fair you are, It does amaze me; surely God felt glad The day he finished making you. Eh sweet, You have the eyes men choose to paint, you know; And just that soft turn in the little throat And bluish colour in the lower lid They make saints with.
Denise
True. A grave thing to hear.
Charles
See yet, this matter you do fret me with Seems no whit necessary, nor hath such weight, Nor half the cost and value of a hair, Poised with some perfect little wrath of yours In fret of brows or lifting of the lip. Indeed you are too precious for man’s use, Being past so far his extreme point of price, His flawed and curious estimation, As throws out all repute of words.
Denise
I would My face were writhen like a witch! Make forth.
Charles
Why, many a business feeds on blood i’ the world, And there goes many a knave to make a saint—
Denise
I shall be angry. Sir, I am no fool, But you do treat me as a dog might fare Coming too near the fire.
Charles
Nay, keep dry lids; I would not lose you for three days, to have My place assured next God’s. But see you now, This gracious town with its smooth ways and walls And men all mine in all of theirs—
Denise
I see.
Charles
This France I have in fee as sure as God Hath me and you—if this should fall to loss, Were it no pity?
Denise
Yea, sir, it were much.
Charles
Or now, this gold that makes me up a king, This apprehensive note and mark of time, This token’d kingdom, this well-tested worth, Wherein my brows exult and are begirt With the brave sum and sense of kingliness, To have this melted from a narrow head Or broken on the bare disfeatured brows, And marred i’ the very figure and fair place Where it looked nobly—were this no shame to us?
Denise
Yea, this were piteous likewise.
Charles
Think on it. For I would have you pitiful as tears, Would have you fill with pity as the moon With perfect round of seasonable gold Fills her starved sides at point of the yellow month; For if you leave some foolish part, some break, Some idle piece or angle of yourself, Not filled with wise and fearful pity up, Then shame to hear the means of mine effect Shall change you stone for good.
Denise
I apprehend.
Charles
For I, by God, when I turn thought on it, Do feel a heavy trembling in my sense, An alteration and a full disease As perilous things did jar in me and make Contention in my blood.
Denise
Nay, but speak more; Speak forth. Good love, if I should flatter you—
Charles
You see how hard and to what sharp revolt The labour of the barren times is grown Not in France merely, but in either land That feels the sea’s salt insolence on it; The womb is split and shaken everywhere That earth gets life of; and the taint therein Doth like a venomous drug incite and sting The sore unhealed rebellion in its house To extreme working. Now to supplant this evil Doth ask more evil; men kiss not snakes to death, Nor have we heard of bodies plagued to ache Made whole with eating honey. It is most good That we should see how God doth physic time Even to the quick and the afflictive blood With stripes as keen as iron in the flesh. Therefore—That is, you have to apprehend I mean no evil, but a righteous help; I hate blood, too; indeed I love it not More than a girl does. Therefore it is hard. Take note of me, I tell you it is hard.
Denise
I see. Make on.
Charles
It was to bring all right— And these men break God’s smooth endurance up, And he must hate them; and I love him so, I and all friends, my mother here and all, It hurts us, doth us wrong, puts pain on us, When God forbears his cause to quit himself, And gives no sign aside.
Denise
I may well think These are your Huguenots that you do loathe; You will do right upon them, will you not?
Charles
Ay, right, I will do right, nothing but right. You are my absolute mistress and my choice, The top and pearl of all mine ornament, The golden and refined election Of all the treasure I set hands to; well, I do believe were you so mixed herein As many are, many that I keep dear, Dear and right precious in my just account, And I had such a promise in God’s ear As I have now to see an end of these, I might renounce you too and give him leave To make you parcel of the execution That shall be done on these.
Denise
I fear you much; For I can smell the mother in your speech, This argument hath colour of her eyes; Where learnt you it?
Charles
My brains do beat upon The month’s full time. Which day it is I know not; It should look red upon the calendar, And outblush its fierce use. The twenty-fourth of August— We stumble near it unawares by this; Give me the book.
Denise
What are you strayed upon?
Charles
It is the time, the time—you come too late To tear its thread across.
Denise
Pray you, what time?
Charles
But this Bartholomew shall be inscribed Beyond the first; the latter speech of time Shall quench and make oblivious war upon The former and defeated memories, New histories teaching it. For there will be Blood on the moist untimely lip of death, And in the dusty hunger of his bones A sudden marrow shall refresh itself And spread to perfect sinew. There will stir Even in the red and hollow heat of hell A motion of sharp spirit, a quickened sense Such as wine makes in us; yea, such a day God hath not seen as I shall make for him.
Denise
You put fear in me; I can feel my blood Go white with hearing you.
Charles
We trap them all In a great gin where the soul sticks as well. Nay, there’s no hair of any Huguenot But makes up parcel of my work in blood, Nor face that is not painted with our swords. (I told you this should hurt). O, I could be Most glad that I am taken to do this And show the eyes of this lean world and time The mould and the strong model of a king, Not in the halting likeness of an ape That fingers precious ware and knows it not, From the teeth outward fool. Look you, I’ll do’t; Nay, as God stands beyond us twain, I will. First Paris—note you, Paris helps in it, I stand not singly nerved, but in mine arm Have multiplied the sinew of all these; France helps in it: the Guise has word to go And take our admiral’s patience by the throat And finish the half issue of his blood; See, this side goes Tavannes; here ride our men, And here; no falcon starved to bones and beak Is tempered keener than our citizens.
Denise
You will not murder them?
Charles
Ay, will I not? I pray you tell me, was this well devised?
Denise
You are changed foul with it: nay, stand more off; Was it your meaning?
Charles
Ay, mine, very mine; I will not lose it.
Denise
Doth my sense hold fast? It is not possible you should do this And scape the smell of blood. Nay, I but dream; For if I wake, the substance of my flesh, This form and fast impression of the air, Yea, the most holy sun, are counterfeit; We stick yards deeper than the foot of hell. You see not well how foul a face you have— I will cry out on you.
Charles
Are you fallen mad?
Denise
I will put proclamation in the wind That where but any shape of breath shall blow It shall sound harsh as murder. Do you think God shall sit fast and blink at you?
Charles
What more? Get on; I do not chide you; nay, get breath; Spare me no whit.
Denise
I hate you beyond death; Somewhat I had to say; give ear to me. —It is all lost now, spilt in water, runs Into sick tears. Forgive me my loud words, I have much erred against your gracious game, Mistaking all of you; I do confess This jest so said has proved me dull and thick; Now say it was well played and let me go. You have played well indeed, and such hard parts— Now I shall slip into mad speech again And fail myself.
Charles
What is it you will do?
Denise
Alack, I see not that. Indeed I think It is God’s will to kill me first i’ the brain And after in the flesh. I am half mad. But I can speak; yea surely, I can speak; And I will cry in all the streets and make Twinned correspondence ’twixt the tongued Seine banks With sound and breath, clamour and noise of tears, And windy witness of your enterprise. Oh, you are moved now; keep on that better face And I will find some weeping way to you, Persuading sin to peace; you shall not do it; Lest all the recollection of men’s lips And noise of all just times and every place That hath but any shape of good on it Be sharp on you for ever.
Enter the Queen-Mother and Guise
Catherine
So, you are loud, I come betimes. Sir, if you spare me room, I have two words to say.
Charles
I am bound to you; You have care of me indeed. Bid her go in.
Catherine
I would not be untimely.
Charles
No, you are not, You are a gracious mother, a good help.
(To Denise.)
I’ll see you soon at night.
Denise
My lord, my lord—
Catherine
Give my son breath at least; you are impatient; It suits you not.
Guise
(to the King)
I wait upon your highness.
Charles
We are bounden to you too. Madam, go in.
[Exit Denise.
Catherine
My son, you put too large a face on this.
Charles
Mother, I put no face on it at all. Come, pray you now, what do you look to get By such a use of me?
Catherine
You take strange ways To chide me with; I did expect your good. Always it is the plague of love to be Thus mated by some check. I will go play; Farewell.
Charles
Nay, now you shall not go. My lord, Tell her I meant no shame, no red i’ the cheek; Say now I did not.
Catherine
I am content enough. You may well see why we are come to you.
Charles
Yea, that I see.
Guise
The men are at full point; Also the marshal helps us at all need And some things over.
Catherine
You turn jealous of him.
Guise
Madam, I wear no envy on my words.
Catherine
Sir, you are safe. Truly I am so glad Now this thing clears i’ the working and comes straight, I could well jest and laugh.
Charles
So could I not; All’s not squared yet; you are too hot on it.
Catherine
Too hot am I? Sir, you much wrong your honour Taxing such heat in me; I have proof of you, So hath the Guise, that you have wrought herein As hard as any.
Guise
I take your part as mine For witness of my lord’s free grace and will Towards this matter.
Charles
This matter—call it so; Have you such honey in the mouth, my lord, To make a milky matter of the name? Why, if men are to call us murderers, Let’s take the word up and not tell such lies, Skulking with beaten cheeks behind the word.
Guise
(aside to Catherine)
He is touched the wrong side yet.
Catherine
(aside to Guise)
I have stung myself; This girl I set on him has thrown us out, Played her own way. That we should pay such apes To pinch us in the wrist!
Charles
What are you saying?
Catherine
Take your best means: here’s none shall cross you, sir. We do but say if you will give them leave To slit your throat with whispering—or abed Take medicine of them—or wear gloves of theirs— Or please your mouth with drinking after them— It is no matter.
Charles
Would you have me mad? I have not heard of such a tax on them; No, not since Florence taught us to use drugs Has it been noised of these.
Catherine
I think indeed That poison hath no Florence in the drug Which puts the peril of so hard a speech In my son’s lip. Do not unsay it; no: I do not bid you take the blur from me. I am content to stay and take shame up So I may suit you. O sweet son,—my lord, Forgive me that my tongue so slips on you, Catching the old name first—I pray you note That I can be as patient as your ear Hath been of me too long. This is the last That I shall ever take of words to push Your just forbearance beyond use. I said “Farewell” as idly as one says “good thanks” To him that hath not earned it; but I see Here is made room for a farewell indeed. Now could I take it silently and go, Turning my very passion to content And no whit using it: I am not abashed, Albeit I speak as one whom shame has marred; That I am not I pray take no offence, For should I show a penitent herein I must do penance for much care of you, And this I will not. Be not offended with me; For God doth know, sweet son, that in my life I have used many days in loving you. Consider of it: I do not boast myself, Seeing I but fall within the range and scope, The limit and fair marge of a good law; Yet if I have not been there excessive (as I say not that I have one whit exceeded), Surely I have not shortened its just room Or narrowed in the sweet law’s offices. That I am so put off I say is well; You are wise herein; for women at best count Are the mere spoil of a male reason, lie In his loosest thoughts outside. We are the chaff, The gross unwinnowed husks of your fanned wheat; I say that you do well to turn me off. But this too for my witness I should say; That if you do me there a word of wrong, Yea the thin grain of one particular word, The same is worse than ill. I pardon it. That I do love you, God shall do me right To bring the credit will approve it me: That I have sought your health yourself believe; That I did love the state and would get ease For its wried body, shall make smooth my name In patient reputation of good men. The end of that is come. Sir, this much yet; Since you have thus delivered up your place, Your worth and body to the love of these That hate me deadly—wherein you do well, For yet I will not say but you do well— I will entreat such almsgiving of you As for my son of Anjou and myself May serve to make us a safe place away, Where we may keep behind the perilous time And house with simple peace. For I do know That howsoe’er these fare as friends with you, With us they will but fare as murderers do That live between the sharpening of a knife And the knife’s edge embrued. This being made sure, I take my leave of a most royal care That has been precious pain to me, and is No costlier than a pin. The end is here That I have gladly answered.
Charles
You say well; I would not have you think so thinly of me As that girl’s mercy and the feeble flesh Prevail upon advice. I love you much. But me she heeds not; tell her you, my lord, I love no meddled policy of man’s Before her honour.
Catherine
I am perfect in your way. Best let me part more quickly.
Charles
You shall not go.
Guise
Madam, your son is tempered graciously; You see his will keeps good.
Charles
Ay, so it doth; I thank you, sir; you see my will is good.
Catherine
I had rather be a thing of labouring days Than a so childed mother.
Guise
You must give her way.
Catherine
It is not fit that I should wear your time.
Charles
That year of mine is lame wherein you lack.
Catherine
Nay, there’s no speech of silk will serve your turn, You must be whole with me or break; I’ll have No patched alliance, lank allegiances, Starved out of use.
Charles
I do not like the business.
Catherine
Nay, but speak large; what is it you mislike?
Charles
Keep you that way.
Catherine
Why this is what I said.
Charles
I have thought of it, and have informed my heart How pale distempering evil makes the blood That ran full way before. I will not do it; Lest all that regiment of muffled years Now huddled in the rear and skirts of time I must walk through, take whips into their hands To bruise my shame withal.
Catherine
I heed you not. It is the sick and infirm spite of fear Makes your will insolent. But as it please you; It is not I that shall wear death for it.
Guise
You do both stray: give me some leave to speak, And keep your patience whole. Right noble sir, For my poor worth and special reverence here I would not waste the price of half an hour; Though I might say, and no man cross the lie, That in the personal state of mine esteem I have kept endurance on against a wrong That might put blood i’ the dead. My royal father, Whose cost did earn the sum of such a name, Yea, even to full repute; whose motive hand Did the most inward ties of war unloose, And pluck its joint away; this man so built, So strained and clean of any weak revolt That faith herself did set her tongue by his And use his lesson for her proper text; This bulk and nerve of all your services Fashioned in one man’s work; how he came dead You twain are no whit less assured than I, Who have thrown beyond conjecture. It is poor truth To say we think that he fared treacherously; If knowledge be no weaker than report, And proof no looser than a popular mouth, Then we do know it. O, such a want we have, So dear and so entire a loss in him, As should make France the book of all men’s griefs, The mould wherein a very face of sorrow Were cast indeed. That I have not avenged him, Both you dare swear: that it is not my shame, But my sore pain and burden of this time, Both you do likewise see. How say you, sir! Will you find sufferance smoother-faced than mine? Have I borne much? or is there fault in me, Who am the limit of endurances? Now in this very point of patience here, Even here, you take me; and considering this, Commend the calm and heaviness in me That lackeys your own purpose, runs before Your proper care, pages your policy. Now, sir, Were I a poor man’s dog the same were well; Were I a sick man’s fool the same were well; Being thus, I doubt it is not well at all. A father slain is more than so much bones That worms and flies dishallow, being thin dust And out of value; and personally to me It is much more. I will not have this way; Lest my most loving honour borne to you Leave me ashamed, or service done disbark All graces from me. You were strongly sworn, Yea, with the assurance that all faith makes up, To help us mend the ravelled rents of time; But though you had more iron in your hand Than you have yet, you cannot grasp therein Two faiths, two sides, two justices at once. Choose you, and put good will to choice; for me, I am not thralled in your election.
Charles
Madam, his talk flies far.
Catherine
True, he speaks right.
Charles
Should I not answer with a lip more tame, This friendship might turn slack.
Guise
I keep still loyal.
Charles
Yea, sir, we doubt you nothing, nothing at all: You are our lawful friend; you speak all well; You have had wrong, men use you grievously; And I do love you for your bearing it.
Catherine
The man that slew Duke Francis has his breath.
Charles
Ay, and his blood, some scantlings too of that: We saw what tithe of it was spilled in him. Still it is quaint that such a shaken scalp, So grey as that, should cover so much red; ’Tis very strange and quaint; ha, think you not?
Catherine
(to Guise)
All’s clear again; he smells about the blood That shall incense his madness to high strain; Look, now he peers and fingers on his sleeve.
Guise
Pish! it looks ugly.
Catherine
I must push him yet, Make his sense warm. You see, blood is but blood; Shed from the most renowned veins o’ the world, It is no redder; and the death that strikes A blind broad way among the foolish heaps That make a people up, takes no more pains To finish the large work of highest men; Take heart and patience to you; do but think This thing shall be no heavier then, being done, Than is our forward thought of it.
Charles
Ay true, But if men prate of blood—I’ll none on me. And yet I care not much. You are wise, mother, You know me through, ay, and know God as well, Whom I know not. This is a grave thing.
Catherine
Yea, And graver should be if I gave you way. What are you made God’s friend for but to have His hand over your head to keep it well And warm the rainy weather through, when snow Spoils half the world’s work? shall I let you go And slip your boy’s neck from God’s hold on it To graze and get mere pasture like a beast? Nay, child, there’s nothing better for a man Than to trust God; why, must I tell you that? Is there more beard than blood in cheeks like this Till some one smite them? Now I think, I think And praise God for it, the next Huguenot Who plucks you by the ear or smites on the face Shall do no much work after.
Charles
True, madam, I need be king now; you speak true in that.
Catherine
I’ll call you king then always, king and son, Dear son and lord of mine. Hold fast on this And you are man indeed, and man enough To teach command to the world and make its back Stoop for allegiance. See you, my fair son, This sweet face of authority is a mask For slaves to rivet or undo the joint, Except one wear it in the eyes of them A witness to outbear shame and revolt And maim resistance in the hands; you were Never yet king, never had will to wear That circle that completes the head with gold And shuts up strength inside the hold of it; You are now made man.
Charles
And you made mother twice, Not by gross generation of the womb But issue of more princely consequence; Set this day gold upon your writ of life, The last of childbearing for you; so God Give you good time of it!
Catherine
Ay, grace to thank That grace that gives not mere deliverance From unrespective burdens of the flesh, But the keen spirit refines and recreates To gracious labour. That God that made high things, He wrought by purpose and secure design The length of his contrivance; he set not tigers In the mean seat of apes, nor the wild swine I’ the stabled post of horses; birds and dogs Find portion of him, and he sets the fish In washing waters; rain and the sweet sun He shuts and opens with his hand; and us Hath he set upright and made larger eyes To read some broken letters of this book Which has the world at lesson; and for what, If we not do the royallest good work, If we not wear the worth of sovereignty As attribute and raiment? At our feet Lies reason like a hound, and faith is chained; Lame expectation halts behind our ways, The soundless secret of dead things is made As naked shallows to us. It is for that We owe strong service of the complete soul To the most cunning fashioner that made So good work of us; and except we serve, We are mere beasts and lesser than a snake, Not worth his pain at all; so might we shift The soul as doth that worm his coloured back And turn to herd with footless things that are The spoil of dust and rain. To close up all, Death takes the flesh in his abhorrèd hands Of clean alike and unclean; but to die Is sometime gracious, as to slip the chain From wrist and ankle; only this is sad, To be given up to change and the mere shame Of its abominable and obscure work With no good done, no clean thing in the soul To sweeten against resurrection-time This mire that made a body, lest we keep No royalties at all, or in the flesh The worm’s toothed ravin touch the soul indeed.
Charles
Madam, I hold your sentence good to hear; I’ll do as you would have me. Pray you now, Make no more record of my foolishness. I have used idle words. Make count of me As of your servant; for from this day forth I’ll hold no Huguenot’s throat one whit more worth Than is the cord upon it. Sir, good day.
[Exit King.
Catherine
I told you this before; sit down and laugh. I told you this should be.
Guise
We have worked well.
Catherine
Is this no better now than violent ways To threaten the poor passage of his life With the mean loss of some sick days and hours? You would not let him fill his season up And feed on all his portions cut i’ the world; You have iron in your policies, and hate The unbound brows of composition; But I, whose cheek is patient of all wrongs, Who have endurance to my garment, worn In face o’ the smiters, I know through by heart Each turn i’ the crannies of the boy’s spoilt mind And corner used in it. Years gone, my lord, Before the tender husk of time grew hard, He would make pastime to tear birds to death And pinch out life by nips in some sick beast; And being a man, blood turns him white to see? Believe me that, I’ll praise you more for faith Than I praise God for making him a fool. What shall get done though hell stand up to hear And in God’s heaven God’s self become ashamed, The rule of use rebel against its way, The sense of things upon itself revolt, To the undoing of man—this shall not fail For the meek sake of his most female mouth That would keep honey in.
Guise
Have your way so: I do not cross you; keep that fashion.
Catherine
Yea, I think to have it certainly, fair sir; Keen man he were that should cheat me of it.
Guise
This screw of yours has wrenched him round our way; Yet these may pinch the wax, new-mould his face, Carve him a mouth, make here an eye or there; Will you wring loose their fingers till he drop Like a fruit caught, so, in one’s hollowed hand? You’ll have some necks to break across ere that. Why, Châtillon’s grey chin keeps wagging down Close at his ear; that demi-dog Soubise Is made his formal mirth; fool Pardaillan Struts with his throat up like a cock’s, and brags The king is kind—has secrets—he might say Some grace was done him—would not miss his luck— As for the merit—
Catherine
So far it goes by rote; Were there no larger peril than hangs there, I’d strangle it with but a hair of mine.
Guise
Madam, I would be fain to understand.
Catherine
Sir, this it is; the woman I set on To shape and stoop him perfectly my way, Is very falsely made my thorn, and wears Such fashions as a new-enfranchised slave To beat his master for delivering him. She is turned milk, would slit her web mis-made Now it shows blood at edge.
Guise
What ailed your judgment then To light on her? had you some plague i’ the eye To choose so sickly?
Catherine
The king did lean to her, And out of his good will I made this cord To lead him by the ear. Do not you doubt me; She has not slit the web so near across But her own edge may turn upon her skin: I have a plot to rid the time of her For some slight days.
Guise
Some trick to bite her life?
Catherine
Nay, I’ll not lose her; no more weight shall be Than a new time may lift from her again. I shall but get a clog upon my court Slily removed; a double good shall bud Upon a most small evil. Go with me And bring me to my women.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.
The Admiral’s House

Enter Coligny and Attendant
Coligny
Carry these letters to my son and bid him Attend me with La Noue. If you shall see That noble man who spoke with me to-day, Pray him be with me too. This is a care That I would have you diligent in; so shall you Gather fresh good of me.
Attendant
I will, my lord.
Coligny
I shall be bound to you; the time that makes Such ruin of us doth yet bequeath me this, That where I find good service without break, I hold it dearer than a prosperous man. See you be speedy.
Attendant
I am already hence.
[Exeunt.

Scene III.
The Louvre

Enter La Rochefoucauld and Yolande de Montlitard
La Rochefoucauld
You do not use me smoothly.
Yolande
Did I sue That you would love me? I owe you nothing.
La Rochefoucauld
No? But if I leave with you so much of me, Do I not keep some petty part of you?
Yolande
Oh, not a whit; what would you do with it?
La Rochefoucauld
In faith, I know not.
Yolande
You have the holy way Of cutting clean an oath; as you do coin it A girl might use the like; your protestation Is made out of the ravel of spoilt silk; I trust no such tagged speech.
La Rochefoucauld
To do you pleasure I would unswear the seated saints from heaven And put shame out of use with violent breath. But to my point.
Yolande
Shall I not say one thing?
La Rochefoucauld
So I would have you.
Yolande
Then I think, this breath So spent on my vexation is not used For love of me—nay, pray you keep that in— But the keen service of your admiral To whom I must be evidenced.
La Rochefoucauld
What then? Are you too far in hate to do me good?
Yolande
Too far in faith to swell you with such help; Put down i’ the writing that a woman’s trust Is much belied with you; there’s no such flaw As male repute doth work to blot us with; I swear I will not show you anything.
La Rochefoucauld
I do not beg such alms of you; come back; Do words make all the sweet on so sweet lips?
Yolande
I did not bid you shift your note to this. Sir, that ring’s edge of yours has cut my glove.
[Exeunt.

Act III

Scene I.
Environs of the Louvre

Enter Denise
Denise
Bidme keep silence? though I lose all, I’ll wear Silence no further no my wrong-doings That holds no weather out. I’ll speak then; God, Keep me in heart to speak! because my sense, Even to the holiest inward of its work This unclean life has marred; I am stained with it Like a stained cloth, it catches on my face, Spoils my talk midways, breaks my breath between, Paints me ill colours, plucks me upon the sleeve, As who would say, “Forget me will you, then?” Bid me keep silence? yea, but in losing that Lies are so grown like dirt upon my lip No kisses will wipe dry nor tears wash bare The mouth so covered and made foul. Dear God, I meant not so much wrong-doing that prayer Should choke or stab me in the throat to say; For see, the very place I pray withal I use for lying and put in light words To soil it over: the thoughts I make prayer with Fasten on ill things and set work on them, Letting love go. If one could see the king And escape writing—
Enter Cino
Cino
Yea, cousin, at prayer so late? Teach me the trick, I would be fain to pray, I grow so sick now with the smell of time. Ah, the king hurts you? touch a spring i’ the work And it cries—eh? and a joint creaks in it?
Denise
This fool wears out.
Cino
At wrists?
Denise
At head; but, fool, Hast thou not heard of the king?
Cino
Yea, news, brave news; But I’ll not spoil them on you.
Denise
My good Cino Nay, sweet thing, fair sir, any precious word, Tell me.
Cino
The king—what will you give me then? Half a gold fringe worn off your cloak for alms?
Denise
Nay, anything it wills, my Cino. Quick.
Cino
A ring? yea, more; what’s better than a ring? A kiss I doubt of yours; but I’ll have best, Nothing of good or better.
Denise
Come, sir; well?
Cino
Tell me what’s better than a kiss; but hear you; Pull not away, paint me no red; the king
Denise
What is the king?
Cino
Twice half his years, I think; God keep him safe between the greys and blacks.
Denise
My head is full of tears and fever; hence, Get from me, fool. Thou ragged skirt of man, Thou compromise ’twixt nothing and a bat! Blind half a beast! I’d see thee hanged and laugh. What fool am I to scold at thy brain’s shell? What sort of under thing shall I call thee, Who am thy railer?
Cino
What would you have me? ha? Must I poison my poor bread or choke myself To make French Chicot room? Being simply fool, I eat fool’s alms: I may talk wise men down, Who gives me sober bread to live by? see; You’ll let me prate now?
Denise
Yea, prate anything; Find me the queen, and I’ll with you. Cino
Cino
Well?
Denise
Use me better as we go, poor fool.
[Exeunt.
Enter King, Tavannes, Pardaillan, Soubise, Brantôme, and others
Charles
Brown hair or gold, my lord Soubise, you say?
Soubise
Pure black wears best.
Pardaillan
He will not say so, sir.
Charles
Ay, will not? are you wise, my Pardaillan?
Brantôme
Yolande—you know this damozel I mean, One that has black hair hard on blue—
Soubise
Hear that! Blue hair, eyes black!
Brantôme
But note me what she says: Soubise is a fair name, and that fair lord That wears it sewn across his arm, is good To give her tame bird seeds to eat.
Soubise
Her bird!
Brantôme
She has a sister of your height, this girl, Skilled to work patterns with gold thread and paint.
Soubise
Well, what of her then?
Charles
Yea, sir, hold by that.
Brantôme
She said this to me, choosing seeds of corn To put between her peacock’s bill, it chanced, One summer time; and biting with her teeth Some husk away to make the grain more soft, She put her mouth to the bird’s mouth: but I— “Give me food rather, I have need to eat;” Whereat her teeth showed fuller and she said —The seed still in her lip—she laughed and said Her two tame birds, this peacock and Soubise, Were all she had to feed.
Soubise
I thank her.
Charles
Well, What followed? that you kissed away the seed?
Brantôme
Hush now, she comes, fair lord.
Enter Queen-Mother, Denise, Yolande, and other Ladies, with Cino
Catherine
Take heart, Denise; I’ll chide him home.—Fair son, I hear hard news; My lord of Guise in his ill hours of blood Will hardly trust your courtesy to use His lady’s glove: here was one wept right out At hearing of it.
Charles
He does belie my patience; It was this lord that had her glove away.
Catherine
The Guise is sick of it, touched hard and home; It bites him like a hurt; you are his keen plague, Sharp sauce to hunger, medicine to his meat, A sufferance no pained flesh could hold upon And not turn bitter.
Charles
Well, God heal his head!
Catherine
I did not see my lord Soubise—make room, So thick a yellow crowd of ladies’ heads Makes the air taste of powdered scent and spice One cannot see a friend; my lord Soubise, We love you well, what holds you back, my lord?
Soubise
Madam—
Catherine
They trouble us with tales of you; Here’s a maid carries face of Montlitard Whose heart seems altered to a fresher name The blood paints broader on her cheek, sweet fool; Answer me this; nay, I shall make you clear; Denise has told me how her middle sleep Was torn and broken by lamentings up, By sudden speeches, shreds and rags of talk, And running over of light tears between; And ever the poor tender word “Soubise Sighed and turned over—ah, such pain she had! Poor love of mine, why need you spoil me her?
Soubise
She will not say so.
Yolande
But she will not say She loves not, though it sting her soul to speak, Being still, woe’s me, so sharp and sore a truth And hard to hide.
Charles
Well said of her; strike hands.
Cino
Take comfort, daughter; he shall be made fast to thee And the devil climbs not in by way of marriage. Conclude temptation, and God increase your joy In the second generation of good fools. Gripe fingers each; I will be bridesman; so.
Soubise
Fool—I am hurt with wonder, madam—fool—
Cino
Nay, sir, keep hands.
Charles
This is most gross in you.
Cino
Yea, so; this is the time of horn-blowing. Did your grace never eat stolen eggs? the meat of them Is something like the mouth of a fair woman. Beseech you now let your priest drink no wine And you shall have him better for yourself; Sir, look to that; I would not have you marred.
Charles
No, you shall stay.
Soubise
I pray you, bid him peace.
Charles
Let the fool talk.
Cino
There’s freedom for your kind now. I have not seen a groom so blench and start; I wonder what shoe pinched his mother?
Soubise
Beast!
[Strikes him, and exit.
Catherine
You are sad, sir.
Charles
I am not well at heart.
Catherine
It is the summer heat; I have not seen So hard a sun upon the grape-season These twelve years back.—Fellow, look up, take heart; He cannot hurt thee.
Cino
Why not? I am no woman. I am sure he has made my head swell; get him married, I’ll do as much for him. Eh? will I not?
(To Yolande.)
Yolande
I will not wed him; so the shame shall stick Where it began on him, alone.
Catherine
(aside)
Whispers?
(Observing Denise and the King.)
I do suspect you sorely. Oh! so close; Thrusting your lip even against his ear? Yea, hold the sleeve now, pinch it up;
(aloud)
there may be
No ill in this; and I have hope it wears No face of purpose, but I like it not.
Yolande
What is it you mislike?
Catherine
Eh? nothing, I; My care’s not half the worth of a fool’s head Nor carries so much weight. My lord Bourdeilles, Have you no tale for us?
Brantôme
Yea, madam, a rare jest.
Yolande
We’ll pluck it forth.
Renée
Ay, pinch it out of him; We would be merry.
Pardaillan
Umph! I know the tale.
Brantôme
I would not have a gospeller hear you, sir.
Cino
I see a tale now hang at the king’s sleeve.
Catherine
A very light one.
Brantôme
But if you hear me, madam,— There’s matter for a leap-year’s laugh therein. The noble damsel of Maulévrier—
Catherine
Is she your tale?
Brantôme
Speak low; she told it me.
Yolande
Where should he hear it?
Catherine
Peace now: sir, make on.
Brantôme
She being about my lady of Navarre Last night—I mean some foolish nights ago— For there last night she was not, I believe— Made out this jest: this is the jest she made.
Cino
’Tis a sweet jest, but something over ripe.
Brantôme
You have not heard it.
Cino
I hear it with my nose, and it smells rank.
Brantôme
You all do know his highness of Navarre Is loving to his lady; and, God’s death, She is worth no less a price; nor doth affection, Being set on her, outweigh the measured reason Nor sense of limit she doth well deserve; Yea, she outgoes the elected best, outswells What is called good.
Cino
A very merry tale.
Brantôme
Prithee, fool, peace.—Now at that time I speak of He was at point to come; but being delayed (The how I say not—this I do not say; Indeed I would not—mark you, not the how) He could not come. She, grown hereon to heat, Chid at her ladies, wrangled with her hair, Drew it all wried, then wept, then laughed again; Till one saying, “Madam, I did see my lord About the middle matter of the dusk Slip forth to speak with”—here she stayed; the queen Doth passionately catch her by that word, Crying with whom? and might this be a man? And should men use her so? and shame of men, And not the grace of temperance in them Which is the cover and the weeds of sin; And such wet circumstance of waterish words As ladies use; whereto the damsel—“Madam, I may swear truly no man had him forth, But to swear otherwise—”
Catherine
I do perceive you: There was a conference of the gospellers, And there was he.
Brantôme
But he that brought him forth—
Catherine
Enough, the jest runs out; I know your matter. Fair son, you would be private?
Charles
Like enough: I do not say you trouble me to stay, But you shall please me going.
Catherine
Good time to you! Come with me, sirs. Take you the fool along.
[Exeunt all but King and Denise.
Charles
I am assured you love me not a whit.
Denise
You will not set your faith upon that thought; I love you dearly.
Charles
I do not bid you swear it.
Denise
I pray you, if you know what I would say, That you endure this feebleness which sits Upon my lips i’ the saying.
Charles
What do you think of me?
Denise
I know you are my master and a king That I have called thrice nobler than his name; I know my lip hath got the print of you And that the girdle of your fastened arms Keeps warm upon me yet; and I have thought, Yea, I have sworn it past the reach of faith, Even till the temperate heaven did, stung at me, Begin a chiding—that you loved me back To the large aim and perfect scope o’ the heart; That I was as a thing within your blood, There moved, and made such passage up and down As doth the breath and motion of your air; Being rather as a pain caught unawares, A doubtful fever or sick heat of yours That now the purging time hath rid you of And made smooth ease.
Charles
You did know better then.
Denise
Nay, then I think I knew not anything; My wits were broken in the use of love. What do you think of me? I would know that.
Charles
As of a thing I love—I know not what; Only that any slight small thing of yours, A foolish word, a knot upon your head, Some plait worn wrong or garment braced awry, Any girl’s thing—doth grow so and possess With such a strength of thought, so waxen full, The complete sum and secret of my will I cannot get it out.
Denise
If that be love, Then I love you, which you did swear a lie. For I do feed upon you in my meat And sleep upon you in my tired bed And wake upon you in my praying times, As you were used and natural unto me, My soul’s strong habit and nativity.
Charles
I think you do: I never taxed you else. But he that will not swear I love you back Doth sin outside the heavy name of lie And compass of a villain.
Denise
I doubt you not. You know that I did urge you for the queen?
Charles
Yea: you made up a peace between our jars.
Denise
Ay, like a damnèd peace-maker, a truce More sharp than is the naked side of war.
Charles
What now? you slip on that fool’s text again?
Denise
That I did pluck you over to her side I would repent even in the cost and price Of my most inward blood, yea of my heart.
Charles
You did a good work then: now you turn sharp.
Denise
I do well think that had I never been You had not fallen in her purposes.
Charles
I may perceive my patience is your fool: You make slight use of me. Take note of this, Henceforth I will not undergo the words That it shall please you cast upon my place In such loose way. What makes you chide at me? Have you no sort of fool but me to wear The impatient work of your mistempered blood With a soft spirit?
Denise
You have sworn me love; If you did love me with more worth and weight Than slackly binds a two hours’ liking up, You would not pluck displeasure from my words. I am too weak to make fit wrath for you.
Charles
Ay, that I think.
Denise
You do me right; but mark, Being this I am, not big enough to hurt, I do repent me past all penitence, Outweep the bounded sorrow of all words, That I did bring you to such peace again As hath its feet in blood.
Charles
You did then swear Nothing one half so blessed and so clean As to make peace between her lips and mine; You bade me think how good it was to have The grace of such a gentle fellowship To lean my love upon; how past the law And natural sweetness of sweet motherhood Her passion did delight itself on me; With all the cost of rare observances Followed the foot of my least enterprise; Esteemed me even to the disvaluing Of her own worthy life; would not, in brief, Partake the pain of common offices And due regard that custom hath of time But for my love. Was this no talk of yours?
Denise
Indeed I said so.
Charles
Did I not give you faith?
Denise
You did believe me; I would you had not so, Or that some poisonous pain had killed my lips Before they learnt the temper of such words.
Charles
What then, you knew not this red work indeed? No savour of this killing flecked your speech?
Denise
I know of it? but to have lied and known I had been plagued past all the gins of hell. I know of it? but if I knew of it There is no whip that God could hunt me with That would not seem less heavy than thin snow Weighed with the scars and shames of my desert.
Charles
But how if such a thing be necessary?
Denise
There’s no such need that bids men damn themselves.
Charles
Nay, but if God take hell to work withal That is more bitter than all waste of men, And yet God makes the honey of his law Out of its sharp and fire-mouthed bitterness, Why may not I take this? Yea, why not I?
Denise
If you shall think on murder, how it is, How mere a poison in all mouths of men That only at the casual use of it Sicken and lose the rule of their discourse, Being wounded with it; how poorest men alive That in dull drink have chanced upon a life Are slain for it, and the red word of sin Doth elbow them at side and dig their grave And makes all tongues bitter on them, all eyes Fills out with chiding—how very knaves do loath The tax and blot of such a damnèd breath As goes to call hard murder by his name; Yea, how blood slain shall not be healed again, Never get place within the ruined veins, Never make heat in the forsaken flesh; O, you shall think thereon.
Charles
Have I not thought?
Denise
Not this I bid you, this you have not thought; How to each foot and atom of that flesh That makes the body of the worst man up There went the very pain and the same love That out of love and pain compounded you, A piece of such man’s earth; that all of these Feel, breathe, and taste, move and salute and sleep, No less than you, and in each little use Divide the customs that yourself endure; And are so costly that the worst of these Was worth God’s time to finish; O, thus you shall not, Even for the worth of your own well-doing, Set iron murder to feed full on them.
Charles
Fret me no more; I shall turn sharp with you.
Denise
O, sir, in such dear matter as I have I fear not you at all. You shall not go.
Charles
I may forget your body’s tender make And hurt you. Do not put me from myself; I am dangerous then; being sobered, I do know How rash and sharp a blood I have, and weep For my fierce use of it: push not so far.
Denise
Yea now, put all the bruise of them on me And I will thank you. You did hurt me once, Look here, my wrist shows where you plucked it hard; I never spoke you ill for it; you shall Do me worse hurt and I not cry at all.
Charles
This is fool’s talk.
Denise
And once in kissing me You bit me here above the shoulder, yet The mark looks red from it; you were too rough, I swore to punish you and starve your lip To a more smooth respect. I have loved you, sir; Sir, this is harsh that you regard me not.
Charles
Nay, peace! I will not have you loud.
Denise
My lord—
Charles
Say “Charles” now; be more tender of your mouth.
Denise
Sir, the shame that burns through my cheek and throat Cannot get words as hot as blood to speak, Or you would hear such; keep your eyes on me, Ay, look so; have you sense or heart, my lord? Are you not sorry if one come to wrong?
Charles
This is some trap. What makes you turn so quick?
Denise
Yea, king, are you? yea, is this not the king? And I so pray, speak words so hard to speak, Kneel down, weep hard—but you shall hear this out— To be put like a garment off? not so. The queen-mother throws nets about, spins well, Contrives some thread to strike the whole web through, To catch you like a plague—there’s worse and worse— What hurt is it, what pain to men outside, Although she ruin us, make spoil of us, Melt the gold crown into a ring of hers, What harm?
Charles
What harm by God! I think much harm.
Denise
But this is worse—to catch France in her trap, People and all, body and soul; cheat God, Ruin us all, as ruined we shall be, I know not how too well, but something thus, And now God puts this hour of time to be A steel sword in your hand, and says withal, “Now give me token if there be a king Inside you, do me right who made you way, Drew you so high;” I pray you for God’s love Let none put thievish fingers on the time, Loosen your sword God girt so next your side. What, men steal money and you hang for that, What, one puts just his little knife in you As I put just a bodkin in this hair, And he gets choked with cord and spat upon— But when some treason stabs belief in the back, Thrusts its tongue out and wags its head at God, Turns bitter his sweet mouth with vinegar, Bruises him worse than any Pilate’s Jews, These men go free? It were too hard to think. Yea, sir, I will not have you lift your lip, Yea, you may smite me with your foot, fair lord, Whom yesterday you kissed here in the mouth; I lay no care on life or on this breath Or on this love that hath so dead an end; More ill is done than good will ever be, And I now pluck the finished fruit of it Planted by bitter touches of the lip, False breath, hot vows, the broken speech of lust, By finger-pinches and keen mouths that bite Their hard kiss through: nay, but I pray you well Let there be no more ill than grows hereon, No such kiss now that stings and makes a stain, No cups drunk out that leave dead lees of blood. Be sorry for me; yea, be good, my king, Tender with me: let not the queen-mother Touch me to hurt: sir, know you certainly None loves you better: also men would say It may be some joy you have had of me; Even for that sake, for that most evil sake, Have some good mercy.
Charles
Mad, but really mad! Here, child, put up your hands in mine, Denise: By God’s blood, the girl shakes and shakes and burns— What, have you fever?
Denise
None, no pain; but, sir, Be pitiful a little; my sweet lord, Have you not had me wholly in one hand To do your will with? would I lie to you?
Charles
Eh, would you lie? well, God knows best, I doubt.
Denise
I pray God bring me quick to bitter hell If I lie to you: have you eyes at least? That woman with thin reddish blood-like lips, That queen-mother that would use blood for paint, Can you not see her joint the trap for you, Not see the knife between her fingers, sir, Where the glove opens?
Charles
This is right your way; A sweet way, this; what will you bid me do?
Denise
Not this, not this she pulls you on to do; Not set a treason where a promise was, Not fill the innocent time with murder up, Not—
Charles
Tush! some preacher’s plague has caught the child. Are you mad truly? some strange drink in you?
Denise
Sir—
Charles
Do you take me for no king at all, That you talk this? I never heard such talk. No hands on me; nay, go, and have good day.
[Exit Denise
Re-enter the Queen-Mother and Yolande
Do you note this, our mother?
Catherine
Yea, and well.
Charles
This is the very mercy of a maid; To cut a hand off lest a finger ache And paint the face of resolution white Lest the red startle one.
Catherine
It is most true; I pray you be not moveable of wit Or waxen to her handling.
Charles
I will not; There’s nothing shall have time to startle me, Being in this work so deep; no delicate sense That gathers honey at her lip shall fool The resolution and large gravity That holds my purpose up. I am no fool; I will go through with it; I am no boy To be kissed out of mind: I will not fail.
[Exit.
Catherine
Yolande, this way; come nearer, my fair child; I love you well; there’s no such mouth at court For music and fair colour: sit by me; How pleasant is it to find eyes to love That will not cheat or flatter one! Dear maid, I think you find a time between two loves To put some poor dwarfed liking by for me? Indeed you may; see if I love you not; Get me to proof.
Yolande
You are my gracious mistress; I would be always glad of service done And found worth taking.
Catherine
Do you love Denise? Meseems the girl grows whiter and less straight, Dull too, I think; eh, you think otherwise?
Yolande
She seems to me grown duller than spoilt wine.
Catherine
I am right glad you do not think her wise. I have a plan to pleasure mine own self, And do you good. Are you content thereto?
Yolande
Madam, content.
Catherine
You will not blench away? Not lightly start from me?
Yolande
I will not so.
Catherine
I trust you perfectly.—Fetch hither to me That box of mine wherein I keep rare scents; You know, the one carved of sweet foreign wood I use to dress my hair and face withal.
Yolande
Madam, I shall.
[Exit.
Catherine
Ay, it shall do you good. Will this one hold in wearing? I think, yes; For I have seen her tread upon sick flies Where the other swerved, and would not do them hurt. This Yolande is half cold, and wears her pleasure No deeper than the skin; thereto she is hard, Cunning and bold; I have heard tales of her; She hath the brain and patience of hoar beards In her most supple body. I do not think That she shall wry her mouth on tasting blood.
Re-enter Yolande
So, did you miss it?
Yolande
Madam, it is here.
Catherine
Thanks: have good care of the lid, you see it has Fair foreign work of cunning little heads And side-mouthed puppets quaintly cut on it: See how I pinch it open with a trick; I would not have all fingers mix in it, For there are spices which are venomous; So are best things puddled with ill in them, We cannot sift them through; nothing so clean But you may tread it foul, nor so foul anything That one may never warp its use to good; As this which puts out men, and is most rare To sweeten gloves with.
Yolande
What am I to do?
Catherine
I know not. Set a cushion to my feet; So.—One has told me each of you to-day Lay some girl’s gift upon that fool of mine: Is this not true?
Yolande
Madam, it was our game.
Catherine
When you shall see him give him this for me;
(Gives her a glove.)
And yet not me, he loves not me, poor fool; Say that Denise had wrought him such a glove, And being incensed at his late insolence Which he hath put upon the king and her, Was purposed to withhold it; I will confirm you. Suppose a shift of mine to vex the fool; Say what you will, but thrust her name therein; Look that you take him where she may not see. Clasp the silk well across my shoulder; thanks; I am clad too thinly for a queen-mother, But all this month is overhot. Be sure Nothing shall stick to us. Keep close to me.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.
The Admiral’s House

Enter La Noue, Teligny, and La Rochefoucauld
La Noue
I fear me he can scantly bear this out.
Teligny
Nay, fear him not; there goes more nerve to him Than to some lesser scores. His competence Is like that virtue in his mind which fills The shallowness of thin occasions up, And makes him better than the season is That serves his worth to work in. He shall not live And bear himself beyond the fear of time, Where other men made firm in goodness drop And are the food of peril.
La Rochefoucauld
Doubtless he is most wise; But I misdoubt he doth too much regard Each trick and shift of bastard circumstance; It is the custom and grey note of age To turn consideration wrong way out Until it show like fear.
Teligny
I pray, sir, tell me In what keen matter hath he so blenched aside Since time began on him? or in what fashion Hath he worn fear? The man is absolute, Perfectly tempered; that I a little speak him, Your less observance of him shall excuse And so my praise allow itself. He hath been In all hard points of war the best that ever Did take success by the hand; the first that wore Peace as the double coronet of time, The costly stone set in red gold of war, So wise to mix reverse with sufferance, Use fortune with a liberal gravity And discipline calamitous things with grace, That failure more approved him, being so shaped And worn to purpose in his wisdom’s worth, Than men are praised for hazard, though it leaves Their heads embraced with wealth. His nobleness of speech Hath made true grace and temperate reserve But usual names for his; he is too pure, Too perfect in all means of exercise That are best men’s best pearl, to be esteemed At single value of some separate man That the thin season can oppose to him.
La Rochefoucauld
I say not else.
Teligny
So would I have you say.
La Rochefoucauld
Had I dispraised the admiral, it had shown My love to him that I did prick your speech To such fair estimate of his fair worth. The man is come.
Enter Coligny
Coligny
Good morrow, noble friends. Fair son, it is a loving bound that doth Limit your custom thus.
Teligny
I am best pleased When I may use you thus familiarly.
Coligny
(to La Rochefoucauld)
My lord, you told me of a way you had To bring the matter clear we spoke upon.
La Rochefoucauld
Yea, by a woman’s means.
Coligny
I think it was.
La Rochefoucauld
I saw her yesternight.
La Noue
You did not say Where our hopes went? I would not trust you far.
La Rochefoucauld
Nay, I did strain discretion out of wear; I told her nothing.
Coligny
What did you get of her? I think you called the woman—umph—Yolande.
La Rochefoucauld
That’s your demand, what I did get of her? Why, such fair time as women keep for us; What better should I get?
Teligny
(to La Noue)
I fear him greatly; It is the unwound and ravelled sort of man That the proof uses worst; so large of lip Was never yet secure in spirit.
Coligny
Sir, We have looked for more of you.
La Rochefoucauld
This is pure truth; I had such usage as made room for talk, And in the vantage of occasion put Inquiry on her, how the queen her mistress Was moved in temper towards us; did she say thus, Or thus: you see I spoke not as of purpose To get this out, but just in some loose way; As did she put new colour in her hair, Or what sweet kind of water did she take To smooth her neck, what powder blanch it with; And twenty such blown matters out of joint; Then at the last felt underhand on this, What were her state-words, her talk’s policy; Which way she bowed; or should the Polish king Weigh dearer than the duke of Alençon Or either than this Charles; and thus, and thus; Being so, you see, bosomed and gathered up Towards the close and dearest time of all She could keep nothing safer than her mouth Would let it out for me; and I as quick To catch her talk for food as ’twere a kiss The last I thought to find about her lips.
Coligny
But, to the point she told you of—if thus You got one clear.
Teligny
Ay, that, sir, show us that.
La Rochefoucauld
Give me the breath to come to it, my lords; Thus was it; I must hide her foolishness Deep as trust lies in man; whereon I swore Ten such sweet oaths as love doth take to wind His windy weaving up; then she begins The matter of her fear, thus quakes thereon—
Teligny
This will outlive all patience.
La Noue
Bear with it.
La Rochefoucauld
The queen she said was kind, not given to put Her care of things outside her talk, but kind, And would say somewhat—something one might know— As this; the queen was graciously disposed And all sick humour of old policies By this blown out; she would not do men wrong; We should have music in the month would play All harsher-throated measures out, and make Even in the noisy and sick pulse of war Continual quiet.
Coligny
Did she take such words?
La Rochefoucauld
Even these I tell you.
Coligny
I thank you for their use; This trouble hath borne fruit to us of yours.
La Rochefoucauld
To please a lesser friend than you are, sir, I’ll undergo worse labour, stretch myself To a much keener service. Sirs, farewell: I have a business waits upon the king That narrows half my leisure seasons in.
[Exit.
Coligny
What do you say of this?
Teligny
May we believe The Florentine would with so light a key Lock such deep matter? I do not trust the man.
Coligny
Sir, what say you?
La Noue
I rule not by such levels.
Coligny
I hold with both of you; and I am glad The time hath rid him hence.
Teligny
True, it is fit.
Coligny
He weighs much lighter than our counsel may. By this I doubt not, if his whore spake truth (As commonly such have repute to trip At unawares on it, and escape lies By disesteem of truth)—I say I doubt not The queen doth something cover in her speech That has more danger in its likelihood Than a snake poison.
La Noue
Will you take it so?
Coligny
Nay, so I know it. Therefore as we prefer Before the deadly-coloured face of war The cold assurance of a sober peace, And esteem life beyond death’s violence For all dear friends who hang their weight on us, It so imports us to make use of time As never was more need.
Teligny
What must we do for you?
Coligny
I would send letters to the province towns For witness how impaired a state we have In this loose Paris; how like beleaguered men That are at edge of hunger and begin To slacken their more temperate advice And heat the blood of counsel, we are bound To the service of this danger; informing further Of this my hurt, caught unawares at hand (As proof doth drive beyond the guess) of one Who wears the gold of Guise at his point’s edge And hath allowance for the use of him Rightly received. This being set down, with more That is but half a hazardous as it And yet hath face enough, shall sting them through; So shall their keener service overcome The providence of these.
La Noue
They shall have news; Myself am charged to be from hence this week; The office that I have must be my means To steal upon our friends that lie abroad And work them to our way.
Teligny
Have you no more?
Coligny
This only, that you warn our Paris men To keep waked eyes this month; for as I think (And partly this is gathered of report Which our late evidence hath put sinew to) There moves between the Guisards and the queen Some certain question whose performance will Bruise us past use. Nay, I am sure of it; If proof may give security large heart And things endured be held believable, Then I am sure. Therefore be wise and swift; Put iron on your lips, fire in your feet, And turn trust out of service. I have no more; For me, this maimed and barren piece I am May bear the time out, and sufficient roof Is in the patient cover of a grave To keep hard weathers off; but for the cause And for my friends therein I take this care To counsel you. Farewell.
Teligny, La Noue
Farewell, great lord.
[Exeunt severally.

Scene III.
The Louvre

Enter the Queen-Mother, Margaret, Denise, Yolande, and other Ladies
Catherine
Call in my fool. You have all made proof of love Except Denise; nay, she shall gift him too. I prithee call him to us.
(Exit Denise.)
And yet I think
The fellow turns half sour about the lip, Being almost wholly dull.
Margaret
Nay, I keep friends with him.
Catherine
That’s like enough, for he doth love your husband. But the lewd words he put upon my son And on Denise, did all but quite condemn Our meek account of them. It is no matter, If she can pardon him.
Re-enter Denise with Cino
O, sir, come hither.
Cino
I shall run at your bidding, shall I not?
Catherine
What should you do?
Margaret
Ay, there, what would you be?
Cino
Not fool enough to be a dog of yours.
Margaret
This is no fool; he can do nought but rail.
Yolanda
The fool has strayed among the gospellers.
Cino
I begin to see I am virtuous; the wicked abuse me.
Catherine
Come hither, sirrah. Look well upon this fellow; Would you not say a fool so round of flesh Should be as courteous as a spaniel, ha? Make answer, sir; we are told news of you, What licensed things inhabit in your lip That should be whipt ere heard, corrected first And after to offend: what say you to’t?
Cino
Now shall I slip for want of a good tongue And have my patience beaten. Prithee lend me A tongue of yours.
Catherine
Have I more tongues than one?
Cino
A score or so.
Catherine
Show us a little first What sort of speech thy mother taught thee mar.
Margaret
Ay, there it lies; try that.
Cino
What will you have me say?
Yolanda
His jests are waste.
Anne
Pure scandal screams in them.
Cino
You call me gospeller, ha?
Yolanda
Nay, that did I.
Cino
Shall I turn preacher for your sake and make A parable of your mouths?
Margaret
That, that; come on.
Yolanda
Put your worst wrath on us.
Renée
We’ll hear the fool.
Anne
Speak large and open; spare us not; speak wide.
Yolanda
Now the mill grinds; now mark.
Cino
But I shall rail indeed Now I have holy leave.
Margaret
No matter; prithee now.
Cino
It is your preacher’s parable and not mine Who am your poor fool and a simple thing.
Catherine
Come, sir, dig out your spleen.
Cino
Thus then. You are all goats—
Margaret
Ha?
Catherine
Hear him through; we must have lewder stuff.
Cino
And that which should make humbled blood in you And clothe your broader times with modesty Runs all to spoil and plagues your veins with heat.
Yolanda
We must have more.
Anne
This is blunt matter, fool.
Cino
Hunger abides in you as in a dog That has been scanted of flesh-meat three days; Sin doth make house with you. Are you pleased yet? You have smooth Sodom in your shameful cheeks; Respect, obedience, the shut lips of fear, Worship and grace and observation, You have not heard of more than spring-swoln kine Have heard of temperance. Are you yet satisfied?
Catherine
This is dead ware.
Margaret
Mere chaff that chokes the bin.
Yolanda
The dust of a fool’s bones.
Anne
Dull as a preacher’s beard.
Cino
But are you not? resolve me; are not you? You are made up of stolen scraps of man That were filched unawares; you can make no children Because you are grown half male with wicked use.
Catherine
I’ll have thee whipt; thou art a hollow fool, And hast no core but pith. Why, any beast That hath the spring of speech in his tongue’s joint Or any talking nerve, could breed to this. Thou wert to make us mirth.
Cino
Well, do I not? do I not?
Margaret
Who angles in thee save for weeds, shall trip Over his ears in mire: shut thy lewd mouth.
Catherine
Will you take gifts to be dumb? we are wearied with you.
Cino
Ay, and worse favours at your prayer I will.
Catherine
You look near white with laughing much, Yolande, Nay, there’s no need to catch so sharp at red. Give me that glove you keep for him.
Yolanda
Here, madam.
Catherine
Here, wear this, Cino, and be friends with us.
Cino
A fair gold thing, a finch’s colour i’ the back; Too small for me though; God change one of us.
Catherine
Denise gave me the glove.
Denise
I, gracious madam?
Catherine
You, gracious maiden; it would span your wrist. So, fool; beware you do not rend it.
Yolanda
Ah!
Catherine
What now? did a gnat sting you?
Yolanda
A mere fly; A mere gold fly; I took it for a wasp.
Margaret
What does this mean? Come hither, fool; sit here.
Catherine
I will not have him there.—Stand further off.— The knave’s report doth poison miles about; Come half so close, he’ll kill you in your ear.
Cino
Have back your glove; here, madam, have it back; I will not wear it.
Margaret
What stings him now i’ the brain?
Cino
I am not well.
Catherine
This is some sideways jest.
Denise
(aside)
God make this business better than my thought, For I do fear it.
Margaret
Do you note his lips?
Yolanda
Yea, his eyes too?
Anne
He is not well indeed. Was all his railing prologue to this play That reads as dull as death?
Cino
Now I could prophesy Like who turns heaven to riddles; my brain beats. A man were as good ask mercy of dead bones As of the best lip here; nay, I shall be Quite marred amongst you.
Catherine
Convey the fool from us; This does not look like wine.
Cino
God be with you; be wise now, for the fool is gone.
[Exit.
Catherine
I do not like the face of this. Where had you The glove you gave me?
Denise
I gave you nothing, madam.
Catherine
Does that wind hold? I must have more of you.
Margaret
Madam, you do not think—
Catherine
Give me leave, sweet. We have had too much peril in report To let this lie so light. Where had you it?
Denise
Why do you bait me out of season thus? You know I never had it.
Catherine
Oh! had you not? Then I have dreamed awry of you.
Denise
Madam—
Enter Attendant
Attendant
Where is the queen?
Catherine
What puts such haste in you? Am I not worth a knee?
Attendant
Pardon me, madam, I have such tidings; your poor fool is dead.
Catherine
Bring me to him. So suddenly to cease Is to cry out on his death’s manner; bring me To see his body; I have a little craft In such a matter’s healing. Some of you Look to that girl; she swoons to have the deed So entered in her ears.
Margaret
It is too foul.
Catherine
God pardon her! Could she not see that sharpness Was but the gall and flaw of his bowed brain? It did not hurt her more, being most proclaimed, Than she has pitied him. Bring her with us.
[Exeunt.

Act IV

Scene I.
The Louvre

Enter La Noue, Soubise, and Pardaillan
Pardaillan
I havenot heard such news.
La Noue
’Faith, they sound ill; If women of so choice and costly names Turn worse than popular murders are, we have all Much need to help ourselves.
Soubise
This is their fashion; Their blood is apt to heats so mutable As in their softer bodies overgrow The temper of sweet reason, and confound All order but their blood.
Pardaillan
You read them well; Good reason have you to put reason to’t And measure them by the just line of it.
La Noue
But that such sins should plague the feverish time I do not wonder far; all things are grown Into a rankness.
Pardaillan
Still I say, a woman To do such bitter deeds—
Soubise
That’s where it sticks.
Pardaillan
Put on such iron means—
Soubise
Ay, that, sir, that.
Pardaillan
So rip the garments of their temperance And keep no modest thing about their face To hide the sin thereon: pluck off the shows That did o’erblanch a little—
Soubise
Ay, keep there.
La Noue
But, gentlemen, what upshot hear you of?
Pardaillan
The queen hath sent her under heavy guard To bide some subtler edge of evidence Here in her chamber.
Soubise
Why not in prison? Look you, they’ll let her slip; I say they will.
Pardaillan
But hear you, sir; I did not blame the queen
Soubise
It doth outgrow the height and top of shame That she should pass untaxed.
Pardaillan
She will not pass.
Soubise
Take note, sir, there is composition in’t; They would not put imprisonment on her; Why this is rank: I tell you this is rank.
Pardaillan
God’s pity! what a perfect wasp are you! Why, say she scapes—as by my faith I see No such keen reason why she should not scape, The matter being so bare and thin in proof As it appears by this—
La Noue
Yea, so I say; If she be manifest a murderess—
Soubise
If! What “if” will serve? show me the room for “if;” I read no reason on the face of “if.” If she be not, what leans our faith upon? If she be pure or only possible For judgment to wash clear—if she be not Evident in guilt beyond all evidence— The perfect map where such red lines are drawn As set down murder—if she be less one whit I’ll take her sin upon myself and turn Her warrant.
Pardaillan
Take a woman’s sin on you? O, while you live, lay no such weight on faith, ’Twill break her back. Sir, as you love me, do not; I would not have you take such charge upon you.
Soubise
I say I will not; for I can approve Her very guiltiness.
Pardaillan
Nay, that clears all. But it is strange that one so well reputed, So perfect in all gentle ways of time That take men’s eyes—in whom the slips she had Were her more grace and did increase report To do her good—who might excuse all blame That the tongued story of this time could lay On her most sweet account—that such a lady Should wreak herself so bloodily for words Upon a shallow and sick-witted fool. Why, what is she the better, he removed? Or how doth he impair her, being alive? There’s matter in’t we know not of.
Soubise
Yea, why? For that you speak of her repute, my lord, I am not perfect in a girl’s repute; It may be other than I think of it; But in this poor conjectural mind of mine I cannot see how to live large and loose Doth put a sounder nerve into repute Than honest women have. What we did know of her, You, I, and all men—
Pardaillan
Nay, you tax her far.
Soubise
I mean, we know her commerce with the king; Ha? did we not?
Pardaillan
Yea, that was broad enough.
Soubise
Why, well then, how doth she make up repute, Being patched so palpably? Here comes the queen.
Enter the King, the Queen-Mother, and La Rochefoucauld
Charles
It may be so.
Catherine
I would it had less face. If likelihood could better speak of her, I should be glad to help it.
Soubise
Marked you this?
Catherine
But shame can hide no shame so manifest; It must all out.
Charles
I do not say it must.
Catherine
Why, it was open, proof doth handle it; The poor brain-bitten railer chid at her, Scoffed in lewd words, made speech insufferable Of any temperate ear; no colder cheek But would have burnt at him; myself was angered, Could not wear patience through; and she being quick, Tendering her state as women do, too slight To push her reason past her anger’s bound—
Soubise
Did you note that? she speaks my proper way.
Catherine
She being such doth with my hands resolve To whip him out of life; and in this humour—
Charles
Soft now; I must get proof; what makes your highness In such a matter?
Catherine
I gave her glove to him.
Charles
O, this is well; and yet she murdered him?
Pardaillan
What says your judgment to’t? have you no quirk?
(Aside.)
Catherine
She gave it me; I had the glove of her.
Pardaillan
Does the wind blow that side?
Soubise
Notice the king; he chafes.
Exeunt Pardaillan, Soubise, and La Noue.
Charles
Our sister says she did outswear you all She never saw the glove.
Catherine
Put her to proof; Let her outbrag by evidence evidence, And proof unseat by proof.
Charles
Call her to me.
Catherine
That were unfit; you shall not see her.
Charles
Shall not! Who puts the “shall not” on me? is it you?
Catherine
Not I, but absolute need and present law; She is not well; and till she be made whole There shall no trial pass upon her proof; She shall have justice; it may be she is clear, And this large outward likelihood may lie; Then she were sharply wronged; and in that fear And also for dear love I bear to her I have removed her with no care but mine To a more quiet room; where till more surety She doth abide in an unwounded peace, Having most tender guard.
Charles
I’ll write her comfort; For I do know she has much wrong in this.
Catherine
I will commend you verbally to her; The other were some scandal.
Charles
Pray you, do; Look you speak gently; I would not have you loud, For she will weep all pity into you To see her cheek so marred. Look you say well; Say I do nothing fear but she is wronged, And will do right; yea, though I loved her not (As truly I am not so hard in love But I can see her fault, which is much pity— A very talking error in weak tongues) I would not have her wronged. Look you say that.
Catherine
I will say anything.
Charles
Now, my fair lord, Have I done well?
La Rochefoucauld
Most justly and most well.
Charles
You would not else, were you a king of mine?
La Rochefoucauld
I would do this, even merely as you do.
Charles
What say you to this evidence?
La Rochefoucauld
That it doth Amaze my sense of what is proven; for, If there be witness in the touch and grasp Of things so palpable, and naked likelihood Outpoises all thin guess and accident, I must believe what makes belief rebel And turn a proclaimed liar. For I am sure That she whose mouth this proof doth dwell upon, I mean the virtuous damozel Yolande, Is past the tax of lying; she is as pure As truth desires a man.
Charles
It is most strange; Let’s find some smoother talk. Have you not seen My book of deer, what seasons and what ways To take them in? I finished it last night.
La Rochefoucauld
I have not seen it.
Charles
Only this throws me out; (The verses, Peter Ronsard made them rhyme) I’ll show you where; come, you shall get me through; You are perfect at such points.
La Rochefoucauld
Your praise outruns me.
Charles
No, not a whit; you are perfect in them; come.
[Exeunt King and La Rochefoucauld.
Catherine
This is the proper cooling of hot blood; Now is she lost in him. Say, she doth live; to put Earth in her lips and dusty obstacle May not be worth my pains. She cannot thwart me either; For say I did enfranchise her to-night, Give air and breath to her loud’st speech, she could not Wrench one man’s faith awry. Yet since I know Security doth overlean itself And bruise its proper side, I will not do’t. Or say I win her back; and being so won, I may find serviceable times for her To spy upon king fool; this coolness thawed Would make a heat indeed. There’s use for her And room withal; if she leave tenderness And this girl’s habit of a changing blood, I can as well unload her of this weight As I did lay it on; which being kept up May make her life bend under it, and crack The sensible springs of motion. I will put proof to it; Favour of love, promise and sweet regard, Large habit, and the royal use of time, May her slight fear as potently outpoise As wisdom doth, weighed in a steadier brain.
[Exit.

Scene II.
Denise’s Apartment in the same

Enter Denise and Attendant
Attendant
How do you now?
Denise
Well; I do ever well; It comes not new to me, this well-doing. I sleep as women do that feed well, I feed As those who wear the gold of doing well. What pricks you so to ask? Why, this is quaint, I cannot brace my body like a maid’s, Cannot plait up my hair, gather a pin, But you must catch me with “How do you it?”
Attendant
I made but question of that mood you had Some three hours back, when you fell pale and wept, Saying fever clenched you fast and you would die; That mood forgets you.
Denise
Not a whit; you slip Strangely between conjectures of two sides, The white and black side. I am very well. They say “do well” if one does virtuously; May I not say so?
Attendant
Doubtless you may well.
Denise
Yea, the word “well” is tied upon your tongue. Try now some new word, prithee some fair phrase, Rounder i’ the mouth than “well;” I hate this “well;” I pray you learn some lesson of a jay To use new words. I will provide me one That shall say nothing all day through but “ill,” And “ill” again. I’ll have a clock tick “well” And hang it by your bed to wake you mad Because you chatter me half sick with “well.”
Attendant
I will say nothing lest you carp at me, Planting offence in most pure sentences; Mistake falls easy.
Denise
Truly it doth fall. All matters fall out somehow in God’s work, And round the squarèd edges of them flat. But I fall wrong, slip someway short of heaven, And earth fails too, and leaves me dismal hell, Naked as brown feet of unburied men. Think you they hold mere talk like ours in hell? Go up and down with wretched shoulders stooped And wried backs under the strong burdens bruised And thwarted bodies without pleasant breath?
Attendant
I do conceive it as clean fire that burns And makes a grey speck of the gracious corn; God keep us that we burn not in such wise.
Denise
That is a prayer, and prayers are sweet. But then We’ll have no praying; only such as this— I prithee set a finger to my load, Help me from fainting; take my knife and smite And put the blood to cool upon my mouth. Such dull work too as carls get sickened with And turn to die into the black rank straw, We shall set hands to; all fair lords and knights, Great kings with gold work wrought into their hair, Strong men of price and such as play or sing, Delicate ladies with well-shodden feet, Tall queens in silk wear and all royal things, Yea, priests of noble scarlet and chaste mark, All shall God set awork. Peradventure too When our arms loosen in the elbow-joints With the strong rage and violent use of toil, He may send patient breath to ease our lips And heal us for a little weeping-space, But then in talking each with each will grow Worse shame and wholly fashioned wretchedness, And either will go back to mere short moans And the hard pulse of his outlaboured hour Rather than talk. We shall lie down and curse Stupidly under breath, like herdsmen; turn And hide and cover from all witness up, Each his own loathing and particular sore; Sit with chins fallen and lank feet asquat, Letting the dismal head work its own way, Till the new stripe shall pluck us up to task, Crossing with cruelties our own bad will, Crowning our worst with some completed bad Too ill to face. Ay, this should be their way; For fire and all tormented things of earth Are parcels of good life, have use and will, Learn worthiest office and supply brave wants; And not the things that burn up clean make hell, Not pain, hate, evil, actual shame or sense, But just the lewd obedience, the dead work, The beaten service of a barren wage That gets no reaping.
Attendant
I cannot taste the purpose of your speech. Pray you lie down.
Denise
I will not. Well it were To set our upper lives on some such Guise And have a perfect record when one dies How things shall be thereafter. A knowledge armed Of the most sharp and outermost event Is half a comfort. I do think for one That God will set me into certain hell, Pick me to burn forth of his yellow spears Like any tare as rank. Also I doubt There shall be some I had to do withal Packed in the same red sheaf. How will each look, Tavannes, no leaner than the hound he was, Or Guise beard-singed to the roots? the queen-mother Tied by the hair to—I get idle now. A grave thing is it to feel sure of hell, But who should fear it if I slip the chance And make some holy blunder in my end, Translating sin by penitence? For none Sinned ever yet my way; treason and lust Sick apes, red murder a familiar fool, To this new trick set by them, will be shamed In me for ever; yea, contempt of men Shall put them out of office. He that lusts, Envies or stabs, shall merely virtuous be, And the lank liar fingering at your throat A friend right honest. That roadway villain’s knife That feels for gold i’ the womb, shall be not hated; And the cold thief who spills a popular breath Find grace o’ the gallows; why do men hang poor knaves, Cut throats while mine goes smooth? Now I think on’t, I will put condemnation to their act By mine own will and work. I pray you kill me, I will not hurt you.
Attendant
Alas, she is mad. Dear lady—
Denise
Yea, dear; I shall be dear some three days hence, And paid full price. Dost thou not think I am mad? I am not; they would fain have lied me mad, Burnt up my brain and strung my sense awry, In so vile space imprisoning my wants I can help nothing. Here sit I now, beast-like, Loathsomely silenced: who if I had the tongue Wherewith hard winter warns the unblanched sea, Would even outspeak the winds with large report, Proclaiming peril. But being this I am I get no help at all. One maimed and dumb That sees his house burn, such am I. My God! Were it not sweeter to be finished well Than still hold play with hangman anger?
Enter the Queen-Mother
Catherine
Leave us, girl.
[Exit Attendant.
Nay, sit; this reverence hath no seed in you; Sit still.
Denise
Madam—
Catherine
Good lady, will you sit?
Denise
So you be come to bind more shame on me, I can well bear more shame.
Catherine
You are still foolish; How have I set this anger in your face? I make no parcel of these tears of yours; No word that gets upon your lips to weep Have I given use for.
Denise
Ay, no use you say? But I dream not that hold this hand in that, But I dream not that take your eyes with mine; But I dream not I am that very thing That as a taint inside the imperilled flesh Have made corruption of the king’s close will, Put scarlet treason on his purpose, marred The face of confidence, plucked words from trust, Taught murder to walk smooth and set his feet Upon the ways of faith; I am that thing, I would it were some other.
Catherine
Have you yet done?
Denise
Yea, I have done all this.
Catherine
I do believe you; And though your thoughts ungently look my way, I have such sorrow for you sown at heart As you should reap a liberal help thereof Would you but pay thin thanks.
Denise
No, I’ll no thanks; Yea, though I die, I will not thank you; no; For I can hold my breath into my lip, Or twist my hair to choke my throat upon, Or thrust a weak way thus to my rent heart Even with these bare and feeble fingers here, Making each nail a knife; look you, I’ll do’t.
Catherine
You talk too wide; I came to do you good.
Denise
That were good news indeed; things new, being good, Come keener to put relish in the lip; I pray you let me see this good i’ the face, Look in its eyes to find dead colours out, For deadly matters make up good for me.
Catherine
Nay, you shall find my favour large as love; I make no talk of gold, no costly words, No promise, but this merely will I say, You holding by me grapple to a hold Full of all gracious office and such wealth As love doth use for surety; such good riches As on these latter lips of womanhood Are sweet as early kisses of a mouth Scented like honey. Keep but fast my side, No time shall hew the planted root away That faith of your dear service sets in me, Nor violence of mistempered accident Cleave it across.
Denise
I would I were clear of you. What would you get? You are a great queen, grave soul, Crown-shaped i’ the head; your work is wonderful And stoops men to you by the neck, but I Can scantly read it out. I know just this— Take you this patience from my wretched lips, Pluck off this evidence of the bolted steel, Make wide the passage of my chambered feet And I will take a witness in my mouth To set the cries of all the world on you And break my shame to lead your neck with half Like a thief’s neck.
Catherine
You are slower than weighed lead To use my speech aright. But though you be Twice dull or thrice, and looser of your lip Than that swift breath that outwings rumour, yet No babble slipt upon my purposes Could manage me a peril, no tongue’s trip Cross me between. Who puts belief to speech Grown from some theft, that stains me with report From mine own lips caught like infection? Look, Though you could preach my least word spoken out To the square in Paris where noise thickens most, It hurts me nothing. ’Tis not that populous tongue That savours insolence and raw distaste Can riot out my will. Nay, keep your cheeks: I would not kill the colour past all help, For I have care of you; and liberal fruit Shall you reap of it, and eat quiet bread When white want shrinks the rest.
Denise
I will not do it. Nay, though I were your foolish workwoman, There is no room for good to do me good; That blessed place wherein love kissed me first Is now waxed bare enough. I might ask alms Of meanest men, being by mine own repute Made less than time makes them; I am not good nor fair, For the good made on me by love is gone, And that affection of the flattered blood Which fills this holy raiment of the soul With inwrought shapeliness and outside rose Keeps now no tide in me; the unpulsed sense Hath like a water settled and gets flat As dead sands be at utmost ebb that drink The drainèd salt o’ the sea. Nay, to talk thus Is foolish as large words let out in drink; Therefore I am not wise; what would you have of me?
Catherine
Nay, nothing but your peace, which I’ll assure Beyond large time’s assault. Yet I’ll do something with you, Put sudden bitter in your sweet of lips, A knife’s edge next your throat, that when you drink Shall spill out wine i’ the blood—something like this; Feed you upon the doubt, and gnash and grieve, Feeling so trapped. You’ll show fierce teeth at me, Take threats of me into your milky mouth? You’ll maim my ruined patience, put me out Of sober words and use of gravities?
Denise
Yea, I can read you are full-tempered now; But your sharp humours come not in my fear.
Catherine
Yea so? high-tempered said she? yea, true, true— I’m angered—give me water to cool out This o’er-tongued fever of intemperance. Bid one come in and see how wroth I am; Am I not angered now? see you—and you— Do not I chafe and froth the snaffle white With the anger in my mouth? see, do I not? —Thou hast the tender impotence of talk That men teach daws; a pitiful thing—in sooth I am not so chafed; I have something in my will That makes me chide at thee, my plaything; look, I do half choose to chide at it, sweet wretch, It almost chafes me such a daw should live.
Denise
It chafes me too; I will not be forgiven; If shame go smooth and blood so supple it, Kingdoms will turn from the grave word of man To side with hoofèd herds: I were best die And get no grace of God.
Catherine
“No grace” it said? Dost thou make such a gracious dunce of God To look thee out in the time’s jarring sum, Choose thy room forth and hearken after thee To find thee place and surety and eased breath? God’s no such bat to be at pains for this. Pray now, go pray; speak some wise word or two To pluck his mercies back your way. God’s name! It marvels me how any fool i’ the flesh Must needs be sure of some fore-facing help To make him fragrant means for living well, Some blind God’s favour bound across his head To stamp him safe i’ the world’s imperilling. Pardon thy sin? who blabs thy pretty slips I’ the ear of his broad knowledge, scores thy stains, Makes him partaker of all times and rooms Where thou hast made shuddering occasions To try Eve’s huskless apple with thy teeth? Doth such care dwell on thy breath’s lean reserves, Thy little touches and red points of shame? I tell thee, God is wise and thou twice fool, That wouldst have God con thee by rote, and lay This charge on thee, shift off that other charge, And mete thine inward inches out by rule That hath the measure of sphered worlds in it And limit of great stars. Wilt thou serve yet?
Denise
Not you herein at all; though you spake right, As it may be this speech does call truth kin, I would not sin beyond my ancient way And couple with new shame.
Catherine
This is your last; For the sad fruit that burgeons out of this Take your own blame, for I will none.—You, there, You that make under uses of the door, Leave off your ear-work and come in; nay, come;
Enter Yolande
Here’s use for you; look well upon this girl, Count well the tender feet that make her flesh And her soft inches up; nay, view them close; For each poor part and specialty of her You hold sharp count to me; I’ll have you wise; You that are portress shall be gaoler—you, Mark me, just you—I would not have you slip; Come not into my danger; but keep safe, I do you good indeed.
Yolande
I will do truly.
Catherine
Farewell, sweet friend;
(to Denise)
I am right grieved that you
Will mix my love with your impatience. Though I more thinly fare in your esteem, Fare you yet well for mine, and think of me More graciously than thus; so have you peace As I do wish you happily to have. God give you sleep.—Look heedfully to her As you would have me prosperous to you.
[Exeunt severally.

Scene III.
The Marshal’s House

Enter two Captains
1 Captain
May this be true that we are bidden so?
2 Captain
I think it is.
1 Captain
Did the king speak with you?
2 Captain
No, the lord marshal.
1 Captain
He is hot on this; But did he tell you to be forth to-night?
2 Captain
Before the chime of twelve.
1 Captain
Why then we have A broken four hours’ work upon us yet Between this time and that most bloody one. There is a yellow point upon the sky Where the last upper sun burns sideways out, Scoring the west beneath.
2 Captain
I see the mark: It shines against the Louvre; it is nigh gone.
1 Captain
Yea, the strong sun grows sick; but not to death. Which side have you to take?
2 Captain
The south side, I.
1 Captain
I to the west. Would this were really through.
2 Captain
Who gave you news o’ the office?
1 Captain
Maurevel.
2 Captain
O, he that hurt the admiral some days back? That plague-botch of the Guisards?
1 Captain
Yea, the same: I had a mind to strike him in the mouth.
2 Captain
Why had you so? you have the better place.
1 Captain
O, sir, in such hard matters he does best Who does not most. I had rather be a dog, One half unleashed to feed on bitten orts Than have his post herein.
2 Captain
Whose? Maurevel’s?
1 Captain
Even his; for he has carved him a broad piece Out of the body of this wounded town.
2 Captain
What, does the work so startle you? for me, I hold it light as kissing a girl’s head.
1 Captain
If they should face us, well; but to put knives Into their peaceable and sleeping beds—
2 Captain
You talk too like a fool. I loathe so far Their slow lank ways of envious gravity, Their sparing pride and lavish modesty, Cunning so tempered with hot insolence As in that Pardaillan—in him or him— I say I do abhor them, and in my soul I think there’s no priest half so glad as I To rid them out of wrong doing. We are Most kind to them; for give their sin more space, Each year should heap up hell upon their backs And leave them hotter; whereas we rid them now And they just die half-damned.
1 Captain
You are merciful.
2 Captain
I would be so; for him whose spleen is thick, Made bitter and side-clogged with cruel use, I hate as much as these.
1 Captain
The marshal tarries; I doubt there will be nothing done.
2 Captain
You doubt? Say you desire it; if you pray for it, Shame not to answer your own hope.
1 Captain
I do not; I should be glad if all went out in speech And never smutched our hands with smoke thereof.
2 Captain
This is your poor and barren piety That mercy calls offence, and law doth put Rebuke upon. I do not praise it in you.
1 Captain
Do you mislike it?
2 Captain
If I should say I did—
1 Captain
What then?
2 Captain
I did you nothing less than right.
1 Captain
You will not say so.
2 Captain
By your head, I do; I will and do.
1 Captain
This will take time to mend.
2 Captain
Mend it your way; take time to patch it with; My hand shall not be slack. Here comes the marshal.
Enter Tavannes
Tavannes
Now, sirs, how are your men disposed? have you Had pains with them?
1 Captain
Mine gave no pains at all.
Tavannes
Why, well; I would the temper of such men Were made the habit of all France. Sir, yours?
2 Captain
I may say better of them; I could not So eagerly give tongue to my desire But they did grasp it first; such emulous haste To jostle speech aside with the push of act I have not known.
Tavannes
Good; they do hunger, then?
2 Captain
Sir, most impatiently.
Tavannes
Their galls are hot?
2 Captain
Enough to burn out patience from the world.
Tavannes
Such I would have; good dogs, keen in the feet, Swoln in the spleens of them; ’tis very good. Your presence flags, sir.
1 Captain
Mine, my lord?
Tavannes
Ay, sir. You have the gait of an unmaiden’d girl That carries violence in her girdle. Humph! I do not relish it.
1 Captain
My lord—
Tavannes
Ay, what? Speak your own way; make answer; nay, be swift.
1 Captain
My lord, you have not known me blink or blench In the red face of death; no peril hath Put fear upon my flesh, altered the heat That colours on my cheek the common blood To a dead sickness or a bruise of white; Nor doth it now.
Tavannes
No, doth not? are you sure?
1 Captain
You do not think so.
Tavannes
Nay, there’s no peril in’t. But you had more; make out the worst; get on.
1 Captain
Truly I have a motion in my blood Forbidding such a matter to receive Smooth entertainment there; I would be fain To shift the service off; my fellow here Knows I regard it something loathfully.
Tavannes
Ay, do you, sir?
2 Captain
Indeed he said so.
Tavannes
Said?
2 Captain
But I do know him for a noble man That would acknowledge all things honourably, Commune with no base words, nor wear such office As cowards do; I must report him such.
Tavannes
You must! I pray show me what humour then Crosses him thus at point.
2 Captain
I will not think.
Tavannes
Sir, you that have such tender make at heart, That wear a woman in your blood, and put Your mother on your cheeks—you that are pure, That will not fail—you piece of dainty talk— Pluck me this halting passion from your heart, Or death shall nail it there.
1 Captain
I do not fear you, sir.
Tavannes
Observe me, sir; I do not use to threat; Either take up your office for this time And use it honourably, or I will leave you No place at all. What sort of fool are you To start at such a piece of lawful work As is the manage of more noble hands Than are familiar with your beard? You are Too gross a fool.
1 Captain
My lord, you wrong me much.
2 Captain
Sir, you push far; he is a gentleman.
Tavannes
The devil shall make a better of strawn dung; I do proclaim him for a thief, a coward, A common beggar of safe corner-holes, A chamber hireling to wash pots—Begone, I will not bear such knaves. Take you his place. Go, go, eat scraps.
1 Captain
Sir, you shall do me right.
Tavannes
I say thou art a knave, a side-stair thief— God’s precious body! I am sick with anger That such a pad of slack worm-eaten silk Should wear the name of any soldiership. Give up thine office.
1 Captain
You do yourself much shame.
[Exit.
Tavannes
Fie on him, rag! frayed velvet face! I’d beat him But for pure shame. So, is he gone? Make after And push him out at door. Take you his place. Attend me presently.
2 Captain
My lord, I shall.
[Exeunt.

Scene IV.
The Louvre

The Queen-Mother, Margaret, Duchess of Lorraine, and Ladies
Catherine
No, no, the scandal stands with us, not you That have no lot in it. Well, God be praised, It does not touch me inwardly and sharp To be so rid of him; but I do pity The means of his removal, from my heart I pity that. ’Tis a strange deed; I have not Seen any that may call it brother, since That dame’s who slew her lord, being caught in middle Of some more lewd delight; her name now?
Duchess
Châteaudun.
Catherine
True, so it was; I thank you; Châteaudun.
Margaret
How says she yet? will she confess his death?
Catherine
No, but outbears all comfort with keen words.
Margaret
Truth, I commend her for it; I would not have her Show the wet penitence of fools that are More weak than what they do.
Catherine
I partly hold with you. Have we no music? Nay, I would hear none; I am not bowed that way; my sense will not stoop To the pleasurable use of anything. Is it not late?
Margaret
I think it wears to nine.
Catherine
Nay, it lies further; I am sure it does.
Duchess
Madam, it is not late.
Catherine
I say it is; If I am pleased to reckon more than you, It shall be late.
Margaret
I promised at this time To be about my husband; if I fail, My faith is breached with flaw of modesty.
Duchess
Nay, go not yet.
Catherine
Will you lay hands on her?
Duchess
I do beseech you—
Margaret
What makes you cling to that?
Duchess
If you would show me kindness, do not go.
Catherine
You play love’s fool awry.
Margaret
Show me some reason.
Duchess
I have no reason broader than my love; And from the sweetest part of that sweet love I do entreat you that you will not go, But wake with me to-night. I am not well.
Margaret
Sister, I am quite lost in your desire.
Catherine
What, are you ill? how shall it get you whole To wake the iron watches of the night Companioned with hard ache of weariness And bitter moods that pain feeds full upon? Come, you are idle; I will wake with you, If you must wake; trouble not her so much.
Margaret
Indeed it would a little tax me.
Catherine
Nay, Think not upon it; get you hence and sleep. Commend me to your lord; bid him thank me That he to-night doth side you; it is a grace Worth honourable thanks.
Duchess
Still I beseech you To keep me company some poor two hours; My prayer is slight, more large my need of it; I charge you for pure pity stay with me.
Catherine
Are you gone mad? what makes your prayer in this? As you regard my wrath or my fair mood, And love me better peaceable than harsh, Make a quick end of words.—Margaret, good night.— Nay, sit you close.—At once good night, my love; I pray you do my message.
Margaret
Madam, I will; No less fair night with you and with my sister, Whom I shall look to see as whole in health As sound in spirit.
Catherine
I will take pains for it; She shall get healed with pains; have no such fear.
[Exit Margaret.
Are you so much a fool? by heaven, I am ashamed That ever I did use your faith like mine, Nay that some blood of mine was lost on you To make such shallow stuff as you are of.
Duchess
Madam, you have not thought—
Catherine
What ailed my wits To lay so precious office on your brain, Which is filled out with female matters, marred With milky mixtures? I do loath such women Worse than a leper’s mouth.
Duchess
Consider but her state: It is your flesh, my sister and my blood, That must look death in the eyes; you bid her hold Keen danger by the skirt, gripe hands with him; For those that scape the edges of your men, Being refuged in her lodging, may as well Turn their own points on her; if none escape, Then in the slaying of her husband’s men She may well chance on some one’s iron side And death mistake her end.
Catherine
I did mistake More grossly, to believe the blood in you Was not so mean in humour as it is. She is safe enough; he that but strikes at her With his bare hand doth pluck on his bare head Sudden destruction. Say she were not safe, Must we go back for that and miss the way That we have painfully carved out and hewn From the most solid rivet of strong time?
Duchess
If you would bid her watch—
Catherine
I will do nothing.
Duchess
Let me but speak to her.
Catherine
You shall not move; This thing is heavier than you think of it And has more cost than yours. You shall sit still, And shall not frown or gape or wag your head, As you respect the mood of my misliking.
Enter Attendant
Attendant
Madam, the Duke of Anjou—
Catherine
What would he?
Attendant
He prays you dearly be about the king; What he would have I cannot tell; I am sure He is much moved, and as I think with fear.
Catherine
This is an absolute summons. I will go.
[Exit Attendant.
So, get you in; you have no lot beyond; That I should have such need to use such fools! Get you to bed and sleep.
[Exeunt severally.

Act V

Scene I.
The Louvre

The King, Queen-Mother, Brantôme, Tavannes, La Rochefoucauld, Teligny, and Attendants
Charles
Putup the dice; you do not play me fair.
Catherine
Indeed the cast did lie too much his way.
La Rochefoucauld
Do me right, sir; the chance so thrown on me May come to serve your hand.
Charles
Nay, God forbid! I would not fare so well, lest men should scent The sudden savour of sharp-relished ills To snuff my luck behind. Put them away.
La Rochefoucauld
So I may take my leave, my lord, I will.
Charles
Abide a little.
La Rochefoucauld
Sir, in pure faith, I may not.
Charles
Lay down your chariness; I pray you stay; I am your friend that do entreat you stay To help me use my better humours well.
La Rochefoucauld
This grace of yours doth jar with time in me.
Catherine
Fair son, put no dispute in marriage; think, Our noble friend is yet i’ the green of time, The summer point of wedlock; cross him not.
Charles
No, he shall stay.
Catherine
I love him none the less That would enfranchise his obedience, Saying “let pass.”
Brantôme
I have known an honest lady That would have bit her lips atwain for spite Sooner than slip her lord’s obedience so And slacken the remitted service of him For such light points; I do remember me—
Catherine
This tale will hold you, sir.
Brantôme
I bade her choose a friend, She seeming bare of any courtesy That is well done to such; I bade her choose—
La Rochefoucauld
I take a second leave.
Brantôme
As ’twere for form— “Seeing, look you,” said I, “a lady’s office is To endure love and wear a good man’s name As the lace about her wrist”—
Charles
You shall not go.
La Rochefoucauld
Sir, needs I must; you shall well pardon it.
Brantôme
She with a face, as thus, let sideways down, Catching her page i’ the eye—a thing so bearded As are a woman’s lips—
Catherine
My lord Bourdeilles, I pray you take my way, I’ll hear this out.
Brantôme
Please you so suffer me—
Catherine
Fair son, good night.
[Exeunt Catherine, Brantôme, and Attendants.
Charles
Good night, sweet mother.—Is she truly gone? Then I will pray you leave not me to-night; I’ll not to bed; I would not have you go; Yea, by God’s blood, I put my heart indeed Into this prayer of mine. Come, pleasure me; It might avail you; what, by God’s own face, I think I sue to you. Is this much alms That you should please me?
La Rochefoucauld
Sir, for my poor half, I must tie thanks upon the neck of No And turn him forth of me.
Charles
Then you keep here?
La Rochefoucauld
Good faith, I cannot so; and I well think This lord speaks with me.
Teligny
Even your sense, indeed.
Charles
You use me hardly, but my wish to you Lives none the less a good and honest wish; So, if my meaning tastes not sweet to you, Farewell, yea well. One see my dear friends out.
La Rochefoucauld, Teligny.
Good night, fair lord.
[Exeunt La Rochefoucauld and Teligny.
Charles
I would have kept them yet. So, if a man have sight of a big stone, And will needs trip and sprawl with a bruised head, Is it my fault that show him such a stone? Or say one filches a fair sword of mine To rip himself at side, is my sin there? Nay not that much, but walking with my sword It galls him in the thigh; am I his hurt? Twice, yea now thrice, if you shall mark me, sir, Yea, God knows well I sued three times to them, I would have had all scars keep off their flesh, But God’s will is not so.
Tavannes
You do the wiser To let them pass.
Charles
Why truly so I think. But I am heart-stung for these; this Teligny That might have laid a word of help my way And kept such sullen lips of doubtfulness, I have loved him well. The other, see you, sir, I have twined arms with him, fed from his eyes, Made a large pleasure out of usual things Wherein his lot fell evenly with mine, Laid my heart on him; yea, this singled man Was as the kin made closest to my flesh And in the dearest of my secret will, Did as a brother govern. But he may go; I were fallen wrong too far to pity him; So, though they mainly mar him with their pikes, Stab till the flesh hath holes like a big net, I will not think I am compassionate; Yea, though my thought of him pricks me at brain, I will believe I do not pity him. Show me the matter of your place, your way, The measure of your men; nay, my sweet lord, Pray you hold fast on this; be not made pitiful. Nay, but stand sure; nay, I beseech you, sure.
[Exeunt.

Scene II.
Denise’s Apartment

Enter Denise
Denise
It is the time; had but this solid earth A capable sense of peril, it should melt And all disjoint itself; the builded shape of things Should turn to waste and air. It is as strange As is this perilous intent, that men Should live so evenly to-night; talk, move, Use contemplation of all common times, Speak foolishly, make no more haste to sleep Than other days they do; I have not seen A man to-day seem graver in the mouth, Wear slowness on his feet, look sideways out, Make new the stuff and subject of his speech, Reason of things, matter of argument, For such a business. I see death is not feared, Only the circumstance and clothes of death; Or else men do not commune more with time Nor have its purpose in them larger writ Than a beast has. Why, I did surely think Such ill foreknowledge would have mastered me Quite beyond reason; wrenched my sense away, Brought it to dull default. But I do live and stir; Have reasonable breath within my lips: Keep my brain sound, and all my settled blood Runs the right way. Perhaps I sleep and dream That such things are as my fear dotes upon. Why then I should be mad; and being mad I might hold sound opinion of my wit When it were truly flawed. If I not dream And have no passionate mixture in my brain, Large massacre to-night should fill itself With slaughtered blood and the live price of men. Why this? forsooth because of that and that, For this man’s tongue and that man’s beard or gait, For some rank slip of their opinion. I see full reason why men slay for hate, But for opinion or slack accident I get no cause at all. Then I am mad That I do think what works so much awry And is past reason so, the natural sense Doth sicken in receiving it for news, To be the absolute act and heart of truth. I will not credit this. Yet wherefore am I So used as prisoner here? why taxed with sin? Why watched and kept so hard? called murderess? I’ll be assured of it. You gaoler, you— And yet I am afraid to call her forth. O, she is come.
Enter Yolande
Yolande
Did you not call for me?
Denise
I think I did cry out, being moved in sleep: I had a dream of you.
Yolande
Ay, had you so? And I had set a waking thought on you.
Denise
What time is it?
Yolande
Just hard upon eleven.
Denise
I have slept four hours. I pray you tell me now, As you are gentle—I do love you much— Is it my dream I am a prisoner?
Yolande
Did you not call me gaoler?
Denise
True, I did. Now I begin to patch my dream again And find the colours right. I dreamed I was Some sort of evil beast that loved a man And the man’s heel did bruise it in the neck.
Yolande
Take heed of it; you were a snake by this.
Denise
I do not know; it may be such I was. I dreamed of you too; for you took me up And hid me in a cage and gave me food— I think I was a kind of dismal bird— And having eaten of your seed and drunk Water more sharp than blood, I waxed all through Into a dull disease of overgrowth And so was choked to death; and men there came That roasted me for food, and having eaten All suddenly did break in twain and die. That was the dream.
Yolande
It was a foolish one.
Denise
Then I fell back to dream of one like you Who held me prisoner; which was dangerous; For I, being grown to mad rebellion, Took thought to kill you.
Yolande
That dream was not so good.
Denise
Why do I say all this? Let me get hence, Only the little part in heaven I have I’ll kill myself; nay, by God’s name I will.
Yolande
Do your own way.
Denise
You shall be taxed with it, (As I, more harmless, am) being guard of me; I will find ways to leave the tax on you.
Yolande
Pleasure yourself; I bid you not refrain.
Denise
It is a most poor mercy that I ask.
Yolande
Too much for me.
Denise
O, it is less in worth Than God spares barest men; the most base need on earth Is richer in his pity than you are In charitable use of me, who am Too little for your scorns.
Yolande
I will not do it.
Denise
Some prayers, long while denied, are sweeter held For being late granted; do not so with mine; I will be thankful more than beggars are, Made rich with grant too soon.
Yolande
Plead not to me; I have no patience in my ears for you.
Denise
Think how you use me; even kings do leave Some liberty to the worst worm alive, Some piece of mercy; but you, more hard than kings, Show no such grace as the great gaolers do That wear at waist the keys of the world. You know ’Tis better be whole beggar and have flesh That is but pinched by weather out of breath, Than a safe slave with happy blood i’ the cheek And wrists ungalled. There’s nothing in the world So worth as freedom; pluck this freedom out, You leave the rag and residue of man Like a bird’s back displumed. That man that hath not The freedom of his name, and cannot make Such use as time and place would please him with, But has the clog of service at his heel Forbidding the sound gait; this is no man But a man’s dog; the pattern of a slave Is model for a beast.
Yolande
What do you mean by this?
Denise
To show you what unworthy pain it is Your office lays on me.
Yolande
It is my place; My faith is taken to assure you thus, And you have bought such usage at my hands By your own act.
Denise
No, by your life, I have not.
Yolande
You are impeached and must abide the proof.
Denise
The proof—ay, proof; do, put me to the proof. There is not proof enough upon me known To stop a needle’s bore. The man now dead I held my friend, was sorry for his death, Not pricked for guilt of it. Poor fool, I would That I had borrowed such a death of him And left him better times to boot than do Keep company with me.
Yolande
I would you had. Were one no better dead than stained so much? I think so; for myself, in such a scale The weights were easy to make choice of.
Denise
I would not die.
Yolande
Did you not say his share were easier borne?
Denise
’Tis like I said so; yet I would live long.
Yolande
Why would you so? is there such grace in you To wear out all the bar and thwart of time And take smooth place again? The life you have, Like a blown candle held across the wind, Dies in the use of it; you are not loved, Or love would kiss out shame from either cheek, New-join the broken patience in your eyes, Comfort the pain of your so scarred repute Where the brand aches on it; honoured you are not, For the loud breath of many-mouthed esteem Cries harsher on you than on common thieves When they filch life and all; you are not secure, For the most thin divisions of a day That score the space between two breaths, to you Are perilous implements edged with all hate To use upon your life; you are not happy either, For guilty, shame doth bruise your side with lead, Or clean, why rumour stabs you in the face, Spits in your mouth. What sweet is in this life That you would live upon?
Denise
I do not know; But I would live; though all things else be sharp, Death stays more bitter than them all; I would not Touch lips with death.
Yolande
No? I have no such doubt.
Denise
Is it your place to make me friends with death?
Yolande
It is my pity.
Denise
I should find it so Were I the cushion for a fool’s feet, or A fool indeed of yours.
Yolande
I called you none.
Denise
I were the bell i’ the worst fool’s cap alive If I rang right to this wrong breath of yours. You talk to get me harmed.
Yolande
Put off that fear.
Denise
I will not, truly; you would talk me out, Be rid of me this whispering way, this fashion That pulls on death by the ear; I feel your wisdom; ’Tis craft thick-spun, but I shall ravel it.
Yolande
This is your garment that you thrust me in.
Denise
It must not be so late; there will be time; I was a fool to call it over late. Give up your keys.
Yolande
What madness bites you now?
Denise
She called you gaoler; give me up the keys; You have the keys; the outer door is fast; If this be madness I am friends with it; Give me the keys.
Yolande
Will you put hands on me?
Denise
I’ll have them out, though God would make you man To use me forcibly.
Yolande
I have none such; Threaten me not, or you shall smite yourself.
Denise
I say, the keys.
Yolande
What will you do to me?
Denise
Keep there, you get not out.
Yolande
Are you stark crazed?
Denise
It may look like enough. What chain is that? Give me the chain.
Yolande
I swear I have them not.
Denise
I do not ask for them. Give me the chain; Pray you now, do; good truth you are not wise To use me so; I know you have no keys. Give me the chain; soft, soft—
Yolande
Here are the keys. Take them and let me pass.
Denise
I thank you, no; If I be mad I must do warily, Or they will trap me. Get you into my chamber; Now am I twice the sinew of all you And twice as wise. I say, get in; God’s love! How you do pull my patience! in sound wits It were too hard to bear. Make haste, I say.
[Exeunt severally.

Scene III.
A Cabinet

Enter the Queen-Mother and Tavannes
Catherine
So, you did see them forth?
Tavannes
Madam, I did; The king doth fare by this more temperately.
Catherine
If he turn white and stagger at his point, It is too late. The mortal means of danger Are well abroad; and this sole work o’ the world Fit to set hands to. How do you feel by this?
Tavannes
Why, well; as if my blood were full of wine.
Catherine
I am hot only in the palm of the hands. Do you not think, sir, some of these dead men, Being children, dreamed perhaps of this? had fears About it? somewhat plucked them back, who knows, From wishing to grow men and ripen up For such a death to thrust a sickle there?
Tavannes
I never found this woman mixed in you.
Catherine
No.—I am certain also that this hour Goes great with child-birth and with fortunate seed, Worth care to harvest; sons are born and die, Yea, and choke timeless in the dead strait womb, Of whom we know not; each day breeds worse; it is The general curse of seasons.
Tavannes
Well, what help?
Catherine
True.—It hurts little for a man to die, If he be righteous. Were I a swordsman born, A man with such red office in my hands As makes a soldier—it would touch me not To think what milk mine enemy’s mouth had drunk, When both were yearlings a span long. My God! It is too foolish that conceit of blood Should stick so on the face; I must look red; Give me the little mirror-steel; now see; Here is no painting.
Tavannes
Yea, but let me go.
Catherine
It is man’s blood that burns so deep and bites No crying cleans it. If one kill a dog, The spot sticks on your skirt as water might; The next rain is a worse thing. Humph! I see; We have some hot and actual breath in us That blood lets out; we feed not as they do; So the soul comes and makes all motion new; One guesses at it.
Tavannes
Will you go mad for this?
Catherine
No.—If one strike me on the mouth or breast, And I am hurt and bleed to death—is that Murder? I would not kill them for their blood; God’s mercy! wherein can their blood serve me? Let all go through.
Tavannes
Madam, I take my leave; All shall run out ere we two speak again.
Catherine
Hark, I hear shots; as God shall pity me, I heard a shot. Who dies of that? yea now, Who lies and moans and makes some inches red?
Tavannes
Not for an hour yet; the first dial-rim Makes the first shot.
Catherine
The noise moves in my head, Most hotly moves; pray you keep clear of me. God help my woman’s body for a fool’s! I must even sit.
Tavannes
Be patient with your cause; Give it all room, then you get heart again; I know those ways.
Catherine
Too sharp to drink, too sharp, Sweet Christ of mine; blood is not well to drink, God put this cup some little off my mouth. Yea, there it catches in mine eyes like smoke, The smell of blood, it stings and makes one weep; So, God be patient till I breathe again.
Tavannes
Are you fallen foolish? woman—madam—thou! Take heart to speak at least.
Catherine
I will take heart. What is there in it that should bar my breath, Or make me babble stark across the sense As I did then? can the flesh merely prate With no mind in it to fall praying, ha? Give me some wine. Go out and cheer your men; Bid them be bold; say, work is worth such pains; Be quick and dangerous as the fire that rides Too fast for thunder. Tell them the king, the king Will love each man, cherish him sweetly, say, And I will hold him as that brother is Whom one flesh covered with me.—Will it rain?
Tavannes
No; the wide ends of the sky are clear with stars; It is broad moon-time.
Catherine
I would fain see rain. Art thou so slow of purpose, thou great God, The keenest of thy sighted ministers Can catch no knowledge what we do? for else Surely the wind would be as a hard fire, And the sea’s yellow and distempered foam Displease the happy heaven; wash corn with sand To waste and mixture; mar the trees of growth; Choke birds with salt, breach walls with tided brine, And chase with heavy water the horned brood Past use of limit; towers and popular streets Should in the middle green smother and drown, And havoc die with fulness.—I should be mad, I talk as one filled through with wine; thou, God, Whose thunder is confusion of the hills And with wrath sown abolishes the fields, I pray thee if thy hand would ruin us, Make witness of it even this night that is The last for many cradles, and the grave Of many reverend seats; even at this turn, This edge of season, this keen joint of time, Finish and spare not. If no thunder came When thou wert full of wrath to the fierce brim, Next year would spit on worship.—I am faint yet; See you, I have to chatter these big words To keep my head straight; each small nerve it hath Is like a chord pulled straight to play upon Till the string ache at sound. Sir, bear with me.
Tavannes
Keep but soft speech. Nay, pray you let me go; Open the door; I should be hence in time.
[The King of Navarre passes over the stage.
Catherine
Good night, lord marshal. You come late, fair sir, To bear my daughter commendations. I doubt she looks for you; I have had pains To bring her safe and presently your way; She had some will to watch.
Henry
I am the more bound to you.
Catherine
Let my praise sleep to-night, unless you do Speak well of me to her. See, the white stars Do burn upon the fair blue weather’s waste Thick as a lulled wind carries the marred leaves; Yea, see how grey my likenesses are grown, That grow on my grey years!
Henry
Madam, good night.
[Exit.
Catherine
That gives one heart; and yet I seem to choke, I shall feel weak till I do hear them shoot. Pray you take order that the watch be sharp Upon this boy.
Tavannes
I shall take order.
Catherine
Yea, But go with me till I have seen the king.
[Exeunt.

Scene IV.
A Street

Enter Guise with Soldiers
Guise
Keep in, let no man slip across of you; Hold well together; what face I miss of mine Shall not see food to-morrow; but he that makes So dull a mixture of his soul with shame As spares the gold hair or the white, shall be Dead flesh this hour. Take iron to your hands, Fire to your wills; let not the runagate love Fool your great office; be pity as a stone Spurned either side the way. That breast of woman That suckles treason with false milk and breeds Poison i’ the child’s own lip, think not your mother’s: Nor that lank chin which the grey season shakes Hold competent of reverence. Pluck me that corn Which alters in the yellow time of man; And the sick blade of ungrown days disroot, The seed makes rot the flower. There’s no such use But reason turns to holy, and keen right Washes as pure as faith; therefore be swift, and let Cold mercy choke on alms.
A Captain
We shall not fail.
Guise
Some ten go with me to the admiral’s house; You shall be one—and you; pluck him from bed, And use his body as your edges please, Then hale him through the street. The rest of you, As you see time, fire either way; then draw, And strike across the thickest ends of flight, God helping you. Say “Guise” now and set on.
[Exeunt.

Scene V.
The Admiral’s House

Enter Coligny and La Noue
La Noue
That this is true we have clean proofs; she hath made us Pawns of her game; this very France of ours Is as a cloth to wipe her feet upon, Her bed and stool of lust; and hath put on The naked patience of a beaten face And sufferance of a whore.
Coligny
I think so. Sir, I have believed this marriage of Navarre Began our waste.
La Noue
That stings me not so hard As that men mix us in their mouths with fools Who are not worth our slight esteem of them, And yet have sewn religion on their sleeve And badged their caps with us.
Coligny
They have done more harm; There is no lean or lesser villainy That war or peace-time saddles them withal, But it must be our blame, the fault of it Throws dirt on us and each man’s several hand That wets no finger in the Catholic way; That bites the nearest.
La Noue
We are imperilled; well, Danger should be the coat across my back, Meat in my lips, if I saw clear and good The choice and shape of our necessity; But here to blunder the chance out—my lord, No help for us then here?
Coligny
I see no help. Nay too, I bind not all the weight on them; In me and you the plague is well at work That rots all chances. We have let go the times That came with gold in the hands; and that slow snake, Impotent patience of pernicious things, Hath won upon us, and blown murderous breath Between the wide unwardered lips of sleep. Come, talk no more. Is the night fair? methinks I heard some humming rumours run through it.
La Noue
Sir, fair enough; there goes a little wind Among the roofs, but slow as a maimed man; The skies burn sharp with point of the lit stars, Even to the larger cope of all there is No air but smooth.
Coligny
’Tis a good night for sleep; Fair time to you.
La Noue
I pray God set such peace Upon the seasonable eyes of sleep As may well comfort you. Dear lord, good night.
[Exit.
Coligny
Farewell.—Now might I put lean patience in my prayers If I should pray to-night; I have no will To leave my witness against men and pray That God would suffer them. Surely I think he bears Somewhat too much with such side-working sins As lame the labouring hope of men, and make Endurance a blind sort of sleepy lie To confute God with. This woman here grows old, As I am old; we have drawn this way and that So long, the purpose lessens from the doing, Turns to a very function of the flesh So used for custom. She carries France her way, And my way breaks. Then if one sees the end, The goal that shuts the roadway sheer across, The builded limit of a complete will, All these side-briars and puddled rain-shallows That rend or drench us, are but nought thereto. Well, here I tire for one, and fain would use This winter of bleached hair and fallen flesh To make me quiet room.—Shut up the house; Let nothing wake the windows.—I will to bed.— The wind gets thick indeed. What noise is there?
[Firing outside.
Get me a light.
Guise
(within)
Nay, but get you first in; Throw the knave out at window.
Coligny
Yea, my Guise? Then are the sickles in this corn, I doubt.
Guise
(within)
This way, men, this!
Coligny
Not so; the right hand, sirs.

Scene VI.
Outside the Louvre

Enter Denise
Denise
I cannot find a man; the cries are thick; I come too late. Alas, I fear the king Hath put the order forward; I may see him And so prevent some peril; and though they slay me, I die of my misdoing. Yet I fear death Most piteously, wear passion on my cheek White as a coward’s. I’ll yet forth and look; For in the temper of this bloody time Must sleep my help or end; I may discover him And that may be some grace; now God be good, Or I am so far bruised this way, as death Can bite no sharper.
[Exit

Scene VII.
A Balcony of the Louvre

Enter many Ladies
1 Lady
Did you not see him?
2 Lady
Give me place, place, place; I have the news.
3 Lady
Not you; I can say more.
2 Lady
How your sides push! let me get breath—O Mary! I have seen such things—
4 Lady
As should wear silence.
2 Lady
Nay, For they felt sweet.
3 Lady
See, there goes one—and there; O well run, you! now trip him—’ware stones, ho! Or you may catch a bruise.
1 Lady
Now is he down.
5 Lady
Not so; you have no eyes.
3 Lady
Had I a bow, I would take four myself. Look, look, a chase! O, now you thrust.
4 Lady
Way, sirs! make way for him!
5 Lady
There’s a child slain; I will not look that side; They thrust him in the back.
2 Lady
Go and sew threads; Go sew; you are a fool.
1 Lady
Who has that side?
4 Lady
Do him no hurt, sirs; yea, the point now, yea, Not the edge—look you! just the nape across— Down with him, there!
3 Lady
Is the old man yet slain?
2 Lady
Ay, by the Guise; they took him in his bed, Just in a fumbled sheet.
1 Lady
No, he was risen.
Enter Renée
Renée
Why are you here? next room serves best for show; There they have drawn to head, that all the street Swells up and cries; Soubise and Marsillac Hold off their pikes.
4 Lady
Show us the way to that.
Renée
This way—I pray you hurt me not—this way; Do not push close. God’s love, what heat is here!
[Exeunt.

Scene VIII.
The Streets

Enter Guise, Tavannes, with Soldiers; Marsillac, Soubise, Pardaillan, and others confusedly
Soldiers
Guise, Guise! down with them! for the king, the king! Guise, Guise!
1 Soldier
Here, dog, take this to choke upon.
Marsillac
Sirs, stand by me; hew down that knave at right, I pray you, sir. Nay, we shall spoil them yet; Stand but a little fast.
A Huguenot
Mercy! God help!
Tavannes
Thrust me a steel nail in that tongue and throat; So, sir; prate now as you do love such nails. Set on; this August serves for reaping-time; Bleed the plague out with your incisions.
Marsillac
Guise, if thou hast a man’s mark left on thee, Do me this right. I thank you, sir; the office Spares me some work.
Guise
Stand to me, men; down with him! My heel hath rent a better face to-night.
Tavannes
Kill me this scapegate harlot in her smock, The child to water. Charge their face again; Make a clean way and we shall smite them all.
Pardaillan
Yea, devil’s dog, wilt only snarl at me? Prithee, but room to die in and take breath, One stifles this way stupidly—ah beasts!
[Dies.
Tavannes
(crossing Soubise)
Ah thing, what set thee on such work to do? Die, fragment, and turn carrion fit for use.
[Stabs him.
There’s not a man the less.
Soldiers
Tavannes! Tavannes!
Others
Guise, Guise! upon them for the king, the king!
[Exeunt.

Scene IX.
The Louvre

The Queen-Mother, Yolande, Margaret, Duchess of Lorraine, and Attendants
Catherine
Where is the king?
Yolande
Madam, gone forth I think.
Catherine
Are you whole yet? you look half slain with fear; Quiet yourself.
Margaret
You know not what I saw. No, not your hand; let me sit here.
Catherine
Yea, sit.— O, are you there?
Yolande
Madam, it is no fault To say she is escaped.
Catherine
No fault! What, have you let her go? how came she out?
Yolande
Do your best will with me; I will speak truth.
Catherine
How came she forth? you are a worthy guard— Do, as you love the better chance of time. I have a will to smite you by the cheek; Answer to that.
Yolande
By heaven I speak all pure; By heaven I do; she had the key of me.
Catherine
Do not you mock; I may turn sharp with you.
Yolande
Alas, I do not; she put force on me To let her forth; I could not please you; do not Lay your great wrath my way.
Catherine
O fool—fool—fool! Were you so much compassionate of her? I was bewitched to give you such a charge. Where is she now? speak still.
Yolande
I have not seen.
Catherine
If these be lies I’ll find a bitter way— I’ll do—I have no time to think of it, But I’ll make shame as wide as your desert To show you penitence. Find me this girl, Or punishment shall reach beyond your deed, Put pity out of service. Look for her; Bring her to me; if I so miss her—Go.
[Exit Yolande.
How does my daughter?
Duchess
Madam, well by this.
Margaret
But shaken to the brain.
Catherine
Poor child; what cause?
Margaret
I was unclothed for sleep, heavy at eyes, And fit for my bed’s heat, when thus at point There comes a cry and beating of two hands Hard at my door; then snaps the hinge from it, And a man comes, smeared shamefully and red With a new wound i’ the side; flings him on me, Plucks me half slain with fear across the bed, Cries for some pity, hales me by the hand, And so clings hard; when my great fear got strength To wellnigh wrench me clear and throw off him, Begins such piteous prayer and puts rebuke To such a tune, so bitter, I did even Make mercy wet with tears; whereon (as peril Would outgrow its own face and turn like death, Doubling my fear) the soldiers after him, Some three or four, flecked murderously with blood, All weaponed for their work, and crying out, Broke in on us; he twisting with sore fright Obscures himself with me; and thus in doubt He shuffled this side death; for as they bore on him Still holding to me, comes their captain in, Chides the knave off that had a hand on us, And plucks him loose; then with mixt laughter did Swear the man safe; he could not choose but laugh To see me harried so, so haled and drawn, Nor I to see him laugh; and so our laughter Got off my friend.
Enter the King with an arquebuse, and Tavannes
Charles
O, are you here? I have Some three—some six—by God I have some six Already to my share.
Catherine
(to Tavannes)
Sir, what is this?
Tavannes
The king has slain some six of them, he says; I saw him shoot indeed.
Charles
Ay, did I not? Hear you, he says I did; hear him a little. One—two—see, I can take them either hand, The place is wide.
Tavannes
Here, by this balcony; I saw him shoot myself.
Catherine
How goes the work?
Tavannes
Even like a wave that turns; the thing opposed Is as the weed it rends at root away, Dies ere the touch for fear.
Catherine
It is well done.
Tavannes
The king did summon me to speak with; there I left them midways. Are you yet abashed? I think it smirches you with half a red, This pity; are you nothing plagued with it?
Catherine
Not I a jot; I would all such i’ the world Were here to be so rid.
Re-enter Yolande
Now? have you her?
Yolande
She has been seen to-night; one found her late Ranging the rooms and passage of the court Like one distempered; now catching at this man To pray him pity her, crying on him To let her go; or poring in side ways To follow up their feet, as she would trace The consequence and graft of peril through To know it thoroughly.
Catherine
This doth approve it like That she is fled; where should she hide herself?
Yolande
Madam, the main half of your ladies are Gone forth to gaze upon this slaughter.
Catherine
Ay! May she be there? Lord marshal, have you seen These ladies that she talks of?
Tavannes
Madam, I have; They were about the windows next the street Searching each side with large and curious eyes; I saw some twenty with sweet laughing mouths And hair wherein the flame of lights did make New colours red as blood, gathered upon A corpse I slew myself, with fleers and gibes Abusing the blind thing; it made me merry To hear how they did mock the make of it, As blood were grown their game.
Catherine
The king is sad; I have a word like mercy in my mind, But it doth wound itself; I see no use That sorrow fails not in, where things are done That will not be wept out.
Tavannes
’Tis a strange night; But not to me displeasing; I esteem Our service wholesome. I will not forth again, For I have watched into a weariness.
Catherine
How does our son?
Charles
I think some runagates be Yet by this passage. Give me that again; I’ll score them too. Nay, if one wet his knees, Best over ears and all.
[Exit.
Catherine
They are too far to hit; I’ll wager them safe out. What do you see?
Tavannes
They have escaped the points o’ the guard; I doubt He will not bear it so.
Yolande
O, that way—there— Can you make out? a woman as I think—
Catherine
Some poor man’s wife; I would she might get safe.
Tavannes
See, the king thrusts out far; ’tis a brave king; Look how his bowing body crooks itself After the aim.
Catherine
Ten pieces to a doit The issue scars not her.
Tavannes
I take you, madam. The king comes back.
Re-enter King
Catherine
Have I waged wrong on you?
Charles
I have slain seven. Mother, I could begin To sicken of this way.
Catherine
What way, fair son?
Charles
I did not think the blood should run so far. There was a woman I saw lately slain, And she was ript i’ the side; at point to die, She threw her on her child and there came one Who clove it by the throat. Then I grew sick And my head seemed to change as if the stroke Had dulled it through the bone; the sense of that Still aches in me.
Catherine
Set your thought otherwise.
Charles
Why so I do; and cannot choose but think How many that rose fresh with wholesome thoughts And with my credit washed their faiths in me Do sleep now bloodily.
Catherine
You hurt yourself To lay repentance on such deeds as are Necessity’s mere proof. Put this away; And tell yourself how many dead in war Gave battle welcome and their time went out Even in the wording of it; and but for this (Though I confess the sense feels sick on it) We should have had worse wars.
Charles
I think we might.
Catherine
Bethink you too, what stings us in the seeing, It is no new infection of the world Corrupting all its usual office, or The common blood of it, with some strange sore, More gross being new; such things have chanced ere this, Yea, many thousand times have men put hand To a worse business, and given hire to death To captain them i’ the field and play their man, Used him with fellowship. Who knows, sweet son, But here, and in this very Paris, where Our work now smells abhorred, some such may come To try more bloody issues, and break faith More shamefully? make truth deny its face, Kill honour with his lips, stab shame to death, Unseat men’s thoughts, envenom all belief, Yea, spit into the face and eyes of God His forsworn promise? Such things may be; for time, That is the patient ground of all men’s seed And ripens either corn alike, may bring Deeds forth which shall as far outreach our act As this doth common things; and so they wear The clothes and cover of prosperity, Those tongues where blame of us yet sticks shall put Applause on them.
Charles
It may be you say true; I would believe you with a perfect will.
Enter Renée, Anne, and others, with Denise
Catherine
What is this business? quick—
Charles
O now, now, now— This is the very matter of my thought That was a ghost before; this is the flesh, The bone and blood of that my thin surmise, Palpably shaping fear. I will not see her.
Catherine
How fell this out? you, speak.
Renée
We found her so— Wounded I think to death.
Anne
She hath besought us To bring her to this presence.
Catherine
Can she speak still?
Anne
Yea, and speak straight; I would not pawn my word This touch were deadly to her.
Renée
I say it is; She has a wound i’ the side.
Catherine
Set her down gently; She will do well; deal softly with her; good; Be heedful of your hands. So; look to her.
Denise
I thank you, madam; let me sit a little.
Margaret
Give her some wine.
Denise
Sir, are not you the king? He was grown kind; let them not slay me then, I’ll swear you are no less. I think I am hurt; Let me speak to you; my side hurts indeed.
Charles
Nay, if hell come in sleep, then hell itself Is like the face of a dream. Eh? this were quaint, To find such hell at last.
Denise
I thank you too; For I am well, so near the heart of quiet, The most hushed inward of obscurèd peace, I feel my spirit a light thing and sweet, Evened with what it was.
Catherine
Hath she a hurt indeed?
Yolande
Yea, the right side; she holds her gown on it.
Catherine
I did believe this was the stab of fear. Get her away.—My son, remove your arms. Some one fetch help; but not too quickly, mark,
Aside to Yolande, who goes out.
Lest speed undo itself.—Release her, sir.
Denise
No, let him hold me safe; your hand that side, I shall breathe better. Do they still slay? Alas, It is a night shall mark you red for ever I’ the honest eyes of men.
Catherine
Will she talk now?
Charles
How came this hurt on you?
Catherine
Make that no question.
Charles
Will you teach me? Here, sweet, this way; you know I always loved you.—Give us room; she will Get present breath.
Denise
It was a window-shot— A side-shot striking by the wall; oh God! It pains me sore; but ease me with your arm.
Charles
Is God fallen old at once, that he is blind And slays me not? I am beneath all hell, Even past the limit and conceit of reach Where fire might catch on me. Why, I have slain The chiefest pearl o’the world, the perfect rule To measure all sweet things; now even to unseat God Were a slight work.
Denise
Was it your aim indeed?
Charles
O no, no aim. Get me some help; all you That gape and shiver on this act enstaged, You are all parts of murder.
Catherine
Sir, be patient; This cross is not your sin.—He heeds us not; Do not speak to him.
Charles
Is she yet warm? I’ll give That man that will but put an hour in her My better part of kingdom. Nay, look up; This breath that I do speak to thee withal Shall be the medicine to restore thine own Though I spend all. Sweet, answer me; I’ll make thee Queen of my present power and all that earth Which hangs upon it.
Denise
Disquiet not yourself; I do not chide you; nay I know too, sir, You never hated me; nor did I ever Make such a fault as should have plucked me thus Into your hate or stroke. I am dead indeed; And in this flesh hath God so scourged your act As I now bleed for it; so I do think That from this time his adverse hand will not Push your loss further.
Margaret
This is a bitter sight.
Catherine
A pitiful; but come you not into’t; You have no part.
Denise
I tax you not for it. I have good hope that you have done herein Mere blind man’s work, not put upon your hands Murder’s own wear; which ministry of yours God punishes in me. Too much of that. Do not you yet for this my foolish sake Make dull your better seasons; let remorse, If such will bite, feed otherwise than here; For me, indeed I leave no blur of it To blot your love at all. For my grace given Give me grace back; change mercy with me, for I have wronged you too. In this large world, dear lord, I have so little space I need use time With most scant thrift; yet that my love holds out Let me catch breath to say. No, stir not yet; Be but two minutes patient of me; keep Your arm more straight. Say I have slain myself And the thought clears you; be not moved thereat; For though I slew a something that you loved I did it lovingly.
[Dies.
Catherine
Ay, there it breaks; I am sorry for her, she was fair enough. Doth she not breathe?
Charles
No whit; the lips are dull. Now could I rail God out of pity, change The blessed heaven with words; yea, move sphered souls Into a care of me; but I’ll say nothing; No reason stands I should say anything, Who have this red upon my soul. Yea, dead? She is all white to the dead hair, who was So full of gracious rose the air took colour, Turned to a kiss against her face. Sirs, help; I would fain have her hence; I am bound to you; Sirs, hurt her not to touch her side; yea, so.
[Exit, with some bearing out the body.
Catherine
(to Tavannes)
Come hither, sir; as you respect my grace, Lay your good care on him, that in waste words His mood gall not himself. For this girl slain, Her funeral privacy of rite shall be Our personal care; though her deserts were such As crave no large observance, yet our pity Shall almost cover the default in them With all smooth grace that grace may do to her. You to my son, and you this way with me; The weight of this harsh dawn doth bruise my sense, That I am sick for sleep. Have care of him.