Enter the PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE: O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention:
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
But pardon, gentles all, that I am come,
A prologue armed, but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice, but suited
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play,
Is set in London; Queen Elizabeth
Built up this city for her chiefest seat.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
The actors are at hand; and by their show,
You shall know all that you are like to know.
Exit.
SCENE I.
London. A platform on the battlements of the Tower of London.
Enter LADY.
LADY: The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
But hark, I hear the footing of a man.
Enter SIR WILLIAM CECIL.
LADY: Who's there?
CECIL: Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
LADY: Sir William Cecil?
CECIL: He.
LADY: You come most carefully upon your hour.
CECIL: What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
LADY: I have seen nothing.
CECIL: Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Enter the GHOST of ANNE BULLEN.
LADY: O sir, you are deceived. Look where it comes,
In the same figure like Queen Anne Bullen.
CECIL: O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted!
LADY: Looks 'a not like Queen Anne? Mark it, my lord.
CECIL: Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
LADY: It would be spoke to. Question it, my lord.
CECIL: What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and queenly form
In which the second wife of buried Henry
Did sometime walk? By heaven I charge thee speak!
(Cock crows.)
CECIL: It is offended. See it stalks away. Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak!
Exit GHOST.
CECIL: 'Tis gone and will not answer.
LADY: How now Sir William, you tremble and look pale.
Is this not something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?
CECIL: This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
LADY: It was about to speak when the cock crew.
CECIL: Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto her grace the Queen, for upon my life
This spirit dumb to us will speak to her.
LADY: Let's do't I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find her most convenient.
Exeunt.
SCENE 2
An apartment in Westminster Palace.
Flourish. Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
DRAKE: Many years of happy days befall
My gracious sovereign, my most loving Queen!
QUEEN: We thank you, good Sir Francis Drake. Ay me!
DRAKE: Why looks your Grace so heavily today?
QUEEN: O I have passed a miserable night.
DRAKE: Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
QUEEN: I cannot choose when every day I think
Our cousin Mary, quondam Queen of Scots,
Hath been our prisoner this twenty years,
And all that time proclaims herself our Queen.
If she were free our life would soon have end.
DRAKE: My gracious Queen, you think of her too much.
QUEEN: Last night I dreamt that Mary found me dead
And seized my crown and made herself the Queen.
Ah! Good Sir Francis Drake, I fear, I fear.
DRAKE: Nay, good madam, be not afraid of shadows.
QUEEN: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Enter CECIL and LADY.
CECIL: Many good morrows to your Majesty.
QUEEN: Good morrow, Cecil, you are early stirring.
CECIL: Madam, there is alighted at your gate,
Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste,
A messenger with tidings from the North.
QUEEN: Admit him instantly.
Enter MESSENGER.
Now sir, what news?
MESS.: Bad news, your Grace: the Queen of Scots is free!
DRAKE: Thou'rt mad to say it.
MESSENGER: The news is true, my lord:
Scottish Mary is escaped and fled,
No man knows whither.
QUEEN: Ah cut my lace,
That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news.
Mary is escaped?
MESS.: She is, my Queen.
QUEEN: The most infectious pestilence upon thee! (She strikes him down.)
MESS.: Good madam, patience.
QUEEN: What say you? Hence,
Horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me. I'll unhair thy head, (She hales him up and down.)
Thou shalt be whipped with wire, and stewed in brine,
Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
MESS.: Nay then I'll run.
What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.
Exit MESSENGER.
DRAKE: Good madam, keep yourself within yourself,
The man is innocent.
QUEEN: Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Melt England into Thames, and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents. Call the slave again.
LADY: He is afeared to come.
QUEEN: I will not hurt him.
Exit LADY.
These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
A meaner than myself.
Re-enter LADY with the MESSENGER.
Come hither sir.
Though it be honest, it is never good
To bring bad news. The Queen of Scots is free?
MESS: Madam, she is.
QUEEN: May God confound thee, dost thou hold there still?
MESS: Should I lie, madam?
QUEEN: O, I would thou didst.
CECIL: Hath any well-advised friend proclaimed
Reward to him that brings the traitor in?
MESS: Such proclamation hath been made, my lord.
CECIL: If she be taken, she shall never more
Be feared of doing harm. So get thee gone.
Exit MESSENGER.
QUEEN: All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Mary fall, and make her
By inch-meal a disease!
DRAKE: Comfort, your Majesty.
QUEEN: No, I will none; of comfort no man speak.
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings,
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
All murdered. For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court -
My mother - methinks I see my mother.
CECIL: Where, my Queen?
QUEEN: In my mind's eye, Cecil.
CECIL: Your grace, I think I saw her yesternight.
QUEEN: Saw? Who?
CECIL: Your grace, the Queen your mother.
QUEEN: The Queen my mother?
LADY : 'Tis true, madam.
QUEEN: For God's love let me hear.
CECIL: Two nights together hath this lady here
In the dead waste and middle of the night
Been thus encountered - a figure like your mother
Appears before her, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by her. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart she did,
And I with her the third night kept the watch,
Where, as she had delivered, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The appararition comes. I knew your mother;
These hands are not more like.
DRAKE: 'Tis very strange.
QUEEN: I will watch tonight with you, my lords;
Perchance 'twill walk again.
LADY: I warr'nt it will.
QUEEN: If it assume my noble mother's person
I'll speak to it though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. All is not well.
I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come.
Till then sit still my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.
Exeunt.
SCENE 3
The countryside in the North of England.
Enter MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
MARY: From prison have I 'scaped and hither come
To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.
No Mary, Mary, 'tis no land of thine.
Thy place is filled, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
By thy usurping cousin, beastly Bess.
More direful hap betide that hated wretch
Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,
To have her suddenly conveyed from hence.
O vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I. This is most brave,
That I, the rightful Queen of England now,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!
Fie upon't, foh!
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven. Whiles I may scape
I will preserve myself; and were't not best
Because that I am more than common tall
That I did suit me all points like a man?
I'll speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies.
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry content to that which grieves my heart,
And frame my face to all occasions.
Can I do this and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.
Exit.
SCENE 4
London. A platform on the battlements of the Tower.
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, CECIL, DRAKE and LADY.
QUEEN: The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.
DRAKE: It is a nipping and an eager air.
QUEEN: What hour now?
CECIL: I think it lacks of twelve.
DRAKE: No, it is struck.
CECIL: Indeed? I heard it not; it then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held her wont to walk.
QUEEN: I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o'the dead
May walk again.
Enter the GHOST of ANNE BULLEN.
CECIL:Look, your grace, it comes.
QUEEN: Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak'st my blood cold, and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.
GHOST: Mark me.
QUEEN: I will.
GHOST: I am thy mother's spirit,
Doomed for a certain time to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires.
QUEEN: Alas poor ghost!
GHOST: My Bess, my Bess, my Bess!
QUEEN: Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.
GHOST: All that glisters is not gold,
Often have you heard that told.
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
CECIL: A fustian riddle.
LADY: For God's sake be quiet!
CECIL: Go to then, your considerate stone.
GHOST: My Bess, my Bess, my Bess, beware thy coz;
Beware the Queen of Scots. Dismiss me. Enough.
QUEEN: Thou hast harped my fear aright. But one word more -
GHOST: Fair is foul and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Exit GHOST.
DRAKE: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
LADY: There are more things in heaven and earth, Sir Francis,
Than are dreamt of in your cosmography.
CECIL: Come, your grace, let's in; 'tis bitter cold.
DRAKE: Come in your grace.
QUEEN: My wits begin to turn.
O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven.
CECIL: This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
QUEEN: Away, the foul fiend follows me.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet.
(She plucks CECIL by the beard.)
CECIL: By the gods, 'tis most ignobly done To pluck me by the beard.
(Storm and tempest.)
QUEEN: O! O 'tis foul!
DRAKE: Let us withdraw, 'twill be a storm.
QUEEN: Blow winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow!
LADY: Who ever knew the heavens to menace so?
QUEEN: Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o'er men's faults light on my cousin!
DRAKE: The tyranny of the open night's too rough
For nature to endure.
QUEEN: Wilt break my heart?
No more of that.
CECIL: Good lady enter here.
QUEEN: Prithee go in thyself, seek thine own ease.
Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.
(Pulls at her clothes.)
LADY: Prithee your grace be contented, 'tis a naughty night to swim in.
QUEEN: Come, my coach. Good night ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
Exit QUEEN.
CECIL: Follow her close; give her good watch I pray you.
Exit LADY.
DRAKE: My lord, this ghost hath turned her grace's wits.
CECIL: I fear it sir. Come then and be it so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
Exeunt.
SCENE 5
London. Before Westminster Palace.
Enter MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, disguised as a man.
MARY: Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight.
I heard myself proclaimed
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap'd the hunt. No port is free; no place
That guard and most unusual vigilance
Does not attend my taking. Now by cock,
I see a man's life is a tedious one.
I have tired myself, and for two nights together
Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick,
But that my resolution helps me; for
I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown.
And yet, between my soul's desire and me
Stands that usurping gorgon, cousin Bess.
The sorrow that I have, by right is hers,
And all the pleasures she usurps are mine.
But in her nature's copy's not eterne;
There's comfort yet, she is assailable.
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And gain the confidence of cousin Bess;
And then I'll find a time to be her death.
Withdraw thee, wretched Mary, who comes here?
(Retires.)
Enter CECIL and MESSENGER.
CECIL: Go sirrah, trudge about
Through London town, and find those doctors out
Whose names are written there, and to them say
The Queen doth need them here without delay.
(Gives him a paper and exit.)
MESS.: I am sent to find those doctors whose names are here writ, and can
ever find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned, in good time.
MARY: How now sirrah, how goes the world with thee?
MESS.: The better that your lordship please to ask.
I pray sir, can you read?
MARY: Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
MESS.: Ye say honestly, rest you merry.
MARY: Stay fellow, I can read. (Reads the paper.)
This is a list of learned physicians.
A fair assembly, whither should they come?
MESS.: Up.
MARY: Whither?
MESS.: To the palace.
MARY: Whose palace?
MESS.: My mistress's.
MARY: Indeed I should have asked you that before.
MESS.: Now I'll tell you without asking. My mistress is Queen Elizabeth of England,
and she is very grievous sick, and I am sent to find out those doctors whose names are written here.
MARY: What ails the Queen?
MESS.: Why, some say she is mad.
MARY: How came she mad?
MESS.: Very strangely they say.
MARY: How strangely?
MESS.: Faith e'en with losing her wits.
MARY: If she is mad, then I can cure her, fellow.
MESS.: Did you ever cure any so?
MARY: Yes, many such. But bring me to her sight
And I will cure her ere tomorrow night.
MESS.: Nay come, let's go together.
Exeunt.
SCENE 6
A chamber in Westminster Palace.
Enter CECIL and DRAKE.
DRAKE: Good morrow good Sir William, what's the news?
How fares her majesty our loving Queen?
CECIL: That she's mad 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true - a foolish figure.
Mad let us grant her then, and now remains
That we find out the cure for this effect,
Or rather say, the cure for this defect.
Enter LADY.
DRAKE: How does her grace?
LADY: She is importunate, indeed distract,
Her mood will needs be pitied.
DRAKE: What would she have?
LADY:She speaks much of her cousin, says she hears
There s tricks i' the world, and hems, and beats her heart.
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, distract, bedecked with weeds and flowers, reading.
DRAKE: But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
CECIL: How does my good and gracious Queen?
QUEEN: Well, God-a-marcy.
CECIL: Do you know me your grace?
QUEEN: Excellent well, you are a fishmonger.
CECIL: What do you read, your grace?
QUEEN: Words, words, words.
CECIL: What is the matter, your grace?
QUEEN: Between who?
CECIL: I mean the matter that you read, your grace.
QUEEN: Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill. Alow; loo, loo!
DRAKE: O heavens, is't possible a great Queen's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
QUEEN: There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me.
There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my cousin 'scaped.
DRAKE: O this is the poison of deep grief, it springs
All from her cousin's flight. And now behold:
Divided from herself and her fair judgment.
QUEEN: Can it be possible that no man saw her?
It cannot be; some villains of my court
Are of consent and sufferance in this.
There is a plot against my life, my crown!
Enter MESSENGER.
MESS.: Your grace.
QUEEN: O villainy! Ho, let the door be locked.
Treachery! This man, this man's to blame!
You whoreson dog, you slave, you cur! (Strikes him.)
MESS.: Dear sovereign hear me speak.
QUEEN:You peasant swain, you whoreson malt-horse drudge! (Strikes him again.)
LADY: I pray your grace be not so disquiet.
QUEEN: Away you scullion, you rampallian, you fustalarian!
I'll tickle your catastrophe, you rogue! (Hales him up and down.)
MESS.: Help, ho, murder, help! Help ho! Murder! Murder!
CECIL: Why how now, madam, wherefore do you this?
QUEEN: You whoreson cur! You dog!
DRAKE: Nay I must hold you.
QUEEN: No, I will be the pattern of all patience,
I will say nothing.
LADY: Alack!
QUEEN: I am a Queen
More sinned against than sinning.
CECIL: Fellow, say
What would'st thou have?
MESS.: My lord, there's one arrived,
If you will see him, a doctor, by my honour,
Can cure the Queen of this same sore affliction.
CECIL: Admit him instantly.
Exit MESSENGER.
DRAKE:My sovereign lady, cheer yourself, look up.
QUEEN:By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes.
Enter MARY as a doctor, and MESSENGER.
MESS.: Nay, come your ways.
This is Sir William, say your mind to him.
Exit MESSENGER.
CECIL: Is't you sir that can cure things?
MARY: In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
CECIL: What is your name?
MARY: I'm called Androgyno.
CECIL: You see the Queen.
QUEEN: Cousin Mary to the dark tower came,
Her word was still, fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of an English Queen.
MARY: Alas, poor lady.
CECIL:Can you cure her, sir?
MARY: Know you my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects. Among the rest,
There is a remedy, approved, set down,
To cure the desperate languishings whereof
The Queen is rendered lost.
QUEEN: Poor Bess is cold.
CECIL: Sweet practiser, thy physic we will try.
MARY: If I help not, unpitied let me die.
QUEEN: Get thee to a nunnery. To a nunnery go, and quickly too.
CECIL: More should I question thee, and more I must,
Though more to know could not be more to trust.
(To the QUEEN.) Good madam -
QUEEN: No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even
The natural fool of fortune. Use me well.
CECIL: You are a royal one, and we obey you.
QUEEN: Then there's life in't. Come. An you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa.
Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH running,
CECIL: Give us some help here, ho! If thou proceed
As high as word, our thanks shall match thy deed.
Exeunt CECIL, MARY and LADY.
DRAKE: A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
Past speaking of in a Queen. But who comes here?
Enter MESSENGER.
MESS.: My lord -
DRAKE: Good or bad news that thou com'st in so bluntly?
MESS.: Bad news ray lord, for Philip, King of Spain,
Is gathering together an Armada
To sail to England. Never such a power
For any foreign preparation
Was levied in the body of a land.
DRAKE: How much unlocked for is this expedition.
MESS.: He still proclaimeth as his power increaseth,
That he'll make Scottish Mary England's Queen.
DRAKE: It is not so, thou hast misspoke, misheard.
MESS.: Nay 'tis most credible, we here receive it
A certainty.
DRAKE: Away you mouldy rogue! (Strikes him.)
MESS.: Pardon my lord, for me and for my tidings.
DRAKE: Why there's for thee, and there, and there, (Strikes him.)
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
MESS.: What mean you sir? For God's sake hold your hands!
DRAKE: Vengeance, plague, death, confusion! (Striking him.)
MESS.: Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.
Exit MESSENGER.
DRAKE: Now if these news be true, the which I fear,
Then more than carefully it us concerns
To answer royally in our defences.
God grant her grace may be restored to health,
For when our ruler's wits show such division,
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.
Exit.
SCENE 7
An apartment in Westminster Palace.
Enter CECIL and LADY.
CECIL: How does the Queen?
LADY: My lord, she's sleeping still.
CECIL: O you kind gods
Cure this great breach in her abused nature.
Enter MARY
Now Androgyno, how does your patient?
MARY: She wakes, my lord, and now is coming forth. Behold and see.
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH.
CECIL: How fares your majesty?
QUEEN: Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abused; I should e'en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
LADY: O how we joy to see your wit restored!
CECIL: Look here, good madam, on this worthy man,
Who was the means of your recovery.
QUEEN: O brave new world that has such people in't!
Good sir, I am much beholden to you.
What is your name?
MARY: Androgyno, your grace.
QUEEN: What dost thou profess?
MARY: I do profess to be no less than I seem. And yet, by the very fangs of malice I swear, I am not that I play.
QUEEN: Your answer sir is enigmatical.
What is your parentage?
MARY: Above my fortunes, yet my state is well.
I am a gentleman.
QUEEN: Art thou indeed?
There is a fair behaviour in thee, doctor,
And though that nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this fair and outward character.
MARY: Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace.
QUEEN: Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.
MARY: (Aside.) Would she were wasted, marrow, bones and all!
QUEEN: We will reward thee richly for thy cure.
Leave me for now, but come to me anon;
Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy desire.
Farewell till then.
MARY: I humbly take my leave.
Exit.
QUEEN: Leave me, I say.
CECIL: We stand upon your will.
Exeunt CECIL and LADY.
QUEEN: What is your parentage?
Above my fortunes, yet my state is well;
I am a gentleman. I'll be sworn thou art.
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,
Do give thee fivefold blazon - not so fast;
Soft, soft - How now!
Even, so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.
Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
Exit.
SCENE 8
The same.
Enter CECIL and DRAKE.
CECIL: I do not like this sudden favour of the Queen
Towards that same strange youth Androgyno.
DRAKE: No more do I, my lord; No more do I.
CECIL: The youth hath metamorphosed her grace,
Made her neglect her studies, lose her time,
War with good counsel, set the world at nought.
DRAKE: Myself have news that Philip King of Spain
Is sailing hitherward in proud array
To make that upstart Mary, England's Queen.
CECIL: Is there no news of her recapture, sir?
DRAKE: None, good my lord; the traitor's vanished quite.
Enter MARY.
CECIL: God bless your worship.
MARY: Gramercy; would'st thou ought with me?
CECIL: If the Queen continue these favours towards you,
Androgyno, you are like to be much advanced.
DRAKE: She hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger.
MARY: Is she inconstant sir, in her favours?
DRAKE: No, believe me.
CECIL: They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
DRAKE: Good counsel marry, learn it, learn it doctor.
MARY: It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
DRAKE: Ay, and much more; but I was born so high.
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH.
QUEEN: Saw you Androgyno, ho?
MARY: On your attendance, madam, here.
QUEEN: Let all the rest give place.
CECIL: Your grace.
QUEEN: Sir William, what's the news with you?
CECIL: There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a sea is Philip now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our venture.
QUEEN: Ay, but what's a clock?
CECIL: Upon the stroke of four.
QUEEN: Well, let it strike.
CECIL: Why let it strike?
QUEEN: I am not in the sailing vein to-day.
CECIL: You grace, I beg you now to be advised.
QUEEN: Thou troublest me, I am not in the vein.
I charge thee hence, and do not haunt me thus.
CECIL: But your grace -
QUEEN: By cock and pie, sir,
Prithee no more prattling!
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
CECIL: (To Drake.) I think it were not good to leave her thus
Alone with that same doctor. I trust him not,
For though he cured her madness, I believe
He means not well towards our gracious Queen.
DRAKE: No more do I. And therefore, good my lord
Behind the arras I'll convey myself
To hear the process.
CECIL: I'll keep thee company.
(CECIL and DRAKE retire behind the arras.)
QUEEN: I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me.
MARY: That you think you are not what you are.
QUEEN: If I think so, I think the same of you.
MARY: Then you think right. I am not what I am.
CECIL: (Aside.) Do you mark that?
DRAKE: (Aside.) Peace I say.
QUEEN: My soul is heavy and I fain would sleep.
Androgyno, I prithee sit by me.
MARY: I will my Queen; God give your grace good rest.
(QUEEN ELIZABETH sleeps.)
Now might I do it pat, now she's asleep;
And make myself the Queen at one fell stroke.
And now I'll do't. Come you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, -
CECIL: (Aside.) Fire and brimstone!
DRAKE: (Aside.) O peace, peace.
MARY: - And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Come to my woman's breasts, -
CECIL: (Aside.) Bolts and shackles!
DRAKE: (Aside.) List! List! O list!
MARY: - And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief. Come thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
(She draws a dagger.)
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry -
CECIL and DRAKE: (Coming forward and seizing MARY.) Hold! Hold!
CECIL: Now, good angels preserve the Queen. Ho, awake!
QUEEN: (Waking.) Is this a dagger which I see before me?
Why are you drawn? What's the matter?
CECIL: Your grace, this wicked subtle traitor here
This day has tried to murder you!
QUEEN: Ay me!
Who art thou sir, that thus usurp'st my trust?
I am thy sovereign.
MARY: Thou art deceived. I am thine:
Mary of Scotland and of England too!
QUEEN: Now by Saint Paul I swear thou art a traitor.
Off with her head! Now look that it be done!
MARY: Now cousin Bess, you must be merciful.
QUEEN: On what compulsion must I, tell me that?
MARY: The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed -
QUEEN: Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!
MARY: O tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!
QUEEN: Take hence this foul and ugly Scot to death.
MARY: I am a Scot. Hath not a Scot eyes?
Hath not a Scot hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?
QUEEN: And die thou shalt, thou villain, traitor, slave!
Away with her, go bear her hence perforce.
MARY: Nay, never bear me hence, dispatch me here.
Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals!
QUEEN: Take her away, for she hath lived too long.
MARY: Hear Nature, hear, dear goddess hear,
Suspend thy purpuse, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility,
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her.
QUEEN: Away, away!
Exeunt DRAKE nad CECIL with MARY.
QUEEN: I had rather be a country servant maid
Than a great Queen with this condition,
To be so baited, taunted, and scorned at.
(Drums.) Hark! Peace!
How is't with me, when every noise appals me.
Methought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more.
Queen Bess does murder sleep, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore nature's bath,
Chief nourisher in life's feast. What does it mean?
Re-enter CECIL and DRAKE with MARY's head.
DRAKE: Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Mary.
QUEEN: There is no sure foundation set on blood;
No certain life achieved by others' death.
CECIL: Well, well, she was the covert'st sheltered traitor
That ever lived, and she deserved her death.
DRAKE: And now, your grace, the Spanish Armada
Is making hitherward with all due expedience.
CECIL: Of fighting ships they have full threescore thousand.
QUEEN: To sea or not to sea, that is the question.
DRAKE: We will fight with them by sea.
QUEEN: By sea! What else?
CECIL: What, with two hundred ships?
DRAKE: Ay with twenty, Sir William, for a need.
A Spaniard's admiral; what should we fear?
Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
QUEEN: Farewell my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.
This England never did nor never shall
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
DRAKE: In sign of truth, I kiss your highness' hand.
QUEEN: Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
DRAKE: Madam, I go with all convenient speed.
QUEEN: This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
This precious stone set in a silver sea,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
DRAKE: Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yeild them further means
For their advantage and your highness' loss.
QUEEN: Well-minded Francis, be thou fortunate.
Exit DRAKE.
CECIL: God's arm strike with him, 'tis a fearful odds.
QUEEN: Cecil, 'tis true that we are in great danger,
The greater therefore should our courage be.
CECIL: Shall I attend your grace?
QUEEN: No, my good lord.
I and my bosom must debate awhile,
And then I would no other company.
CECIL: The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Queen.
Exit CECIL.
O God of battles, steel my sailors' hearts,
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if th'opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.
Enter LADY.
LADY: My gracious Queen,
You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
QUEEN: To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub.
LADY: Please you retire to your chamber?
QUEEN: Lead me.
Exeunt.
SCENE 9
Plymoth Hoe.
Enter DRAKE and MESSENGER.
DRAKE: We'll chide this Spanish fleet from England's door.
MESS.: But sir, will you not first go play a game of bowls?
DRAKE: A plague upon thee, whoreson, quivering coward! (Strikes him.)
MESS.: I prithee, peace, my lord; I meant no harm!
DRAKE: Well then, let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may to sea be brought.
Exit.
MESS.: Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
When in the why and wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?
But here's my comfort. (Drinks. Sings.)
I shall no more to sea, to sea,
Here shall I die ashore.
This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral. Well, here's my comfort. (Drinks.)
Re-enter DRAKE.
DRAKE: Down to the beach, you dog! Avaunt you cullion!
(Strikes him.)
MESS.: Once more unto the beach, dear friend, once more! (Drinks.)
DRAKE: Hast thou drowned thy tongue in sack?
MESS.: For my part the sea will not drown me.
DRAKE: Why, thou deboshed fish thou, was there ever man a coward as thou art? (Strikes him.)
MESS.: Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
DRAKE: Then imitate the action of the tiger!
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons;
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
Upon Saint Crispin's day. The game's afoot.
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry God for Lizzie, England, and Saint George!
MESS.: On, on, on, on, on, to the beach, to the beach, to the beach!
Exeunt.
SCENE 10
London. A corridor in Westminster Palace.
Enter CECIL and LADY.
CECIL: I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH in her nightgown.
LADY: Lo you, here she comes; and upon my life fast asleep.
CECIL: You see her eyes are open.
LADY: Ay, but their sense is shut.
QUEEN: Yet here's a Scot.
CECIL: Hark, she speaks.
QUEEN: Out damned Scot, out I say!
CECIL: Do you mark that?
QUEEN: Yet my heart
Throbs to know one thing. Shall Mary's issue ever
Reign in this kingdom? Oh! Oh! Oh!
CECIL: What a sigh is there!
QUEEN: Thou art too like the spirit of Mary. Down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true,
For the blood-boltered Mary smiles upon me,
And points at them for hers.
CECIL: The heart is sorely charged.
LADY: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
QUEEN: Now is the winter of our discontent.
CECIL: Well, well, well.
LADY: Pray God it be, sir.
QUEEN: To bed, to bed. What's done cannot be undone. To bed,
to bed, to bed.
Exit.
CECIL: Will she go now to bed?
LADY: Directly.
CECIL:Good God, forgive us all. Look after her,
And still keep eyes upon her. So good night,
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
Exeunt.
SCENE 11
The English Channel. On board Drakes' Flagship.
The noise of a sea-fight is heard. Alarum. Enter DRAKE and MESSENGER.
DRAKE: How appears the fight?
MESS.: On their side like the tokened pestilence
Where death is sure. Yon Armada of Spain
Hoists sail and flies. The victory is ours.
DRAKE: Now by my sword, well hast thou fought today.
By th' mass so did we all. I thank you fellow.
What men of name are slain on either side?
MESS.: Here is the number of the slaughtered Spanish. (Delivers a paper.)
DRAKE: This note doth tell me of ten thousand Spaniards
That 'neath the waves lie slain.
Where is the number of our English dead?
(MESSENGER presents another paper.)
But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here.
MESS.: Now by my faith, sir, 'twas a glorious day.
Foul Spain's Armada, drowned by famous Drake,
Shall be eternized in all age to come.
DRAKE: Run one before
And let the Queen know of our victory.
Sound drums and trumpets, and to London all,
And more such days as these to us befall.
Exeunt.
SCENE 12
London. An apartment in Westminster Palace.
Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and LADY.
QUEEN: Go call Sir William Cecil to our presence.
Enter CECIL.
CECIL: Here, an't please your gracious majesty.
QUEEN: Hear you the news abroad?
CECIL: Yes, that the fleets are met,
QUEEN: May God make this a happy day to Drake.
Enter MESSENGER.
MESS.: Madam! Madam! Madam!
QUEEN: What news with you?
MESS.: The news I have to tell your majesty
Is, that by sudden floods, and fall of waters,
King Philip's Spanish fleet's dispersed and scattered
And Drake returning here in victory!
Enter DRAKE.
QUEEN: Lord of lords,
O infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?
DRAKE: My gracious Queen,
Full fathom five th' Armada lies:
We've beaten Spain; the victory is ours!
QUEEN: Trumpeters,
With brazen din blast you the city's ear,
Make mingle with our rattling tambourines,
That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together
Applauding victory!
CECIL: Let me speak,
For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.
This royal lady always promises
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings.
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her,
And not one day without a deed to crown it.
QUEEN: I thank you all. To you good William Cecil,
And you Sir Francis Drake, I am much beholding;
I have received much honour by your presence,
And ye shall find me thankful.
And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,
Such as befits the pleasure of the court?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play?
CECIL: A play there is, your grace, some ten words long,
But by ten words, my Queen, it is too long;
Which makes it tedious.
QUEEN: What do you call the play?
CECIL: "The Mousetrap"; 'tis a knavish piece of work.
QUEEN: Let it alone. Let's have the epilogue.
EPILOGUE: 'Tis ten to one, this play can never please,
For you do know that all the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
Our revels now are ended; we are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. And yet I fear
All the expected good w' are like to hear,
For this play at this time, is only in
The merciful construction of good women,
For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile
And say 'twill do, I know within a while
All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap,
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.
Exeunt omnes.
