Chapter XXII: Act V: Scene I

_Before the Black House._

_Loud music.[786] Black Bishop’s Pawn discovered above:
enter Black Knight in his litter,[787] as passing in
haste over the stage._

B. KNIGHT. Hold, hold!
Is the Black Bishop’s Pawn, the Jesuit,
Planted above for his concise oration?[788]
B. B. PAWN. _Ecce triumphantis_[789] _me fixum Cæsaris
arce!_
B. KNIGHT. Art there, my holy boy? sirrah, Bishop
Tumbrel
Is snapt[790] i' the bag by this time.
B. B. PAWN. _Hæretici pereant sic!_
B. KNIGHT. All Latin! sure th' oration hath infected
him.
Away, away, make haste, they are coming.

_Hautboys again.[791] Enter Black King, Black Queen,
Black Duke, with Pawns, meeting White Knight
and White Duke: Black Bishop’s Pawn from above
entertains him[792] with this Latin oration_:[793]
B. B. PAWN. _Si quid mortalibus unquam oculis hilarem et
gratum aperuit diem, si quid peramantibus amicorum
animis gaudium attulit peperitve lætitiam, Eques
Candidissime, prælucentissime, felicem profecto tuum a
Domo Candoris ad Domum Nigritudinis accessum promisisse,
peperisse, attulisse fatemur: omnes adventus tui
conflagrantissimi, omni qua possumus lætitia, gaudio,
congratulatione, acclamatione, animis observantissimis,
affectibus devotissimis, obsequiis venerabundis, te
sospitem congratulamur!_
B. KING. Sir, in this short congratulatory speech
You may conceive how the whole House affects you.
B. KNIGHT. The colleges and sanctimonious seed-plots.
W. KNIGHT. ’Tis clear and so acknowledg’d, royal sir.
B. KING. What honours, pleasures, rarities, delights,
Your noble thought can think——
B. QUEEN. Your fair eye fix[794] on,
That’s comprehended in the spacious circuit
Of our Black Kingdom, they’re your servants all.
W. KNIGHT. How amply you endear us!
W. DUKE. They are favours
That equally enrich the royal giver,
As the receiver, in the free donation.
[_Music. An altar is discovered with tapers unlit,
and divers images about it._
B. KNIGHT. Hark, to enlarge your welcome, from all
parts
Is heard sweet-sounding airs! abstruse things open
Of voluntary freeness; and yon altar,
The seat of adoration, seems t' adore
The virtues you bring with you.
W. KNIGHT. There’s a taste
Of the old vessel still.
W. DUKE. Th' erroneous relish.[795]

_Song._

_Wonder work some strange delight,
(This place was never yet without),
To welcome the fair[796] White-House Knight,
And to bring our hopes about!
May from the altar flames aspire,
Those tapers set themselves on fire!
May senseless things our joys approve,[797]
And those brazen statues move,
Quicken’d by some power above,
Or what more strange, to shew our love!_
[_Flames rise from the altar, the tapers take
fire, and the images move in a dance._
B. KNIGHT. A happy omen waits upon this hour;
All move portentously the right-hand way.
B. KING.[798] Come, let’s set free all the most choice
delights,
That ever adorn’d days or quicken’d nights. [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.

_Field between the two Houses._

_Enter White Queen’s Pawn._

W. Q. PAWN. I see ’twas but a trial of my duty now;
Hath a more[799] modest mind, and in that virtue
Most worthily hath fate provided for me.

_Enter Black Bishop’s Pawn in his reverend habit._

Hah! ’tis the bad man in the reverend habit:
Dares he be seen again, traitor to holiness,
O marble-fronted impudence! and knows
How much has wrong’d[800] me? I'm asham’d he blushes
not.
B. B. PAWN. Are you yet stor’d with any woman’s pity?
Are you the mistress of so much devotion,
Kindness, and charity, as to bestow
An alms of love on your poor sufferer yet
For your sake only?
W. Q. PAWN. Sir, for the reverend respect you ought
To give to sanctity, though none to me,
In being her servant vow’d and wear her livery,
If I might counsel, you should never speak
The language of unchasteness in that habit;
You would not think how ill it doth with you.
The world’s a stage on which all parts are play’d:
You’d think it most absurd to see a devil
Presented there not in a devil’s shape,
Or, wanting one, to send him out in yours;
You’d rail at that for an absurdity
No college e’er committed. For decorum' sake, then,
For pity’s cause, for sacred virtue’s honour,
If you’ll persist still in your devil’s part,
Present him as you should do, and let one
That carries up the goodness of the play
Come in that habit, and I'll speak with him;
Then will the parts be fitted, and the spectators
Know which is which: they must have cunning
judgments[801]
To find it else, for such a one as you
Is able to deceive a mighty audience;
Nay, those you have seduc’d, if there be any
In the assembly, when[802] they see what manner
You play your game with me, they cannot love you.
Is there so little hope of you, to smile, sir?
B. B. PAWN. Yes, at your fears, at th' ignorance of
your power,
The little use you make of time, youth, fortune,
Knowing you have a husband for lust’s shelter,
You dare not yet make bold with a friend’s comfort;
This is the plague of weakness.
W. Q. PAWN. So hot burning!
The syllables of sin fly from his lips
As if the letter came new-cast[803] from hell.
B. B. PAWN. Well, setting by[804] the dish you loathe
so much,
Which hath been heartily tasted by your betters,
I come to marry you to the gentleman
That last enjoy’d you: I hope that pleases you;
There’s no immodest relish in that office.
W. Q. PAWN. Strange of all men he should first light
on him
To tie that holy knot that sought t' undo me!
[_Aside._
Were you requested to perform that business, sir?
B. B. PAWN. I name you a sure token.
W. Q. PAWN. As for that, sir,
Now you’re most welcome; and my fair hope’s of you,
You’ll[805] never break the sacred knot you tie once
With any lewd soliciting hereafter.
B. B. PAWN. But all the craft’s in getting of it knit:
You’re all on fire to make your cozening market.
I am the marrier and the man—do you know me?
Do you know me, nice iniquity, strict luxury,[806]
And holy whoredom?—that would clap on marriage
With all hot speed to solder up your game:
See what a scourge fate hath provided for thee!
You were a maid; swear still, you’re no worse now,
I left you as I found you: have I startled you?
I'm quit with you now for my discovery,
Your outcries, and your cunning:[807] farewell, brokage!
W. Q. PAWN. Nay, stay, and hear me but give thanks a
little,
If your ear can endure a work so gracious;
Then you may take your pleasure.
B. B. PAWN. I have done that.
W. Q. PAWN. Thou[808] power, that hath preserv’d me
from this devil——
B. B. PAWN. How?
W. Q. PAWN. This that may challenge the chief chair in
hell,
And sit above his master——
B. B. PAWN. Bring in merit.
W. Q. PAWN. That suffered’st him, through blind lust,
to be led
Last night to the action of some common bed——
B. Q. PAWN [_within_]. Not over-common neither.
B. B. PAWN. Hah, what voice is that?
W. Q. PAWN. Of virgins be thou ever honourèd!—
Now you may go; you hear I've given thanks, sir.
B. B. PAWN. Here’s a strange game! Did not I lie with
you?
B. Q. PAWN [_within_]. No.
B. B. PAWN. What the devil art thou?
W. Q. PAWN. I will not answer you, sir,
After thanksgiving.
B. B. PAWN. Why, you made promise to me
After the contract.
B. Q. PAWN [_within_]. Yes.
B. B. PAWN. Mischief confound thee!
I speak not to thee—and you were prepar’d for’t,
And set your joys more high——
B. Q. PAWN [_within_]. Than you could reach, sir.
B. B. PAWN. This is some[809] bawdy Pawn; I'll slit
the throat on’t!

_Enter Black Queen’s Pawn._

B. Q. PAWN. What, offer violence to your bedfellow?
To one that works so kindly without rape?
B. B. PAWN. My bedfellow?
B. Q. PAWN. Do you plant your scorn against me?
Why, when I was probationer at Brussels,
That engine was not known; then adoration
Fill’d up the place, and wonder was in fashion:
Is’t turn’d to the wild seed of contempt so soon?
Can five years stamp a bawd? pray, look upon me, sir,
I've youth enough to take it: ’tis no longer
Since you were chief agent for the transportation
Of ladies' daughters, if you be remember’d:
Some of their portions I could name; who purs’d ’em too:
They were soon dispossess’d of worldly cares
That came into your fingers.
B. B. PAWN. Shall I hear her?
B. Q. PAWN. Holy derision, yes, till thy ears[810]
swell
With thine own venom, thy profane life’s vomit:
Whose niece was she you poison’d, with child twice,
And gave her out possess’d with a foul spirit,
When ’twas indeed your bastard?
B. B. PAWN. I am taken
In mine own toils!

_Enter White Queen and White Bishop’s Pawn._

W. B. PAWN. Yes, and ’tis just you should be.
W. QUEEN.[811] And thou, lewd Pawn, the shame of
womanhood!
B. B. PAWN. I'm lost of all hands!
B. Q. PAWN. And I cannot feel
The weight of my perdition; now he’s taken,
'T hath not the burden of a grasshopper.
B. B. PAWN. Thou whore of order, cockatrice[812] _in
voto_!

_Enter Black Knight’s Pawn._

B. KT.'S PAWN. Yon’s the White Bishop’s Pawn;
I'll play at’s heart now.
W. Q. PAWN. How now, black villain! would’st thou heap
a murder
On thy first foul offence? O merciless bloodhound,
’Tis time that thou wert taken!
B. KT.'S PAWN. Death![813] prevented?
W. Q. PAWN. For thy sake and that partner in thy
shame,
I'll never know man further than by name. [_Exeunt._

SCENE III.

_In the Black House._

_Enter Black King, Black Queen, Black Knight, Black
Duke, Black Bishop, White Knight, and White Duke._

W. KNIGHT. You have enrich’d my knowledge, royal[814]
sir,
And my content together.
B. KING. ’Stead of riot
We set you only welcome: surfeit is
A thing that’s seldom heard of in these parts.
W. KNIGHT. I hear of the more virtue when I miss on’t.
B. KNIGHT. We do not use to bury in our bellies
Two hundred thousand ducats, and then boast on’t;
Or exercise th' old Roman painful idleness
With care of fetching fishes far from home,
The golden-headed coracine out of Egypt,
The salpa from Ebusus,[815] or the pelamis,
Which some call summer-whiting, from Chalcedon,
Salmons from Aquitaine, helops from Rhodes,
Cockles from Chios, frank’d[816] and fatted up
With far and sapa,[817] flour and cocted wine;
We cram no birds, nor, Epicurean[818]-like,
Enclose some creeks o' the sea, as Sergius Orata[819]
did,
He that invented the first stews for oysters
And other sea-fish, who, besides the pleasure of his
Own throat, got large revenues by th' invention,
Whose fat example the nobility follow’d;
Nor do we imitate that arch-gormandiser
With two-and-twenty courses at one dinner,
And, betwixt every course, he and his guests
Wash’d and us’d women, then sat down and strengthen’d,
Lust swimming in their dishes, which no sooner
Was tasted but was ready to be vented.
W. KNIGHT. Most impious epicures!
B. KNIGHT. We commend rather,
Of two extremes, the parsimony of Pertinax,
Who had half-lettuces set up to serve again;
Or his successor Julian,[820] that would make
Three meals of a lean hare, and often[821] sup
With a green fig and wipe his beard, as we can.
The old bewailers of excess in those days
Complain’d there was more coin bid for a cook
Than for a war-horse; but now cooks are purchas’d
After the rate of triumphs,[822] and some dishes
After the rate of cooks; which must needs make
Some of your White-House gormandizers, ’specially
Your wealthy plump plebeians, like the hogs
Which Scaliger cites,[823] that could not move for fat,
So insensible of either prick or goad,
That mice made holes to needle[824] in their buttocks,
And they ne’er felt ’em. There was once a ruler,
Cyrene’s governor,[825]] chok’d with his own paunch;
Which death fat Sanctius,[826] king of Castile, fearing,
Through his infinite mass of belly, rather chose
To be kill’d suddenly by a pernicious herb
Taken to make him lean, which old Corduba,
King of Morocco, counsell’d his fear to,
Than he would hazard to be stunk[827] to death,
As that huge cormorant that was chok’d before him.
W. KNIGHT. Well, you’re as sound a spokesman, sir, for
parsimony,
Clean abstinence, and scarce one meal a-day,
As ever spake with tongue.
B. KING. Censure him mildly, sir;
’Twas but to find discourse.
B. QUEEN. He’ll raise['t] of any thing.
W. KNIGHT. I shall be half afraid to feed hereafter.
W. DUKE. Or I, beshrew my heart, for I fear fatness,
The fog of fatness, as I fear a dragon:
The comeliness I wish for, that’s as glorious.
W. KNIGHT. Your course is wondrous strict: I should
transgress, sure,[828]
Were I to change my side, as you’ve much wrought me.
B. KNIGHT. How you misprize! this is not meant to
you-ward:
You that are wound up to the height of feeding
By clime and custom, are dispens’d withal;
You may eat kid, cabrito, calf, and tons,[829]
Eat and eat every day, twice, if you please;
Nay, the frank’d[830] hen, fatten’d with milk and corn,
A riot which th' inhabitants of Delos
Were first inventors of, or the cramm’d cockle.
W. KNIGHT. Well, for the food I'm happily
resolv’d[831] in;
But for the diet of my disposition,
There comes a trouble; you will hardly find
Food to please that.
B. KNIGHT. It must be a strange nature
We cannot find a dish for, having Policy,
The master-cook of Christendom, to dress it:
Pray, name your nature’s diet.
W. KNIGHT. The first mess
Is hot ambition.
B. KNIGHT. That’s but serv’d in puff-paste;
Alas, the meanest of our cardinals' cooks
Can dress that dinner: your ambition, sir,
Can fetch no further compass than the world?
W. KNIGHT. That’s certain, sir.
B. KNIGHT. We’re about that already;
And in the large feast of our vast ambition
We count but the White Kingdom, whence you come from,
The garden for our cook to pick his salads;
The food’s lean France, larded with Germany;
Before which comes the grave, chaste signiory
Of Venice, serv’d in, capon-like, in white broth;
From our chief oven, Italy, the bake-meats;
Savoy the salt, Geneva the chipt manchet;[832]
Below the salt[833] the Netherlands are plac’d,
A common dish at lower end a' the table,
For meaner pride to fall to: for our second course,
A spit of Portugals serv’d in for plovers;
Indians and Moors for blackbirds: all this while
Holland stands ready-melted to make sauce
On all occasions: when the voider[834] comes,
And with such cheer our full hopes we suffice,
Zealand says grace for fashion; then we rise.
W. KNIGHT. Here’s meat enough, in[835] conscience, for
ambition!
B. KNIGHT. If there be any want, there’s Switzerland,
Polonia, and such pickled things will serve
To furnish out the table.
W. KNIGHT. You say well, sir:
But here’s the misery; when I've stopt the mouth
Of one vice, there’s another gapes for food;
I am as covetous as a barren womb,
The grave, or what’s more ravenous.
B. KNIGHT. We’re for you, sir:
Call you that heinous, that’s good husbandry?
Why, we make money of our faith,[836] our prayers;
We make the very deathbed buy her comforts,
Most dearly pay for all her[837] pious counsels,
Leave rich revenues for a few weak orisons,
Or else they pass unreconcil’d without ’em:
Did you but view the vaults within our monasteries,
You’d swear then Plutus, whom[838] the fiction calls
The lord of riches, were entombèd there.[839]
W. KNIGHT. Is’t possible?
B. DUKE. You cannot walk for tuns.
W. DUKE. But how shall I bestow the vice I bring,
sirs?
You quite forget me; I shall be shut out
By your strict key of life.
B. KNIGHT. Is yours so vild,[840] sir?
W. DUKE. Some that are pleas’d to make a wanton on’t,
Call it infirmity of blood, flesh-frailty;
But certain there’s a worse name in your books for’t.
B. KNIGHT. The trifle of all vices, the mere innocent,
The very novice of this house of clay,—venery:
If I but hug thee hard, I shew the worst on’t;
’Tis all the fruit we have here after supper;
Nay, at the ruins of a[841] nunnery once,
Six thousand infants' heads found in a fish-pond.
W. DUKE. How!
B. KNIGHT. Ay, how? how came they thither, think you?
Huldrick, bishop of Augsburg, in’s Epistle[842]
To Nicholas the first, can tell you how;
May be he was at cleansing of the pond:
I can but smile to think how it would puzzle
All mother-maids that ever liv’d in those parts
To know their own child’s head. But is this all?
B. DUKE. Are you ours yet?
W. KNIGHT. One more, and I am silenc’d:
But this that comes now will divide us questionless;
’Tis ten times, ten times worse than the forerunners.
B. KNIGHT. Is it so vild there is no name ordain’d
for’t?
Toads have their titles, and creation gave
Serpents and adders those names to be known by.
W. KNIGHT. This of all others bears the hiddenest
venom,
The smoothest poison; I'm an arch-dissembler, sir.
B. KNIGHT. How?
W. KNIGHT. ’Tis my nature’s brand; turn from me, sir;
The time is yet to come that e’er I spoke
What my heart meant.
B. KNIGHT. And call you that a vice?—
Avoid all profanation, I beseech you,—
The only prime state-virtue upon earth,
The policy of empires; O, take heed, sir,
For fear it take displeasure and forsake you!
’Tis like a jewel of that precious value,
Whose worth’s not known but to the skilful lapidary;
The instrument that picks ope princes' hearts,
And locks up ours from them, with the same motion:
You never came so near our souls as now.
B. DUKE. Now you’re a brother to us.
B. KNIGHT. What we have done
Hath been dissemblance ever.
W. KNIGHT. There you lie then,
And the game’s ours; we give thee check-mate by
Discovery, King, the noblest mate of all!
B. KNIGHT.[843] I'm lost, I'm taken!
[_A great shout and flourish._
W. KNIGHT. Ambitious, covetous,
Luxurious falsehood!
W. DUKE. Dissembler includes all.
B. KING.[844] All hopes confounded!
B. QUEEN. Miserable condition!

_Enter White King, White Queen, White Bishop, White
Queen’s Pawn, and other White Pawns._

W. KING. O, let me bless mine arms with this dear
treasure,
Truth’s glorious masterpiece! See, Queen of sweetness,
He’s in my bosom safe; and this fair structure
Of comely honour, his true blest assistant.
[_Embracing W. Knight and W. Duke._
W. QUEEN. May their integrities ever possess
That powerful sanctuary!
W. KNIGHT. As ’twas a game, sir,
Won with much hazard, so with much more triumph
We[845] gave him check-mate by discovery, sir.
W. KING. Obscurity is now the fittest favour
Falsehood can sue for; it well suits perdition:
’Tis their best course that so have lost their fame
To put their heads into the bag for shame;
And there, behold, the bag, like hell-mouth,[846] opens
[_The bag opens,[847] and the Fat Bishop and
the Black lost Pawns appear in it._
To take her due, and the lost sons appear
Greedily gaping for increase of fellowship
In infamy, the last desire of wretches,
Advancing their perdition-branded foreheads
Like Envy’s issue, or a bed of snakes.
B. B. PAWN [_in the bag_]. ’Tis too apparent; the
game’s lost, King[848] taken.
F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. The White House hath given
us the bag,[849] I thank ’em.
B. JESTING PAWN [_in the bag_]. They had need give you
a whole bag by yourself:
'Sfoot, this Fat Bishop[850] hath so overlaid me,
So squelch’d[851] and squeez’d me, I've no verjuice left
in me!
You shall find all my goodness, if you look for’t,
In the bottom of the bag.
F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. Thou malapert Pawn!
The Bishop must have room; he will have room,
And room to lie at pleasure.
B. JESTING PAWN [_in the bag_]. All the bag, I think,
Is room too scant for your Spalato[852] paunch.
B. B. PAWN [_in the bag_]. Down, viper of our order! I
abhor thee:
Thou shew thy whorish front?
B. Q. PAWN [_in the bag_]. Yes, monster-holiness!
W. KNIGHT. Contention in the pit! is hell divided?
W. KING. You had need have some of majesty and power
To keep good rule amongst you: make room, Bishop.
[_Puts B. King into the bag._
F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. I'm not so[853] easily
mov’d when I'm once set;
I scorn to stir for any king on earth.
W. QUEEN. Here comes the Queen; what say you then to
her?
[_Puts B. Queen into the bag._

F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. Indeed a Queen may make a
Bishop stir.
W. KNIGHT. Room for the mightiest Machiavel-politician
That e’er the devil hatch’d of a nun’s egg!
[_Puts B. Knight into the bag._
F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. He’ll pick a hole in the
bag and get out shortly;
But I shall[854] be the last man that creeps out,
And that’s the misery of greatness ever.[855]
W. DUKE. Room for[856] a sun-burnt, tansy-fac’d
belov’d,
An olive-colour’d Ganymede! and that’s all
That’s worth the bagging.
F. BISHOP [_in the bag_]. Crowd in all you can,
The Bishop will be still uppermost man,
Maugre King, Queen, or politician.
W. KING. So, let the bag close now, the fittest womb
For treachery, pride, and falsehood; whilst we,
winner-like.
Destroying, through heaven’s power, what would destroy,
Welcome our White Knight with loud peals of joy.
[_Exeunt omnes._