Elizabeth Cary - The Tragedy of Mariam, Act 5, Scene 1 lyrics

Act 5 scene 1 NUNTIO When, sweetest friend,1 did I so far offend Your heavenly self, that you my fault to quit Have made me now relator of your end, The end of beauty, chastity and wit? Was none so hapless in the fatal place But I, most wretched, for the queen t'choose? 'Tis certain I have some ill-boding face That made me culled to tell this luckless news. And yet no news to Herod: were it new To him, unhappy 't had not been at all: Yet do I long to come within his view, That he may know his wife did guiltless fall: And here he comes. Your Mariam greets you well. [Enter HEROD.] HEROD What? lives my Mariam? Joy, exceeding joy! She shall not die. NUNTIO Heav'n doth your will repel. HEROD Oh, do not with thy words my life destroy, I prithee tell no dying-tale: thine eye Without thy tongue doth tell but too too much: Yet let thy tongue's addition make me die, d**h welcome comes to him whose grief is such. NUNTIO I went amongst the curious gazing troop, To see the last of her that was the best: To see if d**h had heart to make her stoop, To see the sun-admiring phoenix' nest. When there I came, upon the way I saw The stately Mariam not debased by fear: Her look did seem to keep the world in awe, Yet mildly did her face this fortune bear. HEROD Thou dost usurp my right, my tongue was framed To be the instrument of Mariam's praise: Yet speak: she cannot be too often famed: All tongues suffice not her sweet name to raise. NUNTIO But as she came she Alexandra met, Who did her d**h (sweet queen) no whit bewail, But as if nature she did quite forget, She did upon her daughter loudly rail. HEROD Why stopped you not her mouth? Where had she words To darken that, that Heaven made so bright? Our sacred tongue no epithet affords. To call her other than the world's delight. NUNTIO She told her that her d**h was too too good, And that already she had lived too long: She said, she shamed to have a part in blood Of her that did the princely Herod wrong. HEROD Base pickthank devil! Shame, 'twas all her glory, That she to noble Mariam was the mother: But never shall it live in any story— Her name, except to infamy, I'll smother. What answer did her princely daughter make? NUNTIO She made no answer, but she looked the while As if thereof she scarce did notice take, Yet smiled, a dutiful, though scornful, smile. HEROD Sweet creature, I that look to mind do call; Full oft hath Herod been amazed withal. Go on. NUNTIO She came unmoved, with pleasant grace, As if to triumph her arrival were: In stately habit, and with cheerful face: Yet ev'ry eye was moist but Mariam's there. When justly opposite to me she came, She picked me out from all the crew: She beckoned to me, called me by my name, For she my name, my birth, and fortune knew. HEROD What, did she name thee? Happy, happy man, Wilt thou not ever love that name the better? But what sweet tune did this fair dying swan Afford thine ear? Tell all, omit no letter. NUNTIO “Tell thou my lord,” said she— HEROD Me, meant she me? Is't true, the more my shame: I was her lord, Were I not mad, her lord I still should be: But now her name must be by me adored. Oh say, what said she more? Each word she said Shall be the food whereon my heart is fed. NUNTIO “Tell thou my lord thou saw'st me loose my breath.” HEROD Oh, that I could that sentence now control. NUNTIO “If guiltily, eternal be my d**h”— HEROD I hold her chaste ev'n in my inmost soul. NUNTIO “By three days hence, if wishes could revive, I know himself would make me oft alive.” HEROD Three days: three hours, three minutes, not so much, A minute in a thousand parts divided; My penitency for her d**h is such, As in the first I wished she had not died. But forward in thy tale. NUNTIO Why, on she went, And after she some silent prayer had said, She died as if to die she were content, And thus to Heav'n her heav'nly soul is fled. HEROD But art thou sure there doth no life remain? Is't possible my Mariam should be dead? Is there no trick to make her breathe again? NUNTIO Her body is divided from her head. HEROD Why, yet methinks there might be found by art Strange ways of cure; 'tis sure rare things are done By an inventive head, and willing heart. NUNTIO Let not, my lord, your fancies idly run. It is as possible it should be seen, That we should make the holy Abraham live, Though he entombed two thousand years had been, As breath again to slaughtered Mariam give. But now for more a**aults prepare your ears— HEROD There cannot be a further cause of moan, This accident shall shelter me from fears: What can I fear? Already Mariam's gone. Yet tell ev'n what you will. NUNTIO As I came by, From Mariam's d**h, I saw upon a tree A man that to his neck a cord did tie: Which cord he had designed his end to be. When me he once discerned, he downwards bowed, And thus with fearful voice he cried aloud, “Go tell the King he trusted ere he tried, I am the cause that Mariam causeless died.” HEROD Damnation take him, for it was the slave That said she meant with poison's deadly force To end my life that she the crown might have: Which tale did Mariam from herself divorce. Oh, pardon me, thou pure unspotted ghost, My punishment must needs sufficient be, In missing that content I valued most: Which was thy admirable face to see. I had but one inestimable j**el,1 Yet one I had no monarch had the like, And therefore may I curse myself as cruel: 'Twas broken by a blow myself did strike. I gazed thereon and never thought me blessed, But when on it my dazzled eye might rest, A precious mirror made by wondrous art, I prized it ten times dearer than my crown, And laid it up fast folded in my heart: Yet I in sudden choler cast it down, And pash'd it all to pieces: 'twas no foe That robbed me of it; no Arabian host, Nor no Armenian guide hath used me so: But Herod's wretched self hath Herod crossed. She was my graceful moiety; me accursed, To slay my better half and save my worst. But sure she is not dead, you did but jest, To put me in perplexity a while; 'Twere well indeed if I could so be dressed: I see she is alive, methinks you smile. NUNTIO If sainted Abel yet deceasèd be, 'Tis certain Mariam is as dead as he. HEROD Why, then go call her to me, bid her now Put on fair habit, stately ornament: And let no frown o'ershade her smoothest brow, In her doth Herod place his whole content. NUNTIO She's come in state weeds to please your sense, If now she come attired in robe of Heaven: Remember, you yourself did send her hence, And now to you she can no more be given. HEROD She's dead, hell take her murderers, she was fair, Oh, what a hand she had, it was so white, It did the whiteness of the snow impair: I never more shall see so sweet a sight. NUNTIO 'Tis true, her hand was rare. HEROD Her hand? her hands; She had not singly one of beauty rare, But such a pair as here where Herod stands, He dares the world to make to both compare. Accursèd Salome, hadst thou been still, My Mariam had been breathing by my side: Oh, never had I, had I had my will, Sent forth command, that Mariam should have died. But, Salome, thou didst with envy vex, To see thyself outmatchèd in thy s**: Upon your s**'s forehead Mariam sat, To grace you all like an imperial crown, But you, fond fool, have rudely pushed thereat, And proudly pulled your proper glory down. One smile of hers—nay, not so much—a look Was worth a hundred thousand such as you. Judea, how canst thou the wretches brook, That robbed from thee the fairest of the crew? You dwellers in the now deprivèd land, Wherein the matchless Mariam was bred: Why grasp not each of you a sword in hand, To aim at me your cruel sovereign's head? Oh, when you think of Herod as your king, And owner of the pride of Palestine, This act to your remembrance likewise bring: 'Tis I have overthrown your royal line. Within her purer veins the blood did run, That from her grandam Sara she derived, Whose beldame age the love of kings hath won; Oh, that her issue had as long been lived. But can her eye be made by d**h obscure? I cannot think but it must sparkle still: Foul sacrilege to rob those lights so pure, From out a temple made by heav'nly sk**. I am the villain that have done the deed, The cruel deed, though by another's hand; My word, though not my sword, made Mariam bleed, Hircan*s' grandchild died at my command— That Marian that I once did love so dear, The partner of my now detested bed. Why shine you, sun, with an aspect so clear? I tell you once again my Mariam's dead. You could but shine, if some Egyptian blowse, Or Aethiopian dowdy lose her life: This was—then wherefore bend you not your brows?— The King of Jewry's fair and spotless wife. Deny thy beams, and, moon, refuse thy light, Let all the stars be dark, let Jewry's eye No more distinguish which is day and night: Since her best birth did in her bosom die. Those fond idolaters, the men of Greece, Maintain these orbs are safely governèd: That each within themselves have gods apiece, By whom their steadfast course is justly led. But were it so, as so it cannot be, They all would put their mourning garments on: Not one of them would yield a light to me, To me that is the cause that Mariam's gone. For though they feign their Saturn melancholy, Of sour behaviors, and of angry mood: They feign him likewise to be just and holy, And justice needs must seek revenge for blood. Their Jove, if Jove he were, would sure desire, To punish him that slew so fair a la**: For Leda's beauty set his heart on fire, Yet she not half so fair as Mariam was. And Mars would deem his Venus had been slain; Sol to recover her would never stick: For if he want the power her life to gain: Then physic's god is but an empiric; The queen of love would storm for beauty's sake; And Hermes too, since he bestowed her wit; The night's pale light for angry grief would shake, To see chaste Mariam die in age unfit. But, oh, I am deceived, she pa**ed them all In every gift, in every property: Her excellencies wrought her timeless fall, And they rejoiced, not grieved, to see her die. The Paphian goddess did repent her waste, When she to one such beauty did allow: Mercurius thought her wit his wit surpa**ed, And Cinthia envied Mariam's brighter brow. But these are fictions, they are void of sense; The Greeks but dream, and dreaming falsehoods tell: They neither can offend nor give defence, And not by them it was my Mariam fell. If she had been like an Egyptian black, And not so fair, she had been longer lived: Her overflow of beauty turnèd back, And drowned the spring from whence it was derived. Her heav'nly beauty 'twas that made me think That it with chastity could never dwell: But now I see that Heav'n in her did link A spirit and a person to excel. I'll muffle up myself in endless night, And never let mine eyes behold the light. Retire thyself, vile monster, worse than he That stained the virgin earth with brother's blood. Still in some vault or den enclosèd be, Where with thy tears thou may'st beget a flood, Which flood in time may drown thee: happy day When thou at once shalt die and find a grave; A stone upon the vault someone shall lay, Which monument shall an inscription have, And these shall be the words it shall contain: Here Herod lies, that hath his Mariam slain. [Exit.] CHORUS Whoever hath beheld with steadfast eye, The strange events of this one only day: How many were deceived, how many die, That once today did grounds of safety lay! It will from them all certainty bereave, Since twice six hours so many can deceive. This morning Herod held for surely dead, And all the Jews on Mariam did attend: And Constabarus rise from Salom's bed, And neither dreamed of a divorce or end.