SEBASTIAN Nay then draw and spare not, for I love fighting.

MEDINA Stand in the midst, sweet coz, we are your guard.

These hammers shall for thee beat out a crown If all hit right. Swear therefore, n.o.ble friends, By your high bloods, by true n.o.bility, By what you owe religion, owe to your country, Owe to the raising your posterity, By love you bear to virtue, and to arms, The shield of innocence, swear not to sheath Your swords, when once drawn forth.

ONAELIA Oh not to kill him For twenty thousand worlds.

MEDINA Will you be quiet?

Your swords when once drawn forth, till they have forced Yon G.o.dless, perjurous, perfidious man...

ONAELIA Pray rail not at him so.

MEDINA Art mad? You're idle Till they have forced him To cancel his late lawless bond he sealed At the high altar to his Florentine strumpet, And in his bed lay this his troth-plight wife.

ONAELIA I, I that's well. Pray swear.

ALL To this we swear.

SEBASTIAN Uncle, I swear too.

MEDINA Our forces let's unite, be bold and secret, And lion-like with open eyes let's sleep, Streams smooth and slowly running are most deep.

Exeunt.

ACT THREE SCENE THREE

Enter King, Queen, Malateste, Valasco, Lopez, [Roderigo and guards].

KING The presence door be guarded, let none enter On forfeit of your lives, without our knowledge.

Oh you are false physicians all unto me, You bring me poison, but no antidotes.

QUEEN Yourself that poison brews.

KING Prithee, no more.

QUEEN I will, I must speak more.

KING Thunder aloud.

QUEEN My child, yet newly quickened in my womb, Is blasted with the fires of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy.

KING Who! Who dares once but think so in his dream?

MALATESTE Medina's faction preached it openly.

KING Be cursed he and his faction. Oh how I labour For these preventions! But so cross is fate My ills are ne'r hid from me, but their cures.

What's to be done?

QUEEN That which being left undone, Your life lies at the stake. Let them be breathless Both brat and mother.

KING Ha!

MALATESTE She plays true music Sir.

The mischiefs you are drenched in are so full, You need not fear to add to them. Since now No way is left to guard thy rest secure, But by a means like this.

LOPEZ All Spain rings forth Medina's name, and his confederates.

RODRIGO All his allies and friends rush into troops Like raging torrents.

VALESCO And loud trumpet forth Your perjuries. Seducing the wild people, And with rebellious faces threatening all.

KING I shall be ma.s.sacred in this their spleen, Ere I have time to guard myself. I feel The fire already falling. Where's our guard?

MALATESTE Planted at guarded gate, with a strict charge That none shall enter but by your command.

KING Let them be doubled. I am full of thoughts, A thousand wheels toss my incertain fears, There is a storm in my hot boiling brains, Which rises without wind. A horrid one.

What clamour's that?

QUEEN Some treason. Guard the King.

Enter Balthazar drawn, [he strikes] one of the guards who falls.

BALTHAZAR Not in?

MALATESTE One of the guards is slain, keep off the murderer.

BALTHAZAR I am none, sir.

VALASCO There's a man dropped down by thee.

KING Thou desperate fellow, thus press in upon us!

Is murder all the story we shall read?

What King can stand, when thus his subjects bleed?

What has thou done?

BALTHAZAR No hurt.

KING Played even the wolf, And from a fold committed to my charge, Stolen and devoured one of the flock.

BALTHAZAR You have sheep enough for all that, Sir. I have killed none though.

Or if I have, mine <30> own blood, shed in your quarrels, may beg my pardon. My business was in haste to you.

KING I would not have thy sin scored on my head For all the Indian Treasury. I prithee tell me, Suppose thou had'st our pardon, oh can that cure Thy wounded conscience, can there my pardon help thee?

Yet having deserved well both of Spain and us, We will not pay thy worth with loss of life, But banish thee for ever.

BALTHAZAR For a groom's death?

KING No more. We banish thee our court and Kingdom.

A King that fosters men so dipped in blood, May be called merciful, but never good.

Be gone upon thy life.