Part 12

GENT. My lord! VORT. I fear thy news will fetch a curse, it comes With such a violence. GENT. The people are up In arms against you. VORT. O this dream of glory! Sweet power, before I can have time to taste thee, Must I for ever lose thee?—What’s the imposthume That swells them now? GENT. The murder of Constantius. VORT. Ulcers of realms! they hated him alive, Grew weary of the minute of his reign, Call’d him an evil of their own electing; And is their ignorant zeal so fiery now, When all their thanks are cold? the mutable hearts That move in their false breasts!—Provide me safety: [_Noise within._

Hark! I hear ruin threaten me with a voice That imitates thunder.

_Enter_ SECOND GENTLEMAN.

SECOND GENT. Where’s the king? VORT. Who takes him? SECOND GENT. Send peace to all your royal thoughts, my lord: A fleet of valiant Saxons newly landed Offer the truth of all their service to you. VORT. Saxons! my wishes: let them have free entrance, And plenteous welcomes from all hearts that love us; [_Exit_ SECOND GENTLEMAN. They never could come happier.

_Re-enter_ SECOND GENTLEMAN _with_ HENGIST, HORSUS, _and Soldiers_.

HENG. Health, power, and victory to Vortiger! VORT. There can be no more pleasure to a king, If all the languages earth spake were ransack’d. Your names I know not; but so much good fortune And warranted worth lightens your fair aspècts,[407] I cannot but in arms of love enfold you. HENG. The mistress of our birth’s hope, fruitful Germany, Calls me Hengistus, and this captain Horsus; A man low-built, but yet in deeds of arms Flame is not swifter. We are all, my lord, The sons of Fortune; she has sent us forth To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits; And since, after the rage of many a tempest, Our fates have cast us upon Britain’s bounds, We offer you the first-fruits of our wounds. VORT. Which we shall dearly prize: the mean’st blood spent Shall at wealth’s fountain make its own content. HENG. You double vigour in us then, my lord: Pay is the soul of such as thrive by the sword. [_Exeunt._

## SCENE III.

_Near the Palace._

_Enter_ VORTIGER _and_ GENTLEMEN. _Alarm and noise of skirmishes within._

FIRST GENT. My lord, these Saxons bring a fortune with them Stay[s][408] any Roman success. VORT. On, speak, forwards! I will not take one minute from thy tidings. FIRST GENT. The main supporters of this insurrection They’ve[409] taken prisoners, and the rest so tame[d], They stoop to the least grace that flows from mercy. VORT. Never came power guided by better stars Than these men’s fortitudes: yet they’re misbelievers, Which to my reason is wondrous.

_Enter_ HENGIST, HORSUS, _and Soldiers, with Prisoners_.

You’ve given me such a first taste of your worth, ’Twill never from my love; when life is gone, The memory sure will follow, my soul still

## Participating immortality with it.

But here’s the misery of earth’s limited glory, There’s not a way reveal’d to any honour Above the fame[410] which your own merits give you. HENG. Indeed, my lord, we hold, when all’s summ’d up That can be made for worth to be express’d, The fame that a man wins himself is best; That he may call his own. Honours put to him Make him no more a man than his clothes do, And are as soon ta’en off; for in the warmth The heat comes from the body, not the weeds: So man’s true fame must strike from his own deeds. And since by this event which fortune speaks us, This land appears the fair predestin’d soil Ordain’d for our good hap, we crave, my lord, A little earth to thrive on, what you please, Where we’ll but keep a nursery of good spirits To fight for you and yours. VORT. Sir, for our treasure, ’Tis open to your merits, as our love; But for ye’re strangers in religion chiefly— Which is the greatest alienation can be, And breeds most factions in the bloods of men— I must not yield to that.

_Enter_ SIMON _with a hide_.

HENG. ’S precious, my lord, I see a pattern; be it but so little As yon poor hide will compass. VORT. How, the hide! HENG. Rather than nothing, sir. VORT. Since you’re so reasonable, Take so much in the best part of our kingdom. HENG. We thank your grace. [_Exit_ VORTIGER _with_ GENTLEMEN. Rivers from bubbling springs Have rise at first, and great from abject things. Stay yonder fellow: he came luckily, And he shall fare well for’t, whate’er he be; We’ll thank our fortune in rewarding him. HOR. Stay, fellow! SIM. How, fellow? ’tis more than you know, whether I be your fellow or no; I am sure you see me not. HENG. Come, what’s the price of your hide? SIM. O unreasonable villain! he would buy the house over a man’s head. I’ll be sure now to make my bargain wisely; they may buy me out of my skin else. [_Aside._]—Whose hide would you buy, mine or the beast’s? There is little difference in their complexions: I think mine is the blacker of the two: you shall see for your love, and buy for your money.—A pestilence on you all, how have you deceived me! you buy an ox-hide! you buy a calf’s gather! They are all hungry soldiers, and I took them for honest shoe-makers. [_Aside._ HENG. Hold, fellow; prithee, hold;—right a fool worldling That kicks at all good fortune;—whose man art thou? SIM. I am a servant, yet a masterless man, sir. HENG. Prithee, how can that be? SIM. Very nimbly, sir; my master is dead, and now I serve my mistress; ergo, I am a masterless man: she is now a widow, and I am the foreman of her tan-pit. HENG. Hold you, and thank your fortune, not your wit. [_Gives him money._ SIM. Faith, and I thank your bounty, and not your wisdom; you are not troubled with wit neither greatly, it seems. Now, by this light, a nest of yellow-hammers! What will become of me? if I can keep all these without hanging myself, I am happier than a hundred of my neighbours. You shall have my skin into the bargain; then if I chance to die like a dog, the labour will be saved of flaying me: I’ll undertake, sir, you shall have all the skins in our parish at this price, men’s and women’s. HENG. Sirrah, give good ear to me: now take the hide And cut it all into the slenderest thongs That can bear strength to hold.

SIM. That were a jest, i’faith: spoil all the leather? sin and pity! why, ’twould shoe half your army. HENG. Do it, I bid you. SIM. What, cut it all in thongs? Hum, this is like the vanity of your Roman gallants, that cannot wear good suits, but they must have them cut and slashed in giggets, that the very crimson taffaties sit blushing at their follies. I would I might persuade you from this humour of cutting; ’tis but a swaggering condition,[411] and nothing profitable: what if it were but well pinked? ’twould last longer for a summer suit. HENG. What a cross lump of ignorance have I lighted on! I must be forc’d to beat my drift into him.— [_Aside._ Look you, to make you wiser than your parents, I have so much ground given me as this hide Will compass, which, as it [now] is, is nothing. SIM. Nothing, quotha? Why, ’twill not keep a hog.[412] HENG. Now with the ’vantage Cut into several pieces, ’twill stretch far, And make a liberal circuit. SIM. A shame on your crafty hide! is this your cunning? I have learnt more knavery now than ever I shall claw off while I live. I’ll go purchase land by cow-tails, and undo the parish; three good bulls’ pizzles would set up a man for ever: this is like a pin a-day to set up a haberdasher of small wares. HENG. Thus men that mean to thrive, as we, must learn Set in a foot at first. SIM. A foot do you call it? The devil is in that foot that takes up all this leather. HENG. Despatch, and cut it carefully with all The advantage, sirrah. SIM. You could never have lighted upon such a fellow to serve your turn, captain. I have such a trick of stretching, too! I learned it of a tanner’s man that was hanged last sessions at Maidstone: I’ll warrant you, I’ll get you a mile and a half more than you’re aware of. HENG. Pray, serve me so as oft as you will, sir. SIM. I am casting about for nine acres to make a garden- plot out of one of the buttocks. HENG. ’Twill be a good soil for nosegays. SIM. ’Twill be a good soil for cabbages, to stuff out the guts of your followers there. HENG. Go, see it carefully perform’d: [_Exit_ SIMON _with Soldiers_. It is the first foundation of our fortunes On Britain’s earth, and ought to be embrac’d With a respect near link’d to adoration. Methinks it sounds to me a fair assurance Of large honours and hopes; does it not, captain? HOR. How many have begun with less at first, That have had emperors from their bodies sprung, And left their carcasses as much in monument As would erect a college! HENG. There’s the fruits Of their religious show too; to lie rotting Under a million spent in gold and marble. HOR. But where shall we make choice of our ground, captain? HENG. About the fruitful flanks of uberous[413] Kent, A fat and olive soil; there we came in. O captain, he has given he knows not what! HOR. Long may he give so! HENG. I tell thee, sirrah, he that begg’d a field Of fourscore acres for a garden-plot, ’Twas pretty well; but he came short of this. HOR. Send over for more Saxons. HENG. With all speed, captain. HOR. Especially for Roxena. HENG. Who, my daughter? HOR. That star of Germany, forget not her, sir: She is a fair fortunate maid.— Fair she is, and fortunate may she be; But in maid lost for ever. My desire Has been the close confusion of that name. A treasure ’tis, able to make more thieves Than cabinets set open to entice; Which learn them theft that never knew the vice. [_Aside._ HENG. Come, I’ll despatch with speed. HOR. Do, forget none. HENG. Marry, pray help my memory. HOR. Roxena, you remember? HENG. What more, dear sir? HOR. I see your memory’s clear, sir. [_Shouts within._ HENG. Those shouts leap’d from our army. HOR. They were too cheerful To voice a bad event.

_Enter a_ GENTLEMAN.

HENG. Now, sir, your news? GENT. Roxena the fair— HENG. True, she shall be sent for. GENT. She’s here, sir. HENG. What say’st? GENT. She’s come, sir. HOR. A new youth Begins me o’er again. [_Aside._ GENT. Follow’d you close, sir, With such a zeal as daughter never equall’d; Expos’d herself to all the merciless dangers Set in mankind or fortune; not regarding Aught but your sight. HENG. Her love is infinite to me. HOR. Most charitably censur’d; ’tis her cunning, The love of her own lust, which makes a woman Gallop down hill as fearless as a drunkard. There’s no true loadstone in the world but that; It draws them through all storms by sea or shame: Life’s loss is thought too small to pay that game. [_Aside._ GENT. What follows more of her will take you[414] strongly. HENG. How! GENT. Nay, ’tis worth your wonder. Her heart, joy-ravish’d with your late success, Being the early morning of your fortunes, So prosperously new opening at her coming, She takes a cup of gold, and, midst the army, Teaching her knee a reverend cheerfulness, Which well became her, drank a liberal health To the king’s joys and yours, the king in presence; Who with her sight, but her behaviour chiefly, Or chief but one or both, I know not which,— But he’s so far ’bove my expression caught, ’Twere art enough for one man’s time and portion To speak him and miss nothing. HENG. This is astonishing! HOR. O, this ends bitter now! our close-hid flame Will break out of my heart; I cannot keep it. [_Aside._ HENG. Gave you attention, captain? how now, man? HOR. A kind of grief ’bout[415] these times of the moon still: I feel a pain like a convulsion, A cramp at heart; I know not what name fits it. HENG. Nor never seek one for it, let it go Without a name; would all griefs were serv’d so!

_Flourish. Re-enter_ VORTIGER, _with_ ROXENA _and Attendants_.

HOR. A love-knot already? arm in arm! [_Aside._ VORT. What’s he Lays claim to her? HENG. In right of father-hood I challenge an obedient part. VORT. Take it, And send [me] back the rest. HENG. What means your grace? VORT. You’ll keep no more than what belongs to you? HENG. That’s all, my lord; it all belongs to me; I keep the husband’s interest till he come: Yet out of duty and respect to majesty, I send her back your servant. VORT. My mistress, sir, or nothing. HENG. Come again; I never thought to hear so ill of thee. VORT. How, sir, so ill? HENG. So beyond detestable. To be an honest vassal is some calling, Poor is the worst of that, shame comes not to’t; But mistress, that[’s] the only common bait Fortune sets at all hours, catching whore with it, And plucks them up by clusters. There’s my sword, my lord; [_Offering his sword to_ VORTIGER. And if your strong desires aim at my blood, Which runs too purely there, a nobler way Quench it in mine. VORT. I ne’er took sword in vain: Hengist, we here create thee earl of Kent. HOR. O, that will do’t! [_Aside, and falls._ VORT. What ails our friend? look to him. ROX. O, ’tis his epilepsy; I know it well: I help’d him once in Germany; comes it again? A virgin’s right hand strok’d upon his heart Gives him ease straight; but it must be a pure virgin[’s], Or else it brings no comfort. VORT. What a task She puts upon herself, unurgèd purity! The truth of this will bring love’s rage into me. ROX. O, this would mad a woman! there’s no proof In love to indiscretion.[416] HOR. Pish! this cures not. ROX. Dost think I’ll ever wrong thee? HOR. O, most feelingly! But I’ll prevent it now, and break thy neck With thy own cunning. Thou hast undertaken To give me help, to bring in royal credit Thy crack’d virginity, but I’ll spoil all: I will not stand on purpose, though I could, But fall still to disgrace thee. ROX. What, you will not? HOR. I have no other way to help myself; For when thou’rt known to be a whore imposterous,[417] I shall be sure to keep thee. ROX. O sir, shame me not! You’ve had what is most precious; try my faith; Undo me not at first in chaste opinion. HOR. All this art shall not make me feel my legs. ROX. I prithee, do not wilfully confound me. HOR. Well, I’m[418] content for this time to recover, To save thy credit, and bite in my pain; But if thou ever fail’st me, I will fall, And thou shalt never get me up again. [_Rises._ ROX. Agreed ’twixt you and I, sir.—See, my lord, A poor maid’s work! the man may pass for health now Among the clearest bloods, and those are nicest. VORT. I’ve[419] heard of women brought men on their knees, But few that e’er restored them.—How now, captain? HOR. My lord, methinks I could do things past man, I’m so renew’d in vigour; I long most For violent exercise to take me down: My joy’s so high in blood, I’m above frailty. VORT. My lord of Kent. HENG. Your love’s unworthy creature. VORT. See’st thou this fair chain? think upon the means To keep it link’d for ever. HENG. O my lord, ’Tis many degrees sunder’d from my hope! Besides, your grace has a young virtuous queen. VORT. I say, think on it. HOR. If this wind hold, I fall to my old disease. [_Aside._ VORT. There’s no fault in thee but to come so late; All else is excellent: I chide none but fate. [_Exeunt._

## ACT III. SCENE I.

_A Room in the Palace._

_Enter_ HORSUS _and_ ROXENA.

ROX. I’ve[420] no conceit[421] now that you ever lov’d me, But as lust led you for the time. HOR. See, see! ROX. Do you pine at my advancement, sir? HOR. O barrenness Of understanding! what a right love’s[422] this! ’Tis you that fall, I that am reprehended: What height of honours, eminence of fortune, Should ravish me from you? ROX. Who can tell that, sir? What’s he can judge of a man’s appetite Before he sees him eat? Who knows the strength of any’s constancy That never yet was tempted? We can call Nothing our own, if they be deeds to come; They’re only ours when they are pass’d and done. How blest are you above your apprehension, If your desire would lend you so much patience, T’ examine the adventurous condition Of our affections, which are full of hazard, And draw in the time’s goodness to defend us! First, this bold course of ours cannot last long, Nor ever does in any without shame, And that, you know, brings danger; and the greater My father is in blood, as he’s[423] well risen, The greater will the storm of his rage be ’Gainst[424] his blood’s wronging: I have cast[425] for this. ’Tis not advancement that I love alone; ’Tis love of shelter, to keep shame unknown. HOR. O, were I sure of thee, as ’tis impossible There to be ever sure where there’s no hold, Your pregnant hopes should not be long in rising! ROX. By what assurance have you held me thus far, Which you found firm, despair you not in that. HOR. True, that was good security for the time; But in a change of state, when you’re advanc’d, You women have a French toy in your pride, You make your friend come crouching; or perhaps, To bow in th’ hams the better, he is put To compliment three hours with your chief woman, Then perhaps not admitted; no, nor ever, That’s the more noble fashion. Forgetfulness Is the most pleasing virtue they can have, That do spring up from nothing; for by the same Forgetting all, they forget whence they came, An excellent property of oblivion. ROX. I pity all the fortunes of poor women In my own unhappiness. When we have given All that we have to men, what’s our requital? An ill-fac’d jealousy, that resembles much The mistrustfulness of an insatiate thief, That scarce believes he has all, though he has stripp’d The true man[426] naked, and left nothing on him But the hard cord that binds him: so are we First robb’d, and then left bound by jealousy. Take reason’s advice, and you’ll find it impossible For you to lose me in this king’s advancement, Who’s an usurper here; and as the kingdom, So shall he have my love by usurpation; The right shall be in thee still. My ascension To dignity is but to waft thee higher; And all usurpers have the falling-sickness, They cannot keep up long. HOR. May credulous man Put all his confidence in so weak a bottom, And make a saving voyage? ROX. Nay, as gainful As ever man yet made. HOR. Go, take thy fortunes, Aspire with my consent, So thy ambition will be sure to prosper; Speak the fair certainties of Britain’s queen Home to thy wishes. ROX. Speak in hope I may, But not in certainty. HOR. I say in both: Hope, and be sure I’ll soon remove the let[427] That stands between thee and[428] glory. ROX. Life of love! If lost virginity can win such a day, I’ll have no daughter but shall learn my way. [_Exit._ HOR. ’Twill be good work for him that first instructs them: May be some son[s] of mine, got by this woman too, May match with their own sisters. Peace, ’tis he.

_Enter_ VORTIGER.