A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 42

If thou look never, day can never be.

What ails my Robin? Wherefore dost thou faint?

ROB. H. Because I cannot stand: yet now I can.

[KING _and_ MARIAN _support him_.

Thanks to my king, and thanks to Marian.

KING. Robin, be brief, and tell us what hath chanc'd.

ROB. H. I must be brief, for I am sure of death, Before a long tale can be half-way told.

FITZ. Of death, my son! bright sun of all my joy!

Death cannot have the power of[279] virtuous life.

ROB. H. Not o'er[280] the virtues, but the life it can.

KING. What, dost thou speak of death? how shouldst thou die?

ROB. H. By poison and the Prior's treachery.

QUEEN. Why, take this sovereign powder at my hands: Take it, and live in spite of poison's power.

DON. Ay, set him forward. Powders, quoth ye? hah!

I am a fool, then, if a little dust, The shaving of a horn, a Bezoar stone,[281]

Or any antidote have power to stay The execution of my heart's resolve.

Tut, tut! you labour, lovely queen, in vain, And on a thankless groom your toil bestow.

Now hath your foe reveng'd you of your foe: Robin shall die, if all the world said no.[282]

MAR. How the wolf howls! Fly, like a tender kid, Into thy shepherd's bosom. s.h.i.+eld me, love!

Canst thou not, Robin? Where shall I be hid?

O G.o.d! these ravens will seize upon thy dove.

ROB. H. They cannot hurt thee; pray thee, do not fear: Base curs will couch, the lion being near.

QUEEN. How works my powder?

ROB. H. Very well, fair queen.

KING. Dost thou feel any ease?

ROB. H. I shall, I trust, anon: Sleep falls upon mine eyes. O, I must sleep, And they that love me, do not waken me.

MAR. Sleep in my lap, and I will sing to thee.

JOHN. He should not sleep.

ROB. H. I must, for I must die; While I live, therefore, let me have some rest.

FITZ. Ay, let him rest: the poison urges sleep.

When he awakes, there is no hope of life.

DON. Of life! Now, by the little time I have to live, He cannot live one hour for your lives.

KING. Villain! what art thou?

DON. Why, I am a knight.

CHES. Thou wert indeed. If it so please your grace, I will describe my knowledge of this wretch.

KING. Do, Chester.

CHES. This Doncaster, for so the felon hight, Was by the king, your father, made a knight, And well in arms he did himself behave.

Many a bitter storm the wind of rage Blasted this realm within those woful days, When the unnatural fights continued Between your kingly father and his sons.

This cutthroat, knighted in that time of woe, Seized on a beauteous nun at Berkhamstead, As we were marching toward Winchester, After proud Lincoln was compell'd to yield.

He took this virgin straying in the field-- For all the nuns and every covent[283] fled The dangers that attended on our troops: For those sad times too oft did testify, War's rage hath no regard to piety-- She humbly pray'd him, for the love of heaven, To guide her to her father's, two miles thence: He swore he would, and very well he might, For to the camp he was a forager.

Upon the way they came into a wood, Wherein, in brief, he stripp'd this tender maid: Whose l.u.s.t, when she in vain had long withstood, Being by strength and torments overlaid, He did a sacrilegious deed of rape, And left her bathed in her own tears and blood.

When she reviv'd, she to her father's got, And got her father to make just complaint Unto your mother, being then in camp.

QUEEN. Is this the villain, Chester, that defil'd Sir Eustace Stutville's chaste and beauteous child?

DON. Ay, madam, this is he That made a wench dance naked in a wood; And, for she did deny what I desired, I scourg'd her for her pride, till her fair skin With stripes was checquer'd like a vintner's grate.[284]

And what was this? A mighty matter, sure!

I have a thousand more than she defil'd, And cut the squeaking throats of some of them-- I grieve I did not hers.

QUEEN. Punish him, Richard.

A fairer virgin never saw the sun; A chaster maid was never sworn a nun.

KING. How 'scaped the villain punishment that time?

FITZ. I rent his spurs off, and disgraded him.

CHES. And then he rail'd upon the Queen and me.

Being committed, he his keeper slew, And to your father fled, who pardon'd him.

RICH. G.o.d give his soul a pardon for that sin.

SAL. O, had I heard his name or seen his face, I had defended Robin from this chance!

Ah, villain! shut those gloomy lights of thine.

Remember'st thou a little son of mine, Whose nurse at Wilton first thou ravishedst, And slew'st two maids that did attend on them?

DON. I grant I dash'd the brains out of a brat-- Thine if he were, I care not: had he been The first-born comfort of a royal king, And should have yall'd, when Doncaster cried peace, I would have done by him as then I did.

KING. Soon shall the world be rid of such a wretch.

Let him be hang'd alive in the highway That joineth to the tower.[285]

DON. Alive or dead (I reck not how I die), You, them, and these I desperately defy.

ELY. Repent, or never look to be absolv'd; But die accurs'd, as thou deservest well.

DON. Then give me my desert: curse, one by one!