Fort. Oh, how am I transported? Is this earth?
Or blest Elysium?
Fortune. Fortunatus, rise.
Fort. Dread goddess, how should such a wretch as I
Be known to such a glorious deity?
Oh pardon me: for to this place I come,
Led by my fate, not folly; in this wood
With weary sorrow have I wanderèd,
And three times seen the sweating sun take rest,
And three times frantic Cynthia naked ride
About the rusty highways of the skies
Stuck full of burning stars, which lent her light
To court her negro paramour grim Night.
Fortune. This travel now expires: yet from this circle,
Where I and these with fairy troops abide,
Thou canst not stir, unless I be thy guide.
I the world’s empress am, Fortune my name,
This hand hath written in thick leaves of steel
An everlasting book of changeless fate,
Showing who’s happy, who unfortunate.
Fort. If every name, dread queen, be there writ down
I am sure mine stands in characters of black;
Though happiness herself lie in my name,
I am Sorrow’s heir, and eldest son to Shame.
The Kings. No, we are sons to Shame, and Sorrow’s heirs.
Fortune. Thou shalt be one of Fortune’s minions:
Behold these four chained like Tartarian slaves,
These I created emperors and kings,
And these are now my basest underlings:
This sometimes was a German emperor,
Henry the Fifth,[335] who being first deposed,
Was after thrust into a dungeon,
And thus in silver chains shall rot to death.
This Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor
Of Almaine[336] once: but by Pope Alexander[337]
Now spurned and trod on when he takes his horse,
And in these fetters shall he die his slave.
This wretch once wore the diadem of France,
Lewis the meek,[338] but through his children’s pride,
Thus have I caused him to be famishèd.
Here stands the very soul of misery,
Poor Bajazet, old Turkish Emperor,
And once the greatest monarch in the East;[339]
Fortune herself is said to view thy fall,
And grieves to see thee glad to lick up crumbs
At the proud feet of that great Scythian swain,
Fortune’s best minion, warlike Tamburlaine:
Yet must thou in a cage of iron be drawn
In triumph at his heels, and there in grief
Dash out thy brains.
4th King. Oh miserable me!
Fortune. No tears can melt the heart of destiny:
These have I ruined and exalted those.
These hands have conquered Spain, these brows fill up
The golden circle of rich Portugal,—
Viriat a monarch now, but born a shepherd;[340]
This Primislaus, a Bohemian king,
Last day a carter;[341] this monk, Gregory,[342]
Now lifted to the Papal dignity;—
Wretches,[343] why gnaw you not your fingers off,
And tear your tongues out, seeing yourselves trod down,
And this Dutch botcher[344] wearing Munster’s crown,
John Leyden,[345] born in Holland poor and base,
Now rich in empery and Fortune’s grace?
As these I have advanced, so will I thee.
Six gifts I spend upon mortality,
Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches,
Out of my bounty: one of these is thine,—
Choose then which likes thee best.
Fort. Oh most divine!
Give me but leave to borrow wonder’s eye,
To look amazed at thy bright majesty,
Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches.