POLICY.
Loqueris Anglicè?
SHEALTY.
Maximè, Domine.
POLICY.
Agendum: go to, then; and declare
Thy lords their shields, their pages and their purpose.
Speak, man; fear not: though Spain use messengers ill,
'Tis England's guise to entreat them courteously.
SHEALTY.
Three cavalieros Castilianos here,
Without compeers in compass of this world,
Are come to conquer, as full well they shall,
This molehill isle, that little England hight,
With London, that proud paltry market-town,
And take those dames, Love, Lucre, Conscience,
Prisoners, to use or force, as pleaseth them.
The first (now quake) is Spanish Majesty,
That for his impress gives Queen Juno's bird,
Whose train is spang'd with Argus' hundred eyes;
The Queen of Gods scorns not to grace him so:
His word is Nonpareil, none his like;
Yet is his page or henchman Modesty,
Lucre the lady that shall be his prize:
And in his pendant on his lance's point
Sur le Ciel his word, Above the heavens.
POLICY.
Whilome, indeed, above the heavens he was,
Could he have kept him in that blessed state.
From thence for pride he fell to pit of pain;
And is he now become the pride of Spain?
And to his page, not Modesty, but Shame.
Well, on, the rest——
SHEALTY.
Don Honour is the next grand peer of Spain,
Whose impress is a courser saliant,
Of colour sable, darkening air and earth,
Pressing the globe with his disdainful foot,
And sallying to aspire to rolling skies:
Non sufficit orbis is his haughty word,
The world sufficeth not high Honour's thoughts;
And on the pendant, fixed on his lance,
A hand is catching at the sunny beams:
Et gloriam Phoebi, and the sun's bright coach
Honour would guide, if he might have his will.
His page is Action, tempering still with state.
POLICY.
Himself Ambition, whom the heavens do hate.
SHEALTY.
And Love the lady that he hopes to gain.
POLICY.
His thoughts, distract from foul-distempered brain,
Proves him the very firebrand[273] of Spain:
And in his shield his black disordered beast,
Scaling the skies, scornful to tread the ground,
And both his words—proud words—prove perfectly
Action his page to be but Treachery,
Ever attendant on Ambition.
But to the third——
SHEALTY.
The third grand cavaliero is Government,
Severe in justice and in judgment deep:
His impress is a naked infant, gor'd
Upon a lance, signifying Severity.
His word Pour sangue; for blood of enemies
He bends his forces: on his pendant is
A tiger, licking of a bleeding heart;
And Cura cruor is the word thereon:
His care's for blood of those that dare resist.
Yet hight his page, that follows him, Regard,
And he for Conscience to this conquest comes.