Alv. She was my daughter, and her timeless grave
Did swallow down my joys as deep as yours.
But thus——
Ele. But what? Bear injuries that can:
I'll wear no forked crest.
Rod. Damn this black fiend! cry treason through the court:
The king is murder'd.
Ele. He that first opes his lips, I'll drive his words
Down his wide throat upon my rapier's point.
The king is murder'd, and I'll answer it.
I am dishonour'd, and I will revenge it.
Bend not your dangerous weapons at my breast;
Think where you are: this castle is the Moor's;
You are environ'd with a wall of flint,
The gates are lock'd, portcullises let down;
If Eleazar spend one drop of blood,
[Zarack and Balthazar above with calivers.[64]]
On those high turret-tops my slaves stand arm'd,
And shall confound your souls with murd'ring shot:
Or if you murder me, yet underground
A villain, that for me will dig to hell,
Stands with a burning linstock in his fist,
Who, firing gunpowder, up in the air
Shall fling your torn and mangled carcases.
Queen-M. O, sheathe your weapons: though my son be slain,
Yet save yourselves; choose a new sovereign.
All. Prince Philip is our sovereign, choose him king!
Ele. Prince Philip shall not be my sovereign.
Philip's a bastard, and Fernando's dead.
Mendoza sweats to wear Spain's diadem:
Philip has sworn confusion to this realm.
They both are up in arms; war's flames do shine
Like lightning in the air. Wherefore, my lords,
Look well on Eleazar; value me,
Not by my sunburnt cheeks, nor by my birth,
But by my loss of blood,
Which I have sacrific'd in Spain's defence.
Then look on Philip and the cardinal;
Look on those gaping curs, whose wide throats
Stand stretch'd wide open like the gates of death,
To swallow you, your country, children, wives.
Philip cries fire and blood: the cardinal
Cries likewise fire and blood. I'll quench those flames.
The Moor cries blood and fire, and that shall burn,
Till Castile, like proud Troy, to cinders turn.
Rod. Lay by these ambages; what seeks the Moor?