Alardo. Thus thrice am I the father of one son:
By ordinary geniture and birth;
And by my son's deliverance from death—
Yea, resurrection, for I held him dead;
And now experience within these months
Of our forlorn and shipwrecked wanderings
Has moulded him into a goodly youth,
Refined and brilliant in all inward beauty:
Witness his conduct in the regency:
What prince had nailed such shackles on his power,
Or fixed his bondage for so long a term,
Simply for love of his sire's memory,
Seeing that hope of life there could be none?
This is a certain new-birth; for I feared,
By some hot coltish springs his blood had fetched,
That, boiling high, it might sad trouble brew;
And partly 'twas to coy his restive sprite
I planned that voyage whose conclusion
Had such ill opening, and ends so well.—
Now, heaven forgive my selfishness! Guido,
Go, send out messengers on every coast.
It could not well bechance that we alone
Of all our ship's crew should be now dry-shod:
Yea, and indeed it would be marvellous,
That of five vessels in the self-same track,
Four should be swallowed wholly by the deep.
Bid all the mariners who leave our ports
To pass no ship unspoken they may spy:
We have escaped, so may those who remain:
Till they are landed safe, and not till then
Will I take heart to laugh. Go quickly, sir.
Guido. Your grace's mandate needs no issuing,
For penalties have been already paid
By those who disobeyed the prince in this.
Alardo. He does anticipate our utmost wish.
Guido. He is, sire, a right slip of the old tree
We know well whence his rosy graces spring;
Yet, if you should be pricked in finding out
Among these flowers a thorn, be not surprised.
Alardo. Be not so emblematic, trusty Guido.
Guido. I do not, sire, asperse your dead queen's fame
But she was mother to our noble prince;
Now queens are women, and all women are
But women——
Alardo. 'Tis most true; and spades are spades.
Guard well your tongue. Proceed, sir, and be brief.
Guido. Pardon, your majesty. You are too quick:
I meant not as your jealousy conceives:
But I will stake my head none of their sex
Are better than their sphere of life requires:
This is their utmost character for good.
Alardo. Come, we have heard your doctrine many a time:
And, by the way, how does your vestal daughter?
Still in her cloister mewed from eyes profane?
But without more digression, Rupert's fame
Seems by your blazoning a little blurred.
Record me how a bend sinister comes
To blot the fair field of his character.
Guido. Being a woman's son, unstable motion,
The loose stone in his virtue's strong rampire,
Threatens a downcome to its battled front;
For he pursues with lewd desire or love—
Both in this case disastrous to a prince—
A maiden of the very humblest strain,
Who, by her beauty's unassisted charms,
Or these and spells of necromantic art,
Has found his weakness: this did I smell out
When his companions' younger noses failed.
Alardo. That's not so well; but being a man's son
The youthful blood that warmed his father's veins,
Now briskly runs in his. We'll find a bit
To stay its galloping, or suasion soft
To woo it from from such skittish practices.
Guido. Please it your highness, now to tell me why
I have been honoured first to taste the joy
Of your long-prayed-for presence in your land,
Rather than to delight at once your son.
Alardo. I doubted that he was no son of mine,
But some impostor. 'Twas a foolish fear
With hope twin-born by information scant
That there was cause to hope; so, thinking well
That should I rush to this youth unadvised
The fear would like a hated step-child fare,
And passion nurse the longed-for hope alone,
I wisely verified report in you.
Now, use your wits; devise some plan whereby
I may, myself unknown, confer with Rupert.
Guido. to-day a custom, ancient, all-observed,
But savouring in my mind of pagan rites,
And unbecoming folk of Christendom,
Is followed by our sheepish villagers,
Who in their day and generation act
What by their ancestors has been performed,
In timely order tumbling in the ditch
Some silly, old, bell-wether age first filled.
to-day our youth are met upon the green
To plot a treason licensed by the time,
Which is, to choose a king and queen of May
To reign to-morrow and each holiday;
To whom, alone, they shall allegiance swear
At every festal season of the year.
There Rupert courts his lovely, well-loved quean,
Who will be crowned, if I guess rightly, queen;
And he, most like, so highly throned by birth,
Will reign their monarch on a seat of earth.
In some disguise conceal your royalty;
Go there; inspect your son, and be as free
As though you wore no mask: every degree
Has access to him in this pageantry.
Alardo. A very feasible and pleasant plot.
Come, Conrad, comrade us: since by our lot
Comrades we have been for so long a spell
In danger and in woe, it chords right well
That we be still in unison for joy;
You saw me lose, behold me find my boy.
Conrad. I will, my lord.—Vouchsafe to call to mind
My dead wife's image.
Alardo. Strange! I am inclined
To think of her full oft within these hours.
I see her now, of many lovely flowers
That graced our youthful court the loveliest;
My sweet, her queen; she, queen of all the rest.
The shepherd whose direction helped us here—
'Tis he recalls your lady's pleasant cheer;
Her voice, her smile, her action, yea, her face,
Stronger, being male, as coy, to suit his place.
Conrad. He is, indeed, the picture of her youth.
Conviction now lacks nothing of the truth.
He'll be among those playful-treacherous ones,
Where let us haste to find two long-lost sons.
[They go out.
ACT II
SCENE I.—A Room in Martha's House.
Enter Eulalie.
Eulalie. O little heart of mine, why ache you so?
Enter Martha.
Martha. Why, child, why! What a state is this! Come! and you to be
Queen of the May! They say Prince Rupert will himself be king.
Eulalie. And that it is that troubles me.
Martha. And so it should. Trouble! the highest lady in the land would
be so troubled—such a coil would she be in! What kirtle to put on; what
flower, or none; she'd spend six hours, I warrant, over her hair. Then her
stomacher, her kerchief, and her shoes; her sash, gloves, necklace, each
an hour apiece. But what's your trouble, child?
Eulalie. I do not know.
Martha. Who was it said just now Prince Rupert troubled her?
Eulalie. I think 'tis he; for when I first was told
That they would have me for their Queen of May
It pleased me as a new gown pleases me.
When Rupert's name was buzzed about for king,
My heart became a hive of busy things
That hum perplexingly: I know them not,
But fear they may have stings: that is my grief.
I cannot tell if it be joy or grief:
To grieve for joy were far more happily sad
Than ever I have been; if joy unmixed,
Then wherefore am I sad? 'Tis melancholy.
Martha. Melancholy! Why, child, I would laugh if thou didst not look
it. Come; I have that would banish melancholy from a mummy—a new flowered
silken dress and ribbons.
I'll dress thee and thou'lt be the loveliest queen
That ever led a dance upon the green.
[Goes out.
Eulalie. The mood which I have christened melancholy
Is that, I think, which rules a lonely dove:
It wars with maidhood, yet is not unholy:
I'll rebaptize my melancholy, love:
With dropping tears of virgin purity,
Claiming its soul for spotless chastity.
Re-enter Martha.
Martha. Hurry! There's not a second, child, to spare;
Indeed it is high time that you were there,
Where all the village waits to make you queen;
And that is what your mother ne'er has been.
[They go out.