John Fletcher - A King, and No King

Bes .
And if I can prefer her to the Lady Pentha your Majesties
Sister, to learn fashions, as her friends term it, it will be
worth something to me.

Mar .
Sir let her bear her sins on her own head,
Vex not your self.

Arb .
What will the world
Conceive of me? with what unnatural sins
Will they suppose me loaden, when my life
Is sought by her that gave it to the world?
But yet he writes me comfort here, my Sister,
He saies, is grown in beauty and in grace.
In all the innocent vertues that become
A tender spotless maid: she stains her cheeks
With morning tears to purge her mothers ill,
And 'mongst that sacred dew she mingles Prayers
Her pure Oblations for my safe return:
If I have lost the duty of a Son,
If any pomp or vanity of state
Made me forget my natural offices,
Nay farther, if I have not every night
Expostulated with my wandring thoughts,
If ought unto my parent they have err'd,
And call'd 'em back: do you direct her arm
Unto this foul dissembling heart of mine:
But if I have been just to her, send out
Your power to compass me, and hold me safe
From searching treason; I will use no means
But prayer: for rather suffer me to see
From mine own veins issue a deadly flood,
Than wash my danger off with mothers blood.

Tigr .
Why? wilt thou have me die Spaconia.
What should I do?

Spa .
Nay let me stay alone,
And when you see Armenia again,
You shall behold a Tomb more worth than I;
Some friend that ever lov'd me or my cause,
Will build me something to distinguish me
From other women, many a weeping verse
He will lay on, and much lament those maids,
That plac'd their loves unfortunately high,
As I have done, where they can never reach;
But why should you go to Iberia ?

Tigr .
Alas, that thou wilt ask me, ask the man
That rages in a Fever why he lies
Distempered there, when all the other youths
Are coursing o're the Meadows with their Loves?
Can I resist it? am I not a slave
To him that conquer'd me?

Spa .
That conquer'd thee Tigranes ! he has won
But half of thee, thy body, but thy mind
May be as free as his, his will did never
Combate thine, and take it prisoner.

Tigr .
But if he by force convey my body hence,
What helps it me or thee to be unwilling?

Spa .
O Tigranes , I know you are to see a Lady there,
To see, and like I fear: perhaps the hope
Of her make[s] you forget me, ere we part,
Be happier than you know to wish; farewel.

Tigr .
Spaconia , stay and hear me what I say:
In short, destruction meet me that I may
See it, and not avoid it, when I leave
To be thy faithful lover: part with me
Thou shalt not, there are none that know our love,
And I have given gold unto a Captain
That goes unto Iberia from the King,
That he will place a Lady of our Land
With the Kings Sister that is offered me;
Thither shall you, and being once got in
Perswade her by what subtil means you can
To be as backward in her love as I.

Spa .
Can you imagine that a longing maid
When she beholds you, can be pull'd away
With words from loving you?

Spa .
Why, I had rather lose you: can my heart
Consent to let my tongue throw out such words,
And I that ever yet spoke what I thought,
Shall find it such a thing at first to lie?