• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Friendship, farewell: Love makes me now a foe.

[Exit Mountney.]

SCENE II.

An Ante-Chamber at the Danish Court.

[Enter Marques Lubeck and Mariana.]

MARIANA.

Trust me, my Lord, I am sorry for your hurt.

LUBECK.

Gramercie, Madam; but it is not great:

Only a thrust, prickt with a Rapiers point.

MARIANA.

How grew the quarrel, my Lord?

LUBECK.

Sweet Lady, for thy sake. There was this last night two

masks in one company, my self the formost. The other strangers

were: amongst the which, when the Musick began to sound the

Measures, each Masker made choice of his Lady; and one, more

forward than the rest, stept towards thee, which I perceiving,

thrust him aside, and took thee my self. But this was taken in

so ill part that at my coming out of the court gate, with

justling together, it was my chance to be thrust into the arm.

The doer thereof, because he was the original cause of the

disorder at that inconvenient time, was presently committed,

and is this morning sent for to answer the matter. And I

think here he comes.

[Here enters Sir Robert of Windsor with a Gaylor.]

What, Sir Robert of Windsor, how now?

SIR ROBERT.

Yfaith, my Lord, a prisoner: but what ails your arm?

LUBECK.

Hurt the last night by mischance.

SIR ROBERT.

What, not in the mask at the Court gate?

LUBECK.

Yes, trust me, there.

SIR ROBERT.

Why then, my Lord, I thank you for my nights lodging.

LUBECK.

And I you for my hurt, if it were so. Keeper, away, I

discharge you of your prisoner.

[Exit the Keeper.]

SIR ROBERT.

Lord Marques, you offered me disgrace to shoulder me.

LUBECK.

Sir, I knew you not, and therefore you must pardon me, and

the rather it might be alleged to me of mere simplicity to

see another dance with my Maistris, disguised, and I my self

in presence. But seeing it was our happs to damnify each

other unwillingly, let us be content with our harms, and lay

the fault where it was, and so become friends.

SIR ROBERT.

Yfaith, I am content with my nights lodging, if you be content

with your hurt.

LUBECK.

Not content that I have it, but content to forget how I came by it.

SIR ROBERT.

My Lord, here comes Lady Blaunch, lets away.

[Enter Blaunch.]

LUBECK.

With good will. Lady, you will stay?

[Exit Lubeck and Sir Robert.]

MARIANA.

Madam—

BLAUNCH.

Mariana, as I am grieved with thy presence: so am I not

offended for thy absence; and were it not a breach to modesty,

thou shouldest know before I left thee.

MARIANA.

How near is this humor to madness! If you hold on as you

begin, you are in a pretty way to scolding.

BLAUNCH.

To scolding, huswife?

MARIANA.

Madam, here comes one.

[Here enters one with a letter.]

BLAUNCH.

There doth in deed. Fellow, wouldest thou have any thing with any body here?

MESSENGER.

I have a letter to deliver to the Lady Mariana.

BLAUNCH.

Give it me.

MESSENGER.

There must none but she have it.

[Blaunch snatcheth the letter from him. Et exit messenger.]

BLAUNCH.

Go to, foolish fellow. And therefore, to ease the anger I

sustain, I'll be so bold to open it. Whats here? Sir

Robert greets you well? You, Mastries, his love, his life?

Oh amorous man, how he entertains his new Maistres; and

bestows on Lubeck, his od friend, a horn night cap to keep in his witt.

MARIANA.

Madam, though you have discourteously read my letter, yet I

pray you give it me.

BLAUNCH.

Then take it: there, and there, and there!

[She tears it. Et exit Blaunch.]

MARIANA.

How far doth this differ from modesty! Yet will I gather

up the pieces, which happily may shew to me the intent

thereof, though not the meaning.

[She gathers up the pieces and joins them.]

'Your servant and love, sir Robert of Windsor, Alias William

the Conqueror, wisheth long health and happiness'. Is this

William the Conqueror, shrouded under the name of sir Robert

of Windsor? Were he the Monarch of the world he should not

disposess Lubeck of his Love. Therefore I will to the

Court, and there, if I can, close to