Cards of Identity (38 page)

CAPT
:
Now, smartly hearties; to it, to it: th’ next lesson! Stir your-dry joints, ’fleet shrewdness in your eyes; supple up. When tutor barks, lazybones get nipped in the hams!

DUKE
:
Oh my poor legs! Poor cracking meat! Is such the life led by men beneath the throne? Oh, oh! A hundred thrones seem pitched upon my shoulders!

PRINCE
:
Courage, courage! I too am fazed like a reed, but my swimming self is renaissant for sure.

COUNT
:
There’s ought but stillbirth in my poor cradle.

CAPT
:
Triple chatterers, save breath for acts! Now’s a lesson against thievery. Some teachers put it at the head of the book: I like it later, after experience. Suppose the Duke a fat farmer, back from market fatter than ’a went; elbows tight asides to dim the chink of coin. Prince, a slim rogue would pick his pockets, elbows despite. Count, the farmer’s friend, and would save him. Now! to it, all three! Strut, Duke, fat farmer! Up sly behind, rogue Prince! Run up distressed, country friend! (
Prince picks Duke’s pocket
.) Why, rogue, those paunchy fingers would wake the hibernating bear! Strike him, farmer! (
Duke strikes Prince
.) Now, rogue, run for thy life, or farmer and friend will have thee! Must jump those hedges in the way, or swing! (
Prince runs, followed by Duke and Count
.) Over, beauties, tuck up your calves, leap for the moon! (
Prince, Duke, and Count try
to jump the hurdle, fall in a heap with hurdle on top of them
.) Sad, sad! I’ll brush you all, dough-legs: white bread and daffodils rise smarter.

PRINCE
:
My poor backbone is snapt through. Prithee, good Duke, regurge thy champing knee.

DUKE
:
Knee? I’ve no knee; ’tis smashed its cap right off. Good Count, reject thy belly from my nose.

COUNT
:
Good hurdle, depart in peace from off my neck.

CAPT
:
Next time, thou’lt all know better – pick neater, strike sharper, tuck up thy toes like hawks fresh up from the wrist.

PRINCE
:
Teacher’s a hard taskmaster and I a poor puffin: nevertheless, it delights me to see wisdom peer through the cracks in my bones.

DUKE
:
I’ll not be laggard; so I’ll say that every blue bruise on my poor flesh is worth a heap of purple.

CAPT
:
Hast breath to groan and yap, hast breath for the next lesson! Up, up and read! Now, ye are three scurvy soldiers, dropped by a flying rearguard, pikes and muskets a foot behind ye. Run, run for your lives; enemy is fierce on tail, and the first one caught must be whipped and stripped. Off, off!

HERM
:
Lente,
lente
– I have forgot the rest,

Save that it sadly treats of knights and horses.

CATRI
:
Glum, Madam?

HERM
:
Ay, glum to death and farther.

I’d find a cosy convent for retreat,

Were’t not that they of late are grown

So fashionable, there’s not a cell

That has no tender she. One little week

Of seven tiny days – speak not o’ nights –

And I am all flung out. The Duke’s

Insipid bride, convoyed from old

Artois, will take his marriage hand,

While I, his whilome ministress, must go,

Leaving my maidenhead

Upon the field I lost it.

CATRI
:
Courage, lady! Has not good Baalbeck’s

Count (like miracle disclosed as more than clown),

Cast orient eyes upon thy bust and

Groaned like smitten peer?

HERM
:
He hath indeed, but yet I have no rank,

Am nobody, am nothing, pas di too.

CATRI
:
In fables, Madam, when the sheep-girl sighs,

’Tis found in nick of time she is some queen,

Raised in the mercy of a shepherd’s crook

But always by a royal sire forsook.

Or else, what she presents is masquerade

Concealing blood as pure as marmalade.

HERM
:
No hope that way, I fear.

In latter days, disguise is grown so rife

That it is folly to expect a peer

To credit any more. ’Tis said

So many kings are now abroad

In shape of scullions, so many

Queens, got in whores’ clothings, that at taverns

Each looks on each in sharp soliloquy,

And dofféd caps must sure reveal gold crowns.

No, Catriona, I am soon gone out

In smock and clog which hide no more than me.

Yet do I love the Duke and wish him well.

It doth perturb me that his present whim

Is got so boistrous. Bound up

By that bad captain, he’s so rough,

So banged and crouchet-up, I

Fear that when his fair bride comes

He’ll ninny at her like a capon’d Jove.

CATRI
:
Fear not, dear lady.

Methinks the Duke’s prime blood

Will summon reassertion at the pinch.

And he, o’erjoyed by manhood, will bestow

A handsome purse to take you your long way.

HERM
:
Amen, amen. And yet, I would be counterfeit.

CATRI
:
Why so, Madam?

HERM
:
Nay, the better to lose him. I’ll not miss him if I’m not myself.

’Twill be another he’s pushed out.

CATRI
:
’Twere better stay thyself, Madam. Thou’lt not love the Duke in his changed form, and so will be free of him. Shouldst thou
change too, thou mightst do so into a new lady approximative to his new gentleman and then all would be grievous once again.

HERM
:
Hast experienced these things, Catriona, that thou speak’st so?

CATRI
:
Aye, Madam, as oft as I have lain with one. I have been mad with love for them until they have left me; thereafter, I have thought them mad, and myself in self-possession once more.

HERM
:
And didst thou not bewail these sad divisions?

CATRI
:
Wail, Madam? Why, forsooth, I wailed, that my eyes filled water-butts. But ’twas water, Madam, brook-water, pure as rain; ’twas not the bitter brine which I shed when my hare, Bobby, ate of green pears and was took by Colic the Hunter.

HERM
:
Fie, Cat! To set a hare above man in the open heart!

CATRI
:
Ay, and shut it fast up again when the hare was took out.

HERM
:
What’s the advice, then? That I do retain my old self and offer it anew?

CATRI
:
Surely, Madam, that’s the course. Has the Duke declared—outright he will cast you off?

HERM
:
Nay, not yet. A manly hesitation seals his lips.

CATRI
:
I know it well, that seal. I beg you, Madam, cast you him quickly, while you are still tied up.

HERM
:
And knot anew with Baalbeck?

CATRI
:
Why not, Madam? Baalbeck will love you more, that you have turned to him of your own will, not of compulsion. And the Duke will regret you, in that he has not had the privilege of putting you from him.

HERM
:
Is not this making a play of love?

CATRI
:
Ay, Madam, forsooth it is, and to play is a jolly thing – a very breeder of love. Your turn is come, to strike: I beg you, do not leave it to your opponent.

HERM
:
I’ll think on this, Catriona.

CATRI
:
Ay, Madam, and think well. There’s some say thought is fruitless: I have ever found much advantage in it.

DUKE
:
A galling, squalid day: thank God ’tis done! If it’s thus my peasants live, then heaven’s all should occupy their dreams.

PRINCE
:
See, brother-duke, thou’rt learning piety as well as craft.

DUKE
:
Piety, too, may be bought too dear. I am smashed like a bowl of choice walnuts. Ah well, lesson’s over; I’m duke again for the night. What’s for supper?

ATTEND
:
Venison and Humphrey pasties, my lord, and muted cress in a wine coddle.

DUKE
:
Ha! Bring it straight: I’m fed to the teeth with suasion, but not so much as a sausage to bite on. (
Attendant brings venison
.) Sit, brother Prince, brother Count, here’s rich reward!

CAPT
:
What, sagged at the knees and greedy? Here’s lesson the twenty-fifth – to stay staunch and prime on a belly empty as a consul’s conscience.

DUKE
:
What, blackguard? I may not eat?

CAPT
:
Bring him black bread and a shrew’s-worth of cheap ale. Must suffer for thy own sake, Duke, and I, the diligent doctor, take my fee.

PRINCE
(
eating
):
Like much morality, ’tis bitter bread, meant for the soul not the stomach. Therein is its worth.

DUKE
(
eating
):
It rankles me: nevertheless, I doubt not but your words are fit and right.

COUNT
(
eating
):
Yea, right as the passing ding-dong, and fit for a corpse in his shroud.

CAPT
:
If ye have breath to converse, lesson the twenty-sixth is soon ready at hand.

DUKE
:
Nay, nay, sweet instructor, we are silent as clay pipes.

CAPT
:
Must still learn the way with underlings. Unrobe that dais, mount me upon it.

DUKE
:
What, y’are on my throne, dog?

CAPT
:
To instruct a play rightly, the forms must be mimicked. I am pretending judge; ye are three varlets must defend thyselves with thy wits. Now I ask pompous: Sirrahs, it is evidented that you did mischievously purloin ten livres from the groom o’ the duke’s chamber when ’a was fuddled and unstrung. Do I say right, Master Groom?

1
ST
ATTEN
:
Ay, Lord Justice, but I was only unstrung; not fuddled, musing on philosophic themes.

CAPT
:
Thy philosophy snored and had bad breath. Well, accused, didst ravish this stinking philosopher?

DUKE
:
Nay, good my lord, I but stood there to guard the sleeper from prowling thieves.

PRINCE
:
And I was not so much as present at all, Lord; but with Tib and Arthur in another town.

COUNT
:
For me, I never did see these two men before now, nor do I know any groom.

DUKE
:
My lord, he decoys like a false mushroom, and is an atheist come straight from the galleys.

PRINCE
:
My lord, these are both young foragers who love a purse; but I am old in purity as I am babe in innocence.

CAPT
:
Thieves’ separate quarrels, mind you well, pupils, indicate conjunctive guilt. Now I order: Mr Serjeant, seize and search these villains! (
Attendants search Duke, Prince, and Count
.) What findings, sir?

1
ST
ATTEN
:
On villain Count, a wretchedly scrabbled sonnet to ’s mistress.

CAPT
:
Read it forth

1
ST
ATTEN
:
Under
suppression
of
thine
eye’s
black
darts,

DUKE
:
Dog, not in play, but truth! Hast flapped cow’s eyes at my mistress?

COUNT
:
Let’s stop the play, or further harm be done.

CAPT
:
Play’s must be played out, little ones, or what’s a teacher for? A drivelling sonnet’s bad evidence; bad, bad, but not to present point. Search the next caitiff. (
Attendants search the Duke, find the
ducal seal, keys, and gold, which they hand to the Captain
.) Oh, shocking, shocking, here’s the theft itself; ten livres, precious keys, and the ducal warrant! Take them below, dungeon them, Mr Serjeant.

DUKE
:
Sirrah, what lesson’s this? I would now I had swung you!

CAPT
:
Peace, peace, my lord, ’tis but a pretending end to a pretended day, an interlude serving to teach thee how to sleep on cold stone. Thou’lt laugh and be proud tomorrow, chockfull of hard wisdom.

DUKE
:
Methinks I have engorged enough. What say you, Antioch?

PRINCE
:
That peaceably we should go below, and become sage as frogs from observation of damp quarters. ’Twill stand us in good stead if ever we are downset in earnest.

DUKE
:
It’s foul and horrid, but I must not wail. Tedium has left my life.

CAPT
:
Tomorrow, when the laughing turnkey comes

And bends the intércedent lock ’twixt you and day,

The gentle world will seem so sweet and dear

That thou wilt praise provision of contrast.

And I shall be again a sailor low,

And thou shalt be again a thund’ring duke

And all the world refitted as it was.

What’s more delectable than old identity?

PRINCE
:
Come, brothers, sweet dreams wait below.

DUKE
:
Sweet as rats’ eyes, doubtless; but I’ll go.

COUNT
:
So down with wisdom, folly’s on the throne.