The Golden Age

The Golden Age or The Lives of Jupiter and Saturn, with the Defining  of the Heathen Gods. As it hath been sundry times acted at the Red Bull by the Queen’s Majesty’s Servants. Written by Thomas Heywood.

TAM ROBUR TAM ROBOR NI-COLIS ARBOR IOVIS. 1610 N. O. ♃ 

London, printed for William Barrenger, and are to be sold at his shop near the great North-Door of Paul’s. 1611.

To the Reader.

This play coming accidentally to the press, and at length having notice thereof, I was loath (finding it mine own) to see it thrust naked into the world, to abide the fury of all weathers, without either title for acknowledgement, or the formality of an epistle for ornament. Therefore rather to keep custom, than any necessity, I have fixed these few lines in the front of my book: neither to approve it as tasteful to every palate, nor to disgrace it, as able to relish none, only to commit it freely to the general censure of readers, as it hath already past the approbation of auditors. This is The Golden Age, the eldest brother of three Ages that have adventured the stage, but the only yet that hath been judged to the press. As this is received, so you shall find the rest: either fearful further to proceed, or encouraged boldly to follow.

Yours ever

T. H.

The Names of Persons Presented in the Play.

Homer.

Two Lords of Crete.

Vesta mother of Saturn,

Sibylla wife to Saturn.

Lycaon son to Titan.

Calisto daughter to Lycaon.

Jupiter.

Juno.

Melliseus King of Epire.

Archas son to Calisto and Jupiter.

Diana.

Atlanta.

Acrisius King of Arges.

Danae daughter to Acrisius.

King Troos.

Ganymede.

A Lord of Arges.

Two Lords of Pelagia.

Four beldams.

Clown.

Nurse.

Satyrs.

Nymphs.

The Golden Age, with the Lives of Jupiter and Saturn.

[PROLOGUE]

Enter old HOMER 

The gods of Greece, whose deities I raised

Out of the earth, gave them divinity,

The attributes of sacrifice and prayer,

Have given old Homer leave to view the world

And make his own presentment. I am he

That by my pen gave heaven to Jupiter,

Made Neptune’s trident calm the curled waves,

Gave Aeolus lordship o’er the warring winds;

Created black-haired Pluto king of ghosts,

And regent o’er the kingdoms fixed below.

By me Mars wars, and fluent Mercury

Speaks from my tongue. I placed divine Apollo

Within the sun’s bright chariot. I made Venus

Goddess of love, and to her winged son

Gave several arrows, tipped with gold and lead.

What hath not Homer done, to make his name

Live to eternity? I was the man

That flourished in the world’s first infancy:

When it was young, and knew not how to speak,

I taught it speech, and understanding both

Even in the cradle: O then suffer me,

You that are in the world’s decrepit age,

When it is near his universal grave,

To sing an old song, and in this Iron Age

Show you the state of the first golden world.

I was the Muses’ patron, Learning’s spring,

And you shall once more hear blind Homer sing.

[1.1]

Enter two Lords.

FIRST LORD

The old Uranus, son of the Air and Day 

Is dead, and left behind him two brave sons,

Titan and Saturn. 

SECOND LORD   Titan is the eldest,

And should succeed by the true right of birth.

FIRST LORD

But Saturn hath the hearts of all the people,

The Kingdom’s high applause, his mother’s love,

The least of these are steps unto a crown.

SECOND LORD

But how will Titan bear him in these troubles,

Being by nature proud and insolent,

To see the younger seated in his throne,

And he to whom the true right appertains,

By birth, and law of nations quite cast off?

FIRST LORD

That either power or steel must arbitrate:

Causes best friended have the best event.

Here Saturn comes.

Enter Saturn and Vesta with other attendants.

SATURN

Behold what nature scanted me in year,

And time, below my brother; your applause,

And general love, fully supplies me with:

And make me to his crown inheritable.

I choose it as my right by gift of heaven,

The people’s suffrage, the dead king’s bequest,

And your election, our fair mother queen,

Against all these what can twelve moons of time,

Prevail with Titan to dis-herit us.

VESTA

The Cretan people, with shrill acclamations

Pronounce thee sovereign o’er their lands and lives.

Let Titan storm, and threaten strange revenge,

We are resolved thy honour to maintain.

FIRST LORD

Titan, thy ruin shall attempt in vain.

Our hearts adhere with Vesta’s, our late queen,

According to our sovereign’s late bequest,

To kneel to Saturn.

SATURN     We accept your loves,

And we will strive by merit to exceed you,

In just requital of these favours done.

VESTA

Arm Lords, I hear the voice

Of Titan storming at this strange election.  A noise of tumult within

Enter Titan, Lycaon and others.

TITAN

Descend proud upstart, tricked up in stolen weeds,

Decked in usurped state, and borrowed honours,

Resign them to their owner, that’s to me.

SATURN

Titan, keep off, I charge thee near me not,

Lest I thy bold presumption seal with blood.

TITAN

A crown’s worth tugging for, and I will ha’t

Though in pursuit I dare my ominous fate.

LYCAON

Down with the usurper.

VESTA

Saturn here shall stand,

Immoveable, upheld by Vesta’s hand.

TITAN

Am I not eldest?

VESTA        Ay, but youngest in brain.

Saturn the crown hath seized, and he shall reign.

TITAN

Am I a bastard, that my heritage

Is wrested from me by a younger birth?

Hath Vesta played th’ adulteress with some stranger?

If I be eldest from Uranus’ loins,

Your maiden issue, why am I debarred

The law of nations? Am I Vesta’s son?

Why doth not Vesta then appear a mother?

Was younger Saturn, bedded in your womb,

Nearer your heart than I, that he’s affected

And I despised? If none of these, then grant me,

What justice wills, my interest in the crown:

Or if you make me outcast, if my mother

Forget the love she owes, I shall abandon

The duty of a son. If Saturn prove

unnatural, I’ll be no more a brother,

But maugre all that have my right withstood,

Revenge my wrongs, and make my way through blood.

SATURN

Titan, we both acknowledge thee a brother,

And Vesta’s son, which we’ll express in love,

But since for many virtues growing in me

That have no life in you, the queen, the peers,

And all the people, with loud suffrages,

Haue shrilled their aves  high above the clouds,

And styled me king, we should forget their loves

Not to maintain their strange election.

Advise you therefore, since this bold adventure

Is much above your strength, to arm yourself

In search of future honours with our love,

For what can Titan do against a people?

VESTA

Saturn adviseth well, list to his counsel.

TITAN

If my own land prove thus unnatural,

I’ll purchase foreign aid.

FIRST LORD     Rather compound.

SATURN

Let Titan make demand of anything

Saving our crown, he shall enjoy it freely.

VESTA

Titan, your brother offers royally,

Accept his love.

TITAN     To lose a crown includes

The loss of all things. What should I demand?

LYCAON

This grant him, Saturn, since thy insinuation

Hath wrought him quite out of the Cretans’ hearts,

That Titan’s warlike issue may succeed thee.

TITAN

Lycaon well advised: he, during life,

Shall reign in peace, no interruption

Shall pass from Titan to disturb his reign,

So to our giant race thou wilt assure

The crown as due by right inheritance.

SATURN

To cut off all hostile effusion

Of human blood, which by our difference

Must needs be spilt upon the barren earth,

We’ll swear to this accord.

TITAN         Conditioned thus,

That to deprive all future enmity

In our succeeding issue, thy male children

Thou in their cradle strangle.

SATURN          Kill my sons?

TITAN

Or swear to this, or all our warlike race,

Dispersed in several kingdoms I’ll assemble

To conquer thee, and from thy ambitious head

Tear that usurped crown.

SATURN        Titan, thy friendship

We’ll buy with our own blood: all our male children,

(If we hereafter shall have any born)

Shall perish in their births, to this we swear,

As we are King and Saturn.

TITAN          I the like,

As I am Titan, and Uranus’ son:

This league confirmed, all my allies I’ll gather,

Search foreign climes, in which I’ll plant my kin,

Scorning a seat here where I am despised,

To live a subject to a younger birth,

Nor bow to that which is my own by due.

Saturn, farewell, I’ll leave thee to thy state,

Whilst I in foreign kingdoms search my fate.

Think on thy oath.

SATURN     First stay with us and feast,

Titan this day shall be King Saturn’s guest. [Exeunt]

[1.2]

Enter the clown and a nurse.

CLOWN

There is no dallying, you must come with all speed, for Madam Sibilla is grown a great woman.

NURSE

That is without question, for she is now a queen.

CLOWN

Nay, she is greater than many queens are: for though you may think she is with ancient folks, yet I can assure you she is with child; you may imagine, being now but morning she is new risen, yet ’tis thought that ere noon she will be brought a-bed. I never heard she was committed to prison: yet ’tis looked every hour when she shall be delivered, and therefore, nurse, I was sent to you in all haste.

NURSE

Is she so near her time?

CLOWN

Yes: and yet ’tis thought she will notwithstanding hold out, because she is groaning.

NURSE

Your reason?

CLOWN

Because you know the proverb, “a grunting horse and a groaning wife never deceive their master”. Say, will you make haste, nurse?

NURSE

What’s the best news abroad?

CLOWN

The best news abroad is that the queen is likely to keep at home: and is it not strange, that half-an-hour’s being abroad should make a woman have a month’s mind to keep in? But the worst news is that if the king have a young prince, he is tied to kill it by oath: but if his majesty went drunk to bed, and got a girl, she hath leave to live till she die, and die when she can live no longer.

NURSE

That covenant was the most unnatural

That ever father made: one lovely boy

Hath felt the rigor of that strict decree,

And if this second likewise be a son,

There is no way but death.

CLOWN

I can tell you more news: the king hath sent to the Oracle to know whether my lady be with child of a boy or a girl, and what their fortunes shall be: the lord that went is looked for every day to return with his answer: it is so gossiped in the queen’s chamber, I can tell you. O nurse, we have the bravest king, if thou knewest all.

NURSE

Why, I pray thee?

CLOWN

Let his virtues speak for himself: he hath taught his people to sow, to plough, to reap corn, and to scorn acorns with their heels, to bake and to brew: we that were wont to drink nothing but water, have the bravest liquor at court as passeth . Besides, he hath devised a strange engine, called a bow and arrow, that a man may hold in hand, and kill a wild beast a great way off, and never come in danger of his clutches. I’ll tell you a strange thing, nurse, last time the king went a hunting, he killed a bear, brought him home to be baked and eaten: a gentlewoman of the court, that fed hungerly upon this pie, had such a rumbling and roaring in her guts, that her entrails were all in a mutiny, and could not be appeased. No physick would help her: what did the king but caused an excellent mastiff to be knocked in the head, and dressed, gave it to the gentlewoman, of which when she had well eaten, the flesh of the mastiff worried the bear in her belly, and ever since her guts have left wambling . But come, come, I was sent in haste, the queen must needs speak with you.  Exeunt.

[1.3]

Enter Saturn with wedges of gold and silver, models of ships, and buildings, bow and arrows, etc. His lords with him.

SATURN

You shall no more be lodged beneath the trees,

Nor chamber underneath the spreading oaks:

Behold, I have devised you forms for tools,

To square out timber, and perform the art

Of architecture, yet unknown till now.

I’ll draw you forms of cities, towns and towers,

For use and strength; behold the models here.

FIRST LORD

Saturn’s inventions are divine, not human,

A God-like spirit hath inspired his reign.

SATURN

See here a second art of husbandry,

To till the earth, to plough, to sow, to plant,

Devised by Saturn: here is gold refined

From grosser metals, silver, brass, and tin,

With other minerals, extract from earth.

I likewise have found out to make your brooks,

Rivers, and seas by practice navigable.

Behold a form to make your crayers  and barks

To passe huge streams in safety, dangerless.

SECOND LORD

Saturn is a god.

SATURN

The last, not least, this use of archery,

The stringed bow, and nimble-feathered shaft:

By this you may command the flying fowl,

And reach her from on high; this serves for war,

To strike and wound thy foeman from afar.

What means this acclamation?

A loud shout within.

FIRST LORD        ’Tis thy people,

Divinest Saturn, furnished with these uses,

(More than the gods have lent them) by thy means,

Proclaim to thee a lasting deity

And would have Saturn honoured as a god.

SATURN

We’ll study future profits for their use,

And in our fresh inventions prove divine.

But gods are never touched with my suspires,

Passions and throbs: their god-like issue thrive,

Whilst I unmanlike must destroy my babes.

O my strict oath to Titan, which confounds

All my precedent honours: one sweet babe,

My youngest Ops, hath felt the bloody knife,

And perished in his  swathing, and my queen

Swells with another infant in her womb,

Ready to taste like rigor. Is that lord

Return’d from Delphos yet?

SECOND LORD

He is.

SATURN

Admit him: now what doth the Oracle

Speak by the Delphian priest?

THIRD LORD        Thus mighty Saturn.

After our ceremonious rites performed,

And sacrifice ended with reverence,

A murmuring thunder hurried through the temple,

When fell a pleasant shower, whose silver drops

Filled all the altar with a roseate dew.

In this amazement, thus the Delphian god

Spake from the incensed altar. “Lord of Crete,

Thus say to Saturn: Sybil his fair wife,

Is great with a young prince of noble hopes

That shall his father’s virtues much excel,

Seize on his crown, and drive him down to Hell”.

SATURN

The gods (if there be any ’bove our self)

Envy our greatness, and of one that seeks

To bear himself ’bove man makes me more wretched

Than the most slavish brute. What, shall my Sybil

Bring me a son that shall depose me then?

He shall not; I will cross the deities,

I’ll tomb  th’ usurper in his infant blood,

I’ll keep my oath; Prince Titan shall succeed,

Maugre the envious gods, the brat shall bleed.

FIRST LORD

Way for the dowager queen!

Enter Vesta sad.

SATURN

How fares our mother?

How i’st with fair Sibylla, our dear queen?

VESTA

Your queen’s delivered.

SATURN       Of some female birth,

You deities I beg: make me, o heavens,

No more inhuman in the tragic slaughter

Of princely infants; fill my decreed number

With virgins, though in them I lose my name

And kingdom, either make her barren ever

Or else all generative power and appetite

Deprive me, lest my purple sin be styled

Many degrees ’bove murder. What’s her birth?

VESTA

She’s the sad mother of a second son.

SATURN

Be ever dumb, let everlasting silence

Toung-tie the world, all human voice henceforth

Turn to confused, and undistinguished sound

Of barking hounds, hoarse bears, and howling wolves,

To stop all rumour that may fill the world

With Saturn’s tyrannies against his sons.

VESTA

Ah, did but Saturn see yon smiling babe,

He’d give it life, and break ten thousand oaths

Rather than suffer the sweet infant die.

His very look would beg a quick reprieve

Even of the tyrant Titan: saw the uncle

With what a graceful look the infant smiles,

He’d give it life, although he purchased it

With loss of a great kingdom.

SATURN

Then spare the lad: I did offend too much

To kill the first, tell Sybil he shall live,

I’ll be no more so monstrous in my rigor,

Nor with the blood of princes buy my crown.

No more their cradles shall be made their tombs,

Nor their soft swathes become their winding sheets:

How can my subjects think I’ll spare their lives

That to my own can be so tyrannous?

Tell Sybil he shall live.

VESTA

Vesta will be that joyful messenger.

SATURN

Stay, let me first reward the Oracle:

It told me Sybil should produce a son

That should his father’s virtues much excel,

Seize on my crown, and drive me down to Hell.

Must I then give an infant-traitor life,

To sting me to the heart? The brat shall bleed. 

VESTA

Sweet son!

FIRST LORD  Dear sovereign!

SATURN          He that next replies,

Mother or friend, by Saturn’s fury dies.

Away, fetch me his heart, brim me a bowl 

With his warm blood. Titan, my vow I’ll keep,

Life newly wakened shall as newly sleep.

VESTA

Worse than a brute, for brutes preserve their own,

Worse than the worst of things is Saturn grown.

SATURN

Command the child to death.

VESTA          Tyrant, I will.

Tigers would save whom Saturn means to kill.  [Exit]

SATURN

It is my son whom I command to death,

A prince that may succeed me in my throne,

And to posterity revive my name!

Call Vesta back and bid her save the babe.

FIRST LORD

I’ll do’t my lord.

SATURN    Yet stay: the lad to kill

I save my oath, and keep my kingdom still.

Post after her and charge them on their lives,

Send me the babe’s blood in a cup of gold,

A present which I’ll offer to the gods.

Delay not, be’t our mother, nay our wife,

Forfeits her own to save the infant’s life.

FIRST LORD

I shall inform them so. [Exit]

SATURN         Is this a deity,

To be more wretched than the worst on earth,

To be deprived that comfort of my issue,

Which even the basest of my land enjoy?

I’ll henceforth for my rigor hate myself,

Pleasures despise, and joys abandon quite.

The purest blood that runs within my veins

I’ll dull with thick and troubled melancholy, 

I’ll war with comfort, be at odds with solace,

And league with nothing but distemperature.

Henceforth my unkempt locks shall knot in curls,

Razor nor any edge shall kiss my cheek,

until my chin appear a wilderness

And make me wild in knowledge to the world.

Perpetual care shall cabin in my heart,

My tyranny I’ll punish in myself,

And save the gods that labour —

Saturn’s disturbance to the world shall be

That planet that infuseth melancholy. [Exit]

[1.4]

Enter Sibylla lying in childbed, with her child lying by her, and her nurse, etc.

SIBYLLA

Is not our mother Vesta yet returned,

That made herself th’ unwilling messenger,

To bring the king news of his newborn son?

NURSE

Madam, not yet.

SIBYLLA

Mother, of all that ever mothers were

Most wretched, kiss thy sweet babe ere he die,

That hath life only lent to suffer death.

Sweet lad, I would thy father saw thee smile,

Thy beauty and thy pretty infancy

Would mollify his heart were’t hewed from flint,

Or carved with iron tools from the Corsic rock.

Thou laughest to think thou must be killed in jest.

O, if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murd’ress,

And kill thee with my kisses (pretty knave).

And canst thou laugh to see thy mother weep?

Or art thou in thy cheerful smiles so free

In scorn of thy rude father’s tyranny?

NURSE

Madam, the king hath slain his first-born son,

Whom had he seen alive, he’d not have given

For ten such kingdoms as he now enjoys:

The death of such a fair and hopeful child

Is full as much as Titan can demand.

SIBYLLA

He shall spare this sweet babe: I’ll ransom thee

With my own life, the knife that pierceth thee

Will wound thy mother’s side, and I shall feel

The least sharp stroke from his offensive steel.

NURSE

The mother queen’s returned.

Enter Vesta

[SIBYLLA]         How looks she, nurse?

Let her not speak, but yet a little longer

My hopes hold in suspense: o, me most wretched,

I read my lord’s harsh answer in her eye,

Her very looks tell me the boy must die.

Say, must he? must he? Kill me with that word,

Which will wound deeper than King Saturn’s sword.

VESTA

The boy must die.

SIBYLLA

O!

NURSE

Look to the queen, she faints!

VESTA

O, let’s not lose the mother with her infant,

The loss of one’s too much.

SIBYLLA         O, where’s my child?

I’ll hide thee in my bed, my bosom, breast,

The murderer shall not find my little son,

Thou shalt not die, be not afraid my boy.

Go tell the king he’s mine as well as his,

And I’ll not kill my part: one he hath slain,

In which I had like interest; this I’ll save,

And every second son keep from the grave.

Enter the First Lord.

VESTA

Forbear sir, for this place is privileged,

And only for free women.

FIRST LORD

Yet is the king’s command ’bove your decree,

And I must play th’ intruder ’gainst my will.

The king upon your lives hath charged you

To see that infant lad immediately

Receive his death: he stays for his warm blood

To offer to the gods. To think him slain,

Sad partner of your sorrows I remain.

NURSE

Madam, you hear the king doth threat our lives,

Let’s kill him then.

SIBYLLA      Is he inexorable?

Why should not I prove as severe a mother

As he a cruel father: since the king

Hath doomed him, I the queen will do’t myself.

Give me the fatal engine of his wrath,

I’ll play the horrid murd’ress for this once.

I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life,

The lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife!

VESTA

Then give him me, I am his grandmother,

And I will kill him gently: this sad office

Belongs to me, as to the next of kin.

SIBYLLA

For heaven’s sake, when you kill him, hurt him not.

VESTA

Come little knave, prepare your naked throat,

I have not heart to give thee many wounds,

My kindness is to take thy life at once. Now!

Alack, my pretty grandchild, smil’st thou still?

I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill.

NURSE

You may be careless of the king’s command,

But it concerns me, and I love my life

More than I do a suckling’s, give him me,

I’ll make him sure. A sharp weapon lend,

I’ll quickly bring the youngster to his end.

Alack, my pretty knave, ’twere more than sin

With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin.

On, madam, he’s so full of angel grace

I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face.

SIBYLLA

I’ll wink and strike, come, once more reach him hither:

For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed,

’Las for a world I would not see him bleed.

VESTA

Ne shall he do, but swear me secrecy,

The babe shall live, and we be dangerless.

SIBYLLA

O bless me with such happiness!

VESTA           Attend me.

The king of Epire’s daughters, two bright maids, 

Owe me for many favours the like love.

These I dare trust, to them I’ll send this babe

To be brought up, but not as Saturn’s son.

Do but provide some trusty messenger,

My honour for his safety.

SIBYLLA.

But by what means shall we delude the king?

VESTA

A young kid’s heart, swimming in reeking blood

We’ll send the king, and with such forged grief,

And counterfeit sorrow shadow it,

That this imposture never shall be found.

SIBYLLA

O twice my mother you bestow upon me

A double life thus to preserve my boy.

NURSE

Give me the child, I’ll find a messenger

Shall bear him safe to Melliseus’ court.

VESTA

The blood and heart I’ll presently provide,

T’ appease the rage of Saturn.

SIBYLLA          First let’s swear

To keep this secret from King Saturn’s ear.

VESTA

We will, and if this plot pass undiscovered

By like device we will save all your sons.

About our tasks! You some choice friend to find,

I with my feigned tears the king to blind. [Exeunt]

[2.1]

Enter Homer.

HOMER

What cannot women’s wits? They wonders can

When they intend to blind the eyes of man.

O lend me what old Homer wants, your eyes,

To see th’ event of what these queens devise.

The dumb show; sound.

Enter the nurse and clown: she swears him to secrecy, and to him delivers the child and a letter to the daughters of King Melliseus; they part. Enter at one door Saturn melancholy, with his lords: at the other Vesta, and the nurse who with counterfeit passion present the king a bleeding heart upon a knife’s point, and a bowl of blood. The king departs one way in great sorrow, the ladies the other way in great joy.

This passed so current that the third son born,

Called Neptune, was by like device preserved,

And sent to Athens, where he lived unknown,

And had in time command upon the seas.

Pluto the youngest was sent to Tartary, 

Where he in process a strange city built

And called it Hell; his subjects for their rapine,

Their spoils and theft are devils termed abroad.

Thus melancholy Saturn hath surviving

Three noble sons in several confines placed,

And yet himself thinks son-less: one fair daughter,

Hight Juno, is his sole delight on earth.

Think, kind spectators, seventeen summers past, 

Till these be grown to years, and Jupiter

Found in a cave by the great Epire king,

(where by his daughters he before was hid).

Of him and of his fortunes we proceed,

My journey’s long, and I my eyesight want.

Courteous spectators, lest blind Homer stray,

Lend me your hands  to guide me on your way. [Exit]

[2.2]

Enter Lycaon with his lords; Jupiter with other lords of Epire.

LYCAON

After long war, and tedious differences

Betwixt King Melliseus and ourself,

What crave the Epire lords?

JUPITER          This, King Lycaon.

Since truce and hostage hath ta’en up these broils,

And ended them in peaceful amity,

Since all the damage by the Epirians done,

Is on our part abundantly made good:

We come, Lycaon, to demand the like

Of thee and of thy kingdom, and, for proof

That all our malice is extinct and dead,

We bring thy hostage back, demanding ours.

LYCAON

Receive him, lords, a banquet instantly,

You shall this day brave Epire feast with us,

And to your board your hostage shall be brought,

There to receive him freely; mean time sit,

And taste the royal welcomes of our court.

JUPITER

Lycaon’s just in keeping these conditions

So strictly with a reconciled foe.

LYCAON

But fair prince, tell me whence you are derived,

I never heard King Melliseus had

A prince of your perfections?

JUPITER          This demand

Startles my blood, being born I know not where,

Yet that I am of gentry at the least,

My spirit prompts me, and my noble thoughts

Give me approved warrant; being an infant,

Two beauteous ladies found me in a cave,

Where, from their voluntary charity,

Bees fed me with their honey. For that cause

The two bright ladies called me Jupiter,

And to their father Melliseus brought me,

My foster-father, who hath trained my youth,

In feats of arms, and military prowess,

And as an instance of his dearest love,

Hath honour’d me with this late embassy.

A banquet brought in, with the limbs of a man in the service.

LYCAON

We are satisfied: princes sit round and feast,

You are this day Lycaon’s welcom’st guest.

JUPITER

This meat distastes me, doth Lycaon feast us

Like cannibals? Feed us with human flesh?

Whence is this portent?

LYCAON        Feed Epirians, eat,

Lycaon feasts you with no common meat. 

JUPITER

But where’s the Epire Lord we left as hostage?

LYCAON

Behold him here, he’s at the table with you:

This is the Epire’s head, and these his limbs,

Thinks Melliseus that Lycaon can

(Descended of the valiant Titanois)

Bury his hatred, and entomb his spleen

Without revenge? Blood in these wars was shed,

And for that blood your hostage lost his head.

JUPITER

Bear wrong that list, and those can brook it best,

I was not born to sufferance: thoughts mount high,

A king hath wronged me, and a king shall die.

LYCAON

Treason, treason!

JUPITER

Down with the tyrant, and that hateful crew,

And in their murderous breasts your blades imbrue!

LYCAON

Our guard!

A confused fray, an alarm. Jupiter and the Epirians beat off Lycaon and his followers.

JUPITER

Lycaon’s fled, make good the palace gates,

And to th’ amazed city bear these limbs,

So basely by the tyrant massacred.

Haply his subjects by our words prepared

May shake their bondage off, and make this war

The happy means to rid a tyrant thence.

Bear in your left hands these dismembered limbs,

And in your right your swords, with which make way.

Courage, brave Epires, and a glorious day!

Exeunt.

[2.3]

Alarm, Lycaon makes head again, and is beat off by Jupiter and the Epireans. Jupiter seizeth the room of Lycaon.

JUPITER

Lycaon’s once more fled, we by the help

Of these his people, have confined him hence.

To whom belongs this crown?

FIRST LORD       To Jupiter.

SECOND LORD

None shall protect our lives, but Jupiter.

ALL

A Jupiter! A Jupiter!

JUPITER

Nay, we are far from such ambition, lords,

Nor will we entertain such royalty.

FIRST LORD

Fair prince, whom heaven hath sent by miracle

To save us from the bloodiest tyrannies

That ere were practiced by a mortal prince,

We tender thee our fortunes: o, vouchsafe

To be our lord, our governor, and king,

Since all thy people jointly have agreed,

None of that tyrant’s issue shall succeed.

ALL

A Jupiter! A Jupiter!

JUPITER

We not refuse the bounty of the heavens

Expressed in these your voices; we accept

Your patronage, and ’gainst Lycaon’s tyrannies

Henceforth protect you: but our conquest yet

Is all uncertain. Second us, dear subjects,

To assure our conquests: first we must provide

Our safety, ere attempt the helm to guide. Exeunt.

[2.4]

Alarm. Enter Calisto.

CALISTO

What mean these horrid and these shrill alarms

That fright the peaceful court with hostile cries?

Fear and amazement hurry through each chamber;

Th’ affrighted ladies light the darkest rooms

With their bright beauties: whence (o, whence ye gods!)

Are all you groans, cries, and inhuman sounds

Of blood and death? Lycaon, where is he?

Why in this dire and sad astonishment

Appears not he to comfort my sad fears,

And cheer me in this dull distemperature?

Enter in a hurry with weapons drawn, Jupiter and his soldiers.

JUPITER

The iron barred doors and the suspected vaults,

The barricadoed gates, and every room

That boasted of his strength is forced to obey

To our free entrance: nothing can withstand

Our opposite fury. Come, let’s ransack further.

But stay, what strange dejected beauty’s this

That on the sudden hath surprised my heart,

And made me sick with passion?

CALISTO          Hence away,

When we command, who dares presume to stay?

JUPITER

Bright lady.

CALISTO  You affright me with your steel.

JUPITER

These weapons, lady, come to grace your beauty,

And these my arms shall be your sanctuary

From all offensive danger: cheer your sorrow,

Let your bright beauty shoot out of this cloud,

To search my heart, as it hath dazed my eyes.

Are you a queen enthroned above the elements,

Made of divine composure, or of earth,

Which I can scarce believe?

CALISTO         I am myself.

Uncivil stranger, you are much too rude,

Into my private chamber to intrude:

Go, call the king my father.

JUPITER          Are you then

Lycaon’s daughter? (Wonder without end,

That from a fiend an angel should descend!).

O Love, till now I never felt thy dart:

But now her painted eye hath pierced my heart.

Fair, can you love?

CALISTO     To be alone I can.

JUPITER

Women, fair queen, are nothing without men:

You are but cyphers, empty rooms to fill,

And till men’s figures come, uncounted still.

Shall I, sweet lady, add unto your grace,

And but for number’s sake supply that place?

CALISTO

You’re one too many, and of all the rest

That bear men’s figure, we can spare you best.

What are you sir?

JUPITER     We are Pelasge’s king,

And these our subjects.

CALISTO

          These did of late belong

To King Lycaon (O, injurious wrong!).

JUPITER

O, suit your pity with your angel-beauty,

And live Pelasge’s queen.

CALISTO

Give me a funeral garland to lament,

That best becomes my wretched discontent.

JUPITER

The sunshine of my smiles and jocund love

Shall from your brow’s bright azure elements

Disperse all clouds: behold, my crown is yours.

My sword, my conquest, I am of myself

Nothing without your soft compassionate love!

For proof, ask what the heaven, earth, air, or sea

Can yield to men by power or orison,

And it is yours.

CALISTO    Sir, I shall prove your love.

JUPITER

Pray use me, lady.

CALISTO     You’ll grant it me, my lord?

JUPITER

By all my honours, and by all the sweets

I hope for in your love’s fruition,

Your will’s your own.

CALISTO      You’ll not revoke your word?

JUPITER

Be’t to invest whom I did late degrade,

I’ll do’t for you, bright and divinest maid.

CALISTO

This only freedom to your captive give:

That I a nun and professed maid may live.

JUPITER

More cruel than the tyrant that begat thee,

Hadst thou asked love, gold, service, empery,

This sword had purchased for Calisto all.

O most unkind, in all this universe,

There’s but one jewel that I value high,

And that (unkind!) you will not let me buy:

To live a maid, what is’t? ’Tis to live nothing:

’Tis like a covetous man to hoard up treasure,

Barred from your own use, and from others’ pleasure.

O think, fair creature, that you had a mother,

One that bore you, that you might bear another:

Be you, as she was, of an infant glad

Since you from her have all things that she had.

Should all affect the strict life you desire,

The world itself should end when we expire:

Posterity is all, heaven’s number fill,

Which by your help may be increased still.

What is it when you lose your maidenhead,

But make your beauty live when you be dead

In your fair issue?

CALISTO     Tush, ’tis all in vain,

Dian, I am now a servant of thy train.

JUPITER

Her order is mere heresy, her sect

A schism ’mongst maids not worthy your respect.

Men were got to get; you born others to bear.

Wrong not the world so much: nay, sweet, your ear!

This flower will wither, not being cropped in time,

Age is too late, then do not lose your prime.

Sport whilst you may, before your youth be past.

Lose not this mould that may such fair ones cast,

Leave to the world your like for face and stature,

That the next age may praise your gifts of nature.

Calisto, if you still grow thus precise,

In your strict vow, succeeding beauty dies.

CALISTO

I claim your oath, all love with men adieu!

Diana’s cloister I will next pursue.

Exit Calisto

JUPITER

And there all beauty shall be kept in jail,

Which with my sword, ay, with my life I’d bail:

What’s that Diana?

SECOND LORD

She is the daughter of an ancient king

That swayed the Attic sceptre,  who being tempted

By many suitors, first began this vow:

And leaving court betook her to the forests.

Her beauteous train are virgins of best rank,

Daughters of kings, and princes, all devoted

To abandon men, and chose virginity.

All these being first to her strict orders sworn

Acknowledge her their queen and empress.

JUPITER

By all my hopes Calisto’s love to gain

I’d wish myself one of Diana’s train.

FIRST LORD

Concerning your state business…

JUPITER

Well remembered.

Posts of these news shall be to Epire sent

Of us, and of our new establishment.

Next for Calisto (but of that no more).

We must take firm possession of this state,

Our sword hath won, Lycaon lost so late.  Exeunt.

[2.5]

Enter with music (before Diana) six satyrs, after them all their nymphs, garlands on their heads, and javelins in their hands, their bows and quivers. The satyrs sing:

Hail beauteous Dian, queen of shades,

That dwells beneath these shadowy glades,

Mistress of all those beauteous maids,

That are by her allowed.

Virginity we all profess,

Abjure the worldly vain excess,

And will to Dian yield no less

Than we to her have vowed.

The shepherds, satyrs, nymphs, and fauns,

For thee will trip it o’er the lawns.

Come to the forest let us go,

And trip it like the barren doe.

The fauns and satyrs still do so,

And freely thus they may do.

The fairies dance, and satyrs sing,

And on the grass tread many a ring,

And to their caves their ven’son bring,

And we will do as they do.

The shepherds, etc.

Our food is honey from the bees,

And mellow fruits that drop from trees,

In chase we climb the high degrees

Of every steepy mountain.

And when the weary day is past,

We at the evening hie us fast,

Aad after this our field repast,

We drink the pleasant fountain.

The shepherds, etc.

DIANA

These sports, our fauns, our satyrs, and ourselves

Make (fair Calisto) for your entertain:

Pan the great god of shepherds, and the nymphs

Of meads and fountains that inhabit here,

All give you welcome, with their rural sports,

Glad to behold a princess of your birth

A happy citizen of these meads and groves.

These satyrs are our neighbours, and live here,

With whom we have confirmed a friendly league

And dwell in peace. Here is no city-craft.

Here’s no court-flattery; simpleness and sooth,

The harmless chase, and strict virginity

Is all our practice. You have read our orders,

And you have sworn to keep them, fair Calisto.

Speak, how esteem you them?

CALISTO          With reverence.

Great queen, I am sequestered from the world,

Even in my soul hate man’s society.

And all their lusts, suggestions, all court-pleasures,

And city-curiosities are vain,

And with my finer temper ill agree,

That now have vowed sacred virginity.

DIANA

We will not of your sorrows make recital

So lately suffered by the hand of chance:

We are from the world, and the blind Goddess Fortune

We dare to do her worst, as living here

Out of her reach: us, she of force must spare,

They can lose nothing, that for nothing care.

CALISTO

Madam, devotion drew me to your service,

And I am now your handmaid.

DIANA           Where’s Atlanta?

ATLANTA

Madam.

DIANA  Is there no princess in our train,

As yet unmatched to be her cabin-fellow,

And sleep by her?

ATLANTA     Madam, we all are coupled

And twined in love, and hardly is there any

That will be won to change her bedfellow.

DIANA

You must be single till the next arrive:

She that is next admitted of our train,

Must be her bed companion, so ’tis lotted.

Come, fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs, girt us round

Whilst we ascend our state, and here proclaim

A general hunting in Diana’s name.

Enter Jupiter like a nymph, or a virago.

JUPITER

There I strid too wide. That step was too large for one that professeth the straight order: what a pitiful coil – shall I have to counterfeit this woman, to lisp (forsooth!), to simper, and set my face like a sweet gentlewoman’s made out of gingerbread? Shall I venture or no? My face I fear not: for my beard being in the nonage  durst never yet look a barber in the face. And for my complexion, I have known as brown lasses as myself have gone for current. And for my stature, I am not yet of that giant size, but I may pass for a bona-roba,  a rouncival,  a virago, or a good manly lass. If they should put me to spin, or to sew, or any such gentlewoman-like exercise, how should I excuse my bringing up? Tush, the hazard is nothing, compared with the value of the gain. Could I manage this business with art, I should come to a hundred pretty sights in a year, as in the summer when we come to flea our smocks, etc. I hope Diana doth not use to search her maids before she entertains them. But howsoever –

Be my loss certain, and my profit none,

’Tis for Calisto’s love, and I will on.

DIANA

We’ll chase the stag, and with our beagles shrill,

The neighbouring forests with loud echoes fill.

JUPITER

Is this a heaven terrestrial that contains

So many earthly angels? (O amazement!

Diana with these beauties circled round,

Paled in with these bright pales, bears more state

Than gods have lent them by the power of fate.

I am destroyed).

DIANA     Soft, what intruder’s that?

Command her hither.

JUPITER       Hail divinest queen,

I come to do thee service.

DIANA

A manly lass, a stout virago,

Were all our train proportioned to thy size,

We need not fear men’s subtle treacheries.

Thy birth and fortunes?

JUPITER       Madam, I derive

My birth from noble and high parentage:

Respect of your rare beauty, with my love

And zeal I still bear to a virgin’s life,

Have drawn me to your service.

DIANA

Welcome lady. Her largeness pleaseth mee, if she have courage proportioned with her limbs, she shall be champion to all our wronged ladies. You, Atlanta, present her oath:

Her oath is given on Diana’s bow.

ATLANTA

Madam you must be true

To bright Diana and her virgin crew.

JUPITER

To bright Diana and her train I’ll stand.

DIANA

What can you do?

JUPITER (aside)   More than the best here can.

ATLANTA

You shall vow chastity.

JUPITER

[(aside)] That’s more than I can promise. [Audibly] Well, proceed.

ATLANTA

You never shall with hated man atone,

But lie with woman or else lie alone.

JUPITER

Make my oath strong, my protestation deep,

For this I vow by all the gods to keep.

ATLANTA

With ladies you shall only sport and play,

And in their fellowship spend night and day.

JUPITER

I shall.

ATLANTA  Consort with them at board and bed,

And swear no man shall have your maidenhead.

JUPITER

By all the powers both earthly and divine,

If ere I lose’t, a woman shall have mine.

DIANA

Now you’re ours. You’re welcome, kiss our hand,

You promise well, we like you, and will grace you.

And if with our election yours agree,

Calisto here your bedfellow shall be.

JUPITER

You gods, your will eternise me, to your choice,

Madam, I seal both with my soul and voice.

DIANA

Then hand each other and acquaint yourself

And now let us proceed in the pursuit

Of our determined pastimes, dedicate

To the entertainment of these beauteous maids.

Satyrs and fauns, ring out your pleasing choir;

This done, our bugles shall to heaven aspire. Exeunt.

[2.6]

Horns winded, a great noise of hunting. Enter Diana, all her nymphs in the chase, Jupiter pulling Calisto back.

DIANA

Follow, pursue, the stag hath took the mountain!

Come, let us climb the steep clifts  after him,

Let through the air your nimble javelins sing.

And our free spoils home with the evening bring.

ALL

Follow, follow, follow!

Wind horns, enter the satyrs as in the chase.

SATYR

The nimble ladies have outstripped us quite,

unless we speed, we shall not see him fall.

We are too slow in pursuit of our game;

Let’s after though; since they outstrip our eyes,

Run by their notes that from their bugles rise.

Wind horns. Enter Jupiter, and Calisto.

CALISTO

Haste, gentle lady, we shall lose our train,

And miss Diana’s pastime in the chase,

Hie then to stain our javelins’ gilded points

In blood of yon swift stag, so hot pursued.

Will you keep pace with me?

JUPITER          I am tired already.

Nor have I yet been to these pastimes breathed.

Sweet, shall we here repose ourselves a little?

CALISTO

And lose the honour to be first at fall?

JUPITER

Fear not, you shall come time enough to fall.

Either you must be so unkind to me,

As leave me to these deserts solitary,

Or stay till I have rest, for I am breathless

And cannot hold it out. Behold, a place

Remote, an arbour seated naturally,

Trimmed by the hand of nature for a bower,

Screened by the shadowy leaves from the sun’s eye.

Sweet, will you sit, or on the verdure lie?

CALISTO

Rather than leave you, I will lose the sport.

JUPITER

I’ll find you pastime, fear not, o my angel,

Whether wilt thou transport me, grant me measure.

Of joy, be free, I surfeit on this pleasure.

CALISTO

Come, shall’s lie down a little?

JUPITER           Sooth I will.

I thirst in seas and cannot quaff my fill,

Behold before me a rich table spread,

And yet poor I am forced to starve for bread:

We be alone, the ladies far in chase,

And may I die an eunuch by my vow,

If bright Calisto you escape me now.

Sweet bed-fellow your hand, what have I felt,

unless blanched snow, of substance not to melt?

CALISTO

You gripe too hard.

JUPITER      Good sooth I shall not rest

Until my head be pillowed on thy breast.

CALISTO

Lean on me then.

JUPITER      So shall I wrong mine eyes,

To leave your face to look upon the skies.

O, how I love thee, come let’s kiss and play!

CALISTO

How?

JUPITER So a woman with a woman may.

CALISTO

I do not like this kissing.

JUPITER        Sweet, sit still,

Lend me thy lips, that I may taste my fill.

CALISTO

You kiss too wantonly.

JUPITER       Thy bosom lend,

And by thy soft paps let my hand descend.

CALISTO

Nay, fie, what mean you?

JUPITER        Prithee, let me toy,

I would the gods would shape thee to a boy,

Or me into a man.

CALISTO      A man, how then?

JUPITER

My sweet, lie still, for we are far from men,

Lie down again. Your foot I oft have praised,

Ay, and your leg (nay, let your skirt be raised!).

I’ll measure for the wager of a fall,

Who hath the greatest great, or smallest small.

CALISTO

You are too wanton, and your hand too free.

JUPITER

You need not blush to let a woman see.

CALISTO

My bareness I have hid from sight of skies,

Therefore may bar it any lady’s eyes.

JUPITER

Methinks you should be fat, pray let me feel.

CALISTO

O god, you tickle me!

JUPITER       Lend me your hand,

And freely taste me! note how I will stand,

I am not ticklish.

CALISTO    Lord, how you woo…

JUPITER

We maids may wish much, but can nothing do.

CALISTO

I am weary of this toying.

JUPITER         O, but I

In this Elysium could both live and die.

I can forbear no longer, though my rape

Be punished with my head, she shall not ’scape.

Say, sweet, I were a man.

CALISTO        Thus would I rise,

And fill the dales and mountains with my cries.

A man! (O heaven!). To gain Elysium’s bliss,

I’d not be said that I a man should kiss.

Come, let’s go wound the stag.

JUPITER          Stay ere you go,

Here stands one ready that must strike a doe.

And thou art she, I am Pelagius king,

That thus have singled thee, mine thou shalt be.

CALISTO

Gods, angels, men, help all a maid to free!

JUPITER

Maugre them all th’art mine.

CALISTO          To do me right,

Help fingers, feet, nails, teeth, and all to fight!

JUPITER

Not they, nor all Diana’s angel-train,

Were they in sight, this prize away should gain.

He carries her away in his arms. Exit.

[3.1]

Enter Homer.

HOMER

Young Jupiter doth force this beauteous maid,

And after would have made her his bright queen,

But discontent she in the forest staid,

Loath of Diana’s virgins to be seen.

Oft did she write, oft send, but all in vain,

She never will return to court again.

Eight moons are filled and waned when she grows great

And young Jove’s issue in her womb doth spring.

This day Diana doth her nymphs entreat

Unto a solemn bathing, where they bring

Deflowered Calisto. Note how she would hide

That which time found, and great Diana spied.

A dumb show. Enter Diana and all her nymphs to bathe them: she makes them survey the place. They unlace themselves, and unloose their buskins; only Calisto refuseth to make her ready. Diana sends Atlanta to her, who perforce unlacing her, finds her great belly, and shows it to Diana, who turns her out of her society, and leaves her. Calisto likewise in great sorrow forsakes the place.

Her crime thus found, she’s banished from their crew,

And in a cave she childs a valiant son,

Called Arcas, who doth noble deeds pursue,

And by Jove’s gift Pelagia’s seat hath won,

Which, after by his worth and glorious fame,

He hath trans-styled Arcadia by his name.

But we return to Titan, who by spies

Hath learned that Saturn hath kept sons alive.

He now assembles all his strange allies,

And for the crown of Crete intends to strive.

Of their success, and fortunes we proceed,

Where Titan’s sons by youthful Jove must bleed.

[3.2]

Enter Titan, Lycaon, Enceladus, Aegeon in arms, drum, colours, and attendants.

TITAN

Now are we strong, our giant issue grown,

Our sons in several kingdoms we have planted,

From whence they have derived us brave supplies,

From Sicily, and from th’ Aegean Sea,

That of our son Aegeon bears the name.

We have assembled infinites of men,

To avenge us on proud Saturn’s perjury.

LYCAON

What I have said to Titan, I’ll make good,

’Tis rumoured Melliseus’ foster child,

He that expulsed me from Pelagia’s crown,

And in my high tribunal sits enthroned,

Is Saturn’s son, and styled Jupiter

(Besides my daughter by his lust deflowered).

On us, the poor distressed Titanois,

He hath committed many outrages.

AEGEON

All which we’ll punish on King Saturn’s head,

I that have made th’ Aegean confines shake,

And with my powerful voice affrighted heaven:

From whose enraged eyes the darkened skies

Have borrowed lustre, and Promethean fire,

Will fright from Crete the proud Saturnian troop,

And thousand hacked and mangled soldiers bring

To entomb the glories of the Cretan king.

ENCELADUS

That must be left to great Enceladus,

The pride and glory of the Titans’ host.

I that have curbed the billows with a frown,

And with a smile have made the Ocean calm,

Spurned down huge mountains with my armed foot,

And with my shoulders lift the valleys high,

Will, in the wrinkles of my stormy brow,

Bury the glories of the Cretan king,

And on his slaughtered bulk brain all his sons.

AEGEON

And what shall I do then?

ENCELADUS       Do thou stand still,

Whilst I the foes of Titan pash and kill.

Am I not eldest from great Titan’s loins,

The Saturnists’ hereditary scourge?

Leave all these deeds of horror to my hand,

I like a trophy o’er their spoils will stand.

LYCAON

Why breath we then?

ENCELADUS     Come, arm your sinewy limbs,

With rage and fury fright pale pity hence,

And drown him in the sweat your bodies still.

With hostile industry toss flaming brands

About your fleecy locks, to threat their cities

With death and desolation, let your steel

Glist’ring against the sun, daze their bright eyes,

That with the dread of our astonishment

They may be sunk in Lethe, and their grave

May be the dark vault called Oblivion’s cave.

TITAN

Are our ambassadors to Saturn gone,

To let him know whence this our war proceeds?

LYCAON

Your message hath by this startled th’ usurper.

ENCELADUS

Set on them, waste their confines as we march,

And let them taste the rage of sword and fire,

Th’ alarm’s given, and hath by this arrived

Even at the walls of Crete, the citadel

Where the cathedral Saturn is enthroned.

TITAN

Warlike Aegeon and Enceladus,

Noble Lycaon, lend us your assistance

To forage as we march, plant desolation

Through all this fertile soil, be this your cry;

Revenge on Saturn for his perjury. Exit.

[3.3]

Enter Saturn with hair and beard overgrown,  Sibylla, Juno, his lords, drum, colours and soldiers.

SATURN

None speak, let no harsh voice presume to jar

In our distressed care, I am all sad,

All horror and affrightment, since the slaughter

And tragic murder of my first-born Ops,

Continued in the unnatural massacre

Of three young princes: not a day hath left me

Without distaste, no night but double darkened

With terror and confused melancholy.

No hour but hath had care and discontent

Proportioned to his minutes, not an instant

Without remorse and anguish. O, you crowns,

Why are you made, and metalled out of cares?

I am overgrown with sorrow, circumveiled

With multiplicity of distemperatures,

And Saturn is a king of nothing else,

But woes, vexations, sorrows, and laments.

To add to these the threatenings of red war,

As if the murder of my princely babes

Were not enough to plague an usurpation,

But they must add the rage of sword and fire

To affright my people: these are miseries

Able to be comprised in no dimension.

JUNO

My father shall not macerate himself:

I’ll dare to interrupt his passions,

Although I buy it dearly with his hate.

My lord, you are a king of a great people,

Your power sufficient to repulse a foe

Greater than Titan. Though my brothers’ births

Be crowned in blood, yet am I still reserved

To be the hopeful comfort of your age.

SATURN

My dearest Juno, beautiful remainder

Of Saturn’s royal issue, but for thee

I had ere this with these my fingers torn

A grave out of the rocks, to have entombed

The wretched carcass of a caitiff king:

And I will live, be’t but to make thee queen

Of all the triumphs and the spoils I win.

Speak, what’s the project of their invasion?

FIRST LORD

That the King of Crete,

Hath not (according to his vows and oaths)

Slain his male issue.

SATURN      Have I not their bloods

Already quaffed to angry Nemesis?

Have not these ruthless and remorseless eyes,

(Un-father-like) beheld their panting hearts

Swimming in bowls of blood? Am I not son-less?

Nay, childless too, save Juno whom I love:

And dare they then? Come, our continued sorrow

Shall into scarlet indignation turn,

And my sons’ blood shall crown their guilty heads

With purple vengeance. Valiant lords, set on,

And meet them to their last destruction.

FIRST LORD

March forward.

SATURN     Stay, because we’ll ground our wars

On justice: fair Sibylla, on thy life,

I charge thee, tell me, and dissemble not,

By all the hopes in Saturn thou hast stored,

Our nuptial pleasures, and affairs of love,

As thou esteem’st our grace, or vengeance fear’st,

Resolve me truly. Hast thou sons alive?

Sibylla kneels.

These tears, and that dejection on thy knee,

Accompanied with dumbness, argue guilt.

Arise and speak.

SIBYLLA

Let Saturn know, I am a woman then,

And more, I am a mother: would you have me

A monster, to exceed in cruelty

The savagest of savages? Bears, tigers, wolves,

All feed their young: would Saturn have his queen

More fierce than these? Think you Sibylla dare

Murder her young, whom cruel beasts would spare?

Let me be held a mother, not a murd’ress:

For, Saturn, thou hast living three brave sons.

But where? Rather than to reveal to thee,

That thou mayest send, their guiltless blood to spill,

Here seize my life, for them thou shalt not kill.

SATURN

Amazement, war, the threat’ning Oracle,

All muster strange perplexions ’bout my brain,

And rob me of the true ability

Of my direct conceivements! Doubt, and war,

Titan’s invasion, and my jealousy

Make me unfit for answer.

FIRST LORD       Royall Saturn,

’Twas pity in the queen so to preserve them.

Your strictness slew them, they are dead in you,

And in the pity of your queen survive.

SATURN

Divine assistance, plunge me from these troubles,

Mortality here fails me, I am wrapped

In millions of confusions.

Enter a lord.

SECOND LORD      Arm, great Saturn,

Thy cities burn! A general massacre

Threatens thy people. The big Titanois

Plough up thy land with their invasive steel;

A huge unnumbered army is at hand

To set upon thy camp.

SATURN

All my disturbances

Convert to rage, and make my spleen as high

As is their topless fury, to encounter

With equal force and vengeance. Go, Sibylla,

Convey my beauteous Juno to the place

Of our best strength, whilst we contend in arms

For this rich Cretan wreath: the battle done,

And they confined, we’ll treat of these affairs.

Perhaps our love may with this breach dispense,

But first to arms, to beat th’ intruders hence. Exeunt.

[3.4]

Alarm. Enter Titan, Lycaon, Enceladus, Aegeon.

TITAN

Saturn gives back, and ‘gins to leave the field.

LYCAON

Pursue him then unto that place of strength,

Which the proud Cretans hold impregnable.

ENCELADUS

This Gigomantichia  be eternised

For our affright and terror: if they fly,

Toss rocks, and tops of mountains after them

To stumble them, or else entomb them quick.

AEGEON

They have already got into the town,

And barricadoed ’gainst us their iron gates.

What means then shall we find to startle them?

ENCELADUS

What, but to spurn down their offensive mures?

To shake in two their adamantine gates,

Their marble columns by the ground-sills tear,

And kick their ruined walls as high as heaven?

TITAN

Pursue them to their gates, and ’bout their city

Plant a strong siege. Now Saturn all my sufferances

Shall on thy head fall heavy, we’ll not spare

Old man or babe. The Titans all things dare. Exeunt.

[3.5]

Alarm. Enter Saturn, Sibylla, Juno, with other lords of Crete.

SATURN

The heavens have, for our barbarous cruelty

Done in the murder of our first-born Ops,

Poured on our head this vengeance. Where, o, where

Shall we find rescue?

SIBYLLA       Patience, royal Saturn.

SATURN

Bid wolves be mild, and tigers pitiful,

Command the Libyan lions abstinence,

Teach me to mollify the Corsic rock,

Or make the Mount Chimera passable.

What Monarch wrapped in my confusions

Can tell what patience means?

JUNO            O royal father!

SATURN

O, either teach me rescue from these troubles,

Or bid me everlastingly, ay, ever

Sink in despair and horror.

SIBYLLA         O my Lord,

You have from your own loins issue reserved

That may redeem all these calamities.

SATURN

Issue from us?

SIBYLLA    From Saturn and Sibylla.

That royal prince, king of Pelagia,

And famous Melliseus’ foster child,

Whom all the world styles by the noble name

Of Jupiter, he is King Saturn’s son.

SATURN

Thou hast Sibylla kept that son alive

That only can redeem me from this thralldom!

O, how shall we acquaint young Jupiter

With this, his father’s hard success in arms?

SIBYLLA

My care did ever these events foresee.

And I have sent to your surviving son

To come unto your rescue. Then, great Saturn,

In your wife’s pity seem to applaud the heavens,

That make me their relentful minister,

In the repairing of your downcast state.

SATURN

If royal Jupiter be Saturn’s son,

We shall be either rescued or revenged,

And now I shall not dread those Titanois

That threaten fire and steel.

SIBYLLA          Trust your Sibylla.

SATURN

Thou art my anchor, and the only column

That supports Saturn’s glory. O, my Jupiter!

On thee the basis of my hopes I erect,

And in thy life King Saturn’s fame survives.

Are messengers dispatched to signify

My son of our distress?

SIBYLLA      As far as Epire.

Where as we understand Jove now remains.

SATURN

Then, Titan, and the proud Enceladus,

Hyperion and Aegeon with the rest,

Of all the earth-bread race we weigh you not,

Threaten your worst, let all your eyes spark fire!

Your flaming nostrils like Avernus smoke,

Your tongues speak thunder, and your armed hands

Fling trisulk lightning! Be you gods above,

Or come you with infernal hatred armed – 

We dread you not: we have a son survives,

Shall calm your tempests: beauteous Juno, comfort,

And cheer, Sibylla, if he undertake

Our rescue, we from danger are secure,

We in his valour all our lives assure.  Exeunt.

[3.6]

A flourish. Enter Jupiter and Melliseus with attendants.

MELLISEUS

Fair prince, for less by your deserts and honour

You cannot be: your fortunes and your birth

Are both unknown to me. My two fair daughters

As a swathed infant brought you to my court,

But whence, or of what parents you proceed

I am merely ignorant.

JUPITER       

Then am I nothing,

And till I know whence my descent hath been,

Or from what house derived, I am but air,

And no essential substance of a man.

Enter Calisto pursued by her young son Arcas.

CALISTO

Help, help, for heaven’s sake, help, I am pursued,

And by my son, that seems to threat my life.

JUPITER

Stay that bold lad.

CALISTO     What’s he? False Jupiter?

JUPITER

Calisto, or I much deceive myself.

CALISTO

O, thou most false, most treacherous, and unkind,

Behold Calisto by her son pursued,

Indeed thy son: this little savage youth

Hath lived ’mongst tigers, lions, wolves, and bears,

And since his birth partakes their cruelty.

Arcas his name: since I Diana left,

And from her chaste train was divorced, this youth

I childed in a cave remote and silent.

His nurture was amongst the savages.

This day I by misfortune moved his spleen,

And he pursued me with revenge and fury,

And had I not forsook the shades and forests,

And fled for rescue to these walled towns,

He had slain me in his fury: save me then,

Let not the son the mother sacrifice

Before the father’s eye.

JUPITER

Arcas my son, my young son Arcas, Jupiter’s first born!

O let me hug thee, and a thousand times

Embrace thee in mine arms. Lycaon’s grandchild,

Calisto’s son; O will you, beauteous lady,

Forsake the forests and yet live with us?

CALISTO

No, thou false man, for thy perjurious lusts

I have abandoned human subtleties:

There take thy son, and use him like a prince,

Being son unto a princess. Teach him arts,

And honoured arms. For me, I have abjured

All peopled cities, and betook myself

To solitary deserts. Jove adieu!

Thou proving false, no mortal can be true.  Exit.

ARCAS

Since she will needs be gone, be pleased then,

Wearied with beasts, I long to live ’mongst men.

JUPITER

Yet stay, Calisto, why wilt thou outrun

Thy Jupiter? She gone, welcome my son.

My dear son Arcas, whom if fortune smile,

I will create lord of a greater style.

Enter the clown with letters.

CLOWN

Save you sir, is your name King Melliseus?

MELLISEUS

We are Melliseus, and the Epire king.

CLOWN

Then this letter is to you, but is there not one in your court, called (let me see)… Have you here never a gibbet-maker? 

JUPITER

Sirrah, here’s one called Jupiter.

CLOWN

Ay, Jupiter, that’s he that I would speak with. Here’s another letter to you, but ere you read it, pray let me ask you one question.

JUPITER

What’s that?

CLOWN

Whether you be a wise child or no?

JUPITER

Your reason?

CLOWN

Because I would know whether you know your own  father, but if you do not, hoping you are in good health, as your father scarce was, at the making hereof, these are to certify you.

JUPITER

News of a father! Never could such tidings

Haue glutted me with gladness.

They read.

CLOWN

For mine own part, though I know not what belongs to the getting of children, yet I know how to father a child, and because I would be loath to have this parish troubled with you, I bring you news where you were born. I was the man that laid you at this man’s door, and if you will not go home quietly, you shall be sent from constable to constable, till you come to the place where you were begot. Read further and tell me more.

MELLISEUS

Is Jupiter then mighty Saturn’s son?

JUPITER

Am I the son of Saturn, King of Crete?

My father baffled by the Titanois?

May all my toward hopes die in my birth,

Nor let me ever worthily inherit

The name of royalty, if by my valour

I prove me not descended royally.

CLOWN

I was the man that took pains with you, ’twas I that brought you in the handbasket.

JUPITER

Should I have wished a father through the world,

It had been Saturn, or a royal mother,

It had been fair Sibylla, queen of Crete.

Great Epire’s king, peruse these tragic lines,

And in thy wonted bounty grant supplies

To free my noble father.

MELISSEUS

Jupiter, as I am Melliseus Epire’s king,

Thou shalt have free assistance.

JUPITER           Come then, arm,

Assemble all the powers that we can levy.

Arcas, we make thee of Pelagia king,

As King Lycaon’s grandchild, and the son

Of fair Callisto. Let that clime henceforth

Be called Arcadia, and usurp thy name.

Go then and press th’ Arcadians to the rescue

Of royal Saturn, this great King and I

Will lead th’ Epirians. Fail me not to meet,

To redeem Saturn, and to rescue Crete.

Exeunt. Manet clown.

CLOWN

I have no mind to this buffeting: I’ll walk after fair and softly, in hope that all the buffeting may be done before I come. Whether had I better go home by land, or by sea? If I go by land, and miscarry, then I go the way of all flesh. If I go by sea and miscarry, then I go the way of all fish: I am not yet resolved. But howsoever, I have done my message so cleanly that they cannot say, the messenger is bereaved of anything that belongs to his message. [Exit]

[3.7]

Alarm. Enter Titan, Lycaon, Enceladus, with Saturn, Juno, and Sibylla prisoners.

TITAN

Down treacherous lord, and be our foot-pace now

To ascend our high tribunal. Where’s that godhead

With which the people ave’d thee to heaven?

ENCELADUS

’Tis sunk into the deep abysm of Hell.

Tear from his head the golden wreath of Crete!

Tread on his captive bulk, and with thy weight,

Great Titan, sink him to the infernal shades,

So low, that with his trunk, his memory

May be extinct in Lethe.

SATURN

More than tyrannous

To triumph o’er the weak, and to oppress

The low dejected. Let your cruelty

Be the sad period of my wretchedness:

Only preserve my lovely Juno’s life,

And give Sibylla freedom.

ENCELADUS       By these gods,

We neither fear nor value, but contend

To equal in our actions: both shall die.

There shall no proud Saturnian live, to brave

The meanest of the high-born Titanois.

LYCAON

Raze from the earth their hateful memory,

And let the blood of Titan sway the earth.

Speak: are the ports and confines strongly armed

’Gainst all invasions?

TITAN       Who dares damage us?

Let all the passages be open left,

Unguarded let our ports and havens lie.

All danger we despise, mischance or dread

We hold in base contempt.

ENCELADUS       Conquest is ours.

Maugre divine, or base terrestrial powers.

Alarm. Enter Aegeon.

AEGEON

Arm, royal Titan, arm Enceladus!

A pale of brandished steel hath girt thy land.

From the earth’s caverns break infernal fires,

To make thy villages and hamlets burn.

Tempestuous ruin in the shape of war

Clouds all thy populous kingdom. At my heels

Confusion dogs me, and the voice of death

Still thunders in mine ears.

TITAN

Is’t possible? Bear Saturn first to prison

We’ll after parley them.

ENCELADUS

Come angels armed, or devils clad in flames,

Our fury shall repel them. Come they girt

With power celestial, or infernal rage,

We’ll stand their fierce opposure. Royal Titan,

Aegeon and Hyperion, don your arms,

Bravely advance your strong orbicular shields,

And in your right hands brandish your bright steel.

Drown your affrightments in th’ amazed sounds

Of martial thunder (diapasoned  deep)

We’ll stand them, be they gods; (if men) expel

Their strengthless force, and stound them low as hell.

A flourish. Enter marching King Melliseus, Jupiter, Arcas, drum and soldiers.

TITAN

Whence are you that intrude upon our confines?

Or what portend you in these hostile sounds

Of clamorous war?

JUPITER      Titan’s destruction,

With all the ruin of his giant race.

TITAN

By what pretence or claim?

JUPITER         In right of Saturn:

Whom against law the Titans have deposed.

TITAN

What art thou speak’st it?

JUPITER        I am Jupiter,

King Saturn’s son, immediate heir to Crete.

ENCELADUS

There pause, that word disturbs all thy claim,

And proves that Titan seats him in his own.

TITAN

If Saturn (as thou say’st) hath sons alive,

His oath is broken, and we are justly seized

Of Creta’s crown by his late forfeiture.

AEGEON

Thy tongue hath spoke thy own destruction,

Since whom King Saturn spared, our swords must kill,

And he is come to offer up that life

Which hath so long been forfeit.

JUPITER           Tyrants, no!

The heavens preserved me for a further use,

To plague your offspring that afflict the earth,

And with your threat’nings spurn against the gods.

LYCAON

Now shalt thou pay me for Calisto’s wrong,

Exiling me, and for dishonouring her.

JUPITER

Are you there, cannibal? Man-eating wolf?

Lycaon, thou art much beholding to me,

I womaned first Calisto, and made thee

A grandfather. Dost not thank me for’t?

See, here’s the boy, this is Arcadia’s king,

No more Pelagia now, since thy exile.

TITAN

To thee that stylest thyself King Saturn’s son:

Know thou wast doomed before thy birth to die,

Thy claim disabled, and in saving thee

Thy father hath made forfeit of his crown.

JUPITER

Know, Titan, I was born free, as my father,

Nor had he power to take that life away

That the gods freely gave me. Tyrants, see,

Here is that life you by indenture claim,

Seize it, and take it: but before I fall,

Death and destruction shall confound you all.

ENCELADUS

Destruction is our vassal, and attends

Upon the threat’ning of our stormy brows.

We trifle hours. Arm all your fronts with horror,

Your hearts with fury, and your hands with death.

Thunder meet thunder, tempests storms defy,

Saturn and all his issue this day die.

[3.8]

Alarm. The battels join, Titan is slain, and his party repulsed. Enter Aegeon.

AEGEON

Where’s now the high and proud Enceladus,

To stop the fury of the adverse foe,

Or stay the base flight of our dastard troops?

Titan is slain, Hyperion strews the earth,

And thousands by the hand of Jupiter

Are sent into black darkness. All that stand

Sink in the weight of his high Jovial hand.

To shun whose rage, Aegeon thou must fly.

Crete, with our hoped conquests, all adieu!

We must propose new quests, since Saturn’s son

Hath by his puissance all our camp o’er-run.  Exit

[3.9]

Alarm. Enter Enceladus leading his army. Jupiter leading his. They make a stand.

ENCELADUS

None stir, be all your arms cramped and diseased

Your swords un-useful, may your steely glaives

Command your hands, and not your sinews them,

Till I by single valour have subdued

This murderer of my father.

JUPITER         Here he stands,

That must for death have honour at thy hands.

None interrupt us, singly we’ll contend,

And ’twixt us two give these rude factions end.

ENCELADUS

Two royal armies then on both sides stand,

To view this strange and dreadful monomachy. 

Thy fall, Saturnian, adds to my renown:

For by thy death I gain the Cretan crown.

JUPITER

Death is thy due, I find it in thy stars,

Whilst our high name gives period to these wars.

Alarm. They combat with javelins first, after with swords and targets. Jupiter kills Enceladus, and enters with victory. Jupiter, Saturn, Sibylla, Iuno, Melliseus, Arcas, with the Lords of Crete.

SATURN

Never was Saturn deified till now,

Nor found that perfectness the gods enjoy.

Heaven can assure no greater happiness

Than I attain in sight of Jupiter.

SIBYLLA

O my dear son, born with my painful throes,

And with the hazard of my life preserved,

How well hast thou acquitted all my travails,

In this thy last and famous victory!

JUPITER

This tells me that you, royal king of Crete,

My father is: and that renowned queen

My mother – all which proves by circumstance,

That ’tis but duty, that by me’s achieved.

Only you beauteous lady stands apart,

I know not how to style.

SATURN

’Tis Iuno, and thy sister.

JUPITER        O my stars!

You seek to make immortal, Jupiter.

JUNO

Juno is only happy in the fortunes

Of her renowned brother.

JUPITER         Royal Saturn,

If ever I deserved well as a victor,

Or if my warlike deeds, yet bleeding new,

And perfect both in eyes and memory

May plead for me: O if I may obtain,

As one that merits, or entreat of you,

As one that owes; being titled now your son,

Let me espouse fair Juno! And, bright lady,

Let me exchange the name of sister with you

And style you by a nearer name of wife.

O, be my spouse, fair Juno!

JUNO          ’Tis a name,

I prize ’bove sister, if these grace the same.

SATURN

What is it I’ll deny my Jupiter?

She is thy own. I’ll royalise thy nuptials

With all the solemn triumphs Crete can yield.

MELLISEUS

Epire shall add to these solemnities,

And with a bounteous hand support these triumphs.

ARCAS

So all Arcadia shall.

SATURN     Then to our palace

Pass on in state, let all rarities

Shower down from heaven a largess, that these bridals may

Exceed mortal pomp. March, march, and leave me

To contemplate these joys, and to devise,

How with best state this night to solemnize.

They all march of and leave Saturn alone.

Saturn at length is happy by his son,

Whose matchless and unrivalled dignities

Are without peer on earth. O joy! Joy? Corr’sive

Worse than the throes of child-birth, or the tortures

Of black Cimmerian darkness. Saturn, now

Bethink thee of the Delphian Oracle:

“He shall his father’s virtue first excel,

Seize Crete, and after drive him down to Hell”.

The first is past, my virtues are exceeded:

The last I will prevent, by force or treason.

I’ll work his ruin ere he grow too high.

His stars have cast it, and the boy shall die.

More sons I have, more crowns I cannot win,

The gods say he must die, and ’tis no sin.

[4.1]

Enter Homer.

HOMER

O blind ambition and desire of reign,

What horrid mischief wilt not thou devise?

The appetite of rule, and thirst of reign

Besots the foolish, and corrupts the wise.

Behold a king suspicious of his son,

Pursues his innocent life, and without cause.

O, blind ambition, what hast thou not done

Against religion, zeal and nature’s laws?

But men are born their own fates to pursue,

Gods will be gods, and Saturn finds it true.

A dumb show. Enter Jupiter, Juno, Melliseus, Arcas, as to revels. To them Saturn draws his sword to kill Jupiter, who only defends himself, but being hotly pursued, draws his sword, beats away Saturn, seizeth his crown, and swears all the lords of Crete to his obeisance; so exit.

Saturn against his son his force extended,

And would have slain him by his tyrannous hand,

Whilst Jupiter alone his life defended.

But when no prayers his fury could withstand,

He used his force, his father drove from Crete,

And as the Oracle before had told

Usurped the crown. The lords kneel at his feet,

And Saturn’s fortunes are to exile sold.

But leaving him, of Danae that bright lass,

How amorous Jove first wrought her to his power,

How she was closed in a fort of brass,

And how he scaled it in a golden shower,

Of these we next must speak, courteous and wise,

Help with your hands, for Homer wants his eyes.

[4.2]

A flourish. Enter Jupiter, Juno, the lords of Crete, Melliseus, Arcas, Neptune, and Pluto.

JUPITER

Our unkind father double tyrannous,

To prosecute the virtues of his son,

Hath sought his own fate, and by his ingratitude

Left to our head th’ imperial wreath of Crete:

Which gladly we receive. Neptune from Athens,

And Pluto from the lower Tartary

Both welcome to the Cretan Jupiter.

Those stars that governed our nativity,

And stripped our fortunes from the hand of death,

Shall guard us and maintain us.

NEPTUNE          Noble Saturn,

Famous in all things, and degenerate only

In that inhuman practice ’gainst his sons,

Is fled us, whom we came to visit freely,

And filial duties to express. Great Athens,

The nurse and fosteress of my infancy,

I have instructed in the seaman’s craft,

And taught them truly how to sail by stars.

Besides, the unruly jennet I have tamed,

And trained him to the saddle for my practise.

The horse to me is sol’ly consecrate.

PLUTO

I from the bounds of lower Tartary

Haue travelled to the fertile plains of Crete,

Nor am I less in lustre of my same,

Than Neptune, or renowned Jupiter.

Those barren kingdoms I have riched with spoils,

And not a people traffics in those worlds,

For wealth or treasure, but we custom them,

And they enrich our coffers: our armed guards

Prey on their camels, and their laden mules,

And Pluto’s through the world renowned and feared.

And since we have missed of Saturn lately fled,

It glads me yet, I freely may survey

The honours of my brother Jupiter.

NEPTUNE

And beauteous Juno, empress of all hearts,

Whom Neptune thus embraceth.

PLUTO           So doth Pluto.

JUNO

All divine honours crown the royal temples

Of my two famous brothers.

JUPITER

King Melliseus, welcome them to Crete;

Arcas, do you the like.

MELLISEUS     Princes, your hands.

ARCAS

You are my royal uncles.

JUPITER

Nay, hand him lords, he is your kinsman, too:

Arcas, my son, of fair Calisto born.

I hope fair Juno it offends not you,

It was before your time.

JUNO

She was a strumpet.

JUPITER      She shall be a star.

And all the queens and beauteous maids on earth

That are renowned for high perfections

We’ll woo and win: we were born to sway and rule.

Nor shall the name of wife be curb to us,

Or snaffle in our pleasures. Beauteous Io,

And fair Europa, have by our transhapes, 

And guiles of love already bene deflowered,

Nor lives she that is worthy our desires

But we can charm with courtship. Royal brothers,

What news of note is rumoured in those realms

Through which you made your travels?

NEPTUNE             Haue you heard

Of great Acrisius, the brave Arges’ king,

And of his daughter Danae?

JUPITER         His renown,

And her fair beauty oft hath pierced our ears,

Nor can we be at peace, till we behold

That face fame hath so blazed on. What of her?

NEPTUNE

Of her enclosure in the Darreine Tower, 

Girt with a triple mure of shining brass

Haue you not heard?

JUPITER      But we desire it highly.

What marble wall, or adamantine gate,

What fort of steel, or castle forged from brass,

Love cannot scale? Or beauty not break through?

Discourse the novel, Neptune.

NEPTUNE          Thus it was.

The queen of Arges going great, the king

Sends (as the custom is) to th’ Oracle,

To know what fortunes shall betide the babe.

Answer’s returned by Phoebus and his priests:

“The queen shall child a daughter beautiful,

Who when she grows to years shall then bring forth

A valiant princely boy, yet such a one

That shall the king his grandsire turn to stone”.

Danae is born, and as she grows to ripeness,

So grew her father’s fear: and to prevent

His ominous fate pronounced by th’ Oracle,

He moulds this brazen tower, impregnable

Both for the seat and guard: yet beautiful

As is the gorgeous palace of the Sun.

JUPITER

Ill doth Acrisius to contend and war

Against th’ unchanging Fates. I’ll scale that tower:

Or rain down millions in a golden shower.

I long to be the father of that babe,

Begot on Danae, that shall prove so brave

And turn the dotard to his marble grave.

’Tis cast already: Fate, be thou my guide,

Whilst for this amorous journey I provide.

MELLISEUS

But is the lady there immured, and closed

From all society and sight of man?

NEPTUNE

So full of jealous fears is King Acrisius,

That, save himself, no man must near the fort.

Only a guard of beldams past their lusts,

Unsensible of love, or amorous pity,

Partly by bribes hired, partly curbed with threats,

Are guard unto this bright imprisoned dame.

PLUTO

Too pitiless, and too obdure’s the king

To cloister beauty from the sight of man.

But this concerns not us.

JUPITER        That fort I’ll scale,

Though in attempting it be death to fail.

Brothers and princes, all our court’s rarities

Lie open to your royal’st entertainment.

Yet pardon me, since urgence calls me hence

To an enforced absence. Nay, Queen Juno,

You must be pleased, the cause imports us highly.

Feast with these princes till our free return.

Attendance, lords, we must descend in gold,

Or you imprisoned beauty ne’er behold. Exit.

[4.3]

Enter four old beldams, with other women.

FIRST BELDAM

Here’s a coil to keep fire and tow asunder! I wonder the king should shut his daughter up so close: for anything I see, she hath no mind to a man.

SECOND BELDAM

Content yourself, you speak according to your age and appetite. We that are full fed may praise fast. We that in our heat of youth have drunk our bellyfuls may deride those that in the heat of their bloods are a-thirst. I measure her by what I was, not by what I am. Appetite to love never fails an old woman, till cracking of nuts leaves her. When Danae hath no more teeth in her head than you and I, I’ll trust a man in her company, and scarce then: for, if we examine ourselves, we have, even at these years, qualms, and rheums, and devices comes over our stomachs, when we but look on a proper man.

FIRST BELDAM

That’s no question, I know it by myself, and whilst I stand sentinel, I’ll watch her for that I warrant her.

SECOND BELDAM

And have we not reason, considering the penalty?

FIRST BELDAM

If any stand sentinel in her quarters, we shall keep quarter here no longer. If the princess miscarry, we shall make gunpowder, and they say an old woman is better for that than saltpetre. 

The ’larm bell rings.

THIRD BELDAM

The ’larm bell rings, it should be King Acrisius by the sound of the clapper.

FOURTH BELDAM

Then clap close to the gate and let him in.

Enter Acrisius.

ACRISIUS

Ladies, well done: I like this providence

And careful watch o’er Danae: let me find you

Faithless, you die; be faithful, and you live

Eternised in our love. Go, call her hither,

Be that your charge: the rest keep watchful eye

On your portcullised entrance, which forbids

All men, save us, free passage to this place.

See! Danae is descended. Fair daughter!

Enter Danae.

How do you brook this palace?

DANAE          Like a prison:

What is it else? You give me golden fetters

As if their value could my bondage lessen.

ACRISIUS

The architecture’s sumptuous, and the building

Of cost invaluable, so rich a structure

For beauty, or for state, the world affords not.

Is not thy attendance princely, like a queen’s?

Are not all these thy vassals to attend?

Are not thy chambers fair, and richly hung?

The walks within this barricadoed mure

Full of delight and pleasure for thy taste

And curious palate, all the chiefest cates

Are from the furthest verges of the earth

Fetched to content thee. What distastes thee then?

DANAE

That which alone is better than all these,

My liberty. Why am I cloistered thus,

And kept a prisoner from the sight of man?

What hath my innocence and infancy

Deserved to be immured in brazen walls?

Can you accuse my faith, or modesty?

Hath any loose demeanour in my carriage

Bred this distrust? Hath my eye plaid the rioter?

Or hath my tongue been lavish? Have my favours

Un-virgin-like to any been profuse,

That it should breed in you such jealousy,

Or bring me to this durance?

ACRISIUS         None of these.

I love my Danae. But when I record

The Oracle, it breeds such fear in me,

That makes this thy retainment.

DANAE           The Oracle?

Wherein unto the least of all the gods

Hath Danae been unthankful, or profane,

To bondage me that am a princess free,

And votaress to every deity?

ACRISIUS

I’ll tell thee, lady. The unchanging mouth

Of Phoebus hath this Oracle pronounced,

That Danae shall in time child such a son

That shall Acrisius change into a stone.

DANAE

See your vain fears! What less could Phoebus say?

Or what hath Danae’s fate deserved in this?

To turn you into stone – that’s to prepare

Your monument, and marble sepulchre.

The meaning is, that I a son shall have,

That when you die shall bear you to your grave.

Are you not mortal? Would you ever live?

Your father died, and to his monument

You like a mourner did attend his hearse.

What you did to your father let my son

Perform to you, prepare your sepulchre.

Or shall a stranger bear you to your tomb,

When from your own blood you may store a prince

To do those sacred rights? Or shall vain fears

Cloister my beauty, and consume my years?

ACRISIUS

Our fears are certain, and our doom as fixed

As the decrees of gods. Thy durance here

Is with limit endless. Go attend her

Unto her chamber, there to live an anchoress

And changeless virgin, to the period

Of her last hour. Exit Danae.

             And you, to whom this charge

Solely belongs, banish all womanish pity:

Be deaf unto her prayers, blind to her tears,

Obdure to her relenting passions.

Should she (as heaven and th’ Oracle forbid)

By your corrupting lose that precious gem

We have such care to keep and lock safe up,

Your lives are doomed. Be faithful we desire,

And keep your bodies from the threatened fire. Exit.

FIRST BELDAM

Heaven be as chary of your Highness’ life, as we of Danae’s honour. Now if she be a right woman, she will have a mind only to lose that, which her father hath such care to keep. There is a thing that commonly sticks under a woman’s stomach.

SECOND BELDAM

What do we talking of things? There must be no meddling with things in this place; come, let us set our watch and take our lodgings before the princess’ chamber. Exit.

[4.4]

Enter Jupiter like a pedlar, the clown his man, with packs at their back.

JUPITER

Sirrah, now I have sworn you to secrecy attend your charge.

CLOWN

Charge me to the mouth, and till you give fire I’ll not off.

JUPITER

Thou know’st I have stuffed my pack with rich jewels to purchase one jewel worth all these.

CLOWN

If your precious stones were set in that jewel it would be brave wearing.

JUPITER

If we get entrance, sooth me up in all things: and if I have recourse to the princess, if at any time thou seest me whisper to her, find some trick or other to blind the beldams’ eyes.

CLOWN

She that hath the best eyes of them all, I have a trick to make her nose stand in her light.

JUPITER

No more “King Jupiter”, but “Goodman pedlar”, remember that!

CLOWN

I have my memorandums about me. As I can bear a pack, so I can bear a brain, and now I talk of a pack, though I know not of the death of any of your friends, I am sorry for your heaviness.

JUPITER

Love and my hopes do make my load seem light,

This wealth I will unburden in the purchase

Of yon rich beauty. Prithee, ring the bell.

CLOWN

Nay do you take the rope in your hand for luck’s sake. The moral is, because you shall ring all in.

He rings the bell.

JUPITER

I care not if I take thy counsel.

Enter the four beldams.

FIRST BELDAM

To the gate, to the gate, and know who ’tis ere you open.

SECOND BELDAM

I learned that in my youth still to know who knocked before I would open.

JUPITER

Save you, gentle matrons! May a man be so bold as ask what he may call this rich and stately tower?

THIRD BELDAM

Thou seem’st a stranger to ask such a question,

For where is not the tower of Darreine known?

CLOWN

It may be called the Tower of Barren for ought I see, for here is none but are past children.

FOURTH BELDAM

This is the rich and famous Darreine Tower,

Where King Acrisius hath enclosed his daughter,

The beauteous Danae, famous through the world

For all perfections.

JUPITER

O, then ’tis here; I here I must unload.

Coming through Crete, the great King Jupiter

Intreated me to call here at this tower,

And to deliver you some special jewels,

Of high prized worth, for he would have his bounty

Renowned through all the earth. Down with your pack,

For here must we unload.

FIRST BELDAM     Jewels to us?

SECOND BELDAM

And from Jupiter?

JUPITER

Now gold prove thy true virtue! Thou canst all things and therefore this.

THIRD BELDAM

Comes he with presents, and shall he unpack at the gate? Nay, come into the porter’s lodge, good peddlars.

CLOWN

That lady hath some manners, she hath been well brought up, I warrant her!

FOURTH BELDAM

And I can tell thee pedlar, thou hast that curtesy that never any man yet found but the King Acrisius.

JUPITER

You shall be well paid for your curtesy,

Here’s first for you, for you, for you, for you.

FIRST BELDAM

Rare!

SECOND BELDAM

Admirable!

THIRD BELDAM

The best that e’er I saw!

FOURTH BELDAM

I’ll run and show mine to my lady.

FIRST BELDAM

Shut the gate for fear the King come, and if he ring, clap the pedlars into some of yon old rotten corners. And hath King Jupiter been at all this cost? He’s a courteous prince, and bountiful. Keep you the pedlar company, my lady shall see mine too.

JUPITER

Mean you the Princess Danae? I have tokens from Jupiter to her too.

FIRST BELDAM

Run, run, you that have the best legs, and tell my lady. But have you any more of the same?

CLOWN

“Have we”, quotha? We have things about us we have not showed yet, and that everyone must not see, would make those few teeth in your head to water, I would have you think I have ware too as well as my master.

Enter in state Danae with the beldams, looking upon three several jewels.

FIRST BELDAM

Yonder’s my lady! Nay, never bee abashed, pedlar, there’s a face will become thy jewels, as well as any face in Crete or Arges either. Now your token.

JUPITER

I have lost it, ’tis my heart. Beauty of angels,

Thou art o’er matched, earth may contend with heaven,

Nature, thou hast, to make one complete creature,

Cheated even all mortality. This face

Hath robbed the Morning of her blush, the lily

Of her blanched whiteness, and like theft committed

Upon my soul: she is all admiration.

But in her eyes I ne’er saw perfect lustre.

There is no treasure upon earth but yonder.

She is – (O, I shall lose myself!)

CLOWN

Nay sir, take heed you be not smelt out.

JUPITER

I am myself again.

DANAE

Did he bestow these freely? Danae’s guard

Are much indebted to King Jupiter.

If he have store, we’ll buy some for our use,

And wearing. They are wondrous beautiful – 

Where’s the man that brought them?

FIRST BELDAM

Here forsooth Lady, hold up your head and blush not: my lady will not hurt thee, I warrant thee.

JUPITER

This jewel, madam, did King Jupiter

Command me to leave here for Danae.

Are you so styled?

DANAE     If sent to Danae,

’Tis due to me. And would the King of Crete,

Knew with what gratitude we take his gift?

JUPITER

Madam, he shall. Sirrah, set ope your pack,

And what the ladies like, let them take freely.

DANAE

Much have I heard of his renown in arms,

His generousness, his virtues, and his fullness

Of all that Nature can bequeath to man.

His bounty I now taste, and I could wish,

Your ear were his, that I might let him know

What interest he hath in me to command.

JUPITER

His ear is mine, let me command you then!

Behold I am the Cretan, Jupiter,

That rate your beauty above all these gems.

What cannot love, what dares not love attempt?

Despite Acrisius and his armed guards,

Hither my love hath brought me to receive

Or life or death from you, only from you.

DANAE

We are amazed, and the large difference

Betwixt your name and habit breeds in us

Fear and distrust. Yet if I censure freely

I needs must think that face and personage

Was ne’er derived from baseness. And the spirit

To venture and to dare to court a queen

I cannot style less than to be a king’s.

Say that we grant you to be Jupiter,

What thence infer you?

JUPITER       To love Jupiter.

DANAE

So far as Jupiter loves Danae’s honour,

So far will Danae love Jupiter.

SECOND BELDAM

We wait well upon my lady.

JUPITER

Madam, you have not seen a clear stone,

For colour or for quickness!

(Sweet, your ear!).

DANAE

(Beware your ruin, if yon beldams hear!)

JUPITER

Sirrah, show all your wares, and let those ladies best please themselves.

CLOWN

Not all at these years. I spy his knavery. Now would he have me keep them busied, whilst he courts the lady.

THIRD BELDAM

Doth my lady want nothing?

She looks back.

CLOWN

As for example, here’s a silver bodkin, this is to remove dandruff and dig about the roots of your silver-haired fur. This is a tooth-picker, but you having no teeth, here is for you a coral to rub your gums. This is called a mask.

BELDAM

Gramercy for this, this is good to hide my wrinkles, I never see of these afore!

CLOWN

Then you have one wrinkle more behind. You that are dim-eyed, put this pitiful spectacle upon your nose.

JUPITER

As I am son of Saturn, you have wrong

To be cooped up within a prison strong.

Your father like a miser cloisters you

But to save cost: he’s loth to pay your dower,

And therefore keeps you in this brazen tower.

What are you better to be beautiful,

When no man’s eye can come to censure it?

What are sweet cates untasted? Gorgeous clothes

Unworn? Or beauty not beheld? Yon beldams

With all the furrows in their wrinkled fronts

May claim with you like worth; ay, and compare.

For eye to censure you none can, none dare.

DANAE

All this is true.

JUPITER    O, think you I would lie?

(With any save Danae!). Let me buy

This jewel, your bright love, though rated higher

Than gods can give, or men in prayers desire.

DANAE

You covet that, which save the prince of Crete

None dares.

JUPITER   That shows how much I love you, sweet,

I come this beauty, this rare face to save,

And to redeem it from this brazen grave.

O, do not from man’s eye this beauty screen,

These rare perfections, which no earthly queen

Enjoys save you: ’twas made to be admired.

The gods, the Fates, and all things have conspired

With Jupiter this prison to invade,

And bring it forth to that for which ’twas made.

Loue Jupiter, whose love with yours shall meet,

And having borne you hence, make at your feet

Kings lay their crowns, and mighty emperors kneel:

O, had you but a touch of what I feel,

You would both love and pity.

DANAE           Both I do.

But all things hinder – yet were Danae free,

She could affect the Cretan.

JUPITER         Now by thee

(For what I most affect, by that I swear)

I from this prison will bright Danae bear,

And in thy chamber will this night fast seal

This covenant made.

DANAE      Which Danae must repeal.

JUPITER

You shall not, by this kiss.

FIRST BELDAM

’Tis good to have an eye.

She looks back.

CLOWN

Your nose hath not had these spectacles on yet.

DANAE

O Jupiter!

JUPITER   O Danae!

DANAE       I must hence:

For if I stay, I yield: I’ll hence, no more.

JUPITER

Expect me, for I come.

DANAE        Yon is my door,

Dare not to enter there. I will to rest.

Attendance!

JUPITER   Come I will.

DANAE        You had not best.  Exit Danae.

SECOND BELDAM

My Lady calls. We have trifled the night till bedtime. Some attend the princess: others see the pedlars packed out of the gate.

CLOWN

Will you thrust us out to seek our lodging at midnight? We have paid for our lodging, a man would think, we might have lain cheaper in any inn in Arges?

JUPITER

This castle stands remote, no lodging near,

Spare us but any corner here below.

Be’t but the inner porch, or the least staircase,

And we’ll be gone as early as you please.

SECOND BELDAM

Consider all things, we have no reason to deny that.  What need we fear? Alas, they are but pedlars, and the greatest prince that breathes would be advised ere he durst presume to court the Princess Danae.

FIRST BELDAM

He court a princess? He looks not with the face. Well, pedlars, for this night take a nap upon some bench or other, and in the morning be ready to take thy yard in thy hand to measure me some stuff, and so to be gone before day. Well, good night, we must attend our princess. [Exeunt]

JUPITER

Gold and reward, thou art mighty, and hast power

O’er aged, young; the foolish, and the wise,

The chaste, and wanton; fool, and beautiful:

Thou art a god on earth, and canst all things.

CLOWN

Not all things, by your leave. All the gold in Crete cannot get one of you old crones with child. But shall we go sleep?

JUPITER

Sleep thou, for I must wake for Danae.

Hence cloud of baseness, thou hast done enough

To blear you beldams. When I next appear

He puts off his disguise

To you, bright goddess, I will shine in gold,

Decked in the high imperial robes of Crete,

And on my head the wreath of majesty:

For ornament is a prevailing thing,

And you, bright queen, I’ll now court like a king.  Exit.

[4.5]

Enter the four old beldams, drawing out Danae’s bed: she in it. They place four tapers at the four corners.

DANAE

Command our eunuchs with their pleasing’st tunes

To charm our eyes to rest. Leave us all, leave us.

The god of dreams hath with his downy fan

Swept o’er our eyelids, and sits heavy on them.

FIRST BELDAM

Heigh-ho! Sleep may enter in at my mouth, if he be no bigger than a two-penny loaf.

DANAE

Then to your chambers, and let wakeless slumbers

Charm you in depth of silence and repose.

ALL

Good night to thee, fair Danae!

DANAE

Let music through this brazen fortress sound

Till all our hearts in depth of sleep be drowned.

Enter Jupiter crowned with his imperial robes.

JUPITER

Silence that now hath empire through the world

Express thy power and princedom. Charming Sleep,

Death’s younger brother, shew thyself as still-less

As death himself. None seem this night to live,

Save Jove and Danae. But that goddess won,

Give them new life breathed with the morning sun,

Yon is the door, that in forbidding me

She bad me enter. Women’s tongues and hearts

Have different tunes: for where they most desire,

Their hearts cry on, when their tongues bid retire.

All’s whist, I hear the snorting beldams breathe

Soundness of sleep. None wakes save Love and we,

You bright imprisoned beauty to set free.

O, thou more beauteous in thy nakedness

Than ornament can add to! —

How sweetly doth she breath? How well become

Imaginary deadness! But I’’ll wake her

Unto new life. This purchase I must win,

Heaven’s gates stand ope, and Jupiter will in.

Danae?

He lies upon her bed.

DANAE  Who’s that?

JUPITER       ’Tis I, King Jupiter.

DANAE

What mean you prince? How dare you enter here?

Knowing if I but call, your life is doomed,

And all Crete’s treasure cannot guard your person.

JUPITER

You tell me now how much I rate your beauty,

Which to attain, I cast my life behind me,

As loved much less than you.

DANAE          I’ll love you too,

Would you but leave me.

JUPITER         Repentance I’d not buy

At that high rate, ten thousand times to die.

You are mine own, so all the Fates have said,

And by their guidance come I to your bed:

The night, the time, the place, and all conspire

To make me happy in my long desire.

Acrisius’ eyes are charmed in golden sleep,

Those beldams that were placed your bed to keep

All drowned in Lethe. Save your downy bed,

White sheets, and pillow where you rest your head,

None hears or sees, and what can they devise,

When they (heaven knows) have neither ears nor eyes?

DANAE

Beshrew you sir, that for your amorous pleasure

Could thus sort all things, person, place and leisure.

Exclaim I could, and a loud uproar keep,

But that you say the crones are all asleep:

And to what purpose should I raise such fear,

My voice being soft, they fast, and cannot hear?

JUPITER

They are deaf in rest, then, gentle, sweetly further,

If you should call, I thus your voice would murder

And strangle with my kisses.

DANAE          Kisses, tush.

I’ll sink into my sheets, for I shall blush.

I’ll dive into my bed.

JUPITER       And I behind?

No: were’t the Ocean, such a gem to find,

I would dive after.

Jupiter puts out the lights and makes unready.

DANAE         Good my lord, forbear,

What do you mean? O heave, is no man near,

If you will needs, for modesty’s chaste law,

Before you come to bed, the curtains draw,

But do not come, you shall not by this light,

If you but offer’t, I shall cry out right.

O God, how hoarse am I, and cannot? Fi,e

Danae thus naked and a man so nigh.

Pray, leave me, sir: he makes unready still,

Well, I’ll even wink, and then do what you will.

The bed is drawn in, and enter the clown new waked.

CLOWN

I would I were out of this tower of brass, and from all these brazen-faced beldams: if we should fall asleep, and the king come and take us napping, where were we? My lord stays long, and the night grows short; the thing you wot of hath cost him a simple sort of jewels. But if after all this cost, the thing you wot of would not do: if the pedlar should show himself  a piddler,  he hath brought his hogs to a fair market. Fie upon it, what a snorting forward and backward these beldams keep! But let them sleep on, some in the house I am sure are awake, and stirring too, or I miss my aim. Well, here must I sit and wait the good hour, till the gate be open, and suffer my eyes to do that, which I am sure my cloak never will, that is, to take nap.  Exit.

[4.6]

Enter Jupiter and Danae in her night-gown.

DANAE

Alas, my lord, I never loved till now,

And will you leave me?

JUPITER       Beauteous queen, I must,

But thus conditioned; to return again,

With a strong army to redeem you hence,

In spite of Arges, and Acrisius,

That dooms you to this bondage.

DANAE           Then farewell,

No sooner meet but part? Remember me:

For you, great prince, I never shall forget!

I fear you have left too sure a token with me

Of your remembrance.

JUPITER        Danae, be’t a son,

It shall be ours when we have Arges won.

DANAE

But should you fail?

JUPITER      I sooner should forget

My name, my state, than fail to pay this debt.

The daystar’ ’gins t’ appear, the beldams stir,

Ready t’ unlock the gate, fair queen, adieu.

DANAE

All men prove false, if Jove be found untrue.  Exit

JUPITER

My man?

CLOWN

My lord.

JUPITER

Some cloud to cover me, throw o’er my shoulders

Some shadow for this state: the crones are up,

And wait t’ unprison us, nay, quickly, fellow.

CLOWN

Here, my lord, cast your old cloak about you.

Enter the four beldams in haste.

FIRST BELDAM

Where be these pedlars? Nay, quickly, for heaven’s sake: the gate is open, nay, when? Farewell, my honest friends,  and do our humble duties to the great King Jupiter.

JUPITER

King Jupiter shall know your gratitude, farewell!

SECOND BELDAM

Nay, when I say farewell, farewell.

CLOWN

Farewell, good minivers. Exeunt divers ways.

[5.1]

Enter Homer.

HOMER

Fair Danae doth his richest jewel wear,

That son of whom the Oracle foretold

Which cost both mother and the grandsire dear,

Whose fortunes further leisure shall unfold:

Think Jupiter returned to Crete in haste,

To levy arms for Danae’s free release,

(But hindered) till the time be fully past,

For Saturn once more will disturb his peace.

A dumb show. Enter King Troos and Ganymede with attendants. To him, Saturn makes suit for aid, shows the king his models, his inventions, his several metals, at the strangeness of which King Troos is moved, calls for drum, and colours, and marches with Saturn.

The exiled Saturn by King Troos is aided,

Troos that gave Troy her name, and there reigned king.

Crete by the help of Ganymede’s invaded,

Even at that time when Jove should succours bring

To rescue Danae, and that warlike power

Must now his native territories guard,

Which should have brought her from the brazen tower,

(For to that end his forces were prepared).

We grow now towards our port and wished bay:

Gentles, your love, and Homer cannot stray.

[5.2]

Enter Neptune and Pluto.

NEPTUNE

Whence are these warlike preparations,

Made by the king our brother?

PLUTO          ’Tis given out,

To conquer Arges. But my sister Juno

Suspects some amorous purpose in the king.

NEPTUNE

And blame her not, the fair Europa’s rape,

Brought from Aegenor, and the Cadmian rape,

Io, the daughter of old Inachus,

Deflowered by him; the lovely Semele,

Fair Leda, daughter to King Tindarus,

With many more, may breed a just suspect,

Nor hath he spared fair Ceres, queen of grain,

Who bare to him the bright Proserpina.

Such scapes may breed just fears, and what knows she

But these are to surprise fair Danae.

Sound. Enter Jupiter, Arcas, with drum and soldiers.

JUPITER

Arm, royal brothers, Crete’s too small an isle

To comprehend our greatness, we must add

Arges and Greece to our dominions,

And all the petty kingdoms of the earth

Shall pay their homage unto Saturn’s son,

This day we’ll take a muster of our forces,

And forward make for Arges.

ARCAS          All Arcadia

Assemble to this purpose.

JUPITER         Then set on.

The eagle in our ensign we’ll display,

Jove and his fortunes guide us in our way.

Enter King Melliseus

MELLISEUS

Whether intends the king this warlike march?

JUPITER

For Arges and Acrisius.

MELLISEUS       Rather guard

Your native confines, see upon your coast,

Saturn with thirty thousand Trojans landed

And in his aid King Troos and Ganymede!

JUPITER

In never worse time could the tyrant come

Than now to break my faith with Danae.

O, beauteous love, I fear Acrisius’ ire

Will with severest censure chastise thee,

And thou wilt deem me faithless and unkind

For promise-breach, but what we must we must.

Come, valiant lords, we’ll first our own defend

Ere against foreign climes our arm extend.

Sound. Enter with drum and colours King Troos, Saturn, Ganymede, with other lords and attendants.

SATURN

Degenerate boys, base bastards, not my sons,

Behold the death we threatened in your cradles

We come to give you now. See here King Troos,

In pity of deposed Saturn’s wrongs,

Is come in person to chastise your pride,

And be the heavens’ relentless justicer.

JUPITER

Not against Saturn as a father, we,

But as a murderer, lift our opposite hands.

Nature and heaven gives us this privilege,

To guard our lives ’gainst tyrants and invaders,

That claim we, as we’re men, we would but live:

Then take not from us what you cannot give.

TROOS

Where hath not Saturn’s fame abroad been spread,

For many uses he hath given to man;

As navigation, tillage, archery,

Weapons and gold? Yet you for all these uses

Deprive him of his kingdom.

PLUTO          We but save

Our innocent bodies from th’ abortive grave.

NEPTUNE

We are his sons, let Saturn be content

To let us keep what heaven and nature lent.

GANYMEDE

Those filial duties you so much forget

We come to teach you. Royal kings, to arms!

Give Ganymede the onset of this battle,

That being a son knows how to lecture them,

And chastise their transgressions.

SATURN            Ganymede,

It shall be so, pour out your spleen and rage

On our proud issue. Let the thirsty soil

Of barren Crete quaff their degenerate bloods,

And surfeit in their sins. All Saturn’s hopes

And fortunes are engaged upon this day.

It is our last, and all, be’t our endeavour

To win’t for ay, or else to lose it ever.

Alarm. The battles join, the Trojans are repulsed. Enter Troos and Saturn.

TROOS

Our Trojans are repulsed, where’s Ganymede?

SATURN

Amidst the throng of weapons, acting wonders.

Twice did I call aloud to have him fly,

And twice he swore he had vowed this day to die.

TROOS

Let’s make up to his rescue.

SATURN          Tush, ’tis vain.

To seek to save him we shall lose ourselves.

The day is lost, and Ganymede lost too

Without divine assistance. Hie, my lord,

Unto your ships, no safety lives a-land,

Even to the Ocean’s margent we are pursued,

Then save yourself by sea.

TROOS          Crete thou hast won

My thirty thousand soldiers, and my son.

Come, let’s to sea.  Exit

SATURN     To sea must Saturn too,

To whom all good stars are still opposite.

My crown I first bought with my infants’ blood,

Not long enjoyed, till Titan wrested it;

Re-purchased, and re-lost by Jupiter.

These horrid mischiefs that have crowned our brows

Have bred in us such strange distemperature

That we are grown dejected and forlorn.

Our blood is changed to ink, our hairs to quills,

Our eyes half-buried in our queachy  plots.

Consumptions and cold agues have devoured

And eat up all our flesh, leaving behind

Nought save the image of despair and death:

And Saturn shall to after ages be

That star, that shall infuse dull melancholy.

To Italy I’ll fly, and there abide,

Till divine powers my place above provide.  Exit.

[5.3]

Alarm. Enter Ganymede compassed in with soldiers; to them, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Arcas, Melliseus.

JUPITER

Yield noble Trojan, there’s not in the field

One of thy nation lifts a hand save thee.

GANYMEDE

Why, that’s my honour, when alone I stand

’Gainst thee and all the forces of thy land.

JUPITER

I love thy valour, and would woo thy friendship:

Go freely where thou wilt, and ransom-less.

GANYMEDE

Why that’s no gift: I am no prisoner,

And therefore owe no ransom, having breath.

Know I have vowed to yield to none save death.

JUPITER

I wish thee, nobly Trojan, and since favour

Cannot attain thy love, I’ll try conclusions,

And see if I can purchase it with blows.

GANYMEDE

Now speak’st thou like the noblest of my foes.

JUPITER

Stand all apart, and princes girt us round.

GANYMEDE

I love him best whose strokes can loudest sound!

Alarm. They fight, and losing their weapons, embrace.

JUPITER

I have thee, and will keep thee.

GANYMEDE         Not as prisoner.

JUPITER

A prisoner to my love, else thou art free:

My bosom friend, for so I honour thee.

GANYMEDE

I am conquered both by arms and courtesy.

NEPTUNE

The day is ours, Troos and King Saturn’s fled,

And Jupiter remains sole conqueror.

PLUTO

Peace with her golden wings hovers o’er Crete,

Frighting hence discord, and remorseless war:

Will Jupiter make up for Arges now?

MELLISEUS

Winter draws on, the sea’s unnavigable

To transport an army. There attends without

A lord of Arges.

JUPITER

Bring him to our presence.

Enter Arges.

How stands it with the beauteous Danae?

ARGES’ LORD

As one distressed by Fate, and miserable.

Of King Acrisius, and his fort of brass,

Danae’s enclosure, and her beldam-guard,

Who but hath heard? Yet through these brazen walls

Love hath broke in, and made the maid a mother

Of a fair son, which when Acrisius heard,

Her female guard unto the fire he dooms;

His daughter, and the infant prince her son

He puts into a mast-less boat to sea,

To prove the rigor of the stormy waves.

JUPITER

Acrisius, Arges, and the world shall know

Jove hath been wronged in this: her further fortunes

Canst thou relate?

ARGES LORD    I can. As far as Naples

The friendly winds her mast-less boat transports;

There succoured by a courteous fisherman

She’s first relieved, and after that presented

To King Pelonnus, who at this time reigns,

Who, ravished with her beauty, crowns her queen,

And decks her with th’ imperial robes of state.

JUPITER

What we have scanted is supplied by Fate.

Here then, cease arms, and now court amorous Peace

With solemn triumphs, and, dear Ganymede,

Be henceforth called the friend of Jupiter.

And if the Fates hereafter crown our brows

With divine honours, as we hope they shall,

We’ll style thee by the name of cupbearer,

To fill us heavenly nectar, as fair Hebe

Shall do the like to Juno, our bright Queen.

Here end the pride of our mortality.

Opinion, that makes gods, must style us higher.

The next you see us, we in state must shine,

Eternised with honours more divine.  Exeunt omnes.

[EPILOGUE]

Enter Homer.

HOMER

Of Danae Perseus was that night begot,

Perseus, that fought with the Gorgonian shield,

Whose fortunes to pursue time suffers not.

For that, we have prepared an ampler field.

Likewise, how Jove with fair Alcmena lay;

Of Hercules, and of his famous deeds;

How Pluto did fair Proserpine betray:

Of these my Muse (now travelled) next proceeds. 

Yet to keep promise, ere we further wade,

The ground of ancient poems you shall see,

And how these (first born mortal) gods were made,

By virtue of divinest poesy.

The Fates, to whom the Heathen yield all power,

Whose dooms are writ in marble, to endure,

Have summoned Saturn’s three sons to their tower.

To them the three dominions to assure

Of Heaven, of Sea, of Hell. How these are scanned,

Let none decide but such as understand.

Sound a dumb show. Enter the three fatal sisters, with a rock,  a thread, and a pair of shears; bringing in a globe, in which they put three lots. Jupiter draws Heaven: at which Iris descends and presents him with his eagle, crown and sceptre, and his thunderbolt. Jupiter first ascends upon the eagle, and after him Ganymede.

To Jupiter doth high Olympus fall.

Who thunder and the trisulk  lightning bears

Dreaded of all the rest in general:

He on a princely eagle mounts the spheres.

Sound. Neptune draws the Sea, is mounted upon a seahorse; a robe and trident, with a crown, are given him by the Fates.

Neptune is made the lord of all the seas,

His mace a trident, and his habit blue.

He can make tempests, or the waves appease,

And unto him the seamen are still true.

Sound. Thunder and tempest. Enter at four several corners the four winds: Neptune riseth disturbed. The Fates bring the fourth winds in a chain, and present them to Aeolus as their king.

And for the winds, these brothers that still war,

Should not disturb his empire, the three Fates

Bring them to Aeolus, chained as they are,

To be enclosed in caves with brazen gates.

Sound. Pluto draws Hell: the Fates put upon him a burning robe, and present him with a mace and burning crown.

Pluto’s made emperor of the ghosts below,

Where with his black guard he in darkness reigns,

Commanding Hell, where Styx and Lethe flow,

And murderers are hanged up in burning chains.

But leaving these: to your judicial spirits

I must appeal, and to your wonted grace,

To know from you, what eyeless Homer merits,

Whom you have power to banish from this place,

But if you send me hence unchecked with fear,

Once more I’ll dare upon this stage t’ appear.

FINIS.