View source for ''The Spanish Tragedy''

==''The Spanish Tragedy'' (1592) IV.i.59-106==
''Hieronymo Is Mad Againe''

by Thomaas Kyd


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BAL. It pleased you
:At the entertainment of the ambassador,
:To grace the King so much as with a show;
:Now were your study so well furnished
:As, for the passing of the first night's sport,
:To entertain my father with the like,
:Or any such like pleasing motion,
:Assure yourself it would content them well.

HIERO. Is this all?

BAL. Aye, this is all.

HIERO. Why then I'll fit you; say no more.
:When I was young I gave my mind
:And plied myself to fruitless poetry,
:Which, though it profit the professor naught,
:Yet is it passing pleasing to the world.

LOR. And how for that?

HIERO. Marry, my good lord, thus.—
:And yet, me thinks, you are too quick with us!—
:When in Toledo there I studied,
:It was my chance to write a tragedy,—
:See here, my lords,—

He shows them a book.

:Which, long forgot, I found this other day.
:Nor would your lordships favour me so much
:As but to grace me with your acting it,
:I mean each one of you to play a part.
:Assure you it will prove most passing strange
:And wondrous plausible to that assembly.

BAL. What, would you have us play a tragedy?

HIERO. Why, Nero thought it no disparagement,
:And kings and emperors have ta'en delight
:To make experience of their wit in plays!
  
LOR. Nay, be not angry, good Hieronimo;
:The prince but ask'd a question.
  
BAL. In faith, Hieronimo, and you be in earnest,
:I'll make one.

LOR. And I another.

HIERO. Now, my good lord, could you entreat,
:Your sister, Bel-imperia, to make one,—
:For what's a play without a woman in it?
  
BEL. Little entreaty shall serve me, Hieronimo,
:For I must needs be employed in your play.
  
HIERO. Why, this is well! I tell you, lordings,
:It was determined to have been acted,
:By gentlemen and scholars too,
:Such as could tell what to speak.
  
BAL. And now
:It shall be play'd by princes and courtiers,
:Such as can tell how to speak,
:If, as it is our country manner,
:You will but let us know the argument.
  
HIERO. That shall I roundly. The chronicles of Spain
:Record this written of a knight of Rhodes;
:He was betroth'd, and wedded at the length,
:To one Perseda, an Italian dame,
:Whose beauty ravish'd all that her beheld,
:Especially the soul of Suleiman,
:Who at the marriage was the chiefest guest.
:By sundry means sought Suleiman to win
:Perseda's love, and could not gain the same.
:Then 'gan he break his passions to a friend,
:One of his bashaws whom he held full dear.
:Her has this bashaw long solicited,
:And saw she was not otherwise to be won
:But by her husband's death, this knight of Rhodes,
:Whom presently by treachery he slew.
:She, stirr'd with an exceeding hate therefore,
:As cause of this, slew Sultan Suleiman,
:And, to escape the bashaw's tyranny,
:Did stab herself. And this is the tragedy.

LOR. O, excellent!

BEL. But say, Hieronimo:
:What then became of him that was the bashaw?
  
HIERO.
::Marry thus:
:Moved with remorse of his misdeeds,
:Ran to a mountain top and hung himself.

BAL. But which of us is to perform that part?

HIERO. O, that will I, my lords; make no doubt of it;
:I'll play the murderer, I warrant you;
:For I already have conceited that.

BAL. And what shall I?

HIERO. Great Suleiman, the Turkish emperor.

LOR. And I?

HIERO. Erastus, the knight of Rhodes.

BEL. And I?

HIERO. Perseda, chaste and resolute.
:And here, my lords, are several abstracts drawn,
:For each of you to note your several parts.
:And act it as occasion's offer'd you.
:You must provide you with a Turkish cap,
:A black moustache and a fauchion.

Gives paper to BALTHAZAR.

:You with a cross, like a knight of Rhodes.

Gives another to LORENZO.

:And, madame, you must then attire yourself

He giveth BEL-IMPERIA another.

:Like Phoebe, Flora, or the huntress Dian,
:Which to your discretion shall seem best.
:And as for me, my lords, I'll look to one,
:And with the ransom that the viceroy sent
:So furnish and perform this tragedy
:As all the world shall say Hieronimo
:Was liberal in gracing of it so.

BAL. Hieronimo, methinks a comedy were better.

HIERO. A comedy? fie! comedies are fit for common wits;
:But to present a kingly troupe withal,
:Give me a stately-written tragedy,—
:Tragedia cothurnata, fitting kings,
:Containing matter, and not common things!
:My lords, all this our sport must be perform'd,
:As fitting for the first night's revelling.
:The Italian tragedians were so sharp
:Of wit that in one hour's meditation
:They would perform any-thing in action.
  
LOR. And well it may, for I have seen the like
:In Paris, 'mongst the French tragedians.
  
HIERO. In Paris? mass, and well remembered!—
:There's one thing more that rests for us to do.
  
BAL. What's that, Hieronimo?
:Forget not anything.
  
HIERO. Each one of us
:Must act his part in unknown languages,
:That it may breed the more variety:
:As you, my lord, in Latin, I in Greek,
:You in Italian, and, for-because I know
:That Bel-imperia hath practised the French,
:In courtly French shall all her phrases be.

BEL. You mean to try my cunning then, Hieronimo!

BAL. But this will be a mere confusion,
:And hardly shall we all be understood.
  
HIERO. It must be so; for the conclusion
:Shall prove the invention and all was good;
:And I myself in an oration,
:That I will have there behind a curtain,
:And with a strange and wondrous show besides,
:Assure yourself, shall make the matter known.
:And all shall be concluded in one scene,
:For there's no pleasure ta'en in tediousness.

BAL. [to LOR.] How like you this?

LOR. Why thus, my lord, we must resolve,
:To soothe his humors up.

BAL. On then, Hieronimo; farewell till soon!

Courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

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