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Enter ORGILUS.

Org. Honour
Attend thy counsels ever.

Bass. I beseech thee,

With all my heart, let me go from thee quietly;
I will not aught to do with thee, of all men.
The doublers of a hare, or in a morning
Salutes from a splay-footed witch, to drop
Three drops of blood at th' nose just, and no more,
Croaking of ravens, or the screech of owls,
Are not so boding mischief as thy crossing
My private meditations: shun me, pr’ythee :
And if I cannot love thee heartily,

I'll love thee as well as I can.

Org. Noble Bassanes,

Mislike me not.

Bass. Phew! then we shall be troubled: Thou wert ordain'd my plague; Heaven make me thankful!'

And give me patience too, Heaven, I beseech thee!
Org. Accept a league of amity; for henceforth,
I vow, by my best genius, in a syllable
Never to speak vexation: I will study
Service and friendship, with a zealous sorrow
For my past incivility towards ye.

Buss. Heyday! good words, good words?-I
must believe 'em,

And be a coxcomb for my labour.

Org. Use not

So hard a language: your misdoubt is causeless :
For instance, if you promise to put on
A constancy of patience; such a patience
As chronicle or history ne'er mentioned,
As follows not example, but shall stand
A wonder and a theme for imitation,
The first, the index pointing to a second,
I will acquaint ye with an unmatch'd secret,
Whose knowledge to your griefs shall set a period.
Bass. Thou canst not, Orgilus; 'tis in the power
Of the gods only: yet for satisfaction,
Because I note an earnest in thine utterance,
Unforc'd and naturally free, be resolute;
The virgin-bays shall not withstand the lightning
With a more careless danger, than my constancy
The full of thy relation. Could it move
Distraction in a senseless marble statue,
It should find me a rock. I do expect now
Some truth of unheard moment.

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Intrusted to my courtship. Be not jealous, Euphranea; I shall scarcely prove a temptress.→→ Fall to our dance!

[Music. NEARCHUS dances with EUPHRANEA, PROPHILUS with CALANTHA, CHRISTALLA with HEMOPHIL, PHILEMA with GRONEAS. They dance the first change. During which enter ARMOSTES.

Arm. [In a whisper to CALANTHA.] The king your father's dead.

Cal. To the other change!
Arm. Is't possible!

Another Dance. Enter BASSANES.
Bass. [In a whisper to CALANTHA.] Oh, ma-
dam,
Penthea, poor Penthea's starved.
Cal. Beshrew thee!-

Lead to the next!

Bass. Amazement dulls my senses.

Another Dance. Enter ORGILUS.

Org. Brave Ithocles is murder'd, murder'd
cruelly. [Aside to CALANTHA.
Cal. How dull this music sounds! Strike up
more sprightly:

Our footings are not active like our heart,
Which treads the nimbler measure.
Org. I am thunderstruck.

The last Change. Music ceases.

Cal. So let us breathe awhile.-Hath not this motion

Rais'd fresher colours on our cheeks?

Near. Sweet princess,

A perfect purity of blood enamels
The beauty of your white.

Cal. We all look cheerfully:

And, cousin, 'tis, methinks, a rare presumption
In any who prefers our lawful pleasures
Before their own sour censure, to interrupt

The custom of this ceremony bluntly.
Near. None dares, lady.

Cal. Yes, yes; some hollow voice deliver❜d to

me

How that the king was dead.

Arm. The king is dead:

That fatal news was mine; for in mine arms He breath'd his last, and, with his crown, bequeath'd ye

Your mother's wedding-ring, which here I tender. Crot. Most strange!

Cal, Peace crown his ashes! We are queen then.

Near. Long live Calantha, Sparta's sovereign queen!

All. Long live the queen!

Cal. What whispered Bassanes?

Bass. That my Penthea, miserable soul, Was starved to death.

Cal. She's happy: she hath finish'd

A long and painful progress.-A third murmur Pierced mine unwilling ears.

Org. That Ithocles

Was murthered, rather butchered, had not bra

very

Of an undaunted spirit, conquering terror,
Proclaimed his last act triumph over ruin.
Arm, How? murther'd?

Cal. By whose hand?

Org. By mine; this weapon

Was instrument to my revenge: the reasons

Are just and known: quit him of these, and then
Never lived gentleman of greater merit,

Hope or abiliment to steer a kingdom.
Crot. Fye, Orgilus !

Euph. Fye, brother!
Cal. You have done it?

Bass. How it was done, let him report, the for-
feit

Of whose allegiance to our laws doth covet
Rigour of justice; but, that done it is,
Mine eyes have been an evidence of credit
Too sure to be convinc'd. Armostes, rent not
Thine arteries with hearing the bare circumstances
Of these calamities: thou'st lost a nephew,
A niece, and I a wife: continue man still;
Make me the pattern of digesting evils,
Who can outlive my mighty ones, not shrinking
At such a pressure as would sink a soul
Into what's most of death, the worst of horrors:
But I have sealed a covenant with sadness,
And enter'd into bonds without condition,
To stand these tempests calmly. Mark me, nobles,
I do not shed a tear, not for Penthea.
Excellent misery!

Cal. We begin our reign
With a first act of justice. Thy confession,
Unhappy Orgilus, dooms thee a sentence;
But yet thy father's or thy sister's presence
Shall be excus'd. Give, Crotolon, a blessing
To thy lost son: Euphranea, take a farewell,
And both be gone.

Crot. [To ORGILUS.] Confirm thee, noble
sorrow,

In worthy resolution!

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[Exeunt CROTOLON, PROPHILUS, and
EUPHRANEA.

Bloody relater of thy stains in blood,
For that thou hast reported him, whose fortunes
And life by thee are both at once snatch'd from
him,

With honourable mention, make thy choice
Of what death likes thee best; there's all our
bounty:

But, to excuse delays, let me, dear cousin,
Intreat you and these lords see execution
Instant before ye part.

Near. Your will commands us.

Org. One suit, just queen, my last: vouchsafe your clemency,

That by no common hand I be divided
From this my humble frailty.

Cal. To their wisdoms,

Who are to be spectators of thine end,

I make the reference: those that are dead,
Are dead; had they not now died of necessity,
They must have paid the debt they owed to nature,
One time or other.-Use dispatch, my lords,
We'll suddenly prepare our coronation.

[Exeunt CALANtha, Philema, and
CHRISTALLA.

Arm. 'Tis strange these tragedies should never touch on

Her female pity.

Buss. She has a masculine spirit:
And wherefore should I pule, and, like a girl,
Put finger in the eye? let's be all toughness,
Without distinction betwixt sex and sex.

Near. Now, Orgilus, thy choice.
Org. To bleed to death.

Arm. The executioner?
Org. Myself: no surgeon.

I am well skill'd in letting blood: bind fast
This arm, that so the pipes may from their con-
duits

Convey a full stream: here's a skilful instrument,
Only I am a beggar to some charity
To speed me in this execution,

By lending th' other prick to th' other arm,
When this is bubbling life out.

Bass. I am for ye.

It most concerns my art, my care, my credit.
Quick fillet both his arms.

[The arms of ORGILUS are bared, and
pieces of tape tied round the elbows.

He receives a stick in each arm.

Org. Gramercy, friendship:

Such courtesies are real, which flow chearfully
Without an expectation of requital.
Reach me a staff in this hand: If a proneness
Or custom in my nature, from my cradle,
Had been inclined to fierce and eager bloodshed,
A coward guilt, hid in a coward quaking,
Would have betrayed fame to ignoble flight,

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they place him on the one side of the altar. After him enter CALANTHA, in a white robe, and crowned; EUPHRANEA, PHILEMA and CHRISTALLA, in white; NEARCHUS, ARMOSTES, CROTOLON, PROPHILUS, AMelus, BasSANES, HEMOPHIL, and GRONEAS. CALANTHA goes and kneels before the altar, the women kneeling behind her; the rest stand off. The Recorders cease during her devotions. Soft music-CALANTHA and the rest rise, doing obeisance to the altar.

Cal. Our orisons are heard; the gods are merciful.

Now tell me, you, whose loyalties pay tribute
To us your lawful sovereign, how unskilful
Your duties or obedience is to render
Subjection to the scepter of a virgin,
Who have been ever fortunate in princes
Of masculine and stirring composition?
A woman has enough to govern wisely
Her own demeanours, passions and divisions.
A nation, warlike and inur'd to practice
Of policy and labour, cannot brook

A feminate authority: we therefore
Command your counsel, how you may advise us
In choosing of a husband, whose abilities
Can better guide this kingdom.

Near. Royal lady,

Your law is in your will.

Arm. We have seen tokens

Of constancy too lately to mistrust it.

Crot. Yet, if your highness settle on a choice, By your own judgment both allow'd and lik'd of, Sparta may grow in power, and proceed To an increasing height.

Cal. Hold you the same mind?

Bass. Alas, great mistress, reason is so clouded With the thick darkness of my infinite woes, That I forecast nor dangers, hopes, or safety. Give me some corner of the world to wear out The remnant of the minutes I must number, Where I may hear no sounds, but sad complaints Of virgins, who have lost contracted partners; Of husbands howling that their wives were ravished

By some untimely fate; of friends divided
By churlish opposition; or of fathers
Weeping upon their children's slaughtered car-

cases;

Or daughters, groaning o'er their fathers' hearses,
And I'candwell there, and with these keep concert
As musical as their's. What can you look for
From an old, foolish, peevish, doting man,
But craziness of age e?

Cal. Cousin of Argos.
Near. Madam!

Cal. Were I presently

To choose you for my lord, I'll open freely
What articles I would propose to treat on
Before our marriage.

Near. Name them, virtuous lady.
Cal. I would presume you would retain the
royalty

An altar, covered with white; two lights of virgin war placed upon it. Music of Recorders, during which enter four, bearing ITHOCLES on a hearse, in a rich robe, with a crown on his head; | Of Sparta in her own bounds; then in Argos

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THE

RIVAL QUEENS;

OR,

THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

BY

NATHANIEL LEE.

PROLOGUE.

WRITTEN BY SIR CAV. SCROOP, BART.

How hard the fate is of the scribbling drudge,
Who writes to all, when yet so few can judge!
Wit, like religion, once divine was thought,
And the dull crowd believ'd as they were taught;
Now each fanatic fool presumes t' explain
The text, and does the sacred writ prophane;
For while your wits each other's fall pursue,
The fops usurp the power belongs to you.
Ye think v'are challeng'd in each new play-bill,
And here you come for trial of your skill,
Where, fencer-like, you one another hurt,
While with your wounds you make the rabble
sport.

Others there are that have the brutal will
To murder a poor play, but want the skill;
They love to fight, but seldom have the wit
To spy the place where they may thrust and hit;
And, therefore, like some bully of the town,
Ne'er stand to draw, but knock the poet down.
With these, like hogs in gardens, it succeeds,
They root up all, and know not flowers from
weeds.

As for you, sparks, that hither come each day

To act your own, and not to mind our play,
Rehearse your usual follies to the pit,
And with loud nonsense crown the stage's wit;
Talk of your cloathes, your last debauches tell,
And witty bargains to each other sell;
Glout on the silly she, who, for your sake,
Can vanity and noise for love mistake,
Till the coquette, sung in the next lampoon,
Is by her jealous friends sent out of town;
For in this dueiling, intriguing age,
The love you make, is like the war you wage,
Y'are still prevented ere you come t engage:
But it is not such trifling foes as you
The mighty Alexander deigns to sue;
Ye Persians of the pit he does despise,
But to the men of sense for aid he flies;
On their experienc'd arms he now depends,
Nor fears he odds, if they but prove his friends.
For as he once a little handful chose
The numerous armies of the world t' oppose;
So, back'd by you, who understand the rules,
He hopes to rout the mighty host of fools.

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