[Attendants bear off AURANTHE,
Erminia. Alas!
Ethelbert.
Your wife?
Ludolph.
Aye, Satan! does that yerk ye?
Ethelbert.
Wife! so soon!
Ludolph.
Aye, wife! Oh, impudence!
Thou bitter mischief! Venomous mad priest!
How dar’st thou lift those beetle brows at me?
Me the prince Ludolph, in this presence here,
Upon my marriage-day, and scandalize
My joys with such opprobrious surprise? SO
Wife! Why dost linger on that syllable,
As if it were some demon’s name pronounc’d
To summon harmful lightning, and make roar
The sleepy thunder? Hast no sense of fear?
No ounce of man in thy mortality?
Tremble! for, at my nod, the sharpen’d axe
Will make thy bold tongue quiver to the roots,
Those grey lids wink, and thou not know it more!
Ethelbert.
O, poor deceived Prince! I pity thee!
Great Otho! I claim justice
Ludolph. Thou shalt hav ‘t!
Thine arms from forth a pulpit of hot fire
Shall sprawl distracted! O that that dull cowl
Were some most sensitive portion of thy life,
That I might give it to my hounds to tear!
Thy girdle some fine zealous-pained nerve
To girth my saddle! And those devil’s beads
Each one a life, that I might, every day,
Crush one with Vulcan’s hammer!
Otho.
Peace, my son;
You far outstrip my spleen in this affair.
Let us be calm, and hear the abbot’s plea
For this intrusion.
Ludolph.
I am silent, sire.
Otho.
Conrad, see all depart not wanted here.
[Exeunt Knights, Ladies, &c.
Ludolph, be calm. Ethelbert, peace awhile.
This mystery demands an audience
Of a just judge, and that will Otho be.
Ludolph.
Why has he time to breathe another word?
Otho.
Ludolph, old Ethelbert, be sure, comes not
To beard us for no cause ; he’s not the man
To cry himself up an ambassador
Without credentials.
Ludolph.
I’ll chain up myself.
Otho. Old Abbot, stand here forth. Lady Erminia,
Sit. And now, Abbot! what have you to say?
Our ear is open. First we here denounce
Hard penalties against thee, if ‘t be found
The cause for which you have disturb ‘d us here,
Making our bright hours muddy, be a thing
Of little moment.
Ethelbert.
See this innocent!
Otho! thou father of the people call’d,
Is her life nothing? Her fair honour nothing?
Her tears from matins until evensong
Nothing? Her burst heart nothing? Emperor!
Is this your gentle niece the simplest flower
Of the world’s herbal this fair lilly blanch ‘d
Still with the dews of piety, this meek lady
Here sitting like an angel newly-shent,
Who veils its snowy wings and grows all pale,
Is she nothing?
Otho.
What more to the purpose, abbot?
Ludolph.
Whither is he winding?
Conrad.
No clue yet!
Ethelbert.
You have heard, my Liege, and so, no
doubt, all here,
Foul, poisonous, malignant whisperings;
Nay open speech, rude mockery grown common,
Against the spotless nature and clear fame
Of the princess Erminia, your niece.
I have intruded here thus suddenly,
Because I hold those base weeds, with tight hand,
Which now disfigure her fair growing stem,
Waiting but for your sign to pull them up
By the dark roots, and leave her palpable,
To all men’s sight, a Lady, innocent.
The ignominy of that whisper’d tale
About a midnight gallant, seen to climb
A window to her chamber neighboured near,
I will from her turn off, and put the load
On the right shoulders; on that wretch’s head,
Who, by close stratagems, did save herself,
Chiefly by shifting to this lady’s room
A rope-ladder for false witness.
Ludolph.
Most atrocious!
Otho.
Ethelbert, proceed.
Ethelbert.
With sad lips I shall:
For in the healing of one wound, I fear
To make a greater. His young highness here
To-day was married.
Ludolph.
Good.
Ethelbert.
Would it were good!
Yet why do I delay to spread abroad
The names of those two vipers, from whose jaws
A deadly breath went forth to taint and blast
This guileless lady?
Otho.
Abbot, speak their names.
Ethelbert.
A minute first. It cannot be but may
I ask, great judge, if you to-day have put
A letter by unread?
Otho.
Does ‘tend in this?
Conrad.
Out with their names!
Ethelbert.
Bold sinner, say you