Is nature narrow to adversity?

No, no. Our God left duty for a law;
Pity, at large; love, in authority;

Despair, in bonds; fear, of itself in awe :
That rage of time, and power's strange liberty,
Oppressing good men, might resistance find:
Nor can I to a brother be less kind.

Dost thou, that canst not see, hope to escape?
Disgrace can have no friend; contempt no guide ;
Right is thy guilt; thy judge iniquity;
Which desolation casts on them that see.

Zophi. Make calm thy rage: pity a ghost distrest:
My right, my liberty, I freely give:

Give him, that never harm'd thee, leave to live.
Calica. Nay, God, the world, thy parents it deny;

A brother's jealous heart; usurped might

Grows friends with all the world, except thy right.
Zophi. Secure thyself.

Exile me from this coast:

My fault, suspicion is; my judge, is fear;

Occasion, with myself, away I bear.

Calica. Fly unto God: for in humanity

Hope there is none. Reach me thy fearful hand :
I am thy sister; neither fiend, nor spy
Of tyrant's rage; but one that feels despair
Of thy estate, which thou dost only fear.
Kneel down; embrace this holy mystery;
A refuge to the worst for rape and blood,
And yet, I fear, not hallow'd for the good.

Zophi. Help, God! defend thine altar! since thy might,

In earth, leaves innocents no other right.

Calica. Eternal God! that see'st thyself in us,

If vows be more than sacrifice of lust,

Rais'd from the smokes of hope and fear in us,
Protect this Innocent, calm Alaham's rage;
By miracles faith goes from age to age.
Affection trembles; reason is opprest;
Nature, methinks, doth her own entrails tear :
In resolution ominous is fear,

Alaham

Alaham causes Search to be made after his Father and Brother. Zophi is discovered, and Calica; who, being questioned by Alaham where she has hid her Father, dissembles as, though she thought that the King was dead; "but being threatened with the rack, her Exclamations call her Father from his hiding-place; who, together with her, and her Brother Zophi, are sentenced by Alaham to the Flames.

ALAHAM. Attendants.

Alaham. Sirs, seek the city, examine, torture, rack;
Sanctuaries none let there be; make darkness known ;
Pull down the roofs, dig, burn, put all to wrack;
And let the guiltless for the guilty groan.

Change, shame, misfortune, in their 'scaping lie,
And in their finding our prosperity.

He sees Calica.

Good fortune welcome! We have lost our care,
And found our loss: Cælica distract I see.
The king is near: She is her father's eyes.

He sees Zophi.

Behold! the forlorn wretch, half of my fear,
Takes sanctuary at holy altar's feet:

Lead him apart, examine, force, and try;
These bind the subject not the monarchy.

Cælica! awake: that God of whom you crave

Is deaf, and only gives men what they have.

Calica. Ah cruel wretch! guilty of parent's blood!
Might I, poor innocent, my father free,

My murther yet were less impiety.
But on; devour: fear only to be good:
Let us not scape: thy glory then doth rise,
When thou at once thy house dost sacrifice.
Alaham. Tell me where thy father is.
Calica. O bloody scorn,

Must he be kill'd again that gave thee breath?
Is duty nothing else in thee but death?

Alaham.

Alaham. Leave off this mask; deceit is never wise; Though he be blind, a king hath many eyes.

Calica. O twofold scorn! God be reveng'd for me. Yet since my father is destroy'd by thee,

Add still more scorn, it sorrow multiplies.

Alaham. Passions are learn'd, not born within the heart, That method keep: Order is quiet's art.

Tell where he is: for look what love conceals,

Pain out of nature's labyrinths reveals.

Calica. This is reward which thou dost threaten me:

If terror thou wilt threaten, promise joys.

Alaham. Smart cools these boiling styles of vanity.
Calica. And if my father I no more shall see,

Help me unto the place where he remains:

To hell below, or to the sky above,

The way is easy where the guide is love.
Alaham. Confess; where is he hid?

Calica. Rack not my woe.

Thy glorious pride of this unglorious deed
Doth mischief ripe, and therefore falling, shew.

Alaham. Bodies have place, and blindness must be led.

Graves be the thrones of kings when they be dead.

Calica. He was (unhappy) cause that thou art now; Thou art, ah wicked! cause that he is not,

*

And fear'st thou parricide can be forgot?
Bear witness, thou Almighty God on high,
And you black powers inhabiting below,
That for his life myself would yield to die.

Alaham. Well, Sirs, go seek the dark and secret caves, The holy temples, sanctified cells,

All parts wherein a living corpse may dwell.

Calica. Seek him amongst the dead, you placed him

there :

Yet lose no pains, good souls, go not to hell;
And, but to heaven, you may go every where.
Guilty, with you, of his blood let me be,

If any more I of my father know,

Than that he is where you would have him go.
Alaham. Tear up the vaults. Behold her agonies!

Sorrow

Sorrow substracts, and multiplies, the spirits;
Care, and desire, do under anguish cease;
Doubt curious is, affecting piety;

Woe loves itself; fear from itself would fly.
Do not these trembling motions witness bear,
That all these protestations be of fear?

Calica. If aught be quick in me, move it with scorn: Nothing can come amiss to thoughts forlorn.

Alaham. Confess in time. Revenge is merciless.
Calica. Reward and pain, fear and desire too,

Are vain in things impossible to do.

Alaham. Tell yet where thou thy father last did see. Calica. Even where he by his loss of eyes hath won That he no more shall see his monstrous son. First in perpetual night thou mad'st him go; His flesh the grave; his life the stage, where sense Plays all the tragedies of pain and woe. And wouldst thou trait'rously thyself exceed, By seeking thus to make his ghost to bleed?

Alaham. Bear her away: devise; add to the rack Torments, that both call death and turn it back.

Calica. The flattering glass of power is others' pain. Perfect thy work; that heaven and hell may know, To worse I cannot, going from thee, go.

Eternal life, that ever liv'st above!

If sense there be with thee of hate, or love;
Revenge my king and father's overthrow.
O father! if that name reach up so high,
And be more than a proper word of art,
To teach respects in our humanity;
Accept these pains, whereof you feel no smart.

The King comes forth.

King. What sound is this of Calica's distress?
Alaham, wrong not a silly sister's faith.
"Tis plague enough that she is innocent;
My child, thy sister; born (by thee and me)
With shame and sin to have affinity.

Break

Break me; I am the prison of thy thought:
Crowns dear enough with fathers' blood are bought.
Alaham. Now feel thou shalt, thou ghost unnatural,
Those wounds which thou to my heart thou did'st give,
When, in despite of God, this state, and me,
Thou did'st from death mine elder brother free.
The smart of king's oppression doth not die:
Time rusteth malice; rust wounds cruelly.
King. Flatter thy wickedness; adorn thy rage;
To wear a crown, tear up thy father's age.
Kill not thy sister: it is lack of wit

To do an ill that brings no good with it.

Alaham. Go, lead them hence. Prepare the funeral. Hasten the sacrifice and pomp of woe.

Where she did hide him, thither let them

go.

A Nuntius (or Messenger) relates to Alaham the manner of his Father's, Brother's, and Sister's deaths; and the popular discontents which followed. Alaham by the sudden working of Remorse is distracted, and imagines that he sees their Ghosts.

ALAHAM. Nuntius.

Nuntius. The first which burnt, as Cains his next of kin,

In blood your brother, and your prince in state,
Drew wonder from men's hearts, brought horror in.
This innocent, this soul too meek for sin,

Yet made for others to do harm withal,

With his self-pity tears drew tears from us;

His blood compassion had; his wrong stirr'd hate :
Deceit is odious in a king's estate.

Repiningly he goes unto his end:

Strange visions rise; strange furies haunt the flame;
People cry out, Echo repeats, his name.

85 The execution, to make it plausible to the people, is colored with the pretext, that the being burnt is a voluntary sacrifice of themselves by the victims at the funeral of Cain a bashaw and relative.

These