DAENIA None till he speaks, and that we know his voice. Who are you?
BALTHAZAR (within) An honest house-keeper in Rosemary Lane <54> too, if you dwell in the same parish.
MEDINA Oh 'tis our honest soldier, give him entrance.
BALTHAZAR Men show like coarses, for I meet few but are stuck with Rosemary. Every one asked me who was married today, and I told them Adultery and Repentance, and that Shame and a Hangman followed them to church.
MEDINA There's but two parts to play, shame has done hers, But execution must close up the scene, And for that cause these sprigs are worn by all, Bags of marriage, now of funeral, For death this day turns courtier.
MEDINA The King, and all that are our opposites. That dart or this must fly into the court Either to shoot this blazing star from Spain, Or else so long to wrap him up in clouds, Till all the fatal fires in him burn out, Leaving his state and conscience clear from doubt Of following uproars.
BALTHAZAR Oh, this colic of a kingdom, when the wind of treason gets amongst the small guts, what a rumbling and a roaring it keeps. And yet, make the best of it you can, it goes on stinking. Kill a King?
BALTHAZAR If men should pull the sun out of heaven every time 'tis eclipsed, not all the wax nor tallow in Spain would serve to make us candles for one year.
MEDINA No way to purge The sick state, but by opening a vein.
BALTHAZAR Is that your French physic? If every one of us should be whipped according to our faults, to be lashed at a cart's tail would be held but a flea biting.
MEDINA whispers What are you? Come from the King?
BALTHAZAR No? More no's? I know him, let him enter.
MEDINA Signor, I thank your kind intelligence, The news long since was sent into our ears, Yet we embrace your love, so fare you well.
CARLO Will you smell to a sprig of rosemary?
BALTHAZAR This is either Signor No, or no Signor.
MEDINA He makes his love to us a warning piece To arm ourselves against we come to court, Because the guard is doubled.
BALTHAZAR If any here arms his hand to cut off the head, let him first pluck out my throat. In any noble act I'll wade chin-deep with you. But to kill a King?
BALTHAZAR You were better, my Lord, sail five hundred times to Bantam <55> in the West Indies, that once to Barathrum in the Low Countries. It's hot going under the line there, the calenture <56> of the soul is a most miserable madness.