MARTIN DEL BOsco, Vice-Admiral KATHARINE, Mother of Mathias.

Machiavel. Albeit the world thinks Machiavel1 is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps,

And now the Guise 2 is dead, is come from France,

To view this land, and frolic with his friends.

1 Machiavelli, the Florentine statesman, died in 1527. His name was long a synonym for political perfidy and cold-blooded cruelty.

2 The Duke of Guise, organizer of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572, was assassinated in 1588.

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To some perhaps my name is odious,

But such as love me guard me from their tongues ;
And let them know that I am Machiavel,

And weigh not men, and therefore not men's words.
Admired I am of those that hate me most.
Though some speak openly against my books,
Yet they will read me, and thereby attain
To Peter's chair: and when they cast me off,
Are poisoned by my climbing followers.
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.

Birds of the air will tell of murders past!
I am ashamed to hear such fooleries.

Many will talk of title to a crown:

What right had Cæsar to the empery?

Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure

When like the Draco's they were writ in blood.

Hence comes it that a strong-built citadel
Commands much more than letters can import;
Which maxim had but Phalaris observed,

He had never bellowed, in a brazen bull,
Of great ones' envy. Of the poor petty wights
Let me be envied and not pitièd!

But whither am I bound?

I come not, I,

To read a lecture here in Britain,

ΙΟ

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But to present the tragedy of a Jew,

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Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed,

Which money was not got without my means.

I crave but this grace him as he deserves,
And let him not be entertained the worse
Because he favours me.

[Exit.

ACT I.

SCENE I. BARABAS discovered in his Counting-house, with
Heaps of Gold before him.

Bar. So that of thus much that return was made:
And of the third part of the Persian ships,
There was the venture summed and satisfied.
As for those Sabans, and the men of Uz,
That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece,
Here have I purst their paltry silverlings.1

Fie; what a trouble 'tis to count this trash.
Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay

The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,
Whereof a man may easily in a day

2

Tell that which may maintain him all his life.

The needy groom that never fingered groat,
Would make a miracle of thus much coin:

But he whose steel-barred coffers are crammed full,
And all his lifetime hath been tired,

Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it,
Would in his age be loth to labour so,
And for a pound to sweat himself to death.
Give me the merchants of the Indian mines,
That trade in metal of the purest mould;
The wealthy Moor, that in the eastern rocks
Without control can pick his riches up,
And in his house heap pearls like pebble-stones,
Receive them free, and sell them by the weight;
Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, and amethysts,

1 Silver coins; cf. Isaiah vii, 23.

2 Count.

ΙΟ

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Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds,

Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds,

And seld-seen1 costly stones of so great price,
As one of them indifferently rated,
And of a carat of this quantity,

May serve in peril of calamity

To ransom great kings from captivity.

This is the ware wherein consists my wealth;

And thus methinks should men of judgment frame
Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,

And as their wealth increaseth, so inclose
Infinite riches in a little room.

But now how stands the wind?

Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill? 2

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Ha! to the east? yes: see, how stand the vanes?
East and by south: why then I hope my ships

I sent for Egypt and the bordering isles
Are gotten up by Nilus' winding banks:
Mine argosies from Alexandria,

Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail,
Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore
To Malta, through our Mediterranean sea.
But who comes here?

Enter a Merchant.

How now?

Merch. Barabas, thy ships are safe,

Riding in Malta-road: and all the merchants

1 Seldom seen.

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50

2 A stuffed kingfisher (the halcyon), suspended by a string, was supposed to show the direction of the wind. Halcyon days were calm days, the belief being that the weather was always calm when kingfishers were breeding. Cf. King Lear, ii, 2; Sir T. Browne, Vulgar Errors, lii, 10.