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ALAHAM:

A TRAGEDY. BY FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE.

ALAHAM, Second Son to the KING of ORMUs, deposes his Father: whose Eyes, and the Eyes of his elder Brother ZOPHI, (acting upon a maxim of Oriental Policy), he causes to be put out. They, blind, and fearing for their Lives, wander about. In this Extremity they are separately met by the King's Daughter CELICA, who conducts them to places of Refuge; hiding her Father amid the Vaults of a Temple, and guiding her Brother to take Sanctuary at the Altar.

KING. CELICA.

King. Cælica; thou only child, whom I repent
Not yet to have begot, thy work is vain :
Thou run'st against my destiny's intent.
Fear not my fall; the steep is fairest plain;
And error safest guide unto his end,

Who nothing but mischance can have to friend.
We parents are but nature's nursery;

When our succession springs, then ripe to fall.
Privation unto age is natural.

Age there is also in a prince's state,

Which is contempt, grown of misgovernment;
Where love of change begetteth princes' hate :
For hopes must wither, or grow violent,
If fortune bind desires to one estate.

Then mark! Blind, as a man: scorn'd, as a king;
A father's kindness loath'd, and desolate :

Life without joy, or light: what can it bring,
But inward horror unto outward hate ?

O safety thou art then a hateful thing,

When children's death assures the father's state.
No, safe I am not, though my son were slain,
My frailty would beget such sons again.
Besides, if fatal be the heavens' will,
Repining adds more force to destiny;
Whose iron wheels stay not on fleshly wit,

But headlong run down steep necessity.
And as in danger, we do catch at it
That comes to help; and unadvisedly
Oft do our friends to our misfortune knit :
So with the harm of those who would us good
Is destiny impossibly withstood.

Cælica, then cease; importune me no more :
My son, my age, the state where things are now,
Require my death. Who would consent to live
Where love cannot revenge, nor truth forgive?
Calica. Though fear see nothing but extremity,
Yet danger is no deep sea, but a ford,

Where they that yield can only drowned be.
In wrongs, and wounds, Sir, you are too remiss.
To thrones a passive nature fatal is.

King. Occasion to my son hath turn'd her face;
My inward wants all outward strengths betray;
And so make that impossible I may.

Calica. Yet live : Live for the state.

King. Whose ruins glasses are,

Wherein see errors of myself I must,

And hold my life of danger, shame, and care.
Calica. When fear propounds, with loss men ever
choose.

King. Nothing is left me but myself to lose.
Calica. And is it nothing then to lose the state?
King. Where chance is ripe, there counsel comes
too late.

Cælica, by all thou ow'st the gods and me,
I do conjure thee, leave me to my chance.
What's past was error's way; the truth it is,
Wherein I wretch can only go amiss.

If nature saw no cause of sudden ends,

She, that but one way made to draw our breath,
Would not have left so many doors to death.

Calica. Yet, Sir, if weakness be not such a sand
As neither wrong nor counsel can manure;
Choose and resolve what death you will endure.

King. This sword, thy hands, may offer up my breath And plague my life's remissness in my death.

Calica. Unto that duty if these hands be born,
I must think God, and truth, were names of scorn.
Again, this justice were if life were loved,

Now merely grace; since death doth but forgive
A life to you, which is a death to live.

Pain must displease that satisfies offence.

King. Chance hath left death no more to spoil but

sense.

Calica. Then sword, do justice' office thorough me : I offer more than that he hates to thee.

[Offers to kill herself. King. Ah! stay thy hand. My state no equal hath, And much more matchless my strange vices be: One kind of death becomes not thee and me. Kings' plagues by chance or destiny should fall; Headlong he perish must that ruins all.

Calica. No cliff or rock is so precipitate,
But down it eyes can lead the blind away;
Without me live, or with me die you may.

King. Cælica, and wilt thou Alaham exceed?
His cruelty is death, you torments use;
He takes my crown, you take myself from me;
A prince of this fall'n empire let me be.

Calica. Then be a king, no tyrant of thyself:
Be;

and be what you will: what nature lent Is still in hers, and not our government.

King. If disobedience, and obedience both, Still do me hurt; in what strange state am I? But hold thy course: it well becomes my blood, To do their parents mischief with their good. Calica. Yet, Sir, hark to the poor oppressed tears The just men's moan, that suffer by your fall; A prince's charge is to protect them all. And shall it nothing be that I am yours? The world without, my heart within, doth know, I never had unkind, unreverent powers.

If thus you yield to Alaham's treachery,

He ruins you: 'tis you, Sir, ruin me.

King. Celica, call up the dead; awake the blind; Turn back the time; bid winds tell whence they come : As vainly strength speaks to a broken mind.

Fly from me, Calica, hate all I do :
Misfortunes have in blood successions too.

Calica. Will you do that which Alaham cannot ?
He hath no good; you have no ill, but he :
This mar-right yielding 's honor's tyranny.
King. Have I not done amiss? am I not ill,
That ruin'd have a king's authority?

And not one king alone: since princes all
Feel part of those scorns, whereby one doth fall.
Treason against me cannot treason be:

All laws have lost authority in me.

Calica. The laws of power chain'd to men's humors be. The good have conscience; the ill (like instruments) Are, in the hands of wise authority,

Moved, divided, used, or laid down;

Still, with desire, kept subject to a crown.

Stir up all states, all spirits: hope and fear,
Wrong and revenge, are current every where.

King. Put down my son: for that must be the way: A father's shame; a prince's tyranny;

The sceptre ever shall misjudged be.

Calica. Let them fear rumour that do work amiss; Blood, torments, death, horrors of cruelty,

Have time, and place. Look through these skins of fear,
Which still persuade the better side to bear.
And since thy son thus trait'rously conspires,

Let him not prey on all thy race, and thee:
Keep ill example from posterity.

King. Danger is come, and must I now unarm,
And let in hope to weaken resolution?

Passion! be thou my legacy and will;

To thee I give my life, crown, reputation;

My pomps to cloud; and (as forlorn with men)
My strength to women; hoping this alone,

Though fear'd, sought, and a king, to live unknown.
Cælica, all these to thee; do thou bestow

This living darkness, wherein I do go.

Calica. My soul now joys. Doing breathes horror out. Absence must be our first step. Let us fly :

A pause in rage makes Alaham to doubt;
Which doubt may stir in people hope, and fear,

With love, or hate, to seek you every where.
For princes' lives are fortune's misery:

As dainty sparks, which till men dead do know,
To kindle for himself each man doth blow.

But hark! what's this? Malice doth never sleep :
I hear the spies of power drawing near.

Sir, follow me: Misfortune's worst is come;

Her strength is change: and change yields better doom. Choice now is past. Hard by there is a pile,

Built under color of a sacrifice;

If God do grant, it is a place to save ;

If God denies, it is a ready grave.

ZоPHI appears.

Calica. What see I here? more spectacles of woe! And are my kindred only made to be

Agents and patients in iniquity?

Ah forlorn wretch! ruin's example right!

Lost to thyself, not to thy enemy,

Whose hand even while thou fliest thou fall'st into ;

And with thy fall thy father dost undo.

Save one I may: Nature would save them both;
But Chance hath many wheels, Rage many eyes.
What, shall I then abandon Innocents * ?
Not help a helpless brother thrown on me?

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 ;

* Zophi is represented as a prince of weak understanding.