The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe (read along books .txt) 📕

my poverty?
And knowing me impatient in distress,
Think me so mad as I will hang myself,
That I may vanish o’er the earth in air,
And leave no memory that e’er I was?
No, I will live; nor loathe I this my life:
And, since you leave me in the ocean thus
To sink or swim, and put me to my shifts,
I’ll rouse my senses and awake myself.
Daughter! I have it: thou perceiv’st the plight
Wherein these Christians have oppressed me:
Be ruled by me, for in extremity
We ought to make bar of no policy. Abigail

Father, whate’er it be to injure them
That have so manifestly wronged us,
What will not Abigail attempt?

Barabas

Why, so;
Then thus, thou told’st me they have turn’d my house
Into a nunnery, and some nuns are there?

Abigail

I did.

Barabas

Then, Abigail, there must my girl
Entreat the abbess to be entertained.

Abigail

How! as a nun?

Barabas

Ay, daughter, for religion
Hides many mischiefs from suspicion.

Abigail

Ay, but, father, they will suspect me there.

Barabas

Let ’em suspect; but be thou so precise
As they may think it done of holiness.
Entreat ’em fair, and give them friendly speech,
And seem to them as if thy sins were great,
Till thou hast gotten to be entertained.

Abigail

Thus, father, shall I much dissemble.

Barabas

Tush!
As good dissemble that thou never mean’st,
As first mean truth and then dissemble it⁠—
A counterfeit profession is better
Than unseen hypocrisy.

Abigail

Well, father, say I be entertained,
What then shall follow?

Barabas

This shall follow then;
There have I hid, close underneath the plank
That runs along the upper-chamber floor,
The gold and jewels which I kept for thee.
But here they come; be cunning, Abigail.

Abigail

Then, father, go with me.

Barabas

No, Abigail, in this
It is not necessary I be seen:
For I will seem offended with thee for’t:
Be close, my girl, for this must fetch my gold.

They retire. Enter Friar Jacomo, Friar Barnadine, Abbess, and a Nun. Friar Jacomo

Sisters,
We now are almost at the new-made nunnery.

Abbess

The better; for we love not to be seen:
’Tis thirty winters long since some of us
Did stray so far amongst the multitude.

Friar Jacomo

But, madam, this house
And waters of this new-made nunnery
Will much delight you.

Abbess

It may be so; but who comes here?

Abigail comes forward. Abigail

Grave abbess, and you, happy virgins’ guide,
Pity the state of a distressed maid.

Abbess

What art thou, daughter?

Abigail

The hopeless daughter of a hapless Jew,
The Jew of Malta, wretched Barabas;
Sometimes the owner of a goodly house,
Which they have now turned to a nunnery.

Abbess

Well, daughter, say, what is thy suit with us?

Abigail

Fearing the afflictions which my father feels
Proceed from sin, or want of faith in us,
I’d pass away my life in penitence,
And be a novice in your nunnery,
To make atonement for my labouring soul.

Friar Jacomo

No doubt, brother, but this proceedeth of the spirit.

Friar Barnadine

Ay, and of a moving spirit too, brother; but come,
Let us entreat she may be entertained.

Abbess

Well, daughter, we admit you for a nun.

Abigail

First let me as a novice learn to frame
My solitary life to your strait laws,
And let me lodge where I was wont to lie,
I do not doubt, by your divine precepts
And mine own industry, but to profit much.

Barabas

As much, I hope, as all I hid is worth. Aside.

Abbess

Come, daughter, follow us.

Barabas

Coming forward. Why, how now, Abigail,
What makest thou amongst these hateful Christians?

Friar Jacomo

Hinder her not, thou man of little faith,
For she has mortified herself.

Barabas

How! mortified?

Friar Jacomo

And is admitted to the sisterhood.

Barabas

Child of perdition, and thy father’s shame!
What wilt thou do among these hateful fiends?
I charge thee on my blessing that thou leave
These devils, and their damned heresy!

Abigail

Father, forgive me⁠—She goes to him.

Barabas

Nay, back, Abigail,
(And think upon the jewels and the gold;
The board is marked thus that covers it.) Aside to Abigail in a whisper.
Away, accursed, from thy father’s sight!

Friar Jacomo

Barabas, although thou art in misbelief,
And wilt not see thine own afflictions,
Yet let thy daughter be no longer blind.

Barabas

Blind friar, I reck not thy persuasions,
(The board is marked thus24 that covers it.)
Aside to Abigail in a whisper.
For I had rather die than see her thus.
Wilt thou forsake me too in my distress,
Seduced daughter? (Go, forget not,) Aside in a whisper.
Becomes it Jews to be so credulous?
(To-morrow early I’ll be at the door.) Aside in a whisper.
No, come not at me; if thou wilt be damned,
Forget me, see me not, and so be gone!
(Farewell; remember to-morrow morning.) Aside in a whisper.
Out, out, thou wretch!

Exeunt, on one side, Barabas, on the other side Friars, Abbess, Nun, and Abigail; as they are going out, Enter Mathias. Mathias

Who’s this? fair Abigail, the rich Jew’s daughter,
Become a nun! her father’s sudden fall
Has humbled her, and brought her down to this:
Tut, she were fitter for a tale of love,
Than to be tired out with orisons:
And better would she far become a bed,
Embraced in a friendly lover’s arms,
Than rise at midnight to a solemn mass.

Enter Lodowick. Lodowick

Why, how now, Don Mathias! in a dump?

Mathias

Believe me, noble Lodowick, I have seen
The strangest sight, in my opinion,
That ever I beheld.

Lodowick

What was’t, I prithee?

Mathias

A fair young maid, scarce fourteen years of age,
The sweetest flower in Cytherea’s field,
Cropt from the pleasures of the fruitful earth,
And strangely metamorphosed nun.

Lodowick

But say, what was she?

Mathias

Why, the rich Jew’s daughter.

Lodowick

What, Barabas, whose goods were lately seized?
Is she so fair?

Mathias

And matchless beautiful;
As, had you seen her, ’twould have mov’d your heart,
Though countermined with walls of brass, to love,
Or, at the least, to pity.

Lodowick

An if she be so fair as you report,
’Twere time well spent to go and visit her:
How say you? shall we?

Mathias

I must and will, sir; there’s no remedy.

Lodowick