Gui. Because the king disdains my services,
Must I not let him know I dare be gone? 
What, when I feel his council on my neck,
Shall I not cast them backward if I can,
And at his feet make known their villainy?

Mar. No, Guise, not at his feet, but on his head; For there you strike.

Gui. Madam, you wrong me now:  For still, whate’er shall come in fortune’s whirl, His person must be safe.

Mar. I cannot think it. 
However, your last words confess too much. 
Confess! what need I urge that evidence,
When every hour I see you court the crowd,
When with the shouts of the rebellious rabble,
I see you borne on shoulders to cabals;
Where, with the traitorous Council of Sixteen,
You sit, and plot the royal Henry’s death;
Cloud the majestic name with fumes of wine,
Infamous scrolls, and treasonable verse;
While, on the other side, the name of Guise,
By the whole kennel of the slaves, is rung. 
Pamphleteers, ballad-mongers sing your ruin. 
While all the vermin of the vile Parisians
Toss up their greasy caps where’er you pass,
And hurl your dirty glories in your face.

Gui. Can I help this?

Mar. By heaven, I’d earth myself,
Rather than live to act such black ambition: 
But, sir, you seek it with your smiles and bows. 
This side and that side congeing to the crowd. 
You have your writers too, that cant your battles,
That stile you, the new David, second Moses,
Prop of the church, deliverer of the people. 
Thus from the city, as from the heart, they spread
Through all the provinces, alarm the countries,
Where they run forth in heaps, bellowing your wonders;
Then cry,—­The king, the king’s a Hugonot,
And, spite of us, will have Navarre succeed,
Spite of the laws, and spite of our religion: 
But we will pull them down, down with them, down[4]. [Kneels.

Gui. Ha, madam!  Why this posture?

Mar. Hear me, sir;
For, if ’tis possible, my lord, I’ll move you. 
Look back, return, implore the royal mercy,
Ere ’tis too late; I beg you by these tears,
These sighs, and by the ambitious love you bear me;
By all the wounds of your poor groaning country,
That bleeds to death.  O seek the best of kings,
Kneel, fling your stubborn body at his feet: 
Your pardon shall be signed, your country saved,
Virgins and matrons all shall sing your fame,
And every babe shall bless the Guise’s name.

Gui. O rise, thou image of the deity! 
You shall prevail, I will do any thing: 
You’ve broke the very gall of my ambition,
And all my powers now float in peace again. 
Be satisfied that I will see the king,
Kneel to him, ere I journey to Champaigne,
And beg a kind farewell.

Mar. No, no, my lord;
I see through that; you but withdraw a while,
To muster all the forces that you can,
And then rejoin the Council of Sixteen. 
You must not go.