Volume II Part 54 (1/2)

_Gon._ Who goes there?

_Retes._ 'Tis Talaeus, Ramus' bedfellow.

_Gon._ What art thou?

_Tal._ I am, as Ramus is, a Christian.

_Retes._ O, let him go; he is a Catholic. [_Exit_ TALaeUS.

_Gon._ Come, Ramus, more gold, or thou shall have the stab.

_Ramus._ Alas, I am a scholar! how should I have gold?

All that I have is but my stipend from the king, Which is no sooner receiv'd but it is spent.

_Enter_ GUISE, ANJOU, DUMAINE, MOUNTSORRELL, _and_ Soldiers.

_Anj._ Who have you there?

_Retes._ 'Tis Ramus, the king's Professor of Logic. 20

_Guise._ Stab him.

_Ramus._ O, good my lord, Wherein hath Ramus been so offensious?

_Guise._ Marry, sir, in having a smack in all, And yet didst never sound anything to the depth.

Was it not thou that scoff'dst[376] the _Organon_, And said it was a heap of vanities?

He that will be a flat dichotomist, And seen in nothing but epitomes, Is in your judgment thought a learned man; And he, forsooth, must go and preach in Germany, 30 Excepting against doctors' axioms,[377]

And _ipse dixi_ with this quiddity, _Argumentum testimonii est inartificiale._[378]

To contradict which, I say, Ramus shall die: How answer you that? your _nego argumentum_ Cannot serve, sirrah.--Kill him.

_Ramus._ O, good my lord, let me but speak a word!

_Anj._ Well, say on.

_Ramus._ Not for my life do I desire this pause; But in my latter hour to purge myself, 40 In that I know the things that I have wrote, Which, as I hear, one Scheckius[379] takes it ill, Because my places,[380] being but three, contain all his.

I knew the _Organon_ to be confus'd, And I reduc'd it into better form: And this for Aristotle will I say, That he that despiseth him can ne'er Be good in logic or philosophy; And that's because the blockish Sorbonnists[381]

Attribute as much unto their [own] works 50 As to the service of the eternal G.o.d.

_Guise._ Why suffer you that peasant to declaim?

Stab[382] him, I say, and send him to his friends in h.e.l.l.

_Anj._ Ne'er was there collier's[383] son so full of pride.

[_Stabs_ RAMUS, _who dies_.

_Guise._ My Lord of Anjou, there are a hundred Protestants Which we have chased into the river Seine,[384]

That swim about, and so preserve their lives: How may we do? I fear me they will live.

_Dum._ Go place some men upon the bridge, With bows and darts, to shoot at them they see,60 And sink them in the river as they swim.

_Guise._ 'Tis well advis'd, Dumaine; go see it straight be done.