_Duch._ What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left

A dead man's hand here?

[_Here is discovered, behind a traverse,[134] the artificial figures

of_ ANTONIO _and his_ Children, _appearing as if they were dead._

_Bos._ Look you, here's the piece from which 'twas ta'en.

He doth present you this sad spectacle,

That, now you know directly they are dead,

Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve

For that which cannot be recoverèd.

_Duch._ There is not between Heaven and earth one wish

I stay for after this: it wastes me more

Than were't my picture, fashioned out of wax,

Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried

In some foul dunghill; and yond's an excellent property

For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

_Bos._ What's that?

_Duch._ If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk,

And let me freeze to death.

_Bos._ Come, you must live.

_Duch._ That's the greatest torture souls feel in hell,

In hell, that they must live, and cannot die.

Portia, I'll new kindle thy coals again,

And revive the rare and almost dead example

Of a loving wife.

_Bos._ O, fie! despair? remember

You are a Christian.

_Duch._ The church enjoins fasting:

I'll starve myself to death.

_Bos._ Leave this vain sorrow.

Things being at the worst begin to mend: the bee

When he hath shot his sting into your hand,

May then play with your eyelid.

_Duch._ Good comfortable fellow,

Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel

To have all his bones new set; entreat him live

To be executed again. Who must despatch me?

I account this world a tedious theatre,

For I do play a part in't 'gainst my will.

_Bos._ Come, be of comfort; I will save your life.

_Duch._ Indeed, I have not leisure to tend

So small a business.

_Bos._ Now, by my life, I pity you.

_Duch._ Thou art a fool, then,

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched

As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers.

Puff, let me blow these vipers from me.

_Enter_ Servant.

What are you?

_Serv._ One that wishes you long life.

_Duch._ I would thou wert hanged for the horrible curse

Thou hast given me: I shall shortly grow one

Of the miracles of pity. I'll go pray;--

No, I'll go curse.

_Bos._ O, fie!

_Duch._ I could curse the stars.

_Bos._ O, fearful.

_Duch._ And those three smiling seasons of the year

Into a Russian winter: nay, the world

To its first chaos.

_Bos._ Look you, the stars shine still.

_Duch._ O, but you must

Remember, my curse hath a great way to go.--

Plagues, that make lanes through largest families,

Consume them!--

_Bos._ Fie, lady!

_Duch._ Let them, like tyrants,

Never be remembered but for the ill they have done;

Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

Churchmen forget them!--

_Bos._ O, uncharitable!

_Duch._ Let Heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs

To punish them!--

Go, howl them this, and say, I long to bleed:

It is some mercy when men kill with speed. [_Exit._

_Re-enter_ FERDINAND.

_Ferd._ Excellent, as I would wish; she's plagued in art:

These presentations are but framed in wax

By the curious master in that quality,

Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them

For true substantial bodies.

_Bos._ Why do you do this?

_Ferd._ To bring her to despair.

_Bos._ Faith, end here,

And go no farther in your cruelty:

Send her a penitential garment to put on

Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her

With beads and prayer-books.

_Ferd._ Damn her! that body of hers,

While that my blood ran pure in't, was more worth

Than that which thou wouldst comfort, called a soul.

I will send her masks of common courtezans,

Have her meat served up by bawds and ruffians,

And, 'cause she'll needs be mad, I am resolved

To remove forth the common hospital

All the mad-folk, and place them near her lodging;

There let them practise together, sing and dance,

And act their gambols to the full o' the moon:

If she can sleep the better for it, let her.

Your work is almost ended.

_Bos._ Must I see her again?

_Ferd._ Yes.

_Bos._ Never.

_Ferd._ You must.

_Bos._ Never in mine own shape;

That's forfeited by my intelligence

And this last cruel lie: when you send me next,

The business shall be comfort.

_Ferd._ Very likely;

Thy pity is nothing of kin to thee. Antonio

Lurks about Milan: thou shalt shortly thither,

To feed a fire as great as my revenge,

Which never will slack till it have spent his fuel:

Intemperate agues make physicians cruel. [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_Another Room in the_ DUCHESS' _Lodging_.

_Enter_ DUCHESS _and_ CARIOLA.

_Duch._ What hideous noise was that?

_Cari._ 'Tis the wild consort[135]

Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother

Hath placed about your lodging: this tyranny,

I think, was never practised till this hour.

_Duch._ Indeed, I thank him: nothing but noise and folly

Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason

And silence make me stark mad. Sit down;

Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.

_Cari._ O, 'twill increase your melancholy.

_Duch._ Thou art deceived:

To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.

This is a prison?

_Cari._ Yes, but you shall live

To shake this durance off.

_Duch._ Thou art a fool:

The robin-redbreast and the nightingale

Never live long in cages.

_Cari._ Pray, dry your eyes.

What think you of, madam?

_Duch._ Of nothing;

When I muse thus, I sleep.

_Cari._ Like a madman, with your eyes open?

_Duch._ Dost thou think we shall know one another

In the other world?

_Cari._ Yes, out of question.

_Duch._ O, that it were possible we might

But hold some two days' conference with the dead!

From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,

I never shall know here. I'll tell thee a miracle;

I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow:

The Heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,

The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.

I am acquainted with sad misery

As the tanned galley-slave is with his oar;

Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?

_Cari._ Like to your picture in the gallery,

A deal of life in show, but none in practice;

Or rather like some reverend monument

Whose ruins are even pitied.

_Duch._ Very proper;

And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight

To behold my tragedy.--How now!

What noise is that?

_Enter_ Servant.

_Serv._ I am come to tell you

Your brother hath intended you some sport.

A great physician, when the Pope was sick

Of a deep melancholy, presented him

With several sorts of madmen, which wild object

Being full of change and sport, forced him to laugh,

And so the imposthume broke: the self-same cure

The duke intends on you.

_Duch._ Let them come in.

_Serv._ There's a mad lawyer; and a secular priest;

A doctor that hath forfeited his wits

By jealousy; an astrologian

That in his works said such a day o' the month

Should be the day of doom, and, failing of't,

Ran mad; an English tailor crazed i' the brain

With the study of new fashions; a gentleman-usher

Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind

The number of his lady's salutations

Or "How do you" she employed him in each morning;

A farmer, too, an excellent knave in grain,

Mad 'cause he was hindered transportation:

And let one broker that's mad loose to these,

You'd think the devil were among them.

_Duch._ Sit, Cariola.--Let them loose when you please,

For I am chained to endure all your tyranny.

_Enter_ Madmen.

_Here this Song is sung to a dismal kind of music by a_ Madman.

O, let us howl some heavy note,

Some deadly doggèd howl,

Sounding as from the threatening throat

Of beasts and fatal fowl!

As ravens, screech-owls, bulls, and bears,

We'll bell, and bawl our parts,

Till irksome noise have cloyed your ears

And còrrosived your hearts.

At last, whenas our quire wants breath,

Our bodies being blest,

We'll sing, like swans, to welcome death,

And die in love and rest.

_1st Madman._ Doom's-day not come yet! I'll draw it nearer by a

perspective, or make a glass that shall set all the world on fire upon

an instant. I cannot sleep; my pillow is stuffed with a litter of

porcupines.

_2nd Madman._ Hell is a mere glass-house, where the devils are

continually blowing up women's souls on hollow irons, and the fire

never goes out.

_3rd Madman._ I will lie with every woman in my parish the tenth night;

I will tythe them over like haycocks.

_4th Madman._ Shall my pothecary out-go me because I am a cuckold? I

have found out his roguery; he makes alum of his wife's urine, and

sells it to Puritans that have sore throats with overstraining.

_1st Madman._ I have skill in heraldry.

_2nd Madman._ Hast?

_1st Madman._ You do give for your crest a woodcock's head with the

brains picked out on't; you are a very ancient gentleman.

_3rd Madman._ Greek is turned Turk: we are only to be saved by the

Helvetian translation.

_1st Madman._ Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you.

_2nd Madman._ O, rather lay a corrosive: the law will eat to the bone.

_3rd Madman._ He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damned.

_4th Madman._ If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should make

all the women here call me mad doctor.

_1st Madman._ What's he? a rope-maker?

_2nd Madman._ No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows the

tombs, will have his hand in a wench's placket.

_3rd Madman._ Woe to the caroche[136] that brought home my wife from

the masque at three o'clock in the morning! it had a large feather-bed

in it.

_4th Madman._ I have pared the devil's nails forty times, roasted them

in raven's eggs, and cured agues with them.

_3rd Madman._ Get me three hundred milchbats, to make possets to

procure sleep.

_4th Madman._ All the college may throw their caps at me: I have made a

soap-boiler costive; it was my masterpiece.

[_Here a dance of_ Eight Madmen, _with music answerable thereto; after

which,_ BOSOLA, _like an_ Old Man, _enters._

_Duch._ Is he mad too?

_Serv._ Pray, question him. I'll leave you. [_Exeunt_ Servant _and_

Madmen.

_Bos._ I am come to make thy tomb.

_Duch._ Ha! my tomb!

Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my deathbed,

Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick?

_Bos._ Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.

_Duch._ Thou art not mad, sure: dost know me?

_Bos._ Yes.

_Duch._ Who am I?

_Bos._ Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of

green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, fantastical

puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys

use to keep flies in; more contemptible, since ours is to preserve

earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in

the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the Heaven

o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable

knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

_Duch._ Am not I thy duchess?

_Bos._ Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy

forehead (clad in grey hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry

milkmaid's. Thou sleepest worse than if a mouse should be forced to

take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its

teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more

unquiet bedfellow.

_Duch._ I am Duchess of Malfi still.

_Bos._ That makes thy sleeps so broken:

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,

But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.

_Duch._ Thou art very plain.

_Bos._ My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living; I am a

tomb-maker.

_Duch._ And thou comest to make my tomb?

_Bos._ Yes.

_Duch._ Let me be a little merry:--of what stuff wilt thou make it?

_Bos._ Nay, resolve me first, of what fashion?

_Duch._ Why do we grow fantastical in our death-bed? do we affect

fashion in the grave?

_Bos._ Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie, as

they were wont, seeming to pray up to Heaven; but with their hands

under their cheeks, as if they died of the toothache: they are not

carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but as their minds were

wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their

faces.

_Duch._ Let me know fully therefore the effect

Of this thy dismal preparation,

This talk fit for a charnel.

_Bos._ Now I shall:--

_Enter_ Executioners, _with a coffin, cords, and a bell._

Here is a present from your princely brothers;

And may it arrive welcome, for it brings

Last benefit, last sorrow.

_Duch._ Let me see it:

I have so much obedience in my blood,

I wish it in their veins to do them good.

_Bos._ This is your last presence-chamber.

_Cari._ O my sweet lady!

_Duch._ Peace; it affrights not me.

_Bos._ I am the common bellman,

That usually is sent to condemned persons

The night before they suffer.

_Duch._ Even now thou said'st

Thou wast a tomb-maker.

_Bos._ 'Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification. Listen.

Hark, now every thing is still

The screech-owl and the whistler shrill

Call upon our dame aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud!

Much you had of land and rent;

Your length in clay's now competent:

A long war disturbed your mind;

Here your perfect peace is signed.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?

Sin their conception, their birth weeping,

Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror.

Strew your hair with powders sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And (the foul fiend more to check)

A crucifix let bless your neck:

'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day;

End your groan, and come away.

_Cari._ Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers! alas!

What will you do with my lady?--Call for help.

_Duch._ To whom? to our next neighbours? they are mad-folks.

_Bos._ Remove that noise.

_Duch._ Farewell, Cariola.

In my last will I have not much to give:

A many hungry guests have fed upon me;

Thine will be a poor reversion.

_Cari._ I will die with her.

_Duch._ I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy

Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl

Say her prayers ere she sleep.

[CARIOLA _is forced out by the_ Executioners.

Now what you please:

What death?

_Bos._ Strangling; here are your executioners.

_Duch._ I forgive them:

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs,

Would do as much as they do.

_Bos._ Doth not death fright you?

_Duch._ Who would be afraid on't,

Knowing to meet such excellent company

In the other world?

_Bos._ Yet, methinks,

The manner of your death should much afflict you:

This cord should terrify you.

_Duch._ Not a whit:

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds? or to be smotherèd

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits; and 'tis found

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways; any way, for Heaven sake,

So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers

That I perceive death, now I am well awake,

Best gift is they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman's fault,

I'd not be tedious to you.

_1st Execut._ We are ready.

_Duch._ Dispose my breath how please you; but my body

Bestow upon my women, will you?

_1st Execut._ Yes.

_Duch._ Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength

Must pull down Heaven upon me:--

Yet stay; Heaven-gates are not so highly arched

As princes' palaces; they that enter there

Must go upon their knees [_Kneels._]--Come, violent death,

Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!--

Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,

They then may feed in quiet.

[_The_ Executioners _strangle the_ DUCHESS.[137]

_Bos._ Where's the waiting woman?

Fetch her: some other strangle the children.

[CARIOLA _and_ Children _are brought in by the_ Executioners; _who

presently strangle the_ Children.

Look you, there sleeps your mistress.

_Cari._ O, you are damned

Perpetually for this! My turn is next,

Is't not so ordered?

_Bos._ Yes, and I am glad

You are so well prepared for't.

_Cari._ You are deceived, sir,

I am not prepared for't, I will not die;

I will first come to my answer, and know

How I have offended.

_Bos._ Come, despatch her.--

You kept her counsel; now you shall keep ours.

_Cari._ I will not die, I must not; I am contracted

To a young gentleman.

_1st Execut._ Here's your wedding-ring.

_Cari._ Let me but speak with the duke; I'll discover

Treason to his person.

_Bos._ Delays:--throttle her.

_1st Execut._ She bites and scratches.

_Cari._ If you kill me now,

I am damned; I have not been at confession

This two years.

_Bos._ [_to_ Executioners]. When?

_Cari._ I am quick with child.

_Bos._ Why, then,

Your credit's saved.

[_The_ Executioners _strangle_ CARIOLA.

Bear her into the next room;

Let these lie still.

[_Exeunt the_ Executioners _with the body of_ CARIOLA.

_Enter_ FERDINAND.

_Ferd._ Is she dead?

_Bos._ She is what

You'd have her. But here begin your pity:

[_Shows the_ Children _strangled._

Alas, how have these offended?

_Ferd._ The death

Of young wolves is never to be pitied.

_Bos._ Fix your eye here.

_Ferd._ Constantly.

_Bos._ Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out:

The element of water moistens the earth,

But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

_Ferd._ Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

_Bos._ I think not so; her infelicity

Seemed to have years too many.

_Ferd._ She and I were twins;

And should I die this instant, I had lived

Her time to a minute.

_Bos._ It seems she was born first:

You have bloodily approved the ancient truth,

That kindred commonly do worse agree

Than remote strangers.

_Ferd._ Let me see her face

Again. Why didst not thou pity her? what

An excellent honest man mightst thou have been,

If thou hadst born her to some sanctuary!

Or, bold in a good cause, opposed thyself,

With thy advancèd sword above thy head,

Between her innocence and my revenge!

I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits,

Go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done't.

For let me but examine well the cause:

What was the meanness of her match to me?

Only I must confess I had a hope,

Had she continued widow, to have gained

An infinite mass of treasure by her death:

And what was the main cause? her marriage,

That drew a stream of gall quite through my heart.

For thee, as we observe in tragedies

That a good actor many times is cursed

For playing a villain's part, I hate thee for't,

And, for my sake, say, thou hast done much ill well.

_Bos._ Let me quicken your memory, for I perceive

You are falling into ingratitude: I challenge

The reward due to my service.

_Ferd._ I'll tell thee

What I'll give thee.

_Bos._ Do.

_Ferd._ I'll give thee a pardon

For this murder.

_Bos._ Ha!

_Ferd._ Yes, and 'tis

The largest bounty I can study to do thee.

By what authority didst thou execute

This bloody sentence?

_Bos._ By yours.

_Ferd._ Mine! was I her judge?

Did any ceremonial form of law

Doom her to not-being? did a còmplete jury

Deliver her conviction up i' the court?

Where shalt thou find this judgment registered,

Unless in hell? See, like a bloody fool,

Thou'st forfeited thy life, and thou shalt die for't.

_Bos._ The office of justice is perverted quite

When one thief hangs another. Who shall dare

To reveal this?

_Ferd._ O, I'll tell thee;

The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up,

Not to devour the corpse, but to discover

The horrid murder.[138]

_Bos._ You, not I, shall quake for't.

_Ferd._ Leave me.

_Bos._ I will first receive my pension.

_Ferd._ You are a villain.

_Bos._ When your ingratitude

Is judge, I am so.

_Ferd._ O horror,

That not the fear of him which binds the devils

Can prescribe man obedience!--

Never look upon me more.

_Bos._ Why, fare thee well.

Your brother and yourself are worthy men:

You have a pair of hearts are hollow graves,

Rotten, and rotting others; and your vengeance,

Like two chained bullets, still goes arm in arm:

You may be brothers; for treason, like the plague,

Doth take much in a blood. I stand like one

That long hath ta'en a sweet and golden dream:

I am angry with myself, now that I wake.

_Ferd._ Get thee into some unknown part o' the world,

That I may never see thee.

_Bos._ Let me know

Wherefore I should be thus neglected. Sir,

I served your tyranny, and rather strove

To satisfy yourself than all the world:

And though I loathed the evil, yet I loved

You that did counsel it; and rather sought

To appear a true servant than an honest man.

_Ferd._ I'll go hunt the badger by owl-light:

'Tis a deed of darkness. [_Exit._

_Bos._ He's much distracted. Off, my painted honour!

While with vain hopes our faculties we tire,

We seem to sweat in ice and freeze in fire.

What would I do, were this to do again?

I would not change my peace of conscience

For all the wealth of Europe.--She stirs; here's life:--

Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine

Out of this sensible hell:--she's warm, she breathes:--

Upon thy pale lips I will melt my heart,

To store them with fresh colour.--Who's there!

Some cordial drink!--Alas! I dare not call:

So pity would destroy pity.--Her eye opes,

And Heaven in it seems to ope, that late was shut,

To take me up to mercy.

_Duch._ Antonio!

_Bos._ Yes, madam, he is living;

The dead bodies you saw were but feigned statues:

He's reconciled to your brothers; the Pope hath wrought

The atonement.

_Duch._ Mercy! [_Dies._

_Bos._ O, she's gone again! there the cords of life broke.

O sacred innocence, that sweetly sleeps

On turtles' feathers, whilst a guilty conscience

Is a black register wherein is writ

All our good deeds and bad, a perspective

That shows us hell! That we cannot be suffered

To do good when we have a mind to it!

This is manly sorrow;

These tears, I am very certain, never grew

In my mother's milk: my estate is sunk

Below the degree of fear: where were

These penitent fountains while she was living?

O, they were frozen up! Here is a sight

As direful to my soul as is the sword

Unto a wretch hath slain his father. Come,

I'll bear thee hence,

And execute thy last will; that's deliver

Thy body to the reverend dispose

Of some good women: that the cruel tyrant

Shall not deny me. Then I'll post to Milan,

Where somewhat I will speedily enact

Worth my dejection. [_Exit._

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.--_A Public Place in Milan._

_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ DELIO.

_Ant._ What think you of my hope of reconcilement

To the Arragonian brethren?

_Delio._ I misdoubt it;

For though they have sent their letters of safe-conduct

For your repair to Milan, they appear

But nets to entrap you. The Marquis of Pescara,

Under whom you hold certain land in cheat,

Much 'gainst his noble nature hath been moved

To seize those lands; and some of his dependants

Are at this instant making it their suit

To be invested in your revenues.

I cannot think they mean well to your life

That do deprive you of your means of life,

Your living.

_Ant._ You are still an heretic

To any safety I can shape myself.

_Delio._ Here comes the marquis: I will make myself

Petitioner for some part of your land,

To know whither it is flying.

_Ant._ I pray do.

_Enter_ PESCARA.

_Delio._ Sir, I have a suit to you.

_Pes._ To me?

_Delio._ An easy one:

There is the citadel of Saint Bennet,

With some demesnes, of late in the possession

Of Antonio Bologna,--please you bestow them on me.

_Pes._ You are my friend; but this is such a suit,

Nor fit for me to give, nor you to take.

_Delio._ No, sir?

_Pes._ I will give you ample reason for't

Soon in private:--here's the cardinal's mistress.

_Enter_ JULIA.

_Julia._ My lord, I am grown your poor petitioner,

And should be an ill beggar, had I not

A great man's letter here, the cardinal's,

To court you in my favour. [_Gives a letter._

_Pes._ He entreats for you

The citadel of Saint Bennet, that belonged

To the banished Bologna.

_Julia._ Yes.

_Pes._ I could not have thought of a friend I could rather

Pleasure with it: 'tis yours.

_Julia._ Sir, I thank you;

And he shall know how doubly I am engaged

Both in your gift, and speediness of giving

Which makes your grant the greater. [_Exit._

_Ant._ How they fortify

Themselves with my ruin!

_Delio._ Sir, I am

Little bound to you.

_Pes._ Why?

_Delio._ Because you denied this suit to me, and gave't

To such a creature.

_Pes._ Do you know what it was?

It was Antonio's land; not forfeited

By course of law, but ravished from his throat

By the cardinal's entreaty: it were not fit

I should bestow so main a piece of wrong

Upon my friend; 'tis a gratification

Only due to a strumpet, for it is injustice.

Shall I sprinkle the pure blood of innocents

To make those followers I call my friends

Look ruddier upon me? I am glad

This land, ta'en from the owner by such wrong,

Returns again unto so foul an use

As salary for his lust. Learn, good Delio,

To ask noble things of me, and you shall find

I'll be a noble giver.

_Delio._ You instruct me well.

_Ant._ Why, here's a man now would fright impudence

From sauciest beggars.

_Pes._ Prince Ferdinand's come to Milan,

Sick, as they give out, of an apoplexy;

But some say 'tis a frenzy: I am going

To visit him. [_Exit._

_Ant._ 'Tis a noble old fellow.

_Delio._ What course do you mean to take, Antonio?

_Ant._ This night I mean to venture all my fortune,

Which is no more than a poor lingering life,

To the cardinal's worst of malice: I have got

Private access to his chamber; and intend

To visit him about the mid of night,

As once his brother did our noble duchess.

It may be that the sudden apprehension

Of danger,--for I'll go in mine own shape,--

When he shall see it fraight[139] with love and duty,

May draw the poison out of him, and work

A friendly reconcilement: if it fail,

Yet it shall rid me of this infamous calling;

For better fall once than be ever falling.

_Delio._ I'll second you in all danger; and, howe'er,

My life keeps rank with yours.

_Ant._ You are still my loved and best friend.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_A Gallery in the_ Cardinal's _Palace at Milan._

_Enter_ PESCARA _and_ Doctor.

_Pes._ Now, doctor, may I visit your patient?

_Doc._ If't please your lordship: but he's instantly

To take the air here in the gallery

By my direction.

_Pes._ Pray thee, what's his disease?

_Doc._ A very pestilent disease, my lord,

They call lycanthropia.

_Pes._ What's that?

I need a dictionary to't.

_Doc._ I'll tell you.

In those that are possessed with't there o'erflows

Such melancholy humour they imagine

Themselves to be transformed into wolves;

Steal forth to churchyards in the dead of night,

And dig dead bodies up: as two nights since

One met the duke 'bout midnight in a lane

Behind Saint Mark's church, with the leg of a man

Upon his shoulder; and he howled fearfully;

Said he was a wolf, only the difference

Was, a wolf's skin was hairy on the outside,

His on the inside; bade them take their swords,

Rip up his flesh, and try: straight I was sent for,

And, having ministered to him, found his grace

Very well recovered.

_Pes._ I am glad on't.

_Doc._ Yet not without some fear

Of a relapse. If he grow to his fit again,

I'll go a nearer way to work with him

Than ever Paracelsus dreamed of; if

They'll give me leave, I'll buffet his madness out of him.

Stand aside; he comes.

_Enter_ FERDINAND, Cardinal, MALATESTI, _and_ BOSOLA.

_Ferd._ Leave me.

_Mal._ Why doth your lordship love this solitariness?

_Ferd._ Eagles commonly fly alone: they are crows, daws, and starlings

that flock together. Look, what's that follows me?

_Mal._ Nothing, my lord.

_Ferd._ Yes.

_Mal._ 'Tis your shadow.

_Ferd._ Stay it; let it not haunt me.

_Mal._ Impossible, if you move, and the sun shine.

_Ferd._ I will throttle it. [_Throws himself down on his shadow._

_Mal._ O, my lord, you are angry with nothing.

_Ferd._ You are a fool: how is't possible I should catch my shadow,

unless I fall upon't? When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe; for,

look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.

_Pes._ Rise, good my lord.

_Ferd._ I am studying the art of patience.

_Pes._ 'Tis a noble virtue.

_Ferd._ To drive six snails before me from this town to Moscow; neither

use goad nor whip to them, but let them take their own time;--the

patient'st man i' the world match me for an experiment;--and I'll crawl

after like a sheep-biter.

_Card._ Force him up. [_They raise him._

_Ferd._ Use me well, you were best. What I have done, I have done: I'll

confess nothing.

_Doc._ Now let me come to him.--Are you mad, my lord? are you out of

your princely wits?

_Ferd._ What's he?

_Pes._ Your doctor.

_Ferd._ Let me have his beard sawed off, and his eyebrows filed more

civil.

_Doc._ I must do mad tricks with him, for that's the only way

on't.--I have brought your grace a salamander's skin to keep you from

sun-burning.

_Ferd._ I have cruel sore eyes.

_Doc._ The white of a cockatrix's egg is present remedy.

_Ferd._ Let it be a new laid one, you were best.--

Hide me from him: physicians are like kings,--

They brook no contradiction.

_Doc._ Now he begins to fear me: now let me alone with him.

_Card._ How-now! put off your gown!

_Doc._ Let me have some forty urinals filled with rose-water: he and

I'll go pelt one another with them.--Now he begins to fear me.--Can you

fetch a frisk, sir?--Let him go, let him go, upon my peril: I find by

his eye he stands in awe of me; I'll make him as tame as a dormouse.

_Ferd._ Can you fetch your frisks, sir!--I will stamp him into a

cullis, flay off his skin, to cover one of the anatomies[140] this

rogue hath set i' the cold yonder in Barber-Surgeon's-hall.--Hence,

hence! you are all of you like beasts for sacrifice: there's nothing

left of you but tongue and belly, flattery and lechery. [_Exit._

_Pes._ Doctor, he did not fear you throughly.

_Doc._ True; I was somewhat too forward.

_Bos._ Mercy upon me, what a fatal judgment

Hath fall'n upon this Ferdinand!

_Pes._ Knows your grace

What accident hath brought unto the prince

This strange distraction?

_Card._ [_Aside._] I must feign somewhat.--Thus they say it grew.

You have heard it rumoured, for these many years

None of our family dies but there is seen

The shape of an old woman, which is given

By tradition to us to have been murdered

By her nephews for her riches. Such a figure

One night, as the prince sat up late at's book,

Appeared to him; when crying out for help,

The gentlemen of's chamber found his grace

All on a cold sweat, altered much in face

And language: since which apparition,

He hath grown worse and worse, and I much fear

He cannot live.

_Bos._ Sir, I would speak with you.

_Pes._ We'll leave your grace,

Wishing to the sick prince, our noble lord,

All health of mind and body.

_Card._ You are most welcome.

[_Exeunt_ PESCARA, MALATESTI, _and_ Doctor.

Are you come? so.--[_Aside._] This fellow must not know

By any means I had intelligence

In our duchess' death; for, though I counselled it,

The full of all the engagement seemed to grow

From Ferdinand.--Now, sir, how fares our sister?

I do not think but sorrow makes her look

Like to an oft-dyed garment: she shall now

Taste comfort from me. Why do you look so wildly?

O, the fortune of your master here the prince

Dejects you; but be you of happy comfort:

If you'll do one thing for me I'll entreat,

Though he had a cold tombstone o'er his bones,

I'd make you what you would be.

_Bos._ Any thing;

Give it me in a breath, and let me fly to't:

They that think long small expedition win,

For musing much o' the end cannot begin.

_Enter_ JULIA.

_Julia._ Sir, will you come in to supper?

_Card._ I am busy; leave me.

_Julia._ [_Aside._] What an excellent shape hath that fellow!

[_Exit._

_Card._ 'Tis thus. Antonio lurks here in Milan:

Inquire him out, and kill him. While he lives,

Our sister cannot marry; and I have thought

Of an excellent match for her. Do this, and style me

Thy advancement.

_Bos._ But by what means shall I find him out?

_Card._ There is a gentleman called Delio

Here in the camp, that hath been long approved

His loyal friend. Set eye upon that fellow;

Follow him to mass; may be Antonio,

Although he do account religion

But a school-name, for fashion of the world

May accompany him; or else go inquire out

Delio's confessor, and see if you can bribe

Him to reveal it. There are a thousand ways

A man might find to trace him; as to know

What fellows haunt the Jews for taking up

Great sums of money, for sure he's in want;

Or else to go to the picture-makers, and learn

Who bought her picture lately: some of these

Happily may take.

_Bos._ Well, I'll not freeze i' the business:

I would see that wretched thing, Antonio,

Above all sights i' the world.

_Card._ Do, and be happy. [_Exit_.

_Bos._ This fellow doth breed basilisks in's eyes,

He's nothing else but murder; yet he seems

Not to have notice of the duchess' death.

'Tis his cunning: I must follow his example;

There cannot be a surer way to trace

Than that of an old fox.

_Re-enter_ JULIA.

_Julia._ So, sir, you are well met.

_Bos._ How now!

_Julia._ Nay, the doors are fast enough:

Now, sir, I will make you confess your treachery.

_Bos._ Treachery!

_Julia._ Yes, confess to me

Which of my women 'twas you hired to put

Love-powder into my drink?

_Bos._ Love-powder!

_Julia._ Yes, when I was at Malfi.

Why should I fall in love with such a face else?

I have already suffered for thee so much pain,

The only remedy to do me good

Is to kill my longing.

_Bos._ Sure, your pistol holds

Nothing but perfumes or kissing-comfits.[141]

Excellent lady!

You have a pretty way on't to discover

Your longing. Come, come, I'll disarm you,

And arm you thus: yet this is wondrous strange.

_Julia._ Compare thy form and my eyes together,

You'll find my love no such great miracle.

Now you'll say

I am wanton: this nice modesty in ladies

Is but a troublesome familiar

That haunts them.

_Bos._ Know you me, I am a blunt soldier.

_Julia._ The better:

Sure, there wants fire where there are no lively sparks

Of roughness.

_Bos._ And I want compliment.

_Julia._ Why, ignorance

In courtship cannot make you do amiss,

If you have a heart to do well.

_Bos._ You are very fair.

_Julia._ Nay, if you lay beauty to my charge,

I must plead unguilty.

_Bos._ Your bright eyes

Carry a quiver of darts in them sharper

Than sunbeams.

_Julia._ You will mar me with commendation,

Put yourself to the charge of courting me,

Whereas now I woo you.

_Bos._ [_Aside._] I have it, I will work upon this creature.--

Let us grow most amorously familiar:

If the great cardinal now should see me thus,

Would he not count me a villain?

_Julia._ No; he might count me a wanton,

Not lay a scruple of offence on you;

For if I see and steal a diamond,

The fault is not i' the stone, but in me the thief

That purloins it. I am sudden with you:

We that are great women of pleasure use to cut off

These uncertain wishes and unquiet longings,

And in an instant join the sweet delight

And the pretty excuse together. Had you been i' the street,

Under my chamber-window, even there

I should have courted you.

_Bos._ O, you are an excellent lady!

_Julia._ Bid me do somewhat for you presently

To express I love you.

_Bos._ I will; and if you love me,

Fail not to effect it.

The cardinal is grown wondrous melancholy;

Demand the cause, let him not put you off

With feigned excuse; discover the main ground on't.

_Julia._ Why would you know this?

_Bos._ I have depended on him,

And I hear that he is fall'n in some disgrace

With the emperor: if he be, like the mice

That forsake falling houses, I would shift

To other dependance.

_Julia._ You shall not need

Follow the wars: I'll be your maintenance.

_Bos._ And I your loyal servant: but I cannot

Leave my calling.

_Julia._ Not leave an ungrateful

General for the love of a sweet lady!

You are like some cannot sleep in feather-beds,

But must have blocks for their pillows.

_Bos._ Will you do this?

_Julia._ Cunningly.

_Bos._ To-morrow I'll expect the intelligence.

_Julia._ To-morrow! get you into my cabinet;

You shall have it with you. Do not delay me,

No more than I do you: I am like one

That is condemned; I have my pardon promised,

But I would see it sealed. Go, get you in:

You shall see me wind my tongue about his heart

Like a skein of silk. [_Exit_ BOSOLA.

_Re-enter_ Cardinal.

_Card._ Where are you?

_Enter_ Servants.

_Servants._ Here.

_Card._ Let none, upon your lives, have conference

With the Prince Ferdinand, unless I know it.--

[_Aside._] In this distraction he may reveal

The murder. [_Exeunt_ Servants.

Yond's my lingering consumption:

I am weary of her, and by any means

Would be quit of.

_Julia._ How now, my lord! what ails you?

_Card._ Nothing.

_Julia._ O, you are much altered:

Come, I must be your secretary, and remove

This lead from off your bosom: what's the matter?

_Card._ I may not tell you.

_Julia._ Are you so far in love with sorrow

You cannot part with part of it? or think you

I cannot love your grace when you are sad

As well as merry? or do you suspect

I, that have been a secret to your heart

These many winters, cannot be the same

Unto your tongue?

_Card._ Satisfy thy longing,--

The only way to make thee keep my counsel

Is, not to tell thee.

_Julia._ Tell your echo this,

Or flatterers, that like echoes still report

What they hear though most imperfect, and not me;

For if that you be true unto yourself,

I'll know.

_Card._ Will you rack me?

_Julia._ No, judgment shall

Draw it from you: it is an equal fault,

To tell one's secrets unto all or none.

_Card._ The first argues folly.

_Julia._ But the last tyranny.

_Card._ Very well: why, imagine I have committed

Some secret deed which I desire the world

May never hear of.

_Julia._ Therefore may not I know it?

You have concealed for me as great a sin

As adultery. Sir, never was occasion

For perfect trial of my constancy

Till now: sir, I beseech you--

_Card._ You'll repent it.

_Julia._ Never.

_Card._ It hurries thee to ruin: I'll not tell thee.

Be well advised, and think what danger 'tis

To receive a prince's secrets: they that do,

Had need have their breasts hooped with adamant

To contain them. I pray thee, yet be satisfied;

Examine thine own frailty; 'tis more easy

To tie knots than unloose them: 'tis a secret

That, like a lingering poison, may chance lie

Spread in thy veins, and kill thee seven year hence.

_Julia._ Now you dally with me.

_Card._ No more; thou shalt know it.

By my appointment the great Duchess of Malfi

And two of her young children, four nights since,

Were strangled.

_Julia._ O Heaven! sir, what have you done!

_Card._ How now? how settles this? think you your bosom

Will be a grave dark and obscure enough

For such a secret?

_Julia._ You have undone yourself, sir.

_Card._ Why?

_Julia._ It lies not in me to conceal it.

_Card._ No?

Come, I will swear you to't upon this book.

_Julia._ Most religiously.

_Card_. Kiss it. [_She kisses the book._

Now you shall never utter it; thy curiosity

Hath undone thee: thou'rt poisoned with that book;

Because I knew thou couldst not keep my counsel,

I have bound thee to't by death.

_Re-enter_ BOSOLA.

_Bos._ For pity-sake, hold!

_Card._ Ha, Bosola!

_Julia._ I forgive you

This equal piece of justice you have done;

For I betrayed your counsel to that fellow:

He overheard it; that was the cause I said

It lay not in me to conceal it.

_Bos._ O foolish woman,

Couldst not thou have poisoned him?

_Julia._ 'Tis weakness,

Too much to think what should have been done. I go,

I know not whither. [_Dies._

_Card._ Wherefore com'st thou hither?

_Bos._ That I might find a great man like yourself,

Not out of his wits as the Lord Ferdinand,

To remember my service.

_Card._ I'll have thee hewed in pieces.

_Bos._ Make not yourself such a promise of that life

Which is not yours to dispose of.

_Card._ Who placed thee here?

_Bos._ Her lust, as she intended.

_Card._ Very well:

Now you know me for your fellow-murderer.

_Bos._ And wherefore should you lay fair marble colours

Upon your rotten purposes to me?

Unless you imitate some that do plot great treasons,

And when they have done, go hide themselves i' the graves

Of those were actors in't?

_Card._ No more; there is

A fortune attends thee.

_Bos._ Shall I go sue to Fortune any longer?

'Tis the fool's pilgrimage.

_Card._ I have honours in store for thee.

_Bos._ There are many ways that conduct to seeming honour;

And some of them very dirty ones.

_Card._ Throw to the devil

Thy melancholy. The fire burns well;

What need we keep a stirring of't, and make

A greater smother? Thou wilt kill Antonio?

_Bos._ Yes.

_Card._ Take up that body.

_Bos._ I think I shall

Shortly grow the common bier for churchyards.

_Card._ I will allow thee some dozen of attendants

To aid thee in the murder.

_Bos._ O, by no means. Physicians that apply horse-leeches to any rank

swelling use to cut off their tails, that the blood may run through

them the faster: let me have no train when I go to shed blood, lest it

make me have a greater when I ride to the gallows.

_Card._ Come to me after midnight, to help to remove

That body to her own lodging: I'll give out

She died o' the plague; 'twill breed the less inquiry

After her death.

_Bos._ Where's Castruccio her husband?

_Card._ He's rode to Naples, to take possession

Of Antonio's citadel.

_Bos._ Believe me, you have done a very happy turn.

_Card._ Fail not to come: there is the master-key

Of our lodgings; and by that you may conceive

What trust I plant in you.

_Bos._ You shall find me ready. [_Exit_ Cardinal.

O poor Antonio, though nothing be so needful

To thy estate as pity, yet I find

Nothing so dangerous; I must look to my footing:

In such slippery ice-pavements men had need

To be frost-nailed well, they may break their necks else;

The precedent's here afore me. How this man

Bears up in blood! seems fearless! Why, 'tis well:

Security some men call the suburbs of hell,

Only a dead wall between. Well, good Antonio,

I'll seek thee out; and all my care shall be

To put thee into safety from the reach

Of these most cruel biters that have got

Some of thy blood already. It may be,

I'll join with thee in a most just revenge:

The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes

With the sword of justice. Still methinks the duchess

Haunts me: there, there!--'Tis nothing but my melancholy.

O Penitence, let me truly taste thy cup,

That throws men down only to raise them up! [_Exit._

SCENE III.--_A Fortification at Milan._

_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ DELIO.

_Delio._ Yond's the cardinal's window. This fortification

Grew from the ruins of an ancient abbey;

And to yond side o' the river lies a wall,

Piece of a cloister, which in my opinion

Gives the best echo that you ever heard,

So hollow and so dismal, and withal

So plain in the distinction of our words,

That many have supposed it is a spirit

That answers.

_Ant._ I do love these ancient ruins.

We never tread upon them but we set

Our foot upon some reverend history:

And, questionless, here in this open court,

Which now lies naked to the injuries

Of stormy weather, some men lie interred

Loved the church so well, and gave so largely to't,

They thought it should have canopied their bones

Till doomsday; but all things have their end:

Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men,

Must have like death that we have.

_Echo._ "Like death that we have."

_Delio._ Now the echo hath caught you.

_Ant._ It groaned, methought, and gave

A very deadly accent.

_Echo._ "Deadly accent."

_Delio._ I told you 'twas a pretty one: you may make it

A huntsman, or a falconer, a musician,

Or a thing of sorrow.

_Echo._ "A thing of sorrow."

_Ant._ Ay, sure, that suits it best.

_Echo._ "That suits it best."

_Ant._ 'Tis very like my wife's voice.

_Echo._ "Ay, wife's voice."

_Delio._ Come, let us walk further from't.

I would not have you go to the cardinal's to-night:

Do not.

_Echo._ "Do not."

_Delio._ Wisdom doth not more moderate wasting sorrow

Than time: take time for't; be mindful of thy safety.

_Echo._ "Be mindful of thy safety."

_Ant._ Necessity compels me:

Make scrutiny throughout the passages

Of your own life, you'll find it impossible

To fly your fate.

_Echo._ "O, fly your fate."

_Delio._ Hark! the dead stones seem to have pity on you,

And give you good counsel.

_Ant._ Echo, I will not talk with thee,

For thou art a dead thing.

_Echo._ "Thou art a dead thing."

_Ant._ My duchess is asleep now,

And her little ones, I hope sweetly: O Heaven,

Shall I never see her more?

_Echo._ "Never see her more."

_Ant._ I marked not one repetition of the echo

But that; and on the sudden a clear light

Presented me a face folded in sorrow.

_Delio._ Your fancy merely.

_Ant._ Come, I'll be out of this ague,

For to live thus is not indeed to live;

It is a mockery and abuse of life:

I will not henceforth save myself by halves;

Lose all, or nothing.

_Delio._ Your own virtue save you!

I'll fetch your eldest son, and second you:

It may be that the sight of his own blood

Spread in so sweet a figure may beget

The more compassion. However, fare you well.

Though in our miseries Fortune have a part,

Yet in our noble sufferings she hath none:

Contempt of pain, that we may call our own.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE IV.--_An Apartment in the_ Cardinal's _Palace._

_Enter_ Cardinal, PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, _and_ GRISOLAN.

_Card._ You shall not watch to-night by the sick prince;

His grace is very well recovered.

_Mal._ Good my lord, suffer us.

_Card._ O, by no means;

The noise, and change of object in his eye,

Doth more distract him: I pray, all to bed;

And though you hear him in his violent fit,

Do not rise, I entreat you.

_Pes._ So, sir; we shall not.

_Card._ Nay, I must have you promise

Upon your honours, for I was enjoined to't

By himself; and he seemed to urge it sensibly.

_Pes._ Let our honours bind this trifle.

_Card._ Nor any of your followers.

_Mal._ Neither.

_Card._ It may be, to make trial of your promise,

When he's asleep, myself will rise and feign

Some of his mad tricks, and cry out for help,

And feign myself in danger.

_Mal._ If your throat were cutting,

I'd not come at you, now I have protested against it.

_Card._ Why, I thank you.

_Gris._ 'Twas a foul storm to-night.

_Rod._ The Lord Ferdinand's chamber shook like an osier.

_Mal._ 'Twas nothing but pure kindness in the devil,

To rock his own child. [_Exeunt all except the_ Cardinal.

_Card._ The reason why I would not suffer these

About my brother, is, because at midnight

I may with better privacy convey

Julia's body to her own lodging. O, my conscience!

I would pray now; but the devil takes away my heart

For having any confidence in prayer.

About this hour I appointed Bosola

To fetch the body: when he hath served my turn,

He dies. [_Exit._

_Enter_ BOSOLA.

_Bos._ Ha! 'twas the cardinal's voice; I heard him name

Bosola and my death. Listen; I hear one's footing.

_Enter_ FERDINAND.

_Ferd._ Strangling is a very quiet death.

_Bos._ [_Aside_.] Nay, then, I see I must stand upon my guard.

_Ferd._ What say you to that? whisper softly; do you agree to't? So; it

must be done i' the dark: the cardinal would not for a thousand pounds

the doctor should see it. [_Exit._

_Bos._ My death is plotted; here's the consequence of murder.

We value not desert nor Christian breath,

When we know black deeds must be cured with death.

_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ Servant.

_Serv._ Here stay, sir, and be confident, I pray:

I'll fetch you a dark lantern. [_Exit._

_Ant._ Could I take him at his prayers,

There were hope of pardon.

_Bos._ Fall right, my sword!--[_Stabs him._

I'll not give thee so much leisure as to pray.

_Ant._ O, I am gone! Thou hast ended a long suit

In a minute.

_Bos._ What art thou?

_Ant._ A most wretched thing,

That only have thy benefit in death,

To appear myself.

_Re-enter_ Servant _with a lantern._

_Serv._ Where are you, sir?

_Ant._ Very near my home.--Bosola!

_Serv._ O, misfortune!

_Bos._ Smother thy pity, thou art dead else.--Antonio!

The man I would have saved 'bove mine own life!

We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and bandied

Which way please them.--O good Antonio,

I'll whisper one thing in thy dying ear

Shall make thy heart break quickly! thy fair duchess and two sweet children--

_Ant._ Their very names

Kindle a little life in me.

_Bos._ Are murdered.

_Ant._ Some men have wished to die

At the hearing of sad things; I am glad

That I shall do't in sadness:[142] I would not now

Wish my wounds balmed nor healed, for I have no use

To put my life to. In all our quest of greatness,

Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care,

We follow after bubbles blown in the air.

Pleasure of life, what is't? only the good hours

Of an ague; merely a preparative to rest,

To endure vexation. I do not ask

The process of my death; only commend me

To Delio.

_Bos._ Break, heart!

_Ant._ And let my son fly the courts of princes. [_Dies._

_Bos._ Thou seem'st to have loved Antonio?

_Serv._ I brought him hither,

To have reconciled him to the cardinal.

_Bos._ I do not ask thee that.

Take him up, if thou tender thine own life,

And bear him where the lady Julia

Was wont to lodge.--O, my fate moves swift;

I have this cardinal in the forge already;

Now I'll bring him to the hammer. O direful misprision!

I will not imitate things glorious,

No more than base; I'll be mine own example.--

On, on, and look thou represent, for silence,

The thing thou bear'st. [_Exeunt._

SCENE V.--_Another Apartment in the same._

_Enter_ Cardinal, _with a book._

_Card._ I am puzzled in a question about hell:

He says, in hell there's one material fire,

And yet it shall not burn all men alike.

Lay him by. How tedious is a guilty conscience!

When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,

Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake,

That seems to strike at me.

_Enter_ BOSOLA, _and_ Servant _bearing_ ANTONIO'S _body._

Now, art thou come?

Thou look'st ghastly:

There sits in thy face some great determination

Mixed with some fear.

_Bos._ Thus it lightens into action:

I am come to kill thee.

_Card._ Ha!--Help! our guard!

_Bos._ Thou art deceived;

They are out of thy howling.

_Card._ Hold; and I will faithfully divide

Revenues with thee.

_Bos._ Thy prayers and proffers

Are both unseasonable.

_Card._ Raise the watch! we are betrayed!

_Bos._ I have confined your flight:

I'll suffer your retreat to Julia's chamber,

But no further.

_Card._ Help! we are betrayed!

_Enter, above,_ PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, _and_ GRISOLAN.

_Mal._ Listen.

_Card._ My dukedom for rescue!

_Rod._ Fie upon his counterfeiting!

_Mal._ Why, 'tis not the cardinal.

_Rod._ Yes, yes, 'tis he:

But I'll see him hanged ere I'll go down to him.

_Card._ Here's a plot upon me; I am assaulted! I am lost,

Unless some rescue.

_Gris._ He doth this pretty well;

But it will not serve to laugh me out of mine honour.

_Card._ The sword's at my throat!

_Rod._ You would not bawl so loud then.

_Mal._ Come, come, let's go

To bed: he told us thus much aforehand.

_Pes._ He wished you should not come at him; but, believe't,

The accent of the voice sounds not in jest:

I'll down to him, howsoever, and with engines

Force ope the doors. [_Exit above._

_Rod._ Let's follow him aloof,

And note how the cardinal will laugh at him.

[_Exeunt, above_, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, _and_ GRISOLAN.

_Bos._ There's for you first,

'Cause you shall not unbarricade the door

To let in rescue. [_Kills the_ Servant.

_Card._ What cause hast thou to pursue my life?

_Bos._ Look there.

_Card._ Antonio!

_Bos._ Slain by my hand unwittingly.

Pray, and be sudden: when thou killed'st thy sister,

Thou took'st from Justice her most equal balance,

And left her naught but her sword.

_Card._ O, mercy!

_Bos._ Now it seems thy greatness was only outward;

For thou fall'st faster of thyself than calamity

Can drive thee. I'll not waste longer time; there!

[_Stabs him._

_Card._ Thou hast hurt me.

_Bos._ Again! [_Stabs him again._

_Card._ Shall I die like a leveret,

Without any resistance?--Help, help, help!

I am slain!

_Enter_ FERDINAND.

_Ferd._ The alarum! give me a fresh horse;

Rally the vaunt-guard, or the day is lost.

Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms,

Shake my sword over you; will you yield?

_Card._ Help me; I am your brother!

_Ferd._ The devil!

My brother fight upon the adverse party!

[_He wounds the_ Cardinal, _and, in the scuffle, gives_ BOSOLA

_his death-wound._

There flies your ransom.

_Card._ O justice!

I suffer now for what hath former bin:

Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.

_Ferd._ Now you're brave fellows. Cæsar's fortune was harder than

Pompey's; Cæsar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the feet of

disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain's nothing: pain many

times is taken away with the apprehension of greater, as the toothache

with the sight of the barber that comes to pull it out: there's

philosophy for you.

_Bos._ Now my revenge is perfect.--Sink, thou main cause

[_Kills_ FERDINAND.

Of my undoing!--The last part of my life

Hath done me best service.

_Ferd._ Give me some wet hay; I am broken-winded

I do account this world but a dog kennel:

I will vault credit and affect high pleasures

Beyond death.

_Bos._ He seems to come to himself,

Now he's so near the bottom.

_Ferd._ My sister, O my sister! there's the cause on't.

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,

Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust. [_Dies._

_Card._ Thou hast thy payment too.

_Bos._ Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth;

'Tis ready to part from me. I do glory

That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid

Begun upon a large and ample base,

Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing.

_Enter below_, PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, _and_ GRISOLAN.

_Pes._ How now, my lord!

_Mal._ O sad disaster!

_Rod._ How comes this?

_Bos._ Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murdered

By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio

Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia

Poisoned by this man; and lastly for myself,

That was an actor in the main of all

Much 'gainst mine own good nature, yet i' the end

Neglected.

_Pes._ How now, my lord!

_Card._ Look to my brother:

He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling

Here i' the rushes.[143] And now, I pray, let me

Be laid by and never thought of. [_Dies._

_Pes._ How fatally, it seems, he did withstand

His own rescue!

_Mal._ Thou wretched thing of blood

How came Antonio by his death?

_Bos._ In a mist; I know not how:

Such a mistake as I have often seen

In a play. O, I am gone!

We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,

That, ruined, yield no echo. Fare you well.

It may be pain, but no harm, to me to die

In so good a quarrel. O, this gloomy world!

In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,

Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!

Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrust

To suffer death or shame for what is just:

Mine is another voyage. [_Dies._

_Pes._ The noble Delio, as I came to the palace,

Told me of Antonio's being here, and showed me

A pretty gentleman, his son and heir.

_Enter_ DELIO _and_ ANTONIO'S Son.

_Mal._ O sir, you come too late!

_Delio._ I heard so, and

Was armed for't, ere I came. Let us make noble use

Of this great ruin; and join all our force

To establish this young hopeful gentleman

In's mother's right. These wretched eminent things

Leave no more fame behind 'em, than should one

Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow;

As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts,

Both form and matter. I have ever thought

Nature doth nothing so great for great men

As when she's pleased to make them lords of truth:

Integrity of life is fame's best friend,

Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.

[_Exeunt._

_THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR, THE HONEST MAN'S REVENGE._

Cyril Tourneur's _Atheist's Tragedy; or, the Honest Man's Revenge_, was

first printed in 1611, "as in divers places it hath often been acted."

It was probably written earlier than _The Revenger's Tragedy_.

It was not printed again until 1792, and was subsequently included in

Churton Collins's edition of Tourneur's works.

_DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._

MONTFERRERS, a Baron

BELFOREST, a Baron.

D'AMVILLE, Brother of MONTFERRERS.

CHARLEMONT, Son of MONTFERRERS.

ROUSARD, elder Son of D'AMVILLE.

SEBASTIAN, younger Son of D'AMVILLE.

LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE, a Puritan, Chaplain to BELFOREST.

BORACHIO, D'AMVILLE'S instrument.

FRESCO, Servant to CATAPLASMA.

Serjeant in war.

Soldiers, Servants, Watchmen, Judges, Officers.

LEVIDULCIA, Wife of BELFOREST.

CASTABELLA, Daughter of BELFOREST.

CATAPLASMA, a Maker of Periwigs and Attires.

SOQUETTE, a seeming Gentlewoman to CATAPLASMA.

SCENE--FRANCE.

_THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY._

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I._--In the Grounds of_ D'AMVILLE'S _Mansion._

_Enter_ D'AMVILLE, BORACHIO, _and_ Attendants.

_D'Am._ I saw my nephew Charlemont but now

Part from his father. Tell him I desire

To speak with him. [_Exit_ Servant.

Borachio, thou art read

In nature and her large philosophy.

Observ'st thou not the very self-same course

Of revolution, both in man and beast?

_Bor._ The same, for birth, growth, state, decay and death;

Only a man's beholding to his nature

For the better composition o' the two.

_D'Am._ But where that favour of his nature is

Not full and free, you see a man becomes

A fool, as little-knowing as a beast.

_Bor._ That shows there's nothing in a man above

His nature; if there were, considering 'tis

His being's excellency, 'twould not yield

To nature's weakness.

_D'Am._ Then, if Death casts up

Our total sum of joy and happiness,

Let me have all my senses feasted in

The abundant fulness of delight at once,

And, with a sweet insensible increase

Of pleasing surfeit, melt into my dust.

_Bor._ That revolution is too short, methinks.

If this life comprehends our happiness,

How foolish to desire to die so soon!

And if our time runs home unto the length

Of nature, how improvident it were

To spend our substance on a minute's pleasure,

And after, live an age in misery!

_D'Am._ So thou conclud'st that pleasure only flows

Upon the stream of riches?

_Bor._ Wealth is lord

Of all felicity.

_D'Am._ 'Tis, oracle.

For what's a man that's honest without wealth?

_Bor._ Both miserable and contemptible.

_D'Am._ He's worse, Borachio. For if charity

Be an essential part of honesty,

And should be practised first upon ourselves,

Which must be granted, then your honest man

That's poor, is most dishonest, for he is

Uncharitable to the man whom he

Should most respect. But what doth this touch me

That seem to have enough?--thanks industry.

'Tis true, had not my body spread itself

Into posterity, perhaps I should

Desire no more increase of substance, than

Would hold proportion with mine own dimensions.

Yet even in that sufficiency of state,

A man has reason to provide and add.

For what is he hath such a present eye,

And so prepared a strength, that can foresee,

And fortify his substance and himself

Against those accidents, the least whereof

May rob him of an age's husbandry?

And for my children, they are as near to me

As branches to the tree whereon they grow;

And may as numerously be multiplied.

As they increase, so should my providence;

For from my substance they receive the sap,

Whereby they live and flourish.

_Bor._ Sir, enough.

I understand the mark whereat you aim.

_Enter_ CHARLEMONT.

_D'Am._ Silence, we are interrupted. Charlemont!

_Charl._ Good morrow, uncle.

_D'Am._ Noble Charlemont,

Good morrow. Is not this the honoured day

You purposed to set forward to the war?

_Charl._ My inclination did intend it so.

_D'Am._ And not your resolution?

_Charl._ Yes, my lord;

Had not my father contradicted it.

_D'Am._ O noble war! Thou first original

Of all man's honour, how dejectedly

The baser spirit of our present time

Hath cast itself below the ancient worth

Of our forefathers, from whose noble deeds

Ignobly we derive our pedigrees.

_Charl._ Sir, tax not me for his unwillingness.

By the command of his authority

My disposition's forced against itself.

_D'Am._ Nephew, you are the honour of our blood.

The troop of gentry, whose inferior worth

Should second your example, are become

Your leaders; and the scorn of their discourse

Turns smiling back upon your backwardness.

_Charl._ You need not urge my spirit by disgrace,

'Tis free enough; my father hinders it.

To curb me, he denies me maintenance

To put me in the habit of my rank.

Unbind me from that strong necessity,--

And call me coward, if I stay behind.

_D'Am._ For want of means? Borachio, where's the gold?

I'd disinherit my posterity

To purchase honour. 'Tis an interest

I prize above the principal of wealth.

I'm glad I had the occasion to make known

How readily my substance shall unlock

Itself to serve you. Here's a thousand crowns.

_Charl._ My worthy uncle, in exchange for this

I leave my bond; so I am doubly bound;

By that, for the repayment of this gold,

And by this gold, to satisfy your love.

_D'Am._ Sir, 'tis a witness only of my love,

And love doth always satisfy itself.

Now to your father, labour his consent,

My importunity shall second yours.

We will obtain it.

_Charl._ If entreaty fail,

The force of reputation shall prevail. [_Exit._

_D'Am._ Go call my sons, that they may take their leaves

Of noble Charlemont. Now, my Borachio!

_Bor._ The substance of our former argument

Was wealth.

_D'Am._ The question, how to compass it.

_Bor._ Young Charlemont is going to the war.

_D'Am._ O, thou begin'st to take me!

_Bor._ Mark me then.

Methinks the pregnant wit of man might make

The happy absence of this Charlemont

A subject of commodious providence.

He has a wealthy father, ready even

To drop into his grave. And no man's power,

When Charlemont is gone, can interpose

'Twixt you and him.

_D'Am._ Thou hast apprehended both

My meaning and my love. Now let thy trust,

For undertaking and for secrecy

Hold measure with thy amplitude of wit;

And thy reward shall parallel thy worth.

_Bor._ My resolution has already bound

Me to your service.

_D'Am._ And my heart to thee.

_Enter_ ROUSARD _and_ SEBASTIAN.

Here are my sons.--

There's my eternity. My life in them

And their succession shall for ever live.

And in my reason dwells the providence

To add to life as much of happiness.

Let all men lose, so I increase my gain,

I have no feeling of another's pain. [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_An Apartment in_ MONTFERRERS' _Mansion._

_Enter_ MONTFERRERS _and_ CHARLEMONT.

_Mont._ I prithee, let this current of my tears

Divert thy inclination from the war,

For of my children thou art only left

To promise a succession to my house.

And all the honour thou canst get by arms

Will give but vain addition to thy name;

Since from thy ancestors thou dost derive

A dignity sufficient, and as great

As thou hast substance to maintain and bear.

I prithee, stay at home.

_Charl._ My noble father,

The weakest sigh you breathe hath power to turn

My strongest purpose, and your softest tear

To melt my resolution to as soft

Obedience; but my affection to the war

Is as hereditary as my blood

To every life of all my ancestry.

Your predecessors were your precedents,

And you are my example. Shall I serve

For nothing but a vain parenthesis

I' the honoured story of your family?

Or hang but like an empty scutcheon

Between the trophies of my predecessors,

And the rich arms of my posterity?

There's not a Frenchman of good blood and youth,

But either out of spirit or example

Is turned a soldier. Only Charlemont

Must be reputed that same heartless thing

That cowards will be bold to play upon.

_Enter_ D'AMVILLE, ROUSARD, _and_ SEBASTIAN.

_D'Am._ Good morrow, my lord.

_Mont._ Morrow, good brother.

_Charl._ Good morrow, uncle.

_D'Am._ Morrow, kind nephew.

What, ha' you washed your eyes wi' tears this morning?

Come, by my soul, his purpose does deserve

Your free consent;--your tenderness dissuades him.

What to the father of a gentleman

Should be more tender than the maintenance

And the increase of honour to his house?

My lord, here are my boys. I should be proud

That either this were able, or that inclined

To be my nephew's brave competitor.

_Mont._ Your importunities have overcome.

Pray God my forced grant prove not ominous!

_D'Am._ We have obtained it.--Ominous! in what?

It cannot be in anything but death.

And I am of a confident belief

That even the time, place, manner of our deaths

Do follow Fate with that necessity

That makes us sure to die. And in a thing

Ordained so certainly unalterable,

What can the use of providence prevail?

_Enter_ BELFOREST, LEVIDULCIA, CASTABELLA, _and_ Attendants.

_Bel._ Morrow, my Lord Montferrers, Lord D'Amville.

Good morrow, gentlemen. Cousin Charlemont,

Kindly good morrow. Troth, I was afeared

I should ha' come too late to tell you that

I wish your undertakings a success

That may deserve the measure of their worth.

_Charl._ My lord, my duty would not let me go

Without receiving your commandëments.

_Bel._ Accompliments are more for ornament

Then use. We should employ no time in them

But what our serious business will admit.

_Mont._ Your favour had by his duty been prevented

If we had not withheld him in the way.

_D'Am._ He was a coming to present his service;

But now no more. The book invites to breakfast.

Wilt please your lordship enter?--Noble lady!

[_Exeunt all except_ CHARLEMONT _and_ CASTABELLA.

_Charl._ My noble mistress, this accompliment

Is like an elegant and moving speech,

Composed of many sweet persuasive points,

Which second one another, with a fluent

Increase and confirmation of their force,

Reserving still the best until the last,

To crown the strong impulsion of the rest

With a full conquest of the hearer's sense;

Because the impression of the last we speak

Doth always longest and most constantly

Possess the entertainment of remembrance.

So all that now salute my taking leave

Have added numerously to the love

Wherewith I did receive their courtesy.

But you, dear mistress, being the last and best

That speaks my farewell, like the imperious close

Of a most sweet oration, wholly have

Possessed my liking, and shall ever live

Within the soul of my true memory.

So, mistress, with this kiss I take my leave.

_Cast._ My worthy servant, you mistake the intent

Of kissing. 'Twas not meant to separate

A pair of lovers, but to be the seal

Of love; importing by the joining of

Our mutual and incorporated breaths,

That we should breathe but one contracted life.

Or stay at home, or let me go with you.

_Charl._ My Castabella, for myself to stay,

Or you to go, would either tax my youth

With a dishonourable weakness, or

Your loving purpose with immodesty.

_Enter_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE.

And, for the satisfaction of your love,

Here comes a man whose knowledge I have made

A witness to the contract of our vows,

Which my return, by marriage, shall confirm.

_Lang._ I salute you both with the spirit of copulation, already

informed of your matrimonial purposes, and will testimony to the

integrity--

_Cast._ O the sad trouble of my fearful soul!

My faithful servant, did you never hear

That when a certain great man went to the war,

The lovely face of Heaven was masqued with sorrow,

The sighing winds did move the breast of earth,

The heavy clouds hung down their mourning heads,

And wept sad showers the day that he went hence

As if that day presaged some ill success

That fatally should kill his happiness.

And so it came to pass. Methinks my eyes

(Sweet Heaven forbid!) are like those weeping clouds,

And as their showers presaged, so do my tears.

Some sad event will follow my sad fears.

_Charl._ Fie, superstitious! Is it bad to kiss?

_Cast._ May all my fears hurt me no more than this!

_Lang._ Fie, fie, fie! these carnal kisses do stir up the

concupiscences of the flesh.

_Enter_ BELFOREST _and_ LEVIDULCIA.

_Lev._ O! here's your daughter under her servant's lips.

_Charl._ Madam, there is no cause you should mistrust

The kiss I gave; 'twas but a parting one.

_Lev._ A lusty blood! Now by the lip of love,

Were I to choose your joining one for me--

_Bel._ Your father stays to bring you on the way.

Farewell. The great commander of the war

Prosper the course you undertake! Farewell.

_Charl._ My lord, I humbly take my leave.--Madam,

I kiss your hand.--And your sweet lip.--[_To_ CASTABELLA.] Farewell.

[_Exeunt_ BELFOREST, LEVIDULCIA, _and_ CASTABELLA.

Her power to speak is perished in her tears.

Something within me would persuade my stay,

But reputation will not yield unto't.

Dear sir, you are the man whose honest trust

My confidence hath chosen for my friend.

I fear my absence will discomfort her.

You have the power and opportunity

To moderate her passion. Let her grief

Receive that friendship from you, and your love

Shall not repent itself of courtesy.

_Lang._ Sir, I want words and protestation to insinuate into your

credit; but in plainness and truth, I will qualify her grief with the

spirit of consolation.

_Charl._ Sir, I will take your friendship up at use,

And fear not that your profit shall be small;

Your interest shall exceed your principal. [_Exit._

_Re-enter_ D'AMVILLE _with_ BORACHIO.

_D'Am._ Monsieur Languebeau! happily encountered. The honesty of your

conversation makes me request more interest in your familiarity.

_Lang._ If your lordship will be pleased to salute me without ceremony,

I shall be willing to exchange my service for your favour; but this

worshipping kind of entertainment is a superstitious vanity; in

plainness and truth, I love it not.

_D'Am._ I embrace your disposition, and desire to give you as liberal

assurance of my love as my Lord Belforest, your deserved favourer.

_Lang._ His lordship is pleased with my plainness and truth of

conversation.

_D'Am._ It cannot displease him. In the behaviour of his noble daughter

Castabella a man may read her worth and your instruction.

_Lang._ That gentlewoman is most sweetly modest, fair, honest,

handsome, wise, well-born, and rich.

_D'Am._ You have given me her picture in small.

_Lang._ She's like your diamond; a temptation in every man's eye, yet

not yielding to any light impression herself.

_D'Am._ The praise is hers, but the comparison your own. [_Gives him

the ring._

_Lang._ You shall forgive me that, sir.

_D'Am._ I will not do so much at your request as forgive you it. I will

only give you it, sir. By ---- you will make me swear.

_Lang._ O! by no means. Profane not your lips with the foulness of that

sin. I will rather take it. To save your oath, you shall lose your

ring.--Verily, my lord, my praise came short of her worth. She exceeds

a jewel. This is but only for ornament: she both for ornament and use.

_D'Am._ Yet unprofitably kept without use. She deserves a worthy

husband, sir. I have often wished a match between my elder son and her.

The marriage would join the houses of Belforest and D'Amville into a

noble alliance.

_Lang._ And the unity of families is a work of love and charity.

_D'Am._ And that work an employment well becoming the goodness of your

disposition.

_Lang._ If your lordship please to impose it upon me I will carry it

without any second end; the surest way to satisfy your wish.

_D'Am._ Most joyfully accepted. Rousard! Here are letters to my Lord

Belforest, touching my desire to that purpose.

_Enter_ ROUSARD, _looking sickly_.

Rousard, I send you a suitor to Castabella. To this gentleman's

discretion I commit the managing of your suit. His good success shall

be most thankful to your trust. Follow his instructions; he will be

your leader.

_Lang._ In plainness and truth.

_Rous._ My leader! Does your lordship think me too weak to give the

onset myself?

_Lang._ I will only assist your proceedings.

_Rous._ To say true, so I think you had need; for a sick man can hardly

get a woman's good will without help.

_Lang._ Charlemont, thy gratuity and my promises were both

But words, and both, like words, shall vanish into air.

For thy poor empty hand I must be mute;

This gives me feeling of a better suit.

[_Exeunt_ LANGUEBEAU _and_ ROUSARD.

_D'Am._ Borachio, didst precisely note this man?

_Bor._ His own profession would report him pure.

_D'Am._ And seems to know if any benefit

Arises of religion after death.

Yet but compare's profession with his life;--

They so directly contradict themselves,

As if the end of his instructions were

But to divert the world from sin, that he

More easily might ingross it to himself.

By that I am confirmed an atheist.

Well! Charlemont is gone; and here thou seest

His absence the foundation of my plot.

_Bor._ He is the man whom Castabella loves.

_D'Am._ That was the reason I propounded him

Employment, fixed upon a foreign place,

To draw his inclination out o' the way.

_Bor._ It has left the passage of our practice free.

_D'Am._ This Castabella is a wealthy heir;

And by her marriage with my elder son

My house is honoured and my state increased.

This work alone deserves my industry;

But if it prosper, thou shalt see my brain

Make this but an induction to a point

So full of profitable policy,

That it would make the soul of honesty

Ambitious to turn villain.

_Bor._ I bespeak

Employment in't. I'll be an instrument

To grace performance with dexterity.

_D'Am._ Thou shalt. No man shall rob thee of the honour.

Go presently and buy a crimson scarf

Like Charlemont's: prepare thee a disguise

I' the habit of a soldier, hurt and lame;

And then be ready at the wedding feast,

Where thou shalt have employment in a work

Will please thy disposition.

_Bor._ As I vowed,

Your instrument shall make your project proud.

_D'Am._ This marriage will bring wealth. If that succeed,

I will increase it though my brother bleed.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE III.--_An Apartment in_ BELFOREST'S _Mansion_.

_Enter_ CASTABELLA _avoiding the importunity of_ ROUSARD.

_Cast._ Nay, good sir; in troth, if you knew how little it pleases me,

you would forbear it.

_Rous._ I will not leave thee till thou'st entertained me for thy

servant.

_Cast._ My servant! You are sick you say. You would tax me of

indiscretion to entertain one that is not able to do me service.

_Rous._ The service of a gentlewoman consists most in chamber work, and

sick men are fittest for the chamber. I prithee give me a favour.

_Cast._ Methinks you have a very sweet favour of your own.

_Rous._ I lack but your black eye.

_Cast._ If you go to buffets among the boys, they'll give you one.

_Rous._ Nay, if you grow bitter I'll dispraise your black eye.

The gray-eyed morning makes the fairest day.

_Cast._ Now that you dissemble not, I could be willing to give you a

favour. What favour would you have?

_Rous._ Any toy, any light thing.

_Cast._ Fie! Will you be so uncivil to ask a light thing at a

gentlewoman's hand?

_Rous._ Wilt give me a bracelet o' thy hair then?

_Cast._ Do you want hair, sir.

_Rous._ No, faith, I'll want no hair, so long as I can have it for

money.

_Cast._ What would you do with my hair then?

_Rous._ Wear it for thy sake, sweetheart.

_Cast._ Do you think I love to have my hair worn off?

_Rous._ Come, you are so witty now and so sensible. [_Kisses her._

_Cast._ Tush, I would I wanted one o' my senses now!

_Rous._ Bitter again? What's that? Smelling?

_Cast._ No, no, no. Why now y'are satisfied, I hope. I have given you a

favour.

_Rous._ What favour? A kiss? I prithee give me another.

_Cast._ Show me that I gave it you then.

_Rous._ How should I show it?

_Cast._ You are unworthy of a favour if you will not bestow the keeping

of it one minute.

_Rous._ Well, in plain terms, dost love me? That's the purpose of my

coming.

_Cast._ Love you? Yes, very well.

_Rous._ Give me thy hand upon't.

_Cast._ Nay, you mistake me. If I love you very well I must not love

you now. For now y'are not very well, y'are sick.

_Rous._ This equivocation is for the jest now.

_Cast._ I speak't as 'tis now in fashion, in earnest. But I shall not

be in quiet for you, I perceive, till I have given you a favour. Do you

love me?

_Rous._ With all my heart.

_Cast._ Then with all my heart I'll give you a jewel to hang in your

ear.--Hark ye--I can never love you. [_Exit._

_Rous._ Call you this a jewel to hang in mine ear? 'Tis no light

favour, for I'll be sworn it comes somewhat heavily to me. Well, I

will not leave her for all this. Methinks it animates a man to stand

to't, when a woman desires to be rid of him at the first sight. [_Exit._

SCENE IV.--_Another Apartment in the same._

_Enter_ BELFOREST _and_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE.

_Bel._ I entertain the offer of this match

With purpose to confirm it presently.

I have already moved it to my daughter.

Her soft excuses savoured at the first,

Methought, but of a modest innocence

Of blood, whose unmoved stream was never drawn

Into the current of affection. But when I

Replied with more familiar arguments,

Thinking to make her apprehension bold,--

Her modest blush fell to a pale dislike;

And she refused it with such confidence,

As if she had been prompted by a love

Inclining firmly to some other man;

And in that obstinacy she remains.

_Lang._ Verily, that disobedience doth not become a child. It

proceedeth from an unsanctified liberty. You will be accessory to your

own dishonour if you suffer it.

_Bel._ Your honest wisdom has advised me well.

Once more I'll move her by persuasive means.

If she resist, all mildness set apart,

I will make use of my authority.

_Lang._ And instantly, lest fearing your constraint

Her contrary affection teach her some

Device that may prevent you.

_Bel._ To cut off every opportunity

Procrastination may assist her with

This instant night she shall be married.

_Lang._ Best.

_Enter_ CASTABELLA.

_Cast._ Please it your lordship, my mother attends

I' the gallery, and desires your conference.

[_Exit_ BELFOREST.

This means I used to bring me to your ear.

[_To_ LANGUEBEAU.

Time cuts off circumstance; I must be brief,

To your integrity did Charlemont

Commit the contract of his love and mine;

Which now so strong a hand seeks to divide,

That if your grave advice assist me not,

I shall be forced to violate my faith.

_Lang._ Since Charlemont's absence I have weighed his love with the

spirit of consideration; and in sincerity I find it to be frivolous and

vain. Withdraw your respect; his affection deserveth it not.

_Cast._ Good sir, I know your heart cannot profane

The holiness you make profession of

With such a vicious purpose as to break

The vow your own consent did help to make.

_Lang._ Can he deserve your love who in neglect

Of your delightful conversation and

In obstinate contempt of all your prayers

And tears, absents himself so far from your

Sweet fellowship, and with a purpose so

Contracted to that absence that you see

He purchases your separation with

The hazard of his blood and life, fearing to want

Pretence to part your companies.--

'Tis rather hate that doth division move.

Love still desires the presence of his love.--

Verily he is not of the family of love.

_Cast._ O do not wrong him! 'Tis a generous mind

That led his disposition to the war:

For gentle love and noble courage are

So near allied, that one begets another;

Or Love is sister and Courage is the brother.

Could I affect him better then before,

His soldier's heart would make me love him more.

_Lang._ But, Castabella--

_Enter_ LEVIDULCIA.

_Lev._ Tush, you mistake the way into a woman.

The passage lies not through her reason but her blood.

[_Exit_ LANGUEBEAU. CASTABELLA _about to follow._

Nay, stay! How wouldst thou call the child,

That being raised with cost and tenderness

To full hability of body and means,

Denies relief unto the parents who

Bestowed that bringing up?

_Cast._ Unnatural.

_Lev._ Then Castabella is unnatural.

Nature, the loving mother of us all,

Brought forth a woman for her own relief

By generation to revive her age;

Which, now thou hast hability and means

Presented, most unkindly dost deny.

_Cast._ Believe me, mother, I do love a man.

_Lev._ Preferr'st the affection of an absent love

Before the sweet possession of a man;

The barren mind before the fruitful body,

Where our creation has no reference

To man but in his body, being made

Only for generation; which (unless

Our children can be gotten by conceit)

Must from the body come? If Reason were

Our counsellor, we would neglect the work

Of generation for the prodigal

Expense it draws us to of that which is

The wealth of life. Wise Nature, therefore, hath

Reserved for an inducement to our sense

Our greatest pleasure in that greatest work;

Which being offered thee, thy ignorance

Refuses, for the imaginary joy

Of an unsatisfied affection to

An absent man whose blood once spent i' the war

Then he'll come home sick, lame, and impotent,

And wed thee to a torment, like the pain

Of Tantalus, continuing thy desire

With fruitless presentation of the thing

It loves, still moved, and still unsatisfied.

_Enter_ BELFOREST, D'AMVILLE, ROUSARD, SEBASTIAN, LANGUEBEAU, _&c._

_Bel._ Now, Levidulcia, hast thou yet prepared

My daughter's love to entertain this man

Her husband, here?

_Lev._ I'm but her mother i' law;

Yet if she were my very flesh and blood

I could advise no better for her[144] good.

_Rous._ Sweet wife,

Thy joyful husband thus salutes thy cheek.

_Cast._ My husband? O! I am betrayed.--

Dear friend of Charlemont, your purity

Professes a divine contempt o' the world;

O be not bribed by that you so neglect,

In being the world's hated instrument,

To bring a just neglect upon yourself!

[_Kneels from one to another._

Dear father, let me but examine my

Affection.--Sir, your prudent judgment can

Persuade your son that 'tis improvident

To marry one whose disposition he

Did ne'er observe.--Good sir, I may be of

A nature so unpleasing to your mind,

Perhaps you'll curse the fatal hour wherein

You rashly married me.

_D'Am._ My Lord Belforest,

I would not have her forced against her choice.

_Bel._ Passion o' me, thou peevish girl! I charge

Thee by my blessing, and the authority

I have to claim thy obedience, marry him.

_Cast._ Now, Charlemont! O my presaging tears!

This sad event hath followed my sad fears.

_Sebas._ A rape, a rape, a rape!

_Bel._ How now!

_D'Am._ What's that?

_Sebas._ Why what is't but a rape to force a wench

To marry, since it forces her to lie

With him she would not?

_Lang._ Verily his tongue is an unsanctified member.

_Sebas._ Verily

Your gravity becomes your perished soul

As hoary mouldiness does rotten fruit.

_Bel._ Cousin, y'are both uncivil and profane.

_D'Am._ Thou disobedient villain, get thee out of my sight.

Now, by my soul, I'll plague thee for this rudeness.

_Bel._ Come, set forward to the church.

[_Exeunt all except_ SEBASTIAN.

_Sebas._ And verify the proverb--The nearer the church the further

from God.--Poor wench! For thy sake may his hability die in his

appetite, that thou beest not troubled with him thou lovest not! May

his appetite move thy desire to another man, so he shall help to make

himself cuckold! And let that man be one that he pays wages to; so

thou shalt profit by him thou hatest. Let the chambers be matted, the

hinges oiled, the curtain rings silenced, and the chambermaid hold her

peace at his own request, that he may sleep the quieter; and in that

sleep let him be soundly cuckolded. And when he knows it, and seeks to

sue a divorce, let him have no other satisfaction than this: He lay by

and slept: the law will take no hold of her because he winked at it.

[_Exit._

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.--_The Banqueting Room in_ BELFOREST'S _Mansion_.

_Night time. A Banquet set out. Music._

_Enter_ D'AMVILLE, BELFOREST, LEVIDULCIA, ROUSARD, CASTABELLA,

LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE, _at one side. At the other side enter_ CATAPLASMA

_and_ SOQUETTE, _ushered by_ FRESCO.

_Lev._ Mistress Cataplasma, I expected you an hour since.

_Cata._ Certain ladies at my house, madam, detained me; otherwise I had

attended your ladyship sooner.

_Lev._ We are beholden to you for your company. My lord, I pray you bid

these gentlewomen welcome; they're my invited friends.

_D'Am._ Gentlewomen, y'are welcome. Pray sit down.

_Lev._ Fresco, by my Lord D'Amville's leave, I prithee go into the

buttery. Thou shalt find some o' my men there. If they bid thee not

welcome they are very loggerheads.

_Fres._ If your loggerheads will not, your hogsheads shall, madam, if I

get into the buttery. [_Exit._

_D'Am._ That fellow's disposition to mirth should be our present

example. Let's be grave, and meditate when our affairs require our

seriousness. 'Tis out of season to be heavily disposed.

_Lev._ We should be all wound up into the key of mirth.

_D'Am._ The music there!

_Bel._ Where's my Lord Montferrers? Tell him here's a room attends him.

_Enter_ MONTFERRERS.

_Mont._ Heaven given your marriage that I am deprived of, joy!

_D'Am._ My Lord Belforest, Castabella's health!

[D'AMVILLE _drinks._

Set ope the cellar doors, and let this health

Go freely round the house.--Another to

Your son, my lord; to noble Charlemont--

He is a soldier--Let the instruments

Of war congratulate his memory.

[_Drums and trumpets._

_Enter a_ Servant.

_Ser._ My lord, here's one, i' the habit of a soldier, says he is newly

returned from Ostend, and has some business of import to speak.

_D'Am._ Ostend! let him come in. My soul foretells

He brings the news will make our music full.

My brother's joy would do't, and here comes he

Will raise it.

_Enter_ BORACHIO _disguised._

_Mont._ O my spirit, it does dissuade

My tongue to question him, as if it knew

His answer would displease.

_D'Am._ Soldier, what news?

We heard a rumour of a blow you gave

The enemy.[145]

_Bor._ 'Tis very true, my lord.

_Bel._ Canst thou relate it?

_Bor._ Yes.

_D'Am._ I prithee do.

_Bor._ The enemy, defeated of a fair

Advantage by a flatt'ring stratagem,

Plants all the artillery against the town;

Whose thunder and lightning made our bulwarks shake,

And threatened in that terrible report

The storm wherewith they meant to second it.

The assault was general. But, for the place

That promised most advantage to be forced,

The pride of all their army was drawn forth

And equally divided into front

And rear. They marched, and coming to a stand,

Ready to pass our channel at an ebb,

We advised it for our safest course, to draw

Our sluices up and mak't impassable.

Our governor opposed and suffered them

To charge us home e'en to the rampier's foot.

But when their front was forcing up our breach

At push o' pike, then did his policy

Let go the sluices, and tripped up the heels

Of the whole body of their troop that stood

Within the violent current of the stream.

Their front, beleaguered 'twixt the water and

The town, seeing the flood was grown too deep

To promise them a safe retreat, exposed

The force of all their spirits (like the last

Expiring gasp of a strong-hearted man)

Upon the hazard of one charge, but were

Oppressed, and fell. The rest that could not swim

Were only drowned; but those that thought to 'scape

By swimming, were by murderers that flanked

The level of the flood, both drowned and slain.

_D'Am._ Now, by my soul, soldier, a brave service.

_Mont._ O what became of my dear Charlemont?

_Bor._ Walking next day upon the fatal shore,

Among the slaughtered bodies of their men

Which the full-stomached sea had cast upon

The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light

Upon a face, whose favour[146] when it lived,

My astonished mind informed me I had seen.

He lay in's armour, as if that had been

His coffin; and the weeping sea, like one

Whose milder temper doth lament the death

Of him whom in his rage he slew, runs up

The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheek,

Goes back again, and forces up the sands

To bury him, and every time it parts

Sheds tears upon him, till at last (as if

It could no longer endure to see the man

Whom it had slain, yet loth to leave him) with

A kind of unresolved unwilling pace,

Winding her waves one in another, like

A man that folds his arms or wrings his hands

For grief, ebbed from the body, and descends

As if it would sink down into the earth,

And hide itself for shame of such a deed.[147]

_D'Am._ And, soldier, who was this?

_Mont._ O Charlemont!

_Bor._ Your fear hath told you that, whereof my grief

Was loth to be the messenger.

_Cast._ O God! [_Exit._

_D'Am._ Charlemont drowned! Why how could that be, since

It was the adverse party that received

The overthrow?

_Bor._ His forward spirit pressed into the front,

And being engaged within the enemy

When they retreated through the rising stream,

I' the violent confusion of the throng

Was overborne, and perished in the flood.

And here's the sad remembrance of his life--the scarf,

Which, for his sake, I will for ever wear.

_Mont._ Torment me not with witnesses of that

Which I desire not to believe, yet must.

_D'Am._ Thou art a screech-owl and dost come i' the night

To be the cursèd messenger of death.

Away! depart my house, or, by my soul,

You'll find me a more fatal enemy

Than ever was Ostend. Begone; dispatch!

_Bor._ Sir, 'twas my love.

_D'Am._ Your love to vex my heart

With that I hate?

Hark, do you hear, you knave?

O thou'rt a most delicate, sweet, eloquent villain!

[_Aside._

_Bor._ Was't not well counterfeited? [_Aside._

_D'Am._ Rarely.--[_Aside._] Begone. I will not here reply.

_Bor._ Why then, farewell. I will not trouble you.

[_Exit._

_D'Am._ So. The foundation's laid. Now by degrees

[_Aside._

The work will rise and soon be perfected.

O this uncertain state of mortal man!

_Bel._ What then? It is the inevitable fate

Of all things underneath the moon.

_D'Am._ 'Tis true.

Brother, for health's sake overcome your grief.

_Mont._ I cannot, sir. I am incapable

Of comfort. My turn will be next. I feel

Myself not well.

_D'Am._ You yield too much to grief.

_Lang._ All men are mortal. The hour of death is uncertain. Age makes

sickness the more dangerous, and grief is subject to distraction. You

know not how soon you may be deprived of the benefit of sense. In my

understanding, therefore,

You shall do well if you be sick to set

Your state in present order. Make your will.

_D'Am._ I have my wish. Lights for my brother.

_Mont._ I'll withdraw a while,

And crave the honest counsel of this man.

_Bel._ With all my heart. I pray attend him, sir.

[_Exeunt_ MONTFERRERS _and_ SNUFFE.

This next room, please your lordship.

_D'Am._ Where you will.

[_Exeunt_ BELFOREST _and_ D'AMVILLE.

_Lev._ My daughter's gone. Come, son, Mistress Cataplasma, come, we'll

up into her chamber. I'd fain see how she entertains the expectation of

her husband's bedfellowship.

_Rou._ 'Faith, howsoever she entertains it, I

Shall hardly please her; therefore let her rest.

_Lev._ Nay, please her hardly, and you please her best.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_The Hall in the same._

_Enter three_ Servants, _drunk, drawing in_ FRESCO.

_1st Ser._ Boy! fill some drink, boy.

_Fres._ Enough, good sir; not a drop more by this light.

_2nd Ser._ Not by this light? Why then put out the candles and we'll

drink i' the dark, and t'-to't, old boy.

_Fres._ No, no, no, no, no.

_3rd Ser._ Why then take thy liquor. A health, Fresco! [_Kneels._

_Fres._ Your health will make me sick, sir.

_1st Ser._ Then 'twill bring you o' your knees, I hope, sir.

_Fres._ May I not stand and pledge it, sir?

_2nd Ser._ I hope you will do as we do.

_Fres._ Nay then, indeed I must not stand, for you cannot.

_3rd Ser._ Well said, old boy.

_Fres._ Old boy! you'll make me a young child anon; for if I continue

this I shall scarce be able to go alone.

_1st Ser._ My body is as weak as water, Fresco.

_Fres._ Good reason, sir. The beer has sent all the malt up into your

brain and left nothing but the water in your body.

_Enter_ D'AMVILLE _and_ BORACHIO, _closely observing their

drunkenness._

_D'Am._ Borachio, seest those fellows?

_Bor._ Yes, my lord.

_D'Am._ Their drunkenness, that seems ridiculous,

Shall be a serious instrument to bring

Our sober purposes to their success.

_Bor._ I am prepared for the execution, sir.

_D'Am._ Cast off this habit and about it straight.

_Bor._ Let them drink healths and drown their brains i' the flood;

I promise them they shall be pledged in blood.

[_Exit._

_1st Ser._ You ha' left a damnable snuff here.

_2nd Ser._ Do you take that in snuff, sir?

_1st Ser._ You are a damnable rogue then--

[_Together by the ears._

_D'Am._ Fortune, I honour thee. My plot still rises

According to the model of mine own desires.

Lights for my brother--What ha' you drunk yourselves mad, you knaves?

_1st Ser._ My lord, the jacks abused me.

_D'Am._ I think they are the jacks[148] indeed that have abused thee.

Dost hear? That fellow is a proud knave. He has abused thee. As thou

goest over the fields by-and-by in lighting my brother home, I'll tell

thee what shalt do. Knock him over the pate with thy torch. I'll bear

thee out in't.

_1st Ser._ I will singe the goose by this torch. [_Exit._

_D'Am._ [_To 2nd Servant._] Dost hear, fellow?

Seest thou that proud knave.

I have given him a lesson for his sauciness.

He's wronged thee. I will tell thee what shalt do:

As we go over the fields by-and-by

Clap him suddenly o'er the coxcomb with

Thy torch. I'll bear thee out in't.

_2nd Ser._ I will make him understand as much. [_Exit._

_Enter_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE.

_D'Am._ Now, Monsieur Snuffe, what has my brother done?

_Lang._ Made his will, and by that will made you his heir with this

proviso, that as occasion shall hereafter move him, he may revoke, or

alter it when he pleases.

_D'Am._ Yes. Let him if he can.--I'll make it sure

From his revoking. [_Aside._

_Enter_ MONTFERRERS _and_ BELFOREST _attended with lights._

_Mont._ Brother, now good night.

_D'Am._ The sky is dark; we'll bring you o'er the fields.

Who can but strike, wants wisdom to maintain;

He that strikes safe and sure, has heart and brain.

[_Exeunt._

SCENE III.--_An Apartment in the same._

_Enter_ CASTABELLA.

_Cas._ O love, thou chaste affection of the soul,

Without the adulterate mixture of the blood,

That virtue, which to goodness addeth good,--

The minion of Heaven's heart. Heaven! is't my fate

For loving that thou lov'st, to get thy hate,

Or was my Charlemont thy chosen love,

And therefore hast received him to thyself?

Then I confess thy anger's not unjust.

I was thy rival. Yet to be divorced

From love, has been a punishment enough

(Sweet Heaven!) without being married unto hate,

Hadst thou been pleased,--O double misery,--

Yet, since thy pleasure hath inflicted it,

If not my heart, my duty shall submit.

_Enter_ LEVIDULCIA, ROUSARD, CATAPLASMA, SOQUETTE, _and_ FRESCO _with

a lanthorn._

_Lev._ Mistress Cataplasma, good night. I pray when your man has

brought you home, let him return and light me to my house.

_Cata._ He shall instantly wait upon your ladyship.

_Lev._ Good Mistress Cataplasma! for my servants are all drunk, I

cannot be beholden to 'em for their attendance.

[_Exeunt_ CATAPLASMA, SOQUETTE, _and_ FRESCO.

O here's your bride!

_Rous._ And melancholic too, methinks.

_Lev._ How can she choose? Your sickness will

Distaste the expected sweetness o' the night

That makes her heavy.

_Rous._ That should make her light.

_Lev._ Look you to that.

_Cast._ What sweetness speak you of?

The sweetness of the night consists in rest.

_Rous._ With that sweetness thou shalt be surely blest

Unless my groaning wake thee. Do not moan.

_Lev._ She'd rather you would wake, and make her groan.

_Rous._ Nay 'troth, sweetheart, I will not trouble thee.

Thou shalt not lose thy maidenhead to-night.

_Cast._ O might that weakness ever be in force,

I never would desire to sue divorce.

_Rous._ Wilt go to bed?

_Cast._ I will attend you, sir.

_Rous._ Mother, good night.

_Lev._ Pleasure be your bedfellow.

[_Exeunt_ ROUSARD _and_ CASTABELLA.

Why sure their generation was asleep

When she begot those dormice, that she made

Them up so weakly and imperfectly.

One wants desire, the t'other ability,

When my affection even with their cold bloods

(As snow rubbed through an active hand does make

The flesh to burn) by agitation is

Inflamed, I could embrace and entertain

The air to cool it.

_Enter_ SEBASTIAN.

_Sebas._ That but mitigates

The heat; rather embrace and entertain

A younger brother; he can quench the fire.

_Lev._ Can you so, sir? Now I beshrew your ear.

Why, bold Sebastian, how dare you approach

So near the presence of your displeased father?

_Sebas._ Under the protection of his present absence.

_Lev._ Belike you knew he was abroad then?

_Sebas._ Yes.

Let me encounter you so: I'll persuade

Your means to reconcile me to his loves.

_Lev._ Is that the way? I understand you not.

But for your reconcilement meet me at home;

I'll satisfy your suit.

_Sebas._ Within this half-hour? [_Exit._

_Lev._ Or within this whole hour. When you will.--A lusty blood! has

both the presence and spirit of a man. I like the freedom of his

behaviour.

--Ho!--Sebastian! Gone?--Has set

My blood o' boiling i' my veins. And now,

Like water poured upon the ground that mixes

Itself with every moisture it meets, I could

Clasp with any man.

_Enter_ FRESCO _with a lanthorn._

O, Fresco, art thou come?

If t'other fail, then thou art entertained.

Lust is a spirit, which whosoe'er doth raise,

The next man that encounters boldly, lays. [_Exeunt._

SCENE IV.--_A Country Road near a Gravel Pit. Night time._

_Enter_ BORACHIO _warily and hastily over the Stage with a stone in

either hand._

_Bor._ Such stones men use to raise a house upon,

But with these stones I go to ruin one. [_Descends._

_Enter two_ Servants _drunk, fighting with their torches;_ D'AMVILLE,

MONTFERRERS, BELFOREST, _and_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE.

_Bel._ Passion o' me, you drunken knaves! You'll put

The lights out.

_D'Am._ No, my lord; they are but in jest.

_1st Ser._ Mine's out.

_D'Am._ Then light it at his head,--that's light enough.--

'Fore God, they are out. You drunken rascals, back

And light 'em.

_Bel._ 'Tis exceeding dark. [_Exeunt_ Servants.

_D'Am._ No matter;

I am acquainted with the way. Your hand.

Let's easily walk. I'll lead you till they come.

_Mont._ My soul's oppressed with grief. 'T lies heavy at

My heart. O my departed son, ere long

I shall be with thee!

[D'AMVILLE _thrusts him down into the gravel pit._

_D'Am._ Marry, God forbid!

_Mont._ O, O, O!

_D'Am._ Now all the host of Heaven forbid! Knaves! Rogues!

_Bel._ Pray God he be not hurt. He's fallen into the gravel pit.

_D'Am._ Brother! dear brother! Rascals! villains! Knaves!

_Re-enter_ Servants _with lights._

Eternal darkness damn you! come away!

Go round about into the gravel pit,

And help my brother up. Why what a strange

Unlucky night is this! Is't not, my lord?

I think that dog that howled the news of grief,

That fatal screech-owl, ushered on this mischief.

[_Exit_ Servants _and Re-enter with the murdered body._

_Lang._ Mischief indeed, my lord. Your brother's dead!

_Bel._ He's dead?

_Ser._ He's dead!

_D'Am._ Dead be your tongues! Drop out

Mine eye-balls and let envious Fortune play

At tennis with 'em. Have I lived to this?

Malicious Nature, hadst thou borne me blind,

Thou hadst yet been something favourable to me.

No breath? no motion? Prithee tell me, Heaven,

Hast shut thine eye to wink at murder; or

Hast put this sable garment on to mourn

At's death?

Not one poor spark in the whole spacious sky

Of all that endless number would vouchsafe

To shine?--You viceroys to the king of Nature,

Whose constellations govern mortal births,

Where is that fatal planet ruled at his

Nativity? that might ha' pleased to light him out,

As well as into the world, unless it be

Ashamèd I have been the instrument

Of such a good man's cursèd destiny.--

_Bel._ Passion transports you. Recollect yourself.

Lament him not. Whether our deaths be good

Or bad, it is not death, but life that tries.

He lived well; therefore, questionless, well dies.

_D'Am._ Ay, 'tis an easy thing for him that has

No pain, to talk of patience. Do you think

That Nature has no feeling?

_Bel._ Feeling? Yes.

But has she purposed anything for nothing?

What good receives this body by your grief?

Whether is't more unnatural, not to grieve

For him you cannot help with it, or hurt

Yourself with grieving, and yet grieve in vain?

_D'Am._ Indeed, had he been taken from me like

A piece o' dead flesh, I should neither ha' felt it

Nor grieved for't. But come hither, pray look here.

Behold the lively tincture of his blood!

Neither the dropsy nor the jaundice in't,

But the true freshness of a sanguine red,

For all the fog of this black murderous night

Has mixed with it. For anything I know

He might ha' lived till doomsday, and ha' done

More good than either you or I. O brother!

He was a man of such a native goodness,

As if regeneration had been given

Him in his mother's womb. So harmless

That rather than ha' trod upon a worm

He would ha' shunned the way.

So dearly pitiful that ere the poor

Could ask his charity with dry eyes he gave 'em

Relief with tears--with tears--yes, faith, with tears.

_Bel._ Take up the corpse. For wisdom's sake let reason fortify this weakness.

_D'Am._ Why, what would you ha' me do? Foolish Nature

Will have her course in spite o' wisdom. But

I have e'en done. All these words were

But a great wind; and now this shower of tears

Has laid it, I am calm again. You may

Set forward when you will. I'll follow you

Like one that must and would not.

_Lang._ Our opposition will but trouble him.

_Bel._ The grief that melts to tears by itself is spent;

Passion resisted grows more violent.

[_Exeunt all except_ D'AMVILLE. BORACHIO _ascends._

_D'Am._ Here's a sweet comedy. 'T begins with _O Dolentis_[149] and concludes

with ha, ha, he!

_Bor._ Ha, ha, he!

_D'Am._ O my echo! I could stand

Reverberating this sweet musical air

Of joy till I had perished my sound lungs

With violent laughter. Lonely night-raven,

Thou hast seized a carcase.

_Bor._ Put him out on's pain.

I lay so fitly underneath the bank,

From whence he fell, that ere his faltering tongue

Could utter double O, I knocked out's brains

With this fair ruby, and had another stone,

Just of this form and bigness, ready; that

I laid i' the broken skull upon the ground

For's pillow, against the which they thought he fell

And perished.

_D'Am._ Upon this ground I'll build my manor house;

And this shall be the chiefest corner stone.

_Bor._ 'T has crowned the most judicious murder that

The brain of man was e'er delivered of.

_D'Am._ Ay, mark the plot. Not any circumstance

That stood within the reach of the design

Of persons, dispositions, matter, time, or place

But by this brain of mine was made

An instrumental help; yet nothing from

The induction to the accomplishment seemed forced,

Or done o' purpose, but by accident.

_Bor._ First, my report that Charlemont was dead,

Though false, yet covered with a mask of truth.

_D'Am._ Ay, and delivered in as fit a time

When all our minds so wholly were possessed

With one affair, that no man would suspect

A thought employed for any second end.

_Bor._ Then the precisian[150] to be ready, when

Your brother spake of death, to move his will.

_D'Am._ His business called him thither, and it fell

Within his office unrequested to't.

From him it came religiously, and saved

Our project from suspicion which if I

Had moved, had been endangered.

_Bor._ Then your healths,

Though seeming but the ordinary rites

And ceremonies due to festivals--

_D'Am._ Yet used by me to make the servants drunk,

An instrument the plot could not have missed.

'Twas easy to set drunkards by the ears,

They'd nothing but their torches to fight with,

And when those lights were out--

_Bor._ Then darkness did

Protect the execution of the work

Both from prevention and discovery.

_D'Am._ Here was a murder bravely carried through

The eye of observation, unobserved.

_Bor._ And those that saw the passage of it made

The instruments, yet knew not what they did.

_D'Am._ That power of rule philosophers ascribe

To him they call the Supreme of the stars

Making their influences governors

Of sublunary creatures, when themselves

Are senseless of their operations.

What! [_Thunder and lightning._

Dost start at thunder? Credit my belief

'Tis a mere effect of Nature--an exhalation hot

And dry involved within a watery vapour

I' the middle region of the air; whose coldness,

Congealing that thick moisture to a cloud,

The angry exhalation, shut within

A prison of contrary quality,

Strives to be free and with the violent

Eruption through the grossness of that cloud,

Makes this noise we hear.

_Bor._ 'Tis a fearful noise.

_D'Am._ 'Tis a brave noise, and methinks

Graces our accomplished project as

A peal of ordnance does a triumph. It speaks

Encouragement. Now Nature shows thee how

It favoured our performance, to forbear

This noise when we set forth, because it should

Not terrify my brother's going home,

Which would have dashed our purpose,--to forbear

This lightning in our passage lest it should

Ha' warned him o' the pitfall.

Then propitious Nature winked

At our proceedings: now it doth express

How that forbearance favoured our success.

_Bor._ You have confirmed me. For it follows well

That Nature, since herself decay doth hate,

Should favour those that strengthen their estate.

_D'Am._ Our next endeavour is, since on the false

Report that Charlemont is dead depends

The fabric of the work, to credit that

With all the countenance we can.

_Bor._ Faith, sir,

Even let his own inheritance, whereof

You have dispossessed him, countenance the act.

Spare so much out of that to give him a

Solemnity of funeral. 'Twill quit

The cost, and make your apprehension of

His death appear more confident and true.

_D'Am._ I'll take thy counsel. Now farewell, black Night;

Thou beauteous mistress of a murderer.

To honour thee that hast accomplished all

I'll wear thy colours at his funeral. [_Exeunt._

SCENE V.--LEVIDULCIA'S _Apartment._

_Enter_ LEVIDULCIA _manned_[151] _by_ FRESCO.

_Lev._ Thou art welcome into my chamber, Fresco.

Prithee shut the door.--Nay; thou mistakest me.

Come in and shut it.

_Free._ 'Tis somewhat late, madam.

_Lev._ No matter. I have somewhat to say to thee.

What, is not thy mistress towards a husband yet?

_Fres._ Faith, madam, she has suitors, but they will not suit her,

methinks. They will not come off lustily, it seems.

_Lev._ They will not come on lustily, thou wouldst say.

_Fres._ I mean, madam they are not rich enough.

_Lev._ But ay, Fresco, they are not bold enough. Thy mistress is of a

lively attractive blood, Fresco, and in truth she is of my mind for

that. A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. Give me a fellow that

brings not only temptation with him, but has the activity of wit and

audacity of spirit to apply every word and gesture of a woman's speech

and behaviour to his own desire, and make her believe she's the suitor

herself; never give back till he has made her yield to it.

_Fres._ Indeed among our equals, madam; but otherwise we shall be put

horribly out o' countenance.

_Lev._ Thou art deceived, Fresco. Ladies are as courteous as

yeomen's wives, and methinks they should be more gentle. Hot diet

and soft ease makes 'em like wax always kept warm, more easy to take

impression.--Prithee, untie my shoe.--What, art thou shamefaced too? Go

roundly to work, man. My leg is not gouty: 'twill endure the feeling, I

warrant thee. Come hither, Fresco; thine ear. S'dainty, I mistook the

place, I missed thine ear and hit thy lip.

_Fres._ Your ladyship has made me blush.

_Lev._ That shows thou art full o' lusty blood and thou knowest not how

to use it. Let me see thy hand. Thou shouldst not be shamefaced by thy

hand, Fresco. Here's a brawny flesh and a hairy skin, both signs of an

able body. I do not like these phlegmatic, smooth-skinned, soft-fleshed

fellows. They are like candied suckets[152] when they begin to

perish, which I would always empty my closet of, and give 'em my

chambermaid.--I have some skill in palmistry: by this line that stands

directly against me thou shouldst be near a good fortune, Fresco, if

thou hadst the grace to entertain it.

_Fres._ O what is that, madam, I pray?

_Lev._ No less than the love of a fair lady, if thou dost not lose her

with faint-heartedness.

_Fres._ A lady, madam? Alas, a lady is a great thing: I cannot compass

her.

_Lev._ No? Why, I am a lady. Am I so great I cannot be compassed? Clasp

my waist, and try.

_Fres._ I could find i' my heart, madam--[SEBASTIAN _knocks within._