1
The Malcontent
John Marston — EMOTHE0363_TheMalcontent
Dramatis personae
GIOVANNI ALTOFRONTO
disguised as MALEVOLE, sometime Duke of Genoa
PIETRO JACOMO
Duke of Genoa
MENDOZA
a minion to the Duchess of Pietro Jacomo
CELSO
a friend to Altofronto
BILIOSO
an old choleric marshal
PREPASSO
a gentleman usher
FERNEZE
a young courtier, and enamored on the Duchess
FERRARDO
a minion to Duke Pietro Jacomo
EQUATO
}
GUERRINO
} two courtiers
AURELIA
Duchess to Duke Pietro Jacomo
MARIA
Duchess to Duke Altofront
EMILIA
}
BIANCHA
} two ladies attending the Duchess [Aurelia]
MAQUERELLE
an old pand'ress
PASSARELLO
fool to Bilioso
CAPTAIN
guarding the Citadel
MERCURY
in the Masque
PAGES
GUARDS
WILLIAM SLY
}
JOHN SINKLO
}
RICHARD BURBAGE
}
HENRY CONDELL
}
JOHN LOWIN
}
A TIREMAN
} Members of the Company of His Majesty's Servants in the Induction]
All.
All.
All.
THE INDUCTION TO THE MALCONTENT
(And the Additions Acted by the King's Majesty's Servants)
(Written by John Webster)
(Enter Will Sly, a Tireman following him with a stool)
TIREMAN.
Sir, the gentlemen will be angry if you sit here.
SLY.
Why? We may sit upon the stage at the private house. Thou dost not take me for a country gentleman, dost? Dost think I fear hissing? I'll hold my life thou took'st me for one of the players.
TIREMAN.
No, sir.
SLY.
By God's slid, if you had, I would have given you but sixpence for your stool. Let them that have stale suits sit in the galleries. Hiss at me! He that will be laugh'd out of a tavern or an ordinary shall seldom feed well or be drunk in good company. ─Where's Harry Condell, Dick Burbage, and Will Sly? Let me speak with some of them.
TIREMAN.
An't please you to go in, sir, you may.
SLY.
I tell you, no. I am one that hath seen this play often, and can give them intelligence for their action. I have most of the jests here in my table-book.
(Enter Sinklo.)
SINKLO.
Save you, coz!
SLY.
O, cousin, come, you shall sit between my legs here.
SINKLO.
No, indeed, cousin; the audience then will take me for a viol-de-gamba, and think that you play upon me.
SLY.
Nay, rather that I work upon you, coz.
SINKLO.
We stayed for you at supper last night at my cousin Honeymoon's, the woolen draper. After supper we drew cuts for a score of apricocks, the longest cut still to draw an apricock. By this light, 'twas Mistress Frank Honeymoon's fortune still to have the longest cut; I did measure for the women. ─What be these, coz?
(Enter Dick Burbage, Harry Condell, John Lowin.)
SLY.
The players. ─ God save you!
BURBAGE.
You are very welcome.
SLY.
I pray you, know this gentleman, my cousin; 'tis Master Doomsday's son, the usurer.
CONDELL.
I beseech you, sir, be covered.
SLY.
Not, in good faith, for mine ease. Look you, my hat's the handle to this fan. God's so, what a beast was I, I did not leave my feather at home. Well, but I'll take an order with you.
(Puts his feather in his pocket.)
BURBAGE.
Why do you conceal your feather, sir?
SLY.
Why? Do you think I'll have jests broken upon me in the play, to be laugh'd at? This play hath beaten all your gallants out of the feathers: Blackfriars hath almost spoil'd Blackfriars for feathers.
SINKLO.
God's so, I thought 'twas for somewhat our gentlewomen at home counsel'd me to wear my feather to the play; yet I am loath to spoil it.
SLY.
Why, coz?
SINKLO.
Because I got it in the tiltyard. There was a herald broke my pate for taking it up; but I have worn it up and down the Strand, and met him forty times since, and yet he dares not challenge it.
SLY.
Do you hear, sir? This play is a bitter play.
CONDELL.
Why, sir, 'tis neither satire nor moral, but the mean passage of a history; yet there are a sort of discontented creatures that bear a stingless envy to great ones, and these will wrest the doings of any man to their base, malicious apply- ment. But should their interpretation come to the test, like your marmoset they presently turn their teeth to their tail and eat it.
SLY.
I will not go so far with you; but I say, any man that hath wit may censure if he sit in the twelvepenny room; and I say again, the play is bitter.
BURBAGE.
Sir, you are like a patron that, presenting a poor scholar to a benefice, enjoins him not to rail against anything that stands within compass of his patron's folly. Why should not we enjoy the ancient freedom of poesy? Shall we protest to the ladies that their painting makes them angels? or to my young gallant, that his expense in the brothel shall gain him reputation? No, sir, such vices as stand not accountable to law should be cured as men heal tetters, by casting ink upon them. Would you be satisfied in anything else, sir ?
SLY.
Ay, marry, would I: I would know how you came by this play?
CONDELL.
Faith, sir, the book was lost; and, because 'twas pity so good a play should be lost, we found it and play it.
SLY.
I wonder you would play it, another company having interest in it.
CONDELL.
Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo- sexto with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it, One for another .
SLY.
What are your additions ?
BURBAGE.
Sooth, not greatly needful: only as your sallet to your great feast, to entertain a little more time, and to abridge the not-received custom of music in our theater. I must leave you, sir.
(Exit Burbage)
SINKLO.
Doth he play the Malcontent?
CONDELL.
Yes, sir.
SINKLO.
I durst lay four of mine ears the play is not so well acted as it hath been.
CONDELL.
O, no, sir, nothing, ad Parmenonis suem .
LOWIN.
Have you lost your ears, sir, that you are so prodigal of laying them?
SINKLO.
Why did you ask that, friend?
LOWIN.
Marry, sir, because I have heard of a fellow would offer to lay a hundred pound wager that was not worth five baubees; and in this kind you might venture four of your elbows. Yet God defend your coat should have so many!
SINKLO.
Nay, truly, I am no great censurer; and yet I might have been one of the College of Critics once. My cousin here hath an excellent memory, indeed, sir.
SLY.
Who? I? I'll tell you a strange thing of myself; and I can tell you, for one that never studied the art of memory, 'tis very strange too.
CONDELL.
What's that, sir?
SLY.
Why, I 'll lay a hundred pound I 'll walk but once down by the Goldsmiths' Row in Cheap, take notice of the signs, and tell you them with a breath instantly.
LOWIN.
'Tis very strange.
SLY.
They begin as the world did, with Adam and Eve. There 's in all just five and fifty. I do use to meditate much when I come to plays too. What do you think might come into a man's head now, seeing all this company?
CONDELL.
I know not, sir.
SLY.
I have an excellent thought: if some fifty of the Grecians that were cramm'd in the horse-belly had eaten garlic, do you not think the Trojans might have smelt out their knavery?
CONDELL.
Very likely.
SLY.
By God, I would they had, for I love Hector horribly.
SINKLO.
O, but coz, coz!─ "Great Alexander, when he came to the tomb of Achilles, Spake with a big loud voice, 'O thou thrice blessed and happy!"
SLY.
Alexander was an ass to speak so well of a filthy cullion.
LOWIN.
Good sir, will you leave the stage? I'll help you to a private room.
SLY.
Come, coz, let's take some tobacco. ─Have you never a prologue ?
LOWIN.
Not any, sir.
SLY.
Let me see, I will make one extempore. Come to them and, fencing of a congee with arms and legs, be round with them: Gentlemen, I could wish for the women's sakes you had all soft cushions; and, gentlewomen, I could wish that for the men's sakes you had all more easy standings. What would they wish more but the play now? And that they shall have instantly.
([Exeunt.])
The Malcontent
(Vexat censura columbas.)
(An Imperfect Ode, Being But One Staff, Spoken by the)
PROLOGUE
To wrest each hurtles thought to private sense
136
Is the foul use of ill-bred Impudence:
137
Immodest censure now grows wild,
138
All overrunning.
139
Let Innocence be ne'er so chaste,
140
Yet at the last
141
She is defil'd
142
With too nice-brained cunning.
143
O you of fairer soul,
144
Control
145
With an Herculean arm
146
This harm;
147
And once teach all old freedom of a pen,
148
Which still must write of fools, whiles't writes of men!
149
[I.i]
(The vilest out-of-tune music being heard, enter Bilioso and Prepasso.)
BILIOSO.
Why, how now! Are ye mad, or drunk, or both, or what?
PREPASSO.
Are ye building Babylon there?
BILIOSO.
Here's a noise in court! You think you are in a tavern, do you not?
PREPASSO.
You think you are in a brothel house, do you not? ─This room is ill-scented. Enter One with a perfume. So, perfume, perfume; some upon me, I pray thee. ─ The Duke is upon instant entrance; so, make place there!
[I.ii]
(Enter the Duke Pietro, Ferrardo, Count Equato, Count Celso before, and Guerrino.)
PIETRO.
Where breathes that music?
BILIOSO.
The discord rather than the music is heard from the malcontent Malevole's chamber.
FERRARDO.
[calling] Malevole!
MALEVOLE.
(out of his chamber) Yaugh, God o' man, what dost thou there? Duke's Gany- mede, Juno's jealous of thy long stockings. Shadow of a woman, what wouldst, weasel? Thou lamb o' court, what dost thou bleat for? Ah, you smooth-chinn'd catamite!
PIETRO.
Come down, thou ragged cur, and snarl here. I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty; trot about and bespurtle whom thou pleasest.
MALEVOLE.
I'll come among you, you goatish-blooded toderers, as gum into taffeta, to fret, to fret. I'll fall like a sponge into water to suck up, to suck up. Howl again! I'll go to church and come to you.
(Exit above.)
PIETRO.
This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever convers'd with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer when he was thrust out of the presence. His appetite is unsatiable as the grave, as far from any content as from heaven. His highest delight is to procure others' vexation, and therein he thinks he truly serves heaven; for 'tis his position, whosoever in this earth can be contented, is a slave and damn'd; therefore does he afflict all in that to which they are most affected. Th' elements struggle within him; his own soul is at variance within her- self; his speech is halter-worthy at all hours. I like him; faith, he gives good intelligence to my spirit, makes me understand those weaknesses which others' flattery palliates. Hark! they sing.
([Song.])
[I.iii]
(Enter Malevole after the song.)
PIETRO.
See, he comes. Now shall you hear the extremity of a malcontent: he is as free as air; he blows over every man. ─And, sir, whence come you now ?
MALEVOLE.
From the public place of much dissimulation, the church.
PIETRO.
What didst there?
MALEVOLE.
Talk with a usurer; take up at interest.
PIETRO.
I wonder what religion thou art of.
MALEVOLE.
Of a soldier's religion.
PIETRO.
And what dost think makes most infidels now?
MALEVOLE.
Sects, sects. I have seen seeming Piety change her robe so oft that sure none but some arch-devil can shape her a new petticoat.
PIETRO.
O, a religious policy.
MALEVOLE.
But damnation on a politic religion! I am weary. Would I were one of the Duke's hounds now.
PIETRO.
But what's the common news abroad, Malevole? Thou dogg'st rumour still.
MALEVOLE.
Common news? Why, common words are, "God save ye," "Fare ye well"; common actions, flattery, and cozenage; common things, women, and cuckolds. ─And how does my little Ferrard? Ah, ye lecherous animal! ─my little ferret, he goes sucking up and down the palace into every hen's nest, like a weasel ─ and to what dost thou addict thy time to now more than to those antique painted drabs that are still affected of young courtiers, Flattery, Pride, and Venery?
FERRARDO.
I study languages. Who dost think to be the best linguist of our age?
MALEVOLE.
Phew, the devil. Let him possess thee; he'll teach thee to speak all languages most readily and strangely; and great reason, marry, he's travel'd greatly in the world and is everywhere.
FERRARDO.
Save i' th' court.
MALEVOLE.
Ay, save i' th' court. ─ (To Bilioso.) And how dost my old muckhill, overspread with fresh snow? Thou half a man, half a goat, all a beast! How does thy young wife, old huddle?
BILIOSO.
Out, you improvident rascal!
MALEVOLE.
Do, kick, thou hugely-horn'd old duke's ox, good Master Make-please.
PIETRO.
How dost thou live nowadays, Malevole?
MALEVOLE.
Why, like the knight, Sir Patrick Penlolians, with killing o' spiders for my lady's monkey.
PIETRO.
How dost spend the night? I hear thou never sleep'st.
MALEVOLE.
O, no, but dream the most fantastical! O heaven! O fubbery, fubbery!
PIETRO.
Dream! What dream'st?
MALEVOLE.
Why, methinks I see that signior pawn his footcloth, that metreza her plate; this madam takes physic, that t'other monsieur may minister to her. Here is a pander jewel'd; there is a fellow in shift of satin this day that could not shift a shirt t'other night. Here a Paris supports that Helen; there's a lady Guinevere bears up that Sir Lancelot. Dreams, dreams, visions, fantasies, chimeras, imaginations, tricks, conceits! ─ (To Prepasso.) Sir Tristram Trimtram, come aloft, Jackanapes with a whim-wham. Here's a knight of the land of Catito shall play at trap with any page in Europe, do the sword dance with any morris dancer in Christendom, ride at the ring, till the fin of his eyes look as blue as the welkin, and run the wild-goose chase even with Pompey the Huge.
PIETRO.
You run!
MALEVOLE.
To the devil. ─ Now, Signior Guerrino, that thou from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loath'd flatterer! ─Alas! poor Celso, thy star's oppress'd: thou art an honest lord. 'Tis pity.
EQUATO.
Is't pity?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, marry, is't, philosophical Equato; and 'tis pity that thou, being so excellent a scholar by art, shouldst be so ridiculous a fool by nature. ─I have a thing to tell you, duke; bid 'em avaunt, bid 'em avaunt.
PIETRO.
Leave us, leave us. Exeunt all saving Pietro and Malevole. Now, sir, what is't?
MALEVOLE.
Duke, thou art a becco, a cornuto .
PIETRO.
How?
MALEVOLE.
Thou art a cuckold.
PIETRO.
Speak; unshale him quick.
MALEVOLE.
With most tumbler-like nimbleness.
PIETRO.
Who? By whom? I burst with desire.
MALEVOLE.
Mendoza is the man makes thee a horn'd beast; duke, 'tis Mendoza cornutes thee.
PIETRO.
What conformance? Relate; short, short!
MALEVOLE.
As a lawyer's beard. There is an old crone in the court ─ her name is Maquerelle; She is my mistress, sooth to say, and she doth ever tell me . Blurt o' rhyme, blurt o' rhyme! Maquerelle is a cunning bawd; I am an honest villain; thy wife is a close drab; and thou art a notorious cuckold. Farewell, duke.
PIETRO.
Stay, stay.
MALEVOLE.
Dull, dull duke, can lazy patience make lame revenge? O God, for a woman to make a man that which God never created, never made!
PIETRO.
What did God never make?
MALEVOLE.
A cuckold! To be made a thing that's hoodwink'd with kindness whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a cox- comb with egregious horns pinn'd to a lord's back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it. Pistols and poniards! Pistols and poniards!
PIETRO.
Death and damnation!
MALEVOLE.
Lightning and thunder!
PIETRO.
Vengeance and torture!
MALEVOLE.
Catzo!
PIETRO.
O, revenge!
MALEVOLE.
Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs
105
A lady far inferior to the most.
106
In fair proportion both of limb and soul;
107
To take her from austerer check of parents,
108
To make her his by most devoutful rites,
109
Make her commandress of a better essence
110
Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man;
111
To hug her with as rais'd an appetite
112
As usurers do their delv'd-up treasury
113
(Thinking none tells it but his private self);
114
To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,
115
Distilling panting ardour to her heart;
116
True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood,
117
To give her height of hymeneal sweets ─
118
PIETRO.
O God!
MALEVOLE.
Whilst she lisps and gives him some court quelquechose,
120
Made only to provoke, not satiate:
121
And yet, even then, the thaw of her delight
122
Flows from lewd heat of apprehension,
123
Only from strange imagination's rankness,
124
That forms the adulterer's presence in her soul,
125
And makes her think she clips the foul knave's loins.
126
PIETRO.
Affliction to my blood's root!
MALEVOLE.
Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this;
128
Adultery is often the mother of incest.
129
PIETRO.
Incest!
MALEVOLE.
Yes, incest. Mark! Mendoza of his wife begets perchance a daughter; Mendoza dies; his son marries this daughter. Say you? Nay, 'tis frequent, not only probable, but no question often acted whilst ignorance, fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed.
PIETRO.
Hideous imagination!
MALEVOLE.
Adultery! Why, next to the sin of simony, 'tis the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation.
PIETRO.
Next to simony?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, next to simony, in which our men in next age shall not sin.
PIETRO.
Not sin? Why?
MALEVOLE.
Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery ─O dullness! ─ should show exemplary punishment, that intemperate bloods may freeze but to think it. I would dam him and all his generation; my own hands should do it ─ ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance anything.
PIETRO.
Anything, anything, Malevole! Thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds. Farewell; remember I forget thee not; farewell.
(Exit Pietro.)
MALEVOLE.
Farewell.
Lean thoughtfulness, a sallow meditation,
153
Suck thy veins dry! Distemperance rob thy sleep!
154
The heart's disquiet is revenge most deep:
155
He that gets blood, the life of flesh but spills,
156
But he that breaks heart's peace, the dear soul kills. ─
157
Well, this disguise doth yet afford me that
158
Which kings do seldom hear, or great men use ─
159
Free speech; and though my state's usurp'd,
160
Yet this affected strain gives me a tongue
161
As fetterless as is an emperor's.
162
I may speak foolishly, ay, knavishly,
163
Always carelessly, yet no one thinks it fashion
164
To poise my breath; for he that laughs and strikes
165
Is lightly felt, or seldom struck again.
166
Duke, I'll torment thee: now my just revenge
167
From thee than crown a richer gem shall part.
168
Beneath God naught's so dear as a calm heart.
169
[I.iv]
(Enter Celso.)
CELSO.
My honor'd lord ─
1
MALEVOLE.
Peace, speak low; peace! O Celso, constant lord,
2
Thou to whose faith I only rest discovered,
3
Thou, one of full ten millions of men,
4
That lovest virtue only for itself,
5
Thou in whose hands old Ops may put her soul,
6
Behold forever-banish'd Altofront,
7
This Genoa's last year's duke. O truly noble!
8
I wanted those old instruments of state,
9
Dissemblance and suspect. I could not time it, Celso;
10
My throne stood like a point in middest of a circle,
11
To all of equal nearness; bore with none;
12
Reign'd all alike; so slept in fearless virtue,
13
Suspectless, too suspectless; till the crowd,
14
Still lickerous of untried novelties,
15
Impatient with severer government,
16
Made strong with Florence, banish'd Altofront.
17
CELSO.
Strong with Florence! Ay, thence your mischief rose,
18
For when the daughter of the Florentine
19
Was matched once with this Pietro, now duke,
20
No stratagem of state untried was left,
21
Till you of all ─
22
MALEVOLE.
Of all was quite bereft.
Alas, Maria too, close prisoned,
23
My true-faith'd duchess, i' th' citadel!
24
CELSO.
I'll still adhere; let's mutiny and die.
25
MALEVOLE.
O, no, climb not a falling tower, Celso;
26
'Tis well held desperation, no zeal,
27
Hopeless to strive with fate. Peace! Temporize!
28
Hope, hope, that never forsak'st the wretched'st man,
29
Yet bidd'st me live and lurk in this disguise!
30
What, play I well the free-breath'd discontent?
31
Why, man, we are all philosophical monarchs
32
Or natural fools. Celso, the court's afire;
33
The duchess' sheets will smoke for't ere it be long.
34
Impure Mendoza, that sharp-nos'd lord, that made
35
The cursed match, link'd Genoa with Florence,
36
Now broad-horns the duke, which he now knows.
37
Discord to malcontents is very manna;
38
When the ranks are burst, then scuffle, Altofront.
39
CELSO.
Ay, but durst ─
40
MALEVOLE.
'Tis gone; 'tis swallow'd like a mineral.
41
Some way 'twill work. Pheut, I'll not shrink;
42
He's resolute who can no lower sink.
43
(Bilioso entering, Malevole shifteth his speech.)
MALEVOLE.
O, the father of Maypoles! Did you never see a fellow whose strength consisted in his breath, respect in his office, religion in his lord, and love in himself? Why then, behold!
BILIOSO.
Signior ─
MALEVOLE.
My right worshipful lord, your court nightcap makes you have a passing high forehead.
BILIOSO.
I can tell you strange news, but I am sure you know them already: the Duke speaks much good of you.
MALEVOLE.
Go to, then; and shall you and I now enter into a strict friendship?
BILIOSO.
Second one another?
MALEVOLE.
Yes.
BILIOSO.
Do one another good offices?
MALEVOLE.
Just. What though I call'd thee old ox, egregious wittol, broken-bellied coward, rotten mummy? Yet, since I am in favor ─
BILIOSO.
Words, of course, terms of disport. His grace presents you by me a chain, as his grateful remembrance for ─ I am ignor- ant for what; marry, ye may impart. Yet howsoever ─ come, dear friend. Dost know my son?
MALEVOLE.
Your son?
BILIOSO.
He shall eat woodcocks, dance jigs, make possets, and play at shuttlecock with any young lord about the court. He has as sweet a lady, too. Dost know her little bitch?
MALEVOLE.
'Tis a dog, man.
BILIOSO.
Believe me, a she-bitch. O 'tis a good creature! Thou shalt be her servant. I'll make thee acquainted with my young wife, too. What, I keep her not at court for nothing! 'Tis grown to supper time; come to my table ─ that, anything I have, stands open to thee.
MALEVOLE.
How smooth to him that is in state of grace,
74
How servile is the rugged'st courtier's face!
75
What profit, nay, what nature would keep down,
76
Are heav'd to them are minions to a crown.
77
Envious ambition never sates his thirst,
78
Till, sucking all, he swells and swells, and bursts.
79
BILIOSO.
I shall now leave you with my always-best wishes; only let's hold betwixt us a firm correspondence, a mutual friendly- reciprocal kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued ─
MALEVOLE.
Did your signiorship ne'er see a pigeonhouse that was smooth, round, and white without, and full of holes and stink within? Ha' ye not, old courtier?
BILIOSO.
O, yes, 'tis the form, the fashion of them all.
MALEVOLE.
Adieu, my true court friend; farewell, my dear Castilio.
(Exit Bilioso.)
CELSO.
Yonder's Mendoza.
88
(Descries Mendoza.)
MALEVOLE.
True, the privy key.
CELSO.
I take my leave, sweet lord.
89
(Exit Celso.)
MALEVOLE.
'Tis fit; away!
[I.v]
(Enter Mendoza, with three or four Suitors.)
MENDOZA.
Leave your suits with me; I can and will. Attend my secretary; leave me.
(Exeunt Suitors.)
MALEVOLE.
Mendoza, hark ye, hark ye. You are a treacherous villain, God be wi' ye!
MENDOZA.
Out, you baseborn rascal!
MALEVOLE.
We are all the sons of heaven, though a tripe-wife were our mother. Ah, you whoreson, hot-rein'd he-marmoset! ᴁgisthus ─ didst ever hear of one ᴁgisthus?
MENDOZA.
Gisthus?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, ᴁgisthus; he was a filthy, incontinent fleshmonger, such a one as thou art.
MENDOZA.
Out, grumbling rogue!
MALEVOLE.
Orestes, beware Orestes!
MENDOZA.
Out, beggar!
MALEVOLE.
I once shall rise.
MENDOZA.
Thou rise?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, at the resurrection.
17
No vulgar seed but once may rise, and shall;
18
No king so huge but 'fore he die may fall.
19
(Exit.)
MENDOZA.
Now; good Elysium! what a delicious heaven is it for a man to be in a prince's favor! O sweet God! O pleasure! O fortune! O all thou best of life! What should I think, what say, what do, to be a favorite, a minion? To have a general timorous respect, observe a man, a stateful silence in his presence, solitariness in his absence, a confused hum and busy murmur of obsequious suitors training him; the cloth held up and way proclaimed before him, petitionary vassals licking the pavement with their slavish knees whilst some odd palace-lamprels that engender with snakes, and are full of eyes on both sides, with a kind of insinuated humbleness fix all their delights upon his brow! O blessed state! What a ravishing prospect doth the Olympus of favor yield! Death, I cornute the duke! Sweet women, most sweet ladies! nay, angels! By heaven, he is more accursed than a devil that hates you, or is hated by you, and happier than a god that loves you, or is beloved by you. You preservers of mankind, lifeblood of society, who would live, nay, who can live without you? O paradise, how majestical is your austerer presence! How imperiously chaste is your more modest face! But, O, how full of ravishing attraction is your pretty, petulant, languishing, lasciviously composed countenance! these amorous smiles, those soul-warming sparkling glances, ardent as those flames that sing'd the world by heedless Phaëthon! In body how delicate, in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant, in life how wary, in favors how judicious, in day how sociable, and in night how ─ O pleasure unutterable! Indeed, it is most certain, one man cannot deserve only to enjoy a beauteous woman. But a duchess! In despite of Phoebus, I'll write a sonnet instantly in praise of her.
(Exit.)
[I.vi]
(Enter Ferneze, ushering Aurelia, Emilia and Maquerelle bearing up her train, Biancha attending; all go out but Aurelia, Maquerelle, and Ferneze.)
AURELIA.
And is't possible? Mendoza slight me! Possible?
FERNEZE.
Possible!
2
What can be strange in him that's drunk with favour,
3
Grows insolent with grace? Speak, Maquerelle, speak.
4
MAQUERELLE.
To speak feelingly, more, more richly in solid sense than worthless words, give me those jewels of your ears to receive my enforced duty. As for my part, 'tis well known I can put (Ferneze privately feeds Maquerelle's hands with jewels during this speech) up anything, can bear patiently with any man: But when I heard he wronged your precious sweetness, I was Enforced to take deep offense. 'Tis most certain he loves Emilia with high appetite; and, as she told me (as you know, we women impart our secrets one to another), when she repulsed his suit, in that he was possessed with your endeared grace, Mendoza most ingratefully renounced all faith to you.
FERNEZE.
Nay, call'd you ─ speak, Maquerelle, speak.
MAQUERELLE.
By heaven, "witch," "dried biscuit," and contested blushlessly he lov'd you but for a spurt, or so.
FERNEZE.
For maintenance.
MAQUERELLE.
Advancement and regard.
AURELIA.
O villain! O impudent Mendoza!
MAQUERELLE.
Nay, he is the rustiest-jaw'd, the foulest-mouth'd knave in railing against our sex; he will rail against women ─
AURELIA.
How? how?
MAQUERELLE.
I am asham'd to speak't, I.
AURELIA.
I love to hate him ─ speak.
MAQUERELLE.
Why, when Emilia scorn'd his base unsteadiness, the black-throated rascal scolded, and said ─
AURELIA.
What?
MAQUERELLE.
Troth, 'tis too shameless.
AURELIA.
What said he?
MAQUERELLE.
Why, that at four women were fools; at fourteen, drabs; at forty, bawds; at fourscore, witches; and at a hundred, cats.
AURELIA.
O unlimitable impudency!
FERNEZE.
But, as for poor Ferneze's fixed heart,
36
Was never shadeless meadow drier parch'd
37
Under the scorching heat of heaven's dog
38
Than is my heart with your enforcing eyes.
39
MAQUERELLE.
A hot simile!
FERNEZE.
Your smiles have been my heaven, your frowns my hell.
41
O, pity, then! Grace should with beauty dwell.
42
MAQUERELLE.
Reasonable perfect, by'r Lady.
AURELIA.
I will love thee, be it but in despite
44
Of that Mendoza. "Witch," Ferneze, "witch"!
45
Ferneze, thou art the dutchess' favorite;
46
Be faithful, private; but 'tis dangerous.
47
FERNEZE.
His love is liveless that for love fears breath;
48
The worst that's due to sin, O, would 'twere death!
49
AURELIA.
Enjoy my favor. I will be sick instantly and take physic; therefore, in depth of night visit ─
MAQUERELLE.
Visit her chamber, but conditionally: You shall not offend her bed, by this diamond!
FERNEZE.
By this diamond.
(Gives it to Maquerelle.)
MAQUERELLE.
Nor tarry longer than you please, by this ruby!
FERNEZE.
By this ruby.
(Gives again.)
MAQUERELLE.
And that the door shall not creak.
FERNEZE.
And that the door shall not creak.
MAQUERELLE.
Nay, but swear.
FERNEZE.
By this purse .
(Gives her his purse.)
MAQUERELLE.
Go to, I'll keep your oaths for you. Remember, visit.
(Enter Mendoza, reading a sonnet.)
AURELIA.
"Dried biscuit!" ─ Look where the base wretch comes.
MENDOZA.
"Beauty's life, heaven's model, love's queen" ─
MAQUERELLE.
That's his Emilia.
MENDOZA.
"Nature's triumph, best on earth" ─
MAQUERELLE.
Meaning Emilia.
MENDOZA.
"Thou only wonder that the world hath seen" ─
MAQUERELLE.
That's Emilia.
AURELIA.
Must I then hear her prais'd? ─ Mendoza!
MENDOZA.
Madam, your excellency is graciously encounter'd; I have been writing passionate flashes in honour of ─
(Exit Ferneze.)
AURELIA.
Out, villain, villain! O judgment, where have been my eyes? What bewitched election made me dote on thee? What sorcery made me love thee? But, be gone; bury thy head. O, that I could do more than loathe thee! Hence, worst of ill: No reason ask; our reason is our will.
(Exit with Maquerelle.)
MENDOZA.
Women! Nay, furies; nay, worse; for they torment only the bad, but women good and bad. Damnation of mankind! Breath, hast thou prais'd them for this? And is't you, Ferneze, are wriggled into smock-grace? Sit sure. O, that I could rail against these monsters in nature, models of hell, curse of the earth, women that dare attempt anything, and what they attempt they care not how they accomplish; without all premeditation or prevention; rash in asking, desperate in working, impatient in suffering, extreme in desiring, slaves unto appetite, mistresses in dissembling, only constant in unconstancy, only perfect in counterfeiting; their words are feigned, their eyes forged, their sights dis- sembled, their looks counterfeit, their hair false, their given hopes deceitful, their very breath artificial. Their blood is their only god; bad clothes and old age, are only the devils they tremble at. That I could rail now!
[I.vii]
(Enter Pietro, his sword drawn.)
PIETRO.
A mischief fill thy throat, thou foul-jaw'd slave!
1
Say thy prayers.
2
MENDOZA.
I ha' forgot 'em.
PIETRO.
Thou shalt die!
MENDOZA.
So shalt thou. I am heart-mad.
3
PIETRO.
I am horn-mad.
MENDOZA.
Extreme mad.
4
PIETRO.
Monstrously mad.
MENDOZA.
Why?
PIETRO.
Why? Thou, thou hast dishonored my bed.
5
MENDOZA.
I? Come, come, sit; here's my bare heart to thee,
6
As steady as is this center to the glorious world.
7
And yet, hark, thou art a cornuto ─but by me?
8
PIETRO.
Yes, slave, by thee.
9
MENDOZA.
Do not, do not with tart and spleenful breath
10
Lose him can lose thee. I offend my duke?
11
Bear record, O ye dumb and raw-air'd nights,
12
How vigilant my sleepless eyes have been
13
To watch the traitor! Record, thou spirit of truth,
14
With what debasement I ha' thrown myself
15
To under offices, only to learn
16
The truth, the party, time, the means, the place,
17
By whom, and when, and where thou wert disgrac'd!
18
And am I paid with "slave"? Hath my intrusion
19
To places private and prohibited,
20
Only to observe the closer passages ─
21
Heaven knows with vows of revelation ─
22
Made me suspected, made me deem'd a villain?
23
What rogue hath wronged us?
24
PIETRO.
Mendoza, I may err.
MENDOZA.
Err? 'Tis too mild a name; but err and err,
25
Run giddy with suspect, 'fore through me thou know
26
That which most creatures, save thyself, do know
27
Nay, since my service hath so loath'd reject,
28
'Fore I'll reveal, shalt find them clipp'd together.
29
PIETRO.
Mendoza, thou know'st I am a most plain-breasted man.
MENDOZA.
The fitter to make a cuckold! Would your brows were most plain too!
PIETRO.
Tell me; indeed, I heard thee rail.
MENDOZA.
At women, true. Why, what cold phlegm could choose,
34
Knowing a lord so honest, virtuous,
35
So boundless-loving, bounteous, fair-shap'd, sweet,
36
To be contemn'd, abus'd, defam'd, made cuckold?
37
Heart! I hate all women for't: sweet sheets, wax lights, antique bedposts, cambric smocks, villainous curtains, arras pictures, oil'd hinges, and all the tongue-tied lascivious witnesses of great creatures' wantonness! What salvation can you expect?
PIETRO.
Wilt thou tell me?
MENDOZA.
Why, you may find it yourself; observe, observe.
PIETRO.
I ha' not the patience. Wilt thou deserve me? Tell, give it.
MENDOZA.
Take't;! Why, Ferneze is the man, Ferneze. I'll prove't; this night you shall take him in your sheets. Will't serve?
PIETRO.
It will. My bosom's in some peace.
Till night ─
49
MENDOZA.
What?
PIETRO.
Farewell.
MENDOZA.
God! how weak a lord are you !
Why, do you think there is no more but so?
50
PIETRO.
Why?
51
MENDOZA.
Nay, then will I presume to counsel you.
It should be thus: You with some guard upon the sudden
52
Break into the princess' chamber; I stay behind,
53
Without the door, through which he needs must pass.
54
Ferneze flies ─ let him. To me he comes; he's kill'd
55
By me ─ observe, by me. You follow; I rail,
56
And seem to save the body. Duchess comes,
57
On whom (respecting her advanced birth,
58
And your fair nature) I know, nay, I do know,
59
No violence must be used. She comes; I storm,
60
I praise, excuse Ferneze, and still maintain
61
The duchess' honor; she for this loves me.
62
I honor you, shall know her soul, you mine;
63
Then naught shall she contrive in vengeance
64
(As women are most thoughtful in revenge)
65
Of her Ferneze, but you shall sooner know't
66
Than she can think't. Thus shall his death come sure;
67
Your duchess brain-caught, so your life secure.
68
PIETRO.
It is too well, my bosom, and my heart!
69
When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part.
70
(Exit.)
MENDOZA.
Who cannot feign friendship can ne'er produce the effects of hatred. Honest fool duk, subtle lascivious duchess, seely novice Ferneze ─ I do laugh at ye. My brain is in labor till it produce mischief; and I feel sudden throes, proofs sensible the issue is at hand.
As bears shape young, so I'll form my device,
76
Which grown proves horrid: vengeance makes men wise.
77
(Exit.)
[I.viii]
(Enter Malevole and Passarello.)
MALEVOLE.
Fool, most happily encounter'd. Canst sing, fool?
PASSARELLO.
Yes, I can sing, fool, if you 'll bear the burden; and I can play upon instruments, scurvily, as gentlemen do. O, that I had been gelded! I should then have been a fat fool for a chamber, a squeaking fool for a tavern, and a private fool for all the ladies.
MALEVOLE.
You are in good case since you came to court, fool. What, guarded, guarded!
PASSARELLO.
Yes, faith, even as footmen and bawds wear velvet, not for an ornament of honor, but for a badge of drudgery; for, now the duke is discontented, I am fain to fool him asleep Every night.
MALEVOLE.
What are his griefs?
PASSARELLO.
He hath sore eyes.
MALEVOLE.
I never observed so much.
PASSARELLO.
Horrible sore eyes; and so hath every cuckold, for the roots of the horns spring in the eyeballs; and that's the reason the horn of a cuckold is as tender as his eye, or as that growing in the woman's forehead twelve years since that could not endure to be touch'd. The duke hangs down his head like a columbine.
MALEVOLE.
Passarello, why do great men beg fools ?
PASSARELLO.
As the Welshman stole rushes, when there was nothing else to filch ─ only to keep begging in fashion.
MALEVOLE.
Pooh, thou givest no good reason; thou speakest like a fool.
PASSARELLO.
Faith, I utter small fragments as your knight courts your city widow with jingling of his gilt spurs, advancing his bush-coloured beard and taking tobacco. This is all the mirror of their knightly complements. Nay, I shall talk when my tongue is a-going once; 'tis like a citizen on horseback, evermore in a false gallop.
MALEVOLE.
And how doth Maquerelle fare nowadays?
PASSARELLO.
Faith, I was wont to salute her as our Englishwomen are at their first landing in Flushing: I would call her whore. But now that antiquity leaves her as an old piece of plastic t'work by, I only ask her how her rotten teeth fare every morning, and so leave her. She was the first that ever in- vented perfum'd smocks for the gentlewomen, and woolen shoes for fear of creaking for the visitant. She were an excellent lady but that her face peeleth like Muscovy glass.
MALEVOLE.
And how doth thy old lord, that hath wit enough to be a flatterer, and conscience enough to be a knave?
PASSARELLO.
O, excellent; he keeps beside me fifteen jesters to instruct him in the art of fooling, and utters their jests in private to the duke and duchess. He'll lie like to your Switzer or lawyer; he'll be of any side for most money.
MALEVOLE.
I am in haste; be brief.
PASSARELLO.
As your fiddler when he is paid. He'll thrive, I warrant you, while your young courtier stands like Good Friday in Lent; men long to see it, because more fatting days come after it; else he's the leanest and pitifull'st actor in the whole pageant. Adieu, Malevole.
MALEVOLE.
O world most vile, when thy loose vanities,
53
Taught by this fool, do make the fool seem wise!
54
PASSARELLO.
You'll know me again, Malevole.
MALEVOLE.
O, ay, by that velvet.
PASSARELLO.
Ay, as a pettifogger by his buckram bag. I am as common in the court as an hostess's lips in the country; knights and clowns and knaves and all share me; the court cannot possibly be without me. Adieu, Malevole.
(Exeunt.)
[II.i]
(Enter Mendoza, with a sconce, to observe Ferneze's entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enter unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and conveyed in. The Pages are sent away.)
MENDOZA.
He's caught, the woodcock's head is i' th' noose.
1
Now treads Ferneze in dangerous path of lust,
2
Swearing his sense is merely deified.
3
The fool grasps clouds, and shall beget centaurs;
4
And now, in strength of panting, faint delight,
5
The goat bids heaven envy him. ─ Good goose,
6
I can afford thee nothing but the poor comfort of calamity, pity.
7
Lust's like the plummets hanging on clock-lines,
8
Will ne'er ha' done till all is quite undone.
9
Such is the course salt sallow lust doth run,
10
Which thou shalt try. I'll be reveng'd. Duke, thy suspect;
11
Duchess, thy disgrace; Ferneze, thy rivalship ─
12
Shall have swift vengeance. Nothing so holy,
13
No band of nature so strong,
14
No law of friendship so sacred,
15
But I'll profane, burst, violate,
16
'Fore I'll endure disgrace, contempt, and poverty.
17
Shall I, whose very "Hum" struck all heads bare,
18
Whose face made silence, creaking of whose shoe
19
Forc'd the most private passages fly ope,
20
Scrape like a servile dog at some latch'd door?
21
Learn now to make a leg? and cry, "Beseech ye,
22
Pray ye, is such a lord within?"; be aw'd
23
At some odd usher's scoff'd formality?
24
First sear my brains! "Unde cadis, non quo, refert."
25
My heart cries, "Perish all!" How! how! What fate
26
Can once avoid revenge, that's desperate?
27
I'll to the duke. If all should ope ─ If? Tush!
28
Fortune still dotes on those who cannot blush.
29
(Exit.)
[II.ii]
(Enter Malevole at one door; Biancha, Emilia, and Maquerelle at the other door.)
MALEVOLE.
Bless ye, cast o' ladies! ─ Ha, Dipsas! how dost thou, old coal?
MAQUERELLE.
Old coal!
MALEVOLE.
Ay, old coal; methinks thou liest like a brand under billets of green wood. He that will inflame a young wench's heart, let him lay close to her an old coal that hath first been fired, a pand'ress, my half-burnt lint, who, though thou canst not flame thyself, yet art able to set a thousand virgins' tapers afire. ─ (To Biancha.) And how doth Janivere thy husband, my little periwinkle? Is he troubled with the cough of the lungs still? Does he hawk a-nights still? He will not bite.
BIANCHA.
No, by my troth, I took him with his mouth empty of old teeth.
MALEVOLE.
And he took thee with thy belly full of young bones. Marry, he took his maim by the stroke of his enemy.
BIANCHA.
And I mine by the stroke of my friend.
MALEVOLE.
The close stock! O mortal wench! Lady, ha' ye now no restoratives for your decayed Jasons? Look ye, crabs' guts bak'd, distill'd ox-pith, the pulverized hairs of a lion's upper lip, jelly of cock-sparrows, he-monkeys' marrow, or pouldre of fox-stones? ─ And whither are all you ambling now?
BIANCHA.
Why, to bed, to bed.
MALEVOLE.
Do your husbands lie with ye?
BIANCHA.
That were country fashion, i'faith.
MALEVOLE.
Ha' ye no foregoers about you? Come, whither in good deed, la now?
BIANCHA.
In good indeed, la now, to eat the most miraculously, admirably, astonishable-compos'd posset with three curds, without any drink. Will ye help me with a he-fox? ─ Here's the duke.
(The Ladies go out.)
MALEVOLE.
(to Biancha). Fried frogs are very good, and Frenchlike too!
32
[II.iii]
(Enter Duke Pietro, Count Celso, Count Equato, Bilioso, Ferrardo, and Mendoza.)
PIETRO.
The night grows deep and foul. What hour is't?
CELSO.
Upon the stroke of twelve.
MALEVOLE.
Save ye, duke!
PIETRO.
From thee! Begone, I do not love thee! Let me see thee no more; we are displeased.
MALEVOLE.
Why, God be with thee! Heaven hear my curse; May thy wife and thee live long together!
PIETRO.
Begone, sirrah!
MALEVOLE.
When Arthur first in court began" ─ Agamemnon ─ Menelaus ─ was ever any duke a cornuto ?
PIETRO.
Begone, hence!
MALEVOLE.
What religion wilt thou be of next?
MENDOZA.
Out with him!
MALEVOLE.
With most servile patience time will come
14
When wonder of thy error will strike dumb
15
Thy bezzl'd sense ─
16
Slave's i' favor, ay! Marry, shall he rise?
17
Good God! how subtle hell doth flatter vice,
18
Mounts him aloft and makes him seem to fly,
19
As fowl the tortoise mock'd, who to the sky
20
Th' ambitious shellfish rais'd! Th' end of all
21
Is only that from height he might dead fall.
22
BILIOSO.
Why, when? Out, ye rogue! Begone, ye rascal!
MALEVOLE.
"I shall now leave ye with all my best wishes."
BILIOSO.
Out, ye cur!
MALEVOLE.
"Only let's hold together a firm correspondence."
BILIOSO.
Out!
MALEVOLE.
"A mutual-friendly-reciprocal-perpetual kind of steady unanimous-heartily-leagued ─"
BILIOSO.
Hence, ye gross-jaw'd, peasantly ─ out, go!
MALEVOLE.
Adieu, pigeon house; thou burr, that only stickest to nappy fortunes. The serpigo, the strangury, an eternal uneffectual priapism seize thee!
BILIOSO.
Out, rogue!
MALEVOLE.
May'st thou be a notorious wittolly pander to thine own wife, and yet get no office, but live to be the utmost misery of mankind, a beggarly cuckold!
(Exit.)
PIETRO.
It shall be so.
MENDOZA.
It must be so, for where great states revenge
39
'Tis requisite the parts which piety
40
And loft respect be closely dogg'd
41
Lay one into his breast shall sleep with him,
42
Feed in the same dish, run in self-faction,
43
Who may discover any shape of danger;
44
For once disgrac'd, displayed in offense,
45
It makes man blushless, and man is (all confess)
46
More prone to vengeance than to gratefulness.
47
Favors are writ in dust, but stripes we feel
48
Depraved nature stamps in lasting steel.
49
PIETRO.
You shall be leagued with the duchess.
EQUATO.
The plot is very good.
MENDOZA.
You shall both kill and seem the corse to save.
52
FERRARDO.
A most fine brain-trick.
CELSO.
(tacite). Of a most cunning knave.
PIETRO.
My lords, the heavy action we intend
55
Is death and shame, two of the ugliest shapes
56
That can confound a soul. Think, think of it.
57
I strike, but yet, like him that 'gainst stone walls
58
Directs his shafts, rebounds in his own face;
59
My lady's shame is mine, O God, 'tis mine!
60
Therefore, I do conjure all secrecy;
61
Let it be as very little as may be,
62
Pray ye, as may be.
63
Make frightless entrance, salute her with soft eyes,
64
Stain nought with blood. Only Ferneze dies,
65
But not before her brows. O Gentlemen,
66
God knows I love her! Nothing else, but this:
67
I am not well. If grief, that sucks veins dry,
68
Rivels the skin, casts ashes in men's faces,
69
Bedulls the eye, unstrengthens all the blood,
70
Chance to remove me to another world,
71
As sure I once must die, let him succeed;
72
I have no child; all that my youth begot
73
Hath been your loves, which shall inherit me:
74
Which as it ever shall, I do conjure it,
75
Mendoza may succeed; he's nobly born,
76
With me of much desert.
77
CELSO.
(tacite). Much!
PIETRO.
Your silence answers, "Ay,"
79
I thank you. Come on now. O, that I might die
80
Before her shame's display'd! Would I were forc'd
81
To burn my father's tomb, unhele his bones,
82
And dash them in the dirt, rather than this!
83
This both the living and the dead offends:
84
Sharp surgery where naught but death amends.
85
(Exit with the others.)
[II.iv]
(Enter Maquerelle, Emilia, and Biancha with the posset.)
MAQUERELLE.
Even here it is, three curds in three regions individually distinct, most methodically according to art compos'd, without any drink.
BIANCHA.
Without any drink?
MAQUERELLE.
Upon my honour. Will you sit and eat?
EMILIA.
Good! The composure, the receipt, how is't?
MAQUERELLE.
'Tis a pretty pearl; by this pearl (how does't with me?) thus it is: seven and thirty yolks of Barbary hens' eggs; eighteen spoonfuls and a half of the juice of cook-sparrow bones; one ounce, three drams, four scruples, and one quarter of the syrup of Ethiopian dates; sweeten'd with three-quarters of a pound of pure candied Indian eryngoes; strewed over with the powder of pearl of America, amber of Cataia, and lamb-stones of Muscovia.
BIANCHA.
Trust me, the ingredients are very cordial and, no question, good, and most powerful in restoration.
MAQUERELLE.
I know not what you mean by restoration, but this it doth: it purifieth the blood, smootheth the skin, enliveneth the eye, strength'neth the veins, mundefieth the teeth, com- forteth the stomach, fortifieth the back, and quick'neth the wit; that's all.
EMILIA.
By my troth, I have eaten but two spoonfuls, and methinks I could discourse most swiftly and wittily already.
MAQUERELLE.
Have you the art to seem honest?
BIANCHA.
I thank advice and practice.
MAQUERELLE.
Why, then, eat me of this posset, quicken your blood, and preserve your beauty. Do you know Doctor Plaster-face? By this curd, he is the most exquisite in forging of veins, spright'ning of eyes, dyeing of hair, sleeking of skins, blushing of checks, surfling of breasts, blanching and bleach- ing of teeth, that ever made an old lady gracious by torchlight; by this curd, la!
BIANCHA.
Well, we are resolved, what God has given us we'll cherish.
MAQUERELLE.
Cherish anything saving your husband; keep him not too high, lest he leap the pale. But, for your beauty, let it be your saint, bequeath two hours to it every morning in your closet. I ha' been young, and yet, in my conscience I am not above five and twenty; but, believe me, preserve and use your beauty; for youth and beauty once gone, we are like beehives without honey, out-o'-fashion apparel that no man will wear; therefore, use me your beauty.
EMILIA.
Ay, but men say ─
MAQUERELLE.
Men say! Let men say what they will. Life o' woman! they are ignorant of your wants. The more in years, the more in perfection they grow; if they lose youth and beauty, they gain wisdom and discretion. But when our beauty fades, goodnight with us! There cannot be an uglier thing to see than an old woman, from which ─ O pruning, pinching, and painting! ─ deliver all sweet beauties!
(Music within.)
BIANCHA.
Hark! music!
MAQUERELLE.
Peace, 'tis in the duchess' bedchamber. Good rest, most prosperously grac'd ladies.
EMILIA.
Good night, sentinel.
BIANCHA.
Night, dear Maquerelle.
(Exeunt all but Maquerelle.)
MAQUERELLE.
May my posset's operation send you my wit and honesty; and me, your youth and beauty. The pleasing'st rest!
(Exit Maquerelle.)
[II.v]
(A Song (within).)
(Whilst the song is singing, enter Mendoza with his sword drawn, standing ready to murder Ferneze as he flies from the Duchess' chamber. (Tumult within.))
ALL.
(within) Strike, strike!
AURELIA.
(within) Save my Ferneze! O, save my Ferneze.
(Enter Ferneze in his shirt, and is received upon Mendoza's sword.)
ALL.
(within) Follow, pursue!
AURELIA.
(within) O, save Ferneze!
MENDOZA.
Pierce, pierce!
5
((Thrusts his rapier in Ferneze.))
─ Thou shallow fool, drop there!
He that attempts a princess' lawless love
6
Must have broad hands, close heart, with Argus' eyes,
7
And back of Hercules, or else he dies.
8
(Enter Aurelia, Duke Pietro, Ferrardo, Bilioso, Celso, and Equato.)
ALL.
Follow, follow!
((Mendoza bestrides the wounded body of Ferneze and seems to save him.))
MENDOZA.
Stand off, forbear, ye most uncivil lords!
10
PIETRO.
Strike!
11
MENDOZA.
Do not; tempt not a man resolved.
12
Would you, inhuman murderers, more than death?
13
AURELIA.
O poor Ferneze!
14
MENDOZA.
Alas, now all defense too late!
15
AURELIA.
He's dead.
PIETRO.
I am sorry for our shame. ─ Go to your bed;
16
Weep not too much, but leave some tears to shed
17
When I am dead.
18
AURELIA.
What, weep for thee? My soul no tears shall find.
19
PIETRO.
Alas, alas, that women's souls are blind!
20
MENDOZA.
Betray such beauty!
21
Murder such youth! Contemn civility!
22
He loves him not that rails not at him.
23
PIETRO.
Thou canst not move us: we have blood enough. ─
24
And please you, lady, we have quite forgot
25
All your defect; if not, why then ─
26
AURELIA.
Not.
PIETRO.
Not! The best of rest; good night.
27
(Exit Pietro with other Courtiers.)
AURELIA.
Despite go with thee!
28
MENDOZA.
Madam, you ha'done me foul disgrace.
29
You have wrong'd him much, loves you too much.
30
Go to, your soul knows you have.
31
AURELIA.
I think I have.
MENDOZA.
Do you but think so?
AURELIA.
Nay, sure I have; my eyes have witnessed thy love; thou hast stood too firm for me.
MENDOZA.
Why, tell me, fair-cheek'd lady, who even in tears
36
Art powerfully beauteous, what unadvised passion
37
Struck ye into such a violent heat against me?
38
Speak, what mischief wrong'd us? What devil injur'd us?
39
Speak.
40
AURELIA.
That thing, ne'er worthy of the name of man, Ferneze.
41
Ferneze swore thou lov'st Emilia;
42
Which to advance, with most reproachful breath
43
Thou both didst blemish and denounce my love.
44
MENDOZA.
Ignoble villain, did I for this bestride
45
Thy wounded limbs? For this, rank opposite
46
Even to my sovereign? For this, O God! for this
47
Sunk all my hopes, and with my hopes my life?
48
Ripp'd bare my throat unto the hangman's ax? ─
49
Thou most dishonor'd trunk! ─ Emilia! ─
50
By life, I know her not ─Emilia ! ─
51
Did you believe him?
52
AURELIA.
Pardon me, I did.
MENDOZA.
Did you? And thereupon you graced him?
53
AURELIA.
I did.
54
MENDOZA.
Took him to favor, nay, even clasp'd with him?
55
AURELIA.
Alas, I did!
56
MENDOZA.
This night?
AURELIA.
This night.
MENDOZA.
And in your lustful twines the duke took you?
57
AURELIA.
A most sad truth.
58
MENDOZA.
O God, O God! How we dull honest souls,
59
Heavy-brain'd men, are swallowed in the bogs
60
Of a deceitful ground, whilst nimble bloods,
61
Light-jointed spirits, pent, cut good men's throats
62
And scape! Alas, I am too honest for this age,
63
Too full of phlegm, and heavy steadiness;
64
Stood still whilst this slave cast a noose about me;
65
Nay, then, to stand in honor of him and her,
66
Who had even slic'd my heart.
67
AURELIA.
Come, I did err,
And am most sorry I did err.
68
MENDOZA.
Why, we are both but dead; the duke hates us.
69
And those whom princes do once groundly hate,
70
Let them provide to die, as sure as fate.
71
Prevention is the heart of policy.
72
AURELIA.
Shall we murder him?
73
MENDOZA.
Instantly.
74
AURELIA.
Instantly, before he casts a plot,
75
Or further blaze my honor's much-known blot,
76
Let's murder him.
77
MENDOZA.
I would do much for you; will ye marry me?
78
AURELIA.
I'll make thee duke. We are of Medicis;
79
Florence our friend; in court my faction
80
Not meanly strengthful; the duke then dead;
81
We well prepar'd for change; the multitude
82
Irresolutely reeling; we in force;
83
Our party seconded; the kingdom maz'd;
84
No doubt of swift success ─ all shall be grac'd.
85
MENDOZA.
You do confirm me; we are resolute,
86
Tomorrow look for change; rest confident.
87
'Tis now about the immodest waist of night;
88
The mother of moist dew with pallid light
89
Spreads gloomy shades about the numbed earth.
90
Sleep, sleep, whilst we contrive our mischief's birth.
91
This man I'll get inhum'd. Farewell; to bed.
92
Ay, kiss the pillow; dream the duke is dead.
93
So, so, good night.
94
(Exit Aurelia.)
─ How fortune dotes on imprudence!
I am in private the adopted son of yon good prince.
95
I must be duke. Why, if I must, I must!
96
Most seely lord, name me! O heaven!
97
I see God made honest fools to maintain crafty knaves.
98
The duchess is wholly mine too; must kill her husband
99
To quit her shame. Much! Then marry her! Ay!
100
O, I grow proud in prosperous treachery!
101
As wrestlers clip, so I'll embrace you all,
102
Not to support, but to procure your fall.
103
(Enter Malevole.)
MALEVOLE.
God arrest thee!
MENDOZA.
At whose suit?
MALEVOLE.
At the devil's. Ah, you treacherous damnable monster! How dost? How dost, thou treacherous rogue? Ah, ye rascal! I am banish'd the court, sirrah.
MENDOZA.
Prithee let's be acquainted; I do love thee, faith.
MALEVOLE.
At your service, by the Lord, la! Shall's go to supper? Let's be once drunk together, and so unite a most virtuously strengthened friendship. Shall's, Huguenot? Shall's?
MENDOZA.
Wilt fall upon my chamber tomorrow morn ?
MALEVOLE.
As a raven to a dunghill. They say there's one dead here, prick'd for the pride of the flesh.
MENDOZA.
Ferneze. There he is; prithee, bury him.
MALEVOLE.
O, most willingly; I mean to turn pure Rochelle church- man, I.
MENDOZA.
Thou churchman! Why, why?
MALEVOLE.
Because I'll live lazily, rail upon authority, deny kings' supremacy in things indifferent, and be a pope in mine own parish.
MENDOZA.
Wherefore dost thou think churches were made?
MALEVOLE.
To scour plowshares; I have seen oxen plow up altars; "et nunc seges ubi Sion fuit."
MENDOZA.
Strange!
MALEVOLE.
Nay, monstrous! I ha' seen a sumptuous steeple turn'd to a stinking privy; more beastly, the sacred'st place made a dogs' kennel; nay, most inhuman, the stoned coffins of long-dead Christians burst up, and made hogs' troughs: "hic finis Priami." Shall I ha' some sack and cheese at thy chamber? Good night, good mischievous incarnate devil; good night, Mendoza. Ah, you inhuman villain, good night! Night, fub.
MENDOZA.
Good night; tomorrow morn.
(Exit Mendoza.)
MALEVOLE.
Ay, I will come, friendly damnation, I will come. I do descry cross-points; honesty and courtship straddle as far asunder as a true Frenchman's legs.
FERNEZE.
O!
MALEVOLE.
Proclamations! More proclamations!
FERNEZE.
O! a surgeon!
MALEVOLE.
Hark! lust cries for a surgeon. ─ What news from Limbo? How doth the grand cuckold, Lucifer?
FERNEZE.
O, help! help! Conceal and save me.
(Ferneze stirs, and Malevole helps him up and conveys him away.)
MALEVOLE.
Thy shame more than thy wounds do grieve me far;
144
Thy wounds but leave upon thy flesh some scar,
145
But fame ne'er heals, still rankles worse and worse;
146
Such is of uncontrolled lust the curse.
147
Think what it is in lawless sheets to lie;
148
But, O, Ferneze, what in lust to die!
149
Then thou that shame respects, O, fly converse
150
With women's eyes and lisping wantonness!
151
Stick candles 'gainst a virgin wall's white back:
152
If they not burn, yet at the least they'll black.
153
Come, I'll convey thee to a private port
154
Where thou shalt live, O happy man, from court.
155
The beauty of the day begins to rise,
156
From whose bright form night's heavy shadow flies.
157
Now 'gins close plots to work; the scene grows full,
158
And craves his eyes who hath a solid skull.
159
(Exeunt.)
[III.i]
(Enter Pietro the Duke, Mendoza, Count Equato, and Bilioso.)
PIETRO.
'Tis grown to youth of day; how shall we waste this light?
1
My heart's more heavy than a tyrant's crown.
2
Shall we go hunt? Prepare for field.
3
(Exit Equato.)
MENDOZA.
Would ye could be merry!
4
PIETRO.
Would God I could! Mendoza, bid 'em haste.
5
(Exit Mendoza.)
I would fain shift place; O vain relief!
6
Sad souls may well change place, but not change grief.
7
As deer, being struck, fly thorough many soils,
8
Yet still the shaft sticks fast, so ─
9
BILIOSO.
A good old simile, my honest lord.
10
PIETRO.
I am not much unlike to some sick man,
11
That long desired hurtful drink; at last
12
Swills in and drinks his last, ending at once
13
Both life and thirst. O, would I ne'er had known
14
My own dishonor! Good God, that men should
15
Desire to search out that which, being found, kills all
16
Their joy of life! To taste the tree of knowledge,
17
And then be driven from out paradise!
18
Canst give me some comfort?
19
BILIOSO.
My lord, I have some books which have been dedicated to my honor, and I ne'er read'em; and yet they had very fine names: Physic for Fortune, Lozenges of Sanctified Sincerity ; very pretty works of curates, scriveners, and schoolmasters. Marry, I remember one Seneca, Lucius Annӕus Seneca ─
PIETRO.
Out upon him! He writ of temperance and fortitude, yet lived like a voluptuous epicure and died like an effeminate coward.
Haste thee to Florence.
28
Here, take our letters; see'em seal'd; away!
29
Report in private to the honor'd duke
30
His daughter's forc'd disgrace; tell him at length
31
We know too much; due compliments advance.
32
There 's naught that's safe and sweet but ignorance.
33
(Exit Duke.)
(Enter Biancha.)
BILIOSO.
Madam, I am going ambassador for Florence; 'twill be great charges to me.
BIANCHA.
No matter, my lord, you have the lease of two manors come out next Christmas; you may lay your tenants on the greater rack for it; and when you come home again, I'll teach you how you shall get two hundred pounds a year by your teeth.
BILIOSO.
How, madam?
BIANCHA.
Cut off so much from housekeeping; that which is saved by the teeth, you know is got by the teeth.
BILIOSO.
'Fore God, and so I may; I am in wondrous credit, lady.
BIANCHA.
See the use of flattery; I did ever counsel you to flatter greatness, and you have profited well. Any man that will do so shall be sure to be like your Scotch barnacle, now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great goose: this it is to rot and putrefy in the bosom of greatness.
BILIOSO.
Thou art ever my politician. O, how happy is that old lord that bath a politician to his young lady! I'll have fifty gentlemen shall attend upon me; marry, the most of them shall be farmers' sons because they shall bear their own charges, and they shall go appareled thus ─ in sea-water green suits, ash-color cloaks, watchet stockings, and popinjay-green feathers. Will not the colors do excellent?
BIANCHA.
Out upon't! They'll look like citizens riding to their friends at Whitsuntide, their apparel just so many several parishes.
BILIOSO.
I'll have it so; and Passarello, my fool, shall go along with me; marry, he shall be in velvet.
BIANCHA.
A fool in velvet?
BILIOSO.
Ay, 'tis common for your fool to wear satin; I'll have mine in velvet.
BIANCHA.
What will you wear, then, my lord?
BILIOSO.
Velvet too; marry, it shall be embroidered, because I'll differ from the fool somewhat. I am horribly troubled with the gout; nothing grieves me but that my doctor hath forbidden me wine, and you know your ambassador must drink. Didst thou ask thy doctor what was good for the gout?
BIANCHA.
Yes; he said, ease, wine, and women, were good for it.
BILIOSO.
Nay, thou hast such a wit! What was good to cure it, said he ?
BIANCHA.
Why, the rack. All your empirics could never do the like cure upon the gout the rack did in England, or your Scotch boot. The French harlequin will instruct you.
BILIOSO.
Surely, I do wonder, how thou, having for the most part of thy lifetime been a country body, shouldest have so good a wit.
BIANCHA.
Who, I? Why, I have been a courtier thrice two months.
BILIOSO.
So have I this twenty year, and yet there was a gentleman usher call'd me coxcomb t'other day, and to my face too. Was't not a backbiting rascal? I would I were better travel'd, that I might have been better acquainted with the fashions of several countrymen; but my secretary, I think, he hath sufficiently instructed me.
BIANCHA.
How, my lord?
BILIOSO.
"Marry, my good lord," quoth he, your lordship shall ever find amongst a hundred Frenchmen forty hot-shots; amongst a hundred Spaniards, threescore braggarts; amongst a hundred Dutchmen, fourscore drunkards; amongst a hundred Englishmen, fourscore and ten madmen; and amongst an hundred Welshmen" ─
BIANCHA.
What, my lord?
BILIOSO.
"Fourscore and nineteen gentlemen."
BIANCHA.
But, since you go about a sad embassy, I would have you go in black, my lord.
BILIOSO.
Why, dost think I cannot mourn, unless I wear my hat in cypress, like an alderman's heir? That's vile, very old, in faith.
BIANCHA.
I'll learn of you shortly. O, we should have a fine gallant of you, should not I instruct you! How will you bear yourself when you come into the Duke of Florence' court?
BILIOSO.
Proud enough, and 'twill do well enough. As I walk up and down the chamber, I'll spit frowns about me, have a strong perfume in my jerkin, let my beard grow to make me look terrible, salute no man beneath the fourth button; and 'twill do excellent.
BIANCHA.
But there is a very beautiful lady there; how will you entertain her?
BILIOSO.
I'll tell you that when the lady hath entertain'd me. But to satisfy thee, here comes the fool. Enter Passarello. Fool, thou shalt stand for the fair lady.
PASSARELLO.
Your fool will stand for your lady most willingly and most uprightly.
BILIOSO.
I'll salute her in Latin.
PASSARELLO.
O, your fool can understand no Latin.
BILIOSO.
Ay, but your lady can.
PASSARELLO.
Why, then, if your lady take down your fool, your fool will stand no longer for your lady.
BILIOSO.
A pestilent fool! 'Fore God, I think the world be turn'd upside down too.
PASSARELLO.
O, no, sir; for then your lady and all the ladies in the palace should go with their heels upward, and that were a strange sight, you know.
BILIOSO.
There be many will repine at my preferment.
PASSARELLO.
O, ay, like the envy of an elder sister that hath her younger made a lady before her.
BILIOSO.
The duke is wondrous discontented.
PASSARELLO.
Ay, and more melancholic than a usurer having all his money out at the death of a prince.
BILIOSO.
Didst thou see Madam Floria today ?
PASSARELLO.
Yes, I found her repairing her face today. The red upon the white showed as if her cheeks should have been served in for two dishes of barberries in stewed broth, and the flesh to them a woodcock.
BILIOSO.
A bitter fowl! Come, madam, this night thou shalt enjoy me freely, and tomorrow for Florence.
(Exeunt Bilioso and Biancha.)
PASSARELLO.
What a natural fool is he that would be a pair of bodies to a woman's petticoat, to be truss'd and pointed to them! Well, I'll dog my lord; and the word is proper, for, when I fawn upon him, he feeds me; when I snap him by the fingers, he spits in my mouth. If a dog's death were not strangling, I had rather be one than a serving-man; for the corruption of coin is either the generation of a usurer or a lousy beggar.
(Exit.)
[III.ii]
(Enter Malevole in some frieze gown, whilst Bilioso reads his patent.)
MALEVOLE.
I cannot sleep; my eyes' ill-neighboring lids
1
Will hold no fellowship. O thou pale, sober night,
2
Thou that in sluggish fumes all sense dost steep;
3
Thou that gives all the world full leave to play,
4
Unbend'st the feebled veins of sweaty labor!
5
The galley-slave, that all the toilsome day
6
Tugs at his oar against the stubborn wave,
7
Straining his rugged veins, snores fast;
8
The stooping scythe-man, that doth barb the field,
9
Thou makest wink sure. In night all creatures sleep;
10
Only the malcontent, that 'gainst his fate
11
Repines and quarrels, alas, he's goodman tell-clock!
12
His sallow jawbones sink with wasting moan;
13
Whilst others' beds are down, his pillow's stone.
14
BILIOSO.
Malevole!
MALEVOLE.
(to Bilioso) Elder of Israel, thou honest defect of wicked nature and obstinate ignorance, when did thy wife let thee lie with her?
BILIOSO.
I am going ambassador to Florence.
MALEVOLE.
Ambassador! Now, for thy country's honor, prithee, do not put up mutton and porridge in thy cloak bag. Thy young lady wife goes to Florence with thee too, does she not?
BILIOSO.
No, I leave her at the palace.
MALEVOLE.
At the palace! Now discretion shield, man! For God's love, let's ha' no more cuckolds! Hymen begins to put off his saffron robe; keep thy wife i' the state of grace. Heart o' truth, I would sooner leave my lady singled in a bordello than in the Genoa palace.
Sin, there appearing in her sluttish shape,
29
Would soon grow loathsome, even to blushes' sense;
30
Surfeit would cloak intemperate appetite,
31
Make the soul scent the rotten breath of lust.
32
When in an Italian lascivious palace, a lady guardianless,
33
Left to the push of all allurement,
34
The strongest incitements to immodesty,
35
To have her bound, incens'd with wanton sweets,
36
Her veins fill'd high with heating delicates,
37
Soft rest, sweet music, amorous masquerers,
38
Lascivious banquets, sin itself gilt o'er,
39
Strong fantasy tricking up strange delights,
40
Presenting it dressed pleasingly to sense,
41
Sense leading it unto the soul, confirm'd
42
With potent example, impudent custom,
43
Entic'd by that great bawd, Opportunity ─
44
Thus being prepar'd, clap to her easy ear
45
Youth in good clothes, well-shap'd, rich,
46
Fair-spoken, promising-noble, ardent, blood-full,
47
Witty, flattering ─ Ulysses absent,
48
O Ithaca, can chastest Penelope hold out?
49
BILIOSO.
Mass, I'll think on't. Farewell.
MALEVOLE.
Exit Bilioso. Farewell.Take thy wife with thee. Farewell.
To Florence, um? It may prove good, it may!
52
And we may once unmask our brows.
53
(Enter Count Celso.)
[III.iii]
CELSO.
My honor'd lord ─
MALEVOLE.
Celso, peace! How is't? Speak low. Pale fears suspect that hedges, walls, and trees have ears. Speak; how runs all?
CELSO.
I' faith, my lord, that beast with many heads,
4
The staggering multitude, recoils apace.
5
Though thorough great men's envy, most men's malice,
6
Their much intemperate heat hath banish'd you,
7
Yet now they find envy and malice ne'er
8
Produce faint reformation.
9
The duke, the too soft duke, lies as a block,
10
For which two tugging factions seem to saw;
11
But still the iron through the ribs they draw.
12
MALEVOLE.
I tell thee, Celso, I have ever found
13
Thy breast most far from shifting cowardice
14
And fearful baseness; therefore, I'll tell thee, Celso,
15
I find the wind begins to come about;
16
I'll shift my suit of fortune.
17
I know the Florentine, whose only force,
18
By marrying his proud daughter to this prince,
19
Both banish'd me and made this weak lord duke,
20
Will now forsake them all; be sure he will.
21
I'll lie in ambush for conveniency,
22
Upon their severance to confirm myself.
23
CELSO.
Is Ferneze interred?
MALEVOLE.
Of that at leisure; he lives.
CELSO.
But how stands Mendoza? How is't with him ?
MALEVOLE.
Faith, like a pair of snuffers, snibs filth in other men and retains it in itself.
CELSO.
He does fly from public notice, methinks, as a hare does from hounds; the feet whereon he flies betrays him.
MALEVOLE.
I can track him, Celso.
O, my disguise fools him most powerfully!
32
For that I seem a desperate malcontent,
33
He fain would clasp with me; he is the true slave
34
That will put on the most affected grace
35
For some vile second cause.
36
(Enter Mendoza.)
CELSO.
He's here.
MALEVOLE.
Give place. ─
(Exit Celso.)
Illo! ho, ho, ho! art there, old truepenny? Where hast thou spent thyself this morning? I see flattery in thine eyes and damnation in thy soul. Ha, thou huge rascal!
MENDOZA.
Thou art very merry.
MALEVOLE.
As a scholar, futuens gratis . How doth the devil go with thee now?
MENDOZA.
Malevole, thou art an arrant knave.
MALEVOLE.
Who, I? I have been a sergeant, man.
MENDOZA.
Thou art very poor.
MALEVOLE.
As Job, an alchemist, or a poet.
MENDOZA.
The duke hates thee.
MALEVOLE.
As Irishmen do bum-cracks.
MENDOZA.
Thou hast lost his amity.
MALEVOLE.
As pleasing as maids lose their virginity.
MENDOZA.
Would thou wert of a lusty spirit! Would thou wert noble!
MALEVOLE.
Why, sure my blood gives me I am noble, sure I am of noble kind; for I find myself possessed with all their qualities: love dogs, dice, and drabs; scorn wit in stuff- clothes; have beat my shoemaker, knock'd my seamstress, cuckold' my 'pothecary, and undone my tailor. Noble! Why not? Since the stoic said, "Neminem servum non ex regibus, neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum," only busy Fortune touses, and the provident Chances blends them together. I'll give you a simile. Did you e're see a well with two buckets, whilst one comes up full to be emptied, another goes down empty to be filled? Such is the state of all humanity. Why, look you, I may be the son of some duke; for, believe me, intemperate lascivious bastardy makes nobility doubtful. I have a lusty, daring heart, Mendoza.
MENDOZA.
Let's grasp; I do like thee infinitely. Wilt enact one thing for me?
MALEVOLE.
Shall I get by it? (Mendoza gives him his purse.) Com- mand me; I am thy slave, beyond death and hell.
MENDOZA.
Murder the duke.
MALEVOLE.
My heart's wish, my soul's desire, my fantasy's dream, my blood's longing, the only height of my hopes! How, O God, how? O, how my united spirits throng together! So strengthen my resolve!
MENDOZA.
The duke is now a-hunting.
MALEVOLE.
Excellent, admirable, as the devil would have it! Lend me, lend me rapier, pistol, crossbow; so, so, I'll do it.
MENDOZA.
Then we agree.
MALEVOLE.
As Lent and fishmongers. Come, a-cap-a-pe, how? Inform.
MENDOZA.
Know that this weak-brain'd duke, who only stands
83
On Florence' stilts, hath out of witless zeal
84
Made me his heir, and secretly confirm'd
85
The wreath to me after his life's full point.
86
MALEVOLE.
Upon what merit?
87
MENDOZA.
Merit! By heaven, I horn him.
Only Ferneze's death gave me state's life.
88
Tut, we are politic; he must not live now.
89
MALEVOLE.
No reason, marry. But how must he die now?
90
MENDOZA.
My utmost project is to murder the duke, that I might have his state, because he makes me his heir; to banish the duchess, that I might be rid of a cunning Lacedӕmonian, because I know Florence will forsake her; and then to marry Maria, the banished Duke Altofront's wife, that her friends might strengthen me and my faction; this is all, la.
MALEVOLE.
Do you love Maria?
MENDOZA.
Faith, no great affection, but as wise men do love great women, to ennoble their blood and augment their revenue. To accomplish this now, thus now: The Duke is in the forest, next the sea; single him, kill him, hurl him in the main, and proclaim thou sawest wolves eat him.
MALEVOLE.
Um! Not so good. Methinks, when he is slain,
104
To get some hypocrite, some dangerous wretch,
105
That's muffled, o'er with feigned holiness,
106
To swear he heard the duke on some steep cliff
107
Lament his wife's dishonor, and, in an agony
108
Of his heart's torture, hurled his groaning sides
109
Into the swoll'n sea. This circumstance,
110
Well made, sounds probable; and hereupon
111
The duchess ─
112
MENDOZA.
May well be banished.
O unpeerable invention! Rare!
113
Thou god of policy, it honeys me!
114
MALEVOLE.
Then fear not for the wife of Altofront;
115
I'll close to her.
116
MENDOZA.
Thou shalt, thou shalt. Our excellency is pleas'd.
117
Why wert not thou an emperor? When we
118
Are duke, I'll make thee some great man, sure.
119
MALEVOLE.
Nay, make me some rich knave, and I'll make myself
120
Some great man.
121
MENDOZA.
In thee be all my spirit;
Retain ten souls, unite thy virtual powers.
122
Resolve; ha, remember greatness! Heart, farewell.
123
(Enter Celso.)
The fate of all my hopes in thee doth dwell.
124
(Exit.)
MALEVOLE.
Celso, didst hear? O heaven, didst hear
125
Such devilish mischief? Sufferest thou the world
126
Carouse damnation even with greedy swallow,
127
And still dost wink, still does thy vengeance slumber?
128
If now thy brows are clear, when will they thunder?
129
(Exeunt.)
[III.iv]
(Enter Pietro, Ferrardo, Prepasso, and three Pages.)
FERRARDO.
The dogs are at a fault.
(Cornets like horns.)
PIETRO.
Would God nothing but the dogs were at it! Let the deer pursue safely, the dogs follow the game, and do you follow the dogs. As for me, 'tis unfit one beast should hunt another. I ha' one chaseth me; and't please you, I would be rid of you a little.
FERRARDO.
Would your grief would as soon leave you as we to quietness.
PIETRO.
I thank you. ─ Exeunt Ferrardo and Prepasso. Boy, what dost thou dream of now?
I PAGE.
Of a dry summer, my lord; for here's a hot world towards. But, my lord, I had a strange dream last night.
PIETRO.
What strange dream?
I PAGE.
Why, methought I pleased you with singing, and then I dreamt you gave me that short sword.
PIETRO.
Prettily begg'd; hold thee, I'll prove thy dream true ─ tak't.
I PAGE.
My duty. But still I dreamt on, my lord; and methought, and't shall please your excellency, you would needs out of your royal bounty give me that jewel in your hat.
PIETRO.
O, thou didst but dream, boy; do not believe it. Dreams prove not always true; they may hold in a short sword, but not in a jewel. But now, sir, you dreamt you had pleased me with singing; make that true, as I have made the other.
I PAGE.
Faith, my lord, I did but dream; and dreams, you say, prove not always true; they may hold in a good sword, but not in a good song. The truth is, I ha' lost my voice.
PIETRO.
Lost thy voice! How?
I PAGE.
With dreaming, faith. But here's a couple of sirenical rascals shall enchant ye. What shall they sing, my good lord?
PIETRO.
Sing of the nature of women, and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes; it shall be humorous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all, and all in one.
I PAGE.
All in one!
PIETRO.
By'r Lady too many. Sing! My speech grows culpable of unthrifty idleness. Sing!
(Song (By 2 and 3 Pages).)
[III.v]
(Enter Malevole, with crossbow and pistol.)
PIETRO.
Ah, so, so, sing. I am heavy. Walk off; I shall talk in my sleep; walk off.
(Exeunt Pages.)
MALEVOLE.
Brief, brief! who? The duke! Good heaven, that fools should stumble upon greatness! ─ Do not sleep, duke; give ye good morrow. You must be brief, duke; I am feed to murder thee. Start not! Mendoza, Mendoza hired me; here's his gold, his pistol, crossbow, and sword ─ 'tis all as firm as earth. O fool, fool, chok'd with the common maze of easy idiots! Credulity, make him thine heir! What, thy sworn murderer!
PIETRO.
O, can it be?
MALEVOLE.
Can!
PIETRO.
Discovered he not Ferneze?
MALEVOLE.
Yes, but why? but why? For love to thee? Much, much! To be revenged upon his rival, who had thrust his jaws awry; who being slain, supposed by thine own hands, defended by his sword, made thee most loathsome, him most gracious with thy loose princess; thou, closely yielding egress and regress to her, madest him heir whose hot unquiet lust straight tous'd thy sheets and now would seize thy state. Politician! Wise man! Death! To be led to the stake like a bull by the horns; to make even kindness cut a gentle throat! Life, why art thou numbed? Thou foggy dullness, speak! Lives not more faith in a home-thrusting tongue than in these fencing tip-tap courtiers?
(Enter Celso, with a hermit's gown and beard.)
PIETRO.
Lord Malevole, if this be true ─
MALEVOLE.
If! Come, shade thee with this disguise. If! Thou shalt handle it; he shall thank thee for killing thyself. Come, follow my directions, and thou shalt see strange sleights.
PIETRO.
World, whither wilt thou?
MALEVOLE.
Why, to the devil. Come, the morn grows late.
30
A steady quickness is the soul of state.
31
(Exeunt.)
[IV.i]
(Enter Maquerelle, knocking at the Ladies' door.)
MAQUERELLE.
Medam, medam, are you stirring, medam? If you be stirring, medam, ─ if I thought I should disturb ye ─
(Enter Page.)
PAGE.
My lady is up, forsooth.
MAQUERELLE.
A pretty boy, faith. How old art thou?
PAGE.
I think fourteen.
MAQUERELLE.
Nay, and ye be in the teens ─ Are ye a gentleman horn? Do you know me? My name is Medam Maquerelle; I lie in the old Cunnycourt. ─ See, here the ladies.
(Enter Biancha and Emilia.)
BIANCHA.
A fair day to ye, Maquerelle.
EMILIA.
Is the duchess up yet, sentinel?
MAQUERELLE.
O ladies, the most abominable mischance! O dear ladies, the most piteous disaster! Ferneze was taken last night in the duchess' chamber. Alas, the duke catch'd him and kill'd him.
BIANCHA.
Was he found in bed?
MAQUERELLE.
O, no; but the villainous certainty is, the door was not bolted, the tongue-tied hatch held his peace; so the naked troth is, he was found in his shirt, whilst I like an arrant beast lay in the outward chamber, heard nothing; and yet they came by me in the dark, and yet I felt them not, like a senseless creature as I was. O beauties, look to your busk-points, if not chastely, yet charily: be sure the door be bolted. ─ Is your lord gone to Florence?
BIANCHA.
Yes, Maquerelle.
MAQUERELLE.
I hope you'll find the discretion to purchase a fresh gown fore his return. – Now, by my troth, beauties, I would ha' ye once wise. He loves ye; pish! He is witty, bubble! Fair- proportioned; meaw! Nobly-born; wind! Let this be still your fix'd position: esteem me every man according to his good gifts, and so ye shall ever remain most dear and most worthy to be most dear ladies.
EMILIA.
Is the duke return'd from hunting yet?
MAQUERELLE.
They say not yet.
BIANCHA.
'Tis now in midst of day.
EMILIA.
How bears the duchess with this blemish now?
MAQUERELLE.
Faith, boldly; strongly defies defame, as one that has a duke to her father. And there's a note to you: be sure of a stout friend in a corner that may always awe your husband. Mark the 'haviour of the duchess now; she dares defame; cries, "Duke, do what thou canst, I'll quit mine honor." Nay, as one confirmed in her own virtue against ten thousand mouths that mutter her disgrace, she's presently for dances.
(Enter Ferrardo.)
BIANCHA.
For dances!
MAQUERELLE.
Most true.
EMILIA.
See, here's my servant, young Ferrard. How many servants think'st thou I have, Maquerelle?
MAQUERELLE.
The more, the merrier. 'Twas well said, use your servants as you do your smocks; have many, use one, and change often, for that's most sweet and courtlike.
FERRARDO.
Save ye, fair ladies! Is the duke returned?
BIANCHA.
Sweet sir, no voice of him as yet in court.
FERRARDO.
'Tis very strange.
BIANCHA.
And how like you my servant, Maquerelle?
MAQUERELLE.
I think he could hardly draw Ulysses' bow; but by my fidelity, were his nose narrower, his eyes broader, his hands thinner, his lips thicker, his legs bigger, his feet lesser, his hair blacker, and his teeth whiter, he were a tolerable sweet youth, i'faith. And he will come to my chamber, I will read him the fortune of his beard.
(Cornets sound.)
FERRARDO.
Not yet return'd! I fear ─ But the duchess approacheth.
[IV.ii]
(Enter Mendoza supporting the Duchess, Guerrino; the ladies that are on the stage rise; Ferrardo ushers in the Duchess, and then takes a Lady to tread a measure.)
AURELIA.
We will dance. Music! We will dance.
GUERRINO.
Les quanto , lady, Pensez bien, Passa regis , or Biancha's Brawl?
AURELIA.
We have forgot the brawl.
FERRARDO.
So soon? 'Tis wonder.
GUERRINO.
Why, 'tis but two singles on the left, two on the right, three doubles forward, a traverse of six round; do this twice, three singles side, galliard trick-of-twenty, coranto- pace; a figure of eight, three singles broken down, come up, meet, two doubles, fall back, and then honor.
AURELIA.
O, Dӕdalus, thy maze! I have quite forgot it.
MAQUERELLE.
Trust me, so have I, saving the falling back and then honor.
(Enter Prepasso.)
AURELIA.
Music, music!
PREPASSO.
Who saw the duke? The duke?
(Enter Equato.)
AURELIA.
Music!
EQUATO.
The duke? Is the duke returned?
AURELIA.
Music!
(Enter Celso.)
CELSO.
The duke is either quite invisible or else is not.
AURELIA.
We are not pleased with your intrusion upon our private retirement; we are not pleased. You have forgot yourselves.
(Enter a Page.)
CELSO.
Boy, thy master? Where's the duke?
PAGE.
Alas, I left him burying the earth with his spread, joyless limbs. He told me, he was heavy, would sleep; bid me walk off, for that the strength of fantasy oft made him talk in his dreams. I straight obeyed, nor ever saw him since; but wheresoe'er he is, he's sad.
AURELIA.
Music, sound high, as is our heart! Sound high!
[IV.iii]
(Enter Malevole, and Pietro disguised like an hermit.)
MALEVOLE.
The duke ─ peace! ─ the duke is dead.
AURELIA.
Music!
MALEVOLE.
Is't music?
MENDOZA.
Give proof.
FERRARDO.
How?
CELSO.
Where?
PREPASSO.
When?
MALEVOLE.
Rest in peace, as the duke does; quietly sit. For my own part, I beheld him but dead; that's all. Marry, here's one can give you a more particular account of him.
MENDOZA.
Speak, holy father, nor let any brow
11
Within this presence fright thee from the truth.
12
Speak confidently and freely.
13
AURELIA.
We attend.
PIETRO.
Now had the mounting sun's all-ripening wings
14
Swept the cold sweat of night from earth's dank breast,
15
When I, whom men call Hermit of the Rock,
16
Forsook my cell and clamber'd up a cliff,
17
Against whose base the heady Neptune dash'd
18
His high-curl'd brows; there 'twas I eas'd my limbs
19
When, lo, my entrails melted with the moan
20
Someone, who far'bove me was climb'd, did make ─
21
I shall offend ─
22
MENDOZA.
Not.
23
AURELIA.
On.
24
PIETRO.
Methinks I hear him yet: "O female faith!
25
Go sow the ingrateful sand, and love a woman!
26
And do I live to be the scoff of men?
27
To be the wittol-cuckold, even to hug my poison?
28
Thou knowest, O truth,
29
Sooner hard steel will melt with southern wind,
30
A seaman's whistle calm the ocean,
31
A town on fire be extinct with tears,
32
Than women, vow'd to blushless impudence,
33
With sweet behaviour and soft minioning,
34
Will turn from that where appetite is fix'd.
35
O powerful blood! how thou dost slave their soul!
36
I wash'd an Ethiope, who, for recompense,
37
Sullied my name. And must I, then be forc'd
38
To walk, to live thus black? Must! Must! Fie!
39
He that can bare with 'must,' he cannot die."
40
With that he sigh'd so passionately deep
41
That the dull air even groan'd. At last he cries,
42
"Sink shame in seas, sink deep enough!" so dies,
43
For then I view'd his body fall, and souse
44
Into the foamy main. O, then I saw
45
That which methinks I see: it was the duke,
46
Whom straight the nicer-stomach'd sea
47
Belch'd up, but then ─
48
MALEVOLE.
Then came I in; but, 'las, all was too late,
49
For even straight he sunk!
50
PIETRO.
Such was the duke's sad fate.
CELSO.
A better fortune to our Duke Mendoza!
51
OMNES.
Mendoza!
(Cornets flourish.)
MENDOZA.
A guard, a guard!
53
(Enter a Guard.)
We, full of hearty tears,
For our good father's loss ─
54
For so we well may call him
55
Who did beseech your loves for our succession ─
56
Cannot so lightly overjump his death (To Aurelia.) As leave his woes revengeless. ─
57
Woman of shame,
We banish thee forever to the place,
58
From whence this good man comes; nor permit,
59
On death, unto the body any ornament;
60
But base, as was thy life, depart away.
61
AURELIA.
Ungrateful!
62
MENDOZA.
Away!
AURELIA.
Villain, hear me!
(Prepasso and Guerrino lead away the Duchess.)
MENDOZA.
Begone! ─
My lords, address to public council; 'tis most fit
63
The train of Fortune is borne up by wit.
64
Away! Our presence shall be sudden; haste.
65
(All depart saving Mendoza, Malevole, and Pietro.)
MALEVOLE.
cNow, you egregious devil! Ha, ye murdering politician!
66
How dost, duke? How dost look now? Brave duke, i'faith!
MENDOZA.
How did you kill him?
MALEVOLE.
Slatted his brains out, then sous'd him in the briny sea.
MENDOZA.
Brain'd him, and drown'd him too?
MALEVOLE.
O, 'twas best, sure work; for he that strikes a great man, let him strike home, or else 'ware he'll prove no man. Shoulder not a huge fellow unless you may be sure to lay him in the kennel.
MENDOZA.
A most sound brainpan! I'll make you both emperors.
MALEVOLE.
Make us Christians, make us Christians!
MENDOZA.
I'll hoist ye; ye shall mount.
MALEVOLE.
To the gallows, say ye? Come! "Prӕmium incertum petit certum scelus." How stands the progress?
MENDOZA.
Here, take my ring unto the citadel,
80
Have entrance to Maria, the grave duchess
81
Of banish'd Altofront. Tell her we love her;
82
Omit no circumstance to grace our person; do't.
83
MALEVOLE.
I'll make an excellent pander. Duke, farewell; 'dieu, adieu, duke.
MENDOZA.
Take Maquerelle with thee, for 'tis found
86
None cuts a diamond but a diamond.
87
(Exit Malevole.)
Hermit, thou art a man for me, my confessor.
88
O thou selected spirit, born for my good,
89
Sure thou wouldst make
90
An excellent elder in a deform'd church.
91
Come, we must be inward, thou and I all one.
92
PIETRO.
I am glad I was ordained for ye.
MENDOZA.
Go to, then; thou must know that Malevole is a strange villain; dangerous, very dangerous. You see how broad 'a speaks; a gross-jaw'd rogue. I would have thee poison him; he's like a corn upon my great toe ─ I cannot go for him; he must be cored out, he must. Wilt do't, ha?
PIETRO.
Anything, anything.
MENDOZA.
Heart of my life! Thus, then, to the citadel.
100
Thou shalt consort with this Malevole;
101
There being at supper, poison him. It shall be laid
102
Upon Maria, who yields love or dies.
103
Scud quick like lightning!
104
PIETRO.
Good deeds crawl, but mischief flies.
(Exit Pietro.)
(Enter Malevole.)
MALEVOLE.
Your devilship's ring has no virtue: the buff-captain, the sallow Westphalian gammon-faced zaza, cries, "Stand out! Must have a stiffer warrant, or no pass into the Castle of Comfort."
MENDOZA.
Command our sudden letter. ─ Not enter! Sha't! What place is there in Genoa but thou shalt? Into my heart, into my very heart! Come, let's love; we must love, we two, soul and body.
MALEVOLE.
How didst like the hermit? A strange hermit, sirrah.
MENDOZA.
A dangerous fellow, very perilous. He must die.
MALEVOLE.
Ay, he must die.
MENDOZA.
Thou'st kill him. We are wise; we must be wise.
MALEVOLE.
And provident.
MENDOZA.
Yea, provident. Beware an hypocrite;
119
A churchman once corrupted, O, avoid!
120
(Shoots under his belly.)
A fellow that makes religion his stalking-horse,
121
He breeds a plague. Thou shalt poison him.
122
MALEVOLE.
Ho, 'tis wondrous necessary; how?
MENDOZA.
You both go jointly to the citadel;
124
There sup, there poison him; and Maria,
125
Because she is our opposite, shall bear
126
The sad suspect ─ on which she dies or loves us.
127
MALEVOLE.
I run.
(Exit Malevole.)
MENDOZA.
We that are great, our sole self-good still moves us.
129
They shall die both, for their deserts craves more
130
Than we can recompense; their presence still
131
Imbraids our fortunes with beholdingness,
132
Which we abhor; like deed, not doer. Then conclude,
133
They live not to cry out, "Ingratitude!"
134
One stick burns t'other; steel cuts steel alone.
135
'Tis good trust few; but, O, 'tis best trust none.
136
(Exit Mendoza.)
[IV.iv]
(Enter Malevole and Pietro still disguised, at several doors.)
MALEVOLE.
How do you? How dost, duke?
PIETRO.
O, let the last day fall! Drop, drop on our cursed heads! Let heaven unclasp itself, vomit forth flames.
MALEVOLE.
O, do not rand, do not turn player. There's more of them than can well live one by another already. What, art an infidel still?
PIETRO.
I am amaz'd, struck in a swoon with wonder. I am com- manded to poison thee.
MALEVOLE.
I am commanded to poison thee at supper.
PIETRO.
At supper?
MALEVOLE.
In the citadel.
PIETRO.
In the citadel?
MALEVOLE.
Cross-capers! Tricks! Truth o' heaven! He would discharge us as boys do eldern guns, one pellet to strike out another. Of what faith art now?
PIETRO.
All is damnation, wickedness extreme. There is no faith in man.
MALEVOLE.
In none but usurers and brokers; they deceive no man. Men take 'em for bloodsuckers, and so they are! Now God deliver me from my friends!
PIETRO.
Thy friends!
MALEVOLE.
Yes, from my friends, for from mine enemies I'll deliver myself. O, cutthroat friendship is the rankest villainy! Mark this Mendoza; mark him for a villain; but heaven will send a plague upon him for a rogue.
PIETRO.
O world!
MALEVOLE.
World! 'Tis the only region of death, the greatest shop of the devil, the cruel'st prison of men, out of the which none pass without paying their dearest breath for a fee. There's nothing perfect in it but extreme, extreme calamity, such as comes yonder.
[IV.v]
(Enter Aurelia, two Halberds before and two after, supported by Celso and Ferrardo; Aurelia in base mourning attire.)
AURELIA.
To banishment! Led on to banishment!
1
PIETRO.
Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you!
2
AURELIA.
Why? why? I can desire nothing but death,
3
Nor deserve anything but hell.
4
If heaven should give sufficiency of grace
5
To clear my soul, it would make heaven graceless:
6
My sins would make the stock of mercy poor.
7
O, they would tire heaven's goodness to reclaim them!
8
Judgment is just yet from that vast villain.
9
But, sure, he shall not miss sad punishment
10
'Fore he shall rule. ─ On to my cell of shame.
11
PIETRO.
My cell 'tis, lady, where, instead of masques,
12
Music, tilts, tourneys, and such courtlike shows,
13
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds
14
Shall groan again, whilst the unquiet sea
15
Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.
16
There usherless the air comes in and out;
17
The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,
18
Whilst you behold true desolation.
19
A rocky barrenness shall pierce your eyes,
20
Where all at once one reaches where he stands,
21
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.
22
AURELIA.
It is too good. ─ Blessed spirit of my lord,
23
O, in what orb soe'er thy soul is thron'd,
24
Behold me worthily most miserable!
25
O, let the anguish of my contrite spirit
26
Entreat some reconciliation!
27
If not, O, joy, triumph in my just grief!
28
Death is the end of woes and tears' relief.
29
PIETRO.
Belike your lord not lov'd you, was unkind.
30
AURELIA.
O heaven!
31
As the soul lov'd the body, so lov'd he.
32
'Twas death to him to part my presence; heaven,
33
To see me pleased.
34
Yet I, like to a wretch given o'er to hell,
35
Brake all the sacred rites of marriage
36
To clip a base, ungentle faithless villain.
37
O God, a very pagan reprobate ─
38
What should I say? ─ ungrateful, throws me out,
39
For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honor.
40
But 'tis most fit: why should a better fate
41
Attend on any who forsake chaste sheets,
42
Fly the embrace of a devoted heart,
43
Join'd by a solemn vow 'fore God and man,
44
To taste the brackish blood of beastly lust
45
In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty!
46
Insatiate impudence of appetite!
47
Look, here's your end; for mark, what sap in dust,
48
What sin in good, even so much love in lust.
49
Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord! Pardon to me!
50
CELSO.
'Tis the duke's pleasure this night you rest in court.
51
AURELIA.
Soul, lurk in shades; run, shame, from brightsome skies,
52
In night the blind man misseth not his eyes.
53
(Exit (with Celso, Ferrardo, and Halberds).)
MALEVOLE.
Do not weep, kind cuckold; take comfort, man; thy betters have been beccos : Agamemnon, emperor of all the merry Greeks, that tickled all the true Trojans, was a cornuto ; Prince Arthur, that cut off twelve kings' beards, was a cornuto ; Hercules, whose back bore up heaven, and got forty wenches with child in one night ─
PIETRO.
Nay, 'twas fifty.
MALEVOLE.
Faith, forty's enow, o'conscience ─ yet was a cornuto . Pa- tience; mischief grows proud; be wise.
PIETRO.
Thou pinchest too deep, art too keen upon me.
MALEVOLE.
Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous sore; I'll tent thee to the ground. Thinkest I'll sustain myself by flattering thee because thou art a prince? I had rather follow a drunkard, and live by licking up his vomit, than by servile flattery.
PIETRO.
Yet great men ha' done't.
MALEVOLE.
Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a coal basket, though the common usher of princes' presence, Fortune, hath blindly given them better place. I am vowed to be thy affliction.
PIETRO.
Prithee, be; I love much misery, and be thou son to me.
(Enter Bilioso.)
MALEVOLE.
Because you are an usurping duke. ─ (To Bilioso.) Your lordship's well return'd from Florence.
BILIOSO.
Well return'd, I praise my horse.
MALEVOLE.
What news from the Florentines?
BILIOSO.
I will conceal the great duke's pleasure; only this was his charge: his pleasure is that his daughter die, Duke Pietro be banished for banishing his blood's dishonour, and that Duke Altofront be reaccepted. This is all. But I hear Duke Pietro is dead.
MALEVOLE.
Ay, and Mendoza is duke. What will you do?
BILIOSO.
Is Mendoza strongest?
MALEVOLE.
Yet he is.
BILIOSO.
Then yet I'll hold with him.
MALEVOLE.
But if that Altofront should turn straight again?
BILIOSO.
Why, then, I would turn straight again.
88
'Tis good run still with him that has most might:
89
I had rather stand with wrong than fall with right.
90
MALEVOLE.
What religion will you be of now?
BILIOSO.
Of the duke's religion, when I know what it is.
MALEVOLE.
O Hercules!
BILIOSO.
Hercules? Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.
MALEVOLE.
Your lordship is a very wittol.
BILIOSO.
Wittol?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, all-wit.
BILIOSO.
Amphitryo was a cuckold.
MALEVOLE.
Your lordship sweats; your young lady will get you a cloth for your old worship's brows. Exit Bilioso. Here's a fellow to be damned! This is his inviolable maxim: Flatter the greatest and oppress the least. A whoreson flesh-fly, that still gnaws upon the lean, gall'd backs!
PIETRO.
Why dost, then, salute him?
MALEVOLE.
I'faith, as bawds go to church ─ for fashion sake. Come, be not confounded; thou art but in danger to lose a duke- dom. Think this: this earth is the only grave and Golgotha wherein all things that live must rot; 'tis but the draught wherein the heavenly bodies discharge their corruption; the very muck hill on which the sublunary orbs cast their excrements. Man is the slime of this dung pit, and princes are the governors of these men; for, for our souls, they are as free as emperors, all of one piece; there goes but a pair of shears betwixt an emperor and the son of a bagpiper ─ only the dyeing, dressing, pressing, glossing makes the difference. Now what art thou like to lose? A jailer's office to keep men in bonds, whilst toil and treason all life's good confounds.
PIETRO.
I here renounce forever regency.
119
O Altofront, I wrong thee to supplant thy right,
120
To trip thy heels up with a devilish sleight;
121
For which I now from throne am thrown, world-tricks abjure;
122
For vengeance, though 't comes slow, yet it comes sure.
123
O, I am chang'd. For here, 'fore the dread power,
124
In true contrition I do dedicate
125
My breath to solitary holiness,
126
My lips to prayer, and my breast's care shall be
127
Restoring Altofront to regency.
128
MALEVOLE.
Thy vows are heard, and we accept thy faith.
129
(Undisguiseth himself.)
(Enter Ferneze and Celso.)
Banish amazement. Come, we four must stand
130
Full shock of Fortune. Be not so wonder-stricken.
131
PIETRO.
Doth Ferneze live?
132
FERNEZE.
For your pardon.
PIETRO.
Pardon and love. Give leave to recollect
133
My thoughts dispers'd in wild astonishment.
134
My vows stand fix'd in heaven, and from hence
135
I crave all love and pardon.
136
MALEVOLE.
Who doubts of Providence,
That sees this change? A hearty faith to all!
137
He needs must rise who can no lower fall:
138
For still impetuous vicissitude
139
Touseth the world; then let no maze intrude
140
Upon your spirits. Wonder not I rise,
141
For who can sink that close can temporize?
142
The time grows ripe for action. I'll detect
143
My privat'st plot, lest ignorance fear suspect.
144
Let's close to counsel, leave the rest to fate;
145
Mature discretion is the life of state.
146
(Exeunt.)
[V.i]
(Enter Bilioso and Passarello.)
BILIOSO.
Fool, how dost thou like my calf in a long stocking?
PASSARELLO.
An excellent calf, my lord.
BILIOSO.
This calf hath been a reveller this twenty year. When Monsieur Gundi lay here ambassador, I could have carried a lady up and down at arms' end in a platter; and I can tell you, there were those at that time who, to try the strength of a man's back and his arm, would be coister'd. I have measured calves with most of the palace, and they come nothing near me; besides, I think there be not many armors in the arsenal will fit me, especially for the headpiece. I'll tell thee ─
PASSARELLO.
What, my lord?
BILIOSO.
I can eat stew'd broth as it comes seething off the fire, or a custard as it comes reeking out of the oven; and I think there are not many lords can do it. [Displaying his pomander.] A good pomander, a little decayed in the scent, but six grains of musk, ground with rosewater, and temper'd with a little civet, shall fetch her again presently.
PASSARELLO.
O, ay, as a bawd with aqua vitae.
BILIOSO.
And, what, dost thou rail upon the ladies as thou wert wont?
PASSARELLO.
I were better roast a live cat, and might do it with more safety. I am as secret to the thieves as their painting. There's Maquerelle, oldest bawd and a perpetual beggar. Did you never hear of her trick to be known in the city?
BILIOSO.
Never.
PASSARELLO.
Why, she gets all the picture-makers to draw her picture; when they have done, she most courtly finds fault with them one after another, and never fetcheth them. They, in revenge of this, execute her in pictures as they do in Germany, and hang her in their shops. By this means is she better known to the stinkards than if she had been five times carted.
BILIOSO.
'Fore God, an excellent policy.
PASSARELLO.
Are there any revels tonight, my lord?
BILIOSO.
Yes.
PASSARELLO.
Good, my lord, give me leave to break a fellow's pate that hath abused me.
BILIOSO.
Whose pate?
PASSARELLO.
Young Ferrard, my lord.
BILIOSO.
Take heed; he's very valiant. I have known him fight eight quarrels in five days, believe it.
PASSARELLO.
O, is he so great a quarreler? Why then, he's an arrant coward.
BILIOSO.
How prove you that?
PASSARELLO.
Why, thus: he that quarrels seeks to fight; and he that seeks to fight seeks to die; and he that seeks to die seeks never to fight more; and he that will quarrel and seeks means never to answer a man more, I think he's a coward.
BILIOSO.
Thou canst prove anything.
PASSARELLO.
Anything but a rich knave, for I can flatter no man.
BILIOSO.
Well, be not drunk, good fool. I shall see you anon in the presence.
(Exeunt.)
[V.ii]
(Enter Malevole and Maquerelle, at several doors opposite, singing.)
MALEVOLE.
"The Dutchman for a drunkard," ─
MAQUERELLE.
"The Dane for golden locks," ─
MALEVOLE.
"The Irishman for usquebaug," ─
MAQUERELLE.
"The Frenchman for the ( )."
MALEVOLE.
O, thou art a blessed creature! Had I a modest woman to conceal, I would put her to thy custody; for no reasonable creature would ever suspect her to be in thy company. Ha, thou art a melodious Maquerelle, thou picture of a woman, and substance of a beast!
(Enter Passarello.)
MAQUERELLE.
O fool, will ye be ready anon to go with me to the revels? The hall will be so pester'd anon.
PASSARELLO.
Ay, as the country is with attorneys.
MALEVOLE.
What hast thou there, fool?
PASSARELLO.
Wine. I have learn'd to drink since I went with my lord ambassador. I'll drink to the health of Madam Maquerelle.
MALEVOLE.
Why, thou was wont to rail upon her.
PASSARELLO.
Ay, but since I borrow'd money of her, I'll drink to her health now, as gentlemen visit brokers, or as knights send venison to the city, either to take up more money or to procure longer forbearance.
MALEVOLE.
Give me the bowl. I drink a health to Altofront, our deposed duke.
(Drinks.)
PASSARELLO.
I'll take it. (Drinks.) So! Now I'll begin a health to Madam Maquerelle.
(Drinks.)
MALEVOLE.
Pugh! I will not pledge her.
PASSARELLO.
Why, I pleg'd your lord.
MALEVOLE.
I care not.
PASSARELLO.
Not pledge Madam Maquerelle! Why, then, will I spew up your lord again with this fool's finger.
MALEVOLE.
Hold; I'll take it.
(Drinks.)
MAQUERELLE.
Now thou hast drunk my health, fool, I am friends with thee.
PASSARELLO.
Art? art?
When Griffon saw the reconciled quean
34
Offering about his neck her arms to cast,
35
He threw off sword and heart's malignant stream,
36
And lovely her below the loins embrac'd.
37
Adieu, Madam Maquerelle.
(Exit Passarello.)
MALEVOLE.
And how dost thou think o' this transformation of state now?
MAQUERELLE.
Verily, very well; for we women always note the falling of the one is the rising of the other; some must be fat, some must be lean; some must be fools, and some must be lords; some must be knaves, and some must be officers; some must be beggars, some must be knights; some must be cuckolds, and some must be citizens. As for example, I have two court dogs, the most fawning curs, the one called Watch, th' other Catch. Now I, like lady Fortune, sometimes love this dog, sometimes raise that dog, sometimes favor Watch, most commonly fancy Catch. Now that dog which I favor I feed; and he's so ravenous that what I give he never chaws it, gulps it down whole, without any relish of what he has, but with a greedy expectation of what he shall have. The other dog now ─
MALEVOLE.
No more dog, sweet Maquerelle, no more dog. And what hope hast thou of the Duchess Maria? Will she stoop to the duke's lure? Will she come, think'st?
MAQUERELLE.
Let me see, where's the sign now? Ha' ye e'er a calendar? Where's the sign, trow you?
MALEVOLE.
Sign! Why, is there any moment in that?
MAQUERELLE.
O, believe me, a most secret power. Look ye, a Chaldean or an Assyrian, I am sure 'twas a most sweet Jew, told me, court any woman in the right sign, you shall not miss. But you must take her in the right vein then, as, when the sign is in Pisces, a fishmonger's wife is very sociable; in Cancer, a Precisian's wife is very flexible; in Capricorn, a merchant's wife hardly holds out; in Libra, a lawyer's wife is very tractable, especially if her husband be at the term; only in Scorpio 'tis very dangerous meddling. Has the duke sent any jewel, any rich stones?
(Enter Captain.)
MALEVOLE.
Ay, I think those are the best signs to take a lady in. ‒By your favor, signior, I must discourse with the Lady Maria, Altofront's duchess; I must enter for the duke.
CAPTAIN.
She here shall give you interview. I received the guardship of this citadel from the good Altofront, and for his use I'll keep't till I am of no use.
MALEVOLE.
Wilt thou? O heavens, that a Christian should be found in a buff-jerkin! Captain Conscience, I love thee, captain. We attend. (Exit Captain.) ─ And what hope hast thou of this duchess' easiness?
MAQUERELLE.
'Twill go hard. She was a cold creature ever; she hated mon- keys, fools, jesters, and gentlemen ushers extremely; she had the vile trick on't, not only to be truly modestly honor- able in her own conscience, but she would avoid the least wanton carriage that might incur suspect, as, God bless me, she had almost brought bed-pressing out of fashion. I could scarce get a fine for the lease of a lady's favor once in a fortnight.
MALEVOLE.
Now, in the name of immodesty, how many maidenheads hast thou brought to the block?
MAQUERELLE.
Let me see. Heaven forgive us our misdeeds! ─ Here's the duchess.
[V.iii]
(Enter Maria and Captain.)
MALEVOLE.
God bless thee, lady!
MARIA.
Out of thy company!
MALEVOLE.
We have brought thee tender of a husband.
MARIA.
I hope I have one already.
MAQUERELLE.
Nay, by mine honor, madam, as good ha' ne'er a husband as a banish'd husband; he's in another world now. I'll tell ye, lady, I have heard of a sect that maintained, when the husband was asleep, the wife might lawfully entertain another man, for then her husband was as dead ─ much more when he is banished!
MARIA.
Unhonest creature!
MAQUERELLE.
Pish, honesty is but an art to seem so. Pray ye, what's honesty, what's constancy, but fables feigned, odd old fools' chat, devised by jealous fools to wrong our liberty?
MALEVOLE.
Mully, he that loves thee is a duke, Mendoza. He will maintain thee royally, love thee ardently, defend thee power- fully, marry thee sumptuously, and keep thee in despite of Rosicleer or Donzel del Phoebo. There's jewels. (Gives jewels) If thou wilt, so; if not, so.
MARIA.
Captain, for God's sake, save poor wretchedness
20
From tyranny of lustful insolence!
21
Enforce me in the deepest dungeon dwell,
22
Rather than here; here round about is hell. ─
23
O my dear'st Altofront, where'er thou breathe,
24
Let my soul sink into the shades beneath,
25
Before I stain thine honor! This thou hast,
26
And, long as I can die, I will live chaste.
27
MALEVOLE.
'Gainst him that can enforce, how vain is strife!
28
MARIA.
She that can be enforc'd has ne'er a knife;
29
She that through force her limbs with lust enrolls,
30
Wants Cleopatra's asps and Portia's coals.
31
God amend you!
32
(Exit with Captain.)
MALEVOLE.
O God, how loathsome this toying is to me! That a duke should be forc'd to fool it! Well, "Stultorum plena sunt omnia" : better play the fool lord than be the fool lord.
MAQUERELLE.
Why, are ye ignorant that 'tis said a squeamish. affected niceness is natural to women, and that the excuse of their yielding is only, forsooth, the difficult obtaining? You must put her to't. Women are flax, and will fire in a moment.
MALEVOLE.
Why, was the flax put into thy mouth, and yet thou ─ thou set fire, thou inflame her?
MAQUERELLE.
Marry, but I'll tell ye now, you were too hot.
MALEVOLE.
The fitter to have inflamed the flaxwoman.
MAQUERELLE.
You were too boisterous, spleeny, for, indeed ─
MALEVOLE.
Go, go, thou art a weak pand'ress; now I see,
Sooner earth's fire heaven itself shall waste
58
Than all with heat can melt a mind that's chaste.
59
Go thou, the duke's lime-twig! I'll make the duke turn thee out of thine office. What, not get one touch of hope, and had her at such advantage!
MAQUERELLE.
Now, o' my conscience, now I think in my discretion, we did not take her in the right sign; the blood was not in the true vein, sure.
(Exit.)
(Enter Bilioso.)
BILIOSO.
Make way there! The duke returns from the enthronement. ─ Malevole ─
MALEVOLE.
Out, rogue!
BILIOSO.
Malevole ─
MALEVOLE.
"Hence, ye gross-jaw'd, peasantly ─ out, go!"
BILIOSO.
Nay, sweet Malevole, since my return, I hear you are become the thing I always prophesied would be ─ an advanced virtue, a worthily-employed faithfulness, a man o' grace, dear friend. Come; what ! "Si quoties peccant homines" ─ if as often as courtiers play the knaves, honest men should be angry ─ why, look ye, we must collogue sometimes, forswear sometimes.
MALEVOLE.
Be damn'd sometimes.
BILIOSO.
Right! "Nemo omnibus horis sapit" : No man can be honest at all hours; necessity often depraves virtue.
MALEVOLE.
I will commend thee to the duke.
BILIOSO.
Do let us be friends, man.
MALEVOLE.
And knaves, man.
BILIOSO.
Right! Let us prosper and purchase; our lordships shall live, and our knavery be forgotten.
MALEVOLE.
He that by any ways gets riches, his means never shames him.
BILIOSO.
True.
MALEVOLE.
For impudency and faithlessness are the main stays to greatness.
BILIOSO.
By the Lord, thou art a profound lad.
MALEVOLE.
By the Lord, thou art a perfect knave. Out, ye ancient damnation!
BILIOSO.
Peace, peace! And thou wilt not be a friend to me as I am a knave, be not a knave to me as I am thy friend, and disclose me. Peace! Cornets!
[V.iv]
(Enter Prepasso and Ferrardo, two Pages with lights, Celso and Equato, Mendoza in duke's robes, and Guerrino.)
MENDOZA.
On, on; leave us, leave us. Exeunt all saving Malevole (and Mendoza). Stay, where is the hermit?
MALEVOLE.
With Duke Pietro, with Duke Pietro.
MENDOZA.
Is he dead? Is he poisoned?
MALEVOLE.
Dead, as the duke is.
MENDOZA.
Good, excellent. He will not blab; secureness lives in secrecy. Come hither, come hither.
MALEVOLE.
Thou hast a certain strong villainous scent about thee my nature cannot endure.
MENDOZA.
Scent, man? What returns Maria, what answer to our suit?
MALEVOLE.
Cold, frosty; she is obstinate.
MENDOZA.
Then she's but dead; 'tis resolute, she dies.
13
Black deed only through black deed safely flies.
14
MALEVOLE.
Pugh! "Per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter."
MENDOZA.
What, art a scholar? Art a politician? Sure, thou art an arrant knave.
MALEVOLE.
Who, I? I have been twice an undersheriff, man. Well, I will go rail upon some great man, that I may purchase the bastinado, or else go marry some rich Genoan lady and instantly go travel.
MENDOZA.
Travel, when thou art married?
MALEVOLE.
Ay, 'tis your young lord's fashion to do so, though he was so lazy, being a bachelor, that he would never travel so far as the university; yet, when he married her, tails off, and ─ catzo! ─ for England!
MENDOZA.
And why for England?
MALEVOLE.
Because there is no brothel houses there.
MENDOZA.
Nor courtesans?
MALEVOLE.
Neither; your whore went down with the stews, and your punk came up with your Puritan.
MENDOZA.
Canst thou empoison? Canst thou empoison?
MALEVOLE.
Excellently; no Jew, 'pothecary, or politician better. Look ye, here's a box. Whom wouldst thou empoison? Here's a box, (giving it) which, opened and the fume taken up in conduits thorough which the brain purges itself, doth instantly for twelve hours' space bind up all show of (giving it) life in a deep senseless sleep. Here's another which, being opened under the sleeper's nose, chokes all the power of life, kills him suddenly.
MENDOZA.
I'll try experiments; 'tis good not to be deceived. ─ So, so; catzo!
(Seems to poison Malevole, (who falls).)
Who would fear that may destroy?
42
Death hath no teeth or tongue;
43
And he that's great, to him are slaves
44
Shame, murder, fame, and wrong. ─
45
Celso!
(Enter Celso.)
CELSO.
My honored lord?
MENDOZA.
The good Malevole, that plain-tongued man, alas, is dead on sudden, wondrous strangely! He held in our esteem good place. Celso, see him buried, see him buried.
CELSO.
I shall observe ye.
MENDOZA.
And, Celso, prithee, let it be thy care tonight
52
To have some pretty show, to solemnize
53
Our high installment ─ some music, masquery.
54
We'll give fair entertain unto Maria,
55
The duchess to the banish'd Altofront.
56
Thou shalt conduct her from the citadel
57
Unto the palace. Think on some masquery.
58
CELSO.
Of what shape, sweet lord?
MENDOZA.
Why shape? Why, any quick-done fiction,
60
As some brave spirits of the Genoan dukes
61
To come out of Elysium, forsooth,
62
Led in by Mercury, to gratulate
63
Our happy fortune; some such anything,
64
Some far-fet trick, good for ladies, some stale toy
65
Or other, no matter, so't be of our devising.
66
Do thou prepare't; 'tis but for fashion sake.
67
Fear not; it shall be grac'd, man; it shall take.
68
CELSO.
All service.
MENDOZA.
All thanks; our hand shall not be close to thee; farewell. ─
70
Now is my treachery secure, nor can we fall.
71
Mischief that prospers, men do virtue call.
72
I'll trust no man; he that by tricks gets wreaths
73
Keeps them with steel; no man securely breathes
74
Out of deserved ranks; the crowd will mutter, "Fool!"
75
Who cannot bear with spite, he cannot rule.
76
The chiefest secret for a man of state
77
Is to live senseless of a strengthless hate.
78
(Exit Mendoza.)
MALEVOLE.
(starts up and speaks). Death of the damn'd thief! I'll make one i' the masque; thou shalt ha' some brave spirits of the antique dukes!
CELSO.
My lord, what strange delusion?
MALEVOLE.
Most happy, dear Celso, poison'd with an empty box! I'll give thee all anon. My lady comes to court; there is a whirl of fate comes tumbling on; the castle's captain stands for me, the people pray for me, and the great Leader of the just stands for me. Then courage, Celso! For no disastrous chance can ever move him That leaveth nothing but a God above him.
(Exeunt.)
[V.v]
(Enter Prepasso and Bilioso, two Pages before them; Maquerelle, Biancha, and Emilia.)
BILIOSO.
Make room there, room for the ladies! Why, gentlemen, will not ye suffer the ladies to be enter'd in the great chamber? Why, gallants! And you, sir, to drop your torch where the beauties must sit too.
PREPASSO.
And there's a great fellow plays the knave; why dost not strike him?
BILIOSO.
Let him play the knave o' God's name; think'st thou I have no more wit than to strike a great fellow? ─ The music! More lights! Revelling-scaffolds! Do you hear? Let there be oaths enow ready at the door; swear out the devil himself. Let's leave the ladies and go see if the lords be ready for them.
(All save the Ladies depart.)
MAQUERELLE.
And, by my troth, beauties, why do you not put you into the fashion? This is a stale cut; you must come in fashion. Look ye, you must be all felt, felt and feather, a felt upon your bare hair. Look ye, these tiring things are justly out of request now. And, do ye hear, you must wear falling bands, you must come into the falling fashion; there is such a deal o' pinning these ruffs, when the fine clean fall is worth all; and again, if you should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling band requires no poting stick to recover his form. Believe me, no fashion to the falling, I say.
BIANCHA.
And is not Signior St. Andrew a gallant fellow now?
MAQUERELLE.
By my maidenhead, la, honour and he agrees as well together as a satin suit and woollen stockings.
EMILIA.
But is not Marshall Make-room, my servant in reversion, a proper gentleman?
MAQUERELLE.
Yes, in reversion, as he had his office; as, in truth, he hath all things in reversion: he has his mistress in reversion, his clothes in reversion, his wit in reversion, and, indeed, is a suitor to me for my dog in reversion. But, in good verity, la, he is as proper a gentleman in reversion as ─ and, indeed, as fine a man as may be, having a red beard and a pair of warp'd legs.
BIANCHA.
But i'faith, I am most monstrously in love with Count Quidlibet-in-Quodlibet. Is he not a pretty, dapper, unidle gallant?
MAQUERELLE.
He is even one of the most busy-fingered lords; he will put the beauties to the squeak most hideously.
(Re-enter Bilioso.)
BILIOSO.
Room! Make a lane there! The duke is ent'ring. Stand handsomely, for beauty's sake; take up the ladies there! So, cornets, cornets!
[V.vi]
(Enter Prepasso, joins to Bilioso; two Pages and lights, Ferrardo, Mendoza. At the other door, two Pages with lights, and the Captain leading in Maria. The Duke meets Maria and closeth with her; the rest fall back.)
MENDOZA.
Madam, with gentle ear receive my suit;
1
A kingdom's safety should o'erpoise slight rites;
2
Marriage is merely nature's policy.
3
Then since, unless our royal beds be join'd,
4
Danger and civil tumult frights the state,
5
Be wise as you are fair, give way to fate.
6
MARIA.
What wouldst thou, thou affliction to our house?
7
Thou ever devil, 'twas thou that banishedst
8
My truly noble lord.
9
MENDOZA.
I!
10
MARIA.
Ay, by thy plots, by thy black stratagems.
11
Twelve moons have suffer'd change since I beheld
12
The loved presence of my dearest lord.
13
O thou far worse than Death! He parts but soul
14
From a weak body; but thou soul from soul
15
Disseverest, that which God's own hand did knit;
16
Thou scant of honor, full of devilish wit!
17
MENDOZA.
We'll check your too intemperate lavishness.
18
I can and will!
19
MARIA.
What canst?
20
MENDOZA.
Go to; in banishment thy husband dies.
21
MARIA.
He ever is at home that's ever wise.
22
MENDOZA.
You'st never meet more; reason should love control.
23
MARIA.
Not meet!
24
She that dear loves, her love's still in her soul.
25
MENDOZA.
You are but a woman, lady; you must yield.
26
MARIA.
O, save me, thou innated bashfulness,
27
Thou only ornament of woman's modesty!
28
MENDOZA.
Modesty! Death, I'll torment thee.
29
MARIA.
Do, urge all torments, all afflictions try;
30
I'll die my lord's as long as I can die.
31
MENDOZA.
Thou obstinate, thou shalt die. ─ Captain, that lady's life
32
Is forfeited to justice. We have examined her,
33
And we do find she hath empoisoned
34
The reverend hermit; therefore, we command
35
Severest custody. ─ Nay, if you'll do's no good,
36
You'st do's no harm. A tyrant's peace is blood.
37
MARIA.
O, thou art merciful! O gracious devil,
38
Rather by much let me condemned be
39
For seeming murder than be damn'd for thee!
40
I'll mourn no more; come, girt my brows with flowers;
41
Revel and dance, soul, now thy wish thou hast;
42
Die like a bride; poor heart, thou shalt die chaste.
43
(Enter Aurelia in mourning habit.)
AURELIA.
"Life is a frost of cold felicity,
44
And death the thaw of all our vanity."
45
Was't not an honest priest that wrote so?
46
MENDOZA.
Who let her in?
47
BILIOSO.
Forbear!
PREPASSO.
Forbear!
AURELIA.
Alas, calamity is everywhere.
48
Sad misery, despite your double doors,
49
Will enter even in court.
50
BILIOSO.
Peace!
51
AURELIA.
I ha' done. One word ─ take heed! I ha' done.
52
(Enter Mercury with loud music.)
MERCURY.
Cyllenian Mercury, the god of ghosts,
53
From gloomy shades that spread the lower coasts,
54
Calls four high-famed Genoan dukes to come
55
And make this presence their Elysium,
56
To pass away this high triumphal night
57
With song and dances, court's more soft delight.
58
AURELIA.
Are you god of ghosts? I have a suit depending in hell betwixt me and my conscience; I would fain have thee help me to an advocate.
BILIOSO.
Mercury shall be your lawyer, lady.
AURELIA.
Nay, faith, Mercury has too good a face to be a right lawyer.
PREPASSO.
Peace, forbear! Mercury presents the masque.
(Cornets: The song to the cornets, which playing, the masque enters; Malevole, Pietro, Ferneze, and Celso in white robes, with duke's crowns upon laurel wreaths, pistolets and short swords under their robes.)
MENDOZA.
Celso, Celso, court Maria for our love.
66
─ Lady, be gracious, yet grace.
67
(Malevole takes his Wife to dance.)
MARIA.
With me, sir?
68
MALEVOLE.
Yes, more loved than my breath;
With you I'll dance.
69
MARIA.
Why, then, you dance with death.
But, come, sir, I was ne'er more apt to mirth.
70
Death gives eternity a glorious breath;
71
O, to die honor'd, who would fear to die?
72
MALEVOLE.
They die in fear who live in villainy.
73
MENDOZA.
Yes, believe him, lady, and be rul'd by him.
74
PIETRO.
Madam, with me?
75
(Pietro takes his wife Aurelia to dance.)
AURELIA.
Wouldst then be miserable?
PIETRO.
I need not wish.
76
AURELIA.
O, yet forbear my hand! Away, fly, fly!
77
O, seek not her that only seeks to die!
78
PIETRO.
Poor loved soul!
79
AURELIA.
What, wouldst court misery?
PIETRO.
Yes.
80
AURELIA.
She'll come too soon. ─ O my griev'd heart!
PIETRO.
Lady, ha' done, ha' done.
81
Come, let's dance; be once from sorrow free.
82
AURELIA.
Art a sad man?
83
PIETRO.
Yes, sweet.
AURELIA.
Then we'll agree.
(Ferneze takes Maquerelle; and Celso, Biancha; then the cornets sound the measure, one change and rest.)
FERNEZE.
(to Biancha). Believe it, lady: shall I swear? Let me enjoy you in private, and I'll marry you, by my soul.
BIANCHA.
I had rather you would swear by your body; I think that would prove the more regarded oath with you.
FERNEZE.
I'll swear by them both, to please you.
BIANCHA.
O, damn them not both to please me, for God's sake!
FERNEZE.
Faith, sweet creature, let me enjoy you tonight, and I'll marry you tomorrow fortnight, by my troth, la.
MAQUERELLE.
On his troth, la! Believe him not; that kind of cony-catching is as stale as Sir Oliver Anchovy's perfum'd jerkin. Promise of matrimony by a young gallant, to bring a virgin lady into a fool's paradise, make her a great woman, and then cast her off ─ 'tis as common, as natural to a courtier, as jealousy to a citizen, gluttony to a Puritan, wisdom to an alderman, pride to a tailor, or an empty hand basket to one of these sixpenny damnations. Of his troth, la! Believe him not; traps to catch polecats!
MALEVOLE.
(to Maria). Keep your face constant; let no sudden passion
101
Speak in your eyes.
102
(Reveals himself.)
MARIA.
O my Altofront!
PIETRO.
(to Aurelia). A tyrant's jealousies
Are very nimble; you receive it all.
103
(Reveals himself.)
AURELIA.
(Aurelia to Pietro). My heart, though not my knees, doth humbly fall low as the earth, to thee.
PIETRO.
Peace! Next change; no words.
MARIA.
Speech to such, ay, O, what will affords!
(Cornets sound the measure over again; which danced, they unmask.)
MENDOZA.
Malevole!
(They environ Mendoza, bending their pistols on him)
MALEVOLE.
No!
MENDOZA.
Altofront! Duke Pietro! Ferneze! Ha!
ALL.
Duke Altofront! Duke Altofront!
(Cornets, a flourish.)
MENDOZA.
Are we surpris'd? What strange delusions mock
112
Our senses? Do I dream? or have I dreamt
113
This two days' space? Where am I?
114
(They seize upon Mendoza.)
MALEVOLE.
Where an archvillain is.
115
MENDOZA.
O, lend me breath till I am fit to die!
116
For peace with heaven, for your own souls' sake,
117
Vouchsafe me life!
118
PIETRO.
Ignoble villain, whom neither heaven nor hell,
119
Goodness of God or man, could once make good!
120
MALEVOLE.
Base, treacherous wretch, what grace canst thou expect,
121
That hast grown impudent in gracelessness?
122
MENDOZA.
O, life!
123
MALEVOLE.
Slave, take thy life.
124
Wert thou defensed, through blood and wounds,
125
The sternest horror of a civil fight
126
Would I achieve thee: but, prostrate at my feet
127
I scorn to hurt thee: 'Tis the heart of slaves
128
That deigns to triumph over peasants' graves;
129
For such thou art, since birth doth ne'er enroll
130
A man 'mong monarchs, but a glorious soul.
131
O, I have seen strange accidents of state!
132
The flatterer, like the ivy, clip the oak
133
And waste it to the heart; lust so confirm'd
134
That the black act of sin itself not sham'd
135
To be term'd courtship.
136
O, they that are as great as be their sins,
137
Let them remember that th' inconstant people
138
Love many princes merely for their faces
139
And outward shows; and they do covet more
140
To have a sight of these than of their virtues.
141
Yet thus much let the great ones still conceive:
142
When they observe not heaven's impos'd conditions,
143
They are no kings, but forfeit their commissions.
144
MAQUERELLE.
O good my lord, I have lived in the court this twenty year; they that have been old courtiers and come to live in the city, they are spited at and thrust to the walls like apricocks, good my lord.
BILIOSO.
My lord, I did know your lordship in this disguise; you heard me ever say, if Altofront did return, I would stand for him. Besides, 'twas your lordship's pleasure to call me wittol and cuckold; you must not think, but that I knew you, I would have put it up so patiently.
MALEVOLE.
(To Pietro and Aurelia.) You o'erjoyed spirits, wipe your long-wet, eyes.
154
Hence with this man! (Kicks out Mendoza.) An eagle takes not flies. ─
155
(To Pietro and Aurelia.) You to your vows. ─ (To Maquerelle.) And thou unto the suburbs. ─
156
(To Bilioso.) You to my worst friend I would hardly give:
157
Thou art a perfect old knave. ─ (To Celso and the Captain.) All-pleased, live
158
You two unto my breast. (To Maria.) ─ Thou to my heart.
159
The rest of idle actors idly part;
160
And as for me, I here assume my right,
161
To which I hope all's pleas'd. To all, good night.
162
(Cornets, a flourish. Exeunt omnes.)
FINIS
Epilogus
Your modest silence, full of heedy stillness,
1
Makes me thus speak: a voluntary illness
2
Is merely senseless; but unwilling error,
3
Such as proceeds from too rash youthful fervor,
4
May well be call'd a fault, but not a sin.
5
Rivers take names from founts where they begin .
6
Then let not too severe an eye peruse
7
The slighter brakes of our reformed Muse,
8
Who could herself herself of faults detect,
9
But that she knows 'tis easy to correct,
10
Though some men's labor. Troth, to err is fit,
11
As long as wisdom's not profess'd, but wit.
12
Then till another's happier Muse appears,
13
Till his Thalia feast your learned ears,
14
To whose desertful lamps pleas'd Fates impart
15
Art above Nature, Judgment above Art .
16
Receive this piece, which hope nor fear yet daunteth:
17
He that knows most, knows most how much he wanteth .
18
FINIS