The White Devil

Texto utilizado para esta edición digital:
Webster, John. The White Devil. Edited by Elizabeth M. Brennan. London: Benn, 1966. The New Mermaids.

Marcación digital para Artelope:

Soler Sasera, Eva (Artelope)
Soler Sánchez, Victoria (Artelope)

Nota a la edición digital

Reproduced by kind permission of The New Mermaid series and the editor.

Dramatis personae

MONTICELSO, a Cardinal; afterwards Pope PAUL IV

FRANCISCO DE MEDICIS, Duke of Florence; in the fifth act disguised for a Moor, under the name of MULINASSAR

BRACHIANO, otherwise PAULO GIORDANO URSINI, Duke of Brachiano; husband to Isabella and in love with Vittoria

GIOVANNI, his son, by Isabella

LODOVICO or LODOWICK, an Italian Count, but decayed

ANTONELLI

GASPARO

CAMILLO

HORTENSIO, one of Brachiano’s officers

MARCELLO, and attendant of the Duke of Florence, and brother to Vittoria

FLAMINEO, his brother; secretary to Brachiano

CARDINAL OF ARRAGON

DOCTOR JULIO, a conjuror

CHRISTOPHERO, his assistant

GUID-ANTONIO

FERENZE

JAQUES, a Moor, servant to Giovanni

ISABELLA, sister to Francisco de Medicis, and wife to Brachiano

VITTORIA COROMBONA, a Venetian lady, first married to Camillo, afterwards to Brachiano

CORNELIA, mother to Vittoria, Flamineo and Marcello

ZANCHE, a Moor; servant to Vittoria

MATRONA, of the House of Convertites

AMBASSADORS

PHYSICIANS

COURTIERS

LAWYERS

OFFICERS

ATTENDANTS

CHANCELLOR

REGISTRER

PAGE

ARMOURER

CONJUROR

To the reader

TO THE READER
In publishing this tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty, which other men have tane before me; not that I affect praise by it, for no haec novimus esse nihil, only since it was acted, in so dull a time of winter, presented in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory: come to that playhouse, resemble those ignorant asses (who visiting stationers’ shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books) I present it to the general view with this confidence:
Nec thoncos metues, maligniorum,
Nec sombris tunicas, dabis molestas.
If it be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I shall easily confess it, -non potes it nugas dicere plura meas: ipse ego quam dixi,- willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted: for should a man presten to such an auditory, the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person; enrich it with the sententious Chorus, and as it were liften death, in the passionate and weighty Nuntius: yet after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia, the breath that comes from the
uncapable multitude is able to poison it, and ere it be acted, let
the author resolve to fix every scene, this of Horace,
---- Haec hodie porcis comenda relinques.
To those who report I was a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confess I do not write with a goose-quill, winged with two feathers, and it they will needs make it my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to Alcestides, a tragic writer: Alcestides objecting that Euripides had only in three days composed three verses, whereas himself had written three hundred: ‘Thou tell’st truth’, quoth he, ‘but here’s the difference: thine shall only be read for three days, whereas
mine shall continue three ages.’ Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance. For mine own part I have ever truly cherish’d my good opinion of other men’s worthy labours, especially of that full and height’ned style of Master Chapman, the labour’d and understanding
works of Master Jonson: the no less worthy compostures of
the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont, and Master Fletcher: and lasty (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light: protesting, that, in the strength of mine own judgement, I know them so worthy, that thought I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial:
---- non morunt, haec monumenta mori.

[Act I, Scene i]

Enter Count LODOVICO, ANTONELLI and GASPARO

LODOVICO

Banish’d?

ANTONELLI

It griev’d me much to hear the sentence.

LODOVICO

Ha, ha, O Democritus thy gods

That govern the whole world! Fortune’s a right whore.

If she gives ought, she deals it in small parcels.

That she may take away all at one swoop.

This ‘tis to have great enemies, God quite them:

Your wolf no longer seems to be a wolf

That when she’s hungry.

GASPARO

Are men of princely rank

LODOVICO

Oh I pray for them.

The violent thunder is adored by those

Are pash’d in pieces by it.

ANTONELLI

You are justly doom’d; look but a little back

Into yout former life: you have in three years

Ruin’d the noblest cardiom –

GASPARO

Your followers

Have swallowed you like mummia, and being sick

With such unnatural and horrid physic

Vomit you up I’th’ kennel –

ANTONELLI

All the damnable degrees

Of drinkings have you stagger’d through; one citizen

Is lord of two fair manors, call’d you master

Only for caviare.

GASPARO

Those noblemen

Which were invited to your prodigal feasts,

Wherein the phoenix scarce could scape your throats,

Laugh at your misery, as fore deeming you

An idle meteor which drawn forth the earth

Would be soon lost I’th’air.

ANTONELLI

Jest upon you,

And say you were begotten in an earthquake,

You have ruin’d such fair lordships.

LODOVICO

Very good,

This well goes with two buckets, I must tend

The pouring out of either.

GASPARO

Worse than these,

You have acted certain murders here in Rome,

Bloody and full of horror.

LODOVICO

‘Las they were flea-bitings:

Why took they not my head then?

GASPARO

O my lord

The law doth sometimes mediate, thinks it good

Not ever to steep violent sins in blood;

This gentle penance may both en your crimes,

And in the example better these bad times.

LODOVICO

So; but I wonder then some great men scape

This banishment; there’s Paulo Giordano Orsini,

The Duke of Brachiano, now lives in Rome,

And by close panderism seeks to prostitute

The honour of Vittoria Corombona:

Vittoria, she that might have got my pardon

For one kiss to the Duke.

ANTONELLI

Have a full man within you.

We see that trees bear no such pleasant fruit

There where they grew first, as where they are new set.

Perfumes the more they are chaf’d the more they render

Their pleasing scents, and so affliction

Expresseth virtue, fully, whether true,

Or else adulterate.

LODOVICO

Leave your painted conforts.

I’ll make Italian cut-works in their guts

If ever I return.

GASPARO

O sir.

LODOVICO

I am patient.

I have seen some ready to be executed

Give pleasant looks, and money, and grown familiar

With the knave hangman; so do I, I thank them,

And would account them nobly merciful

Would they dispatch me quickly.

ANTONELLI

Fare you well,

We shall find time I doubt not, to repeal

[A sennet sounds.]

Your banishment.

LODOVICO

I am ever bound to you;

This is the world’s alms; pray make use of it:

Great men sell sheep, thus to be cut in pieces,

When first they have shorn them bare and sold their fleeces.

Exeunt

[Act I, Scene ii]

Enter BRACHIANO, CAMILLO, FLAMINEO, VITTORIA, CORMBONA [and ATTENDANTS]

BRACHIANO

Your best of rest.

VITTORIA

Unto my lord the Duke,

The best of welcome. More lights, attend the Duke.

[Exeunt VITTORIA and CAMILLO]

BRACHIANO

Flamineo.

FLAMINEO

My lord.

BRACHIANO

Quite lost Flamineo.

FLAMINEO

Pursue your noble wishes. I am promt

As lightning to your service, O my lord!

(whispers)

The fair Vittoria, my happy sister

Shall give you present audience. Gentelmen

Let the caroche go on, and ‘tis his pleasure

You put out all your torches and depart.

[Exeunt ATTENDANTS]

BRACHIANO

Are we so happy?

FLAMINEO

Can’t be otherwise?

Observ’d you not tonight my honour’d lord,

Wich way so e’er you went she threw her eyes?

I have dealt already with her chamber-maid

Zanche the Moor, and she is wondrous proud

To be the agent for so high a spirit.

BRACHIANO

We are happy above thought, because ‘bove merit.

FLAMINEO

‘Bove merit! We may now talk freely: ‘bove merit; what is’t

you doubt? Her coyness? That’s but the superficies of lust

most women have; yet why should ladies blush to hear that

nam’d, which they do not fear to handle? O they are politic!

They know our desire is increas’d by the difficulty of

enjoying; whereas satiety is a blunt, weary and drowsy

passion; if the buttery-hatch at court stood continually

open there would be nothing so passionate crowding, nor

hot suit after the brevage,—

BRACHIANO

O but her jealous husband.

FLAMINEO

Hang him, a gilder that hath his brains perish’d with

Quicksilver is not more cold in the liver. The great barriers

moulted not more feathers than he hath shed hairs, by the

confession of his doctor. An Irish gamester that will play

himself nacked, and then wage all downward, at hazard, is

not more venturous. So unable to please a woman that

like a Dutch doublet all his back is shrunk into his breeches.

Shroud you within this closet, good my lord;

Some trick now must be thought in to divide

My brother-in-law from his fair bed-fellow.

BRACHIANO

O should she fail to come, —

FLAMINEO

I must not have your lordship thus unwisely amorous; I

myself have loved a lady and pursued her with a great deal

of under-age protestation, whom some 3 or 4 gallants that

have been rid of. ‘Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a

garden: the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption

for fear they shall never get out. Away, away my lord,

Enter CAMILLO

See, here he comes.

[Exit BRACHIANO;]

[FLAMINEO speaks aside to this fellow by his apparel.]

Some men would judge a politician,

But call his wit in question you shall find it

[To CAMILLO]

How now, brother,

Merely an ass in’s foot-cloth.

What, travelling to bed to your kind wife?

CAMILLO

I assure you brother, no. My voyage lies

More northerly, in a far colder clime;

I do not well remember, I protest,

When I last lay with her.

FLAMINEO

Strange you should lose your count.

CAMILLO

We never lay together bur ere morning

There grew a flaw between us.

FLAMINEO

‘T had been your part

To have made up that flaw.

CAMILLO

True, but she loathes

I should be seen in’t.

FLAMINEO

Why sir, what’s the matter?

CAMILLO

The Duke your master visits me, I thank him,

And I perceive how like an earnest bowler

He very passionately leans that way,

He should have his bowl run.

FLAMINEO

I hope you do not think —

CAMILLO

That noblemen bowl booty? ‘Faith his cheek

Hath a most excellent bias; it would fain

Jump with my mistress.

FLAMINEO

Will you be an ass

Despite your Aristotle or a cuckold

Contrary to your ephemerides

Wich shows you under what a smiling planet

You were first swaddled?

CAMILLO

Per wew, sir tell not me

Of planets nor of ephemerides.

A man may be made cuckold in the day-time

When the stars’ eyes are out.

FLAMINEO

Sir God boy you,

I do commit you to your pitiful pillow

Stuff’d with horn-shavings.

CAMILLO

Brother?

FLAMINEO

God refuse me,

Might I advise you now your only course

Were to lock up your wife.

CAMILLO

‘Twere very good.

FLAMINEO

Bar her the sight of revels.

CAMILLO

Excellent.

FLAMINEO

Let her not go to church, but like a hound

In leon at your heels.

CAMILLO

‘Twere for her honour.

FLAMINEO

And so you should be certain in one fortnight,

Despite her chastity or innocence

To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense:

This is my counsel and I ask no fee for’t.

CAMILLO

Come, you know not where my nightcap wrings me.

FLAMINEO

Wear it o’th’ old fashion, let your large ears come through, it will be more easy; nay, I will be bitter; bar your wife of her entertainment: women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste, when they are least restrained of their liberty. It seems you would be a fine capricious mathematically jealous coxcomb, take the height of your own horns with a Jacob’s staff afore they are up. These politic enclosures for paltry mutton makes more rebellion in the flesh than all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered since last Jubilee.

CAMILLO

This does not physic me.

FLAMINEO

It seems you are jealous. I’ll show you the error of it by a familiar example: I have seen a pair of spectacles fashion’d with such perspective art, that lay down but one twelve pence o’th’ board, ‘twill appear as if there were twenty; now should you wear a pair of these spectacles, and see your wife tying her shoe, you would imagine twenty hands were taking up of your wife’s clothes, and this would put you into a horrible causeless fury.

CAMILLO

The fault there sir is not in the eyesight—

FLAMINEO

Enter [VITTORIA] COROMBONA True, but they that have the yellow jaundice, think all objects they look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worser, her fits present to a man, like so many bubbles in a basin of water, twenty several crabbed faces; many times majes his own shadow his cuckold-maker. [aside to VITTORIA] my lord attends you in the banqueting-house your husband is wondrous discontented.
See she comes; what reason have you to be jealous of this creature? What an ignorant ass or flattering knave might he be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida, or ivory of Cornith, or compare her hair to the blackbird’s bill, when ‘tis liker the black- bird’s feather. This is all. Be wise; I will make you, it shall not be your seeking, do you stand upon that by any means; walk you aloof, I would not have you seen in’t. Sister,

VITTORIA

I did nothing to displease him, I carved to him at supper-time.

FLAMINEO

[aside to VITTORIA] You need not have carved him in faith, they say he is a capon already. I must now seemingly fall out with you. –Shall a gentleman so well descended as Camillo- a lousy slave that within this twenty years rode with the black-guard in the Duke’s carriage ‘mongst spits and dripping-pans,—

CAMILLO

Now he benigs to tickle her.

FLAMINEO

An excellent scholar, -one that hath a head fill’d with calves’ brains without any sage in them,-come crouching in the hams to you for a night’s lodging-that hath an itch in’s hams, which like the fire at the glass-house hath not gone out this seven years.-Is he not a courtly gentleman?- When he wears white stain one would take him by his black muzzle to be no other creature than a maggot.-You are a goodly foil, I confess, well set out-but cover’d with a false stone yon counterfeit diamond.

CAMILLO

He will make her know what is in me.

FLAMINEO

Come, my lord attends you; thou shalt go to bed to my lord.

CAMILLO

Now he comes to’t.

FLAMINEO

With a relish as curious as a vintner going to taste new wine. [To CAMILLO] I am opening you case hard.

CAMILLO

A virtuous brother, o’ my credit.

FLAMINEO

He will give thee a ring with a philosopher’s stone in it.

CAMILLO

Indeed I am studying alchemy.

FLAMINEO

Thou shalt lie in a bed stuff’d with turtles’ feathers, swoon in perfumed linen like the fellow was smothered in roses; so perfect shall be thy happiness, that as men at sea think land and trees and ships go that way they go, so both heaven and earth shall seem to go your voyage. Shalt meet him, ‘tis fix’d, with nails of diamonds to inevitable necessity.

VITTORIA

[aside to FLAMINEO] How shall’s rid him hence?

FLAMINEO

I will put breese in’s tail, set him gadding presently. [To CAMILLO] I have almost wrought her to it, I find her coming, but might I advise you now for this night I would not lie with her; I would cross her humour to make her more humble.

CAMILLO

Shall I? Shall I?

FLAMINEO

It will show in you a supremacy of judgement.

CAMILLO

True, and a mind differing from the tumultuary opinion, for quae negate grata.

FLAMINEO

Right: you are the adamant shall draw her to you, though you keep distance off.

CAMILLO

A philosophical reason.

FLAMINEO

Walk by her o’ the nobleman’s fashion, and tell her you will lie with her at the end of the progress.

CAMILLO

Vittoria, I cannot be induc’d or as a man would say incited—

VITTORIA

To do what sir?

CAMILLO

To lie with you tonight; your silkworm useth to fast everythird day, and the next following spins the better. Tomorrow at night I am for you.

VITTORIA

You’ll spin a fair thread, trust to’t.

FLAMINEO

But do you hear, I shall have you steal to her chamber about midnight.

CAMILLO

Do you think so? Why look you brother, because you shall not think I’ll gull you, take the key, lock me into the chamber, and say you shall be sure of me.

FLAMINEO

115

In troth I will, I’ll be your jailer once;

But have you ne’er a false door?

CAMILLO

A pox on’t, as I am a Christian tell me tomorrow how scurvily she takes my unkink parting.

FLAMINEO

I will.

CAMILLO

Didst thou not mark the jest of the silkworm?

120

Good night: in faith I will use this trick often, —

Exit CAMILLO

FLAMINEO

Do , do, do.

So now you are safe. Ha ha ha, thou entanglest thyself

Enter BRACHIANO

in thine own work like a silkworm.

Come sister, darkness hides your blush; women are like

125

curs’d dogs, civility keeps tied all daytime, but they

are let loose at midnight; then they do most good or most

mischief. My lord, my lord.

BRACHIANO

Give credit: I could wish time would stand still

And never end this interview, this hour,

130

But all delight doth itself soon’st devour

ZANCHE brings out a carpet, spreads it and lays on it two fair cushions. Enter CORELLA [listening, behind].

Let me into your bosom happy lady,

Pour out instead of eloquence my vows;

Loose me not madam, for it you forgo me

I am lost eternally.

VITTORIA

Sir in the way of pity

135

I wish you heart-whole.

BRACHIANO

You are a sweet physician.

VITTORIA

Sure sir a loathed cruelty in ladies

Is as to doctors many funerals.

It takes away their credit.

BRACHIANO

Excellent creature.

We call the cruel fair, what name for you

140

That are so merciful?

[Embraces her]

ZANCHE

See now they close.

FLAMINEO

Most happy union.

CORNELIA

[aside]

My fears are fall’n upon me, oh my heart!

My son the pander: now I find our house

Sinking to ruin. Earthquakes leave behind,

Where they have tyrannized, iron or lead, or stone,

145

But, woe to ruin! Violent lust leaves none.

BRACHIANO

What value is this jewel?

VITTORIA

'Tis the ornament

Of a weak fortune.

BRACHIANO

In sooth I'll have it; nay I will but change

My jewel for your jewel.

FLAMINEO

Excellent,

150

His jewel for her jewel; well put in Duke.

BRACHIANO

Nay let me see you wear it.

VITTORIA

Here sir.

BRACHIANO

Nay lower, you shall wear my jewel lower.

FLAMINEO

That's better; she must wear his jewel lower.

VITTORIA

To pass away the time I'll tell your grace

155

A dream I had last night.

BRACHIANO

Most wishedly.

VITTORIA

A foolish idle dream:

Methought I walk'd about the mid of night,

Into a church-yard, where a goodly yew-tree

Spread her large root in ground; under that yew,

160

As I sat sadly leaning on a grave,

Checkered with cross-sticks, there came stealling in

Your Duchess and my husband; one of them

A pick-axe bore, th'other a rusty spade,

And in rough terms they gan to challenge me,

165

About this yew.

BRACHIANO

That tree.

VITTORIA

This harmless yew.

They told me my intent was to root up

That well-grown yew, and plant i'th' stead of it

A withered blackthorn, and for that they vow'd

To bury me alive: my husband straigh

170

With pick-axe gan to dig, and your fell Duchess

With shovel, like a fury, voided out

The earth and scattered bones. Lord how methought

I trembled, and yet for all this terror

I could not pray.

FLAMINEO

No the devil was in your dream.

VITTORIA

175

When to my rescue there arose me thought

A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm

From that strong plant,

And both were struck dead by that scared yew

In that base shallow grave that was their due.

FLAMINEO

180

Excellent devil.

She hath taught him in a dream

To make away his Duchess and her husband.

BRACHIANO

Sweetly shall I interpret this your dream.

You are lodged within his arms who shall protect you,

185

From all the fevers of a jealous husband,

From the poor envy of our phlegmatic Duchess;

I'll seat you above law and above scandal,

Give to your thoughts the invention of delight

And the fruition; nor shall government

190

Divide me from you longer than a care

To keep you great: you shall to me at once

Be dukedom, health, wife, children friends and all.

CORNELIA

[approaching them]

Woe to light hearts, they still forerun our fall.

FLAMINEO

What fury rais'd thee up? Away, away!

Exit ZANCHE

CORNELIA

195

What make you here my lord this dead of night?

Never dropp'd mildew on a flower here,

Till now.

FLAMINEO

I pray you go to bed then,

Lest you be blasted?

CORNELIA

O that this fair garden,

Had with all poison'd herbs of Thessaly,

200

At first been planted, made a nursery

For wichcraft; rather than a burial plot

For both your honours.

VITTORIA

Dearest mother hear me.

CORNELIA

O thou dost make my brow bend to the earth,

Sooner than nature; see the curse of children:

205

In life they keep us frequently in tears,

And in the cold grave leave us in pale fears.

BRACHIANO

Come, come , I will not hear you.

VITTORIA

Dear my lord.

CORNELIA

Where is thy Duchess now adulterous Duke?

Thou little dream'd'st this night she is come to Rome.

FLAMINEO

210

How? Come to Rome, —

VITTORIA

The Duchess, —

BRACHIANO

She had been better,—

CORNELIA

The lives of princes should like dials move,

Whose regular example is so strong,

They make the times by them go right or wrong.

FLAMINEO

So, have you done?

CORNELLIA

Unfortunate Camillo.

VITTORIA

215

I do protest if any chaste denial,

If anything but blood could have allayed

His long suit to me —

CORNELLIA

I will join with thee,

To the most woeful end e'er mother kneel'd,

If thou dishonour thus thy husband's bed,

220

Be thy life short as are the funeral tears

In great men's.

BRACHIANO

Fie, fie, the woman's mad.

CORNELIA

Be thy act Judas-like, betray in kissing;

May'st thou be envied during his short breath,

And pitied like a wretch after his death.

VITTORIA

225

O me accurs'd.

Exit VITTORIA

FLAMINEO

Are you out of your wits, my lord?

I'll fetch her back again.

BRACHIANO

No I'll to bed.

Send Doctor Julio to me presently.

Uncharitable woman, thy rash tongue

Hath rais'd a fearful and prodigious storm,

230

Be thou the cause of all ensuing harm.

Exit BRACHIANO

FLAMINEO

Now, you that stand so much upon your honour,

Is this a fitting time o' night think you,

To send a duke home without e'er a man?

I would fain know where lies the mass of wealth

235

Which you have hoarded for my maintenance,

That I may bear my beard out of the level

Of my lord's stirrup.

CORNELIA

What? Because we are poor

Shall we be vicious?

FLAMINEO

Pray what means have you

To keep me from the galleys, or the gallows?

240

My father prov'd himself a gentleman,

Sold all's land, and like a fortunate fellow,

Died ere the money was spent. You brought me up,

At Padua I confess, where, I protest,

For want of means, (the university judge me,)

245

I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings

At least seven years. Conspiring with a beard

Made me a graduate, then to this Duke's service;

I visited the court, whence I return'd —

More courteous, more lecherous by far,

250

But not a suit the richer; and shall I,

Having a path so open and so free

To my preferment, still retain your milk

In my pale forehead? No, this face of mine

I'll arm and fortify with lusty wine

255

'Gainst shame and blushing.

CORNELIA

O that I ne'er had borne thee, —

FLAMINEO

So would I.

I would the common'st courtezan in Rome

Had been my mother rather than thyself.

Nature is very pitiful to whores

260

To give them but few children, yet those children

Plurality of fathers; they are sure

They shall not want. Go, go,

Complain unto my great lord cardinal,

Yet may be he will justify the act.

265

Lycurgus wond'red much men would provide

Good stallions for their mares, and yet would suffer

Their fair wives to be barren, —

CORNELIA

Misery of miseries.

Exit CORNELIA

FLAMINEO

The Duchess come to court? I like not that;

We are engag'd to mischief and must on.

270

As rivers to find out the ocean

Flow with crook bendings beneath forced banks,

Or as we see, to aspire some mountain's top

The way ascends not straight, but imitates

The subtle foldings of a winter's snake,

275

So who knows policy and her true aspect,

Shall find her ways winding and indirect.

Exit

[Act II, Scene i]

Enter FRANCISCO DE MEDICI, Cardinal MONTICELSO, MARCELLO, ISABELLA, young GIOVANNI, with little JAQUES the Moor

FRANCISCO

Have you not seen your husband since you arrived?

ISABELLA

Not yet sir.

FRANCISCO

Surely he is wondrous kind.

If I had such a dove house as Camillo's

I would set fire on't, were't but to destroy

The pole-cats that haunt to't, - my sweet cousin.

GIOVANNI

Lord uncle you did promise me a horse

And armour.

FRANCISCO

That I did my pretty cousin.

Marcello see it fitted.

MARCELLO

My lord, the Duke is here.

FRANCISCO

Sister away, you must not yet be seen.

ISABELLA

I do beseech you

Entreat him mildly, let not your rough tongue

Set us at louder variance; all my wrongs

Are freely pardoned, and I do not doubt

As men to try the precious unicorn's horn

Make of the powder a preservative circle

And in it put a spider, so these arms

Shall charm his poison, force it to obeying

And keep him chaste from an infected straying.

FRANCISCO

I wish I may. Be gone.

Exit [ISABELLA]

Enter BRACHIANO and FLAMINEO

Void the chamber.

[Exeunt FLAMINEO, MARCELLO, GIOVANNI and JAQUES]

You are welcome, will you sit? I pray my lord

Be you my orator, my heart's too full;

I'll second you anon.

MONTICELSO

Ere I begin

Let me entreat your Grace forgo all passion

Which may be raised by my free discourse.

BRACHIANO

As silent as i'th' church – you may proceed

MONTICELSO

It is a wonder to your noble friends,

That you that have as 'twere ent'red the world,

With a free sceptre in your able hand,

And have to th'use of nature well applied

High gifts of learning, should in your prime age

Neglect your awful throne, for the soft down

Of an insatiate bed. Oh my lord,

The drunkard after all his lavish cups,

Is dry, and then is sober; so at length,

When you awake from this lascivious dream,

Repentance then will follow; like the sting

Plac'd in the adder's tail: wretched are princes

When fortune blasteth but a petty flower

Of their unwiedly crowns; or ravisheth

But one pearl from their sceptre: but alas!

When they to wilful shipreck loose good frame

All princely titles perish with their name.

BRACHIANO

You have said my lord, –

MONTICELSO

Enough to give you taste

How far I am from flattering your greatness?

BRACHIANO

Now you that are his second, what say you?

Do not like young hawks fetch a course about;

Your game flies fair and for you, –

FRANCISCO

Do not fear it:

I'll answer you in your own hawking phrase.

Some eagles that should gaze upon the sun

Seldom soar high, but take their lustful ease

Since they from dunghill birds their prey can seize.

You know Vittoria?

BRACHIANO

Yes.

FRANCISCO

You shift your shirt there

When you retire from tennis.

BRACHIANO

Happily.

FRANCISCO

Her husband is lord of a poor fortune

Yet she wears cloth of tissue, –

BRACHIANO

What of this?

Will you urge that my good lord cardinal

As part of her confession at next shrift,

And know from whence it sails?

FRANCISCO

She is your strumpet, –

BRACHIANO

Uncivil sir there's hemlock in thy breath

And that black slander; were she a whore of mine

All thy loud cannons, and thy borrowed Switzers

Thy galleys, nor thy sworn confederates

Durst not supplant her.

FRANCISCO

Let's not talk on thunder.

Thou hast a wife, our sister; would I had given

Both her white hands to death, bound and lock'd fast

In her last winding-sheet, when I gave thee

But one.

BRACHIANO

Thou hadst given a soul to God then.

FRANCISCO

True:

Thy ghostly father with all's absolution,

Shall ne'er do so by thee.

BRACHIANO

Spit thy poison, –

FRANCISCO

I shall not need, lust carries her sharp whip

At her own girdle; look to't for our anger

Is making thunder-bolts.

BRACHIANO

Thunder? in faith,

They are but crackers.

FRANCISCO

We'll end this with the cannon.

BRACHIANO

Thou'lt get nought by it but iron in thy wounds,

And gunpowder in thy nostrils.

FRANCISCO

Better that

Than change perfumes for plasters, –

BRACHIANO

Pity on thee,

'Twere good you'ld show your slaves or men condemn'd

Your new-plough'd forehead. Defiance!-and I'll meet thee,

Even in a thicket of thy ablest men.

MONTICELSO

My lords, you shall not word it any further

Without a milder limit.

FRANCISCO

Willingly.

BRACHIANO

Have you proclaimed a triumph that you bait

A lion thus?

MONTICELSO

My lord.

BRACHIANO

I am tame sir.

FRANCISCO

We send unto the Duke for conference

'Bout levies 'gainst the pirates; my lord Duke

Is not at home; we come ourself in person,

Still my lord Duke is busied; but we fear

Discovers flocks of wild ducks, then my lord

('Bout moulting time I mean,) we shall be certain

To find you sure enough and speak with you.

BRACHIANO

Ha?

FRANCISCO

A mere tale of a tub, my words are idle,

But to express the sonnet by natural reason,

When stags grow melancholic you'll find the season –

Enter GIOVANNI

MONTICELSO

No more my lord; here comes a champion,

Shall end the difference between you both,

Your son the prince Giovanni. See my lords

What hopes you store in him; this is a casket

For both your crowns, and should be held like clear:

Now is he apt for knowledge; therefore know

100

It is a more direct and even way

To train to virtue those of princely blood

By examples than by precepts: if by examples

Whom should he rather strive to imitate

Than his own father? Be his pattern then,

105

Leave him a stock of virtue that may last,

Should fortune rend his sails, and split his mast.

BRACHIANO

Your hand boy-growing to a soldier?

GIOVANI

Give me a pike.

FRANCISCO

What, practising your pike so young, fair coz?

GIOVANNI

Suppose me one of Homer's frogs, my lord,

110

Tossing my bullrush thus. Pray sir tell me

Might not a child of good discretion

Be leader to an army?

FRANCISCO

Yes cousin, a young prince

Of good discretion might.

GIOVANNI

Say you so?

Indeed I have head 'tis fit a general

115

Should not endanger his own person oft,

So that he make a noise, when he's horseback

Like a Dansk drummer. O 'tis excellent!

He need not fight; methinks his horse as well

Might lead an army for him; if I live

120

I'll challenge the French foe, in the very front

Of all my troops, the foremost man.

FRANCISCO

What, what, –

GIOVANNI

And will not bid my soldiers up and follow

But bid them follow me.

BRACHIANO

Forward lapwing.

He files with the shell on's head.

FRANCISCO

Pretty cousin.

GIOVANNI

125

The first year uncle that I go to war

All prisoners that I take I will set free

Without their ransome.

FRANCISCO

Ha, without their ransome?

That took those prisoners for you?

GIOVANNI

Thus my lord:

I'll marry them to all the wealthy windows

130

That falls that year.

FRANCISCO

Why then the next year following

You'll have no men to go with you to war.

GIOVANNI

Why then I'll press the women to the war,

And then the men will follow.

MONTICELSO

Witty prince.

FRANCISCO

See a good habit makes a child a man,

135

Whereas a bad one makes a man a beast:

Come, you and I are friends.

BRACHIANO

Most wishedly;

Like bones which broke in sunder and well set

Knit the more strongly.

FRANCISCO

[calls offstage]

Call Camillo hither.

You have received the rumour, how Count Lodowick

140

Is turn'd a pirate?

BRACHIANO

Yes.

FRANCISCO

We are now preparing

Some ships to fetch him in.

[Enter ISABELLA]

Behold your Duchess;

We now will leave you and expect from you

Nothing but kind entreaty.

BRACHIANO

You have charm'd me.

Exeunt FR[ANCISCO], MON[TICELSO], GIOV[ANNI]

145

You are in health we see.

ISABELLA

And above health

To see my lord well.

BRACHIANO

So I wonder much,

What amorous whirlwind hurried you to Rome –

ISABELLA

Devotion my lord.

BRACHIANO

Devotion?

Is your soul charg'd with a grievous sin?

ISABELLA

150

'Tis burdened with too many, and I think

The oft'ner that we cast our reck'nings up,

Our sleeps will be the sounder.

BRACHIANO

Take your chamber.

ISABELLA

Nay my dear lord, I will not have you angry;

Doth not my absence from you two months

155

Merit one kiss?

BRACHIANO

I do not use to kiss.

If that will dispossess your jealousy,

I'll swear it to you.

ISABELLA

O my loved lord,

I do not come to chide; my jealousy?

I am to learn what that Italian means;

160

You are as welcome to these longing arms,

As I to you a virgin.

[She tries to embrace him; he turns away]

BRACHIANO

O your breath!

Out upon sweetmeats, and continued physic!

The plague is in them.

ISABELLA

You have oft for these two lips

Neglected cassia or the natural sweets

165

Of the spring violet; they are not yet much withered.

My lord I should be merry; these your frowns

Show in a helmet lovely, but on me,

In such a peaceful interview methinks

They are too roughly knit.

BRACHIANO

O dissemblance!

170

Do you bandy factions 'ganst me? Have you learnt

The trick of imprudent baseness to complain

Unto your kindred?

ISABELLA

Never my dear lord.

BRACHIANO

Must I be haunted out, or was't your trick

To meet some amorous gallant here ir Rome

175

That must supply our discontinuance?

ISABELLA

I pray sir burst my heart, and in my death

Turn to your ancient pity, though not love.

BRACHIANO

Beacuse your brother is the corpulent Duke,

That is the great Duke, -'Sdeath I shall not shortly

180

Racket away five hundred crowns at tennis,

But it shall rest upon record. I scorn him

Like a shav'd Polack; all his reverent wit

Lies in his wardrobe; he's a discreet fellow

When he's made up in his robes of state, –

185

Your brother the great Duke, because h'as galleys,

And now and then ransacks a Turkish fly-boat,

(Now all the hellish Furies take his soul,)

First made this match, -accursed be the priest

That sang the wedding mass, and even my issue.

ISABELLA

190

O too, too far you have curs'd.

BRACHIANO

Your hand I'll kiss:

This is the latest ceremony of my love,

Henceforth I'll never lie with thee, by this,

This wedding ring: I'll ne'er more lie with thee.

And this divorce shall be as truly kept,

195

A if the judge had doom'd it: fare you well,

Our sleeps are sever'd.

ISABELLA

Forbid it the sweet union

Of all things blessed; why the saints in heaven

Will knit their brows at that.

BRACHIANO

Let not thy love

Shall never on my soul be satisfied

200

With my repentance: let thy brother rage

Beyond a horrid tempest or sea-fight,

My vow is fixed.

ISABELLA

O my winding sheet,

Now shall I need thee shortly. Dear my lord,

Let me hear once more what I would not hear:

Never?

BRACHIANO

Never!

ISABELLA

205

O my unkind lord may your sins find mercy,

As I upon a woeful widowed bed

Shall pray for you, if not to turn your eyes

Upon your wretched wife, and hope son,

Yet that in time you'll fix them upon heaven.

BRACHIANO

210

No more; go, go complain to the great Duke.

ISABELLA

No my dear lord, you shall have present witness

How I'll work peace between you; I will make

Myself the author of your cursed vow.

I have some cause to do it, you have none;

215

Conceal it I beseech you, for the weal

Of both your dukedoms, that you wrought the means

Of such a separation; let the fault

Remain with my supposed jealousy,

And think with what a piteous and rent heart

220

I shall perform this sad ensuing part.

Enter FRANCISCO, FLAMINEO, MONTICELSO; MARCELLO

BRACHIANO

Well, take your course; my honourable brother!

FRANCISCO

Sister! -this is not well my lord,- why sister!

She merits not this welcome.

BRACHIANO

Welcome, say?

She hath given a sharp welcome.

FRANCISCO

Are you foolish?

225

Come dry your tears; is this a modest course?

To better what is nought, to rail, and weep?

Grow to a reconcilement, or by heaven,

I'll ne'er more deal between you.

ISABELLA

Sir you shall not,

No though Vittoria upon that condition

230

Would become honest.

FRANCISCO

Was your husband loud,

Since we departed?

ISABELLA

By my life sir no.

I swear by that I do not care to lose.

Are all these ruins of my former beauty

Laid out for a whore's triumph?

FRANCISCO

Do you hear?

235

Look upon other women, with what patience

They suffer these slight wrongs, with what justice

They study to requite them; take that course.

ISABELLA

O that I were a man, or that I had power

To execute my apprehended wishes,

240

I would whip some with scorpions.

FRANCISCO

What? turn'd fury?

ISABELLA

To dig the strumpet's eyes out, let her lie

Some twenty months a-dying, to cut off

Her nose and lips, pull out her rotten teeth,

Preserve her flesh like mummia, for trophies

245

Of my just anger. Hell to my affliction

Is mere snow-water: by your favour sir, –

Brother draw near, and my lord cardinal, –

Sir let me borrow of you but one kiss,

Henceforth I'll never lie with you, by this,

250

This wedding-ring.

FRANCISCO

How? Ne'er more lie with him?

And this divorce shall be as truly kept,

As if in thronged court, a thousand ears

Had heard it, and a thousand lawyers' hands

Seal'd to the separation.

BRACHIANO

Ne'er lie with me?

ISABELLA

Let not my former dotage

255

Make thee an unbeliever; this my vow

Shall never on my soul be satisfied

With my repentance: manet alta mente repostum.

FRANCISCO

Was this your circle of pure unicorn's horn,

You said should charm your lord? Now horn upon thee,

260

For jealousy deserves them; keep your vow,

And take your chamber.

ISABELLA

No sir I'll presently to Padua,

I will not stay a minute.

MONTICELSO

O good madam.

BRACHIANO

'Twere best to let her have her humour,

Some half-day's journey will bring down her stomach,

265

And then she'll turn in post.

FRANCISCO

To see her come

To my lord cardinal for a dispensation

Of her rash vow will beget excellent laughter.

ISABELLA

Unkindness do thy office, poor hear break,

Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.

Exit

Enter CAMILLO

MARCELLO

270

Camillo's come my lord.

FRANCISCO

Where's the commission?

MARCELLO

'Tis here.

FRANCISCO

Give me the signet.

FLAMINEO

[to BRACHIANO] My lord do you mark their whispering; I will compound a medicine out of their two heads, stronger than garlic, deadlier than stibium; the cantharides which are scarce seen to stick upon the flesh when they work to the heart, shall not do it with more silence or invisible cunning.

Enter Doctor [JULIO]

BRACHIANO

About the murder.

FLAMINEO

They are sending him to Naples, but I'll send him to Candy; here's another property too.

BRACHIANO

O the doctor, –

FLAMINEO

A poor quack-salving knave, my lord, one that should have been lash'd for's lechery, but that he confess'd a judgement, had an execution laid upon him, and so put the whip to a non plus.

DOCTOR

And was cozen'd, my lord, by an arranter knave than myself, and made pay all the colourable execution.

FLAMINEO

He will shoot pills into a man's guts, shall make them have more ventages than a cornet or a lamprey; he will poison a kiss, and was once minded, for his masterpiece, because Ireland breeds no poison, to have prepared a deadly vapour in a Spaniard's fart that should have posion'd all Dublin.

BRACHIANO

O Saint Anthony's fire!

DOCTOR

Your secretary in merry my lord.

FLAMINEO

O thou cursed antipathy to nature! Look his eye's bloodshed like a needle a chirurgeon stitcheth a wound with. Let me embrace thee toad, and love thee, O thou abhominable loathsome gargarism, that will fetch up lungs, lights, heart, and liver by scrupules.

BRACHIANO

No more; I must employ thee honest doctor,

You must to Padua and by the way,

Use some of your skill for us.

DOCTOR

Sir I shall.

BRACHIANO

285

But for Camillo?

FLAMINEO

He dies this night by such a politic strain,

Men shall suppose him by's own engine slain.

But for your Duchess' death?

DOCTOR

I'll make her sure.

BRACHIANO

Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.

FLAMINEO

290

Remember this you slave; when knaves come to preferment

they rise as gallowses are raised i'th' Low Countries: one

upon another's shoulders .

Exeunt [BRACHIANO, FLAMINEO and Doctor JULIO]

MONTICELSO

Here is an emblem nephew, pray persuse it.

'Twas thrown in at your window, –

CAMILLO

At my window?

295

Here ir a stag my lord hath shed his horns,

And fot the loss of them the poor beast weeps.

The word Inopem me copia fecit.

MONTICELSO

That is:

Plenty of horns hath made him poor of horns.

CAMILLO

What should this mean?

MONTICELSO

I'll tell you: 'tis given out

300

You are a cuckold.

CAMILLO

Is it given out so?

I had rather such report as that my lord,

Should keep within doors.

FRANCISCO

You are the happier:

I'll tell you a tale.

CAMILLO

Pray my lord.

FRANCISCO

An old tale.

Upon a time Phoebus the god of light,

305

Or him we call the sun, would need be married.

The goods gave their consent, and Mercury

Was sent to voice it to the general world.

But what a piteous cry there straight arose

Amongst smiths, and feltmakers, brewers and cooks,

310

Reapers and butter-women, amongst fishmongers

And thousand other trades, which are annoyed

By his excessive heat; 'twas lamentable.

They came to Jupiter all in a sweat

And do forbid the bans; a great fat cook

315

Was made their speaker, who entreats of Jove

That Phoebus might be gelded, for if now

When there was but one sun, so many men

Were like to perish by his violent heat,

What should they do if he were married

320

And should beget more, and those children

Make fireworks like their father? So say I,

Only I will apply it to your wife:

Her issue, should not providence prevent it,

Would make both nature, time, and man repent it.

MONTICELSO

325

Look you cousin,

Go change the air for shame; see if your absence

Will blast your cornucopia; Marcello

Is chosen with you joint commissioner

For the relieving our Italian coast

330

From pirates.

MARCELLO

I am much honour'd in't.

CAMILLO

But sir

Ere I return the stag's horns may be sprouted,

Greater than these are shed.

MONTICELSO

Do not fear it,

I'll be your ranger.

CAMILLO

You must watch i'th' nights,

Then's the most danger.

FRANCISCO

Farewell good Marcello.

335

All the best fortunes of a soldier's wish

Bring you o' ship-board.

CAMILLO

Were I not best now I am turn'd soldier,

Ere than I leave my wife, sell all she hath

And then take leave of her.

MONTICELSO

I expect good from you,

340

Your parting is so merry.

CAMILLO

Merry my lord, o'th' capitain's humour right;

I am resolved to be drunk this night.

Exit [CAMILLO; with MARCELLO]

FRANCISCO

So, 'twas well fitted: now shall we discern

How his wish'd absence will give violent way

345

To Duke Brachiano's lust, –

MONTICELSO

Why that was it;

To what scorn'd purpose else should we make choice

Of him for a sea-capiain, and besides,

Count Lodowick which was rumour'd for a pirate,

Is now in Padua.

FRANCISCO

It's true?

MONTICELSO

Most certain.

350

I have letters from him, which are suppliant

To work his quick repeal from banishment;

He means to address himself for pension

Unto our sister Duchess.

FRANCISCO

O'twas well.

We shall not want his absence past six days;

355

I fain would have the Duke Brachiano run

Into notorious scandal, for there's nought

In such curs'd dotage, to repair his name,

Only the deep sense of some deathless shame.

MONTICELSO

It may be objected I am dishonourable,

360

To play thus with my kinsman, but I answer,

For my revenge I'd stake a brother's life,

That being wrong'd durst not avenge himself.

FRANCISCO

Come to observe this stumpet.

MONTICELSO

Curse of greatness,

Sure he'll not leave her.

FRANCISCO

There's small pity in't.

365

Like mistletoe on sere elms spent by weather,

Let him cleave to her and both rot together.

Exeunt

[Act II, Scene ii]

Enter BRACHIANO with one in the habit of a Conjuror

BRACHIANO

Now sir I claim your promise; 'tis dead midnight,

The time prefix'd to show me by your art

How the intended murder of Camillo,

And our loathed Duchess grow to action.

CONJUROR

You have won me by your bounty to a deed

I do not often practise; some there are,

Which by sophistic tricks, aspire that name

Which I would glady lose, of nigromancer;

As some that use to juggle upon cards,

Seeming to conjure, when indeed they cheat;

Others that raise up their confederate spirits,

'Bout windmills, and endanger their own necks,

For making of a squib; and some there are

Will keep a curtal to show juggling tricks

And give out 'tis a spirit: and some there are

Will keep a curtal to show juggling tricks

And give out 'tis a spirit: besides these

Such a whole ream of almanac-makers, figure-flingers,

Fellows indeed that only live by stealth,

Since they do merely lie about stol'n goods,

They'd make men think the devil were fast an loose,

With speaking fustian Latin. Pray sit down,

Put on this night-cap sir, 'tis charm'd, and now

I'll show you by my strong-commanding art

The circumstance that breaks your Duchess' heart.

A DUMB SHOW

Enter suspiciously, JULIO and CHRISTOPHERO; they draw a curtain where BRACHIANO's picture is, they put in spectacles of glass which cover their eyes and noses, and then burn perfumes afore the picture, and wash the lips of the picture; that done, quenching the fire, and putting off their spectacles off their depart laughing.

Enter ISABELLA in her nightgown as to bedward, with lights after her, Count LODOVICO, GIOVANNI, GUID-ANTONIO and others waiting on her; she kneels down as to prayers, then draws the curtain of the picture, does three reverences to it, and kisses thrice, she faints and will not suffer them to come near it, dies; sorrow express'd in GIOVANNI and in Count LODOVICO; she's convey'd out solemny.

BRACHIANO

Excellent, then she's dead, –

CONJUROR

She's poisoned,

By the fum'd picture: 'twas her custom nightly,

Before she went to bed, to go and visit

Your picture, and to fed her eyes and lips

On the dead shadow; Doctor Julio

Observing this, infects it with an oil

And other poison’d stuff, which presently

Did suffocate her spirits.

BRACHIANO

Methought I saw

Count Lodowick there.

CONJUROR

He was, and by my art

I find he did most passionately dote

Upon your Duchess. Now turn another way,

And view Camillo’s far more politic fate:

Strike louder music from this charmed ground,

To yield, as fits the act, a tragic sound.

THE SECOND DUMB SHOW

Enter FLAMINEO, MARCELLO, CAMILLO with four more as Capitains, they drink healths and dance; a vaulting-horse is brought into the room, MARCELLO and two more whisper’d out of the room, while FLAMINEO and CAMILLO strip themselves into their shirts, as to vault; compliment who shall begin, as CAMILLO is about to vault, FLAMINEO pitcheth him upon his neck, and with the help of the rest, writhes his neck about, seems to see if it be broke, and lays him folded double as ‘twere under the horse, makes shows to call for help, MARCELLO comes in, laments, sends for the Cardinal and Duke, who comes forth with armed men, wonder at the act; commands the body to be carried home, apprehends FLAMINEO, MARCELLO, and the rest, and go as ‘twere to apprehend VITTORIA.

BRACHIANO

‘Twas quaintly done, but yet each circumstance

I taste not fully.

CONJUROR

O ‘twas most apparent,

You saw them enter charged with their deep healths

To their boon voyage, and to second that,

Flamineo calls to have a valuating-horse

Maintain their sport. The virtuous Marcello

Is innocently plotted forth the room,

Whilst your eye saw the rest, and can inform you

The engine of all.

BRACHIANO

It seems Marcello, and Flamineo

Are both committed.

CONJUROR

Yes, you saw them guarded,

And now they are come with purpose to apprehend

Your mistress, fair Vittoria; we are now

Beneath her roof: ‘twere fit we instantly

Make your eye saw the rest, and can inform you

The engine of all.

Make out by some back postern.

BRACHIANO

Noble friend,

You bind me ever to you; this shall stand

As the firm seal annexed to my hand

It shall enforce a payment.

Exit BRACHIANO

CONJUROR

Sir I thank you.

Both flowers and weeds spring when the sun is warm,

As great men do great good, or else great harm.

Exit CONJUROR

[Act III, Scene i]

Enter FRANCISCO, and MONTICELSO, their CHANCELLOR and REGISTER

FRANCISCO

You have dealt discreetly to obtain the presence

Of all the grave lieger ambassadors

To hear Vittoria’s trial.

MONTICELSO

‘Twas not ill,

For sir you know we have nought but circumstances

To charge her with, about her husband’s death;

Their approbation therefore to the proofs

Of her black lust, shall make her infamous

To all our neighbouring kingdoms. I wonder

If Brachiano will be here.

FRANCISCO

O fie,

‘Twere impudence too palpable.

[Exeunt]

Enter FLAMINEO and MARCELLO guarded, and a LAWYER

LAWYER

What, are you in by the week? So -I will not try now whether thy wit be close prisoner: methinks none should sit upon thy sister but old whore-masters, —

FLAMINEO

Or cuckholds, for your cuckhold is your most terrible tickler of lechery: whore-masters would serve, for none are judges at tilting, but those that have been old tilters.

LAWYER

My lord Duke and she have been very private.

FLAMINEO

Your are a dull ass; ‘tis threat’ned they have been very Public.

LAWYER

If it can be proved they have but kiss’d one another.

FLAMINEO

What then?

LAWYER

My lord cardinal will ferret them, —

FLAMINEO

A cardinal I hope will not catch conies.

LAWYER

For to sow kisses (mark what I say), to sow kisses, is to reap lechery, and I am sure a woman that will endure kissing is half won.

FLAMINEO

True, her upper part by that rule; if you will win her nether

ErrorMetrica

part too, you know what follows.

LAWYER

Hark, the ambassadors are lighted, —

FLAMINEO

[aside]

I do put on this feigned garb of mirth

To gull suspicion.

MARCELLO

O my unfortunate sister!

I would my dagger’s point had cleft her hearth

When she first saw Brachiano. You ‘tis said,

Were made his engine, and his stalking-horse

To undo my sister.

FLAMINEO

I made a kind of path

To her and mine own preferment.

MARCELLO

Your ruin.

FLAMINEO

Hum! Thou art a soldier,

Followest the great Duke, feedest his victories,

As witches do their serviceable spirits,

Even with thy prodigal blood; what hast got?

But like the wealth of capitains, a poor handful,

Which in thy palm thou bear’st, as men hold water;

Seeking to gripe it fast, the frail reward

Steals throught thy fingers.

MARCELLO

Sir, —

FLAMINEO

Thou hast scarce maintenance

To keep thee in fresh chamois.

MARCELLO

Brother!

FLAMINEO

Hear me, —

And thus when we have even poured ourselves

Into great fights, for their ambition

Or idle spleen, how shall we find reward,

But as we seldom find the mistletoe

Sacred to physic on the builder oak

Without a mandrake by it, so in our quest of gain.

Alas the poorest of their forc’d dislikes

At a limb proffers, but at hearth it strikes:

This is lamented doctrine.

MARCELLO

Come, come.

FLAMINEO

When age shall turn thee

White as a blooming hawthorn, —

MARCELLO

I’ll interrupt you.

For love of virtue bear an honest hearth,

And stride over every politic respect,

Which where they most advance they most infect.

Were I your father, as I am your brother,

I should not be ambitious to leave you

A better patrimony.

Enter Savoy [Ambassador]

FLAMINEO

I’ll think on’t, —

The lord ambassadors.

Here there is a passage of the lieger Ambassadors over the stage severally. Enter French Ambassador.

LAWYER

O my sprightly Frenchman, do you know him? He’s an admirable tilter.

FLAMINEO

I saw him at last tilting; he showed like a pewter candle-stick fashioned like a man in armour, holding a tilting staff in his hand, little bigger than a candle of twelve i’th’ pound.

LAWYER

O but he’s an excellent horseman.

FLAMINEO

A lame one in his lofty tricks; he sleeps o’ horseback like a poulter, —

Enter English and Spanish [Ambassadors]

LAWYER

Lo you my Spaniard.

FLAMINEO

Exeunt He carries his face in’s ruff, as I have seen a serving-man carry glasses in a cypress hat-band, monstrous steady for fear of breaking. He looks like the claw of a blackbird, first salted and then broiled in a candle.

[Act III, Scene ii]

THE ARRAINGMENT OF VITTORIA

Enter FRANCISCO, MONTICELSO, the six lieger Ambassadors, BRACHIANO, VITTORIA, [ZANCHE, FLAMINEO, MARCELLO,] LAWYER, and a guard

MONTICELSO

Forbear my lord, here is no place assign’d you,

The business by his holiness is left

To our examination.

BRACHIANO

May it thrive with you!

Lays a rich gown under him

FRANCISCO

A chair there for his lordship.

BRACHIANO

Forbear your kindness; and unbidden guest

Should travel as Dutch women go to church;

Bear their stools with them.

MONTICELSO

At your pleasure sir.

Stand to the table gentlewomen. Now signior

Fall to your plea.

LAWYER

Domine Judex converte oculos in hanc pestem mulierum

ErrorMetrica

corruptissimam.

VITTORIA

What's he?

FRANCISCO

A lowyer, that pleads against you.

VITTORIA

Pray my lord, let him speak his usual tongue.

I'll make no answer else.

FRANCISCO

Why you understand Latin.

VITTORIA

I do sir, but amongst this auditory

Which come to hear my cause, the half or more

May be ignorant in't.

MONTICELSO

Go on sir.

VITTORIA

By your favour,

I will not have my accusation clouded

In a strange tongue: all this assembly

Shall hear what you can charge me with.

FRANCISCO

Signior,

You need not stand on't much; pray change your language.

MONTICELSO

Oh for God sake: gentlewoman, your credit

Shall be more famous by it.

LAWYER

Well then have at you.

VITTORIA

I am at the mark sir, I'll gice aim to you,

And tell you how near you shoot.

LAWYER

Most literated judges, please your lordships,

So to connive your judgements to the view

Of this debauch'd and diversivolent woman

Who such a black concatenation

Of mischief hath effected, that to extirp

The memory of't, must be the consummation

Of her and her projections –

VITTORIA

What's all this? –

LAWYER

Hold your peace.

Exorbitant sins must have exulceration.

VITTORIA

Surely my lords this lawyer here hath swallowed

Some pothecary's bills, or proclamations.

And now the hard and undigestible words

Come up like stones we use give hawks for physic.

Why this is Welsh to Latin.

LAWYER

My lords, the woman

Knows not her tropes nor figures, nor is perfect

In the academy derivation

Of grammatical elocution.

FRANCISCO

Sir your pains

Shall be well spared, and your deep eloquence

Be worthily applauded amongst those

Which understand you.

LAWYER

My good lord.

FRANCISCO

speaks this in a scorn

Sir,

Put up your papers in your fustian bag, –

Cry mercy sir, 'tis buckram, -and acept

My notion of your learn'd verbosity.

LAWYER

I most graduatically thank your lordship.

I shall have use for them elsewhere.

[Exit]

MONTICELSO

I shall be plainer with you, and paint out

Your follies in more natural red and white

Than that upon your cheek.

VITTORIA

O you mistake.

You raise a blood as noble in this cheek

As ever was your mother's

MONTICELSO

I must spare you till proof cry whore to that;

Observe this creature here my honoured lords,

A woman of a most prodigious spirit

In her effected.

VITTORIA

Honourable my lord,

It doth not suit a reverend cardinal

To play the lawyer thus –

MONTICELSO

Oh your trade instructs your language!

You see my lords what goodly fruit she seems,

Yet like those apples travellers report

To grow where Sodom and Gomorrah stood

I will but touch her and you straight shall see

She'll fall to soot and ashes.

VITTORIA

Your envenom'd

Pothecary should do't –

MONTICELSO

I am resolved

Were there a second paradise to lose

This devil would betray it.

VITTORIA

O poor charity!

Thou art seldom found in scarlet.

MONTICELSO

Who knows not how, when several night by night

Her gates were chok'd with coaches, and her rooms

Outbrav'd the stars with several kind of lights

When she did conterfeit a prince's court?

In music, banquets and most riotous surfeits

This whore, forsooth, was holy.

VITTORIA

Ha? Whore? What's that?

MONTICELSO

Shall I expound whore to you? Sure I shall:

I'll give their perfect character. They are first

Sweetmeats which rot the eater: in man's nostril

Poison'd perfumes. They are coz'ning alchemy,

Shipwracks in calmest weather! What are whores?

Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren,

They are the true material fire of hell,

Worse than those tributes i'th' Low Countries paid,

Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep;

Ay even on man's perdition, his sin.

They are those brittle evidences of law

Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate

For leaving out one syllable. What are whores?

They are those flattering bells have all one tune,

At weddings, and at funerals: your rich whores

Are only treasuries by extortion fill'd,

And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse,

Worse than dead bodies, which are begg'd at gallows

And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man

Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore?

She's like the guilty counterfeited coin

Which whosoe'er first stamps it brings in trouble

100

All that receive it –

VITTORIA

This character scapes me.

MONTICELSO

You gentlewoman?

Take from all beasts, and from all minerals

They deadly poison.

VITTORIA

Well what then?

MONTICELSO

I'll tell thee.

I'll find in thee a pothecary's shop

105

To sample them all.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR

She hath liv'd ill.

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

True, but the cardinal's too bitter.

MONTICELSO

You know what whore is; next the devil, Adult'ry,

Enters the devil, Murder.

FRANCISCO

Your unhappy

Husband is dead.

VITTORIA

O he's a happy husband

110

Now he owes nature nothing.

FRANCISCO

And by a vaulting engine.

MONTICELSO

An active plot.

He jump'd into his grave.

FRANCISCO

What a prodigy was't,

That form some two yards' height a slender man

Should break his neck?

MONTICELSO

I'th'rushes.

FRANCISCO

And what's more,

115

Upon the instant lose all use of speech,

All vital motion, like a man had lain

Wound up three days. Now mark each circumstance.

MONTICELSO

And look upon this creature was his wife.

She comes not like a widow: she comes arm'd

120

With scorn and impudence. Is this a mourning habit?

VITTORIA

Had I foreknown his death as you suggest,

I would have bespoke my mourning.

MONTICELSO

O you are cunning.

VITTORIA

You shame your wit and judgement

To call it so. What, is my just defence

125

By him that is my judge call'd impudence?

Let me appeal then from this Christian court

To the uncivil Tartar.

MONTICELSO

See my lords,

She scandals our proceedings.

VITTORIA

Humbly thus,

Thus low, to the most worthy and respected

130

Lieger ambassadors, my modesty

And womanhood I tender; but withal

So entangled in a cursed accusation

That my defence of force like Perseus,

Must personate masculine virtue to the point.

135

Find me but guilty, sever head from body:

We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life

At yours or any man's entreaty, sir.

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

She hath a brave spirit –

MONTICELSO

Well, well, such counterfeit jewels

Make true ones oft suspected.

VITTORIA

You are deceived.

140

For know that all your strict-combined heads,

Which strike against this mine of diamonds,

Shall prove but glassen hammers, they shall break;

These are but feigned shadows of my evils.

Terryfy babes, my lord, with painted devils,

145

I am past such needless plasy; for your names

Of whore and murd'ress, they proceed from you,

As if a man should spit against the wind,

The filth returns in's face.

MONTICELSO

Pray you mistress satisfy me one question:

150

Who lodg'd beneath your roof that fatal night

Your husband brake his neck?

BRACHIANO

That question

Enforcheth me break silence: I was there.

MONTICELSO

Your business?

BRACHIANO

Why I came to confort her,

And take some course for sett'ling her estate,

155

Because I heard her husband was in debt

To you my lord.

MONTICELSO

He was.

BRACHIANO

And 'twas stragely fear'd

That you would cozen her.

MONTICELSO

Who made you overseer?

BRACHIANO

Why my charity, my charity, which should flow

From every generous and noble spirit,

160

To orphans and to widows.

MONTICELSO

Your lust.

BRACHIANO

Cowardly dogs bark loudest. Sirrah priest,

I'll talk with you hereafter, –Do you hear?

The sword you frame of such an excellent temper,

I'll sheathe in your own bowels:

165

There are a number of thy coat resemble

Your common post-boys.

MONTICELSO

Ha?

BRACHIANO

Your mercenary post-boys;

Your letters carry truth, but 'tis your guise

To fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies.

[He makes for the door]

SERVANT

My lord your gown.

BRACHIANO

Thou liest, 'twas my stool.

170

Bestow't upon thy master that will challenge

The rest o'th' household stuff; for Brachiano

Was ne'er so beggarly, to take a stool

Valence for his bed on't, or a demi-foot-cloth,

For his most reverent moil; Monticelso,

175

Exit BRACHIANO

Nemo me impune lacessit.

MONTICELSO

Your champion's gone.

VITTORIA

The wolf may prey the better.

FRANCISCO

My lord there's great suspicion of the murder,

But no sound proof who did it: for my part

I do not think she hath a soul so black

180

To act a deed so bloody; if she have,

As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines,

And with warm blood manure them, even so

One summer she will bear unsavoury fruit,

And ere next spring wither both branch and root.

185

The act of blood let pass, only descend

To matter of incontinence.

VITTORIA

I discern poison

Under your gilded pills.

MONTICELSO

Now the Duke's gone, I will produce a letter,

Wherein 'twas plotted he and you should meet,

190

At an apothecary's summer-house,

Down by the river Tiber: - view't my lords: –

Where after wanton bathing and the heat

Of a lascivious banquet. – I pray read it,

I shame to speak the rest.

VITTORIA

Grant I was tempted

195

Temptation to lust proves not the act,

Casta est quam nemo rogavit,

You read his hot love to me, buy you want

My frosty answer.

MONTICELSO

Frost i'th' dog-days! strange!

VITTORIA

Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me?

200

So may you blame some fair and crystal river

For that some melancholic distracted man,

Hath drown'd himself in't.

MONTICELSO

Truly drown'd indeed.

VITTORIA

Sum up my faults I pray, and you shall find,

That beauty and gay clothes, a merry heart,

205

And a good stomach to a feast, are all,

All the poor crimes that you can charge me with:

In faitg my lord you might go pistol flies,

The sport would be more noble.

MONTICELSO

Very good.

VITTORIA

But take you your course, it seems you have beggar'd me first

210

And now would fain undo me; I have houses,

Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes,

Would those would make you charitable.

MONTICELSO

If the devil

Did ever take good shape behold his picture.

VITTORIA

You have one virtue left,

215

You will not flatter me.

FRANCISCO

Who brought this letter?

VITTORIA

I am not compell'd to tell you.

MONTICELSO

My lord Duke sent to you a thousand ducats,

The twelfth of August.

VITTORIA

'Twas to keep your cousin

From prison; I paid use for't.

MONTICELSO

I rather think

220

'Twas interest for his lust.

VITTORIA

Who says so but yourself? If you be my accuser

Pray cease to be my judge, come from the bench,

Give in your evidence 'gainst me, and let these

Be moderators. My lord cardinal,

225

Were your intelligencing ears as long

As to my thoughts, had you an honest tongue

I would not care though you proclaim'd them all.

MONTICELSO

Go to, go to.

After your goodly and vain-glorious banquet,

230

I'll give you a choke-pear.

VITTORIA

O' your own grafting?

MONTICELSO

You were born in Venice, honourably descended

From the Vitelli; 'twas my cousin's fate, –

Ill may I name the hour - to marry you;

He bought you of your father.

VITTORIA

Ha?

MONTICELSO

He spent there in six months

235

Twelve thousand ducats, and to my acquaintance

Receiv'd in dowry with you not one julio:

'Twas a hard penny-worth, the ware being so light.

I yet but draw the curtain, now to your picture:

You came from thence a most notorious strumpet,

240

And so you have continued.

VITTORIA

My lord.

MONTICELSO

Nay hear me,

You shall have time to prate. My lord Brachiano, –

Alas I make but repetition,

Of what is ordinary and Rialto talk,

And ballated, and would be play'd o'th' stage,

245

But that vice many times finds such loud friends

That preachers are charm'd silent.

You gentlemen Flamineo and Marcello,

The court hath nothing now to charge you with,

Only you must remain upon your sureties

250

For your appearance.

FRANCISCO

I stand for Marcello.

FLAMINEO

And my lord Duke for me.

MONTICELSO

For you Vittoria, your public fault,

Join'd to th' condition of the present time,

Takes from you all the fruits of noble pity.

255

Such a corrupted trial have you made

Both of your life and beauty, and been styl'd

No less in ominous fate than blazing stars

To princes; here's your sentence: you are confin'd

Unto a house of convertites and your bawd –

FLAMINEO

260

[aside]

Who I?

MONTICESO

The Moor

FLAMINEO

[aside]

O I am a sound man again.

VITTORIA

A house of convertites, what's that?

MONTICELSO

A house

Of penitent whores.

VITTORIA

Do the noblemen in Rome

Erect ir for their wives, that I am sent

To lodge there?

FRANCISCO

265

You must have patience.

VITTORIA

I must first have vengance.

I fain would know if you have your salvation

By patent, that you proceed thus.

MONTICELSO

Away with her.

Taje her hence.

VITTORIA

A rape, a rape!

MONTICELSO

How?

VITTORIA

Yes, you have ravish'd justice,

270

Forc'd her to do your pleasure.

MONTICELSO

Fie, she's mad –

VITTORIA

Die with those pills in your most cursed maw,

Should bring you health, or while you sit o'th' bench,

Let your own spittle choke you.

MONTICELSO

She's turn'd fury.

VITTORIA

That the last day of judgement may so find you,

275

And leave you the same devil you were before.

Instruct me some good horse-leech to speak treason,

For since you cannot take my life for deeds,

Take it for words. O woman's poor revenge

Which dwells but in the tongue! I will not weep,

280

No I do scorn to call up one poor tear

To fawn on your injustice; bear me hence,

Unto this house of – what's your mitigating title?

MONTICELSO

Of convertites.

VITTORIA

It shall not be a house of convertities.

285

My mind shall male it honester to me

Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable

That thy soul, thought thou art a cardinal,

Know this, and let it somewhat raise their richest light.

Exit VITTORIA [with ZANCHE, guarded]

Enter BRACHIANO

BRACHIANO

Now you and I are friends sir, we'll shake hands,

290

In a friend's grave, together: a fir place,

Being the emblem of soft peace t'atone our hatred.

FRANCISCO

Sir, what's the matter?

BRACHIANO

I will not chase more blood from that lov'd cheek,

You have lost too much already; fare you well.

[Exit]

FRANCISCO

How strange these words sound? What's the interpretation?

FLAMINEO

[aside] Good, this is a preface to the discovery of the Duchess' death. He carries ir well. Because now I cannot counterfeit a whining passion for the death of my lady, I will feign a mad humour for the disgrace of my sister, and that will keep off idle questions. Treason's tongue hath a villainous palsy in't; I will talk to any man, hear no man, and for a time appear a politic madam.

[Exit]

Enter GIOVANNI, Count LODOVICO

FRANCISCO

How now my noble cousin; what, in black?

GIOVANNI

Yes uncle, I was taught to imitate you

In virtue, and you must imitate me

300

In colours for your garments; my sweet mother

Is, –

FRANCISCO

How? Where?

GIOVANNI

Is there, no yonder; indeed sir I'll not tell you,

For I shall make you weep.

FRANCISCO

Is dead.

GIOVANNI

Do not blame me now,

305

I did not tell you so.

LODOVICO

She's dead my lord.

FRANCISCO

Dead?

MONTICELSO

Blessed lady; thou art now above thy woes.

Wilt please your lordships yo withdraw a little?

[Exeunt AMBASSADORS]

GIOVANNI

What do the dead do, uncle? Do they eat,

Hear music, go a-hunting, and be merry,

310

As we that live?

FRANCISCO

No coz; they sleep.

GIOVANNI

Lord, Lord, that I were dead, –

I have not slept these six nights. When do they wake?

FRANCISCO

When God shall please.

GIOVANNI

Good God let her sleep ever.

For I have known her wake an hundred nights,

315

Was brine-wet with her tears. I am to complain to you sir.

I'll tell you how they have used her now she's dead:

They wrapp'd her in a cruel fold of lead,

And would not let me kiss her.

FRANCISCO

Thou didst love her.

GIOVANNI

I have often heard her say she gave me suck,

320

And it should seem by that she dearly lov'd me,

Since princes seldom do ir.

FRANCISCO

O, all of my poor sister that remains!

Take him away for God's sake.

[Exit GIOVANNI, attended]

MONTICELSO

How now my lord?

FRANCISCO

Believe me I am nothing but her grave,

325

And I shall keep her blessed memory

Longer than thousand epitaphs.

[Exeunt]

[Act III, Scene iii]

Enter FLAMINEO as distracted [, MARCELLO and LODOVICO]

FLAMINEO

We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,

Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.

Who shall do me right now? Is this the end of servide?

I'd rather go weed garlic; travel through France, and

be mine own ostler; wear sheep-skin linings; or shoes that

stink of blancking; be ent'red into the list of the forty

thousand pedlars in Poland.

Enter Savoy [Ambassador]

Would I had rotted in some surgeon's house at Venice,

built upon the pox as well as on piles, ere I had serv'd

Brachiano

SAVOY AMBASSADOR

You must have confort.

FLAMINEO

Your comfortable words are like honey. They relish well in your mouth that's whole; but in mine that's wounded they go down as if the sting of the bee were in them. Oh they have wrought their purpose cunningly, as if they would not seem to do it of malice. In this a politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a cannon. Wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you.

Enter the French [Ambassador]

FRENCH AMBASSADOR

The proofs are evident.

FLAMINEO

Enter English Ambassador You are happy in England, my lord; here they sell justice with those weights they press men to death with. O horrible salary! Proof! 'twas corruption. O gold, what a god art thou! And O man, what a devil art thou to be tempted by that cursed mineral! Yon diversivolent lawyer; mark him; knaves turn informers, as maggots turn to flies; you may catch gudgeons with either. A cardinal; - I would he would hear me, - there's nothing so holy but money will corrupt and putrify it, like victual under the line.

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

Fie, fie, Flamineo.

FLAMINEO

[Exeunt Ambassadors] Bells ne'er ring well, till they are at their full pitch, and I hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well, till he come to the scaffold.
If they were rack'd now to know the conferacy! But your noblemen are privileged from the rack; and well may. For a little thing would pull some of them a' pieces afore they came yo their arraingment. Religion; o how it is commeddled with policy. The first bloodshed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew.

MARCELLO

O, there are too many.

FLAMINEO

You are deceiv'd. There are not Jews enough; priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.

MARCELLO

How?

FLAMINEO

I'll prove it. For if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, should not aspire to gentility. Farewell. Let others live by begging. Be thou one of them; practise the art of Wolner in England to swallow all's given thee; and let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a sawpit. I'll go hear the streech-owl.

Exit

LODOVICO

[aside]

How dares this banish'd count return to Rome,

His pardon not yet puuchas'd? I have heard

The deceas'd Duchess gave him pension,

And that he came along from Padua

I'th' train of the young prince. There's somewhat in't.

Physicians, that cure poisons, still do work

With counterpoisons.

MARCELLO

Mark this strange encounter.

FLAMINEO

The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,

And let the stigmatic wrinkles in thy face,

Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide

One still overtake another.

LODOVICO

I do thank thee

And I do wish ingeniously for thy sake

The dog-days all year long.

FLAMINEO

How croaks the raven?

Is our good Duchess dead?

LODOVICO

Dead.

FLAMINEO

O fate!

Misfortune comes like the crowner's bussines,

Huddle upon huddle.

LODOVICO

Shalt thou and I join housekeeping?

FLAMINEO

Yes, content.

Let's be unsociably sociable.

LODOVICO

Sit some three days together, and discourse.

FLAMINEO

Only with making faces;

Lie in our clothes.

LODOVICO

With faggots for our pillows.

FLAMINEO

And be lousy.

LODOVICO

In taffeta linings; that's gentle melancholy;

Sleep all day.

FLAMINEO

Yes: and like your melancholic hare

Feed after midnight.

Enter ANTONELLI [and GASPARO, laughing]

We are observed: see how yon couple grieve.

LODOVICO

What a strange creature is a laughing fool,

As if a man were created to no use

But only to show his teeth.

FLAMINEO

I'll tell the what,

It would do well instead of looking-glasses

To set one's dace each morning by a saucer

Of a witch's congealed bood.

LODOVICO

Precious girn, rogue.

We'll never part.

FLAMINEO

Never: till the beggary of courtiers,

The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers,

And all the creatures that hang manacled,

Worse than strappado'd, on the lowest felly

Of Fortune’s wheel be taught in our two lives

To scorn that world wich life of means deprives.

ANTONELLI

My lord I bring good news. The Pope on's death-bed,

At th'earnest suit of the great Duke of Florence,

Hath sign'd your pardon, and restor'd unto you –

LODOVICO

I thank you for your news. Look up again

Flamineo, see my pardon.

FLAMINEO

Why do you laugh?

There was no such condition in our covenant.

LODOVICO

Why?

FLAMINEO

You shall not seem a happier man that I;

You know our vow sir, if you will be merry,

Do it i'th' like posture, as if some great man

Sat while his enemy were executed:

Though it be very lechery unto thee,

Do't with a crabbed politician's face.

LODOVICO

Your sister is a damnable whore.

FLAMINEO

Ha?

LODOVICO

Look you; I spake that laughing.

FLAMINEO

Dost ever think to speak again?

LODOVICO

Do you hear?

Wilt sell me forty ounces of her blood,

To water a mandrake?

FLAMINEO

Poor lord, you did vow

To live a lousy creature.

LODOVICO

Yes; –

FLAMINEO

Like one

That had for ever forfeited the daylight,

By being in debt, –

LODOVICO

Ha, ha!

FLAMINEO

I do not greatly wonder you do break:

Your lordship learn't long since. But I'll tell you, –

LODOVICO

What?

FLAMINEO

And't shall stick by you.

LODOVICO

I long for it.

FLAMINEO

This laughter scurvily becomes your face;

Strikes him

If you will not be melancholy, be angry.

See, now I laugh too.

MARCELLO

You are to blame, I'll force you hence.

LODOVICO

Unhand me.

Exit MAR[CELLO] & FLAM[INEO]

That e'er I should be forc'd to right myself,

Upon a pander!

ANTONELLI

My lord.

LODOVICO

H'had been as good meet with his fist a thunderbolt.

GASPARO

How this shows!

LODOVICO

Ud's death, how did my sword miss him?

These rogues that are most weary of their lives,

Sill scape the greatest dangers.

A pox upon him: all his reputation; –

Nay all the goodness of his family; –

Is not worth half this earthquake.

I learnt it of no fencer to shake thus;

Come, I'll forget him, and go drink some wine.

Exeunt

[Act IV, Scene I]

Enter FRANCISCO and MONTICELSO

MONTICELSO

Come, come my lord, untie your folded thoughts,

And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair.

Your sister's poisoned.

FRANCISCO

Far be it from my thoughts

To seek revenge.

MONTICELSO

What, are you turn'd all marble?

FRANCISCO

Shall I defy him, and impose a war

Most burthensome on my poor subjects' necks,

Which at my will I have not power to end?

You know; for all the murders, rapes,, and thefts,

Committed in the horrid lust of war,

He that unjustly caus'd it first proceed,

Shall find it in his grave and in his seed.

MONTICELSO

That's not the course I'd wish you: pray, observe me.

We see that undermining more prevails

That doth the cannon. Bear you wrongs conceal'd,

And, patient as the tortoise, let this camel

Stalk o'er your back unbruis'd: sleep with the lion,

And let this brood of secure foolish mice

Play with your nostrils; till the time be ripe

For th' bloody audit, and the fatal gripe:

Aim like a cunning fowler, close one eye,

That you the better may your game espy.

FRANCISCO

Free me my innocence, from treacherous acts:

I know there's thunder yonder: and I'll stand,

Like a safe valley, which low bends the knee

To some aspiring mountain: since I know

Treason, like spiders weaving nets for flies,

By her foul work is found, and in it dies.

To pass away these thoughts, my honour'd lord,

It is reported you possess a book

Wherein you have quoted, by intelligence,

The names of all notorious offenders

Lurking about the city.

MONTICELSO

Sir I do;

And some there are which call it my black book:

Well may the title hold: for thought it teach not

The art of conjuring, yet in it lurk

The names of many devils.

FRANCISCO

Pray let's see it.

MONTICELSO

I'll fetch it to your lordship.

Exit MONTICELSO

FRANCISCO

Monticelso,

I will not trust thee, but in all my plots

I'll rest as jealous as a town besieg'd.

Thou canst not reach what I intend to act;

Your flax soon kindles, soon is out again,

But gold slow heats, and long will hot remain.

Enter MONT[ICELSO] presents FRAN[CISCO] with a book

MONTICELSO

'Tis here my lord.

FRANCISCO

First your intelligencers, pray let's see.

MONTICELSO

Their number rises strangely,

And some of them

You'd take for honest men.

Next are panders.

These are your pirates: and these following leaves,

For base rogues that undo young gentlemen

By taking up commodities: for politic bankrupts:

For fellows that are bawds to their own wives,

Only to put off horses and slight jewels,

Clocks, defac'd plate, and such commodities,

At birth of their first children.

FRANCISCO

Are there such?

MONTICELSO

These are for imprudent bawds,

That go in men's apparel; for users

That share with scriveners for their good reportage:

For lawyers that will antedate their writs:

And some divines you might find folded there,

But that I slip them o'er for conscience' sake.

Here is a general catalogue of knaves.

A man might study all the prisons o'er,

Yet never attain this knowledge.

FRANCISCO

Murderers.

Fold down the leaf I pray.

Good my lord let me borrow this strange doctrine.

MONTICELSO

Pray us't my lord.

FRANCISCO

I do assure your lordship,

You are a worthy member of the state,

And have done inginite good in your discovery

Of these offenders.

MONTICELSO

Somewhat sir.

FRANCISCO

O God!

Better than tribute of wolves paid in England,

'Twill hang their skins o'th' hedge.

MONTICELSO

I must make bold

To leave your lordship.

FRANCISCO

Dearly sir, I thank you;

If any ask for me at court, report

You have left me in the company of knaves.

Exit MONT[ICELSO]

I gather now by this, some cunning fellow

That's my lord's officer, one that lately skipp'd

From a clerk's desk up to a justice' chair,

Hath made this knavish summons; and intends,

As th'Irish rebels wont were to sell heads,

So to make prize of these. And thus it happens,

Your poor rogues pay for't, which have not the means

To present bribe in fist: the rest o'th' band

Are raz'd out of the knaves' record; or else

My lord he winks at them with easy will,

His man grows rich, the knaves are the knaves still.

But to the use I'll make of it; it shall serve

To point me out a list of murderers,

Agents for any villainy. Did I want

Ten leash of courtezans, it would furnish me;

Nay laundress three armies. That in so little paper

Should lie th'undoing of so many men!

'Tis not so big as twenty declarations.

See the corrupted use some make of books:

Divinity, wrested by some factious blood,

Draws swords, swells battles, and o'erthrows all good.

To fashion my revenge more seriously,

Let me remember my dead sister's face:

Call for her picture: no; I'll close mine eyes,

100

And in a melancholic thought I'll frame

Enter ISABEL[L]A'S Ghost

Her figure 'fore me. Now I ha't - - - how strong

Imagination works! How she can frame

Things which are not! Methinks she stands afore me;

And by the quick idea of my mind,

105

Were my skill pregnant, I could draw her picture.

Thought, as a subtle juggler, makes us deem

Things supernatural, which have cause

Common as sickness. 'Tis my melancholy.

How cam'st thou by thy death? - - - How idle am I

110

To question my own idleness - - - Did ever

Man dream awake till now? - - - Remove this object,

Out of my brain with't: what have I to do

With tombs, or death-beds, funerals, or tears,

That have to meditate upon revenge?

[Exit Ghost]

115

So now 'tis ended, like an old wives' story.

Statesmen think often they see stranger sights

Than madmen. Come, to this weighty business.

My tragedy must have some idle mirth in't,

Else it will never pass. I am in love,

120

In love with Corombona, and my suit

He writes.

Thus halts yo her in verse. –

I have done it rarely: O the fate of princes!

I am so us'd to frequent flattery,

That being alone I now flatter myself;

125

But it will serve; 'tis seal'd.

[calls offstage]

Bear this

Enter SERVANT

To th'house of convertites; and watch your leisure

To give it to the hands of Corombona,

Or to the matron, when some followers

Exit SERVANT

Of Brachiano may be by. Away!

130

He that deals all by strength, his wit is shallow:

When a man's head goes through, each limb will follow.

The engine for my business, bold Count Lodowick;

'Tis gold must such an instrument procure,

With empty fist no man doth falcons lure.

135

Brachiano, I am now fit for thy encounter.

Like the wild Irish I'll ne'er think thee dead,

Till I can play at football with thy head.

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

Exit

[Act IV, Scene ii]

Enter the MATRON, and FLAMINEO

MATRON

Should it be known the Duke hath such recourse

To your imprison'd sister, I were like

T'incur much damage by it.

FLAMINEO

Not a scruple.

The pope lies on his death-bed, and their heads

Are troubled now with other business

Enter SERVANT

Than guarding of a lady.

SERVANT

[aside]

Yonder's Flamineo in conference

With the Matrona.

[To the MATRON]

Let me speak with you.

I would entreat you yo deliver for me

This letter to the fair Vittoria.

MATRON

I shall sir.

Enter BRACHIANO

SERVANT

With all care and secrecy;

Hereafter you shall know me, and receive

Thanks for this courtesy.

[Exit]

FLAMINEO

How now? What's that?

MATRON

A letter.

FLAMINEO

To my sister: I'll see't delivered.

[Exit MATRON]

BRACHIANO

What's that you read Flamineo?

FLAMINEO

Look.

BRACHIANO

[reads]

Ha? To the most unfortunate his best respected Vittoria –

Who was the messenger?

FLAMINEO

I know not.

BRACHIANO

I'll open't, were't her heart. What's here subscribed –

Florence? This juggling is gross and palpable.

I have found out the conveyance; read it, read it.

FLAMINEO

(Reads the letter)

Your tears I'll turn to triumphs, be but mine.

Your prop is fall'n; I pity that a vine

Which princes heretofore have long'd to gather,

Wanting supporters, now should fade and wither.

Wine i'faith, my lord, with lees would serve his turn.

Your sad imprisonment I'll soon uncharm,

And with a princely uncontrolled arm

Lead you to Florence, where my love and care

Shall hang your wishes in my silver hair.

A halter on his strange equivocation.

Nor for my years return me the sad willow:

Who prefer blossoms before fruit that's mellow?

Rotten on my knowledge with lying too long i'th' bed-straw.

And all the lines of age this line convinces:

The gods neves wax old, no more do princes.

A pox on't, rear it, let's have no more atheists for God's sake.

BRACHIANO

Ud's death, I'll cut her into atomies

And let th'irregular north-wind sweep her up

And blow her int' his nostrils. Where's this whore?

FLAMINEO

That –? what do you call her?

BRACHIANO

O, I could be mad,

Prevent the curs'd disease she'll bring me to,

And tear my hair off. Where's this changeable stuff?

FLAMINEO

O'er head and ears in water, I assure you,

She is not for your wearing.

BRACHIANO

In your pander!

FLAMINEO

What me, my lord, am I your dog?

BRACHIANO

A blood-hound: do you brave? do you stand me?

FLAMINEO

Stand you? Let those that have diseases run;

I need no plasters.

BRACHIANO

Would you be kick'd?

FLAMINEO

Would you have your neck broke?

I tell you Duke, I am not in Russia;

My shins must be kept whole.

BRACHIANO

Do you know me?

FLAMINEO

O my lord! Methodically.

As in this world there are degrees of evils:

So in this world there are degrees of devils.

You're a great Duke; I your poor secretary.

I look now for a Spanish fig, or an Italian sallet daily.

BRACHIANO

Pander, ply your convoy, and leave your prating.

FLAMINEO

All your kindness to me is like that miserable courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses; you reserve me to be devour'd last; you would dig turves out of my grave to feed your larks; that would be music to you. Come, I'll lead you to her.

BRACHIANO

Do you face me?

FLAMINEO

O sir I would not go before a politic enemy with my back towards him, though there were behind me a whirlpool.

Enter VITTORIA to BRACHIANO and FLAMINEO

BRACHIANO

Can you read mistress? Look upon that letter;

There are no characters nor hieroglyphics.

You need no comment, I am grown your reciever;

God's precious, you shall be a brave great lady,

A stately and advanced whore.

VITTORIA

Say sir?

BRACHIANO

Come, come, let's see your cabinet, discover

Your treasury of love-letters. Death and furies,

I'll see them all.

VITTORIA

Sir, upon my soul,

I have not any. Whence was this directed?

BRACHIANO

Confusion on your politic ignorance!

[Gives her the letter]

You are reclaimed, are you? I'll give you the bells

And let you fly to the devil.

FLAMINEO

Ware hawk, my lord.

VITTORIA

[reads]

Florence! This is some treacherous plot, my lord.

To me, he ne'er was lovely I protest,

So much as in my sleep.

BRACHIANO

Right: they are plots.

Your beauty! O, ten thousand curses on't.

How long have I beheld the devil in crystal?

Thou hast led me, like an heathen sacrifice,

With music, and with fatal yokes of flowers

To my eternal ruin. Woman to man

Is either a god or a wolf.

VITTORIA

My lord.

BRACHIANO

Away.

We'll be as differing as two adamants;

The one shall shun the other. What? Dost weep?

Procure but ten of tht dissembling trade,

Ye'ld furnish all the Irish funerals

With howling, past wild Irish.

FLAMINEO

Fie, my lord.

BRACHIANO

That hand, that crused hand, which I have wearied

With doting kisses! O my sweetest Duchess

[to VITTORIA] Thy loose thoughts

How lovely art thou now!

Scatter like quicksilver; I was bewitch'd;

For all the world speaks ill of thee.

VITTORIA

No matter.

I'll live so now I'll make that world recant

And change her speeches. You did name your Duchess.

BRACHIANO

Whose death God pardon.

VITTORIA

Whose death God revenge

On thee most godless Duke.

FLAMINEO

Now for two whirlwinds.

VITTORIA

What have I gain'd by thee but infamy?

Thou hast stain'd the spotless honour of my house,

And frighted thence noble society:

100

Like those, which sick o'th' palsy, and retain

Ill-secnting foxes 'bout them, are still shunn'd

By those of choicer nostrils. What do you call this house?

Is this your palace? Did not the judge style it

A house of penitent whores? Who sent me to it?

105

Who hath the honour to advance Vittoria

To this incontinent college? Is't not you?

Is't not your high preferment? Go, go brag

How many ladies you have undone, like me.

Fare you well sir; let me hear no more of you.

110

I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer,

But I have cut it off: and now I'll go

Weeping to heaven on crutches. For your gifts,

I will return them all; and I do wish

That I could make you full executor

115

To all my sins. O that I could toss myself

Into a grave as quickly: for all thou art worth

I'll not shed one tear more; – I'll burst first.

She throws herself upon a bed

BRACHIANO

I have drunk Lethe. Vittoria?

My dearest happiness! Vittoria!

120

What do you ail my love? Why do you weep?

VITTORIA

Yes, I now weep poniards, do you see.

BRACHIANO

Are not those matchless eyes mine?

VITTORIA

I had rather

They were not matches.

BRACHIANO

Is not this lip mine?

VITTORIA

Yes: thus to bite it off, rather than give it thee.

FLAMINEO

125

Turn to my lord, good sister.

VITTORIA

Hence you pander.

FLAMINEO

Pander! Am I the author of your sin?

VITTORIA

Yes. He's a base thief that a thief lets in.

FLAMINEO

We're blown up, my lord, –

BRACHIANO

Wilt thou hear me?

Once to be jealous of thee is t'express

130

That I will love thee everlastingly

And never more be jealous.

VITTORIA

O thou fool,

Whose greatness hath by much o'ergrown thy wit!

What dar'st thou do, that I not dare to suffer,

Excepting to be still thy whore? For that,

135

In the sea's bottom sooner thou shalt make

A bonfire.

FLAMINEO

O, no oaths for God's sake.

BRACHIANO

Will you hear me?

VITTORIA

Never.

FLAMINEO

What a damn'd imposthume is a woman's will?

[to BRACHIANO, aside] Fie, fie, my lord.

Can nothing break it?

140

Women are caught as you take tortoises,

She must be turn'd on her back. -Sister, by this hand

I am on your side.- Come, come, you have wrong'd her.

What a strange credulous man were you, my lord,

To think the Duke of Florence would love her?

145

Will any mercer take another's ware

When once 'tis tows'd and sullied? And, yet sister,

How scurvily this frowardness becomes you!

Young leverets stand not long; and women's anger

Should, like their flight, procure a little sport;

150

A full cry for a quarter of an hour;

And then be put to th' dead quat.

BRACHIANO

Shall these eyes,

Which have so long time dwelt upon your face,

Be now put out?

FLAMINEO

No cruel landlady i'th' world,

Which lends forth groats to broom-men, and takes use for them

155

Would do't.

Hand her, my lord, and kiss her: be not like

A ferret to let go your hold with blowing.

BRACHIANO

Let us renew right hands.

VITTORIA

Hence.

BRACHIANO

Never shall rage, or the forgetful wine,

160

Make me commit like fault.

FLAMINEO

Now you are i'th' way on't, follow't hard.

BRACHIANO

Be thou at peace with me; let all the world

Threaten the cannon.

FLAMINEO

Mark his penitence.

Best natures do commit the grossest fauls,

165

When they're giv'n o'er to jealousy; as best wine

Dying makes strongest vinegar. I'll tell you;

The sea's more rough and raging than calm rivers,

But nor so sweet nor wholesome. A quiet woman

Is a still water under a great bridge.

170

A man may shoot her safely.

VITTORIA

O ye dissembling men!

FLAMINEO

We suck'd that, sister,

From women's breasts, in our first infancy.

VITTORIA

To add misery to misery.

BRACHIANO

Sweetest.

VITTORIA

Am I not low enough?

175

Ay, ay, your good hearth gathers like a snowball

Now your affection's cold.

FLAMINEO

Ud's foot, it shall melt

To a hearth again, or all the wine in Rome

Shall run o'th' lees for't.

VITTORIA

You hawk or dog should be rewarded better

180

Than I have been. I'll speak not one word more.

FLAMINEO

Stop her mouth,

With a sweet kiss, my lord.

So now the tide's turn'd the vessel's come about.

He's a sweet armful. O we curl'd-hair'd men

185

Are still most kind to women. This is well.

BRACHIANO

That you should chide thus!

FLAMINEO

O, sir, your little chimneys

Do ever cast most smoke. I sweat for you.

Couple together with as deep a silence

As did the Grecians in their wooden horse.

190

My lord, supply your promises with deeds.

You know that painted meat no hunger feeds.

BRACHIANO

Stay-ingrateful Rome!

FLAMINEO

Rome! It deserves

To be call'd Barbary, for our villainous usage.

BRACHIANO

Soft; the same project which the Duke of Florence,

195

(Whether in love or gullery I know not)

Laid down for her escape, will I pursue.

FLAMINEO

And no time fitter than this night, my lord;

The Pope being dead; and all the cardinals ent'red

The convlave for th'electing a new Pope;

200

The city in a great confusion;

We may attire her in a page's suit,

Lay her post-horse, take shipping, and amain

For Padua.

BRACHIANO

I'll instantly steal forth the Prince Giovanni,

205

And make for Padua. You two with your old mother

And young Marcello that attends on Florence,

If you can work him to it, follow me.

I will advance you all: for you Vittoria,

Think of a duchess' title.

FLAMINEO

Lo you sister.

Stay, my lord; I'll tell you a tale. The crocodile, which lives in the river Nilus, hath a worm breeds i'th' teeth of't, which puts it to extreme anguish: a little bird, no bigger than a wren, is barber-surgeon to this crocodile; flies into the jaws of't; picks out the worm; and brings present remedy. The fish, glad of ease but ingrateful to her that did it, that the bird may not talk largely of her abroad for non-payment, closeth her chaps intending to swallow her, ando so put her to perpetual silence. But nature loathing such ingratitude, hath arm'd this bird with a quill or prick on the head, top o'th' which wounds the crocodile i'th' mouth; forceth her open her bloody prision; and away flies the pretty tooth-picker from her cruel patient.

BRACHIANO

Your application is, I have not rewarded

The service you have done me.

FLAMINEO

No my lord;

You sister are the crocodile: you are blemish'd in your fame, my lord cures it. And thought the comparison hold not in every particle; yet observe, remember, what good the bird with the prick i'th' head hath done you; and scorn ingratitude.

ErrorMetrica

[aside]

It may appear to some ridiculous

215

Thus to talk knave and madman; and sometimes

Come in with a dried sentence, stuff'd with sage.

But this allows my varying of shapes,

Knaves do grow great by being great men's apes.

Exeunt

[Act IV, Scene iii]

Enter LODOVICO, GASPARO, and six Ambassadors. At another door [FRANCISCO] the Duke of Florence.

FRANCISCO

So, my lord, I commented your diligence.

Guard well the conclave, and, as the order ir,

Let none have conference with the cardinals.

LODOVICO

I shall, my lord. Room for the ambassadors!

GASPARO

They're wondrous brave today: why do they wear

These several habits?

LODOVICO

O sir, they're knights

Of several orders.

That lord i'th' black cloak with the silver cross

Is Knight of Rhodes; the next Knight of S. Michael;

That of the Golden Fleece; the Frenchman there

Knight of the Holy Ghost; my lord of Savoy

Knight of th'Annunciation; the Englishman

Is Knight of th'honoured Garter, dedicated

Unto their saint, S. George. I could describe to you

Their several institutions, with the laws

Annexed to their orders; but that time

Permits not such discovery.

FRANCISCO

Where's Count Lodowick?

LODOVICO

Here my lord.

FRANCISCO

'Tis o'th' point of dinner time;

Marshal the cardinals' service.

LODOVICO

Sir, I shall.

Enter SERVANTS with several dishes covered

Stand, let me search your dish; who's this for?

SERVANT

For my lord Cardinal Monticelso.

LODOVICO

Who's this?

SERVANT

For my Lord Cardinal of Bourbon.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR

Why doth he search the dishes? To observe

What meat is dress'd?

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

No sir, but to prevent

Lest any letters should be convey'd in

To brive or to solicit the advancement

Of any cardinal. When first they enter

'Tis lawful for the ambassadors of princes

To enter with them, and to make their suit

For any man their prince affecteth best;

But after, till a general election,

No man may speak with them.

LODOVICO

You that attend on the lord cardinals

Open the window, and receive their viands.

A CARDINAL

You must return the servide; the lord cardinals

Are busied 'bout electing of the Pope;

They have given o'er scrutiny, and are fallen

To admiration.

LODOVICO

Away, away.

[Exeunt SERVANTS with dishes]

FRANCISCO

I'll lay a thousand ducats you hear news

Of a Pope presently. Hark; sure he's elected, –

[The] Cardinal [of ARRAGON appears]

on the terrace

Behold! my lord of Arragon appears

On the church battlements.

ARRAGON

Denuntio vobis gaudiu, magnum. Reverendissimus Cardinals LORENZO de MONTICELSO electus est in sedem apostolicam, et eligit nomen PAULUM quartum.

OMNES

Vivat Sanctus Pater Paulus Quartus.

[Enter SERVANT]

SERVANT

Vittoria my lord –

FRANCISCO

Well: what of her?

SERVANT

Is fled the city –

FRANCISCO

Ha?

SERVANT

With Duke Brachiano.

FRANCISCO

Fled? Where's the Prince Giovanni?

SERVANT

Gone with his father.

FRANCISCO

Let the Matrona of the convertites

Be apprehended. Fled? O damnable!

[Exit SERVANT]

[aside]

How fortunate are my wishes. Why? 'Twas this

I only labour'd. I did send the letter

T'instruct him what to do. Thy fame, fond Duke,

I first have poison'd; directed thee the way

To marry a whore; what can be worse? This follows:

The hand must act to drown the passionate tongue,

I scorn to wear a sword and prate of wrong.

Enter MONTICELSO in state

MONTICELSO

Concedimus vobis apostolicam benedictionem et remissionem peccatorum.

[FRANCISCO whispers to him]

ErrorMetrica

My lord reports Vittoria Corombona

Is stol'n from forth the house of convertites

By Brachiano, and they're fled the city.

Now, though this be the first day of our seat,

We cannot better please the divine power,

That to sequester from the holy church

These cursed persons. Make it therefore known,

We do denounce excommunication

Against them both: all that are theirs in Rome

We likewise banish. Set on.

Exeunt [all except FRANCISCO and LODOVICO]

FRANCISCO

Come dear Lodovico

You have tane the sacrament to prosecute

Th'intended murder.

LODOVICO

With all constancy.

But, sir, I wonder you'll engage yourself

In person, being a great prince.

FRANCISCO

Divert me not.

Most of this court are of my faction,

And some are of my counsel. Noble friend,

Our danger shall be 'like in this design;

Give leave, part of the glory may be mine.

Enter MONTICELSO

MONTICELSO

Why did the Duke of Florence with such care

Labour your pardon? Say.

LODOVICO

Italian beggars will resolve you that

Who, begging of an alms, bid those they beg of

Do good for their own sakes; or't may be

He spreads his bounty with a sowing hand,

Like kings, who many times give out of measure;

Not for desert so much as for their pleasure.

MONTICELSO

I know you're cunning. Come, what devil was that

That you were raising?

LODOVICO

Devil, my lord?

MONTICELSO

I ask you

How doth such compliment unto his knee,

When he departed from you?

LODOVICO

Why, my lord,

He told me of a resty Barbary horse

Which he would fain have brought to the career,

The 'sault, and the ring-galliard. Now, my lord,

I have a rare French rider.

MONTICELSO

Take you heed:

Lest the jade break your neck. Do you put me off

With your wild horse-tricks? Sirrah you do lie.

O, thou'rt a foul black cloud, and thou dost threat

A violent storm.

LODOVICO

Storms are i'th' air, my lord;

I am yoo low to storm.

MONTICELSO

Wretched creature!

I know that thou art fashion'd for all ill,

100

Like dogs, that once get blood, they'll ever kill.

About some murder? Was't not?

LODOVICO

I'll not tell you;

And yet I care not greatly if I do;

Marry with this preparation. Holy Father,

I come not yo you as an intelligencer,

105

But as a penitent sinner. What I utter

Is in confession merely; which you know

Must never be reveal'd.

MONTICELSO

You have o'ertane me.

LODOVICO

Sir I did love Brachiano's Duchess dearly;

Or rather I pursued her with hot lust,

110

Though she ne'er knew on't. She was poison'd;

Upon my soul she was: for which I have sworn

T'avenge her murder.

MONTICELSO

To the Duke of Florence?

LODOVICO

To him I have.

MONTICELSO

Miserable creature!

If thou persist in this, 'tis damnable.

115

Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood

And not be tained with a shameful fall?

Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree,

Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves,

And yet to prosper? Instruction to thee

120

Comes like sweet showers to over-hard'ned ground:

They wet, but pierce not deep. And so I leave thee

With all the Furies hanging 'bout thy neck,

Till by thy penitence thou remove this evil,

In conjuring from thy breast that cruel devil.

Exit MON[TICELSO]

LODOVICO

125

I'll give it o'er. He says 'tis damnable:

Besides I did expect his suffrage,

By reason of Camillo's death.

Enter SERVANT and FRANCISCO

FRANCISCO

Do you know that count?

SERVANT

Yes, my lord.

FRANCISCO

Bear him these thousand ducats to his lodging;

130

Tell him the Pope hath sent them. Happily

[Exit]

That will confirm more than all the rest.

SERVANT

Sir.

[SERVANT delievers purse of money to LODOVICO]

LODOVICO

To me sir?

SERVANT

His Holiness hath sent you a thousand crowns,

And wills you, if you travel, to make him

135

Your patron for intelligence.

LUDOVICO

His creature

[Exit SERVANT]

Ever to be commanded.

Why now 'tis come about. He rail'd upon me;

And yet these crowns were told out and laid ready,

Before he knew my voyage. O the art,

140

The modest form of greatness! that do sit

Like brides at wedding dinners, with their looks turn'd

From the least wanton jests, their puling stomach

Sick of the modesty, when their thoughts are loose,

Even acting of those hot and lustful sports

145

Are to ensue about midnight: such his cunning!

He sounds my depth thus with a golden plummet;

I am doubty arm'd now. Now to th'act of blood;

There's but three Furies found in spacious hell;

But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell.

[Exit]

[Act V, Scene i]

A passage over the stage of BRACHIANO, FLAMINEO, MARCELLO, HORTENSIO, [VITTORIA] COROMBONA, CORNELIA, ZANCHE and others

[Enter FLAMINEO and HORTENSIO]

FLAMINEO

In all the weary minutes of my life,

Day ne'er broke up till now. This marriage

Confirms me happy.

HORTENSIO

'Tis a good assurance.

Saw you not yet the Moor that's come to court?

FLAMINEO

Yes, and conferr'd with him i'th' Duke's closet;

I have not seen a goodlier personage,

Nor ever talk'd with man better experienc'd

In state affairs or rudiments of war.

He hath by report serv'd the Venetian

In Candy these twice seven years, and been chief

In many a bold design.

HORTENSIO

What are those two

That bear him company?

FLAMINEO

Two noblemen of Hungary, that living in the emperor's service as commanders, eight years since, contrary to the expectation of all the court ent'red into religion, into the strict order of Capuchins: but being not well settled in their undertaking they left their order and returned to court: for which being after troubled in conscience, they vowed their service agaist the enemies of Christ; went to Malta; were there knighted; and in their return back, at this great solemnity, they are resolved for ever to forsake the world, and settle themselves here in a house of Capuchins in Padua.

HORTENSIO

'Tis strange.

FLAMINEO

One thing makes it so. They have vowed for ever to wear next their bare bodies those coats of mail they served in.

HORTENSIO

Hard penance. Is the Moor a Christian?

FLAMINEO

He is.

HORTENSIO

Why proffers he his service to our Duke?

FLAMINEO

Because he understands there's like to grow

Some wars between us and the Duke of Florence,

In which he hopes employment.

I never saw one in a stern bold look

Wear more command, nor in a lofty phrase

Express more knowing, or more deep contempt

Of our slight airy courtiers. He talks

As if he had travell'd all the princes' courts

Of Christendom; in all things strives t'express

That all that should dispute with him may know,

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright

But look'd to near, have neither heat nor light.

The Duke!

Enter BRACHIANO, [FRANCISCO, Duke of] Florence disguised like Mulinassar; LODOVICO, ANTONELLI, GASPARO, FERNESE having their swords and helmets.

BRACHIANO

You are nobly welcome. We have heard at full

Your honourable service 'gainst the Turk.

To you, brave Mulinassar, we assign

A competent pension: and are inly sorrow,

The vows of those two worthy gentlemen

Make them incapable of our proffer'd bounty.

Your wish is you may leave your warlike swords

For monuments in our chapel. I accept it

As a great honour done me, and must crave

Your leave to furnish out our Duchess' revels.

Only one thing, as the last vanity

You e'er shall view, deny me not to stay

To see a barriers prepar'd tonight;

You shall have private standings. It hath pleas'd

The great ambassadors of several princes

In their return from Rome to their own countries

To grace our marriage, and to honour me

With such a kind of sport.

FRANCISCO

I shall persuade them

To stay, my lord.

BRACHIANO

Set on there to the presence.

Exeunt BRACHIANO, FLAMINEO and [HORTENSIO]

LODOVICO

Noble my lord, most fortunately welcome,

The conspirators here embrace

You have our vows seal'd with the sacrament

To second your attempts.

GASPARO

And all things ready.

He could not have invented his own ruin,

Had he despair'd, with more propriety.

LODOVICO

You would not take my way.

FRANCISCO

'Tis better ordered.

LODOVICO

T'have poison'd his prayer book, or a pair of beads,

The pommel of his saddle, his looking-glass,

Or th'handle of his racket. O that, that!

That while he had been bandying at tennis,

He might have sworn himself to hell, and struck

His soul into the hazard! O my lord!

I would have our plot be ingenious,

And have it hereafter recorded for example

Rather than borrow example.

FRANCISCO

There's no way

More speeding than this thought on.

LODOVICO

On then.

FRANCISCO

And yet methinks that this revenge is poor,

Because it steals upon him like a thief;

To habe tane him by the cask in a pitch'd field,

Led him to Florence!

LODOVICO

It had been rare. -And there

Have crown'd him with a wreath of stinking garlic,

T'have shown the sharpness of his government,

And rankness of his lust. Flamineo comes.

Exeunt LODOVICO, ANTONELLI [and GASPARO]

Enter FLAMINEO, MARCELLO and ZANCHE

MARCELLO

Why doth this devil haunt you? Say.

FLAMINEO

I know not.

For by this light I do not conjure for her.

'Tis not so great a cunning as men think

To raise the devil: for here's one up already;

The greatest cunning were to lay him down.

MARCELLO

She is your shame.

FLAMINEO

I prithee pardon her.

In faith you see, women are like to burs;

Where their affection throws them, there they'll stick.

ZANCHE

That is my countryman, a goodly person;

When he's at leisure I'll discourse with him

In our own language.

FLAMINEO

Exit ZANCHE

I beseech you do.

How is't brave soldier? O that I had seen

Some of your iron days! I pray relate

Some of your service to us.

FRANCISCO

'Tis a ridiculous thing for a man to be his own chronicle; I did never wash my mouth with mine own praise for fear of getting a stinking breath.

MARCELLO

You're too stoical. The Duke will expect other discourse from you.

FRANCISCO

I shall never flatter him, I have studied man too much to do that. What difference is between the Duke and I? No more than between two bricks; all made of one clay. Only 't may be one in plac'd on the top of a turret; the other in the bottom of a well by mere chance; if I were plac'd as high as the Duke, I should stick as fast; make as fair a show; and bear out weater equally.

FLAMINEO

If this soldier had a patent to beg in churches, then he would tell them stories.

MARCELLO

I have been a soldier too.

FRANCISCO

How have you thriv'd?

MARCELLO

Faith, poorly.

FRANCISCO

That's the mistery of peace. Only outsiders are then respected.As ships seem very great upon the river, which show very little upon the seas: so some men i'th' court seem Colossues in a chamber, who if they came into the fiel would appear pitiful pigmes.

FLAMINEO

Give me a fair room yet hung with arras, and some great cardinal to lug me by th'ears as his endeared minion.

FRANCISCO

And thou may'st do, -the devil knows what villainy.

FLAMINEO

And safely.

FRANCISCO

Right; you shall see in the country in harvest time, pigeons, thought they destroy never so much corn, the farmer dare not present the fowling-piece to them! Why? Because they belong to the lord of the manor; whilst your poor sparrows that belong to the Lord of heaven, they go to the pot for't.

FLAMINEO

I will now give you some politic instruction. The Duke says he will give you pension; that's but bare promise: get it under his hand. For I have know men that have come for serving against the Turk; for three or four months they have had pension to boy them new wooden legs and fresh plasters; but after 'twas not to be had. And this miserable courtesy shows, as if a tormentor should give hot cordial drinks to one three-quarters dead o'th' rack, only to fetch the miserable soul again to endure more dog-days.

Enter HORTENSIO, a YOUNG LORD, ZANCHE and two more

ErrorMetrica

How now, gallants; what, are they ready for the barriers?

[Exit FRANCISCO]

YOUNG LORD

Yes: the lords are putting on their armour.

HORTENSIO

What's he?

FLAMINEO

A new upstart: one that swears like a falc'ner, and will lie in the Duke's ear day by day like a maker of almanacs; and yet I knew him since he came to th'court smell worse of sweat than an under-tennis-court-keeper.

HORTENSIO

Look you, yonder's your sweet mistress.

FLAMINEO

Thou art my sworn brother; I'll tell thee, I do love that Moor, that witch, very constrainedly: she knows some of my villainy; I do love her, just as a man holds a wolf by the ears. But for fear of turning upon me, and pulling out my throat, I would let her go to the devil.

HORTENSIO

I hear she claims marriage of thee.

FLAMINEO

'Faith, I made to her some such dark promise, and in seeking to fly from't I run on, like a frighted dog with a bottle at's tail, that fain would bite it off and yet dares not look behind him.
[to ZANCHE] Now my precious gipsy!

ZANCHE

Ay, your love to me rather cools than heats.

FLAMINEO

Marry, I am the sounder lover; we have many wenches about the town heat too fast.

HORTENSIO

What do you think of these perfum'd gallants then?

FLAMINEO

Their satin cannot save them. I am confident

They have a certain spice of the disease.

115

For they that sleep with dogs, shall rise with fleas.

ZANCHE

Believe it! A little painting and gay clothes

Make you loathe me.

FLAMINEO

How? Love a lady for painting or gay apparel? I'll unkennel one example more of thee. Æsop had a foolish dog that let go the flesh to catch the shadow. I would have courtiers be better diners.

ZANCHE

You remember your oaths.

FLAMINEO

Lovers' oaths are like mariners' prayers, uttered in extremity; but when the tempest is o'er, and that the vessel leaves tumbling, they fall from protesting to drinking. And yet amongst gentlemen protesting and drinking go together, and agree as well as shoemakers and Westphalia bacon. They are both drawers on: for drink draws on protestation; and protestation draws on more drink. Is not this discourse better no than the morality of your sunburnt gentleman?

Enter CORNELIA

CORNELIA

Is this your perch, you haggard? Fly to th'stews.

[Strikes ZANCHE]

FLAMINEO

You should be clapp'd by th'heels now: strike i'th'court?

[Exit CORNELIA]

ZANCHE

She's good for nothing but to make her maids

Catch cold o'nights; they dare not usa a bedstaff,

125

For fear f her light fingers.

MARCELLO

You're a strumpet.

An impudent one.

FLAMINEO

Why do you kick her? Say,

Do you think that she's like a walnut-tree?

Must she be cudgell'd ere she bear good fruit?

MARCELLO

She brags that you shall marry her.

FLAMINEO

What then?

MARCELLO

130

I had rather she were pitch'd upon a stake

In some new-seeded garden, to affright

Her fellow crows thence.

FLAMINEO

You're a boy, a fool,

Be guardian to your hound, I am of age.

MARCELLO

If I take her near you I'll cut her throat.

FLAMINEO

135

With a fan of feathers?

MARCELLO

And for you, I'll whip

This folly from you.

FLAMINEO

Are you choleric?

I'll purgue't with rhubarb.

HORTENSIO

O your brother!

FLAMINEO

Hang him.

He wrongs me most that ought t'offend me least.

[to MARCELLO]

I do suspect my mother play'd foul play

140

When she conceiv'd thee.

MARCELLO

Now by all my hopes,

Like the two slaught'red sons of Œdipus,

The very flames of our affection

Shall turn two ways. Those words I'll make thee answer

With thy heart blood.

FLAMINEO

Do; like the gesses in the progress,

145

You know where you shall find me, –

MARCELLO

Very good.

[Exit FLAMINEO]

And thou beest a noble friend, bear him my sword,

And bid him fit the length on't.

YOUNG LORD

Sir I shall

[Exeunt all but ZANCHE]

Enter FRANCISCO the Duke of Florence

ZANCHE

[aside]

He comes. Hence petty thought of my disgrace!

I ne'er lov'd my complexion till now,

150

Cause I may boldly say without a blush,

I love you.

FRANCISCO

Your love is untimely sown;

There's a Spring at Michaelmas, but 'tis but a faint one.

I am sunk in years, and I have vowed never yo marry.

ZANCHE

Alas! poor maids get more lovers than husbands. Yet you may mistake my wealth. For, as when ambassadors are sent to congratulate princes, there's commonly sent along with them a rich present; so that though the prince like not the ambassador's person nor words, yet he likes well of the presentment. So I may come to you in the same manner, and be better loved for my dowry than my virtue.

FRANCISCO

I'll think on the motion.

ZANCHE

Do, I'll now detain you no longer. At your better leisure I'll tell you things shall startle your blood.

ErrorMetrica

Nor blame me that this passion I reveal;

Lovers die inward that their flames conceal.

FRANCISCO

[aside]

Of all intelligente this may prove the best,

160

Sure I shall draw strange fowl from this foul nest.

Exeunt

[Act V, Scene ii]

Enter MARCELLO and CORNELIA [and a PAGE, who remains in the background]

CORNELIA

I hear a whispering all about the court,

You are to fight; who is your opposite?

What is the quarrel?

MARCELLO

'Tis an idle rumour.

CORNELIA

Will you dissemble? Sure you do not well

To fright me thus; you never look thus pale,

But when you are most angry. I do charge you

Upon my blessing; –nay I'll call the Duke,

And he shall school you.

MARCELLO

Publish not a fear

Which would convert to laughter; 'tis not so.

Was not this crucifix my father's?

CORNELIA

Yes.

MARCELLO

I have heard you say, giving my brother suck,

Enter FLAMINEO

He took the crucifix between his hands,

And broke a limb off.

CORNELIA

Yes: but 'tis mended.

FLAMINEO

I have brought your weapon back.

FLAMINEO runs MARCELLO through

CORNELIA

Ha, O my horror!

MARCELLO

You have brought it home indeed.

CORNELIA

Help! Oh he's murdered.

FLAMINEO

Do you turn your gall up? I'll to sanctuary,

And send a surgeon to you

[Exit]

Enter CARL[O,] HORT[ENSIO,] PEDRO

HORTENSIO

How? O'th' ground?

MARCELLO

O mother now remember what I told

Of breaking off the crucifix: farewell.

There are some sins which heaven doth duly punish

In a whole family. This it is to rise

By all dishonest means. Let all men know

That tree shall long time keep a steady foot

Whose branches spread no wider than the root.

CORNELIA

O my perpetual sorrow!

HORTENSIO

Virtuous Marcello.

He's dead: pray leave him lady; come, you shall.

CORNELIA

Alas he is not dead: he's in a trance. Why here's nobody shall get anything by his death. Let me call him again for God's sake.

LODOVICO

I would you were deceiv'd.

CORNELIA

O you abuse me, you abuse, me, you abuse me. How many have gone away this for lack of tendance; rear up's head, rear up's head. His bleeding inward will kill him.

HORTENSIO

You see he is departed.

CORNELIA

Let me come to him; give me him as he is; if he be turn'd to earth; let me but give him one hearty kiss, and you shall put us both into one coffin: fetch a looking-glass, see if his breath will not stain it; or pull out some feathers from my pillow, and lay them to his lips, -will you lose him for a little pains-taking?

HORTENSIO

Your kindest office is to pray for him.

CORNELIA

Alas! I would not pray for him yet. He may live lo lay me i'th' ground, and pray for me, if you'll let me come to him.

Enter BRACHIANO all armed, save the beaver, with FLAMINEO [and FRANCISCO]

BRACHIANO

Was this your handiwork?

FLAMINEO

It was my misfortunate.

CORNELIA

He lies, he lies, he did not kill him: these have kill'd him, that would not let him be better look'd to.

BRACHIANO

Have comfort my griev'd mother.

CORNELIA

O you screech-owl.

HORTENSIO

Forbear, good madam.

CORNELIA

Let me go, let me go.

She runs to FLAMINEO with her knife drawn and coming to him lets it fall

ErrorMetrica

The God of heaven forgive thee. Dost not wonder

I pray for thee? I'll tell thee what's the reason:

I have scarce breath to number twenty minutes;

I'd not spend that in cursing. Fare thee well –

Half of thyself lies there: and may'st thou live

To fill an hour-glass with his mould'res ashes,

To tell how thou shouldst spend the time to come

In blest repentance.

BRACHIANO

Mother, pray tell me

How came he by his death? What was the quarrel?

CORNELIA

Indeed my younger boy presum'd too much

Upon his manhood; gave him bitter words;

Drew his sword first; and so I know not how,

For I was out of my wits, he fell with's head

Jus in my bosom.

PAGE

This is not true madam.

CORNELIA

I pray thee peace.

One arrow's graz'd already; it were vain

T'lose this: for that will nere be found again.

BRACHIANO

Go, bear the body to Cornelia's lodging:

And we command that none acquaint our Duchess

With this sad accident: for you Flamineo,

Hark you, I will not grant your pardon.

FLAMINEO

No?

BRACHIANO

Only a lease of your life. And that shall last

But for one day. Thou shalt be forc'd each evening

To renew it, or be hang'd.

FLAMINEO

At your pleasure.

LODOVICO sprinkles BRACHIANO'S beaver with a poison

Your will is law now, I'll not meddle with it.

BRACHIANO

You onve did brave me in your sister's lodging;

I'll now keep you in awe for't. Where's our beaver?

FRANCISCO

[aside]

He calls for his destruction. Noble youth,

I pity thy sad fate. Now to the barriers.

This shall his passage to the black lake further,

The last good deed he did, he pardon'd murther.

Exeunt

[Act V, Scene iii]

Charges and shouts. They fight at barriers; first single pairs, then three to three.

Enter BRACHIANO and FLAMINEO with others [including GIOVANNI, VITTORIA, and FRANCISCO]

BRACHIANO

An armourer! Ud's death, an armourer!

FLAMINEO

Armourer; where's the armourer?

BRACHIANO

Tear off my beaver.

FLAMINEO

Are you hurt, my lord?

BRACHIANO

Enter ARMOURER

O my brain's on fire,

The helmet is poison'd.

ARMOURER

My lord upon my soul –

BRACHIANO

[Exit ARMOURER, guarded]

Away with him to torture.

There are some great ones that have hand in this,

And near about me.

VITTORIA

O my loved lord; poison'd?

FLAMINEO

Remove the bar: here's unfortunate revels,

Ent[er] 2 PHYSICIANS

Call the physicians; a plague upon you;

We have too much of your cunning here already.

I fear the ambassadors are likewise poisoned.

BRACHIANO

Oh I am gone already: the infection

Fllies to the brain and hearth. O thou strong heart!

There's such a covenant 'tween the world and it,

They're loth to break.

GIOVANNI

O my most loved father!

BRACHIANO

Remove the boy away.

Where's this good woman? Had I infinite worlds

They were too little for thee. Must I leave thee?

What say yon screech-owls, is the venom mortal?

PHYSICIANS

Most deadly.

BRACHIANO

Most corrupted politic hangman!

You kill without book; but your art to save

Fails you as a oft as great men's needy friends.

I that have given life to offending slaves

And wretched murderers, have I not power

To lengthen mine own a twelvemonth?

[to VITTORIA]

Do not kiss me, for I shall poison thee.

This unction is sent from the great Duke of Florence.

FRANCISCO

Sir be of confort.

BRACHIANO

O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin

To sweetest slumber: no rought-bearded comet

Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl

Beats not against thy casement: the hoarse wolf

Scents not thy carrion. Pity winds thy corse,

Whilist horror waits on pinces.

VITTORIA

I am lost for ever.

BRACHIANO

How miserable a thing it is to die

'Mongst women howling!

[Enter LODOVICO and GASPARO disguised as Capuchins]

What are those?

FLAMINEO

Franciscans.

They have brought the extreme unction.

BRACHIANO

On pain of death, let no man name death to me,

It is a word infinitely terrible.

Withdraw into our cabinet.

Exeunt omnes praeter FRANCISCO and FLAMINEO

FLAMINEO

To see what solitariness is about dying princes. As heterofore they have unpeopled towns; divorc'd friends, and made great houses unhospitable: so now, O justice! Where are their flatterers now? Flatterers are but the shadows of princes' bodies, the least thrick could makes them invisible.

FRANCISCO

There's great moan made for him.

FLAMINEO

'Faith, for some few hours salt water will run most plentifully in every office o'th'court. But believe it; most of them do but weep over their stepmothers' graves.

FRANCISCO

How mean you?

FLAMINEO

Why? They dissemble, as some men do that live within compass o'th' verge.

FRANCISCO

Come you have thriv'd well under him.

FLAMINEO

'Faith, like a wolf in a woman's breast; I have been fed with poultry: but money, understand me, I had as good a will to cozen him, as e'er an officer of them all. But I had not cunning enough to do it.

FRANCISCO

What did'st thou think of him? 'Faith speak freely.

FLAMINEO

He was a kind of statesman, that would sooner have reckon'd how many cannon-bullets he had discharged against a town, to count his expense that way, than how many of this valiant and deserving subjects he lost before it.

FRANCISCO

O speak well of the Duke.

FLAMINEO

I have done. Wilt hear some of my court wisdom?
Enter LODOVICO To reprehend princes is dangerous: and to over-commend dome of them is palpable lying.

FRANCISCO

How is it with the Duke?

LODOVICO

Most deadly ill.

He's fall'n into a strange distraction.

He talks of battles and monopolies,

Levying of taxes, and from that descends

To the most brain-sick language. His mind fastens

On twenty several objects, which confound

Deep sense with folly. Such a fearful end

May teach some men that bear too lofty crest,

Though they live happiest, yet they die not best.

He hath conferr'd the whole state of the dukedom

Upon your sister, till the Prince arrive

At mature age.

FLAMINEO

There's some good luck in that yet.

FRANCISCO

See here he comes.

Enter BRACHIANO, presented in a bed, VITTORIA and others [including GASPARO].

VITTORIA

O my good lord!

These speeches are several kinds of distractions and in the action should appear so

BRACHIANO

Away, you have abus'd me.

You have convey'd coin forth our territories;

Bought and sold offices; oppress'd the poor,

And I ne'er dreamt on't. Make up your accounts;

I'll now be mine own steward.

FLAMINEO

Sir, have patience.

Indeed I am too blame.

For did you ever hear the dusky raven

Chide blackness? or was't ever know the devil

Rail'd against cloven creatures?

VITTORIA

O my lord!

BRACHIANO

Let me have some quails to supper.

FLAMINEO

Sir, you shall.

BRACHIANO

No: some fried dog-fish. Your quails feed on poison; –

That old dog-fox, that poitician Florence, –

I'll forswear hunting and turn dog-killer;

Rare! I'll be friends with him: for mark you, sir, one dog

Still sets another a-barking: peace, peace,

Yonder's a fine slave come in now.

FLAMINEO

Where?

BRACHIANO

Why there.

In a blue bonnet, and a pair of breeches

With a great codpiece. Ha, ha, ha,

Look you his codpiece is stuck full of pins

With pearls o'th' head of them. Do not you know him?

FLAMINEO

No my lord.

BRACHIANO

Why 'tis the devil.

I know him by a great rose he wears on's shoe

To hide his cloven foot. I'll dispute with him.

He's a rare linguist.

VITTORIA

My lord here's nothing.

BRACHIANO

Nothing? rare! nothing! When I want money

Our treasury is empty; there is nothing.

I'll not be used thus.

VITTORIA

O! lie still my lord –

BRACHIANO

See, see, Flamineo that kill'd his brother

Is dancing on the ropes there: and he carries

A money-bag in each hand, to keep him even,

For fear of breaking's neck. And there's a lawyer

In a gown whipt with velvet, stares and gapes

100

When the money will fall. How the rogue cuts capers!

It should have been in a halter.

'Tis there; what's she?

FLAMINEO

Vittoria, my lord.

BRACHIANO

Ha, ha, ha. Her hair is sprinkled with arras powder, that makes her look as if she sinn'd in the pastry. What's he?

FLAMINEO

A divine my lord.

BRACHIANO

105

He will be drunk. Avoid him: th'argument is fearful when

churchmen stagger in't.

Look you; six gray rats have lost their tails,

Crawl up the pillow; send for a rat-catcher.

I'll do a miracle: I'll free the court

110

From all foul vermin. Where's Flamineo?

FLAMINEO

I do not like that he names me so often,

Especially on's death-bed: 'tis a sign

I shall not live long: see he's near his end.

BRACHIANO seems here near is end

LODOVICO and GASPARO in the habit of Capuchins present him in his bed with a crucifix and hallowed candle.

LODOVICO

Pray give us leave: Attende Domine Brachiane.

FLAMINEO

115

See, see, how finaly he doth fix his eye

Upon the crucifix.

VITTORIA

O hold it constant.

It settles his wild spirits; and so his eyes

Melt into tears.

LODOVICO

(By the crucifix) Domine Brachiane, solebas in bello tutus esse tuo clypeo, nùnc hanc clypeum hosti tui opponas ingernali.

GASPARO

(By the hallowed taper) Olim hastâ valausti in bello; nûnc hanc sacram hastam vibrabis contra hostem animarum.

LODOVICO

Attende Domine Brachiane si nunc quòque probas ea quæ acta sunt inter nos, flecte caput in dextrum.

GASPARO

Esto securus. Domine Brachiane: cogita quantum habeas meritorum – denique memineris mean animam pro tua oppignoratam si quid esse periculi.

LODOVICO

Si nùnc quoque probas ea quæ acta sunt inter nos, flecte caput in lævum.

ErrorMetrica

He is departing: pray stand all apart,

125

And let us only whisper in his ears

Some private meditations, which our order

Permits you not to hear.

Here the rest being departed LODOVICO and GASPARO discover themselves

GASPARO

Brachiano.

LODOVICO

Devil Brachiano. Thou art damn'd.

GASPARO

Perpetually.

LODOVICO

A slave condemn'd, and given up to the gallows

130

Is thy great lord and master.

GASPARO

True: for thou

Art given up to the devil.

LODOVICO

O you slave!

You that were held the famous politician;

Whose art was poison.

GASPARO

And whose conscience murder.

LODOVICO

That would have broke your wife's neck down the stairs ere she was poison'd.

GASPARO

135

That had your villainous sallets –

LODOVICO

And fine embroidered bottles, and perfumes

Equally mortal with a winter plague –

GASPARO

Now there's mercury –

LODOVICO

And copperas –

GASPARO

And quicksilver –

LODOVICO

With other devilish pothecary stuff

140

A-melting in your politic brains: dost hear?

GASPARO

This is Count Lodovico.

LODOVICO

This Gasparo.

And thou shalt die like a poor rogue.

GASPARO

And stink

Like a dead fly-blown dog.

LODOVICO

And be forgotten before thy funeral sermon.

BRACHIANO

145

Vittoria! Vittoria!

LODOVICO

O the cursed devil,

Come to himself again! We are undone.

Enter VITTORIA and the ATTEND[ANTS]

GASPARO

[aside to LODOVICO]

Strangle him in private.

[to VITTORIA]

What? Will you call him again

To live in treble torments? For charity,

150

For Christian charity, avoid the chamber.

Exeunt [VITTORIA and ATTENDANTS]

LODOVICO

You would prate, sir. This is a true-love knot

BRACHIANO is strangled

Sent from the Duke of Florence.

GASPARO

What, is it done?

LODOVICO

The snuff is out. No woman-keeper i'th' world,

Though she had practis'd seven year at the pest-house,

155

Could have done't quaintlier.

[Enter VITTORIA, FRANCISCO, FLAMINEO and ATTENDANTS]

My lords he's dead.

OMNES

Rest to his soul.

VITTORIA

O me! This place is hell.

Exit VITTORIA

[with ATTENDANTS and GASPARO]

FRANCISCO

How heavily she takes it.

FLAMINEO

O yes, yes;

Had women navigable rivers in their eyes

They would dispend them all; surely I wonder

160

Why we should wish more rivers to the city

When they sell water so good cheap. I'll tell thee,

These are but moonish shades of griefs or fears,

There's nothing sooner dry than women's tears.

Why here's an end of all my harvest, he has given me nothing.

165

Court promises! Let wise men count them curs'd

For while you live he that scores best pays worst.

FRANCISCO

Sure, this was Florence' doing.

FLAMINEO

Very likely.

Those are found weighty strokes which come from th'hand,

But those are killing strokes which come from th'head.

170

O the rare tricks of a Machivillian!

He doth not come like a gross plodding slave

And buffet you to death. No, my quaint knave,

He tickles you to death; makes you die laughing;

As if you had swallow'd down a pound of saffron.

175

You see the feat, 'tis practis'd in a trice:

To teach court-honesty, it jumps on ice.

FRANCISCO

Now have the people liberty to talk

And descant on his vices.

FLAMINEO

Misery of princes,

That must of force be censur'd by their slaves!

180

Not only blam'd for doing things are ill,

But for not doing all that all men will.

One were better be a thresher.

Ud's death, I would fain speak with this Duke yet.

FRANCISCO

Now he's dead?

FLAMINEO

185

I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths

Will get to th'speech of him: though forty devils

Wait on him in his livery of flames,

I'll speak to him, and shake him by the hand,

Exit FLAMINEO

Though I be blasted.

FRANCISCO

Excellent Lodovico!

190

What? Did you terrify him at the last gasp?

LODOVICO

Yes; and so idly, that the Duke had like

T'have terrified us.

FRANCISCO

How?

Enter [ZANCHE] the Moor

LODOVICO

You shall hear that hereafter.

See! yon's the infernal that would make us sport.

195

Now to the revelation of that secret

She promis'd when she felt in love with you.

FRANCISCO

You're passionately met in this sad world.

ZANCHE

I would have you look up, sir; these court tears

Claim not your tribute to them. Let those weep

200

That guilty partake in the sad cause.

I knew last night by a sad dream I had

Some mischief would ensue; yet yo say truth

My dream most concern'd you.

LODOVICO

Shall's fall a-dreaming?

FRANCISCO

Yes, and for fashion sake I'll dream with her.

ZANCHE

205

Methough sir, you came stealing to my bed.

FRANCISCO

Wilt thou believe me sweeting? By this light

I was a-dreamt on thee too: for methought

I saw thee naked.

ZANCHE

Fie sir! as I told you,

Methought you lay down by me.

FRANCISCO

So dreamt I:

210

And lest thou shouldst take cold, I cover'd thee

With this Irish mantle.

ZANCHE

Verily I did dream,

You were somewhat bold with me; but to come to't.

LODOVICO

How? How? I hope you will not go to't here.

FRANCISCO

Nay: you mist hear my dream out.

ZANCHE

Well, sir, forth.

FRANCISCO

215

When I threw the mantle o'er thee, thou didst laugh

Exceedingly methought.

ZANCHE

Laugh?

FRANCISCO

And cried'st out,

The hair did tickle thee.

ZANCHE

There was a dream indeed.

LODOVICO

Mark her I prithee, she simpers like the suds

A collier hath been wash'd in.

ZANCHE

220

Come, sir; good fortune tends you; I did tell you

I would reveal a secret: Isabella

The Duke of Florence' sister was empoison'd,

By a fum'd picture: and Camillo's neck

Was broke by damn'd Flamineo; the mischance

225

Laid on a vaulting-horse.

FRANCISCO

Most strange!

ZANCHE

Most true.

LODOVICO

The bed of snakes is broke.

ZANCHE

I sadly do confess I had a hand

In the black deed.

FRANCISCO

Thou kept'st their counser, –

ZANCHE

Right.

For which urg'd with contrition, I intend

230

This night to rob Vittoria.

LODOVICO

Excellent penitence!

Usurers dream on't while they sleep out sermons.

ZANCHE

To further out escape, I have entreated

Leave to retire me, till the funeral

Unto a frien i'th' country. That excuse

235

Will futher our escape. In coin and jewels

I shall, at least, make good unto your use

A hundred thousand crowns.

FRANCISCO

O noble wench!

LODOVICO

Those crowns we'll share.

ZANCHE

It is a dowry,

Methinks, should make that sunburnt proverb false,

240

And wash the Ethiop white.

FRANCISCO

It shall, away!

ZANCHE

Be ready for our flight.

FRANCISCO

An hour 'fore day.

Exit [ZANCHE] the Moor

O strange discovery! Why till now we knew not

The circumstance of either of their deaths

Enter [ZANCHE the] Moor

ZANCHE

You'll wait about midnight in the chapel?

FRANCISCO

There.

LODOVICO

245

Why now our action's justified, –

FRANCISCO

Tush for justice.

What harms it justice? We now, like the partridge

Purge the disease with laurel: for the fame

Shall crown the enterprise and quit the shame.

Exeunt

[Act V, Scene iv]

Enter FLAM[INEO] and GASP[ARO] at one door, another way GIOVANNI attended

GASPARO

The young Duke. Did you e'er see a sweeter prince?

FLAMINEO

I have known a poor woman's bastard better favour'd. This is behind him. Now, to his face: all comparisons were hateful. Wise was the courtly peacock, that being a great minion, and being compar'd for beauty, by some dottrels that bird than herself, not in respect of her feathers, but in respect of her long tallants. His will grow out in time. My gracious lord.

GIOVANNI

I pray leave me sir.

FLAMINEO

Your Grace must be merry; 'tis I have cause to mourn; for wot you what said the little boy that rode behind his father on horseback?

GIOVANNI

Why, what said he?

FLAMINEO

'When you are dead father,' said he, 'I hope then I shall ride in the saddle.' O 'tis a brave thing for a man to sit by himself: he may stretch himself in the stirrups, look about, and see the whole compass of the hemisphere; you're now, my lord, i'th'saddle.

GIOVANNI

Study your prayers, sir, and be penitent.

‘Twere fit you’d think on what hath former been;

I have heard grief named the eldest child of sin.

(Vanse Giovanni, Gasparo y acompañantes)

FLAMINEO

Study my prayers? He threatens me divinely; I am falling to pieces already; I care not, though, like Anacharsis I were pounded to death in a mortar. And yet that death were fitter for usurers' gold and themselves to be beaten together, to make a most cordial cullis for the devil.

ErrorMetrica

He hath his uncle's villainous look already,

Enter COURTIER

In decimo-sexto. Now sir, what are you?

COURTIER

It is the pleasure sir, of the young Duke

That you forbear the presence, and all rooms

That owe him reverence.

FLAMINEO

So, the wolf and the raven

Are very pretty fools when they are young.

Is it your office, sir, to keep me out?

COURTIER

So the Duke wills.

FLAMINEO

Verily, master courtier, extremity is not to be used in all offices. Say that a gentlewoman were taken out of her bed about midnight, and committed to Castle Angelo, to the tower yonder, with nothing about her, but her smock: would it not show a cruel part in the gentleman porter to lay claim to her upper garment, pull it o'er her head and ears; and put her in naked?

COURTIER

Very good: you are merry.

[Exit]

FLAMINEO

Doth he make a court ejectment of me? A flaming firebrand casts more smoke

ErrorMetrica

Enter [FRANCISCO, Duke of] Florence

How now? Thou art sad.

FRANCISCO

I met even now with the most piteous sight.

FLAMINEO

Thou met'st another here, a pitiful

Degraded courtier.

FRANCISCO

Your reverend mother

Is grown a very old woman in two hours.

I found them winding of Marcello's corse;

And there is such a solemn melody

'Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies:

Such as old grandames, watching by the dead,

Were wont t'outwear the nights with; that belive me

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,

They were so o'ercharg'd with water.

FLAMINEO

I will see them.

FRANCISCO

'Twere much uncharity in you: for your sight

Will add unto their tears.

FLAMINEO

I will see them.

FRANCISCO

They are behind the traverse. I'll discover

[Draws the traverse]

Their superstitious howling.

CORNELIA, [ZANCHE] the Moor and 3. other Ladies discovered, winding MARCELLO'S corse. A song.

CORNELIA

This rosemary is wither'd, pray det fresh;

I would have these herbs grow up in his grave

When I am dead and rotten. Reach the bays,

I'll tie a garland here about his head:

'Twill keep my boy from lightning. This sheet

I have kept this twenty year, and every day

Hallow'd it with my prayers; I did not think

He should have wore it.

ZANCHE

Look you; who are yonder?

CORNELIA

O reach me the flowers.

ZANCHE

Her ladyship's foolish.

WOMAN

Alas her grief

Hath turn'd her child again.

CORNELIA

to FLAMINEO

You're very welcome.

There's rosemary for you, and rue for you,

Hearth's-ease for you. I pray make much of it.

J have left more for myself.

FRANCISCO

Lady, who's this?

CORNELIA

You are, I take it, the grave-maker.

FLAMINEO

So.

ZANCHE

'Tis Flamineo.

[CORNELIA takes his hand]

CORNELIA

Will you make me such a fool? Here's a white hand:

Can blood so soon be wash'd out? Let me see:

When screech-owls croak upon the chimney tops,

And the strange cricket i'th' oven sings and hops,

When yellow spots do on your hand appear,

Be certain then you of a corse shall hear.

Out upon't, how 'tis speckled! H'as handled a toad sure.

Cowslip-water is good for the memory:

Pray buy me 3. ounces of't.

FLAMINEO

I would I were from hence.

CORNELIA

Do you hear, sir?

I'll give you a saying which my grandmother

Was wont, when she heard the bell toll, to sing o'er

Unto her lute –

FLAMINEO

Do and you will, do.

CORNELIA doth this in several forms of distraction

CORNELIA

Call for the robin red breast and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flow'rs do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole

To rear him hillocks, that shall keep him warm

And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm,

But keep the wolf far thence: that's foe to men,

For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

They would not bury him 'cause he died in a quarrel

But I have an answer for them.

Let holy church receive him duly

Since he paid the church tithes truly.

His wealth is summ'd, and this is all his store:

This poor men get; and great men get no more.

Now the wares are gone, we may shut up shop.

Bless you all good people.

Exeunt CORNELIA [, ZANCHE] and Ladies

FLAMINEO

I have a strange thing in me, to the which

I cannot give a name, without it be

Exit FRANCISCO

Compassion; I pray leave me.

This night I'll know the utmost of my fate,

I'll be resolv'd what my rich sister means

T'assign me for my service. I have liv'd

Riotously ill, like some that live in court.

And sometimes, when my face was full of smiles

Have felt the maze of conscience in my breast.

Oft gay and honour'd robes those tortures try,

We think cag'd birds sing, when indeed they cry.

Enter BRACHIA[NO'S] Ghost. In his leather cassock and breeches, boots, a cowl [and in his hand] a pot of lily-flowers with a skull in't.

Ha! I can stand thee. Nearer, nearer yet.

What a mockery hath death made of thee? Thou look'st sad.

In what place art thou? In yon starry gallery,

Or in the cursed dungeon? No? not speak?

100

Pray, sir, resolve me, what religion's best

For a man to die in? or is it in your knowledge

To answer me how long I have to live?

That's the most necessary question.

Not answer? Are you still like some great men

105

That only walk like shadows up and down,

And to no purpose: say: ——

The ghost throws earth upon him and shows him the skull

What's that? O fatal! He throws earth upon me.

A dead man's skull beneath the roots of flowers.

110

I pray speak sir; our Italian churchmen

Make us believe, dead men hold conference

With their familiars, and many times

Exit Ghost

Will come to bed to them, and eat with them.

He's gone; and see, the skull and earth are vanish'd.

115

This is beyond melancholy. I do dare my fate

To do its worst. Now to my sister's lodging,

And sum up all these horrors; the disgrace

The Prince threw on me; next the piteous sight

And last this terrible vision. All these

120

Shall with Vittoria's bounty turn togood,

Or I will drown this weapon in her blood.

Exit

[Act V, Scene v]

Enter FRANCISCO, LODOVICO, and HORTENSIO [overhearing them]

LODOVICO

My lord upon my soul you shall no further:

You have most ridiculously engag'd yourself

Too far already. For my part, I have paid

All my debts, so if I should chance to fall

My creditors fall not with me; and I vow

To quite all in this bold assembly

To the meanest follower. My lord eave the city,

Or I'll forswear the murder.

FRANCISCO

Farewell Lodovico.

If thou dost perish in this glorious act,

I'll rear unto thy memory that fame

Shall in the ashes keep alive thy name.

[Exeunt FRANCISCO and LODOVICO]

HORTENSIO

There's some black deed on foot. I'll presently

Down to the citadel, and raise some force.

These strong court factions that do brook no checks,

In the career oft break the riders' necks.

[Exit]

[Act V, Scene vi]

Enter VITTORIA with a book in her hand, ZANCHE; FLAMINEO following them

FLAMINEO

What, are you at your prayers? Give o'er.

VITTORIA

How ruffin?

FLAMINEO

I come to you 'bout worldly business:

Sit down, sit down. Nay, stay blouze, you may hear it,

The doors are fast enough.

VITTORIA

Ha, are you drunk?

FLAMINEO

Yes, yes, with wormwood water; you shall taste

Some of it presently.

VITTORIA

What intends the fury?

FLAMINEO

You are my lord's executrix, and I claim

Reward, for my long service.

VITTORIA

For your service?

FLAMINEO

Come therefore, here is pen and ink, set down

What you will give me.

She writes

VITTORIA

There.

FLAMINEO

Ha! have you done already?

'Tis a most short conveyance.

VITTORIA

I will read it.

[reads]

I give that portion to thee, and no other

Which Cain groan'd under having slain his brother.

FLAMINEO

A most courtly patent to beg by.

VITTORIA

You are a villain.

FLAMINEO

Is't come to this? They say affrights cure agues;

Thou hast a devil in thee; I will try

If I can scare him from thee. Nay sit still:

My lord hath left me yet two caso of jewels

Shall make me scorn you bounty; you shall see them.

[Exit]

VITTORIA

Sure he's distracted.

ZANCHE

O he's desperate!

For your own safety give him gentle language.

He enters with two case of pistols

FLAMINEO

Look, these are better far at a dead lift,

Than all your jewel house.

VITTORIA

And yet methinks,

These stones have no fair lustre, they are ill set.

FLAMINEO

I'l turn the right side towards you: you shall see

How they will sparkle.

VITTORIA

Turn this horror from me:

What do you want? What would you have me do?

Is not all mine, yours? Have I any children?

FLAMINEO

Pray thee good woman do not trouble me

With this vain worldly business; say your prayers;

I made a vow to my deceased lord,

Neither yourself, nor I should outlive him,

The numb'ring of four hours.

VITTORIA

Did he enjoin it?

FLAMINEO

He did, and 'twas a deadly jealousy,

Lest any should enjoy thee after him,

That urg'd him vow me to it. For my death,

I did propound it voluntarily, knowing

If he could not be safe in his own court

Being a great Duke, what hope then for us?

VITTORIA

This is your melancholy and despair.

FLAMINEO

Away;

Fool that thou art to think that politicians

Do use to kill the effects of injuries

And let the cause live: shall we groan in irons,

Or be a shameful and a weight burthen

To a public scaffold? This is my resolve:

I would not live at any man's entreaty

Nor die at any's bidding.

VITTORIA

Will you hear me?

FLAMINEO

My life hath done service to other men,

My death shall serve mine own turn; make you ready.

VITTORIA

Do you mean to die indeed?

FLAMINEO

With as much pleasure

As e’er my father gat me..

VITTORIA

[aside to ZANCHE]

Are the doors lock’d?

ZANCHE

Yes madam.

VITTORIA

Are you grown an atheist? Will you turn your body,

Which is the goodly palace of the soul

To the soul’s slaughter house? O the cursed devil

Which doth present us with all other sins

Thrice candied o’er; despair with gall and stibium,

[aside to ZANCHE]

Cry out for help.

Yet we carouse it off;

Makes us forsake that which was made for man,

The world, to sink to that was made for devils,

Eternal darkness.

ZANCHE

Help, help!

FLAMINEO

I’ll stop your throat

With winter plums, —

VITTORIA

I prithee yet remember,

Millions are now in graves, which at last day

Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.

FLAMINEO

Leave your prating,

For these are but grammatical laments,

Feminine arguments, and they move me

As some in pulpits move their auditory

More with their exclamation than sense

Of reason, or sound doctrine.

ZANCHE

[aside]

Gentle madam

Seem to consent, only persuade him teach

The way to death; let him die first.

VITTORIA

[aside]

‘Tis good, I apprehend it. —

To kill oneself is meat that we must take

Like pills, not chew’t, but quickly swallow it;

The smart o’th’ wound, or weakness of the hand

May else bring treble torments.

FLAMINEO

I have held it

A wretched and most miserable life,

Which is not able to die.

VITTORIA

O but frailty!

Yet I am now resolv’d; farewell affliction.

Behold Brachiano, I that while you liv’d

Did make a flaming altar of my heart

To sacrifice unto you; now am ready

To sacrifice heart and all. Farewell Zanche.

ZANCHE

How madam! Do you think that I’ll outlive you?

Expecially when my best self Flamineo

Goes the same voyage.

FLAMINEO

O most loved Moor!

ZANCHE

Only, by all my love let me entreat you;

Since it is most necessary none of us

Do violence in ourselves; let you or I

Be her sad taster, teach her how to die.

FLAMINEO

Thou dost instruct me nobly; take these pistols,

Because my hand is stain’d with blood already:

Two of these you shall level at my breast,

The other ‘gainst your own, and so we’ll die,

Most equally contented. But first swear

Not to outlive me.

VITTORIA and ZANCHE

Most religiously.

FLAMINEO

Then here’s and end of me: farewell daylight;

And O contemptible physic! That dost take

100

So long a study, only to preserve

So short a life, I take my leave of thee.

Showing the pistols

These are two cupping-glasses, that shall draw

All my infected blood out.

Are you ready?

VITTORIA and ZANCHE

Ready.

FLAMINEO

105

Whither shall I go now? O Lucian thy ridiculous purgatory!

to fin Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging

points, and Julius Caesar making hair buttons, Hannibal

selling blacking, and August crying garlic, Charlemagne

selling lists by the dozen, and King Pippin crying apples in

110

a cart drawn with one horse.

Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air,

Or all the elements by scruples, I know not

Nor greatly care. — Shoot, shoot,

Of all deaths the violent death is best,

115

For from ourselves it steals ourselves so fast

The pain once apprehended is quite past.

They shoot and run to him and tread upon him

VITTORIA

What, are you dropp’d?

FLAMINEO

I am mix’d with earth already. As you are noble

Perform you vows, and bravely follow me.

VITTORIA

120

Whither? to hell?

ZANCHE

To most assured damnation.

VITTORIA

O thou most cursed devil.

ZANCHE

Thou art caught —

VITTORIA

In thine own engine; I thread the fire out

That would have been my ruin.

FLAMINEO

Will you be perjur’d? What a religious oath was Styx that the gods never durst swear by and violate? O that we had such an oath to minister, and to be so well kept in our courts of justice.

VITTORIA

125

Think whither thou art going.

ZANCHE

And remember

What villainies thou hast acted.

VITTORIA

This thy death

Shall make me like a blazing ominous star, —

Look up and tremble.

FLAMINEO

O I am caught with a springe!

VITTORIA

You see the fox comes many times short home,

130

‘Tis here prov’d true.

FLAMINEO

Kill’d with a couple of braches

VITTORIA

No fitter offering for the infernal Furies

Than one in whom they reign’d while he was living.

FLAMINEO

O the way’s dark and horrid! I cannot see,

Shall I have no company?

VITTORIA

O yes thy sins

135

Do rin before thee to fetch fire from hell,

To light thee thither.

FLAMINEO

O I smell soot,

Most stinking soot, the chimney is a-fire,

My liver’s parboil’d like Scotch holy-bread;

There’s a plumber, laying pipes in my guts, it scalds;

140

Wilt thou outlive me?

ZANCHE

Yes, and drive a stake

Through thy body; for we’ll give it out,

Thou didst this violence upon thyself.

FLAMINEO

O cunning devils! now I have try’d your love,

And doubled all your reaches. I am not wounded:

FLAMINEO riseth

145

The pistols held no bullets: ‘Twas a plot

To prove your kindness to me; and I live

To punish your ingratitude; I knew

One time or other you would find a way

To give me a strong potion. O men

150

That lie upon your death-beds, and are haunted

With howling wives, ne’er trust them; they’ll remarry

Ere the worm pierce your winding sheet; ere the spider

Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.

How cunning you were to discharge! Do you practice at the Artillery Yard? Trust a woman? Never, never; Brachiano be my president: we lay our souls to pawn to the devil for a little pleasure, and a woman makes the bill of sale. That ever man should marry! For one Hypermnestra that sav’d her lord and husband, forty-nine of her sisters cut their throats all in one night. There was a shoal of virtuous horseleeches.

ErrorMetrica

155

Here are two other instruments.

Enter LOD[OVICO], GASP[ARO, disguised as] CARLO, PEDRO [with others]

VITTORIA

Help, help!

FLAMINEO

What noise is that? hah? False keys I’th’ court.

LODOVICO

We have brought you a masque.

FLAMINEO

A matachin it seems,

By your drawn swords. Churchmen turn’d revellers.

CONSPIRATORS

Isabella, Isabella!

[They throw off their disguises]

LODOVICO

160

Do you know us now?

FLAMINEO

Lodovico and Gasparo.

LODOVICO

Yes, and that Moor the Duke gave pension to

Was the great Duke of Florence.

VITTORIA

O we are lost.

FLAMINEO

You shall not take justice from forth my hands;

O let me kill her. ——— I’ll cut my safety

165

Through your coats of steel. Fate’s a spaniel,

We cannot beat it from us. What remains now?

Let all that do ill take this president:

Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent.

And od all axioms this shall win the prize,

170

‘Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

GASPARO

Bind him to the pillar.

VITTORIA

O your gentle pity!

I have seen a blackbird that would sooner fly

To a man’s bosom, than to stay the gripe

Of the fierece sparrow-hawk.

GASPARO

Your hope deceives you.

VITTORIA

175

If Florence be I’th’ court, would he would kill me.

GASPARO

Fool! Princes give rewards with their own hands,

But death or punishment by the hands of others.

LODOVICO

Sirrah you once did strike me; I’ll strike you

Into the centre.

FLAMINEO

180

Thou’lt do it like a hangman; a base hangman;

Not like a noble fellow, for thou seest

I cannot strike again.

LODOVICO

Dost laugh?

FLAMINEO

Wouldst have me die, as I was born, in whining?

GASPARO

Recommend yourself to heaven.

FLAMINEO

185

No I will carry mine won commendations thither.

LODOVICO

Oh could I kill you forty times a day

And use’t four tear together; ‘twere too little:

Nought grieve’s but that you are too few to feed

The famine of our vengeance. What dost think on?

FLAMINEO

190

Nothing; of nothing: leave thy idle questions;

I am I’th’way to study a long silence

To prate were idle; I remember nothing.

There’s nothing of so infinite vexation

As man’s own thoughts.

LODOVICO

O thou glorious strumpet,

195

Could I divide thy breath from this pure air

When’t leaves thy body, I would suck it up

And breathe’t upon some dunghill.

VITTORIA

You, my death’s-man;

Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough,

Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman;

200

If thou be, do thy office in right form;

Fall down upon thy knees and ask forgiveness.

LODOVICO

O thou hast been a most prodigious comet,

But I’ll cut off your train: kill the Moor first.

VITTORIA

You shall not kill her first. Behold my breast,

205

I will be waited on in death; my servant

Shall never go before me.

GASPARO

Are you so brave?

VITTORIA

Yes I shall welvome death

As princes do some great ambassadors;

I’ll meet thy weapon half way.

LODOVICO

Thou dost tremble,

210

Methinks fear should dissolve thee into air.

VITTORIA

O thou art deceiv’d, I am too true a woman:

Conceit can never kill me: I’ll tell thee what;

I will not in my death shed one base tear,

Or if look pale, for want of blood, not fear.

GASPARO

215

Thou art my task, black fury.

ZANCHE

I have blood

As red as either of theirs: wilt drink some?

‘Tis good for the falling sickness. I am proud

Death cannot alter my complexion,

For I shall ne’er look pale.

LODOVICO

Strike, strike,

220

[They strike]

With a joint motion.

VITTORIA

‘Twas a manly blow.

The next thou giv’st, murder some sicking infant,

And then thou wilt be famous.

FLAMINEO

O what blade is’t?

A Toledo, or an English fox?

I ever thought a cutler should distinguish

225

The cause of my death, rather than a doctor.

Search my wound deeper: tent it with the steel

That made it.

VITTORIA

O my greatest sin lay in my blood.

Now my blood pays for’t.

FLAMINEO

Th’art a noble sister,

230

I love thee now; if woman do breed man

She ought to teach him manhood. Fare thee well.

Know many glorious women that are fam’d

For masculine virtue, have been vicious

Only a happier silence did betide them.

235

She hath no faults, who that the art to hide them.

VITTORIA

My soul, like to a ship in a black storm,

Is driven I know not whither.

FLAMINEO

Then cast anchor.

Prosperity doth bewitch men seeming clear,

But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.

240

We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune’s slaves,

Nay cease to die by diyng.

[to ZANCHE]

Art thou gone?

[to VITTORIA]

And thou so near the bottom? False report

Which says that women vie with the nine Muses

For nine tough durable lives. I do not look

245

Who went before, nor who shall follow me;

No, at myself I will begin and end.

While we look up to heaven we confound

Knowledge with knowledge. O I am in a mist.

VITTORIA

O happy they that never saw the court,

250

VITTORIA dies

Nor ever knew great man but by report.

FLAMINEO

I recover like a spent taper, for a flash

And instantly go out.

Let all that belong to great men remember th’old wives’

tradition, to be like the lions I’th’ Tower on Candlemas day,

255

to mourn if the sun shine, for fear of the pitiful remainder of

winter to come.

‘Tis well yet there’s some goodness in my death,

My life was a black charnel. I have cought

An everlasting cold. I have lost my voice

260

Most irrecoverably. Farewell glorious villains,

This busy trade of life appears most vain,

Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.

Let no harash flattering bells resound my knell,

Strike thunder, and strike loud to my farewell.

He dies

Enter [AMBASSADORS] and GIOVANNI. [GUARDS follow.]

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

265

This way, this way, break ope the doors, this way.

LODOVICO

Ha, are we betray’d?

Why then let’s constantly die all together,

And having finish’d this most noble deed,

Defy the worst of fate; net fear to bleed.

ENGLISH AMBASSADOR

270

Keep back the Prince: shoot, shoot —

[GUARDS shoot at conspirators]

LODOVICO

O I am wounded.

I fear I shall be tane.

GIOVANNI

You bloody villiains,

By what authority have you commited

This massacre?

LODOVICO

By thine.

GIOVANNI

Mine?

LODOVICO

Yes, thy uncle,

Which is a part of thee enjoin’d us to’t:

275

Thou know’st me I am sure, I am Count Lodowick,

And thy most noble uncle in disguise

Was last night in thy court.

GIOVANNI

Ha!

GASPARO

Yes, that Moor

Thy father chose his pensioner.

GIOVANNI

He turn’d murderer?

Away with them to prision, and to torture;

280

All that have hand in this, shall taste our justice,

As I hope heaven.

LODOVICO

I do glory yet

That I can call this act mine own. For my part,

The rack, the gallows, and the torturing wheel

Shall be but sound sleeps to me; here’s my rest:

285

I limb’d this night-piece and it was my best.

GIOVANNI

Remove the bodies; see my honoured lord,

What use you ought make of their punishment.

Let guilty men remember their black deeds

Do lean on crutches, made of slender reeds.

[Exeunt]

Colofón

Instead of an Epilogue only this of Martial supplies me:
Haec fuerint nobis praemia si plauci.
For the action of the play, ‘twas generally well, and I dare affirm, with the joint testimony of some of their own quality, (for the true imitation
of life, without striving to make nature a monster) the best that ever became them: whereof as I make a general acknowledgment, so in particular I must remember the well approved industry of my friend Master Perkinks, And confess the worth of his action did crown both the Beginning and end.
FINIS

John Webster

The White Devil

[Act I, Scene i]

[Act I, Scene ii]

[Act II, Scene i]

[Act II, Scene ii]

[Act III, Scene i]

[Act III, Scene ii]

[Act III, Scene iii]

[Act IV, Scene I]

[Act IV, Scene ii]

[Act IV, Scene iii]

[Act V, Scene i]

[Act V, Scene ii]

[Act V, Scene iii]

[Act V, Scene iv]

[Act V, Scene v]

[Act V, Scene vi]