The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (books to read for teens .txt) 📕

silence,
Methinks, expresseth more than if she spake. Ferdinand

Her melancholy seems to be fortified
With a strange disdain.

Bosola

’Tis so; and this restraint,
Like English mastives that grow fierce with tying,
Makes her too passionately apprehend
Those pleasures she is kept from.

Ferdinand

Curse upon her!
I will no longer study in the book
Of another’s heart. Inform her what I told you.

Exit. Enter Duchess and Attendants. Bosola

All comfort to your grace!

Duchess

I will have none.
Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poison’d pills
In gold and sugar?

Bosola

Your elder brother, the Lord Ferdinand,
Is come to visit you, and sends you word,
’Cause once he rashly made a solemn vow
Never to see you more, he comes i’ th’ night;
And prays you gently neither torch nor taper
Shine in your chamber. He will kiss your hand,
And reconcile himself; but for his vow
He dares not see you.

Duchess

At his pleasure.⁠—
Take hence the lights.⁠—He’s come.

Exeunt Attendants with lights. Enter Ferdinand. Ferdinand

Where are you?

Duchess

Here, sir.

Ferdinand

This darkness suits you well.

Duchess

I would ask you pardon.

Ferdinand

You have it;
For I account it the honorabl’st revenge,
Where I may kill, to pardon.⁠—Where are your cubs?

Duchess

Whom?

Ferdinand

Call them your children;
For though our national law distinguish bastards
From true legitimate issue, compassionate nature
Makes them all equal.

Duchess

Do you visit me for this?
You violate a sacrament o’ th’ church
Shall make you howl in hell for’t.

Ferdinand

It had been well,
Could you have liv’d thus always; for, indeed,
You were too much i’ th’ light:⁠—but no more;
I come to seal my peace with you. Here’s a hand
Gives her a dead man’s hand.
To which you have vow’d much love; the ring upon’t
You gave.

Duchess

I affectionately kiss it.

Ferdinand

Pray, do, and bury the print of it in your heart.
I will leave this ring with you for a love-token;
And the hand as sure as the ring; and do not doubt
But you shall have the heart too. When you need a friend,
Send it to him that ow’d it; you shall see
Whether he can aid you.

Duchess

You are very cold:
I fear you are not well after your travel.⁠—
Ha! lights!⁠—O, horrible!

Ferdinand

Let her have lights enough.

Exit. Duchess

What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left
A dead man’s hand here?

Here is discovered, behind a traverse,87 the artificial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead. Bosola

Look you, here’s the piece from which ’twas ta’en.
He doth present you this sad spectacle,
That, now you know directly they are dead,
Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
For that which cannot be recovered.

Duchess

There is not between heaven and earth one wish
I stay for after this. It wastes me more
Than were’t my picture, fashion’d out of wax,
Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried
In some foul dunghill; and yon’s an excellent property
For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

Bosola

What’s that?

Duchess

If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk,
And let me freeze to death.

Bosola

Come, you must live.

Duchess

That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell,
In hell, that they must live, and cannot die.
Portia,88 I’ll new kindle thy coals again,
And revive the rare and almost dead example
Of a loving wife.

Bosola

O, fie! despair? Remember
You are a Christian.

Duchess

The church enjoins fasting:
I’ll starve myself to death.

Bosola

Leave this vain sorrow.
Things being at the worst begin to mend: the bee
When he hath shot his sting into your hand,
May then play with your eyelid.

Duchess

Good comfortable fellow,
Persuade a wretch that’s broke upon the wheel
To have all his bones new set; entreat him live
To be executed again. Who must despatch me?
I account this world a tedious theatre,
For I do play a part in’t ’gainst my will.

Bosola

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

Duchess

Indeed, I have not leisure to tend so small a business.

Bosola

Now, by my life, I pity you.

Duchess

Thou art a fool, then,
To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched
As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers.
Puff, let me blow these vipers from me.

Enter Servant.

What are you?

Servant

One that wishes you long life.

Duchess

I would thou wert hang’d for the horrible curse
Thou hast given me: I shall shortly grow one
Of the miracles of pity. I’ll go pray;⁠—

Exit Servant.

No, I’ll go curse.

Bosola

O, fie!

Duchess

I could curse the stars.

Bosola

O, fearful!

Duchess

And those three smiling seasons of the year
Into a Russian winter; nay, the world
To its first chaos.

Bosola

Look you, the stars shine still.

Duchess

O, but you must
Remember, my curse hath a great way to go.⁠—
Plagues, that make lanes through largest families,
Consume them!⁠—

Bosola

Fie, lady!

Duchess

Let them, like tyrants,
Never be remembered but for the ill they have done;
Let all the zealous prayers of mortified
Churchmen forget them!⁠—

Bosola

O, uncharitable!

Duchess

Let heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs,
To punish them!⁠—
Go, howl them this, and say, I long to bleed:
It is some mercy when men kill with speed.

Exit. Re-enter Ferdinand. Ferdinand

Excellent, as I would wish; she’s plagu’d in art.89
These presentations are but fram’d in wax
By the curious master in that quality,90
Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them
For true substantial bodies.

Bosola

Why do you do this?

Ferdinand

To bring her to despair.

Bosola

Faith, end here,
And go no farther in your cruelty:
Send her a penitential garment to put on
Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her
With beads and prayer-books.

Ferdinand

Damn her! that body of hers.
While that my blood run pure in’t, was more worth
Than that which thou wouldst comfort, call’d a soul.
I will send her masques of common courtesans,
Have her meat serv’d up by bawds and ruffians,
And, ’cause she’ll needs be mad, I am resolv’d
To move