The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (the false prince series .TXT) 📕

There ‘s no third place in ‘t.

DUCHESS. How do you affect it?

ANTONIO. My banishment, feeding my melancholy,

Would often reason thus.

DUCHESS. Pray, let ‘s hear it.

ANTONIO. Say a man never marry, nor have children,

What takes that from him? Only the bare name

Of being a father, or the weak delight

To see the little wanton ride a-cock-horse

Upon a painted stick, or hear him chatter

Like a taught starling.

DUCHESS. Fie, fie, what ‘s all this?

One of your eyes is blood-shot; use my ring to ‘t.

They say ‘tis very sovereign. ‘Twas my wedding-ring,

And I did vow never to part with it

But to my second husband.

ANTONIO. You have parted with it now.

DUCHESS. Yes, to help your eye-sight.

ANTONIO. You have made me stark blind.

DUCHESS. How?

ANTONIO. There is a saucy and ambitious devil

Is dancing in this circle.

DUCHESS. Remove him.

ANTONIO. How?

DUCHESS. There needs small conjuration, when your finger

May do it: thus. Is it fit?

[She puts the ring upon his finger]: he kneels.

ANTONIO. What said you?

DUCHESS. Sir,

This goodly roof of yours is too low built;

I cannot stand upright in ‘t nor discourse,

Without I raise it higher. Raise yourself;

Or, if you please, my hand to help you: so.

[Raises him.]

ANTONIO. Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness,

That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms,

But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt

With the wild noise of prattling visitants,

Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure.

Conceive not I am so stupid but I aim<24>

Whereto your favours tend: but he ‘s a fool

That, being a-cold, would thrust his hands i’ the fire

To warm them.

DUCHESS. So, now the ground ‘s broke,

You may discover what a wealthy mine

I make your lord of.

ANTONIO. O my unworthiness!

DUCHESS. You were ill to sell yourself:

This dark’ning of your worth is not like that

Which tradesmen use i’ the city; their false lights

Are to rid bad wares off: and I must tell you,

If you will know where breathes a complete man

(I speak it without flattery), turn your eyes,

And progress through yourself.

ANTONIO. Were there nor heaven nor hell,

I should be honest: I have long serv’d virtue,

And ne’er ta’en wages of her.

DUCHESS. Now she pays it.

The misery of us that are born great!

We are forc’d to woo, because none dare woo us;

And as a tyrant doubles with his words,

And fearfully equivocates, so we

Are forc’d to express our violent passions

In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path

Of simple virtue, which was never made

To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag

You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom:

I hope ‘twill multiply love there. You do tremble:

Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh,

To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident:

What is ‘t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;

‘Tis not the figure cut in alabaster

Kneels at my husband’s tomb. Awake, awake, man!

I do here put off all vain ceremony,

And only do appear to you a young widow

That claims you for her husband, and, like a widow,

I use but half a blush in ‘t.

ANTONIO. Truth speak for me;

I will remain the constant sanctuary

Of your good name.

DUCHESS. I thank you, gentle love:

And ‘cause you shall not come to me in debt,

Being now my steward, here upon your lips

I sign your Quietus est.<25> This you should have begg’d now.

I have seen children oft eat sweetmeats thus,

As fearful to devour them too soon.

ANTONIO. But for your brothers?

DUCHESS. Do not think of them:

All discord without this circumference

Is only to be pitied, and not fear’d:

Yet, should they know it, time will easily

Scatter the tempest.

ANTONIO. These words should be mine,

And all the parts you have spoke, if some part of it

Would not have savour’d flattery.

DUCHESS. Kneel.

[Cariola comes from behind the arras.]

ANTONIO. Ha!

DUCHESS. Be not amaz’d; this woman ‘s of my counsel:

I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber

Per verba [de] presenti<26> is absolute marriage.

[She and ANTONIO kneel.]

Bless, heaven, this sacred gordian<27> which let violence

Never untwine!

ANTONIO. And may our sweet affections, like the spheres,

Be still in motion!

DUCHESS. Quickening, and make

The like soft music!

ANTONIO. That we may imitate the loving palms,

Best emblem of a peaceful marriage,

That never bore fruit, divided!

DUCHESS. What can the church force more?

ANTONIO. That fortune may not know an accident,

Either of joy or sorrow, to divide

Our fixed wishes!

DUCHESS. How can the church build faster?<28>

We now are man and wife, and ‘tis the church

That must but echo this.—Maid, stand apart:

I now am blind.

ANTONIO. What ‘s your conceit in this?

DUCHESS. I would have you lead your fortune by the hand

Unto your marriage-bed:

(You speak in me this, for we now are one:)

We ‘ll only lie and talk together, and plot

To appease my humorous<29> kindred; and if you please,

Like the old tale in ALEXANDER AND LODOWICK,

Lay a naked sword between us, keep us chaste.

O, let me shrowd my blushes in your bosom,

Since ‘tis the treasury of all my secrets!

[Exeunt DUCHESS and ANTONIO.]

CARIOLA. Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman

Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows

A fearful madness. I owe her much of pity.

[Exit.]

Act II

Scene I<30>

[Enter] BOSOLA and CASTRUCCIO

BOSOLA. You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?

CASTRUCCIO. ‘Tis the very main<31> of my ambition.

BOSOLA. Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for ‘t already,

and your night-cap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would

have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace,

and in a set speech, at th’ end of every sentence, to hum three

or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your

memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you

smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and

threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.

CASTRUCCIO. I would be a very merry president.

BOSOLA. Do not sup o’ nights; ‘twill beget you an admirable wit.

CASTRUCCIO. Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel;

for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them

so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for

an eminent fellow?

BOSOLA. I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying,

and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken

for one of the prime night-caps.<32>

[Enter an Old Lady]

You come from painting now.

OLD LADY. From what?

BOSOLA. Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not

painted inclines somewhat near a miracle. These in thy face here

were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress.<33> There was

a lady in France that, having had the small-pox, flayed the skin off

her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked

like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedge-hog.

OLD LADY. Do you call this painting?

BOSOLA. No, no, but you call [it] careening<34> of an old

morphewed<35> lady, to make her disembogue<36> again:

there ‘s rough-cast phrase to your plastic.<37>

OLD LADY. It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.

BOSOLA. One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it

the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews’ spittle, and their young

children’s ordure; and all these for the face. I would sooner eat

a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the

plague, than kiss one of you fasting. Here are two of you, whose sin

of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew

his foot-cloth with the spring, and change his high-pric’d courtezan

with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves.

Observe my meditation now.

What thing is in this outward form of man

To be belov’d? We account it ominous,

If nature do produce a colt, or lamb,

A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling

A man, and fly from ‘t as a prodigy:

Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity

In any other creature but himself.

But in our own flesh though we bear diseases

Which have their true names only ta’en from beasts,—

As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle,—

Though we are eaten up of lice and worms,

And though continually we bear about us

A rotten and dead body, we delight

To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear,

Nay, all our terror, is, lest our physician

Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.—

Your wife ‘s gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to

the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot.

[Exeunt CASTRUCCIO and Old Lady]

I observe our duchess

Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes,

The fins of her eye-lids look most teeming blue,<38>

She wanes i’ the cheek, and waxes fat i’ the flank,

And, contrary to our Italian fashion,

Wears a loose-bodied gown: there ‘s somewhat in ‘t.

I have a trick may chance discover it,

A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks,

The first our spring yields.

[Enter ANTONIO and DELIO, talking together apart]

DELIO. And so long since married?

You amaze me.

ANTONIO. Let me seal your lips for ever:

For, did I think that anything but th’ air

Could carry these words from you, I should wish

You had no breath at all.—Now, sir, in your contemplation?

You are studying to become a great wise fellow.

BOSOLA. O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter<39>

that runs all over a man’s body: if simplicity direct us to have

no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly

proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.

ANTONIO. I do understand your inside.

BOSOLA. Do you so?

ANTONIO. Because you would not seem to appear to th’ world

Puff’d up with your preferment, you continue

This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.

BOSOLA. Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment

whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than

I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses.

A lawyer’s mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and

business; for, mark me, when a man’s mind rides faster than his horse

can gallop, they quickly both tire.

ANTONIO. You would look up to heaven, but I think

The devil, that rules i’ th’ air, stands in your light.

BOSOLA. O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant,<40> chief man with

the duchess: a duke was your cousin-german remov’d. Say you were

lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this?

Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find

them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes

were brought forth by some more