The Malcontent

Palace of the Duke of Genoa.

The vilest out-of-tune music being heard, enter Bilioso and Prepasso.

Bil. Why, how now! are ye mad, or drunk, or both, or what?

Pre. Are ye building Babylon there?

Bil. Here's a noise in court! you think you are in a tavern, do you not?

Pre. You think you are in a brothel-house, do you not?---This room is ill-scented.

Enter One with a perfume.

So, perfume, perfume; some upon me, I pray thee.--- The duke is upon instant entrance: so, make place there!

Enter Pietro, Ferrardo, Equato; Celso and Guerrino before.

Pietro. Where breathes that music?    10

Bil. The discord rather than the music is heard from the malcontent Malevole's chamber.

Fer. [calling] Malevole!

Mal. [above, out of his chamber] Yaugh, god-a-man, what dost thou there? Duke's Ganymede, Juno's jealous of thy long stockings: shadow of a woman, what wouldst, weasel? thou lamb o'court, what dost thou bleat for? ah, you smooth-chinned catamite!

Pietro. Come down, thou rugged cur, and snarl here; I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty: trot about and bespurtle whom thou pleasest.    21

Mal. I'll come among you, you goatish-blooded toderers, as gum into taffata, to fret, to fret: I'll fall like a sponge into water, to suck up, to suck up. Howls again. I'll go to church, and come to you.

[Exit above.

Pietro. This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer when he was thrust out of the presence. His appetite is unsatiable as the grave; as far from any content as from heaven: his highest delight is to procure others' vexation, and therein he thinks he truly serves heaven; for 'tis his position, whosoever in this earth can be contented is a slave and damned; therefore does he afflict all in that to which they are most affected. The elements struggle within him; his own soul is at variance within herself; his speech is halter-worthy at all hours. I like him, faith: he gives good intelligence to my spirit, makes me understand those weaknesses which others' flattery palliates.---Hark! they sing. [A song.] See, he comes. Now shall you hear the extremity of a malcontent: he is as free as air; he blows over every man.    42

Enter Malevole below.

And, sir, whence come you now?

Mal. From the public place of much dissimulation, the church.

Pietro. What didst there?

Mal. Talk with a usurer; take up at interest.

Pietro. I wonder what religion thou art of?

Mal. Of a soldier's religion.

Pietro. And what dost thou think makes most infidels now?    51

Mal. Sects, sects. I have seen seeming piety change her robe so oft, that sure none but some arch-devil can shape her a new petticoat.

Pietro. O, a religious policy.

Mal. But, damnation on a politic religion! I am weary: would I were one of the duke's hounds now!

Pietro. But what's the common news abroad, Malevole? thou doggest rumour still.    59

Mal. Common news! why, common words are, God save ye, Fare ye well; common actions, flattery and cozenage; common things, women and cuckolds.---And how does my little Ferrard? Ah, ye lecherous animal!---my little ferret, he goes sucking up and down the palace into every hen's nest, like a weasel:---and to what dost thou addict thy time to now more than to those antique painted drabs that are still effected of young courtiers,---flattery, pride, and venery?

Fer. I study languages. Who dost think to be the best linguist of our age?    70

Mal. Phew! the devil: let him possess thee; he'll teach thee to speak all languages most readily and strangely; and great reason, marry, he's travelled greatly i' the world, and is everywhere.

Fer. Save i' the court.

Mal. Ay, save i' the court.---[To Bilioso.] And how does my old muckhill, overspread with fresh snow? thou half a man, half a goat, all a beast! how does thy young wife, old huddle?

Bil. Out, you improvident rascal!    80

Mal. Do, kick, thou hugely-horned old duke's ox, good Master Make-pleas.

Pietro. How dost thou live nowadays, Malevole?

Mal. Why, like the knight Sir Patrick Penlohans, with killing o' spiders for my lady's monkey.

Pietro. How dost spend the night? I hear thou never sleepest.

Mal. O, no; but dream the most fantastical! O heaven! O fubbery, fubbery!

Pietro. Dream! what dreamest?    90

Mal. Why, methinks I see that signior pawn his footcloth, that metrezaher plate: this madam takes physic, that t'other monsieur may minister to her: here is a pander jewelled; there is a fellow in shift of satin this day, that could not shift a shirt t'other night: here a Paris supports that Helen; there's a Lady Guinever bears up that Sir Lancelot: dreams, dreams, visions, fantasies, chimeras, imaginations, tricks, conceits!---[To Prepasso.] Sir Tristram Trimtram, come aloft, Jack-an-apes, with a whim-wham: here's a knight of the land of Catito shall play at trap with any page in Europe; do the sword-dance with any morris-dancer in Christendom; ride at the ring till the fin of his eyes look as blue as the welkin; and run the wildgoose-chase even with Pompey the Huge.

Pietro. You run!

Mal. To the devil.---Now, signior Guerrino, that thou from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loathed flatterer!---Alas, poor Celso, thy star's oppressed: thou art an honest lord: 'tis pity.    110

Equato. Is't pity?

Mal. Ay, marry is't, philosophical Equato; and 'tis pity that thou, being so excellent a scholar by art, should be so ridiculous a fool by nature.---I have a thing to tell you, duke: bid 'em avaunt, bid 'em avaunt.

Pietro. Leave us, leave us.

[Exeunt all except Pietro and Malevole.

Now, sir, what is't?

Mal. Duke, thou art a becco, a cornuto.

Pietro. How!

Mal. Thou art a cuckold.    120

Pietro. Speak, unshale him quick.

Mal. With most tumbler-like nimbleness.

Pietro. Who? by whom? I burst with desire.

Mal. Mendoza is the man makes thee a horned beast; duke, 'tis Mendoza cornutes thee.

Pietro. What conformance? relate; short, short.

Mal. As a lawyer's beard.
There is an old crone in the court, her name is Maquerelle,
She is my mistress, sooth to say, and she doth ever tell me.
Blirt o' rhyme, blirt o' rhyme! Maquerelle is a cunning bawd; I am an honest villain; thy wife is a close drab; and thou art a notorious cuckold. Farewell, duke.    132

Pietro. Stay, stay.

Mal. Dull, dull duke, can lazy patience make lame revenge? O God, for a woman to make a man that which God never created, never made!

Pietro. What did God never make?

Mal. A cuckold: to be made a thing that's hoodwinked with kindness, whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a coxcomb with egregious horns pinned to a lord's back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it: pistols and poniards! pistols and poniards!    143

Pietro. Death and damnation!

Mal. Lightning and thunder!

Pietro. Vengeance and torture!

Mal. Catso! Pietro. O, revenge!

Mal. Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs
A lady far inferior to the most,
In fair proportion both of limb and soul;
To take her from austerer check of parents,
To make her his by most devoutful rites,    150
Make her commandress of a better essence
Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man;
To hug her with as rais'd an appetite
As usurers do their delv'd-up treasury
(Thinking none tells it but his private self);
To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,
Distilling panting ardour to her heart;
True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood,
To give her height of hymeneal sweets,------

Pietro. O God!    160

Mal. Whilst she lisps, and gives him some court-quelquechose,
Made only to provoke, not satiate:
And yet even then the thaw of her delight
Flows from lewd heat of apprehension,
Only from strange imagination's rankness,
That forms the adulterer's presence in her soul,
And makes her think she clips the foul knave's loins.
Pietro. Affliction to my blood's root!

Mal. Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this; Adultery is often the mother of incest.    170

Pietro. Incest!

Mal. Yes, incest: mark:---Mendoza of his wife begets perchance a daughter: Mendoza dies; his son marries this daughter: say you? nay, 'tis frequent, not only probable, but no question often acted, whilst ignorance, fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed.

Pietro. Hideous imagination!

Mal. Adultery? why, next to the sin of simony, 'tis the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation.    180

Pietro. Next to simony!

Mal. Ay, next to simony, in which our men in next age shall not sin.

Pietro. Not sin! why?

Mal. Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery, O dulness! should show exemplary punishment, that intemperate bloods may freeze but to think it. I would damn him and all his generation: my own hands should do it; ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance:---anything.    191

Pietro. Anything, anything, Malevole: thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds. Farewell; remember I forget thee not; farewell.

[Exit Pietro.

Mal. Farewell.
Lean thoughtfulness, a sallow meditation,
Suck thy veins dry, distemperance rob thy sleep!
The heart's disquiet is revenge most deep:
He that gets blood, the life of flesh but spills,
But he that breaks heart's peace, the dear soul kills.    200
Well, this disguise doth yet afford me that
Which kings do seldom hear, or great men use,---
Free speech: and though my state's usurp'd,
Yet this affected strain gives me a tongue
As fetterless as in an emperor's.
I may speak foolishly, ay, knavishly,
Always carelessly, yet no one thinks it fashion
To poise my breath; for he that laughs and strikes
Is lightly felt, or seldom struck again.
Duke, I'll torment thee now; my just revenge    210
From thee than crown a richer gem shall part:
Beneath God, naught's so dear as a calm heart.

Re-enter Celso.

Celso. My honour'd lord,---

Mal. Peace, speak low, peace! O Celso, constant lord,
(Thou to whose faith I only rest discover'd,
Thou, one of full ten millions of men,
That lovest virtue only for itself;
Thou in whose hands old Ops may put her soul)
Behold forever-banish'd Altofront,
This Genoa's last year's duke. O truly noble!    220
I wanted those old instruments of state,
Dissemblance and suspect: I could not time it, Celso;
My throne stood like a point midst of a circle,
To all of equal nearness; bore with none;
Rein'd all alike; so slept in fearless virtue,
Suspectless, too suspectless; till the crowd,
(Still lickorous of untried novelties)
Impatient with severer government
Made strong with Florence, banish'd Altofront.

Celso. Strong with Florence! ay, thence your mischief rose;    230
For when the daughter of the Florentine
Was match'd once with this Pietro, now duke,
No stratagem of state untried was left,
Till you of all------

Mal. Of all was quite bereft:
Alas, Maria too close prisonèd,
My true-faith'd duchess, i' the citadel!

Celso. I'll still adhere: let's mutiny and die.

Mal. O, no, climb not a falling tower, Celso;
'Tis well held desperation, no zeal,
Hopeless to strive with fate: peace; temporise.    240
Hope, hope, that ne'er forsak'st the wretched'st man,
Yet bidd'st me live, and lurk in this disguise!
What, play I well the free-breath'd discontent?
Why, man, we are all philosophical monarchs
Or natural fools. Celso, the court's a-fire;
The duchess' sheets will smoke for't ere't be long:
Impure Mendoza, that sharp-nos'd lord, that made
The cursèd match link'd Genoa with Florence,
Now broad-horns the duke, which he now knows.
Discord to malcontents is very manna:    250
When the ranks are burst, then scuffle, Altofront.

Celso. Ay, but durst------

Mal. 'Tis gone; 'tis swallow'd like a mineral:
Some way 'twill work; pheut, I'll not shrink:
He's resolute who can no lower sink.

Bilioso re-entering, Malevole shifteth his speech.

O the father of May-poles! did you never see a fellow whose strength consisted in his breath, respect in his office, religion in his lord, and love in himself? why, then, behold.

Bil. Signior,---    260

Mal. My right worshipful lord, your court night-cap makes you have a passing high forehead.

Bil. I can tell you strange news, but I am sure you know them already: the duke speaks much good of you.

Mal. Go to, then: and shall you and I now enter into a strict friendship?

Bil. Second one another?

Mal. Yes.

Bil. Do one another good offices?

Mal. Just: what though I called thee old ox, egregious wittol, broken-bellied coward, rotten mummy? yet, since I am in favour------    272

Bil. Words of course, terms of disport. His grace presents you by me a chain, as his grateful remembrance for---I am ignorant for what; marry, ye may impart: yet howsoever---come---dear friend; dost know my son?

Mal. Your son!

Bil. He shall eat wood-cocks, dance jigs, make possets, and play at shuttle-cock with any young lord about the court: he has as sweet a lady too; dost know her little bitch?    281

Mal. 'Tis a dog, man.

Bil. Believe me, a she-bitch: O, 'tis a good creature! thou shalt be her servant. I'll make thee acquainted with my young wife too: what! I keep her not at court for nothing. 'Tis grown to supper-time; come to my table: that, anything I have, stands open to thee.

Mal. [aside to Celso] How smooth to him that is in state of grace,
How servile is the rugged'st courtier's face!
What profit, nay, what nature would keep down,    290
Are heav'd to them are minions to a crown.
Envious ambition never sates his thirst,
Till sucking all, he swells and swells, and burst.

Bil. I shall now leave you with my always-best wishes; only let's hold betwixt us a firm correspondence, a mutual friendly-reciprocal kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued------

Mal. Did your signiorship ne'er see a pigeon-house that was smooth, round, and white without, and full of holes and stink within? ha' ye not, old courtier?    300

Bil. O, yes, 'tis the form, the fashion of them all.

Mal. Adieu, my true court-friend; farewell, my dear Castilio.

[Exit Bilioso.

Celso. Yonder's Mendoza.

Mal. True, the privy-key.

[Descries Mendoza.

Celso. I take my leave, sweet lord.

Mal. 'Tis fit; away!

[Exit Celso.

Enter Mendoza with three or four Suitors.

Men. Leave your suits with me; I can and will: attend my secretary; leave me.

[Exeunt Suitors.

Mal. Mendoza, hark ye, hark ye. You are a treacherous villain: God b' wi' ye!

Men. Out, you base-born rascal!    310

Mal. We are all the sons of heaven, though a tripe-wife were our mother: ah, you whoreson, hot-reined he-marmoset! Ægisthus! didst ever hear of one Ægisthus?

Men. Gisthus?

Mal. Ay, Ægisthus: he was a filthy incontinent fleshmonger, such a one as thou art.

Men. Out, grumbling rogue!

Mal. Orestes, beware Orestes!

Men. Out, beggar!

Mal. I once shall rise.    320

Men. Thou rise!

Mal. Ay, at the resurrection.
No vulgar seed but once may rise and shall;
No king so huge but 'fore he die may fall.

[Exit.

Men. Now, good Elysium! what a delicious heaven is it for a man to be in a prince's favour! O sweet God! O pleasure! O fortune! O all thou best of life! what should I think, what say, what do to be a favourite, a minion? to have a general timorous respect observe a man, a stateful silence in his presence, solitariness in his absence, a confused hum and busy murmur of obsequious suitors training him; the cloth held up, and way proclaimed before him; petitionary vassals licking the pavement with their slavish knees, whilst some odd palace-lampreels that engender with snakes, and are full of eyes on both sides, with a kind of insinuated humbleness, fix all their delights upon his brow. O blessed state! what a ravishing prospect doth the Olympus of favour yield! Death, I cornute the duke! Sweet women! most sweet ladies! nay, angels! by heaven, he is more accursed than a devil that hates you, or is hated by you; and happier than a god that loves you, or is beloved by you: you preservers of mankind, life-blood of society, who would live, nay, who can live without you? O paradise! how majestical is your austerer presence! how imperiously chaste is your more modest face! but, O, how full of ravishing attraction is your pretty, petulant, languishing, lasciviously-composed countenance! these amorous smiles, those soul-warming sparkling glances, ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless Phaeton! in body how delicate, in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant, in life how wary, in favours how judicious, in day how sociable, and in night how------ O pleasure unutterable! indeed, it is most certain, one man cannot deserve only to enjoy a beauteous woman: but a duchess! in despite of Phœbus, I'll write a sonnet instantly in praise of her.    357

[Exit.]

Palace of the Duke of Genoa.

Enter Ferneze ushering Aurelia, Emilia and Maquerelle bearing up her train, Bianca attending: then exeunt Emilia and Bianca.

Aurel. And is’t possible? Mendoza slight me! possible?

Fer. Possible!

What can be strange in him that’s drank with favour,

Grows insolent with grace?—Speak, Maquerelle, speak.

Maq. To speak feelingly, more, more richly in solid sense than worthless words, give me those jewels of your ears to receive my enforced duty. As for my part, ’tis well known I can put up anything [Ferneze privately feeds Maquerelle’s hands with jewels during this speech]; can bear patiently with any man: but when I heard he wronged your precious sweetness, I was enforced to take deep offence. ’Tis most certain he loves Emilia with high appetite: and, as she told me (as you know we women impart our secrets one to another), when she repulsed his suit, in that he was possessed with your endeared grace, Mendoza most ingratefully renounced all faith to you.    16

Fer. Nay, called you—Speak, Maquerelle, speak.

Maq. By heaven, witch, dried biscuit; and contested blushlessly he loved you but for a spurt or so.

Fer. For maintenance.

Maq. Advancement and regard.

Aurel. O villain! O impudent Mendoza!

Maq. Nay, he is the rustiest-jawed, the foulest-mouthed knave in railing against our sex: he will rail against women—

Aurel. How? how?

Maq. I am ashamed to speak’t, I.

Aurel. I love to hate him: speak.

Maq. Why, when Emilia scorned his base unsteadiness, the black-throated rascal scolded, and said—    30

Aurel. What?

Maq. Troth, ’tis too shameless.

Aurel. What said he?

Maq. Why, that, at four, women were fools; at fourteen, drabs; at forty, bawds; at fourscore, witches; and [at] a hundred, cats.

Aurel. O unlimitable impudency!

Fer. But as for poor Ferneze’s fixèd heart,

Was never shadeless meadow drier parch’d

Under the scorching heat of heaven’s dog,    40

Than is my heart with your enforcing eyes.

Maq. A hot simile.

Fer. Your smiles have been my heaven, your frowns my hell:

O, pity, then! grace should with beauty dwell.

Maq. Reasonable perfect, by’r lady.

Aurel. I will love thee, be it but in despite

Of that Mendoza:—witch!—Ferneze,—witch!—

Ferneze, thou art the duchess’ favourite:

Be faithful, private: but ’tis dangerous.

Fer. His love is lifeless that for love fears breath:    50

The worst that’s due to sin, O, would ’twere death!

Aurel. Enjoy my favour. I will be sick instantly and take physic: therefore in depth of night visit—

Maq. Visit her chamber, but conditionally you shall not offend her bed: by this diamond!

Fer. By this diamond.

[Giving diamond to Maq.

Maq. Nor tarry longer than you please: by this ruby!

Fer. By this ruby.

[Giving ruby to Maq.

Maq. And that the door shall not creak.    60

Fer. And that the door shall not creak.

Maq. Nay, but swear.

Fer. By this purse.

[Giving purse to Maq.

Maq. Go to, I’ll keep your oaths for you: remember, visit.

Aurel. Dried biscuit!—Look where the base wretch comes.

Enter Mendoza, reading a sonnet.

Men. “Beauty’s life, heaven’s model, love’s queen,”—

Maq. That’s his Emilia.

Men. “Natures triumph, best on earth,”—    70

Maq. Meaning Emilia.

Men. “Thou only wonder that the world hath seen,”—

Maq. That’s Emilia.

Aurel. Must I, then, hear her praised?—Mendoza!

Men. Madam, your excellency is graciously encountered: I have been writing passionate flashes in honour of—

[Exit Ferneze.

Aurel. Out, villain, villain!

O judgment, where have been my eyes? what

Bewitch’d election made me dote on thee?    80

What sorcery made me love thee? But, be gone;

Bury thy head. O, that I could do more

Than loath thee! hence, worst of ill!

No reason ask, our reason is our will.

[Exit with Maquerelle.

Men. Women! nay, Furies; nay, worse; for they torment only the bad, but women good and bad. Damnation of mankind! Breath, hast thou praised them for this? and is’t you, Ferneze, are wriggled into smock-grace? sit sure. O, that I could rail against these monsters in nature, models of hell, curse of the earth, women! that dare attempt anything, and what they attempt they care not how they accomplish; without all premeditation or prevention; rash in asking, desperate in working, impatient in suffering, extreme in desiring, slaves unto appetite, mistresses in dissembling, only constant in unconstancy, only perfect in counterfeiting: their words are feigned, their eyes forged, their sighs dissembled, their looks counterfeit, their hair false, their given hopes deceitful, their very breath artificial: their blood is their only god; bad clothes, and old age, are only the devils they tremble at. That I could rail now!    102

Enter Pietro, his sword drawn.

Pietro. A mischief fill thy throat, thou foul-jaw’d slave! Say thy prayers.

Men. I ha’ forgot ’em.

Pietro. Thou shalt die.

Men. So shalt thou. I am heart-mad.

Pietro. I am horn-mad.

Men. Extreme mad.

Pietro. Monstrously mad.

Men. Why?    111

Pietro. Why! thou, thou hast dishonoured my bed.

Men. I! Come, come, sit; here’s my bare heart to thee,

As steady as is the centre to this glorious world:

And yet, hark, thou art a cornuto,—but by me?

Pietro. Yes, slave, by thee.

Men. Do not, do not with tart and spleenful breath

Lose him can lose thee. I offend my duke!

Bear record, O ye dumb and raw-air’d nights,

How vigilant my sleepless eyes have been    120

To watch the traitor! record, thou spirit of truth,

With what debasement I ha’ thrown myself

To under offices, only to learn

The truth, the party, time, the means, the place,

By whom, and when, and where thou wert disgrac’d!

And am I paid with slave? hath my intrusion

To places private and prohibited,

Only to observe the closer passages,

Heaven knows with vows of revelation,

Made me suspected, made me deem’d a villain?    130

What rogue hath wrong’d us?

Pietro. Mendoza, I may err.

Men. Err! ’tis too mild a name: but err and err,

Run giddy with suspect, ’fore through me thou know

That which most creatures, save thyself, do know:

Nay, since my service hath so loath’d reject,

’Fore I’ll reveal, shalt find them clipt together.

Pietro. Mendoza, thou knowest I am a most plain-breasted man.

Men. The fitter to make a cornuto: would your brows were most plain too!    140

Pietro. Tell me: indeed, I heard thee rail—

Men. At women, true: why, what cold fleam could choose,

Knowing a lord so honest, virtuous,

So boundless loving, bounteous, fair-shap’d, sweet,

To be contemn’d, abus’d, defam’d, made cuckold?

Heart! I hate all women for’t: sweet sheets, wax lights, antic bedposts, cambric smocks, villainous curtains, arras pictures, oiled hinges, and all the tongue-tied lascivious witnesses of great creatures’ wantonness,—what salvation can you expect?    150

Pietro. Wilt thou tell me?

Men. Why, you may find it yourself; observe, observe.

Pietro. I ha’ not the patience: wilt thou deserve me, tell, give it.

Men. Take’t: why, Ferneze is the man, Ferneze: I’ll prove’t; this night you shall take him in your sheets: will’t serve?

Pietro. It will; my bosom’s in some peace: till night—

Men. What?

Pietro. Farewell.

Men. God! how weak a lord are you!    160

Why, do you think there is no more but so?

Pietro. Why!

Men. Nay, then, will I presume to counsel you:

It should be thus. You with some guard upon the sudden

Break into the princess’ chamber: I stay behind,

Without the door, through which he needs must pass:

Ferneze flies; let him: to me he comes; he’s kill’d

By me, observe, by me: you follow: I rail,

And seem to save the body. Duchess comes,

On whom (respecting her advancèd birth,    170

And your fair nature), I know, nay, I do know,

No violence must be us’d; she comes: I storm,

I praise, excuse Ferneze, and still maintain

The duchess’ honour: she for this loves me.

I honour you; shall know her soul, you mine:

Then naught shall she contrive in vengeance

(As women are most thoughtful in revenge)

Of her Ferneze, but you shall sooner know’t

Than she can think’t. Thus shall his death come sure,

Your duchess brain-caught: so your life secure.    180

Pietro. It is too well: my bosom and my heart

When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part.

[Exit.

Men. Who cannot feign friendship can ne’er produce the effects of hatred. Honest fool duke! subtle lascivious duchess! silly novice Ferneze! I do laugh at ye. My brain is in labour till it produce mischief, and I feel sudden throes, proofs sensible, the issue is at hand. As bears shape young, so I’ll form my device,

Which grown proves horrid: vengeance makes men wise.

[Exit.

The palace of the Duke of Genoa.

Enter Malevole and Passarello.

Mal. Fool, most happily encountered: canst sing, fool?

Pass. Yes, I can sing, fool, if you’ll bear the burden; and I can play upon instruments, scurvily, as gentlemen do. O, that I had been gelded! I should then have been a fat fool for a chamber, a squeaking fool for a tavern, and a private fool for all the ladies.

Mal. You are in good case since you came to court, fool: what, guarded, guarded!

Pass. Yes, faith, even as footmen and bawds wear velvet, not for an ornament of honour, but for a badge of drudgery; for, now the duke is discontented, I am fain to fool him asleep every night.

Mal. What are his griefs?

Pass. He hath sore eyes.

Mal. I never observed so much.

Pass. Horrible sore eyes; and so hath every cuckold, for the roots of the horns spring in the eyeballs, and that’s the reason the horn of a cuckold is as tender as his eye, or as that growing in the woman’s forehead twelve years since, that could not endure to be touched. The duke hangs down his head like a columbine.   

Mal. Passarello, why do great men beg fools?

Pass. As the Welshman stole rushes when there was nothing else to filch; only to keep begging in fashion.

Mal. Pooh, thou givest no good reason; thou speakest like a fool.

Pass. Faith, I utter small fragments, as your knight courts your city widow with jingling of his gilt spurs, advancing his bush-coloured beard, and taking tobacco: this is all the mirror of their knightly complements. Nay, I shall talk when my tongue is a-going once; ’tis like a citizen on horseback, evermore in a false gallop.    33

Mal. And how doth Maquerelle fare nowadays?

Pass. Faith, I was wont to salute her as our English women are at their first landing in Flushing; I would call her whore: but now that antiquity leaves her as an old piece of plastic to work by, I only ask her how her rotten teeth fare every morning, and so leave her. She was the first that ever invented perfumed smocks for the gentlewomen, and woollen shoes, for fear of creaking for the visitant. She were an excellent lady, but that her face peeleth like Muscovy glass.

Mal. And how doth thy old lord, that hath wit enough to be a flatterer, and conscience enough to be a knave?

Pass. O, excellent: he keeps beside me fifteen jesters, to instruct him in the art of fooling, and utters their jests in private to the duke and duchess: he’ll lie like to your Switzer or lawyer; he’ll be of any side for most money.    50

Mal. I am in haste, be brief.

Pass. As your fiddler when he is paid.—He’ll thrive, I warrant you, while your young courtier stands like Good-Friday in Lent; men long to see it, because more fatting days come after it; else he’s the leanest and pitifullest actor in the whole pageant. Adieu, Malevole.

Mal. [Aside.] O world most vile, when thy loose vanities,

Taught by this fool, do make the fool seem wise!

Pass. You’ll know me again, Malevole.

Mal. O, ay, by that velvet.    60

Pass. Ay, as a pettifogger by his buckram bag. I am as common in the court as an hostess’s lips in the country; knights, and clowns, and knaves, and all share me: the court cannot possibly be without me. Adieu, Malevole.

[Exeunt.

Chamber in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter Mendoza with a sconce, to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enters unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and conveyed in; the Pages are sent away.

Men. He’s caught, the woodcock’s head is i’ the noose.

Now treads Ferneze in dangerous path of lust,

Swearing his sense is merely deified:

The fool grasps clouds, and shall beget Centaurs:

And now, in strength of panting faint delight,

The goat bids heaven envy him. Good goose,

I can afford thee nothing

But the poor comfort of calamity, pity.

Lust’s like the plummets hanging on clock-lines,

Will ne’er ha’ done till all is quite undone;    10

Such is the course salt sallow lust doth run;

Which thou shalt try. I’ll be reveng’d. Duke, thy suspect;

Duchess, thy disgrace; Ferneze, thy rivalship;

Shall have swift vengeance. Nothing so holy,

No band of nature so strong,

No law of friendship so sacred,

But I’ll profane, burst, violate, ’fore I’ll

Endure disgrace, contempt, and poverty.

Shall I, whose very hum struck all heads bare,

Whose face made silence, creaking of whose shoe    20

Forc’d the most private passages fly ope,

Scrape like a servile dog at some latch’d door?

Learn how to make a leg, and cry “Beseech ye,

Pray ye, is such a lord within?” be aw’d

At some odd usher’s scoff’d formality?

First sear my brains! Unde cadis, non quo, refert;

My heart cries, “Perish all!” How! how! what fate

Can once avoid revenge, that’s desperate?

I’ll to the duke: if all should ope—if! tush,

Fortune still dotes on those who cannot blush.    30

[Exit.

Chamber in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter Malevole at one door; Bianca, Emilia, and Maquerelle at the other door.

Mal. Bless ye, cast o’ ladies! —Ha, dipsas! how dost thou, old coal?

Maq. Old coal!

Mal. Ay, old coal: methinks thou liest like a brand under these billets of green wood. He that will inflame a young wench’s heart, let him lay close to her an old coal that hath first been fired, a panderess, my half-burnt lint, who though thou canst not flame thyself, yet art able to set a thousand virgin’s tapers afire.—And how does Janivere thy husband, my little periwinkle? is he troubled with the cough o’ the lungs still? does he hawk o’ nights still? he will not bite.    12

Bian. No, by my troth, I took him with his mouth empty of old teeth.

Mal. And he took thee with thy belly full of young bones: marry, he took his maim by the stroke of his enemy.

Bian. And I mine by the stroke of my friend.

Mal. The close stock! O mortal wench! Lady, ha’ ye now no restoratives for your decayed Jasons? look ye, crab’s guts baked, distilled ox-pith, the pulverised hairs of a lion’s upper-lip, jelly of cock-sparrows, he-monkey’s marrow, or powder of fox-stones?—And whither are all you ambling now?    24

Bian. Why, to bed, to bed.

Mal. Do your husbands lie with ye?

Bian. That were country fashion, i’faith.

Mal. Ha’ ye no foregoers about you? come, whither in good deed, la, now?

Maq. In good indeed, la, now, to eat the most miraculously, admirably, astonishable composed posset with three curds, without any drink. Will ye help me with a he-fox?—Here’s the duke.    33

Mal. Fried frogs are very good, and French-like, too.

[Exeunt Ladies.

Enter Pietro, Celso, Equato, Bilioso, Ferrardo, and Mendoza.

Pietro. The night grows deep and foul: what hour is’t?

Celso. Upon the stroke of twelve.

Mal. Save ye, duke!

Pietro. From thee: begone, I do not love thee; let me see thee no more; we are displeased.

Mal. Why, God b’wi’ thee! Heaven hear my curse,—may thy wife and thee live long together!    41

Pietro. Begone, sirrah!

Mal. When Arthur first in court began, —Agamemnon—Menelaus—was ever any duke a cornuto?

Pietro. Begone, hence!

Mal. What religion wilt thou be of next?

Men. Out with him!

Mal. With most servile patience.—Time will come

When wonder of thy error will strike dumb

Thy bezzled sense.—    50

Slaves! ay, favour: ay, marry, shall he rise:

Good God! how subtle hell doth flatter vice!

Mounts him aloft, and makes him seem to fly,

As fowl the tortoise mock’d, who to the sky

The ambitious shell-fish rais’d! the end of all

Is only, that from height he might dead fall.

Bil. Why, when? out, ye rogue! begone, ye rascal!

Mal. I shall now leave ye with all my best wishes.

Bil. Out, ye cur!

Mal. Only let’s hold together a firm correspondence.

Bil. Out!    61

Mal. A mutual-friendly-reciprocal-perpetual kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued—

Bil. Hence, ye gross-jawed, peasantly—out, go!

Mal. Adieu, pigeon-house; thou burr, that only stickest to nappy fortunes. The serpigo, the strangury, an eternal uneffectual priapism seize thee!

Bil. Out, rogue!

Mal. May’st thou be a notorious wittolly pander to thine own wife, and yet get no office, but live to be the utmost misery of mankind, a beggarly cuckold!    71

[Exit.

Pietro. It shall be so.

Men. It must be so, for where great states revenge,

’Tis requisite the parts be closely dogg’d,

(Which piety and soft respect forbears).

Lay one into his breast shall sleep with him,

Feed in the same dish, run in self-faction,

Who may discover any shape of danger;

For once disgrac’d, displayèd in offence,

It makes man blushless, and man is (all confess)    80

More prone to vengeance than to gratefulness.

Favours are writ in dust; but stripes we feel

Depravèd nature stamps in lasting steel.

Pietro. You shall be leagu’d with the duchess.

Equato. The plot is very good.

Pietro. You shall both kill, and seem the corse to save.

Fer. A most fine brain-trick.

Celso. [aside] Of a most cunning knave.

Pietro. My lords, the heavy action we intend

Is death and shame, two of the ugliest shapes

That can confound a soul; think, think of it:    90

I strike, but yet, like him that ’gainst stone walls

Directs, his shafts rebound in his own face;

My lady’s shame is mine, O God, ’tis mine!

Therefore I do conjure all secrecy:

Let it be as very little as may be,

Pray ye, as may be.

Make frightless entrance, salute her with soft eyes,

Stain naught with blood; only Ferneze dies,

But not before her brows. O gentlemen,

God knows I love her! Nothing else, but this:—    100

I am not well: if grief, that sucks veins dry,

Rivels the skin, casts ashes in men’s faces,

Be-dulls the eye, unstrengthens all the blood,

Chance to remove me to another world,

As sure I once must die, let him succeed:

I have no child; all that my youth begot

Hath been your loves, which shall inherit me:

Which as it ever shall, I do conjure it,

Mendoza may succeed: he’s nobly born;

With me of much desert.

Celso. [aside] Much!   110

Pietro. Your silence answers, “Ay:”

I thank you. Come on now. O, that I might die

Before her shame’s display’d! would I were forc’d

To burn my father’s tomb, unheal his bones,

And dash them in the dirt, rather than this!

This both the living and the dead offends:

Sharp surgery where naught but death amends.

[Exeunt.

A chamber in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter Maquerelle, Emilia, and Bianca, with a posset.

Maq. Even here it is, three curds in three regions individually distinct, most methodically according to art compos’d, without any drink.

Bian. Without any drink!

Maq. Upon my honour. Will ye sit and eat?

Emil. Good, the composure: the receipt, how is’t?

Maq. ’Tis a pretty pearl; by this pearl (how does’t with me?) thus it is. Seven and thirty yolks of Barbary hens’ eggs; eighteen spoonfuls and a half of the juice of cock-sparrow bones; one ounce, three drams, four scruples, and one quarter of the syrup of Ethiopian dates; sweetened with three quarters of a pound of pure candied Indian eringoes; strewed over with the powder of pearl of America, amber of Cataia, and lamb-stones of Muscovia.    15

Bian. Trust me, the ingredients are very cordial, and, no question, good, and most powerful in restauration.

Maq. I know not what you mean by restauration; but this it doth,—it purifieth the blood, smootheth the skin, enliveneth the eye, strengtheneth the veins, mundifieth the teeth, comforteth the stomach, fortifieth the back, and quickeneth the wit; that’s all.    22

Emil. By my troth, I have eaten but two spoonfuls, and methinks I could discourse most swiftly and wittily already.

Maq. Have you the art to seem honest?

Bian. Ay, thank advice and practice.    27

Maq. Why, then, eat me o’ this posset, quicken your blood, and preserve your beauty. Do you know Doctor Plaster-face? by this curd, he is the most exquisite in forging of veins, sprightening of eyes, dying of hair, sleeking of skins, blushing of cheeks, surphling of breasts, blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an old lady gracious by torchlight; by this curd, la.

Bian. Well, we are resolved, what God has given us we’ll cherish.    36

Maq. Cherish anything saving your husband; keep him not too high, lest he leap the pale: but, for your beauty, let it be your saint; bequeath two hours to it every morning in your closet. I ha’ been young, and yet, in my conscience, I am not above five-and-twenty: but, believe me, preserve and use your beauty; for youth and beauty once gone, we are like bee-hives without honey, out-o’-fashion apparel that no man will wear: therefore use me your beauty.    45

Emil. Ay, but men say—

Maq. Men say! let men say what they will: life o’ woman! they are ignorant of our wants. The more in years, the more in perfection they grow; if they lose youth and beauty, they gain wisdom and discretion: but when our beauty fades, good-night with us. There cannot be an uglier thing than to see an old woman: from which, O pruning, pinching, and painting, deliver all sweet beauties!    54

[Music within.

Bian. Hark! music!

Maq. Peace, ’tis i’ the duchess’ bed-chamber.

Good rest, most prosperously-graced ladies.

Emil. Good night, sentinel.

Bian. Night, dear Maquerelle.

Maq. May my posset’s operation send you my wit and honesty; and me, your youth and beauty: the pleasingest rest!    62

[Exeunt, at one door, Bianca and Emilia; at another Maquerelle.

A Song within.

Whilst the song is singing, enter Mendoza with his sword drawn, standing ready to murder Ferneze as he flies from the duchess’ chamber.—Tumult within.

[Within.] Strike, strike!

[Aur. within.] Save my Ferneze! O, save my Ferneze!

[Within.] Follow, pursue!

[Aur. within.] O, save Ferneze!

Enter Ferneze in his shirt, and is received upon Mendoza’s sword.

Men. Pierce, pierce!—Thou shallow fool, drop there!

[Thrusts his rapier in Ferneze.

He that attempts a princess’ lawless love

Must have broad hands, close heart, with Argus’ eyes,

And back of Hercules, or else he dies.    70

Enter Aurelia, Pietro, Ferrardo, Bilioso, Celso, and Equato.

All. Follow, follow!

Men. Stand off, forbear, ye most uncivil lords!

Pietro. Strike!

Men. Do not; tempt not a man resolv’d:

[Mendoza bestrides the wounded body of Ferneze, and seems to save him.

Would you, inhuman murderers, more than death?

Aur. O poor Ferneze!

Men. Alas, now all defence too late!

Aur. He’s dead.

Pietro. I am sorry for our shame.—Go to your bed:

Weep not too much, but leave some tears to shed

When I am dead.    81

Aur. What, weep for thee! my soul no tears shall find.

Pietr. Alas, alas, that women’s souls are blind!

Men. Betray such beauty!

Murder such youth! contemn civility!

He loves him not that rails not at him.

Pietro. Thou canst not move us: we have blood enough.—

And please you, lady, we have quite forgot

All your defects: if not, why, then—

Aur. Not.

Pietro. Not: the best of rest: good-night.    90

[Exeunt Pietro, Ferrardo, Bilioso, Celso, and Equato.

Aur. Despite go with thee!

Men. Madam, you ha’ done me foul disgrace; you have wronged him much loves you too much: go to, your soul knows you have.

Aur. I think I have.

Men. Do you but think so?

Aur. Nay, sure, I have: my eyes have witnessed thy love: thou hast stood too firm for me.

Men. Why, tell me, fair-cheeked lady, who even in tears art powerfully beauteous, what unadvised passion struck ye into such a violent heat against me? Speak, what mischief wronged us? what devil injured us? speak.    103

Aur. The thing ne’er worthy of the name of man, Ferneze; Ferneze swore thou lov’[d]st Emilia; Which to advance, with most reproachful breath Thou both didst blemish and denounce my love.

Men. Ignoble villain! did I for this bestride

Thy wounded limbs? for this, rank opposite

Even to my sovereign? for this, O God, for this,    110

Sunk all my hopes, and with my hopes my life?

Ripp’d bare my throat unto the hangman’s axe?—

Thou most dishonoured trunk!—Emilia!

By life, I know her not—Emilia!—

Did you believe him?

Aur. Pardon me, I did.

Men. Did you? and thereupon you gracèd him?

Aur. I did.

Men. Took him to favour, nay, even clasp’d with him?

Aur. Alas, I did!

Men. This night?    120

Aur. This night.

Men. And in your lustful twines the duke took you?

Aur. A most sad truth.

Men. O God, O God! how we dull honest souls,

Heavy-brain’d men, are swallow’d in the bogs

Of a deceitful ground! whilst nimble bloods,

Light-jointed spirits speed; cut good men’s throats,

And ’scape. Alas, I am too honest for this age,

Too full of fleam and heavy steadiness;

Stood still whilst this slave cast a noose about me;    130

Nay, then to stand in honour of him and her,

Who had even slic’d my heart!

Aur. Come, I did err,

And am most sorry I did err.

Men. Why, we are both but dead: the duke hates us;

And those whom princes do once groundly hate,

Let them provide to die, as sure as fate.

Prevention is the heart of policy.

Aur. Shall we murder him?

Men. Instantly?

Aur. Instantly; before he casts a plot,    140

Or further blaze my honour’s much-known blot,

Let’s murder him.

Men. I would do much for you: will ye marry me?

Aur. I’ll make thee duke. We are of Medicis;

Florence our friend; in court my faction

Not meanly strengthful; the duke then dead;

We well prepar’d for change; the multitude

Irresolutely reeling; we in force;

Our party seconded; the kingdom maz’d;

No doubt of swift success all shall be grac’d.    150

Men. You do confirm me; we are resolute:

To-morrow look for change; rest confident.

’Tis now about the immodest waist of night:

The mother of moist dew with pallid light

Spreads gloomy shades about the numbèd earth.

Sleep, sleep, whilst we contrive our mischief’s birth.

This man I’ll get inhum’d. Farewell: to bed;

Ay, kiss thy pillow, dream the duke is dead.

So, so, good night.

[Exit Aurelia.

How fortune dotes on impudence!

I am in private the adopted son    160

Of yon good prince:

I must be duke; why, if I must, I must.

Most silly lord, name me! O heaven! I see

God made honest fools to maintain crafty knaves.

The duchess is wholly mine too; must kill her husband

To quit her shame; much! then marry her: ay.

O, I grow proud in prosperous treachery!

As wrestlers clip, so I’ll embrace you all,

Not to support, but to procure your fall.

Enter Malevole.

Mal. God arrest thee!    170

Men. At whose suit?

Mal. At the devil’s. Ah, you treacherous, damnable monster, how dost? how dost, thou treacherous rogue? Ah, ye rascal! I am banished the court, sirrah.

Men. Prithee, let’s be acquainted; I do love thee, faith.

Mal. At your service, by the Lord, la: shall’s go to supper? Let’s be once drunk together, and so unite a most virtuously-strengthened friendship: shall’s, Huguenot? shall’s?    180

Men. Wilt fall upon my chamber to-morrow morn?

Mal. As a raven to a dunghill. They say there’s one dead here; pricked for the pride of the flesh.

Men. Ferneze: there he is; prithee, bury him.

Mal. O, most willingly: I mean to turn pure Rochelle churchman, I.

Men. Thou churchman! why, why?

Mal. Because I’ll live lazily, rail upon authority, deny kings’ supremacy in things indifferent, and be a pope in mine own parish.    190

Men. Wherefore dost thou think churches were made?

Mal. To scour plough-shares: I ha’ seen oxen plough up altars; et nunc seges ubi Sion fuit.

Men. Strange!

Mal. Nay, monstrous! I ha’ seen a sumptuous steeple turned to a stinking privy; more beastly, the sacredest place made a dogs’ kennel; nay, most inhuman, the stoned coffins of long-dead Christians burst up, and made hogs’ troughs: hic finis Priami. Shall I ha’ some sack and cheese at thy chamber? Good night, good mischievous incarnate devil; good night, Mendoza; ah, ye inhuman villain, good night! night, fub.    202

Men. Goodnight: to-morrow morn?

Mal. Ay, I will come, friendly damnation, I will come. [Exit Mendoza.] I do descry cross-points; honesty and courtship straddle as far asunder as a true Frenchman’s legs.

Fer. O!

Mal. Proclamations! more proclamations!

Fer. O! a surgeon!    210

Mal. Hark! lust cries for a surgeon. What news from Limbo? how does the grand cuckold, Lucifer?

Fer. O, help, help! conceal and save me.

[Ferneze stirs, and Malevole helps him up.

Mal. Thy shame more than thy wounds do grieve me far:

Thy wounds but leave upon thy flesh some scar;

But fame ne’er heals, still rankles worse and worse;

Such is of uncontrollèd lust the curse.

Think what it is in lawless sheets to lie;

But, O Ferneze, what in lust to die!

Then thou that shame respect’st, O, fly converse    220

With women’s eyes and lisping wantonness!

Stick candles ’gainst a virgin wall’s white back,

If they not burn, yet at the least they’ll black.

Come, I’ll convey thee to a private port,

Where thou shalt live (O happy man!) from court.

The beauty of the day begins to rise,

From whose bright form night’s heavy shadow flies.

Now ’gin close plots to work; the scene grows full,

And craves his eyes who hath a solid skull.

[Exit, conveying Ferneze away.

A room in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter Pietro, Mendoza, Equato, and Bilioso.

Pietro. ’Tis grown to youth of day: how shall we waste this light?

My heart’s more heavy than a tyrant’s crown.

Shall we go hunt? Prepare for field.

[Exit Equato.

Men. Would ye could be merry!

Pietro. Would God I could! Mendoza, bid ’em haste.

[Exit Mendoza.

I would fain shift place; O vain relief!

Sad souls may well change place, but not change grief:

As deer, being struck, fly thorough many soils,

Yet still the shaft sticks fast, so——

Bil. A good old simile, my honest lord.    10

Pietro. I am not much unlike to some sick man

That long desirèd hurtful drink; at last

Swills in and drinks his last, ending at once

Both life and thirst. O, would I ne’er had known

My own dishonour! Good God, that men should desire

To search out that, which, being found, kills all

Their joy of life! to taste the tree of knowledge,

And then be driven from out paradise!—

Canst give me some comfort?    19

Bil. My lord, I have some books which have been dedicated to my honour, and I ne’er read ’em, and yet they had very fine names, Physic for Fortune, Lozenges of sanctified sincerity, very pretty works of curates, scriveners, and schoolmasters. Marry, I remember one Seneca, Lucius Annæus Seneca——

Pietro. Out upon him! he writ of temperance and fortitude, yet lived like a voluptuous epicure, and died like an effeminate coward.—Haste thee to Florence: Here, take our letters; see ’em seal’d: away! Report in private to the honour’d duke    30

His daughter’s forc’d disgrace; tell him at length

We know too much: due compliments advance:

There’s naught that’s safe and sweet but ignorance.

[Exit.

Enter Bianca.

Bil. Madam, I am going ambassador for Florence; ’twill be great charges to me.

Bian. No matter, my lord, you have the lease of two manors come out next Christmas; you may lay your tenants on the greater rack for it: and when you come home again, I’ll teach you how you shall get two hundred pounds a-year by your teeth.    40

Bil. How, madam?

Bian. Cut off so much from house-keeping: that which is saved by the teeth, you know, is got by the teeth.

Bil. ’Fore God, and so I may; I am in wondrous credit, lady.

Bian. See the use of flattery: I did ever counsel you to flatter greatness, and you have profited well: any man that will do so shall be sure to be like your Scotch barnacle, now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great goose: this it is to rot and putrefy in the bosom of greatness.    52

Bil. Thou art ever my politician. O, how happy is that old lord that hath a politician to his young lady! I’ll have fifty gentlemen shall attend upon me: marry, the most of them shall be farmers’ sons, because they shall bear their own charges; and they shall go apparelled thus,—in sea-water-green suits, ash-colour cloaks, watchet stockings, and popinjay-green feathers: will not the colours do excellent?    60

Bian. Out upon’t! they’ll look like citizens riding to their friends at Whitsuntide; their apparel just so many several parishes.

Bil. I’ll have it so; and Passarello, my fool, shall go along with me; marry, he shall be in velvet.

Bian. A fool in velvet!

Bil. Ay, ’tis common for your fool to wear satin; I’ll have mine in velvet.

Bian. What will you wear, then, my lord?    69

Bil. Velvet too; marry, it shall be embroidered, because I’ll differ from the fool somewhat. I am horribly troubled with the gout: nothing grieves me, but that my doctor hath forbidden me wine, and you know your ambassador must drink. Didst thou ask thy doctor what was good for the gout?

Bian. Yes; he said, ease, wine, and women, were good for it.

Bil. Nay, thou hast such a wit! What was good to cure it, said he?    79

Bian. Why, the rack. All your empirics could never do the like cure upon the gout the rack did in England, or your Scotch boot. The French harlequin will instruct you.

Bil. Surely, I do wonder how thou, having for the most part of thy lifetime been a country body, shouldst have so good a wit.

Bian. Who, I? why, I have been a courtier thrice two months.    88

Bil. So have I this twenty year, and yet there was a gentleman-usher called me coxcomb t’other day, and to my face too: was’t not a backbiting rascal? I would I were better travelled, that I might have been better acquainted with the fashions of several countrymen: but my secretary, I think, he hath sufficiently instructed me.

Bian. How, my lord?

Bil. “Marry, my good lord,” quoth he, “your lordship shall ever find amongst a hundred Frenchmen forty hot-shots; amongst a hundred Spaniards, three-score braggarts; amongst a hundred Dutchmen, four-score drunkards; amongst an hundred Englishmen, four-score and ten madmen; and amongst an hundred Welshmen”——    102

Bian. What, my lord?

Bil. “Four-score and nineteen gentlemen.”

Bian. But since you go about a sad embassy, I would have you go in black, my lord.

Bil. Why, dost think I cannot mourn, unless I wear my hat in cipres, like an alderman’s heir? that’s vile, very old, in faith.

Bian. I’ll learn of you shortly: O, we should have a fine gallant of you, should not I instruct you! How will you bear yourself when you come into the Duke of Florence’ court?    113

Bil. Proud enough, and ’twill do well enough: as I walk up and down the chamber, I’ll spit frowns about me, have a strong perfume in my jerkin, let my beard grow to make me look terrible, salute no man beneath the fourth button; and ’twill do excellent.

Bian. But there is a very beautiful lady there; how will you entertain her?    120

Bil. I’ll tell you that, when the lady hath entertained me: but to satisfy thee, here comes the fool.

Enter Passarello.

Fool, thou shalt stand for the fair lady.

Pass. Your fool will stand for your lady most willingly and most uprightly.

Bil. I’ll salute her in Latin.

Pass. O, your fool can understand no Latin.

Bil. Ay, but your lady can.

Pass. Why, then, if your lady take down your fool, your fool will stand no longer for your lady.    130

Bil. A pestilent fool! ’fore God, I think the world be turned upside down too.

Pass. O, no, sir; for then your lady and all the ladies in the palace should go with their heels upward, and that were a strange sight, you know.

Bil. There be many will repine at my preferment.

Pass. O, ay, like the envy of an elder sister, that hath her younger made a lady before her.

Bil. The duke is wondrous discontented.

Pass. Ay, and more melancholic than a usurer having all his money out at the death of a prince.    141

Bil. Didst thou see Madam Floria to-day?

Pass. Yes, I found her repairing her face to-day; the red upon the white showed as if her cheeks should have been served in for two dishes of barberries in stewed broth, and the flesh to them a woodcock.

Bil. A bitter fool! —Come, madam, this night thou shalt enjoy me freely, and to-morrow for Florence.    148

Pass. What a natural fool is he that would be a pair of boddice to a woman’s petticoat, to be trussed and pointed to them! Well, I’ll dog my lord; and the word is proper: for when I fawn upon him, he feeds me; when I snap him by the fingers, he spits in my mouth. If a dog’s death were not strangling, I had rather be one than a serving-man; for the corruption of coin is either the generation of a usurer or a lousy beggar.

[Exeunt Bianca and Passarello.

Enter Malevole in some frize gown, whilst Bilioso reads his patent.

Mal. I cannot sleep; my eyes’ ill-neighbouring lids

Will hold no fellowship. O thou pale sober night,

Thou that in sluggish fumes all sense dost steep;

Thou that giv’st all the world full leave to play,    160

Unbend’st the feebled veins of sweaty labour!

The galley-slave, that all the toilsome day

Tugs at his oar against the stubborn wave,

Straining his rugged veins, snores fast;

The stooping scythe-man, that doth barb the field,

Thou mak’st wink sure: in night all creatures sleep;

Only the malcontent, that ’gainst his fate

Repines and quarrels,—alas, he’s goodman tell-clock!

His sallow jaw-bones sink with wasting moan;

Whilst others’ beds are down, his pillow’s stone.    170

Bil. Malevole!

Mal. Elder of Israel, thou honest defect of wicked nature and obstinate ignorance, when did thy wife let thee lie with her?

Bil. I am going ambassador to Florence.

Mal. Ambassador! Now, for thy country’s honour, prithee, do not put up mutton and porridge i’ thy cloakbag. Thy young lady wife goes to Florence with thee too, does she not?

Bil. No, I leave her at the palace.    180

Mal. At the palace! Now, discretion shield, man; for God’s love, let’s ha’ no more cuckolds! Hymen begins to put off his saffron robe: keep thy wife i’ the state of grace. Heart o’ truth, I would sooner leave my lady singled in a bordello than in the Genoa palace: Sin there appearing in her sluttish shape,

Would soon grow loathsome, even to blushes’ sense;

Surfeit would choke intemperate appetite,

Make the soul scent the rotten breath of lust.

When in an Italian lascivious palace,    190

A lady guardianless,

Left to the push of all allurement,

The strongest incitements to immodesty,

To have her bound, incens’d with wanton sweets,

Her veins fill’d high with heating delicates,

Soft rest, sweet music, amorous masquerers,

Lascivious banquets, sin itself gilt o’er,

Strong fantasy tricking up strange delights,

Presenting it dress’d pleasingly to sense,

Sense leading it unto the soul, confirm’d    200

With potent examples impudent custom,

Entic’d by that great bawd, opportunity;

Thus being prepar’d, clap to her easy ear

Youth in good clothes, well-shap’d, rich,

Fair-spoken, promising, noble, ardent, blood-full,

Witty, flattering,—Ulysses absent,

O Ithaca, can chastest Penelope hold out?

Bil. Mass, I’ll think on’t. Farewell.

Mal. Farewell. Take thy wife with thee. Farewell.

[Exit Bilioso.

To Florence; um! it may prove good, it may;    210

And we may once unmask our brows.

Enter Celso.

Celso. My honour’d lord,—

Mal. Celso, peace! how is’t? speak low: pale fears

Suspect that hedges, walls, and trees, have ears:

Speak, how runs all?

Celso. I’faith, my lord, that beast with many heads,

The staggering multitude, recoils apace:

Though thorough great men’s envy, most men’s malice,

Their much-intemperate heat hath banish’d you,

Yet now they find envy and malice ne’er    220

Produce faint reformation.

The duke, the too soft duke, lies as a block,

For which two tugging factions seem to saw;

But still the iron through the ribs they draw.

Mal. I tell thee, Celso, I have ever found

Thy breast most far from shifting cowardice

And fearful baseness: therefore I’ll tell thee, Celso,

I find the wind begins to come about;

I’ll shift my suit of fortune.

I know the Florentine, whose only force,    230

By marrying his proud daughter to this prince,

Both banish’d me, and made this weak lord duke,

Will now forsake them all; be sure he will:

I’ll lie in ambush for conveniency,

Upon their severance to confirm myself.

Celso. Is Ferneze interr’d?

Mal. Of that at leisure: he lives.

Celso. But how stands Mendoza? how is’t with him?

Mal. Faith, like a pair of snuffers, snibs filth in other men, and retains it in himself.    240

Celso. He does fly from public notice, methinks, as a hare does from hounds; the feet whereon he flies betray him.

Mal. I can track him, Celso.

O, my disguise fools him most powerfully!

For that I seem a desperate malcontent,

He fain would clasp with me: he’s the true slave

That will put on the most affected grace

For some vile second cause.

Celso. He’s here.

Mal. Give place.

[Exit Celso.

Enter Mendoza.

Illo, ho, ho, ho! art there, old truepenny? Where hast thou spent thyself this morning? I see flattery in thine eyes, and damnation in thy soul. Ha, ye huge rascal!

Men. Thou art very merry.    253

Mal. As a scholar futuens gratis. How does the devil go with thee now?

Men. Malevole, thou art an arrant knave.

Mal. Who, I? I have been a sergeant, man.

Men. Thou art very poor.

Mal. As Job, an alchymist, or a poet.

Men. The duke hates thee.    260

Mal. As Irishmen do bum-cracks.

Men. Thou hast lost his amity.

Mal. As pleasing as maids lose their virginity.

Men. Would thou wert of a lusty spirit! would thou wert noble!    265

Mal. Why, sure my blood gives me I am noble, sure I am of noble kind; for I find myself possessed with all their qualities;—love dogs, dice, and drabs, scorn wit in stuff-clothes; have beat my shoemaker, knocked my semstress, cuckold my pothecary, and undone my tailor. Noble! why not? since the stoic said, Neminem servum non ex regibus, neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum; only busy Fortune touses, and the provident Chances blend them together. I’ll give you a simile: did you e’er see a well with two buckets, whilst one comes up full to be emptied, another goes down empty to be filled? such is the state of all humanity. Why, look you, I may be the son of some duke; for, believe me, intemperate lascivious bastardy makes nobility doubtful: I have a lusty daring heart, Mendoza.    280

Men. Let’s grasp; I do like thee infinitely: wilt enact one thing for me?

Mal. Shall I get by it? [Men. gives him his purse.] Command me; I am thy slave, beyond death and hell.

Men. Murder the duke.

Mal. My heart’s wish, my soul’s desire, my fantasy’s dream, my blood’s longing, the only height of my hopes! How, O God, how! O, how my united spirits throng together, to strengthen my resolve!

Men. The duke is now a-hunting.    290

Mal. Excellent, admirable, as the devil would have it! Lend me, lend me, rapier, pistol, cross-bow: so, so, I’ll do it.

Men. Then we agree.

Mal. As Lent and fishmongers. Come, a-cap-a-pe, how? inform.

Men. Know that this weak-brain’d duke, who only stands

On Florence’ stilts, hath out of witless zeal

Made me his heir, and secretly confirm’d

The wreath to me after his life’s full point.    300

Mal. Upon what merit?

Men. Merit! by heaven, I horn him:

Only Ferneze’s death gave me state’s life.

Tut, we are politic, he must not live now.

Mal. No reason, marry: but how must he die now?

Men. My utmost project is to murder the duke, that I might have his state, because he makes me his heir; to banish the duchess, that I might be rid of a cunning Lacedæmonian, because I know Florence will forsake her; and then to marry Maria, the banished Duke Altofront’s wife, that her friends might strengthen me and my faction: that is all, la.    311

Mal. Do you love Maria?

Men. Faith, no great affection, but as wise men do love great women, to ennoble their blood and augment their revenue. To accomplish this now, thus now. The duke is in the forest next the sea: single him, kill him, hurl him i’ the main, and proclaim thou sawest wolves eat him.

Mal. Um! not so good. Methinks when he is slain,

To get some hypocrite, some dangerous wretch    320

That’s muffled o[’e]r with feignèd holiness,

To swear he heard the duke on some steep cliff

Lament his wife’s dishonour, and, in an agony

Of his heart’s torture, hurl’d his groaning sides

Into the swollen sea,—this circumstance

Well made sounds probable: and hereupon

The duchess——

Men. May well be banish’d:

O unpeerable invention! rare!

Thou god of policy! it honeys me.    330

Mal. Then fear not for the wife of Altofront;

I’ll close to her.

Men. Thou shalt, thou shalt. Our excellency is pleas’d:

Why wert not thou an emperor? when we

Are duke, I’ll make thee some great man, sure.

Mal. Nay,

Make me some rich knave, and I’ll make myself

Some great man.

Men. In thee be all my spirit:

Retain ten souls, unite thy virtual powers:

Resolve; ha, remember greatness! heart, farewell:    340

The fate of all my hopes in thee doth dwell.

[Exit.

Re-enter Celso.

Mal. Celso, didst hear?—O heaven, didst hear

Such devilish mischief? suffer’st thou the world

Carouse damnation even with greedy swallow,

And still dost wink, still does thy vengeance slumber?

If now thy brows are clear, when will they thunder?

[Exeunt.

A forest near the sea.

Enter Pietro, Ferrardo, Prepasso, and Three Pages.

Fer. The dogs are at a fault.

[Cornets like horns within.

Pietro. Would God nothing but the dogs were at it! Let the deer pursue safety, the dogs follow the game, and do you follow the dogs: as for me, ’tis unfit one beast should hunt another; I ha’ one chaseth me: an’t please you, I would be rid of ye a little.

Fer. Would your grief would, as soon as we, leave you to quietness!

Pietro. I thank you.

[Exeunt Ferrardo and Prepasso.

Boy, what dost thou dream of now?    10

First Page. Of a dry summer, my lord; for here’s a hot world towards: but, my lord, I had a strange dream last night.

Pietro. What strange dream?

First Page. Why, methought I pleased you with singing, and then I dreamt that you gave me that short sword.

Pietro. Prettily begged: hold thee, I’ll prove thy dream true; take’t.

[Giving sword.

First Page. My duty: but still I dreamt on, my lord; and methought, an’t shall please your excellency, you would needs out of your royal bounty give me that jewel in your hat.    23

Pietro. O, thou didst but dream, boy; do not believe it: dreams prove not always true; they may hold in a short sword, but not in a jewel. But now, sir, you dreamt you had pleased me with singing; make that true, as I ha’ made the other.

First Page. Faith, my lord, I did but dream, and dreams, you say, prove not always true; they may hold in a good sword, but not in a good song: the truth is, I ha’ lost my voice.    32

Pietro. Lost thy voice! how?

First Page. With dreaming, faith: but here’s a couple of sirenical rascals shall enchant ye: what shall they sing, my good lord?

Pietro. Sing of the nature of women; and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crotchets, and most sweet closes: it shall be humorous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all, and all in one.    41

First Page. All in one!

Pietro. By’r lady, too many. Sing: my speech grows culpable of unthrifty idleness: sing. Ah, so, so, sing.

Song by Second and Third Pages.

I am heavy: walk off; I shall talk in my sleep: walk off.

[Exeunt Pages.

Enter Malevole, with cross-bow and pistol.

Mal. Brief, brief: who? the duke! good heaven, that fools

Should stumble upon greatness!—Do not sleep, duke;

Give ye good-morrow: I must be brief, duke;

I am fee’d to murder thee: start not: Mendoza,    50

Mendoza hir’d me; here’s his gold, his pistol,

Cross-bow, and sword: ’tis all as firm as earth.

O fool, fool, chokèd with the common maze

Of easy idiots, credulity!

Make him thine heir! what, thy sworn murderer!

Pietro. O, can it be?

Mal. Can!

Pietro. Discover’d he not Ferneze?

Mal. Yes, but why? but why? for love to thee?

Much, much! to be reveng’d upon his rival,

Who had thrust his jaws awry;

Who being slain, suppos’d by thine own hands,    60

Defended by his sword, made thee most loathsome,

Him most gracious with thy loose princess:

Thou, closely yielding egress and regress to her,

Madest him heir; whose hot unquiet lust

Straight tous’d thy sheets, and now would seize thy state.

Politician! wise man! death! to be

Led to the stake like a bull by the horns;

To make even kindness cut a gentle throat!

Life, why art thou numb’d? thou foggy dulness, speak:

Lives not more faith in a home-thrusting tongue    70

Than in these fencing tip-tap courtiers?

Enter Celso, with a hermit’s gown and beard.

Pietro. Lord Malevole, if this be true——

Mal. If! come, shade thee with this disguise. If! thou shalt handle it; he shall thank thee for killing thyself. Come, follow my directions, and thou shalt see strange sleights.

Pietro. World, whither wilt thou?

Mal. Why, to the devil. Come, the morn grows late: A steady quickness is the soul of state.

[Exeunt.

Palace of the Duke.

Enter Maquerelle.

Maq. [Knocking at the ladies’ door.] Medam, medam, are you stirring, medam? if you be stirring, medam,—if I thought I should disturb ye—

Enter Page.

Page. My lady is up, forsooth.

Maq. A pretty boy, faith: how old art thou?

Page. I think fourteen.

Maq. Nay, an ye be in the teens—are ye a gentleman born? do you know me? my name is Medam Maquerelle; I lie in the old Cunny-court.

[Page.] See, here the ladies.    10

Enter Bianca and Emilia.

Bian. A fair day to ye, Maquerelle.

Emil. Is the duchess up yet, sentinel?

Maq. O ladies, the most abominable mischance! O dear ladies, the most piteous disaster! Ferneze was taken last night in the duchess’ chamber: alas, the duke catched him and killed him!

Bian. Was he found in bed?    17

Maq. O, no; but the villainous certainty is, the door was not bolted, the tongue-tied hatch held his peace: so the naked troth is, he was found in his shirt, whilst I, like an arrant beast, lay in the outward chamber, heard nothing; and yet they came by me in the dark, and yet I felt them not, like a senseless creature as I was. O beauties, look to your busk-points; if not chastely, yet charily: be sure the door be bolted.—Is your lord gone to Florence?

Bian. Yes, Maquerelle.    27

Maq. I hope you’ll find the discretion to purchase a fresh gown ’fore his return.—Now, by my troth, beauties, I would ha’ ye once wise: he loves ye; pish! he is witty; bubble! fair-proportioned; mew! nobly-born; wind! Let this be still your fixed position; esteem me every man according to his good gifts, and so ye shall ever remain most worthy to be, most dear ladies.

Emil. Is the duke returned from hunting yet?

Maq. They say not yet.

Bian. ’Tis now in midst of day.    37

Emil. How bears the duchess with this blemish now?

Maq. Faith, boldly; strongly defies defame, as one that has a duke to her father. And there’s a note to you: be sure of a stout friend in a corner, that may always awe your husband. Mark the behaviour of the duchess now: she dares defame; cries, “Duke, do what thou canst, I’ll quit mine honour:” nay, as one confirmed in her own virtue against ten thousand mouths that mutter her disgrace, she’s presently for dances.

Bian. For dances!

Maq. Most true.

Emil. Most strange.

Enter Ferrardo.

See, here’s my servant, young Ferrardo: how many servants thinkest thou I have, Maquerelle?    51

Maq. The more, the merrier: ’twas well said, use your servants as you do your smocks; have many, use one, and change often; for that’s most sweet and court-like.

Fer. Save ye, fair ladies! Is the duke return’d?

Bian. Sweet sir, no voice of him as yet in court.

Fer. ’Tis very strange.

Bian. And how like you my servant, Maquerelle?    59

Maq. I think he could hardly draw Ulysses’ bow; but, by my fidelity, were his nose narrower, his eyes broader, his hands thinner, his lips thicker, his legs bigger, his feet lesser, his hair blacker, and his teeth whiter, he were a tolerable sweet youth, i’faith. And he will come to my chamber, I will read him the fortune of his beard.

[Cornets sound within.

Fer. Not yet returned! I fear—but the duchess approacheth.

Enter Mendoza supporting Aurelia and Guerrino: the ladies that are on the stage rise: Ferrardo ushers in Aurelia, and then takes a lady to tread a measure.

Aur. We will dance:—music!—we will dance.

Guer. Les quanto lady, Pensez bien, Passa regis, or Bianca’s brawl?    70

Aur. We have forgot the brawl.

Fer. So soon? ’tis wonder.

Guer. Why, ’tis but two singles on the left, two on the right, three doubles forward, a traverse of six round: do this twice, three singles side, galliard trick-of-twenty, coranto-pace; a figure of eight, three singles broken down, come up, meet, two doubles, fall back, and then honour.

Aur. O Dædalus, thy maze! I have quite forgot it.

Maq. Trust me, so have I, saving the falling-back, and then honour.    81

Aur. Music, music!

Enter Prepasso.

Prep. Who saw the duke? the duke?

Aur. Music!

Enter Equato.

Equato. The duke? is the duke returned?

Aur. Music!

Enter Celso.

Celso. The duke is either quite invisible, or else is not.

Aur. We are not pleased with your intrusion upon our private retirement; we are not pleased: you have forgot yourselves.    90

Enter a Page.

Celso. Boy, thy master? where’s the duke?

Page. Alas, I left him burying the earth with his spread joyless limbs: he told me he was heavy, would sleep; bade me walk off, for that the strength of fantasy oft made him talk in his dreams. I straight obeyed, nor ever saw him since: but wheresoe’er he is, he’s sad.

Aur. Music, sound high, as is our heart! sound high!

Enter Malevole, and Pietro disguised like an hermit.

Mal. The duke,—peace!—the duke is dead.

Aur. Music!

Mal. Is’t music?    100

Men. Give proof.

Fer. How?

Celso. Where?

Prep. When?

Mal. Rest in peace, as the duke does; quietly sit: for my own part, I beheld him but dead; that’s all: marry, here’s one can give you a more particular account of him.

Men. Speak, holy father, nor let any brow Within this presence fright thee from the truth: Speak confidently and freely.

Aur. We attend.    110

Pietro. Now had the mounting sun’s all-ripening wings

Swept the cold sweat of night from earth’s dank breast,

When I, whom men call Hermit of the Rock,

Forsook my cell, and clambered up a cliff,

Against whose base the heady Neptune dash’d

His high-curl’d brows; there ’twas I eas’d my limbs:

When, lo! my entrails melted with the moan

Some one, who far ’bove me was climb’d, did make—

I shall offend.

Men. Not.    120

Aur. On.

Pietro. Methinks I hear him yet:—“O female faith!

Go sow the ingrateful sand, and love a woman:

And do I live to be the scoff of men?

To be the wittol-cuckold, even to hug

My poison? Thou knowest, O truth!

Sooner hard steel will melt with southern wind,

A seaman’s whistle calm the ocean,

A town on fire be extinct with tears,

Than women, vow’d to blushless impudence,    130

With sweet behaviour and soft minioning

Will turn from that where appetite is fix’d.

O powerful blood! how thou dost slave their soul!

I wash’d an Ethiop, who, for recompense,

Sullied my name: and must I, then, be forc’d

To walk, to live thus black? must! must! fie!

He that can bear with must, he cannot die.”

With that, he sigh’d so passionately deep,

That the dull air even groan’d: at last he cries,

“Sink shame in seas, sink deep enough!” so dies;    140

For then I viewed his body fall, and souse

Into the foamy main. O, then I saw,

That which methinks I see, it was the duke;

Whom straight the nicer-stomach’d sea belch’d up:

But then——

Mal. Then came I in; but, ’las, all was too late!

For even straight he sunk.

Pietro. Such was the duke’s sad fate.

Celso. A better fortune to our Duke Mendoza!

Omnes. Mendoza!    150

[Cornets flourish.

Men. A guard, a guard!

Enter a Guard.

We, full of hearty tears,

For our good father’s loss,

(For so we well may call him

Who did beseech your loves for our succession),

Cannot so lightly over-jump his death

As leave his woes revengeless.—Woman of shame,

[To Aurelia.

We banish thee for ever to the place

From whence this good man comes; nor permit,

On death, unto thy body any ornament;

But, base as was thy life, depart away.    160

Aur. Ungrateful!

Men. Away!

Aur. Villain, hear me!

Men. Begone!

[Prepasso and Guerrino lead away Aurelia guarded.

My lords,

Address to public council; ’tis most fit:

The train of fortune is borne up by wit.

Away! our presence shall be sudden; haste.

[All depart, except Mendoza, Malevole, and Pietro.

Mal. Now, you egregious devil! ha, ye murdering politician! how dost, duke? how dost look now? brave duke, i’faith.    170

Men. How did you kill him?

Mal. Slatted his brains out, then soused him in the briny sea.

Men. Brained him, and drowned him too?

Mal. O ’twas best, sure work; for he that strikes a great man, let him strike home, or else ’ware, he’ll prove no man: shoulder not a huge fellow, unless you may be sure to lay him in the kennel.

Men. A most sound brain-pan! I’ll make you both emperors.    180

Mal. Make us Christians, make us Christians.

Men. I’ll hoist ye, ye shall mount.

Mal. To the gallows, say ye? come: præmium incertum petit certum scelus. How stands the progress?

Men. Here, take my ring unto the citadel;

[Giving ring.

Have entrance to Maria, the grave duchess

Of banish’d Altofront. Tell her we love her;

Omit no circumstance to grace our person: do’t.

Mal. I’ll make an excellent pander: duke, farewell; ’dieu, adieu, duke.    190

Men. Take Maquerelle with thee; for ’tis found

None cuts a diamond but a diamond.

[Exit Malevole.

Hermit,

Thou art a man for me, my confessor:

O thou selected spirit, born for my good!

Sure thou wouldst make

An excellent elder in a deform’d church.

Come, we must be inward, thou and I all one.

Pietro. I am glad I was ordained for ye.

Men. Go to, then; thou must know that Malevole is a strange villain; dangerous, very dangerous: you see how broad ’a speaks; a gross-jawed rogue: I would have thee poison him: he’s like a corn upon my great toe, I cannot go for him; he must be cored out, he must. Wilt do’t, ha?

Pietro. Anything, anything.    204

Men. Heart of my life! thus, then. To the citadel:

Thou shalt consort with this Malevole;

There being at supper, poison him: it shall be laid

Upon Maria, who yields love or dies:

Scud quick.

Pietro. Like lightning: good deeds crawl, but mischief flies.    210

[Exit.

Re-enter Malevole.

Mal. Your devilship’s ring has no virtue: the buff-captain, the sallow Westphalian gammon-faced zaza cries, “Stand out;” must have a stiffer warrant, or no pass into the castle of comfort.

Men. Command our sudden letter.—Not enter! sha’t: what place is there in Genoa but thou shalt? into my heart, into my very heart: come, let’s love; we must love, we two, soul and body.

Mal. How didst like the hermit? a strange hermit, sirrah.    220

Men. A dangerous fellow, very perilous: He must die.

Mal. Ay, he must die.

Men. Thou’st kill him.

We are wise; we must be wise.

Mal. And provident.

Men. Yea, provident: beware an hypocrite;

A churchman once corrupted, O, avoid!

A fellow that makes religion his stalking-horse,

He breeds a plague: thou shalt poison him.

Mal. O, ’tis wondrous necessary: how?

Men. You both go jointly to the citadel;

There sup, there poison him: and Maria,    230

Because she is our opposite, shall bear

The sad suspect; on which she dies or loves us.

Mal. I run.

[Exit.

Men. We that are great, our sole self-good still moves us.

They shall die both, for their deserts crave more

Than we can recompense: their presence still

Imbraids our fortunes with beholdingness,

Which we abhor; like deed, not doer: then conclude,

They live not to cry out “Ingratitude!”

One stick burns t’other, steel cuts steel alone:    240

’Tis good trust few; but, O, ’tis best trust none!

[Exit.

Court of the Palace.

Enter Malevole and Pietro, still disguised, at several doors.

Mal. How do you? how dost, duke?

Pietro. O, let

The last day fall! drop, drop on our curs’d heads!

Let heaven unclasp itself, vomit forth flames:

Mal. O, do not rave, do not turn player; there’s more of them than can well live one by another already. What, art an infidel still?

Pietro. I am amazed; struck in a swown with wonder: I am commanded to poison thee—

Mal. I am commanded to poison thee at supper—

Pietro. At supper—

Mal. In the citadel—

Pietro. In the citadel.    10

Mal. Cross capers! tricks! truth o’ heaven! he would discharge us as boys do eldern guns, one pellet to strike out another. Of what faith art now?

Pietro. All is damnation; wickedness extreme:

There is no faith in man.

Mal. In none but usurers and brokers; they deceive no man: men take ’em for blood-suckers, and so they are. Now, God deliver me from my friends!

Pietro. Thy friends!    19

Mal. Yes, from my friends; for from mine enemies I’ll deliver myself. O, cut-throat friendship is the rankest villainy! Mark this Mendoza; mark him for a villain: but heaven will send a plague upon him for a rogue.

Pietro. O world!

Mal. World! ’tis the only region of death, the greatest shop of the devil; the crudest prison of men, out of the which none pass without paying their dearest breath for a fee; there’s nothing perfect in it but extreme, extreme calamity, such as comes yonder.

Enter Aurelia, two halberts before and two after, supported by Celso and Ferrardo; Aurelia in base mourning attire.

Aur. To banishment! lead on to banishment!    30

Pietro. Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you!

Aur. Why, why, I can desire nothing but death,

Nor deserve anything but hell.

If heaven should give sufficiency of grace

To clear my soul, it would make heaven graceless:

My sins would make the stock of mercy poor;

O, they would tire heaven’s goodness to reclaim them!

Judgment is just yet from that vast villain;

But, sure, he shall not miss sad punishment

’Fore he shall rule.—On to my cell of shame!    40

Pietro. My cell ’tis, lady; where, instead of masks,

Music, tilts, tourneys, and such court-like shows,

The hollow murmur of the checkless winds

Shall groan again; whilst the unquiet sea

Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.

There usherless the air comes in and out:

The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,

Whilst you behold true desolation:

A rocky barrenness shall pain your eyes,

Where all at once one reaches where he stands,    50

With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.

Aur. It is too good.—Bless’d spirit of my lord,

O, in what orb soe’er thy soul is thron’d,

Behold me worthily most miserable!

O, let the anguish of my contrite spirit

Entreat some reconciliation!

If not, O, joy, triumph in my just grief!

Death is the end of woes and tears’ relief.

Pietro. Belike your lord not lov’d you, was unkind.

Aur. O heaven!    60

As the soul loves the body, so lov’d he:

’Twas death to him to part my presence, heaven

To see me pleas’d.

Yet I, like to a wretch given o’er to hell,

Brake all the sacred rites of marriage,

To clip a base ungentle faithless villain;

O God! a very pagan reprobate—

What should I say? ungrateful, throws me out,

For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honour.

But ’tis most fit: why should a better fate    70

Attend on any who forsake chaste sheets;

Fly the embrace of a devoted heart,

Join’d by a solemn vow ’fore God and man,

To taste the brackish flood of beastly lust

In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty!

Insatiate impudence of appetite!

Look, here’s your end; for mark, what sap in dust,

What good in sin, even so much love in lust.

Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord! pardon to me!

Celso. ’Tis the duke’s pleasure this night you rest in court.

Aur. Soul, lurk in shades; run, shame, from brightsome skies:    80

In night the blind man misseth not his eyes.

[Exit with Celso, Ferrardo, and halberts.

Mal. Do not weep, kind cuckold: take comfort, man; thy betters have been beccos: Agamemnon, emperor of all the merry Greeks, that tickled all the true Trojans, was a cornuto; Prince Arthur, that cut off twelve kings’ beards, was a cornuto; Hercules, whose back bore up heaven, and got forty wenches with child in one night,—

Pietro. Nay, ’twas fifty.    90

Mal. Faith, forty’s enow, o’ conscience,—yet was a cornuto. Patience; mischief grows proud: be wise.

Pietro. Thou pinchest too deep; art too keen upon me.

Mal. Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous sore: I’ll tent thee to the ground. Thinkest I’ll sustain myself by flattering thee, because thou art a prince? I had rather follow a drunkard, and live by licking up his vomit, than by servile flattery.

Pietro. Yet great men ha’ done ’t.    100

Mal. Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a coal-basket; though the common usher of princes’ presence, Fortune, ha’ blindly given them better place. I am vowed to be thy affliction.

Pietro. Prithee, be;

I love much misery, and be thou son to me.

Mal. Because you are an usurping duke.——

Enter Bilioso.

Your lordship’s well returned from Florence.

Bil. Well returned, I praise my horse.

Mal. What news from the Florentines?

Bil. I will conceal the great duke’s pleasure; only this was his charge: his pleasure is, that his daughter die; Duke Pietro be banished for banishing his blood’s dishonour; and that Duke Altofront be re-accepted. This is all: but I hear Duke Pietro is dead.    114

Mal. Ay, and Mendoza is duke: what will you do?

Bil. Is Mendoza strongest?

Mal. Yet he is.

Bil. Then yet I’ll hold with him.

Mal. But if that Altofront should turn straight again?

Bil. Why, then, I would turn straight again.    120

’Tis good run still with him that has most might:

I had rather stand with wrong, than fall with right.

Mal. What religion will you be of now?

Bil. Of the duke’s religion, when I know what it is.

Mal. O Hercules!

Bil. Hercules! Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.

Mal. Your lordship is a very wit-all.

Bil. Wittal!

Mal. Ay, all-wit.    130

Bil. Amphitryo was a cuckold.

Mal. Your lordship sweats; your young lady will get you a cloth for your old worship’s brows. [Exit Bilioso. Here’s a fellow to be damned: this is his inviolable maxim,—flatter the greatest and oppress the least: a whoreson flesh-fly, that still gnaws upon the lean galled backs.

Pietro. Why dost, then, salute him?    138

Mal. Faith, as bawds go to church, for fashion’ sake. Come, be not confounded; thou’rt but in danger to lose a dukedom. Think this:—this earth is the only grave and Golgotha wherein all things that live must rot; ’tis but the draught wherein the heavenly bodies discharge their corruption; the very muck-hill on which the sublunary orbs cast their excrements: man is the slime of this dung-pit, and princes are the governors of these men; for, for our souls, they are as free as emperors, all of one piece; there goes but a pair of shears betwixt an emperor and the son of a bagpiper; only the dying, dressing, pressing, glossing, makes the difference. Now, what art thou like to lose?    151 A gaoler’s office to keep men in bonds,

Whilst toil and treason all life’s good confounds.

Pietro. I here renounce for ever regency:

O Altofront, I wrong thee to supplant thy right,

To trip thy heels up with a devilish sleight!

For which I now from throne am thrown: world-tricks abjure;

For vengeance though’t comes slow, yet it comes sure.

O, I am chang’d! for here, ’fore the dread power,

In true contrition, I do dedicate    160

My breath to solitary holiness,

My lips to prayer, and my breast’s care shall be,

Restoring Altofront to regency.

Mal. Thy vows are heard, and we accept thy faith.

[Undisguiseth himself.

Re-enter Ferneze and Celso.

Banish amazement: come, we four must stand

Full shock of fortune: be not so wonder-stricken.

Pietro. Doth Ferneze live?

Fer. For your pardon.

Pietro. Pardon and love. Give leave to recollect

My thoughts dispers’d in wild astonishment.

My vows stand fix’d in heaven, and from hence    170

I crave all love and pardon.

Mal. Who doubts of providence,

That sees this change? a hearty faith to all!

He needs must rise who can no lower fall:

For still impetuous vicissitude

Touseth the world; then let no maze intrude

Upon your spirits: wonder not I rise;

For who can sink that close can temporise?

The time grows ripe for action: I’ll detect

My privat’st plot, lest ignorance fear suspect.

Let’s close to counsel, leave the rest to fate:    180

Mature discretion is the life of state.

[Exeunt.

A room in the Palace.

Enter Bilioso and Passarello.

Bil. Fool, how dost thou like my calf in a long stocking?

Pass. An excellent calf, my lord.

Bil. This calf hath been a reveller this twenty year. When Monsieur Gundi lay here ambassador, I could have carried a lady up and down at arm’s end in a platter; and I can tell you, there were those at that time who, to try the strength of a man’s back and his arm, would be coistered. I have measured calves with most of the palace, and they come nothing near me; besides, I think there be not many armours in the arsenal will fit me, especially for the headpiece. I’ll tell thee—    12

Pass. What, my lord?

Bil. I can eat stewed broth as it comes seething off the fire; or a custard as it comes reeking out of the oven; and I think there are not many lords can do it. A good pomander, a little decayed in the scent; but six grains of musk, ground with rose-water, and tempered with a little civet, shall fetch her again presently.

Pass. O, ay, as a bawd with aqua-vitæ.    20

Bil. And, what, dost thou rail upon the ladies as thou wert wont?

Pass. I were better roast a live cat, and might do it with more safety. I am as secret to [the] thieves as their painting. There’s Maquerelle, oldest bawd and a perpetual beggar—did you never hear of her trick to be known in the city?

Bil. Never.

Pass. Why, she gets all the picture-makers to draw her picture; when they have done, she most courtly finds fault with them one after another, and never fetcheth them: they, in revenge of this, execute her in pictures as they do in Germany, and hang her in their shops: by this means is she better known to the stinkards than if she had been five times carted.    35

Bil. ’Fore God, an excellent policy.

Pass. Are there any revels to-night, my lord?

Bil. Yes.

Pass. Good my lord, give me leave to break a fellow’s pate that hath abused me.    40

Bil. Whose pate?

Pass. Young Ferrardo, my lord.

Bil. Take heed, he’s very valiant; I have known him fight eight quarrels in five days, believe it.

Pass. O, is he so great a quarreller? why, then, he’s an arrant coward.

Bil. How prove you that?

Pass. Why, thus. He that quarrels seeks to fight; and he that seeks to fight seeks to die; and he that seeks to die seeks never to fight more; and he that will quarrel, and seeks means never to answer a man more, I think he’s a coward.    52

Bil. Thou canst prove anything.

Pass. Anything but a rich knave; for I can flatter no man.

Bil. Well, be not drunk, good fool: I shall see you anon in the presence.

[Exeunt.

Before the Citadel.

Enter, from opposite sides, Malevole and Maquerelle, singing.

Mal. The Dutchman for a drunkard,—

Maq. The Dane for golden locks,—

Mal. The Irishman for usquebaugh,—

Maq. The Frenchman for the (——).

Mal. O, thou art a blessed creature! had I a modest woman to conceal, I would put her to thy custody; for no reasonable creature would ever suspect her to be in thy company: ah, thou art a melodious Maquerelle,—thou picture of a woman, and substance of a beast!

Enter Passarello with wine.

Maq. O fool, will ye be ready anon to go with me to the revels? the hall will be so pestered anon.    11

Pass. Ay, as the country is with attorneys.

Mal. What hast thou there, fool?

Pass. Wine; I have learned to drink since I went with my lord ambassador: I’ll drink to the health of Madam Maquerelle.

Mal. Why, thou wast wont to rail upon her.

Pass. Ay; but since I borrowed money of her, I’ll drink to her health now; as gentlemen visit brokers, or as knights send venison to the city, either to take up more money, or to procure longer forbearance.    21

Mal. Give me the bowl. I drink a health to Altofront, our deposed duke.

[Drinks.

Pas. I’ll take it [Drinks]:—so. Now I’ll begin a health to Madam Maquerelle.

[Drinks.

Mal. Pooh! I will not pledge her.

Pass. Why, I pledged your lord.

Mal. I care not.

Pass. Not pledge Madam Maquerelle! why, then, will I spew up your lord again with this fool’s finger.    30

Mal. Hold; I’ll take it.

[Drinks.

Maq. Now thou hast drunk my health, fool, I am friends with thee.

Pass. Art? art? When Griffon saw the reconcilèd quean

Offering about his neck her arms to cast,

He threw off sword and heart’s malignant spleen,

And lovely her below the loins embrac’d.—

Adieu, Madam Maquerelle.

[Exit.

Mal. And how dost thou think o’ this transformation of state now?    41

Maq. Verily, very well; for we women always note, the falling of the one is the rising of the other; some must be fat, some must be lean; some must be fools, and some must be lords; some must be knaves, and some must be officers; some must be beggars, some must be knights; some must be cuckolds, and some must be citizens. As for example, I have two court-dogs, the most fawning curs, the one called Watch, the other Catch: now I, like Lady Fortune, sometimes love this dog, sometimes raise that dog, sometimes favour Watch, most commonly fancy Catch. Now, that dog which I favour I feed; and he’s so ravenous, that what I give he never chaws it, gulps it down whole, without any relish of what he has, but with a greedy expectation of what he shall have. The other dog now——    56

Mal. No more dog, sweet Maquerelle, no more dog. And what hope hast thou of the Duchess Maria? will she stoop to the duke’s lure? will she come, thinkest?

Maq. Let me see, where’s the sign now? ha’ ye e’er a calendar? where’s the sign, trow you?    61

Mal. Sign! why, is there any moment in that?

Maq. O, believe me, a most secret power: look ye, a Chaldean or an Assyrian, I am sure ’twas a most sweet Jew, told me, court any woman in the right sign, you shall not miss. But you must take her in the right vein then; as, when the sign is in Pisces, a fishmonger’s wife is very sociable; in Cancer, a precisian’s wife is very flexible; in Capricorn, a merchant’s wife hardly holds out; in Libra, a lawyer’s wife is very tractable, especially if her husband be at the term; only in Scorpio ’tis very dangerous meddling. Has the duke sent any jewel, any rich stones?    73

Mal. Ay, I think those are the best signs to take a lady in.

Enter Captain.

By your favour, signior, I must discourse with the Lady Maria, Altofront’s duchess; I must enter for the duke.

Capt. She here shall give you interview: I received the guardship of this citadel from the good Altofront, and for his use I’ll keep’t, till I am of no use.    80

Mal. Wilt thou? O heavens, that a Christian should be found in a buff-jerkin! Captain Conscience, I love thee, captain. We attend.

[Exit Captain.

And what hope hast thou of this duchess’ easiness?

Maq. ’Twill go hard, she was a cold creature ever; she hated monkeys, fools, jesters, and gentlemen-ushers extremely; she had the vile trick on’t, not only to be truly modestly honourable in her own conscience, but she would avoid the least wanton carriage that might incur suspect; as, God bless me, she had almost brought bed-pressing out of fashion; I could scarce get a fine for the lease of a lady’s favour once in a fortnight.    92

Mal. Now, in the name of immodesty, how many maidenheads has thou brought to the block?

Maq. Let me see: heaven forgive us our misdeeds!—Here’s the duchess.

Enter Maria with Captain.

Mal. God bless thee, lady!

Maria. Out of thy company!

Mal. We have brought thee tender of a husband.

Maria. I hope I have one already.    100

Maq. Nay, by mine honour, madam, as good ha’ ne’er a husband as a banished husband; he’s in another world now. I’ll tell ye, lady, I have heard of a sect that maintained, when the husband was asleep the wife might lawfully entertain another man, for then her husband was as dead; much more when he is banished.

Maria. Unhonest creature!

Maq. Pish, honesty is but an art to seem so:

Pray ye, what’s honesty, what’s constancy,

But fables feign’d, odd old fools’ chat, devis’d    110

By jealous fools to wrong our liberty?

Mal. Molly, he that loves thee is a duke, Mendoza; he will maintain thee royally, love thee ardently, defend thee powerfully, marry thee sumptuously, and keep thee, in despite of Rosicleer or Donzel del Phebo. There’s jewels: if thou wilt, so; if not, so.

Maria. Captain, for God’s love, save poor wretchedness

From tyranny of lustful insolence!

Enforce me in the deepest dungeon dwell,

Rather than here; here round about is hell.—    120

O my dear’st Altofront! where’er thou breathe,

Let my soul sink into the shades beneath,

Before I stain thine honour! ’tis thou has’t,

And long as I can die, I will live chaste.

Mal. ’Gainst him that can enforce how vain is strife!

Maria. She that can be enforc’d has ne’er a knife:

She that through force her limbs with lust enrolls,

Wants Cleopatra’s asps and Portia’s coals.

God amend you!    129

[Exit with Captain.

Mal. Now, the fear of the devil for ever go with thee!—Maquerelle, I tell thee, I have found an honest woman: faith, I perceive, when all is done, there is of women, as of all other things, some good, most bad; some saints, some sinners: for as nowadays no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather; even so, no woman but has her weakness and feather too, no sex but has his—I can hunt the letter no farther.—[Aside] O God, how loathsome this toying is to me! that a duke should be forced to fool it! well, stultorum plena sunt omnia: better play the fool lord than be the fool lord.—Now, where’s your sleights, Madam Maquerelle?    143

Maq. Why, are ye ignorant that ’tis said a squeamish affected niceness is natural to women, and that the excuse of their yielding is only, forsooth, the difficult obtaining? You must put her to’t: women are flax, and will fire in a moment.

Mal. Why, was the flax put into thy mouth, and yet thou—Thou set fire, thou inflame her!    150

Maq. Marry, but I’ll tell ye now, you were too hot.

Mal. The fitter to have inflamed the flax, woman.

Maq. You were too boisterous, spleeny, for, indeed——

Mal. Go, go, thou art a weak pandress: now I see,

Sooner earth’s fire heaven itself shall waste,

Than all with heat can melt a mind that’s chaste.

Go: thou the duke’s lime-twig! I’ll make the duke turn thee out of thine office: what, not get one touch of hope, and had her at such advantage!    160

Maq. Now, o’ my conscience, now I think in my discretion, we did not take her in the right sign; the blood was not in the true vein, sure.

[Exit.

Enter Bilioso.

Bil. Make way there! the duke returns from the enthronement.—Malevole,—

Mal. Out, rogue!

Bil. Malevole,—

Mal. Hence, ye gross-jawed, peasantly—out, go!    168

Bil. Nay, sweet Malevole, since my return I hear you are become the thing I always prophesied would be,—an advanced virtue, a worthily-employed faithfulness, a man o’ grace, dear friend. Come; what! Si quoties peccant homines—if as often as courtiers play the knaves, honest men should be angry—why, look ye, we must collogue sometimes, forswear sometimes.

Mal. Be damned sometimes.

Bil. Right: nemo omnibus horis sapit; no man can be honest at all hours: necessity often depraves virtue.

Mal. I will commend thee to the duke.

Bil. Do: let us be friends, man.    180

Mal. And knaves, man.

Bil. Right: let us prosper and purchase: our lordships shall live, and our knavery be forgotten.

Mal. He that by any ways gets riches, his means never shames him.

Bil. True.

Mal. For impudency and faithlessness are the main stays to greatness.

Bil. By the Lord, thou art a profound lad.

Mal. By the Lord, thou art a perfect knave: out, ye ancient damnation!    191

Bil. Peace, peace! and thou wilt not be a friend to me as I am a knave, be not a knave to me as I am thy friend, and disclose me. Peace! cornets!

Enter Prepasso and Ferrardo, two Pages with lights, Celso and Equato, Mendoza in duke’s robes, and Guerrino.

Men. On, on; leave us, leave us.

[Exeunt all except Malevole and Mendoza.

Stay, where is the hermit?

Mal. With Duke Pietro, with Duke Pietro.

Men. Is he dead? is he poisoned?

Mal. Dead, as the duke is.

Men. Good, excellent: he will not blab; secureness lives in secrecy. Come hither, come hither.    201 Mal. Thou hast a certain strong villainous scent about thee my nature cannot endure.

Men. Scent, man! What returns Maria, what answer to our suit?

Mal. Cold, frosty; she is obstinate.

Men. Then she’s but dead; ’tis resolute, she dies: Black deed only through black deed safely flies.

Mal. Pooh! per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.

Men. What, art a scholar? art a politician? sure, thou art an arrant knave.    211

Mal. Who, I? I ha’ been twice an under-sheriff, man. Well, I will go rail upon some great man, that I may purchase the bastinado, or else go marry some rich Genoan lady, and instantly go travel.

Men. Travel, when thou art married?

Mal. Ay, ’tis your young lord’s fashion to do so, though he was so lazy, being a bachelor, that he would never travel so far as the university: yet when he married her, tales off, and, Catso, for England!    220

Men. And why for England?

Mal. Because there is no brothel-houses there.

Men. Nor courtezans?

Mal. Neither; your whore went down with the stews, and your punk came up with your puritan.

Men. Canst thou empoison? canst thou empoison?

Mal. Excellently; no Jew, pothecary, or politician better. Look ye, here’s a box: whom wouldst thou empoison? here’s a box [Giving it], which, opened and the fume ta’en up in conduits thorough which the brain purges itself, doth instantly for twelve hours’ space bind up all show of life in a deep senseless sleep: here’s another [Giving it], which, being opened under the sleeper’s nose, chokes all the pores of life, kills him suddenly.    235

Men. I’ll try experiments; ’tis good not to be deceived.—So, so; catso!

[Seems to poison Malevole, who falls.

Who would fear that may destroy?

Death hath no teeth nor tongue;

And he that’s great, to him are slaves,    240

Shame, murder, fame, and wrong.—

Celso!

Enter Celso.

Celso. My honour’d lord?

Men. The good Malevole, that plain-tongu’d man,

Alas, is dead on sudden, wondrous strangely!

He held in our esteem good place. Celso,

See him buried, see him buried.

Celso. I shall observe ye.

Men. And, Celso, prithee, let it be thy care to-night

To have some pretty show, to solemnise

Our high instalment; some music, maskery.    250

We’ll give fair entertain unto Maria,

The duchess to the banish’d Altofront:

Thou shalt conduct her from the citadel

Unto the palace. Think on some maskery.

Celso. Of what shape, sweet lord?

Men. What shape! why, any quick-done fiction;

As some brave spirits of the Genoan dukes,

To come out of Elysium, forsooth,

Led in by Mercury, to gratulate

Our happy fortune; some such anything,    260

Some far-fet trick good for ladies, some stale toy

Or other, no matter, so’t be of our devising.

Do thou prepare’t; ’tis but for fashion sake;

Fear not, it shall be grac’d, man, it shall take.

Celso. All service.

Men. All thanks; our hand shall not be close to thee: farewell.

[Aside.] Now is my treachery secure, nor can we fall:

Mischief that prospers, men do virtue call.

I’ll trust no man: he that by tricks gets wreaths

Keeps them with steel; no man securely breathes    270

Out of deservèd ranks; the crowd will mutter, “fool:”

Who cannot bear with spite, he cannot rule.

The chiefest secret for a man of state

Is, to live senseless of a strengthless hate.

[Exit.

Mal. [starting up] Death of the damned thief! I’ll make one i’ the mask; thou shalt ha’ some brave spirits of the antique dukes.

Cel. My lord, what strange delusion?

Mal. Most happy, dear Celso, poisoned with an empty box: I’ll give thee all, anon: my lady comes to court; there is a whirl of fate comes tumbling on; the castle’s captain stands for me, the people pray for me, and the great leader of the just stands for me: then courage, Celso;    284 For no disastrous chance can ever move him

That leaveth nothing but a God above him.

[Exeunt.

The Presence-Chamber.

Enter Bilioso and Prepasso, two Pages before them; Maquerelle, Bianca, and Emilia.

Bil. Make room there, room for the ladies! why, gentlemen, will not ye suffer the ladies to be entered in the great chamber? why, gallants! and you, sir, to drop your torch where the beauties must sit too!

Pre. And there’s a great fellow plays the knave; why dost not strike him?

Bil. Let him play the knave, o’ God’s name; thinkest thou I have no more wit than to strike a great fellow?—The music! more lights! revelling-scaffolds! do you hear? Let there be oaths enow ready at the door, swear out the devil himself. Let’s leave the ladies, and go see if the lords be ready for them.    12

[Exeunt Bilioso, Prepasso, and Pages.

Maq. And, by my troth, beauties, why do you not put you into the fashion? this is a stale cut; you must come in fashion: look ye, you must be all felt, felt and feather, a felt upon your bare hair: look ye, these tiring things are justly out of request now: and, do ye hear? you must wear falling-bands, you must come into the falling fashion: there is such a deal o’ pinning these ruffs, when the fine clean fall is worth all: and again, if ye should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling-band requires no poting-stick to recover his form: believe me, no fashion to the falling, I say.    23

Bian. And is not Signior St. Andrew a gallant fellow now.

Maq. By my maidenhead, la, honour and he agree as well together as a satin suit and woollen stockings.

Emilia. But is not Marshal Make-room, my servant in reversion, a proper gentleman?    29

Maq. Yes, in reversion, as he had his office; as, in truth, he hath all things in reversion: he has his mistress in reversion, his clothes in reversion, his wit in reversion; and, indeed, is a suitor to me for my dog in reversion: but, in good verity, la, he is as proper a gentleman in reversion as—and, indeed, as fine a man as may be, having a red beard and a pair of warpt legs.

Bian. But, i’faith, I am most monstrously in love with Count Quidlibet-in-quodlibet: is he not a pretty, dapper, unidle gallant?    39

Maq. He is even one of the most busy-fingered lords; he will put the beauties to the squeak most hideously.

Re-enter Bilioso.

Bil. Room! make a lane there! the duke is entering: stand handsomely for beauty’s sake, take up the ladies there! So, cornets, cornets!

Re-enter Prepasso, joins to Bilioso; then enter two Pages with lights, Ferrardo, Mendoza; at the other door, two Pages with lights, and the Captain leading in Maria; Mendoza meets Maria and closeth with her; the rest fall back.

Men. Madam, with gentle ear receive my suit;

A kingdom’s safety should o’er-peise slight rites;

Marriage is merely nature’s policy:

Then, since unless our royal beds be join’d,

Danger and civil tumults fright the state,

Be wise as you are fair, give way to fate.    50

Maria. What wouldst thou, thou affliction to our house?

Thou ever-devil, ’twas thou that banished’st

My truly noble lord!

Men. I!

Maria. Ay, by thy plots, by thy black stratagems:

Twelve moons have suffer’d change since I beheld

The lovèd presence of my dearest lord.

O thou far worse than death! he parts but soul

From a weak body; but thou soul from soul

Dissever’st, that which God’s own hand did knit;    60

Thou scant of honour, full of devilish wit!

Men. We’ll check your too-intemperate lavishness:

I can, and will.

Maria. What canst?

Men. Go to; in banishment thy husband dies.

Maria. He ever is at home that’s ever wise.

Men. You’st ne’er meet more: reason should love control.

Maria. Not meet!

She that dear loves, her love’s still in her soul.

Men. You are but a woman, lady, you must yield.    70

Maria. O, save me, thou innated bashfulness,

Thou only ornament of woman’s modesty!

Men. Modesty! death, I’ll torment thee.

Maria. Do, urge all torments, all afflictions try;

I’ll die my lord’s as long as I can die.

Men. Thou obstinate, thou shalt die.—Captain, that lady’s life

Is forfeited to justice: we have examin’d her,

And we do find she hath empoisonèd

The reverend hermit; therefore we command

Severest custody.—Nay, if you’ll do’s no good,    80

You’st do’s no harm: a tyrant’s peace is blood.

Maria. O, thou art merciful; O gracious devil,

Rather by much let me condemnèd be

For seeming murder than be damn’d for thee!

I’ll mourn no more; come, girt my brows with flowers:

Revel and dance, soul, now thy wish thou hast;

Die like a bride, poor heart, thou shalt die chaste.

Enter Aurelia in mourning habit.

Life is a frost of cold felicity,—

Aur. And death the thaw of all our vanity:

Was’t not an honest priest that wrote so?    90

Men. Who let her in?

Bil. Forbear!

Pre. Forbear!

Aur. Alas, calamity is everywhere:

Sad misery, despite your double doors,

Will enter even in court.

Bil. Peace!

Aur.I ha’ done.

Bil. One word,—take heed!

Aur. I ha’ done.

Enter Mercury with loud music.

Mer. Cyllenian Mercury, the god of ghosts,

From gloomy shades that spread the lower coasts,

Calls four high-famèd Genoan dukes to come,    100

And make this presence their Elysium,

To pass away this high triumphal night

With song and dances, court’s more soft delight.

Aur. Are you god of ghosts? I have a suit pending in hell betwixt me and my conscience; I would fain have thee help me to an advocate.

Bil. Mercury shall be your lawyer, lady.

Aur. Nay, faith, Mercury has too good a face to be a right lawyer.

Pre. Peace, forbear! Mercury presents the mask.    110

Cornets: the song to the cornets, which playing, the mask enters; Malevole, Pietro, Ferneze, and Celso, in white robes, with dukes’ crowns upon laurel-wreaths, pistolets and short swords under their robes.

Men. Celso, Celso, court Maria for our love.—

Lady, be gracious, yet grace.

Maria. With me, sir?

[Malevole takes Maria to dance.

Mal. Yes, more lovèd than my breath;

With you I’ll dance.

Maria. Why, then, you dance with death.

But, come, sir, I was ne’er more apt for mirth.

Death gives eternity a glorious breath:

O, to die honour’d, who would fear to die?

Mal. They die in fear who live in villainy.

Men. Yes, believe him, lady, and be rul’d by him.

Pietro. Madam, with me.

[Pietro takes Aurelia to dance.

Aur. Wouldst, then, be miserable?    120

Pietro. I need not wish.

Aur. O, yet forbear my hand! away! fly! fly!

O, seek not her that only seeks to die!

Pietro. Poor lovèd soul!

Aur. What, wouldst court misery?

Pietro. Yes.

Aur. She’ll come too soon:—O my grievèd heart!

Pietro. Lady, ha’ done, ha’ done:

Come, let us dance; be once from sorrow free.

Aur. Art a sad man?

Pietro. Yes, sweet.

Aur. Then we’ll agree.    128

[Ferneze takes Maquerelle and Celso Bianca: then the cornets sound the measure, one change, and rest.

Fer. [to Bianca.] Believe it, lady; shall I swear? let me enjoy you in private, and I’ll marry you, by my soul.

Bian. I had rather you would swear by your body: I think that would prove the more regarded oath with you.

Fer. I’ll swear by them both, to please you.

Bian. O, damn them not both to please me, for God’s sake!    136

Fer. Faith, sweet creature, let me enjoy you to-night, and I’ll marry you to-morrow fortnight, by my troth, la.

Maq. On his troth, la! believe him not; that kind of cony-catching is as stale as Sir Oliver Anchovy’s perfumed jerkin: promise of matrimony by a young gallant, to bring a virgin lady into a fool’s paradise; make her a great woman, and then cast her off;—’tis as common and natural to a courtier, as jealousy to a citizen, gluttony to a puritan, wisdom to an alderman, pride to a tailor, or an empty hand-basket to one of these sixpenny damnations: of his troth, la! believe him not; traps to catch pole-cats.

Mal. [to Maria]. Keep your face constant, let no sudden passion

Speak in your eyes.

Maria. O my Altofront!    150

Pietro. [to Aurelia.] A tyrant’s jealousies

Are very nimble: you receive it all?

Aur. My heart, though not my knees, doth humbly fall

Low as the earth, to thee.

Mal. Peace! next change; no words.

Maria. Speech to such, ay, O, what will affords!

[Cornets sound the measure over again; which danced, they unmask.

Men. Malevole!

[They environ Mendoza, bending their pistols on him.

Mal. No.

Men. Altofront! Duke Pietro! Ferneze! ha!

All. Duke Altofront! Duke Altofront!

[Cornets, a flourish.—They seize upon Mendoza.

Men. Are we surpris’d? what strange delusions mock    160

Our senses? do I dream? or have I dreamt

This two days’ space? where am I?

Mal. Where an arch-villain is.

Men. O, lend me breath till I am fit to die!

For peace with heaven, for your own souls’ sake,

Vouchsafe me life!

Pietro. Ignoble villain! whom neither heaven nor hell,

Goodness of God or man, could once make good!

Mal. Base, treacherous wretch! what grace canst thou expect,

That hast grown impudent in gracelessness?    170

Men. O, life!

Mal. Slave, take thy life.

Wert thou defencèd, th[o]rough blood and wounds,

The sternest horror of a civil fight,

Would I achieve thee; but prostrate at my feet,

I scorn to hurt thee: ’tis the heart of slaves

That deigns to triumph over peasants’ graves;

For such thou art, since birth doth ne’er enroll

A man ’mong monarchs, but a glorious soul.

O, I have seen strange accidents of state!    180

The flatterer, like the ivy, clip the oak,

And waste it to the heart; lust so confirm’d,

That the black act of sin itself not sham’d

To be term’d courtship.

O, they that are as great as be their sins,

Let them remember that th’ inconstant people

Love many princes merely for their faces

And outward shows; and they do covet more

To have a sight of these than of their virtues.

Yet thus much let the great ones still conceive,    190

When they observe not heaven’s impos’d conditions,

They are no kings, but forfeit their commissions.

Maq. O good my lord, I have lived in the court this twenty year: they that have been old courtiers, and come to live in the city, they are spited at, and thrust to the walls like apricocks, good my lord.

Bil. My lord, I did know your lordship in this disguise; you heard me ever say, if Altofront did return, I would stand for him: besides, ’twas your lordship’s pleasure to call me wittol and cuckold: you must not think, but that I knew you, I would have put it up so patiently.    202

Mal. You o’er-joy’d spirits, wipe your long-wet eyes.

[To Pietro and Aurelia.

Hence with this man [Kicks out Mendoza]: an eagle takes not flies.

You to your vows [To Pietro and Aurelia]: and thou into the suburbs.

[To Maquerelle.

You to my worst friend I would hardly give;

Thou art a perfect old knave [To Bilioso]: all-pleas’d live

You two unto my breast [To Celso and the Captain]: thou to my heart.

[To Maria.

The rest of idle actors idly part:

And as for me, I here assume my right,    210

To which I hope all’s pleas’d: to all, good-night.

[Cornets, a flourish. Exeunt.