PLAYS BY WEBSTER & TOURNEUR

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

UNEXPURGATED EDITION.

[THE MERMAID SERIES.]

LONDON:
VIZETELLY & CO., 16, HENRIETTA STREET,
COVENT GARDEN.
1888.

[Transcriber's Note: "The Revenger's Tragedy," attributed here to Cyril Tourneur, is now generally recognised as the work of Thomas Middleton.]

[CONTENTS.]

[THE GLOBE THEATRE.]

The first Globe Theatre, on the Bankside, Southwark, "the summer theatre of Shakespeare and his fellows," is believed to have been built in 1594, partly of materials removed from the Theatre in Shoreditch, "the earliest building erected in or near London purposely for scenic exhibitions." Outside, the Globe was hexagonal in shape, and, like all the theatres of that epoch, was open at the top, excepting the part immediately over the stage, which was thatched with straw. The interior of the theatre was circular. The performances took place by daylight, and while they were going on a flag with the cross of St. George upon it was unfurled from the roof. Originally, in place of scenery, the names of the localities supposed to be represented were inscribed on boards or hangings for the information of the audience. The sign of the theatre was a figure of Hercules supporting the globe, beneath which was written "Totus mundus agit Histrionem."

In 1601, the Globe Theatre was used as a place of meeting by the conspirators engaged in Essex's rebellion, and next year Shakespeare's Hamlet, following upon other of his plays, was here produced for the first time. In subsequent years plays by Shakespeare, Webster, Ford, and contemporary dramatists were performed at the Globe, until in 1613 the theatre was burnt to the ground owing to some lighted paper, thrown from a piece of ordnance used in the performance, igniting the thatch. The theatre was rebuilt in the following spring with a tiled roof, and according to Howes's MS., quoted by Collier in his life of Shakespeare, "at the great charge of King James and many noblemen and others." Ben Jonson styled the new theatre "the glory of the Bank and the fort of the whole parish."

The Globe Theatre was pulled down in 1644 by Sir Matthew Brand with the view to tenements being erected upon its site, a portion of which at the present day is occupied by Barclay and Perkins's brewery.

[JOHN WEBSTER AND CYRIL TOURNEUR.]

Nothing is known about the lives of John Webster and Cyril Tourneur. We are ignorant when they were born and when they died. We possess only meagre hints of what contemporaries thought of them. One allusion to Tourneur survives, which shows that he was not popular in his lifetime as a dramatist:—

His fame unto that pitch so only raised
As not to be despised nor too much praised.

A superficial critic speaks of "crabbed Webster, the playwright, cart-wright," and proceeds, at some length, to deride his laborious style and obscurity. Commendatory verses by S. Sheppard, Th. Middleton, W. Shirley, and John Ford prove, however, that Webster's tragedies won the suffrage of the best judges. None such are printed with Tourneur's plays.

Webster began to write for the stage as early as 1601. Between that date and 1607 he worked upon Marston's Malcontent, and is supposed to have collaborated with Dekker in the History of Sir Th. Wyatt, Northward Ho, and Westward Ho. Tourneur began his literary career by a satire called Transformed Metamorphosis, in 1600, which was followed in 1609 by a Funeral Poem on the Death of Sir Francis Vere. Both he and Webster published Elegies in 1613 upon the death of Prince Henry.

In this year he was employed upon some business for the Court, as appears from this passage in the Revels Accounts (ed. Cunningham, p. xliii.):

To Cyrill Turner, upon a warraunte signed by the Lord Chamberleyne and Mr. Chauncellor, dated at Whitehall, 23rd December, 1613, for his chardges and paines in carrying l'res for his Mats. service to Brussells.... X li.

The amount of this payment renders it improbable that Tourneur's mission was of any political or diplomatical importance.

We do not know when he commenced playwright; but The Revenger's Tragedy was licensed in 1607 and printed in the same year. The Atheist's Tragedy was printed in 1611; it had been written almost certainly at some earlier period. Webster's White Devil was printed and probably produced in 1612; his Duchess of Malfi, produced perhaps in 1616, was printed in 1623.

It is needful to dwell on the comparison of these dates, since they give Tourneur the priority of authorship in a style of tragedy which both poets cultivated with marked effect. Not to class them together as the creators of a singular type of drama would be uncritical. They elaborated similar motives, moved in the same atmosphere of moral gloom, aimed at the like sententious apophthegms, affected the same brevity and pungency, handled blank verse and prose on parallel methods, and owed debts of much the same kind to Shakespeare. That Webster was the greater writer, as he certainly possessed a finer cast of mind, and surveyed a wider sphere of human nature in his work, will be admitted. Yet it seems not impossible that he may have followed Tourneur's lead in the peculiar form and tone of his two masterpieces.

Speaking broadly, the two best tragedies of Webster and the two surviving tragedies of Tourneur constitute a distinct species of the genus which has been termed Tragedy of Blood.[1] It was Kyd, in his double drama called The Spanish Tragedy, who first gave definite form to this type. Those two plays exhibit the main ingredients of the Tragedy of Blood—a romantic story of crime and suffering, a violent oppressor, a wronged man bent upon the execution of some subtle vengeance, a ghost or two, a notorious villain working as the tyrant's instrument, and a whole crop of murders, deaths, and suicides to end the action. What use Shakespeare made of the type, and how he glorified it in Hamlet, is well known. Both Tourneur and Webster, writing after Shakespeare, had of necessity felt his influence, and their handling of the species was modified by that of their great master. Yet they reverted in many important particulars from the Shakespearean method to Kyd's. The use they both made of the villain, a personage which Shakespeare discarded, might be cited as distinctive. Kyd described the villain in the character of his Lazarrotto thus:—

I have a lad in pickle of this stamp,
A melancholy, discontented courtier,
Whose famished jaws look like the chap of death;
Upon whose eyebrow hangs damnation;
Whose hands are washed in rape and murders bold;
Him with a golden bait will I allure,
For courtiers will do anything for gold.

The outlines sketched by Kyd were filled in with touches of diseased perversity and crippled nobleness by Tourneur in his Vendice, and were converted into full-length portraits of impressive sombreness by Webster in his Flamineo and Bosola.

When we compare Tourneur with Webster as artists in the Tragedy of Blood, the former is seen at once to stand upon a lower level. His workmanship was rougher and less equal; his insight into nature less humane, though hardly less incisive; his moral tone muddier and more venomous; his draughtsmanship spasmodic and uncertain. Tourneur seems to have invented his own plots; they have the air of being fabricated after a recipe. This flaw—an apparent insincerity in the choice of motives—corresponds to the more painful moral flaw which makes his occasional good work like that of a remorseful and regretful fallen angel. While we read his plays, the line of Persius rises to our lips:—

Virtutem videant intabescantque relictâ.

Webster, as man and artist, never descends to Tourneur's level. He selects his two great subjects from Italian story, deriving thence the pith and marrow of veracity. These subjects he treats carefully and conscientiously, according to his own conception of the dreadful depths in human nature revealed to us by sixteenth century Italy. He does not use the vulgar machinery of revenge and ghosts in order to evolve an action. In so far as this goes, he may even be said to have advanced a step beyond Hamlet in the evolution of the Tragedy of Blood. His dramatic issues are worked out, without much alteration, from the matter given in the two Italian tales he used. Only he claims the right to view human fates and fortunes with despair, to paint a broad black background for his figures, to detach them sharply in sinister or pathetic relief, and to leave us at the last without a prospect over hopeful things. "One great Charybdis swallows all," said the Greek Simonides; and this motto might be chosen for the work of Shakespeare's greatest pupil in the art of tragedy. Yet Webster never fails to touch our hearts, and makes us remember a riper utterance upon the piteousness of man's ephemeral existence:—

Sunt lacrimæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.

It is just this power of blending tenderness and pity with the exhibition of acute moral anguish by which Webster is so superior to Tourneur as a dramatist.

Both playwrights have this point in common, that their forte lies not in the construction of plots, or in the creation of characters, so much as in an acute sense for dramatic situations. Their plots are involved and stippled in with slender touches; they lack breadth, and do not rightly hang together. Their characters, though forcibly conceived, tend to monotony, and move mechanically. But when it is needful to develop a poignant, a passionate, or a delicate situation, Tourneur and Webster show themselves to be masters of their art. They find inevitable words, the right utterance, not indeed always for their specific personages, but for generic humanity, under the peine forte et dure of intense emotional pressure. Webster, being the larger, nobler, deeper in his touch on nature, offers a greater variety of situations which reveal the struggles of the human soul with sin and fate. He is also better able to sustain these situations at a high dramatic pitch—as in the scene of Vittoria before her judges, and the scene of the Duchess of Malfi's assassination. Still Tourneur can display a few such moments by apocalyptic flashes—notably in the scenes where Vendice deals with his mother and sister.

Both playwrights indulge the late Elizabethan predilection for conceits. Webster, here as elsewhere, proves himself the finer artist. He inserts Vittoria's dream, Antonio's dialogue with Echo, Bosola's Masque of Madmen, accidentally and subserviently to action. Tourneur enlarges needlessly, but with lurid rhetorical effect, upon the grisly humours suggested by the skull of Vendice's dead mistress. Using similar materials, the one asserts his claim to be called the nobler poet by more steady observance of the Greek precept "Nothing overmuch." Words to the same effect might be written about their several employment of blank verse and prose. Both follow Shakespeare's distribution of these forms, while both run verse into prose as Shakespeare never did. Yet I think we may detect a subtler discriminative quality in Webster's most chaotic periods than we can in Tourneur's; and what upon this point deserves notice is that Webster, of the two, alone shows lyrical faculty. His three dirges are of exquisite melodic rhythm, in a rich low minor key; much of his blank verse has the ring of music; and even his prose suggests the colour of song by its cadence. This cannot be said of the sinister and arid Muse of Tourneur. She wears no evergreens of singing, nay, no yew-boughs even, on her forehead. Her dusky eyes sparkle with sharp metallic scintillations, as when Castiza says to her mother:—

Come from that poisonous woman there.

The Revenger's Tragedy is an entangled web of lust, incest, fratricide, rape, adultery, mutual suspicion, hate, and bloodshed, through which runs, like a thread of glittering copper, the vengeance of a cynical plague-fretted spirit. Vendice emerges from the tainted crew of Duke and Duchess, Lussurioso, Spurio and Junior, Ambitioso and Supervacuo, with a kind of blasted splendour. They are curling and engendering, a brood of flat-headed asps, in the slime of their filthy appetites and gross ambitions. He treads and tramples, on them all. But he bears on his own forehead the brands of Lucifer, the rebel, and of Cain, the assassin. The social corruption which transformed them into reptiles, has made him a fiend incarnate. Penetrated to the core with evil, conscious of sin far more than they are, he towers above them by his satanic force of purpose. Though ruined, as they are ruined, and by like causes, he maintains the dignity of mind and of volition. The right is on his side; the right of a tyrannicide, who has seen his own mistress, his own father, the wife of his friend, done to death by the brutalities of wanton princelings. But Tourneur did not choose to gift Vendice with elevation of nature. In the strongest scene of the play he showed this scorpion of revenge, stooping to feign a pander's part, tempting his mother and his sister as none but a moral leper could have done. In the minor scene of the duke's murder, he made him malicious beyond the scope of human cruelty and outrage. It was inherent apparently in this poet's conception of life that evil should be proclaimed predominant. His cynicism stands self-revealed in the sentence he puts into Antonio's mouth, condemning Vendice to death:—

You that would murder him would murder me.

Even justice, in his view, rests on egotism. And yet Tourneur has endowed Vendice with redeeming qualities. The hero of this crooked play is true to his ideal of duty, true to his sense of honour. He dies contented because he has perfected his revenge, preserved his sister's chastity, and converted his mother at the poniard's point. Where all are so bad and base, Vendice appears by comparison sublime. If we are to admire tone and keeping in a work of art, we certainly find it here; for the moral gradations are relentlessly scaled within the key of sin and pollution. The only character who stirs a pulse of sympathy is vicious. Castiza is a mere lay figure, and her mother one of the most repulsive personages of the Jacobean drama.

Webster presents a larger mass of dramatic work to the critic. Beside the tragedies included in this volume, he wrote another tragedy, Appius and Virginia, a tragi-comedy entitled The Devil's Law-case, and is said to have had a share in the history-play of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and in three comedies, Northward Ho, Westward Ho, and A Cure for a Cuckold. The Devil's Law-case shows how much this playwright depended on material supplied him, and how little he could trust his own inventive faculty. It starts with an involved plot of Italian deceit and contemplated crime, which Webster develops in his careful but not very lucid manner. We feel that we are working toward some sinister dénouement, when suddenly, by a twist of the hand, a favourable turn is given to events, and the play ends happily—violating probability, artistic tone, and the ethical integrity of the chief character, Romelio. From The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt in its present mangled and misshapen form it is impossible to disengage Webster's handiwork with any certainty. The same may be said about the brisk and well-wrought pieces Northward Ho and Westward Ho. Yet I see no reason to dispute Webster's share in these three plays. A Cure for a Cuckold[2] requires more particular comment. This comedy was ascribed by the publisher Kirkman to John Webster and William Rowley. But the ascription stands for absolutely nothing, unless we can discover corroborative internal evidence of Webster's collaboration. Such evidence I do not find, although there is certainly nothing in the play to disprove Kirkman's assertions. It should be added that a delicate little piece of serio-comic workmanship lies embedded in the otherwise trashy Cure for a Cuckold. Mr. Edmund Gosse early saw and twice pointed out how easily this play within the play could be detached from the rest; and the Honourable S. E. Spring Rice has recently printed, at Mr. Daniel's private press, a beautiful edition of what, following Mr. Gosse's suggestion, he calls Love's Graduate. I should like to believe that "piece of silver-work," as Mr. Gosse has aptly called it, to be truly the creation of Webster, "the sculptor whose other groups are all in bronze." Indeed, there are no reasons why the belief should not be indulged, except that Kirkman's ascription carries but a feather's weight, and that there is nothing special in the style to warrant it. Love's Graduate, rescued from A Cure for a Cuckold by pious hands, is one of the unclaimed masterpieces of this fruitful epoch.

The great length of Webster's two Italian tragedies rendered it impossible to print Appius and Virginia in this volume. That is much to be regretted; for without a study of his Roman play, justice can hardly be done to the scope and breadth of Webster's genius. Of Appius and Virginia Mr. Dyce observed with excellent judgment: "this drama is so remarkable for its simplicity, its deep pathos, its unobtrusive beauties, its singleness of plot, and the easy, unimpeded march of its story, that perhaps there are readers who will prefer it to any other of our author's productions." Webster, who was a Latin scholar, probably studied the fable in Livy; but its outlines were familiar to English people through Painter's "Palace of Pleasure." He has drawn the mutinous camp before Algidum, the discontented city ruled by a licentious noble, the stern virtues of Icilius and Virginius, and the innocent girlhood of Virginia with a quiet mastery and self-restraint which prove that the violent contrasts of his Italian plays were calculated for a peculiar effect of romance. When treating a classical subject, he aimed at classical severity of form. The chief interest of the drama centres in Appius. This character suited Webster's vein. He delighted in the delineation of a bold, imperious tyrant, marching through crimes to the attainment of his lawless ends, yet never wholly despicable. He also loved to analyse the subtleties of a deep-brained intriguer, changing from open force to covert guile, fawning and trampling on the objects of his hate by turns, assuming the tone of diplomacy and the truculence of autocratic will at pleasure, on one occasion making the worse appear the better cause by rhetoric, on another espousing evil with reckless cynicism. The variations of such a character are presented with force and lucidity in Appius. Yet the whole play lacks those sudden flashes of illuminative beauty, those profound and searching glimpses into the bottomless abyss of human misery, which render Webster's two Italian tragedies unique. He seems to have been writing under self-imposed limitations, in order to obtain a certain desired effect—much in the same way as Ford did when he composed the irreproachable but somewhat chilling history of Perkin Warbeck.

The detailed criticism of Webster as a dramatist, and the study of his two chief tragedies in relation to their Italian sources, would lead me beyond the limits of this Introduction. He is not a poet to be dealt with by any summary method; for he touches the depths of human nature in ways that need the subtlest analysis for their proper explanation. I am, however, loth to close this introduction without a word or two concerning the peculiarities of Webster's dramatic style.[3] Owing to condensation of thought and compression of language, his plays offer considerable difficulties to readers who approach them for the first time. So many fantastic incidents are crowded into a single action, and the dialogue is burdened with so much profoundly studied matter, that the general impression is apt to be blurred. We rise from the perusal of his Italian tragedies with a deep sense of the poet's power and personality, an ineffaceable recollection of one or two resplendent scenes, and a clear conception of the leading characters. Meanwhile the outlines of the fable, the structure of the drama as a complete work of art, seem to elude our grasp. The persons, who have played their part upon the stage of our imagination, stand apart from one another, like figures in a tableau vivant. Appius and Virginia, indeed, proves that Webster understood the value of a simple plot, and that he was able to work one out with conscientious firmness. But in Vittoria Corombona and The Duchess of Malfi, each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect upon a murky background; and the whole play is a mosaic of these parts. It lacks the breadth which comes from concentration on a master-motive. We feel that the author had a certain depth of tone and intricacy of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art. It is probable that able representation upon the public stage of an Elizabethan theatre gave them the coherence, the animation, and the movement which a chamber-student misses. When familiarity has brought us acquainted with Webster's way of working, we perceive that he treats terrible and striking subjects with a concentrated vigour special to his genius. Each word and trait of character has been studied for a particular effect. Brief lightning flashes of acute self-revelation illuminate the midnight darkness of the lost souls he has painted. Flowers of the purest and most human pathos, like Giovanni de Medici's dialogue with his uncle in Vittoria Corombona, bloom by the charnel-house on which the poet's fancy loved to dwell. The culmination of these tragedies, setting like stormy suns in blood-red clouds, is prepared by gradual approaches and degrees of horror. No dramatist showed more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in laying bare the inner mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain combined to make men miserable. He seems to have had a natural bias toward the dreadful stuff with which he deals so powerfully. He was drawn to comprehend and reproduce abnormal elements of spiritual anguish. The materials with which he builds are sought for in the ruined places of abandoned lives, in the agonies of madness and despair, in the sarcasms of reckless atheism, in slow tortures, griefs beyond endurance, the tempests of sin-haunted conscience, the spasms of fratricidal bloodshed, the deaths of frantic hope-deserted criminals. He is often melodramatic in the means employed to bring these psychological elements of tragedy home to our imagination. He makes free use of poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, disguised murderers, masques, and nightmares. Yet his firm grasp upon the essential qualities of diseased and guilty human nature, his profound pity for the innocent who suffer shipwreck in the storm of evil passions not their own, save him, even at his gloomiest and wildest, from the unrealities and extravagances into which less potent artists—Tourneur, for example—blundered. That the tendency to brood on what is ghastly belonged to Webster's idiosyncrasy appears in his use of metaphor. He cannot say the simplest thing without giving it a sinister turn—as thus:

You speak as if a man
Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat,
Afore you cut it open.
When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses
are raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's
shoulders.
Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an
ague.
I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of
the feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you
fasting.

In his dialogue, people bandy phrases like—"O you screech-owl!" and "Thou foul black cloud!" A sister warns her brother to think twice before committing suicide, with this weird admonition:—

I prithee, yet remember
Millions are now in graves, which at last day
Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.

But enough has now been said about these peculiarities of Webster's dramatic style. It is needful to become acclimatised to his specific mannerism, both in the way of working and the tone of thinking, before we can appreciate his real greatness as a dramatic poet and moralist. Then we recognise the truth of what has recently been written of him by an acute and sympathetic critic: "There is no poet morally nobler than Webster."[4]

John Addington Symonds.

[THE WHITE DEVIL;
OR,
VITTORIA COROMBONA.]

The White Divel; or, the Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, With the Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona, the famous Venetian Curtizan, was printed in 1612, as acted by the Queen's servants, and again in 1631, 1665, and 1672. In 1707 Nahum Tate published an alteration called Injured Love; or, the Cruel Husband.

Webster founded this play directly on the history of the Duke di Brachiano and his two wives, of whom the second, Vittoria Accorambaoni, was the widow of the nephew of Cardinal Montalto, afterwards Pope Sixtus V.

TO THE READER.

In publishing this tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty which other men have ta'en before me: not that I affect praise by it, for nos hæc novimus esse nihil;[5] only, since it was acted in so dull a time of winter, presented in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory; and that, since that time, I have noted most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses who, visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books; I present it to the general view with this confidence,—

Nec ronchos metues maligniorum,
Nec scombris tunicas dabis molestas.[6]

If it be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I shall easily confess it; non potes in nugas dicere plura meas ipse ego quam dixi.[7] Willingly, and not ignorantly, in this kind have I faulted: for, should a man present to such an auditory the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person, enrich it with the sententious Chorus, and, as it were, liven death in the passionate and weighty Nuntius; yet, after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia,[8] the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it; and, ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace,

Hæc porcis hodie comedenda relinques.[9]

To those who report I was a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confess, I do not write with a goose quill winged with two feathers; and if they will needs make it my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to Alcestides,[10] a tragic writer. Alcestides objecting that Euripides had only, in three days, composed three verses, whereas himself had written three hundred, "Thou tellest truth," quoth he, "but here's the difference,—thine shall only be read for three days, whereas mine shall continue three ages."

Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours; especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood; wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial,

Non norunt hæc monumenta mori.[11]

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Monticelso, a Cardinal, afterwards Pope.

Francisco de Medicis, Duke of Florence.

Brachiano, otherwise Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, Husband of Isabella.

Giovanni, his Son.

Count Lodovico.

Camillo, Husband of Vittoria.

Flamineo, Brother of Vittoria, Secretary to Brachiano.

Marcello, Brother of Vittoria, Attendant on Francisco de Medicis.

Hortensio.

Antonelli.

Gasparo.

Farnese.

Carlo.

Pedro.

Doctor.

Conjurer.

Lawyer.

Jaques.

Julio.

Christophero.

Ambassadors, Physicians, Officers, Attendants, &c.

Isabella, Sister of Francisco de Medicis, Wife of Brachiano.

Vittoria Corombona, married first to Camillo, afterwards to Brachiano.

Cornelia, Mother of Vittoria.

Zanche, a Moor, Waiting-woman to Vittoria.

Matron of the House of Convertites.

SCENE—Rome and Padua.

THE WHITE DEVIL; OR, VITTORIA COROMBONA.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.—A Street in Rome.

Enter Count Lodovico, Antonelli, and Gasparo.

Lod. Banished!
Ant. It grieved me much to hear the sentence.
Lod. Ha, ha! O Democritus, thy gods
That govern the whole world! courtly reward
And punishment. Fortune's a right whore:
If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
That she may take away all at one swoop.
This 'tis to have great enemies:—God quit[12] them!
Your wolf no longer seems to be a wolf
Than when she's hungry.
Gasp. You term those enemies
Are men of princely rank.
Lod. O, I pray for them:
The violent thunder is adored by those
Are pashed[13] in pieces by it.
Ant. Come, my lord,
You are justly doomed: look but a little back
Into your former life; you have in three years
Ruined the noblest earldom.
Gasp. Your followers
Have swallowed you like mummia[14] and, being sick
With such unnatural and horrid physic,
Vomit you up i' the kennel.
Ant. All the damnable degrees
Of drinkings have you staggered through: one citizen
Is lord of two fair manors called you master
Only for caviare.
Gasp. Those noblemen
Which were invited to your prodigal feasts
(Wherein the phœnix scarce could scape your throats)
Laugh at your misery; as fore-deeming you
An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth,
Would be soon lost i' the air.
Ant. Jest upon you,
And say you were begotten in an earthquake,
You have ruined such fair lordships.
Lod. Very good.
This well goes with two buckets: I must tend
The pouring out of either.
Gasp. Worse than these;
You have acted certain murders here in Rome,
Bloody and full of horror.
Lod. 'Las, they were flea-bitings.
Why took they not my head, then?

Gasp. O, my lord,
The law doth sometimes mediate, thinks it good
Not ever to steep violent sins in blood:
This gentle penance may both end your crimes,
And in the example better these bad times.
Lod. So; but I wonder, then, some great men scape
This banishment: there's Paulo Giordano Ursini,
The Duke of Brachiano, now lives in Rome,
And by close panderism seeks to prostitute
The honour of Vittoria Corombona;
Vittoria, she that might have got my pardon
For one kiss to the duke.
Ant. Have a full man within you.
We see that trees bear no such pleasant fruit
There where they grew first as where they are new set:
Perfumes, the more they are chafed, the more they render
Their pleasing scents; and so affliction
Expresseth virtue fully, whether true
Or else adulterate.
Lod. Leave your painted comforts:
I'll make Italian cut-works[15] in their guts,
If ever I return.
Gasp. O, sir!
Lod. I am patient.
I have seen some ready to be executed
Give pleasant looks and money, and grown familiar
With the knave hangman: so do I: I thank them,
And would account them nobly merciful,
Would they despatch me quickly.
Ant. Fare you well:
We shall find time, I doubt not, to repeal
Your banishment.
Lod. I am ever bound to you:
This is the world's alms; pray, make use of it.
Great men sell sheep thus to be cut in pieces,
When first they have shorn them bare and sold their fleeces.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—An Apartment in Camillo's House.

Sennet.[16] Enter Brachiano, Camillo, Flamineo, Vittoria Corombona, and Attendants.

Brach. Your best of rest!
Vit. Cor. Unto my lord, the duke,
The best of welcome!—More lights! attend the duke.
[Exeunt Camillo and Vittoria Corombona.
Brach. Flamineo,—
Flam. My lord?
Brach. Quite lost, Flamineo.
Flam. Pursue your noble wishes, I am prompt.
As lightning to your service. O, my lord,
The fair Vittoria, my happy sister, [Whispers.
Shall give you present audience.—Gentlemen,
Let the caroche[17] go on; and 'tis his pleasure
You put out all your torches, and depart.
[Exeunt Attendants.
Brach. Are we so happy?
Flam. Can't be otherwise?
Observed you not to-night, my honoured lord,
Which way soe'er you went, she threw her eyes?
I have dealt already with her chambermaid,
Zanche the Moor; and she is wondrous proud
To be the agent for so high a spirit.

Brach. We are happy above thought, because 'bove merit.

Flam. 'Bove merit!—we may now talk freely—'bove merit! What is't you doubt? her coyness? that's but the superficies of lust most women have: yet why should ladies blush to hear that named which they do not fear to handle? O, they are politic: they know our desire is increased by the difficulty of enjoying; whereas satiety is a blunt, weary, and drowsy passion. If the buttery-hatch at court stood continually open, there would be nothing so passionate crowding, nor hot suit after the beverage.

Brach. O, but her jealous husband.

Flam. Hang him! a gilder that hath his brains perished with quick-silver is not more cold in the liver: the great barriers moulted not more feathers[18] than he hath shed hairs, by the confession of his doctor: an Irish gamester that will play himself naked, and then wage all downwards at hazard, is not more venturous: so unable to please a woman, that, like a Dutch doublet, all his back is shrunk into his breeches.
Shrowd you within this closet, good my lord:
Some trick now must be thought on to divide
My brother-in-law from his fair bedfellow.

Brach. O, should she fail to come!

Flam. I must not have your lordship thus unwisely amorous. I myself have loved a lady, and pursued her with a great deal of under-age protestation, whom some three or four gallants that have enjoyed would with all their hearts have been glad to have been rid of: 'tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden; the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair, and are in a consumption, for fear they shall never get out. Away, away, my lord! [Exit Brachiano.
See, here he comes. This fellow by his apparel
Some men would judge a politician;
But call his wit in question, you shall find it
Merely an ass in's foot-cloth.[19]

Re-enter Camillo.[20]

How now, brother!
What, travelling to bed to your kind wife?
Cam. I assure you, brother, no; my voyage lies
More northerly, in a far colder clime:
I do not well remember, I protest,
When I last lay with her.
Flam. Strange you should lose your count.
Cam. We never lay together, but ere morning
There grew a flaw[21] between us.
Flam. 'Thad been your part
To have made up that flaw.
Cam. True, but she loathes
I should be seen in't.
Flam. Why, sir, what's the matter?
Cam. The duke, your master, visits me, I thank him;
And I perceive how, like an earnest bowler,
He very passionately leans that way
He should have his bowl run.
Flam. I hope you do not think—
Cam. That noblemen bowl booty?[22] faith, his cheek
Hath a most excellent bias; it would fain
Jump with my mistress.[23]
Flam. Will you be an ass,
Despite your Aristotle? or a cuckold,
Contrary to your Ephemerides,
Which shows you under what a smiling planet
You were first swaddled?
Cam. Pew-wew, sir, tell not me
Of planets nor of Ephemerides:
A man may be made a cuckold in the day-time,
When the stars' eyes are out.
Flam. Sir, God b' wi' you;
I do commit you to your pitiful pillow
Stuffed with horn-shavings.
Cam. Brother,—
Flam. God refuse me,
Might I advise you now, your only course
Were to lock up your wife.
Cam. 'Twere very good.
Flam. Bar her the sight of revels.
Cam. Excellent.
Flam. Let her not go to church, but like a hound
In lyam[24] at your heels.
Cam. 'Twere for her honour.
Flam. And so you should be certain in one fortnight
Despite her chastity or innocence,
To be cuckolded, which yet is in suspense:
This is my counsel, and I ask no fee for't.
Cam. Come, you know not where my night-cap wrings me.

Flam. Wear it o' the old fashion; let your large ears come through, it will be more easy:—nay, I will be bitter:—bar your wife of her entertainment: women are more willingly and more gloriously chaste when they are least restrained of their liberty. It seems you would be a fine capricious mathematically jealous coxcomb; take the height of your own horns with a Jacob's staff[25] afore they are up. These politic inclosures for paltry mutton make more rebellion in the flesh than all the provocative electuaries doctors have uttered[26] since last jubilee.

Cam. This doth not physic me.

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

Cam. The fault there, sir, is not in the eyesight.

Flam. True; but they that have the yellow jaundice think all objects they look on to be yellow. Jealousy is worser; her fits present to a man, like so many bubbles in a bason of water, twenty several crabbed faces; many times makes his own shadow his cuckold-maker. See, she comes.

Re-enter Vittoria Corombona.

What reason have you to be jealous of this creature? what an ignorant ass or flattering knave might he be counted, that should write sonnets to her eyes, or call her brow the snow of Ida or ivory of Corinth, or compare her hair to the blackbird's bill, when 'tis liker the blackbird's feather! This is all; be wise, I will make you friends; and you shall go to bed together. Marry, look you, it shall not be your seeking; do you stand upon that by any means: walk you aloof; I would not have you seen in't. [Camillo retires.] Sister, my lord attends you in the banqueting-house. Your husband is wondrous discontented.

Vit. Cor. I did nothing to displease him: I carved to him at supper-time.[27]

Flam. You need not have carved him, in faith; they say he is a capon already. I must now seemingly fall out with you. Shall a gentleman so well descended as Camillo,—a lousy slave, that within this twenty years rode with the black guard[28] in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and dripping-pans—

Cam. Now he begins to tickle her.

Flam. An excellent scholar,—one that hath a head filled with calves-brains without any sage in them,—come crouching in the hams to you for a night's lodging?—that hath an itch in's hams, which like the fire at the glass-house hath not gone out this seven years.—Is he not a courtly gentleman?—when he wears white satin, one would take him by his black muzzle to be no other creature than a maggot.—You are a goodly foil, I confess, well set out—but covered with a false stone, yon counterfeit diamond.[29]

Cam. He will make her know what is in me.

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

Cam. Now he comes to't.

Flam. With a relish as curious as a vintner going to taste new wine.—I am opening your case hard. [To Camillo.

Cam. A virtuous brother, o' my credit!

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

Cam. Indeed, I am studying alchymy.

Flam. Thou shalt lie in a bed stuffed with turtles' feathers; swoon in perfumed linen, like the fellow was smothered in roses. So perfect shall be thy happiness, that, as men at sea think land and trees and ships go that way they go, so both Heaven and earth shall seem to go your voyage. Shall't meet him; 'tis fixed with nails of diamonds to inevitable necessity.

Vit. Cor. How shall's rid him hence?

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

Cam. Shall I, shall I?

Flam. It will show in you a supremacy of judgment.

Cam. True, and a mind differing from the tumultuary opinion; for, quæ negata, grata.

Flam. Right: you are the adamant[30] shall draw her to you, though you keep distance off.

Cam. A philosophical reason.

Flam. Walk by her o' the nobleman's fashion, and tell her you will lie with her at the end of the progress.[31]

Cam. [Coming forward.] Vittoria, I cannot be induced, or, as a man would say, incited—

Vit. Cor. To do what, sir?

Cam. To lie with you to-night. Your silkworm useth to fast every third day, and the next following spins the better. To-morrow at night I am for you.

Vit. Cor. You'll spin a fair thread, trust to't.

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

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

Flam. In troth, I will; I'll be your gaoler once. But have you ne'er a false door?

Cam. A pox on't, as I am a Christian. Tell me to-morrow how scurvily she takes my unkind parting.

Flam. I will.

Cam. Didst thou not mark the jest of the silkworm? Good-night: in faith, I will use this trick often.

Flam. Do, do, do. [Exit Camillo; and Flamineo locks the door on him.] So now you are safe.—Ha, ha, ha! thou entanglest thyself in thine own work like a silkworm. Come, sister; darkness hides your blush. Women are like curst dogs: civility keeps them tied all daytime, but they are let loose at midnight; then they do most good, or most mischief.—My lord, my lord!

Re-enter Brachiano. Zanche brings out a carpet, spreads it, and lays on it two fair cushions.

Brach. Give credit, I could wish time would stand still,
And never end this interview, this hour:
But all delight doth itself soon'st devour.

Enter Cornelia behind, listening.

Let me into your bosom, happy lady,
Pour out, instead of eloquence, my vows:
Loose me not, madam; for, if you forego me,
I am lost eternally.
Vit. Cor. Sir, in the way of pity,
I wish you heart-whole.
Brach. You are a sweet physician.
Vit. Cor. Sure, sir, a loathèd cruelty in ladies
Is as to doctors many funerals;
It takes away their credit.
Brach. Excellent creature!
We call the cruel fair: what name for you
That are so merciful?
Zan. See, now they close.
Flam. Most happy union.
Cor. My fears are fall'n upon me: O, my heart!
My son the pander! now I find our house
Sinking to ruin. Earthquakes leave behind,
Where they have tyrannised, iron, lead, or stone;
But, woe to ruin, violent lust leaves none!
Brach. What value is this jewel?
Vit. Cor. 'Tis the ornament
Of a weak fortune.
Brach. In sooth, I'll have it; nay, I will but change
My jewel for your jewel.
Flam. Excellent!
His jewel for her jewel:—well put in, duke.
Brach. Nay, let me see you wear it.
Vit. Cor. Here, sir?
Brach. Nay, lower, you shall wear my jewel lower.
Flam. That's better; she must wear his jewel lower.
Vit. Cor. To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace
A dream I had last night.
Brach. Most wishedly.
Vit. Cor. A foolish idle dream.
Methought I walked about the mid of night
Into a church-yard, where a goodly yew-tree
Spread her large root in ground. Under that yew,
As I sate sadly leaning on a grave
Chequered with cross sticks, there came stealing in
Your duchess and my husband: one of them
A pick-axe bore, the other a rusty spade;
And in rough terms they gan to challenge me
About this yew.
Brach. That tree?
Vit. Cor. This harmless yew:
They told me my intent was to root up
That well-grown yew, and plant i' the stead of it
A withered blackthorn; and for that they vowed
To bury me alive. My husband straight
With pick-axe gan to dig, and your fell duchess
With shovel, like a Fury, voided out
The earth, and scattered bones. Lord, how, methought,
I trembled! and yet, for all this terror,
I could not pray.
Flam. No; the devil was in your dream.
Vit. Cor. When to my rescue there arose, methought,
A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm
From that strong plant;
And both were struck dead by that sacred yew,
In that base shallow grave that was their due.
Flam. Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream
To make away his duchess and her husband.
Brach. Sweetly shall I interpret this your dream.
You are lodged within his arms who shall protect you
From all the fevers of a jealous husband;
From the poor envy of our phlegmatic duchess.
I'll seat you above law, and above scandal;
Give to your thoughts the invention of delight,
And the fruition; nor shall government
Divide me from you longer than a care
To keep you great: you shall to me at once
Be dukedom, health, wife, children, friends, and all.
Cor. [Coming forward].
Woe to light hearts, they still fore-run our fall!

Flam. What Fury raised thee up?—Away, away!
[Exit Zanche.
Cor. What make you here, my lord, this dead of night?
Never dropped mildew on a flower here
Till now.
Flam. I pray, will you go to bed, then,
Lest you be blasted?
Cor. O, that this fair garden
Had with all poisoned herbs of Thessaly
At first been planted; made a nursery
For witchcraft, rather than a burial plot
For both your honours!
Vit. Cor. Dearest mother, hear me.
Cor. O, thou dost make my brow bend to the earth,
Sooner than nature! See, the curse of children!
In life they keep us frequently in tears;
And in the cold grave leave us in pale fears.
Brach. Come, come, I will not hear you.
Vit. Cor. Dear, my lord,—
Cor. Where is thy duchess now, adulterous duke?
Thou little dreamd'st this night she is come to Rome.
Flam. How! come to Rome!
Vit. Cor. The duchess!
Brach. She had been better—
Cor. The lives of princes should like dials move,
Whose regular example is so strong,
They make the times by them go right or wrong.
Flam. So; have you done?
Cor. Unfortunate Camillo!
Vit. Cor. I do protest, if any chaste denial,
If anything but blood could have allayed
His long suit to me—
Cor. I will join with thee,
To the most woeful end e'er mother kneeled:
If thou dishonour thus thy husband's bed,
Be thy life short as are the funeral tears
In great men's—
Brach. Fie, fie, the woman's mad.
Cor. Be thy act, Judas-like,—betray in kissing:
Mayst thou be envied during his short breath,
And pitied like a wretch after his death!
Vit. Cor. O me accursed! [Exit.
Flam. Are you out of your wits, my lord?
I'll fetch her back again.
Brach. No, I'll to bed:
Send Doctor Julio to me presently.—
Uncharitable woman! thy rash tongue
Hath raised a fearful and prodigious storm:
Be thou the cause of all ensuing harm. [Exit.
Flam. Now, you that stand so much upon your honour,
Is this a fitting time o' night, think you,
To send a duke home without e'er a man?
I would fain know where lies the mass of wealth
Which you have hoarded for my maintenance,
That I may bear my beard out of the level
Of my lord's stirrup.
Cor. What! because we are poor
Shall we be vicious?
Flam. Pray, what means have you
To keep me from the galleys or the gallows?
My father proved himself a gentleman,
Sold all's land, and, like a fortunate fellow,
Died ere the money was spent. You brought me up
At Padua, I confess, where, I protest,
For want of means (the university judge me)
I have been fain to heel my tutor's stockings,
At least seven years: conspiring with a beard,
Made me a graduate; then to this duke's service.
I visited the court, whence I returned
More courteous, more lecherous by far,
But not a suit the richer: and shall I,
Having a path so open and so free
To my preferment, still retain your milk
In my pale forehead? no, this face of mine
I'll arm, and fortify with lusty wine,
'Gainst shame and blushing.
Cor. O, that I ne'er had borne thee.
Flam. So would I;
I would the common'st courtezan in Rome
Had been my mother, rather than thyself.
Nature is very pitiful to whores,
To give them but few children, yet those children
Plurality of fathers: they are sure
They shall not want. Go, go,
Complain unto my great lord cardinal;
Yet may be he will justify the act.
Lycurgus wondered much men would provide
Good stallions for their mares, and yet would suffer
Their fair wives to be barren.
Cor. Misery of miseries! [Exit.
Flam. The duchess come to court! I like not that.
We are engaged to mischief, and must on:
As rivers to find out the ocean
Flow with crook bendings beneath forcèd banks;
Or as we see, to aspire some mountain's top,
The way ascends not straight, but imitates
The subtle foldings of a winter snake;
So who knows policy and her true aspect,
Shall find her ways winding and indirect.
[Exit.

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.—A Room in Francisco's Palace.

Enter Francisco de Medicis, Cardinal Monticelso, Marcello, Isabella, Giovanni, with Jaques the Moor.

Fran. de Med. Have you not seen your husband since you arrived?
Isab. Not yet, sir.
Fran. de Med. Surely he is wondrous kind:
If I had such a dove-house as Camillo's,
I would set fire on't, were't but to destroy
The pole-cats that haunt to it.—My sweet cousin!
Giov. Lord uncle, you did promise me a horse
And armour.
Fran. de Med. That I did, my pretty cousin.—
Marcello, see it fitted.
Mar. My lord, the duke is here.
Fran. de Med. Sister, away! you must not yet be seen.
Isab. I do beseech you,
Entreat him mildly; let not your rough tongue
Set us at louder variance: all my wrongs
Are freely pardoned; and I do not doubt,
As men, to try the precious unicorn's horn,[32]
Make of the powder a preservative circle,
And in it put a spider, so these arms
Shall charm his poison, force it to obeying,
And keep him chaste from an infected straying.
Fran. de Med. I wish it may. Be gone, void the chamber.
[Exeunt Isabella, Giovanni, and Jaques.

Enter Brachiano and Flamineo.

You are welcome: will you sit?—I pray, my lord,
Be you my orator, my heart's too full;
I'll second you anon.
Mont. Ere I begin,
Let me entreat your grace forego all passion,
Which may be raisèd by my free discourse.
Brach. As silent as i' the church: you may proceed.
Mont. It is a wonder to your noble friends,
That you, having, as 'twere, entered the world
With a free sceptre in your able hand,
And to the use of nature well applied
High gifts of learning, should in your prime age
Neglect your awful throne for the soft down
Of an insatiate bed. O, my lord,
The drunkard after all his lavish cups
Is dry, and then is sober; so at length,
When you awake from this lascivious dream,
Repentance then will follow, like the sting
Placed in the adder's tail. Wretched are princes
When fortune blasteth but a petty flower
Of their unwieldy crowns, or ravisheth
But one pearl from their sceptres: but, alas,
When they to wilful shipwreck lose good fame,
All princely titles perish with their name.
Brach. You have said, my lord.
Mont. Enough to give you taste
How far I am from flattering your greatness.
Brach. Now you that are his second, what say you?
Do not like young hawks fetch a course about:
Your game flies fair and for you.
Fran. de Med. Do not fear it:
I'll answer you in your own hawking phrase.
Some eagles that should gaze upon the sun
Seldom soar high, but take their lustful ease;
Since they from dunghill birds their prey can seize.
You know Vittoria!
Brach. Yes.
Fran. de Med. You shift your shirt there,
When you retire from tennis?
Brach. Happily.[33]
Fran. de Med. Her husband is lord of a poor fortune;
Yet she wears cloth of tissue.
Brach. What of this?—
Will you urge that, my good lord cardinal,
As part of her confession at next shrift,
And know from whence it sails?
Fran. de Med. She is your strumpet.
Brach. Uncivil sir, there's hemlock in thy breath,
And that black slander. Were she a whore of mine,
All thy loud cannons, and thy borrowed Switzers,
Thy galleys, nor thy sworn confederates,
Durst not supplant her.
Fran. de Med. Let's not talk on thunder.
Thou hast a wife, our sister: would I had given
Both her white hands to death, bound and locked fast.
In her last winding-sheet, when I gave thee
But one!
Brach. Thou hadst given a soul to God, then.
Fran. de Med. True:
Thy ghostly father, with all's absolution,
Shall ne'er do so by thee.
Brach. Spit thy poison.
Fran. de Med. I shall not need; lust carries her sharp whip
At her own girdle. Look to't, for our anger
Is making thunder-bolts.
Brach. Thunder! in faith,
They are but crackers.
Fran. de Med. We'll end this with the cannon.
Brach. Thou'lt get naught by it but iron in thy wounds,
And gunpowder in thy nostrils.
Fran. de Med. Better that,
Than change perfumes for plasters.
Brach. Pity on thee:
'Twere good you'd show your slaves or men condemned
Your new-ploughed forehead-defiance! And I'll meet thee,
Even in a thicket of thy ablest men.
Mont. My lords, you shall not word it any further
Without a milder limit.
Fran. de Med. Willingly.
Brach. Have you proclaimed a triumph, that you bait
A lion thus!
Mont. My lord!
Brach. I am tame, I am tame, sir.

Fran. de Med. We send unto the duke for conference
'Bout levies 'gainst the pirates; my lord duke
Is not at home: we come ourself in person;
Still my lord duke is busied. But we fear,
When Tiber to each prowling passenger
Discovers flocks of wild ducks; then, my lord,
'Bout moulting time I mean, we shall be certain
To find you sure enough, and speak with you.
Brach. Ha!
Fran. de Med. A mere tale of a tub, my words are idle;
But to express the sonnet by natural reason,—
When stags grow melancholic, you'll find the season.
Mont. No more, my lord: here comes a champion
Shall end the difference between you both,—

Re-enter Giovanni.

Your son, the Prince Giovanni. See, my lords,
What hopes you store in him: this is a casket
For both your crowns, and should be held like dear.
Now is he apt for knowledge; therefore know,
It is a more direct and even way
To train to virtue those of princely blood
By examples than by precepts: if by examples,
Whom should he rather strive to imitate
Than his own father? be his pattern, then;
Leave him a stock of virtue that may last,
Should fortune rend his sails and split his mast.
Brach. Your hand, boy: growing to a soldier?
Giov. Give me a pike.
Fran. de Med. What, practising your pike so young, fair cuz?
Giov. Suppose me one of Homer's frogs, my lord,
Tossing my bullrush thus. Pray, sir, tell me,
Might not a child of good discretion
Be leader to an army?

Fran. de Med. Yes, cousin, a young prince
Of good discretion might.
Giov. Say you so?
Indeed, I have heard, 'tis fit a general
Should not endanger his own person oft;
So that he make a noise when he's o' horseback,
Like a Dansk[34] drummer,—O, 'tis excellent!—
He need not fight:—methinks his horse as well
Might lead an army for him. If I live,
I'll charge the French foe in the very front
Of all my troops, the foremost man.
Fran. de Med. What, what!
Giov. And will not bid my soldiers up and follow,
But bid them follow me.
Brach. Forward, lapwing!
He flies with the shell on's head.[35]
Fran. de Med. Pretty cousin!
Giov. The first year, uncle, that I go to war,
All prisoners that I take I will set free
Without their ransom.
Fran. de Med. Ha, without their ransom!
How, then, will you reward your soldiers
That took those prisoners for you?
Giov. Thus, my lord;
I'll marry them to all the wealthy widows
That fall that year.
Fran. de Med. Why, then, the next year following,
You'll have no men to go with you to war.
Giov. Why, then, I'll press the women to the war,
And then the men will follow.
Mont. Witty prince!
Fran. de Med. See, a good habit makes a child a man,
Whereas a bad one makes a man a beast.
Come, you and I are friends.

Brach. Most wishedly;
Like bones which, broke in sunder, and well set,
Knit the more strongly.
Fran. de Med. Call Camillo hither.
[Exit Marcello.
You have received the rumour, how Count Lodowick
Is turned a pirate?
Brach. Yes.
Fran. de Med. We are now preparing
Some ships to fetch him in. Behold your duchess.
We now will leave you, and expect from you
Nothing but kind entreaty.
Brach. You have charmed me.
[Exeunt Francisco de Medicis, Monticelso, and Giovanni. Flamineo retires.

Re-enter Isabella.

You are in health, we see.
Isab. And above health,
To see my lord well.
Brach. So. I wonder much
What amorous whirlwind hurried you to Rome.
Isab. Devotion, my lord.
Brach. Devotion!
Is your soul charged with any grievous sin?
Isab. 'Tis burdened with too many; and I think,
The oftener that we cast our reckonings up,
Our sleeps will be the sounder.
Brach. Take your chamber.
Isab. Nay, my dear lord, I will not have you angry:
Doth not my absence from you, now two months,
Merit one kiss?
Brach. I do not use to kiss:
If that will dispossess your jealousy,
I'll swear it to you.

Isab. O my lovèd lord,
I do not come to chide: my jealousy!
I am to learn what that Italian means.
You are as welcome to these longing arms
As I to you a virgin.
Brach. O, your breath!
Out upon sweet-meats and continued physic,—
The plague is in them!
Isab. You have oft, for these two lips,
Neglected cassia or the natural sweets
Of the spring-violet: they are not yet much withered.
My lord, I should be merry: these your frowns
Show in a helmet lovely; but on me,
In such a peaceful interview, methinks
They are too-too roughly knit.
Brach. O, dissemblance!
Do you bandy factions 'gainst me? have you learnt
The trick of impudent baseness, to complain
Unto your kindred?
Isab. Never, my dear lord.
Brach. Must I be hunted out? or was't your trick
To meet some amorous gallant here in Rome,
That must supply our discontinuance?
Isab. I pray, sir, burst my heart; and in my death
Turn to your ancient pity, though not love.
Brach. Because your brother is the corpulent duke,
That is, the great duke, 'sdeath, I shall not shortly
Racket away five hundred crowns at tennis,
But it shall rest upon record! I scorn him
Like a shaved Polack[36] all his reverend wit
Lies in his wardrobe; he's a discreet fellow
When he is made up in his robes of state.
Your brother, the great duke, because h'as galleys,
And now and then ransacks a Turkish fly-boat,
(Now all the hellish Furies take his soul!)
First made this match: accursèd be the priest
That sang the wedding-mass, and even my issue!
Isab. O, too-too far you have cursed!
Brach. Your hand I'll kiss;
This is the latest ceremony of my love.
Henceforth I'll never lie with thee; by this,
This wedding-ring, I'll ne'er more lie with thee:
And this divorce shall be as truly kept
As if the judge had doomed it. Fare you well:
Our sleeps are severed.
Isab. Forbid it, the sweet union
Of all things blessèd! why, the saints in Heaven
Will knit their brows at that.
Brach. Let not thy love
Make thee an unbeliever; this my vow
Shall never, on my soul, be satisfied
With my repentance; let thy brother rage
Beyond a horrid tempest or sea-fight,
My vow is fixèd.
Isab. O my winding-sheet!
Now shall I need thee shortly.—Dear my lord,
Let me hear once more what I would not hear:
Never?
Brach. Never.
Isab. O my unkind lord! may your sins find mercy,
As I upon a woful widowed bed
Shall pray for you, if not to turn your eyes
Upon your wretched wife and hopeful son,
Yet that in time you'll fix them upon Heaven!
Brach. No more: go, go complain to the great duke.
Isab. No, my dear lord; you shall have present witness
How I'll work peace between you. I will make
Myself the author of your cursèd vow;
I have some cause to do, you have none.
Conceal it, I beseech you, for the weal
Of both your dukedoms, that you wrought the means
Of such a separation: let the fault
Remain with my supposèd jealousy;
And think with what a piteous and rent heart
I shall perform this sad ensuing part.

Re-enter Francisco de Medicis and Monticelso.

Brach. Well, take your course.—My honourable brother!
Fran. de Med. Sister!—This is not well, my lord.—Why, sister!—
She merits not this welcome.
Brach. Welcome, say!
She hath given a sharp welcome.
Fran. de Med. Are you foolish?
Come, dry your tears: is this a modest course,
To better what is naught, to rail and weep?
Grow to a reconcilement, or, by Heaven,
I'll ne'er more deal between you.
Isab. Sir, you shall not;
No, though Vittoria, upon that condition,
Would become honest.
Fran. de Med. Was your husband loud
Since we departed?
Isab. By my life, sir, no;
I swear by that I do not care to lose.
Are all these ruins of my former beauty
Laid out for a whore's triumph?
Fran. de Med. Do you hear?
Look upon other women, with what patience
They suffer these slight wrongs, with what justice
They study to requite them: take that course.
Isab. O, that I were a man, or that I had power
To execute my apprehended wishes!
I would whip some with scorpions.

Fran. de Med. What! turned Fury!
Isab. To dig the strumpet's eyes out; let her lie
Some twenty months a dying; to cut off
Her nose and lips, pull out her rotten teeth;
Preserve her flesh like mummia, for trophies
Of my just anger! Hell to my affliction
Is mere snow-water. By your favour, sir;—
Brother, draw near, and my lord cardinal;—
Sir, let me borrow of you but one kiss:
Henceforth I'll never lie with you, by this,
This wedding-ring.
Fran. de Med. How, ne'er more lie with him!
Isab. And this divorce shall be as truly kept
As if in throngèd court a thousand ears
Had heard it, and a thousand lawyers' hands
Sealed to the separation.
Brach. Ne'er lie with me!
Isab. Let not my former dotage
Make thee an unbeliever: this my vow
Shall never, on my soul, be satisfied
With my repentance; manet alia mente repostum.[37]
Fran. de Med. Now, by my birth, you are a foolish, mad,
And jealous woman.
Brach. You see 'tis not my seeking.
Fran. de Med. Was this your circle of pure unicorn's horn
You said should charm your lord? now, horns upon thee,
For jealousy deserves them! Keep your vow
And take your chamber.
Isab. No, sir, I'll presently to Padua;
I will not stay a minute.
Mont. O good madam!
Brach. 'Twere best to let her have her humour:
Some half day's journey will bring down her stomach,
And then she'll turn in post.
Fran. de Med. To see her come
To my lord cardinal for a dispensation
Of her rash vow, will beget excellent laughter.
Isab. Unkindness, do thy office; poor heart, break:
Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.
[Exit.

Re-enter Marcello with Camillo.

Mar. Camillo's come, my lord.

Fran. de Med. Where's the commission?

Mar. 'Tis here.

Fran. de Med. Give me the signet. [Francisco de Medicis, Monticelso, Camillo, and Marcello retire to the back of the stage.

Flam. My lord, do you mark their whispering? I will compound a medicine, out of their two heads, stronger than garlic, deadlier than stibium:[38] the cantharides, which are scarce seen to stick upon the flesh when they work to the heart, shall not do it with more silence or invisible cunning.

Brach. About the murder?

Flam. They are sending him to Naples, but I'll send him to Candy.

Enter Doctor.

Here's another property too.

Brach. O, the doctor!

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

Doc. And was cozened, my lord, by an arranter knave than myself, and made pay all the colourable execution.

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

Brach. O, Saint Anthony's fire.

Doc. Your secretary is merry, my lord.

Flam. O thou cursed antipathy to nature!—Look, his eye's bloodshed, like a needle a surgeon stitcheth a wound with.—Let me embrace thee, toad, and love thee, O thou abominable loathsome[39] gargarism, that will fetch up lungs, lights, heart, and liver, by scruples!

Brach. No more.—I must employ thee, honest doctor:
You must to Padua, and by the way,
Use some of your skill for us.
Doc. Sir, I shall.
Brach. But, for Camillo?
Flam. He dies this night, by such a politic strain,
Men shall suppose him by's own engine slain.
But for your duchess' death—
Doc. I'll make her sure.
Brach. Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.

Flam. Remember this, you slave; when knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are raised i' the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. [Exeunt Brachiano, Flamineo, and Doctor.

SCENE II.—The same.

Francisco de Medicis, Monticelso, Camillo, and Marcello.

Mont. Here is an emblem, nephew, pray peruse it:
'Twas thrown in at your window.
Cam. At my window!
Here is a stag, my lord, hath shed his horns,
And, for the loss of them, the poor beast weeps:
The word,[40] Inopem me copia fecit.[41]
Mont. That is,
Plenty of horns hath made him poor of horns.
Cam. What should this mean?
Mont. I'll tell you: 'tis given out
You are a cuckold.
Cam. Is it given out so?
I had rather such report as that, my lord,
Should keep within doors.
Fran. de Med. Have you any children?
Cam. None, my lord.
Fran. de Med. You are the happier:
I'll tell you a tale.
Cam. Pray, my lord.
Fran. de Med. An old tale.
Upon a time Phœbus, the god of light,
Or him we call the Sun, would needs be married:
The gods gave their consent, and Mercury
Was sent to voice it to the general world.
But what a piteous cry there straight arose
Amongst smiths and felt-makers, brewers and cooks,
Reapers and butterwomen, amongst fishmongers,
And thousand other trades, which are annoyed
By his excessive heat! 'twas lamentable.
They came to Jupiter all in a sweat,
And do forbid the bans. A great fat cook
Was made their speaker, who entreats of Jove
That Phœbus might be gelded; for, if now,
When there was but one sun, so many men
Were like to perish by his violent heat,
What should they do if he were married,
And should beget more, and those children
Make fire-works like their father? So say I;
Only I will apply it to your wife:
Her issue, should not providence prevent it,
Would make both nature, time, and man repent it.
Mont. Look you, cousin,
Go, change the air, for shame; see if your absence
Will blast your cornucopia. Marcello
Is chosen with you joint commissioner
For the relieving our Italian coast
From pirates.
Mar. I am much honoured in't.
Cam. But, sir,
Ere I return, the stag's horns may be sprouted
Greater than those are shed.
Mont. Do not fear it:
I'll be your ranger.
Cam. You must watch i' the nights;
Then's the most danger.
Fran. de Med. Farewell, good Marcello:
All the best fortunes of a soldier's wish
Bring you a-ship-board!
Cam. Were I not best, now I am turned soldier,
Ere that I leave my wife, sell all she hath,
And then take leave of her?
Mont. I expect good from you,
Your parting is so merry.
Cam. Merry, my lord! o' the captain's humour right;
I am resolvèd to be drunk this night.
[Exeunt Camillo and Marcello.

Fran. de Med. So, 'twas well fitted: now shall we discern
How his wished absence will give violent way
To Duke Brachiano's lust.
Mont. Why, that was it;
To what scorned purpose else should we make choice
Of him for a sea-captain? and, besides,
Count Lodowick, which was rumoured for a pirate,
Is now in Padua.
Fran. de Med. Is't true?
Mont. Most certain.
I have letters from him, which are suppliant
To work his quick repeal from banishment:
He means to address himself for pension
Unto our sister duchess.
Fran. de Med. O, 'twas well:
We shall not want his absence past six days.
I fain would have the Duke Brachiano run
Into notorious scandal; for there's naught
In such cursed dotage to repair his name,
Only the deep sense of some deathless shame.
Mont. It may be objected, I am dishonourable
To play thus with my kinsman; but I answer,
For my revenge I'd stake a brother's life,
That, being wronged, durst not avenge himself.
Fran. de Med. Come, to observe this strumpet.
Mont. Curse of greatness!
Sure he'll not leave her?
Fran. de Med. There's small pity in't:
Like misletoe on sear elms spent by weather,
Let him cleave to her, and both rot together.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III.—A Room in the House of Camillo.

Enter Brachiano, with a Conjurer.

Brach. Now, sir, I claim your promise: 'tis dead midnight,
The time prefixed to show me, by your art,
How the intended murder of Camillo
And our loathed duchess grow to action.
Con. You have won me by your bounty to a deed
I do not often practise. Some there are
Which by sophistic tricks aspire that name,
Which I would gladly lose, of necromancer;
As some that use to juggle upon cards,
Seeming to conjure, when indeed they cheat;
Others that raise up their confederate spirits
'Bout wind-mills, and endanger their own necks
For making of a squib; and some there are
Will keep a curtal[42] to show juggling tricks,
And give out 'tis a spirit: besides these,
Such a whole realm of almanac-makers, figure-flingers,
Fellows, indeed, that only live by stealth,
Since they do merely lie about stol'n goods,
They'd make men think the devil were fast and loose,
With speaking fustian Latin. Pray, sit down:
Put on this night-cap, sir, 'tis charmed; and now
I'll show you, by my strong commanding art,
The circumstance that breaks your duchess' heart.

A Dumb Show.

Enter suspiciously Julio and Christophero: they draw a curtain where Brachiano's picture is, put on spectacles of glass, which cover their eyes and noses, and then burn perfumes before the picture, and wash the lips; that done, quenching the fire, and putting off their spectacles, they depart laughing.

Enter Isabella in her night-gown, as to bed-ward, with lights after her, Count Lodovico, Giovanni, Guidantonio, and others waiting on her: she kneels down as to prayers, then draws the curtain of the picture, does three reverences to it, and kisses it thrice; she faints, and will not suffer them to come near it; dies: sorrow expressed in Giovanni and Count Lodovico: she is conveyed out solemnly.

Brach. Excellent! then she's dead.
Con. She's poisonèd
By the fumed picture. 'Twas her custom nightly,
Before she went to bed, to go and visit
Your picture, and to feed her eyes and lips
On the dead shadow. Doctor Julio,
Observing this, infects it with an oil
And other poisoned stuff, which presently
Did suffocate her spirits.
Brach. Methought I saw
Count Lodowick there.
Con. He was: and by my art
I find he did most passionately dote
Upon your duchess. Now turn another way,
And view Camillo's far more politic fate.
Strike louder, music, from this charmèd ground,
To yield, as fits the act, a tragic sound!

The second Dumb Show.

Enter Flamineo, Marcello, Camillo, with four others, as Captains; they drink healths, and dance: a vaulting-horse is brought into the room: Marcello and two others whispered out of the room, while Flamineo and Camillo strip themselves to their shirts, to vault; they compliment who shall begin: as Camillo is about to vault, Flamineo pitcheth him upon his neck, and, with the help of the rest, writhes his neck about; seems to see if it be broke, and lays him folded double, as it were, under the horse; makes signs to call for help: Marcello comes in, laments; sends for the Cardinal and Duke, who come forth with armed men; wonder at the act; command the body to be carried home; apprehend Flamineo, Marcello, and the rest, and go, as it were, to apprehend Vittoria.

Brach. 'Twas quaintly done; but yet each circumstance
I taste not fully.
Con. O, 'twas most apparent:
You saw them enter, charged with their deep healths
To their boon voyage; and, to second that,
Flamineo calls to have a vaulting-horse
Maintain their sport; the virtuous Marcello
Is innocently plotted forth the room;
Whilst your eye saw the rest, and can inform you
The engine of all.
Brach. It seems Marcello and Flamineo
Are both committed.[43]
Con. Yes, you saw them guarded;
And now they are come with purpose to apprehend
Your mistress, fair Vittoria. We are now
Beneath her roof: 'twere fit we instantly
Make out by some back-postern.
Brach. Noble friend,
You bind me ever to you: this shall stand
As the firm seal annexèd to my hand;
It shall enforce a payment.
Con. Sir, I thank you. [Exit Brachiano.
Both flowers and weeds spring when the sun is warm,
And great men do great good or else great harm.
[Exit.

SCENE IV.—The Mansion of Monticelso.

Enter Francisco de Medicis and Monticelso, their Chancellor and Register.

Fran. de Med. You have dealt discreetly, to obtain the presence
Of all the grave lieger[44] ambassadors,
To hear Vittoria's trial.
Mont. 'Twas not ill;
For, sir, you know we have naught but circumstances
To charge her with, about her husband's death:
Their approbation, therefore, to the proofs
Of her black lust shall make her infamous
To all our neighbouring kingdoms. I wonder
If Brachiano will be here.
Fran. de Med. O fie.
Twere impudence too palpable. [Exeunt.

Enter Flamineo and Marcello guarded, and a Lawyer.

Law. What, are you in by the week? so, I will try now whether thy wit be close prisoner. Methinks none should sit upon thy sister but old whore-masters.

Flam. Or cuckolds; for your cuckold is your most terrible tickler of lechery. Whore-masters would serve; for none are judges at tilting but those that have been old tilters.

Law. My lord duke and she have been very private.

Flam. You are a dull ass; 'tis threatened they have been very public.

Law. If it can be proved they have but kissed one another—

Flam. What then?

Law. My lord cardinal will ferret them.

Flam. A cardinal, I hope, will not catch conies.

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

Flam. True, her upper part, by that rule: if you will win her nether part too, you know what follows.

Law. Hark; the ambassadors are lighted.

Flam. [Aside]. I do put on this feignèd garb of mirth
To gull suspicion.
Mar. O my unfortunate sister!
I would my dagger-point had cleft her heart
When she first saw Brachiano: you, 'tis said,
Were made his engine and his stalking-horse,
To undo my sister.
Flam. I am a kind of path
To her and mine own preferment.
Mar. Your ruin.
Flam. Hum! thou art a soldier,
Follow'st the great duke, feed'st his victories,
As witches do their serviceable spirits,
Even with thy prodigal blood: what hast got,
But, like the wealth of captains, a poor handful,
Which in thy palm thou bear'st as men hold water?
Seeking to gripe it fast, the frail reward
Steals through thy fingers.
Mar. Sir!
Flam. Thou hast scarce maintenance
To keep thee in fresh shamois.[45]
Mar. Brother!
Flam. Hear me:—
And thus, when we have even poured ourselves
Into great fights, for their ambition
Or idle spleen, how shall we find reward?
But as we seldom find the misletoe
Sacred to physic, or the builder oak,
Without a mandrake by it; so in our quest of gain,
Alas, the poorest of their forced dislikes
At a limb proffers, but at heart it strikes!
This is lamented doctrine.
Mar. Come, come.
Flam. When age shall turn thee
White as a blooming hawthorn—
Mar. I'll interrupt you:—
For love of virtue bear an honest heart,
And stride o'er every politic respect,
Which, where they most advance, they most infect.
Were I your father, as I am your brother,
I should not be ambitious to leave you
A better patrimony.
Flam. I'll think on't.—
The lord ambassadors.
[The Ambassadors pass over the stage severally.

Law. O my sprightly Frenchman!—Do you know him? he's an admirable tilter.

Flam. I saw him at last tilting: he showed like a pewter candlestick, fashioned like a man in armour, holding a tilting-staff in his hand, little bigger than a candle of twelve i' the pound.

Law. O, but he's an excellent horseman.

Flam. A lame one in his lofty tricks: he sleeps a-horseback, like a poulter.[46]

Law. Lo you, my Spaniard!

Flam. He carries his face in's ruff, as I have seen a serving man carry glasses in a cypress hatband, monstrous steady, for fear of breaking: he looks like the claw of a blackbird, first salted, and then broiled in a candle. [Exeunt.

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.—A Hall in Monticelso's Mansion.

Enter Francisco de Medicis, Monticelso, the six lieger Ambassadors, Brachiano, Vittoria Corombona, Flamineo, Marcello, Lawyer, and a Guard.

Mont. Forbear, my lord, here is no place assigned you:
This business by his holiness is left
To our examination. [To Brach.
Brach. May it thrive with you!
[Lays a rich gown under him.
Fran. de Med. A chair there for his lordship!
Brach. Forbear your kindness: an unbidden guest
Should travel as Dutchwomen go to church,
Bear their stools with them.
Mont. At your pleasure, sir.—
Stand to the table, gentlewoman [To Vittoria].—Now, signior,
Fall to your plea.

Law. Domine judex, converte oculos in hanc pestem, mulierum corruptissimam.

Vit. Cor. What's he?
Fran. de Med. A lawyer that pleads against you.
Vit. Cor. Pray, my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;
I'll make no answer else.

Fran. de Med. Why, you understand Latin.
Vit. Cor. I do, sir; but amongst this auditory
Which come to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in't.
Mont. Go on, sir.
Vit. Cor. By your favour,
I will not have my accusation clouded
In a strange tongue; all this assembly
Shall hear what you can charge me with.
Fran. de Med. Signior,
You need not stand on't much; pray, change your language.
Mont. O, for God sake!—Gentlewoman, your credit
Shall be more famous by it.
Law. Well, then, have at you!
Vit. Cor. I am at the mark, sir: I'll give aim to you,
And tell you how near you shoot.
Law. Most literated judges, please your lordships
So to connive your judgments to the view
Of this debauched and diversivolent woman;
Who such a black concatenation
Of mischief hath effected, that to extirp
The memory of't, must be the consummation
Of her and her projections,—
Vit. Cor. What's all this?
Law. Hold your peace:
Exorbitant sins must have exulceration.
Vit. Cor. Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallowed
Some pothecaries' bills, or proclamations;
And now the hard and undigestible words
Come up, like stones we use give hawks for physic;
Why, this is Welsh to Latin.
Law. My lords, the woman
Knows not her tropes nor figures, nor is perfect
In the academic derivation
Of grammatical elocution.
Fran. de Med. Sir, your pains
Shall be well spared, and your deep eloquence
Be worthily applauded amongst those
Which understand you.
Law. My good lord,—
Fran. de Med. Sir,
Put up your papers in your fustian bag,—
[Francisco speaks this as in scorn.
Cry mercy, sir, 'tis buckram—and accept
My notion of your learned verbosity.
Law. I most graduatically thank your lordship:
I shall have use for them elsewhere.
Mont. I shall be plainer with you, and paint out
Your follies in more natural red and white
Than that upon your cheek. [To Vittoria.
Vit. Cor. O you mistake:
You raise a blood as noble in this cheek
As ever was your mother's.
Mont. I must spare you, till proof cry "whore" to that.—
Observe this creature here, my honoured lords,
A woman of a most prodigious spirit,
In her effected.
Vit. Cor. Honourable my lord,
It doth not suit a reverend cardinal
To play the lawyer thus.
Mont. O, your trade instructs your language.—
You see, my lords, what goodly fruit she seems;
Yet, like those apples[47] travellers report
To grow where Sodom and Gomorrah stood,
I will but touch her, and you straight shall see
She'll fall to soot and ashes.
Vit. Cor. Your envenomed
Pothecary should do't.
Mont. I am resolved,[48]
Were there a second Paradise to lose,
This devil would betray it.
Vit. Cor. O poor charity!
Thou art seldom found in scarlet.
Mont. Who knows not how, when several night by night
Her gates were choked with coaches, and her rooms
Outbraved the stars with several kind of lights;
When she did counterfeit a prince's court
In music, banquets, and most riotous surfeits?
This whore, forsooth, was holy.
Vit. Cor. Ha! whore! what's that!
Mont. Shall I expound whore to you? sure, I shall;
I'll give their perfect character. They are first,
Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man's nostrils
Poisoned perfumes: they are cozening alchemy;
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores!
Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren
As if that nature had forgot the spring:
They are the true material fire of hell:
Worse than those tributes i' the Low Countries paid,
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep,
Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin:
They are those brittle evidences of law
Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate
For leaving out one syllable. What are whores!
They are those flattering bells have all one tune,
At weddings and at funerals. Your rich whores
Are only treasuries by extortion filled,
And emptied by cursed riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begged at gallows,
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore!
She's like the guilty counterfeited coin
Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it.
Vit. Cor. This character scapes me.
Mont. You, gentlewoman!
Take from all beasts and from all minerals
Their deadly poison—
Vit. Cor. Well, what then?
Mont. I'll tell thee;
I'll find in thee a pothecary's shop,
To sample them all.
Fr. Am. She hath lived ill.
Eng. Am. True; but the cardinal's too bitter.
Mont. You know what whore is. Next the devil adultery,
Enters the devil murder.
Fran. de Med. Your unhappy
Husband is dead.
Vit. Cor. O, he's a happy husband:
Now he owes nature nothing.
Fran. de Med. And by a vaulting-engine.
Mont. An active plot; he jumped into his grave.
Fran. de Med. What a prodigy was't
That from some two yards' height a slender man
Should break his neck!
Mont. I' the rushes![49]
Fran. de Med. And what's more,
Upon the instant lose all use of speech,
All vital motion, like a man had lain
Wound up three days. Now mark each circumstance.

Mont. And look upon this creature was his wife.
She comes not like a widow; she comes armed
With scorn and impudence: is this a mourning-habit?
Vit. Cor. Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest,
I would have bespoke my mourning.
Mont. O, you are cunning.
Vit. Cor. You shame your wit and judgment,
To call it so. What! is my just defence
By him that is my judge called impudence?
Let me appeal, then, from this Christian court
To the uncivil Tartar.
Mont. See, my lords,
She scandals our proceedings.
Vit. Cor. Humbly thus,
Thus low, to the most worthy and respected
Lieger ambassadors, my modesty
And womanhood I tender; but withal,
So entangled in a cursèd accusation,
That my defence, of force, like Perseus,[50]
Must personate masculine virtue. To the point.
Find me but guilty, sever head from body,
We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life
At yours or any man's entreaty, sir.
Eng. Am. She hath a brave spirit.
Mont. Well, well, such counterfeit jewels
Make true ones oft suspected.
Vit. Cor. You are deceived:
For know, that all your strict-combinèd heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers,—they shall break.
These are but feignèd shadows of my evils:
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;
The filth returns in's face.
Mont. Pray you, mistress, satisfy me one question:
Who lodged beneath your roof that fatal night
Your husband brake his neck?
Brach. That question
Enforceth me break silence: I was there.
Mont. Your business?
Brach. Why, I came to comfort her,
And take some course for settling her estate,
Because I heard her husband was in debt
To you, my lord.
Mont. He was.
Brach. And 'twas strangely feared
That you would cozen[51] her.
Mont. Who made you overseer?
Brach. Why, my charity, my charity, which should flow
From every generous and noble spirit
To orphans and to widows.
Mont. Your lust.
Brach. Cowardly dogs bark loudest: sirrah priest,
I'll talk with you hereafter. Do you hear?
The sword you frame of such an excellent temper
I'll sheathe in your own bowels.
There are a number of thy coat resemble
Your common post-boys.
Mont. Ha!
Brach. Your mercenary post-boys:
Your letters carry truth, but 'tis your guise
To fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies.
Serv. My lord, your gown.
Brach. Thou liest, 'twas my stool:
Bestow't upon thy master, that will challenge
The rest o' the household-stuff; for Brachiano
Was ne'er so beggarly to take a stool
Out of another's lodging: let him make
Vallance for his bed on't, or a demi-foot-cloth
For his most reverent moil.[52] Monticelso,
Nemo me impune lacessit. [Exit.
Mont. Your champion's gone.
Vit. Cor. The wolf may prey the better.
Fran. de Med. My lord, there's great suspicion of the murder,
But no sound proof who did it. For my part,
I do not think she hath a soul so black
To act a deed so bloody: if she have,
As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines,
And with warm blood manure them, even so
One summer she will bear unsavoury fruit,
And ere next spring wither both branch and root.
The act of blood let pass; only descend
To matter of incontinence.
Vit. Cor. I discern poison
Under your gilded pills.
Mont. Now the duke's gone, I will produce a letter,
Wherein 'twas plotted he and you should meet
At an apothecary's summer-house,
Down by the river Tiber,—view't, my lords,—
Where, after wanton bathing and the heat
Of a lascivious banquet,—I pray read it,
I shame to speak the rest.
Vit. Cor. Grant I was tempted;
Temptation to lust proves not the act:
Casta est quam nemo rogavit.[53]
You read his hot love to me, but you want
My frosty answer.
Mont. Frost i' the dog-days! strange!

Vit. Cor. Condemn you me for that the duke did love me!
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic distracted man
Hath drowned himself in't.
Mont. Truly drowned, indeed.
Vit. Cor. Sum up my faults, I pray, and you shall find,
That beauty, and gay clothes, a merry heart,
And a good stomach to a feast, are all,
All the poor crimes that you can charge me with.
In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies;
The sport would be more noble.
Mont. Very good.
Vit. Cor. But take you your course: it seems you have beggared me first,
And now would fain undo me. I have houses,
Jewels, and a poor remnant of crusadoes:[54]
Would those would make you charitable!
Mont. If the devil
Did ever take good shape, behold his picture.
Vit. Cor. You have one virtue left,—
You will not flatter me.
Fran. de Med. Who brought this letter?
Vit. Cor. I am not compelled to tell you.
Mont. My lord duke sent to you a thousand ducats
The twelfth of August.
Vit. Cor. 'Twas to keep your cousin
From prison: I paid use for't.
Mont. I rather think
'Twas interest for his lust.
Vit. Cor. Who says so
But yourself? if you be my accuser,
Pray, cease to be my judge: come from the bench;
Give in your evidence 'gainst me, and let these
Be moderators. My lord cardinal,
Were your intelligencing ears as loving
As to my thoughts, had you an honest tongue,
I would not care though you proclaimed them all.
Mont. Go to, go to.
After your goodly and vain-glorious banquet,
I'll give you a choke-pear.
Vit. Cor. O' your own grafting?
Mont. You were born in Venice, honourably descended
From the Vittelli: 'twas my cousin's fate,—
Ill may I name the hour,—to marry you:
He bought you of your father.
Vit. Cor. Ha!
Mont. He spent there in six months
Twelve thousand ducats, and (to my acquaintance)
Received in dowry with you not one julio:[55]
'Twas a hard pennyworth, the ware being so light.
I yet but draw the curtain now to your picture:
You came from thence a most notorious strumpet,
And so you have continued.
Vit. Cor. My lord,—
Mont. Nay, hear me;
You shall have time to prate. My Lord Brachiano—
Alas, I make but repetition
Of what is ordinary and Rialto talk,
And ballated, and would be played o' the stage,
But that vice many times finds such loud friends
That preachers are charmed silent.—
You gentlemen, Flamineo and Marcello,
The court hath nothing now to charge you with
Only you must remain upon your sureties
For your appearance.
Fran. de Med. I stand for Marcello.

Flam. And my lord duke for me.
Mont. For you, Vittoria, your public fault,
Joined to the condition of the present time,
Takes from you all the fruits of noble pity;
Such a corrupted trial have you made
Both of your life and beauty, and been styled
No less an ominous fate than blazing stars
To princes: here's your sentence; you are confined
Unto a house of convertites, and your bawd—
Flam. [Aside]. Who, I?
Mont. The Moor.
Flam. [Aside]. O, I am a sound man again.
Vit. Cor. A house of convertites! what's that?
Mont. A house
Of penitent whores.
Vit. Cor. Do the noblemen in Rome
Erect it for their wives, that I am sent
To lodge there?
Fran. de Med. You must have patience.
Vit. Cor. I must first have vengeance.
I fain would know if you have your salvation
By patent, that you proceed thus.
Mont. Away with her!
Take her hence.
Vit. Cor. A rape! a rape!
Mont. How!
Vit. Cor. Yes, you have ravished justice;
Forced her to do your pleasure.
Mont. Fie, she's mad!
Vit. Cor. Die with these pills in your most cursèd maw
Should bring you health! or while you sit o' the bench
Let your own spittle choke you!—
Mont. She's turned Fury.
Vit. Cor. That the last day of judgment may so find you,
And leave you the same devil you were before!
Instruct me, some good horse-leech, to speak treason;
For since you cannot take my life for deeds,
Take it for words: O woman's poor revenge,
Which dwells but in the tongue! I will not weep;
No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice; bear me hence
Unto this house of—what's your mitigating title?
Mont. Of convertites.
Vit. Cor. It shall not be a house of convertites;
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope's palace, and more peaceable
Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal.
Know this, and let it somewhat raise your spite,
Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.[56]
[Exeunt Vittoria Corombona, Lawyer, and
Guards.

Re-enter Brachiano.

Brach. Now you and I are friends, sir, we'll shake hands
In a friend's grave together; a fit place,
Being the emblem of soft peace, to atone our hatred.
Fran. de Med. Sir, what's the matter?

Brach. I will not chase more blood from that loved cheek;
You have lost too much already: fare you well. [Exit.

Fran. de Med. How strange these words sound! what's the interpretation?

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

Enter Giovanni, Count Lodovico, and Attendant.

Fran. de Med. How now, my noble cousin! what, in black!
Giov. Yes, uncle, I was taught to imitate you
In virtue, and you must imitate me
In colours of your garments. My sweet mother
Is—
Fran. de Med. How! where?
Giov. Is there; no, yonder: indeed, sir, I'll not tell you,
For I shall make you weep.
Fran. de Med. Is dead?
Giov. Do not blame me now,
I did not tell you so.
Lod. She's dead, my lord.
Fran. de Med. Dead!
Mont. Blessed lady, thou are now above thy woes!—
Wilt please your lordships to withdraw a little?
[Exeunt Ambassadors.
Giov. What do the dead do, uncle? do they eat,
Hear music, go a hunting, and be merry,
As we that live?
Fran. de Med. No, coz; they sleep.
Giov. Lord, Lord, that I were dead!
I have not slept these six nights.—When do they wake?
Fran. de Med. When God shall please.
Giov. Good God, let her sleep ever!
For I have known her wake an hundred nights,
When all the pillow where she laid her head
Was brine-wet with her tears. I am to complain to you, sir;
I'll tell you how they have used her now she's dead:
They wrapped her in a cruel fold of lead,
And would not let me kiss her.
Fran. de Med. Thou didst love her.
Giov. I have often heard her say she gave me suck,
And it should seem by that she dearly loved me,
Since princes seldom do it.
Fran. de Med. O, all of my poor sister that remains!—
Take him away, for God's sake!
[Exeunt Giovanni and Attendant.
Mont. How now, my lord!
Fran. de Med. Believe me, I am nothing but her grave;
And I shall keep her blessèd memory
Longer than thousand epitaphs.
[Exeunt Francisco de Medicis and Monticelso.

Re-enter Flamineo as if distracted.

Flam. We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.
Who shall do me right now? is this the end of service? I'd rather go weed garlic; travel through France, and be mine own ostler; wear sheepskin linings, or shoes that stink of blacking; be entered into the list of the forty thousand pedlers in Poland.

Re-enter Ambassadors.

Would I had rotted in some surgeon's house at Venice, built upon the pox as well as on piles, ere I had served Brachiano!

Savoy Am. You must have comfort.

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

Fr. Am. The proofs are evident.

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

Eng. Am. Fie, fie, Flamineo! [Exeunt Ambassadors.

Flam. Bells ne'er ring well, till they are at their full pitch; and I hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well till he come to the scaffold. If they were racked now to know the confederacy,—but your noblemen are privileged from the rack; and well may, for a little thing would pull some of them a-pieces afore they came to their arraignment. Religion, O, how it is commedled[57] with policy! The first bloodshed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew!

Mar. O, there are too many.

Flam. You are deceived: there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.

Mar. How?

Flam. I'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, should not aspire to gentility. Farewell: let others live by begging; be thou one of them practise the art of Wolner[58] in England, to swallow all's given thee; and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit. I'll go hear the screech-owl. [Exit.

Lod. [Aside]. This was Brachiano's pander and 'tis strange
That, in such open and apparent guilt
Of his adulterous sister, he dare utter
So scandalous a passion. I must wind him.

Re-enter Flamineo.

Flam. [Aside]. How dares this banished count return to Rome,
His pardon not yet purchased! I have heard
The deceased duchess gave him pension,
And that he came along from Padua
I' the train of the young prince. There's somewhat in't:
Physicians, that cure poisons, still do work
With counter-poisons.
Mar. Mark this strange encounter.
Flam. The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,
And let the stigmatic[59] wrinkles in thy face,
Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide,
One still overtake another.
Lod. I do thank thee,
And I do wish ingeniously[60] for thy sake
The dog-days all year long.
Flam. How croaks the raven?
Is our good duchess dead?
Lod. Dead.
Flam. O fate!
Misfortune comes, like the coroner's business,
Huddle upon huddle.
Lod. Shalt thou and I join house-keeping?
Flam. Yes, content:
Let's be unsociably sociable.
Lod. Sit some three days together, and discourse.
Flam. Only with making faces: lie in our clothes.
Lod. With faggots for our pillows.
Flam. And be lousy.
Lod. In taffata linings; that's genteel melancholy:
Sleep all day.
Flam. Yes; and, like your melancholic hare,
Feed after midnight.—
We are observed: see how yon couple grieve!
Lod. What a strange creature is a laughing fool!
As if man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth.

Flam. I'll tell thee what,—
It would do well, instead of looking-glasses,
To set one's face each morning by a saucer
Of a witch's congealèd blood.
Lod. Precious gue![61]
We'll never part.
Flam. Never, till the beggary of courtiers,
The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers,
And all the creatures that hang manacled,
Worse than strappadoed, on the lowest felly
Of Fortune's wheel, be taught, in our two lives,
To scorn that world which life of means deprives.

Enter Antonelli and Gasparo.

Anto. My lord, I bring good news. The Pope, on's death-bed,
At the earnest suit of the Great Duke of Florence,
Hath signed your pardon, and restored unto you—
Lod. I thank you for your news.—Look up again,
Flamineo; see my pardon.
Flam. Why do you laugh?
There was no such condition in our covenant.
Lod. Why!
Flam. You shall not seem a happier man than I:
You know our vow, sir; if you will be merry,
Do it i' the like posture as if some great man
Sate while his enemy were executed;
Though it be very lechery unto thee,
Do't with a crabbèd politician's face.
Lod. Your sister is a damnable whore.
Flam. Ha!
Lod. Look you, I spake that laughing.
Flam. Dost ever think to speak again?
Lod. Do you hear?
Wilt sell me forty ounces of her blood
To water a mandrake?
Flam. Poor lord, you did vow
To live a lousy creature.
Lod. Yes.
Flam. Like one
That had for ever forfeited the daylight
By being in debt.
Lod. Ha, ha!
Flam. I do not greatly wonder you do break;
Your lordship learned't long since. But I'll tell you,—
Lod. What?
Flam. And't shall stick by you,—
Lod. I long for it.
Flam. This laughter scurvily becomes your face:
If you will not be melancholy, be angry. [Strikes him.
See, now I laugh too.
Mar. You are to blame: I'll force you hence.
Lod. Unhand me.
[Exeunt Marcello and Flamineo.
That e'er I should be forced to right myself
Upon a pander!
Anto. My lord,—
Lod. H'ad been as good met with his fist a thunderbolt.
Gas. How this shows!
Lod. Ud's death,[62] how did my sword miss him?
These rogues that are most weary of their lives
Still scape the greatest dangers.
A pox upon him! all his reputation,
Nay, all the goodness of his family,
Is not worth half this earthquake:
I learned it of no fencer to shake thus:
Come, I'll forget him, and go drink some wine.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.—An Apartment in the Palace of Francisco.

Enter Francisco de Medicis and Monticelso.

Mont. Come, come, my lord, untie your folded thoughts,
And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair.[63]
Your sister's poisoned.
Fran. de Med. Far be it from my thoughts
To seek revenge.
Mont. What, are you turned all marble?
Fran. de Med. Shall I defy him, and impose a war
Most burdensome on my poor subjects' necks,
Which at my will I have not power to end?
You know, for all the murders, rapes, and thefts,
Committed in the horrid lust of war,
He that unjustly caused it first proceed
Shall find it in his grave and in his seed.
Mont. That's not the course I'd wish you; pray, observe me.
We see that undermining more prevails
Than doth the cannon. Bear your wrongs concealed,
And, patient as the tortoise, let this camel
Stalk, o'er your back unbruised: sleep with the lion,
And let this brood of secure foolish mice
Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe
For the bloody audit and the fatal gripe:
Aim like a cunning fowler, close one eye,
That you the better may your game espy.
Fran. de Med. Free me, my innocence, from treacherous acts!
I know there's thunder yonder; and I'll stand
Like a safe valley, which low bends the knee
To some aspiring mountain; since I know
Treason, like spiders weaving nets for flies,
By her foul work is found, and in it dies.
To pass away these thoughts, my honoured lord,
It is reported you possess a book,
Wherein you have quoted,[64] by intelligence,
The names of all notorious offenders
Lurking about the city.
Mont. Sir, I do;
And some there are which call it my black book:
Well may the title hold; for though it teach not
The art of conjuring, yet in it lurk
The names of many devils.
Fran. de Med. Pray, let's see it.
Mont. I'll fetch it to your lordship. [Exit.
Fran. de Med. Monticelso,
I will not trust thee; but in all my plots
I'll rest as jealous as a town besieged.
Thou canst not reach what I intend to act:
Your flax soon kindles, soon is out again;
But gold slow heats, and long will hot remain.

Re-enter Monticelso, presents Francisco de Medicis with a book.

Mont. 'Tis here, my lord.

Fran. de Med. First, your intelligencers, pray, let's see.

Mont. Their number rises strangely; and some of them
You'd take for honest men. Next are panders,—
These are your pirates; and these following leaves
For base rogues that undo young gentlemen
By taking up commodities;[65] for politic bankrupts;
For fellows that are bawds to their own wives,
Only to put off horses, and slight jewels,
Clocks, defaced plate, and such commodities,
At birth of their first children.
Fran. de Med. Are there such?
Mont. These are for impudent bawds
That go in men's apparel; for usurers
That share with scriveners for their good reportage;
For lawyers that will antedate their writs:
And some divines you might find folded there,
But that I slip them o'er for conscience' sake.
Here is a general catalogue of knaves:
A man might study all the prisons o'er,
Yet never attain this knowledge.
Fran. de Med. Murderers!
Fold down the leaf, I pray.
Good my lord, let me borrow this strange doctrine.
Mont. Pray, use't, my lord.
Fran. de Med. I do assure your lordship,
You are a worthy member of the state,
And have done infinite good in your discovery
Of these offenders.
Mont. Somewhat, sir.
Fran. de Med. O God!
Better than tribute of wolves paid in England:[66]
'Twill hang their skins o' the hedge.
Mont. I must make bold
To leave your lordship.
Fran. de Med. Dearly, sir, I thank you:
If any ask for me at court, report
You have left me in the company of knaves.
[Exit Monticelso.
I gather now by this, some cunning fellow
That's my lord's officer, one that lately skipped
From a clerk's desk up to a justice' chair,
Hath made this knavish summons, and intends,
As the Irish rebels wont were to sell heads,
So to make prize of these. And thus it happens,
Your poor rogues pay for't which have not the means
To present bribe in fist: the rest o' the band
Are razed out of the knaves' record; or else
My lord he winks at them with easy will;
His man grows rich, the knaves are the knaves still.
But to the use I'll make of it; it shall serve
To point me out a list of murderers,
Agents for any villany. Did I want
Ten leash of courtezans, it would furnish me;
Nay, laundress three armies. That in so little paper
Should lie the undoing of so many men!
'Tis not so big as twenty declarations.
See the corrupted use some make of books:
Divinity, wrested by some factious blood,
Draws swords, swells battles, and o'erthrows all good.
To fashion my revenge more seriously,
Let me remember my dead sister's face:
Call for her picture? no, I'll close mine eyes,
And in a melancholic thought I'll frame

Enter Isabella's ghost.

Her figure 'fore me. Now I ha't:—how strong
Imagination works! how she can frame
Things which are not! Methinks she stands afore me,
And by the quick idea of my mind,
Were my skill pregnant, I could draw her picture.
Thought, as a subtle juggler, makes us deem
Things supernatural, which yet have cause
Common as sickness. 'Tis my melancholy.—
How cam'st thou by thy death?—How idle am I
To question mine own idleness!—Did ever
Man dream awake till now?—Remove this object;
Out of my brain with't: what have I to do
With tombs, or death-beds, funerals, or tears,
That have to meditate upon revenge?
[Exit Ghost.
So, now 'tis ended, like an old wife's story:
Statesmen think often they see stranger sights
Than madmen. Come, to this weighty business:
My tragedy must have some idle mirth in't,
Else it will never pass. I am in love,
In love with Corombona; and my suit
Thus halts to her in verse.—[Writes.
I have done it rarely: O the fate of princes!
I am so used to frequent flattery,
That, being alone, I now flatter myself:
But it will serve; 'tis sealed.

Enter Servant.

Bear this
To the house of convertites, and watch your leisure
To give it to the hands of Corombona,
Or to the matron, when some followers
Of Brachiano may be by. Away! [Exit Servant.
He that deals all by strength, his wit is shallow:
When a man's head goes through, each limb will follow.
The engine for my business, bold Count Lodowick:
'Tis gold must such an instrument procure;
With empty fist no man doth falcons lure.
Brachiano, I am now fit for thy encounter:
Like the wild Irish, I'll ne'er think thee dead
Till I can play at football with thy head.
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.[67]
[Exit.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.—A Room in the House of Convertites.

Enter the Matron and Flamineo.

Matron. Should it be known the duke hath such recourse
To your imprisoned sister, I were like
To incur much damage by it.
Flam. Not a scruple:
The Pope lies on his death-bed, and their heads
Are troubled now with other business
Then guarding of a lady.

Enter Servant.

Serv. Yonder's Flamineo in conference
With the matrona.—Let me speak with you;
I would entreat you to deliver for me
This letter to the fair Vittoria.
Matron. I shall, sir.
Serv. With all care and secrecy:
Hereafter you shall know me, and receive
Thanks for this courtesy. [Exit.

Flam. How now! what's that?

Matron. A letter.

Flam. To my sister? I'll see't delivered.

Enter Brachiano.

Brach. What's that you read, Flamineo?

Flam. Look.

Brach. Ha! [Reads.] "To the most unfortunate, his best respected Vittoria."—
Who was the messenger?

Flam. I know not.

Brach. No! who sent it?

Flam. Ud's foot, you speak as if a man
Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat
Afore you cut it up.
Brach. I'll open't, were't her heart.—What's here subscribed!
"Florence!" this juggling is gross and palpable:
I have found out the conveyance.—Read it, read it.
Flam. [Reads.] "Your tears I'll turn to triumphs, be but mine:
Your prop is fall'n: I pity, that a vine,
Which princes heretofore have longed to gather,
Wanting supporters, now should fade and wither."—
Wine, i' faith, my lord, with lees would serve his turn.—
"Your sad imprisonment I'll soon uncharm,
And with a princely uncontrollèd arm
Lead you to Florence, where my love and care
Shall hang your wishes in my silver hair."—
A halter on his strange equivocation!—
"Nor for my years return me the sad willow:
Who prefer blossoms before fruit that's mellow?"—
Rotten, on my knowledge, with lying too long i' the bed-straw—
"And all the lines of age this line convinces,
The gods never wax old, no more do princes."—
A pox on't, tear it; let's have no more atheists, for God's sake.

Brach. Ud's death, I'll cut her into atomies,
And let the irregular north wind sweep her up,
And blow her into his nostrils! Where's this whore?
Flam. That what do you call her?
Brach. O, I could be mad,
Prevent[68] the cursed disease[69] she'll bring me to,
And tear my hair off! Where's this changeable stuff?
Flam. O'er head and ears in water, I assure you:
She is not for your wearing.
Brach. No, you pander?
Flam. What, me, my lord? am I your dog?
Brach. A blood-hound: do you brave, do you stand me?
Flam. Stand you! let those that have diseases run;
I need no plasters.
Brach. Would you be kicked?
Flam. Would you have your neck broke?
I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia;[70]
My shins must be kept whole.
Brach. Do you know me?
Flam. O, my lord, methodically:
As in this world there are degrees of evils,
So in this world there are degrees of devils.
You're a great duke, I your poor secretary.
I do look now for a Spanish fig, or an Italian salad,[71] daily.
Brach. Pander, ply your convoy, and leave your prating.

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