The Duchess of Malfi
Page 50
I’ th’ morning posts to Rome: by him I’ll send
A letter that shall make her brothers’ galls
O’erflow their livers. This was a thrifty way.
Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise,
She’s oft found witty, but is never wise.
Exit
SCENE IV
Enter Cardinal and Julia
CARD. Sit: thou art my best of wishes. Prithee, tell me
What trick didst thou invent to come to Rome
Without thy husband.
JUL. Why, my lord, I told him
I came to visit an old anchorite
Here for devotion.
CARD. Thou art a witty false one,—
I mean, to him.
JUL. You have prevailed with me
Beyond my strongest thoughts! I would not now
Find you inconstant.
CARD. Do not put thyself
To such a voluntary torture, which proceeds
Out of your own guilt.
JUL. How, my lord?
CARD. You fear
My constancy, because you have approved
Those giddy and wild turnings in yourself.
JUL. Did you e’er find them?
CARD. Sooth, generally for women;
A man might strive to make glass malleable,
Ere he should make them fixed.
JUL. So, my lord.
CARD. We had need go borrow that fantastic glass
Invented by Galileo the Florentine
To view another spacious world i’ th’ moon,
And look to find a constant woman there.
JUL. This is very well, my lord.
CARD. Why do you weep?
Are tears your justification? the self-same tears
Will fall into your husband’s bosom, lady,
With a loud protestation that you love him
Above the world. Come, I’ll love you wisely,
That’s jealously; since I am very certain
You cannot make me cuckold.
JUL. I’ll go home
To my husband.
CARD. You may thank me, lady,
I have taken you off your melancholy perch,
Bore you upon my fist, and showed you game,
And let you fly at it.—I pray thee, kiss me.—
When thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watched
Like a tame elephant:—still you are to thank me:—
Thou hadst only kisses from him and high feeding;
But what delight was that? ’twas just like one
That hath a little fingering on the lute,
Yet cannot tune it:—still you are to thank me.
JUL. You told me of a piteous wound i’ th’ heart
And a sick liver, when you wooed me first,
And spake like one in physic.
CARD. Who’s that?—
Enter Servant
Rest firm, for my affection to thee,
Lightning moves slow to’t.
SERV. Madam, a gentleman,
That’s come post from Malfi, desires to see you.
CARD. Let him enter: I’ll withdraw.
Exit
SERV. He says
Your husband, old Castruchio, is come to Rome,
Most pitifully tired with riding post.
Exit
Enter Delio
JUL. Signior Delio! [Aside] ’tis one of my old suitors.
DEL. I was bold to come and see you.
JUL. Sir, you are welcome.
DEL. Do you lie here?
JUL. Sure, your own experience
Will satisfy you no: our Roman prelates
Do not keep lodging for ladies.
DEL. Very well:
I have brought you no commendations from your husband,
For I know none by him.
JUL. I hear he’s come to Rome.
DEL. I never knew man and beast, of a horse and a knight,
So weary of each other: if he had had a good back,
He would have undertook to have borne his horse,
His breech was so pitifully sore.
JUL. Your laughter
Is my pity.
DEL. Lady, I know not whether
You want money, but I have brought you some.
JUL. From my husband?
DEL. No, from mine own allowance.
JUL. I must hear the condition, ere I be bound to take it.
DEL. Look on’t, ’tis gold: hath it not a fine color?
JUL. I have a bird more beautiful.
DEL. Try the sound on’t.
JUL. A lute-string far exceeds it:
It hath no smell, like cassia or civet;
Nor is it physical,53 though some fond doctors
Persuade us seethe ’t in cullises.54 I’ll tell you,
This is a creature bred by—
Re-enter Servant
SERV. Your husband’s come,
Hath delivered a letter to the Duke of Calabria
That, to my thinking, hath put him out of his wits.
Exit
JUL. Sir, you hear:
Pray, let me know your business and your suit
As briefly as can be.
DEL. With good speed: I would wish you,
At such time as you are non-resident
With your husband, my mistress.
JUL. Sir, I’ll go ask my husband if I shall,
And straight return your answer.
Exit
DEL. Very fine!
Is this her wit, or honesty, that speaks thus?
I heard one say the duke was highly moved
With a letter sent from Malfi. I do fear
Antonio is betrayed: how fearfully
Shows his ambition now! unfortunate fortune!
They pass through whirlpools, and deep woes do shun,
Who the event weigh ere the action’s done.
Exit
SCENE V
Enter Cardinal, and Ferdinand with a letter
FERD. I have this night digged up a mandrake.
CARD. Say you?
FERD. And I am grown mad with’t.
CARD. What’s the prodigy?
FERD. Read there,—a sister damned: she’s loose i’ th’ hilts;
Grown a notorious strumpet.
CARD. Speak lower.
FERD. Lower?
Rogues do not whisper’t now, but seek to publish’t
(As servants do the bounty of their lords)
Aloud; and with a covetous searching eye,
To mark who note them. O, confusion seize her!
She hath had most cunning bawds to serve her turn,
And more secure conveyances55 for lust
Than towns of garrison for service.
CARD. Is’t possible?
Can this be certain?
FERD. Rhubarb, oh, for rhubarb
To purge this choler! here’s the cursèd day
To prompt my memory; and here’t shall stick
Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge
To wipe it out.
CARD. Why do you make yourself
So wild a tempest?
FERD. Would I could be one,
That I might toss her palace ’bout her ears,
Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads,
And lay her general territory as waste
As she hath done her honors.
CARD. Shall our blood,
The royal blood of Arragon and Castile,
Be thus attainted?
FERD. Apply desperate physic:
We must not now use balsamum, but fire.
The smarting cupping-glass, for that’s the mean
To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.
There is a kind of pity in mine eye,—
I’ll give it to my handkercher; and now ’tis here,
I’ll bequeath this to her bastard.
CARD. What to do?
FERD. Why, t
o make soft lint for his mother’s wounds,
When I have hewed her to pieces.
CARD. Cursed creature!
Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts
So far upon the left side!
FERD. Foolish men,
That e’er will trust their honor in a bark
Made of so slight weak bulrush as is woman.
Apt every minute to sink it!
CARD. Thus ignorance, when it hath purchased honor,
It cannot wield it.
FERD. Methinks I see her laughing—
Excellent hyena! Talk to me somewhat, quickly,
Or my imagination will carry me
To see her in the shameful act of sin.
CARD. With whom?
FERD. Happily56 with some strong-thighed bargeman,
Or one o’ the woodyard that can quoit the sledge57
Or toss the bar, or else some lovely squire
That carries coals up to her privy lodgings.
CARD. You fly beyond your reason.
FERD. Go to, mistress!
’Tis not your whore’s milk that shall quench my wild fire,
But your whore’s blood.
CARD. How idly shows this rage, which carries you,
As men conveyed by witches through the air,
On violent whirlwinds! this intemperate noise
Fitly resembles deaf men’s shrill discourse,
Who talk aloud, thinking all other men
To have their imperfection.
FERD. Have not you
My palsy?
CARD. Yes, I can be angry, but
Without this rupture:58 there is not in nature
A thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself.
You have divers men who never yet expressed
Their strong desire of rest but by unrest,
By vexing of themselves. Come, put yourself
In tune.
FERD. So; I will only study to seem
The thing I am not. I could kill her now,
In you, or in myself; for I do think
It is some sin in us heaven doth revenge
By her.
CARD. Are you stark mad?
FERD. I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopped,
That their cursed smoke might not ascend to heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in in pitch or sulphur,
Wrap them in’t, and then light them like a match;
Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis,
And give’t his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back.
CARD. I’ll leave you.
FERD. Nay, I have done.
I am confident, had I been damned in hell,
And should have heard of this, it would have put me
Into a cold sweat. In, in; I’ll go sleep.
Till I know who leaps my sister, I’ll not stir:
That known, I’ll find scorpions to string my whips,
And fix her in a general eclipse.
Exeunt
ACT III, SCENE I
Enter Antonio and Delio
ANT. Our noble friend, my most beloved Delio!
Oh, you have been a stranger long at court;
Came you along with the Lord Ferdinand?
DEL. I did, sir: and how fares your noble duchess?
ANT. Right fortunately well: she’s an excellent
Feeder of pedigrees; since you last saw her,
She hath had two children more, a son and daughter.
DEL. Methinks ’twas yesterday: let me but wink,
And not behold your face, which to mine eye
Is somewhat leaner, verily I should dream
It were within this half-hour.
ANT. You have not been in law, friend Delio,
Nor in prison, nor a suitor at the court,
Nor begged the reversion of some great man’s place,
Nor troubled with an old wife, which doth make
Your time so insensibly hasten.
DEL. Pray, sir, tell me,
Hath not this news arrived yet to the ear
Of the lord cardinal?
ANT. I fear it hath:
The Lord Ferdinand, that’s newly come to court,
Doth bear himself right dangerously.
DEL. Pray, why?
ANT. He is so quiet that he seems to sleep
The tempest out, as dormice do in winter:
Those houses that are haunted are most still
Till the devil be up.
DEL. What say the common people?
ANT. The common rabble do directly say
She is a strumpet.
DEL. And your graver heads
Which would be politic, what censure they?59
ANT. They do observe I grow to infinite purchase,60
The left hand way, and all suppose the duchess
Would amend it, if she could; for, say they,
Great princes, though they grudge their officers
Should have such large and unconfinèd means
To get wealth under them, will not complain,
Lest thereby they should make them odious
Unto the people; for other obligation
Of love or marriage between her and me
They never dream of.
DEL. The Lord Ferdinand
Is going to bed.
Enter Duchess, Ferdinand, and Bosola
FERD. I’ll instantly to bed,
For I am weary.—I am to bespeak
A husband for you.
DUCH. For me, sir? pray, who is’t?
FERD. The great Count Malateste.
DUCH. Fie upon him!
A count? he’s a mere stick of sugar-candy;
You may look quite thorough him. When I choose
A husband, I will marry for your honor.
FERD. You shall do well in’t.—How is’t, worthy Antonio?
DUCH. But, sir, I am to have private conference with you
About a scandalous report is spread
Touching mine honor.
FERD. Let me be ever deaf to’t:
One of Pasquil’s paper bullets,61 court-calumny,
A pestilent air, which princes’ palaces
Are seldom purged of. Yet, say that it were true,
I pour it in your bosom, my fixed love
Would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny
Faults, were they apparent in you. Go, be safe
In your own innocency.
DUCH. [Aside] O blessed comfort!
This deadly air is purged.
Exeunt Duchess, Antonio, and Delio
FERD. Her guilt treads on
Hot-burning coulters.—Now, Bosola,
How thrives our intelligence?
BOS. Sir, uncertainly
’Tis rumored she hath had three bastards, but
By whom we may go read i’ th’ stars.
FERD. Why, some
Hold opinion all things are written there.
BOS. Yes, if we could find spectacles to read them.
I do suspect there hath been some sorcery
Used on the duchess.
FERD. Sorcery? to what purpose?
BOS. To make her dote on some desertless fellow
She shames to acknowledge.
FERD. Can your faith give way
To think there’s power in potions or in charms,
To make us love whether we will or no?
BOS. Most certainly.
FERD. Away! these are mere gulleries, horrid things,
Invented by some cheating mountebanks
To abuse us. Do you think that herbs or charms
Can force the will? Some trials have been made
In this foolish practice, but the ingredients
Were lenitive62 poisons, such as are of force
To make the patient mad; and straight the witch
&
nbsp; Swears by equivocation they are in love.
The witchcraft lies in her rank blood. This night
I will force confession from her. You told me
You had got, within these two days, a false key
Into her bed-chamber.
BOS. I have.
FERD. AS I would wish.
BOS. What do you intend to do?
FERD. Can you guess?
BOS. No.
FERD. Do not ask, then:
He that can compass me, and know my drifts,
May say he hath put a girdle ’bout the world,
And sounded all her quicksands.
BOS. I do not
Think so.
FERD. What do you think, then, pray?
BOS. That you
Are your own chronicle too much, and grossly
Flatter yourself.
FERD. Give me thy hand; I thank thee:
I never gave pension but to flatterers,
Till I entertained thee. Farewell.
That friend a great man’s ruin strongly checks,
Who rails into his belief all his defects.63
Exeunt
SCENE II
Enter Duchess, Antonio, and Cariola
DUCH. Bring me the casket hither, and the glass.—
You get no lodging here to-night, my lord.
ANT. Indeed, I must persuade one.
DUCH. Very good:
I hope in time ’twill grow into a custom,
That noblemen shall come with cap and knee
To purchase a night’s lodging of their wives.
ANT. I must lie here.
DUCH. Must! you are a lord of misrule.
ANT. Indeed, my rule is only in the night.
DUCH. To what use will you put me?
ANT. We’ll sleep together.
DUCH. Alas,
What pleasure can two lovers find in sleep!
CAR. My lord, I lie with her often; and I know
She’ll much disquiet you.
ANT. See, you are complained of.
CAR. For she’s the sprawling’st bedfellow.
ANT. I shall like her
The better for that.
CAR. Sir, shall I ask you a question?
ANT. Oh, I pray thee, Cariola.
CAR. Wherefore still, when you lie
With my lady, do you rise so early?
ANT. Laboring men
Count the clock oftenest, Cariola, are glad
When their task’s ended.
DUCH. I’ll stop your mouth.
[Kisses him]
ANT. Nay, that’s but one; Venus had two soft doves
To draw her chariot; I must have another—
[She kisses him again]
When wilt thou marry, Cariola?
CAR. Never, my lord.
ANT. Oh, fie upon this single life! forgo it.
We read how Daphne, for her peevish64 flight,
Became a fruitless bay-tree; Syrinx turned
To the pale empty reed; Anaxarete