Enter Vermandero, Tomaso, Alibius, Isabella, Franciscus, and Antonio
VER. O Alsemero! I’ve a wonder for you.
ALS. NO, sir, ’tis I, I have a wonder for you.
VER. I have suspicion near as proof itself
For Piracquo’s murder.
ALS. Sir, I have proof
Beyond suspicion for Piracquo’s murder.
VER. Beseech you, hear me: these who have been disguised
E’er since the deed was done.
ALS. I have two other
That were more close disguised than your two could be
E’er since the deed were done.
VER. You’ll hear me—these mine own servants—
ALS. Hear me—those nearer than your servants
That shall acquit them, and prove them guiltless.
FRAN. That may be done with easy truth, sir.
TOM. How is my cause bandied through your delays!
’Tis urgent in my blood and calls for haste;
Give me a brother or alive or dead;
Alive, a wife with him; if dead, for both
A recompense, for murder and adultery.
BEAT. [Within] O, O, O!
ALS. Hark! ’tis coming to you.
DE F. [Within] Nay, I’ll along for company.
BEAT. [Within] O, O!
VER. What horrid sounds are these?
ALS. Come forth, you twins
Of mischief!
Re-enter De Flores, dragging in Beatrice wounded
DE F. Here we are; if you have any more
To say to us, speak quickly, I shall not
Give you the hearing else; I am so stout yet,
And so, I think, that broken rib of mankind.
VER. An host of enemies entered my citadel
Could not amaze like this: Joanna! Beatrice! Joanna!
BEAT. O, come not near me, sir, I shall defile you!
I am that of your blood was taken from you
For your better health; look no more upon’t,
But cast it to the ground regardlessly,
Let the common sewer take it from distinction:
Beneath the stars, upon yon meteor
[Pointing to De Flores]
Ever hung my fate, ’mongst things corruptible;
I ne’er could pluck it from him; my loathing
Was prophet to the rest, but ne’er believed:
Mine honor fell with him, and now my life.—
Alsemero, I’m a stranger to your bed;
Your bed was cozened on the nuptial night,
For which your false bride died.
ALS. Diaphanta?
DE F. Yes, and the while I coupled with your mate
At barley-break; now we are left in hell.131
VER. We are all there, it circumscribes us here.
DE F. I loved this woman in spite of her heart:
Her love I earned out of Piracquo’s murder.
the name for the area occupied by the third and last couple.
TOM. Ha! my brother’s murderer?
DE F. Yes, and her honor’s prize
Was my reward; I thank life for nothing
But that pleasure; it was so sweet to me,
That I have drunk up all, left none behind
For any man to pledge me.
VER. Horrid villain!
Keep life in him for further tortures.
DE F. No!
I can prevent you; here’s my pen-knife still;
It is but one thread more [stabbing himself], and now ’tis cut.—
Make haste, Joanna, by that token to thee,
Canst not forget, so lately put in mind;
I would not go to leave thee far behind.
Dies
BEAT. Forgive me, Alsemero, all forgive!
’Tis time to die when ’tis a shame to live.
Dies
VER. O, my name’s entered now in that record
Where till this fatal hour ’twas never read.
ALS. Let it be blotted out; let your heart lose it,
And it can never look you in the face,
Nor tell a tale behind the back of life
To your dishonor; justice hath so right
The guilty hit, that innocence is quit
By proclamation, and may joy again.—
Sir, you are sensible of what truth hath done;
’Tis the best comfort that your grief can find.
TOM. Sir, I am satisfied; my injuries
Lie dead before me; I can exact no more,
Unless my soul were loose, and could o’ertake
Those black fugitives that are fled from hence,
To take a second vengeance; but there are wraths
Deeper than mine, ’tis to be feared, about ’em.
ALS. What an opacous body had that moon
That last changed on us! here is beauty changed
To ugly whoredom; here servant-obedience
To a master-sin, imperious murder;
I, a supposed husband, changed embraces
With wantonness,—but that was paid before.—
Your change is come too, from an ignorant wrath
To knowing friendship.—Are there any more on’s?
ANT. Yes, sir, I was changed too from a little ass as I was to a great fool
as I am; and had like to ha’ been changed to the gallows, but that you
know my innocence132 always excuses me.
FRAN. I was changed from a little wit to be stark mad,
Almost for the same purpose.
ISA. Your change is still behind,133
But deserve best your transformation:
You are a jealous coxcomb, keep schools of folly,
And teach your scholars how to break your own head.
ALIB. I see all apparent, wife, and will change now
Into a better husband, and ne’er keep
Scholars that shall be wiser than myself.
ALS. Sir, you have yet a son’s duty living,
Please you, accept it; let that your sorrow,
As it goes from your eye, go from your heart,
Man and his sorrow at the grave must part.
EPILOGUE
ALS. All we can do to comfort one another,
To stay134 a brother’s sorrow for a brother,
To dry a child from the kind father’s eyes,
Is to no purpose, it rather multiplies:
Your only smiles135 have power to cause re-live
The dead again, or in their rooms to give
Brother a new brother, father a child;
If these appear, all griefs are reconciled.
Exeunt
1. Paradise regained.
2. Meeting.
3. Ending, completion.
4. Suspect.
5. Harness.
6. Promising good conditions for travel by water.
7. Rigorous laws.
8. From success.
9. Investor.
10. Which kills with a glance.
11. Lack means.
12. Herb.
13. Reveal.
14. Promontories.
15. From the Greek, meaning the first tender down.
16. Patron saint of Spain.
17. Treaty.
18. Whim, fancy.
19. Pieces of ordnance; also styled murdering-pieces.
20. Skin.
21. Taking L’s point that the older man may wear a cuckold’s horns.
22. Idiots.
23. i.e., Guard (in fencing).
24. Slang for “urinate.”
25. Parish officer.
26. Fit him for.
27. Class in school.
28. i.e., None.
29. Children’s game played with pins.
30. Neck.
31. Whip.
32. Parmesan cheese.
33. Bristly.
34. Sweetheart.
35. Paris Garden, where bulls were baited.
36
. Dragged by the ear.
37. For.
38. Title.
39. Persuading you.
40. Too constricting.
41. Quick to see objections.
42. Risked.
43. You belong to danger, not to me.
44. De Flores.
45. Perceive.
46. Camp-follower; whore.
47. Ambergris.
48. i.e., Between the acts.
49. Small fort.
50. i.e., Prove it has been done.
51. As to a caged bird.
52. Pound for strayed cattle.
53. Handsome.
54. The Greek poet said to have choked on a grape pip.
55. He fed his horses on human flesh.
56. Alexander’s horse, which only he could ride.
57. Greek god of medicine.
58. The seer who changed his sex.
59. Persons suffering from lycanthropia, or wolf-madness, at one time believed to be common.
60. Cant term for procuress or bawd.
61. Nidget, i.e., idiot.
62. An allusion to the game of barley-break, the ground for which was divided into three compartments, of which the middle one was termed “hell.”
63. Forgetting your part.
64. Mythical garden in which the trees bore golden apples, guarded by a dragon.
65. Famous scholar (here mentioned to provide a pun on “lips”).
66. Ovid’s Art of Love.
67. North poles.
68. Perhaps slang for “prostitute.”
69. Fag end.
70. To scare the audience.
71. Not keeping time.
72. i.e., Such health as I have.
73. Small case.
74. Accusation.
75. Mistrust.
76. In my favor.
77. Claim.
78. Recipes.
79. The way things have fallen out.
80. Trick.
81. Immediately.
82. Unusually moral girl.
83. Look for.
84. Are you serious?
85. Lively
86. Provoke.
87. In a scandalous contemporary case the Countess of Essex was so examined.
88. Show its worth.
89. Enjoy it at leisure.
90. Ends.
91. i.e., In bed.
92. Justice of the Peace.
93. Assaulted.
94. Relations.
95. Suspicion.
96. Not at all.
97. The truth about Alonzo.
98. i.e., Alonzo’s bride.
99. Offer.
100. Anticipate.
101. Claim a right in a woman.
102. Tainted.
103. Magician.
104. Festivity.
105. Whips.
106. Bow.
107. The wax that melted from the wings of Icarus becomes the wax used for seals.
108. The thread that guided Theseus out of the labyrinth.
109. With whom the moon fell in love.
110. Freak.
111. Teacher.
112. Honest.
113. Begging a person for a fool meant applying to be his guardian, to whom the profits of his lands and the custody of his person were granted by the king.
114. Game reserved for the king.
115. Venus.
116. Plan.
117. Loaded gun.
118. Task.
119. Gun.
120. Skilled in dealing with.
121. Disaster.
122. Occasion to fight.
123. Fully tested.
124. The tearing out of your heart.
125. Unsteady
126. i.e., Devotion to God.
127. Shown me where to begin.
128. i.e., In your parts.
129. Embrace.
130. Dead Sea.
131. Barley-break was a game in which one of three couples was left in “hell.” “Hell” was
132. Idiocy
133. To come.
134. Halt.
135. Only your smiles (the audience).
ABOUT THE EDITOR
FRANK KERMODE is Britain’s most distinguished scholar of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. He has written and edited numerous works, including Shakespeare’s Language, Forms of Attention, Not Entitled, The Genesis of Secrecy, The Sense of an Ending, and The Age of Shakespeare. He has taught at many universities, including University College, London, and Cambridge University, and has been a visiting professor at Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and several other American colleges. He lives in Cambridge, England.
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The Duchess of Malfi Page 64