Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  To take your fortune; but your wiser buntings,

  Now they are fledg’d, are gone.

  DUCHESS: They have done wisely.

  This puts me in mind of death. Physicians thus,

  With their hands full of money, use to give o’er

  Their patients.

  ANTONIO: Right the fashion of the world.

  From decay’d fortunes every flatterer shrinks;

  Men cease to build where the foundation sinks.

  DUCHESS: I had a very strange dream tonight.

  ANTONIO: What was’t?

  DUCHESS: Methought I wore my coronet of state,

  And on a sudden all the diamonds

  Were chang’d to pearls.

  ANTONIO: My interpretation

  Is, you’ll weep shortly; for to me the pearls

  Do signify your tears.

  DUCHESS: The birds that live i’th’ field

  On the wild benefit of nature, live

  Happier than we; for they may choose their mates,

  And carol their sweet pleasures to the spring.

  Enter BOSOLA with a letter

  BOSOLA: You are happily o’erta’en.

  DUCHESS: From my brother?

  BOSOLA: Yes, from the Lord Ferdinand, your brother,

  All love and safety.

  DUCHESS: Thou dost blanch mischief,

  Would’st make it white.

  See, see, like to calm weather

  At sea before a tempest, false hearts speak fair

  To those they intend most mischief. [she reads the letter]

  ‘Send Antonio to me; I want his head in a business.’

  A politic equivocation!

  He doth not want your counsel, but your head;

  That is, he cannot sleep till you be dead.

  And here’s another pitfall that’s strew’d o’er

  With roses; mark it, ’tis a cunning one;

  ‘I stand engaged for your husband, for several debts at

  Naples: let not that trouble him; I had rather have his

  heart than his money.’

  And I believe so too.

  BOSOLA: What do you believe?

  DUCHESS: That he so much distrusts my husband’s love,

  He will by no means believe his heart is with him,

  Until he see it. The devil is not cunning enough

  To circumvent us in riddles.

  BOSOLA: Will you reject that noble and free league

  Of amity and love which I present you?

  DUCHESS: Their league is like that of some politic kings,

  Only to make themselves of strength and power

  To be our after-ruin. Tell them so.

  BOSOLA: And what from you?

  ANTONIO: Thus tell him; I will not come.

  BOSOLA: And what of this?

  ANTONIO: My brothers have dispers’d

  Blood-hounds abroad, which till I hear are muzzled,

  No truce, though hatch’d with ne’er such politic skill,

  Is safe, that hangs upon our enemies’ will.

  I’ll not come at them.

  BOSOLA: This proclaims your breeding.

  Every small thing draws a base mind to fear,

  As the adamant draws iron. Fare you well, sir.

  You shall shortly hear from ‘s.

  Exit

  DUCHESS: I suspect some ambush.

  Therefore by all my love I do conjure you

  To take your eldest son, and fly towards Milan.

  Let us not venture all this poor remainder

  In one unlucky bottom.

  ANTONIO: You counsel safely.

  Best of my life, farewell; since we must part,

  Heaven hath a hand in’t, but no otherwise

  Than as some curious artist takes in sunder

  A clock or watch, when it is out of frame,

  To bring’t in better order.

  DUCHESS: I know not which is best,

  To see you dead, or part with you. Farewell, boy.

  Thou art happy, that thou hast not understanding

  To know thy misery, for all our wit

  And reading brings us to a truer sense

  Of sorrow. In the eternal church, sir,

  I do hope we shall not part thus.

  ANTONIO: O, be of comfort!

  Make patience a noble fortitude,

  And think not how unkindly we are us’d.

  Man, like to cassia, is prov’d best, being bruis’d.

  DUCHESS: Must I, like to a slave-born Russian,

  Account it praise to suffer tyranny?

  And yet, O heaven, thy heavy hand is in’t.

  I have seen my little boy oft scourge his top,

  And compar’d myself to’t: naught made me e’er go right

  But heaven’s scourge-stick.

  ANTONIO: Do not weep.

  Heaven fashion’d us out of nothing, and we strive

  To bring ourselves to nothing. Farewell, Cariola,

  And thy sweet armful. If I do never see thee more,

  Be a good mother to your little ones,

  And save them from the tiger. Fare you well.

  DUCHESS: Let me look upon you once more, for that speech

  Came from a dying father. Your kiss is colder

  Than that I have seen an holy anchorite

  Give to a dead man’s skull.

  ANTONIO: My heart is turn’d to a heavy lump of lead,

  With which I sound my danger. Fare you well.

  Exit ANTONIO and elder son

  DUCHESS: My laurel is all wither’d.

  CARIOLA: Look, madam, what a troop of armed men

  Make toward us.

  Enter BOSOLA and SOLDIERS, with vizards

  DUCHESS: O, they are very welcome!

  When fortune’s wheel is over-charg’d with princes,

  The weight makes it move swift. I would have my ruin

  Be sudden. I am your adventure, am I not?

  BOSOLA: You are. You must see your husband no more.

  DUCHESS: What devil art thou that counterfeits heaven’s thunder?

  BOSOLA: Is that terrible? I would have you tell me whether

  Is that note worse that frights the silly birds

  Out of the corn, or that which doth allure them

  To the nets? You have hearken’d to the last too much.

  DUCHESS: O misery! Like to a rusty o’er-charg’d cannon,

  Shall I ne’er fly in pieces? Come, to what prison?

  BOSOLA: To none.

  DUCHESS: Whither, then?

  BOSOLA: To your palace.

  DUCHESS: I have heard that Charon’s boat serves to convey

  All o’er the dismal lake, but brings none back again.

  BOSOLA: Your brothers mean you safety and pity.

  DUCHESS: Pity!

  With such a pity men preserve alive

  Pheasants and quails, when they are not fat enough

  To be eaten.

  BOSOLA: These are your children?

  DUCHESS: Yes.

  BOSOLA: Can they prattle?

  DUCHESS: No,

  But I intend, since they were born accurs’d,

  Curses shall be their first language.

  BOSOLA: Fie, madam,

  Forget this base, low fellow.

  DUCHESS: Were I a man,

  I’d beat that counterfeit face into thy other.

  BOSOLA: One of no birth.

  DUCHESS: Say that he was born mean,

  Man is most happy when’s own actions

  Be arguments and examples of his virtue.

  BOSOLA: A barren, beggarly virtue.

  DUCHESS: I prithee who is greatest, can you tell?

  Sad tales befit my woe: I’ll tell you one.

  A salmon, as she swam unto the sea,

  Met with a dog-fish, who encounters her

  With this rough language: ‘Why art thou so bold

  To mix thyself with our high state of floods,

  Being no emine
nt courtier, but one

  That for the calmest, and fresh time o’th’ year

  Dost live in shallow rivers, rank’st thyself

  With silly smelts and shrimps? and darest thou

  Pass by our dog-ship without reverence?’

  ‘O,’ quoth the salmon, ‘sister, be at peace.

  Thank Jupiter, we both have past the net!

  Our value never can be truly known,

  Till in the fisher’s basket we be shown.

  I’ th’ market then my price may be the higher,

  Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.’

  So, to great men the moral may be stretched;

  Men oft are valu’d high, when th’ are most wretched.

  But come, whither you please. I am arm’d ‘gainst misery;

  Bent to all sways of the oppressor’s will.

  There’s no deep valley but near some great hill.

  They exit

  ACT IV, SCENE I

  The court at Malfi, now serving as her prison

  Enter FERDINAND and BOSOLA

  FERDINAND: How doth our sister Duchess bear herself

  In her imprisonment?

  BOSOLA: Nobly. I’ll describe her.

  She’s sad, as one long us’d to’t, and she seems

  Rather to welcome the end of misery,

  Than shun it — a behaviour so noble,

  As gives a majesty to adversity.

  You may discern the shape of loveliness

  More perfect in her tears than in her smiles.

  She will muse for hours together; and her silence,

  Methinks, expresseth more than if she spake.

  FERDINAND: Her melancholy seems to be fortified

  With a strange disdain.

  BOSOLA: ’Tis so, and this restraint,

  Like English mastiffs that grow fierce with tying,

  Makes her too passionately apprehend

  Those pleasure’s she’s kept from.

  FERDINAND: Curse upon her!

  I will no longer study in the book

  Of another’s heart. Inform her what I told you.

  Exit

  Enter DUCHESS

  BOSOLA: All comfort to your grace.

  DUCHESS: I will have none.

  Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poison’d pills

  In gold and sugar?

  BOSOLA: Your elder brother, the Lord Ferdinand,

  Is come to visit you and sends you word,

  ‘Cause once he rashly made a solemn vow

  Never to see you more, he comes i’th’ night;

  And prays you gently neither torch nor taper

  Shine in your chamber. He will kiss your hand

  And reconcile himself, but for his vow

  He dares not see you.

  DUCHESS: At his pleasure.

  Take hence the lights; he’s come.

  Enter FERDINAND

  FERDINAND: Where are you?

  DUCHESS: Here, sir.

  FERDINAND: This darkness suits you well.

  DUCHESS: I would ask you pardon.

  FERDINAND: You have it;

  For I account it the honorabl’st revenge

  Where I may kill, to pardon. Where are your cubs?

  DUCHESS: Whom?

  FERDINAND: Call them your children,

  For though our national law distinguish bastards

  From true legitimate issue, compassionate nature

  Makes them all equal.

  DUCHESS: Do you visit me for this?

  You violate a sacrament o’th’ church

  Shall make you howl in hell for’t.

  FERDINAND: It had been well,

  Could you have liv’d thus always; for indeed,

  You were too much i’th’ light. But no more;

  I come to seal my peace with you. Here’s a hand,

  Gives her a dead man’s hand

  To which you have vow’d much love; the ring upon’t

  You gave.

  DUCHESS: I affectionately kiss it.

  FERDINAND: Pray do, and bury the print of it in your heart.

  I will leave this ring with you, for a love-token;

  And the hand, as sure as the ring; and do not doubt

  But you shall have the heart too. When you need a friend,

  Send it to him that ow’d it; you shall see

  Whether he can aid you.

  DUCHESS: You are very cold.

  I fear you are not well after your travel.

  Ha! lights! O, horrible!

  FERDINAND: Let her have lights enough.

  Exit

  DUCHESS: What witchcraft doth he practice, that he hath left

  A dead man’s hand here?

  Here is discovered, behind a traverse, the artificial

  figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as

  if they were dead

  BOSOLA: Look you, here’s the piece from which ’twas ta’en.

  He doth present you this sad spectacle,

  That now you know directly they are dead,

  Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve

  For that which cannot be recovered.

  DUCHESS: There is not between heaven and earth one wish

  I stay for after this. It wastes me more

  Than were’t my picture, fashion’d out of wax,

  Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried

  In some foul dunghill; and yond’s an excellent property

  For a tyrant which I would account mercy.

  BOSOLA: What’s that?

  DUCHESS: If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk

  And let me freeze to death.

  BOSOLA: Come, you must live.

  DUCHESS: That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell;

  In hell that they must live, and cannot die.

  Portia, I’ll new kindle thy coals again,

  And revive the rare and almost dead example

  Of a loving wife.

  BOSOLA: O fie! despair? remember

  You are a Christian.

  DUCHESS: The church enjoins fasting:

  I’ll starve myself to death.

  BOSOLA: Leave this vain sorrow.

  Things being at the worst, begin to mend. The bee

  When he hath shot his sting into your hand,

  May then play with your eyelid.

  DUCHESS: Good comfortable fellow,

  Persuade a wretch that’s broke upon the wheel

  To have all his bones new set; entreat him live

  To be executed again. Who must dispatch me?

  I account this world a tedious theatre,

  For I do play a part in’t ‘gainst my will.

  BOSOLA: Come, be of comfort; I will save your life.

  DUCHESS: Indeed I have not leisure to tend so small a business.

  BOSOLA: Now, by my life, I pity you.

  DUCHESS: Thou art a fool then,

  To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched

  As cannot pity itself. I am full of daggers.

  Puff, let me blow those vipers from me.

  Enter SERVANT

  What are you?

  SERVANT: One that wishes you long life.

  DUCHESS: I would thou wert hang’d for the horrible curse

  Thou hast given me. I shall shortly grow one

  Of the miracles of pity. I’ll go pray, no,

  I’ll go curse.

  BOSOLA: O, fie!

  DUCHESS: I could curse the stars.

  BOSOLA: O, fearful!

  DUCHESS: And those three smiling seasons of the year

  Into a Russian winter, nay the world

  To its first chaos.

  BOSOLA: Look you, the stars shine still.

  DUCHESS: O, but you must remember,

  My curse hath a great way to go.

  Plagues that make lanes through largest families

  Consume them.

  BOSOLA: Fie, lady!

  DUCHESS: Let them like tyrants

  Ne
ver be remember’d, but for the ill they have done.

  Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

  Churchmen forget them.

  BOSOLA: O, uncharitable!

  DUCHESS: Let heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs

  To punish them! Go, howl them this and say, I long to bleed.

  It is some mercy when men kill with speed.

  Exit

  Enter FERDINAND

  FERDINAND: Excellent, as I would wish; she’s plagu’d in art.

  These presentations are but fram’d in wax

  By the curious master in that quality,

  Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them

  For true substantial bodies.

  BOSOLA: Why do you do this?

  FERDINAND: To bring her to despair.

  BOSOLA: ‘Faith, end here,

  And go no farther in your cruelty.

  Send her a penitential garment to put on

  Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her

  With beads, and prayer-books.

  FERDINAND: Damn her! That body of hers,

  While that my blood ran pure in’t, was more worth

  Than that which thou wouldst comfort, called a soul.

  I will send her masques of common courtesans,

  Have her meat serv’d up by bawds and ruffians,

  And, ‘cause she’ll needs be mad, I am resolv’d

  To remove forth the common hospital

  All the mad-folk, and place them near her lodging.

  There let them practice together, sing and dance,

  And set their gambols to the full o’th’ moon.

  If she can sleep the better for it, let her.

  Your work is almost ended.

  BOSOLA: Must I see her again?

  FERDINAND: Yes.

  BOSOLA: Never.

  FERDINAND: You must.

  BOSOLA: Never in mine own shape.

  That’s forfeited by my intelligence,

  And this last cruel lie. When you send me next,

  The business shall be comfort.

  FERDINAND: Very likely;

  Thy pity is nothing of kin to thee. Antonio

  Lurks about Milan. Thou shalt shortly thither

  To feed a fire as great as my revenge,

  Which never will slack till it have spent his fuel.

  Intemperate agues make physicians cruel.

  They exit

  ACT IV, SCENE II

  Scene: same as before

  Enter DUCHESS and CARIOLA

  DUCHESS: What hideous noise was that?

  CARIOLA: ’Tis the wild consort

  Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother

  Hath plac’d about your lodging. This tyranny,

  I think, was never practic’d till this hour.

  DUCHESS: Indeed, I thank him. Nothing but noise and folly

  Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason

  And silence make me stark mad. Sit down;

  Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.