THE DUCHESS OF MALFI

JOHN WEBSTER

To the Rt. Hon. George Harding, Baron Berkeley,1 of Berkeley Castle, and Knight of the Order of the Bath to the illustrious Prince Charles.

My Noble Lord,

That I may present my excuse why, being a stranger to your lordship, I offer this poem to your patronage, I plead this warrant:⁠—men who never saw the sea yet desire to behold that regiment of waters, choose some eminent river to guide them thither, and make that, as it were, their conduct or postilion: by the like ingenious means has your fame arrived at my knowledge, receiving it from some of worth, who both in contemplation and practice owe to your honour their clearest service. I do not altogether look up at your title; the ancientest nobility being but a relic of time past, and the truest honour indeed being for a map to confer honour on himself, which your learning strives to propagate, and shall make you arrive at the dignity of a great example. I am confident this work is not unworthy your honour’s perusal; for by such poems as this poets have kissed the hands of great princes, and drawn their gentle eyes to look down upon their sheets of paper when the poets themselves were bound up in their winding-sheets. The like courtesy from your lordship shall make you live in your grave, and laurel spring out of it, when the ignorant scorners of the Muses, that like worms in libraries seem to live only to destroy learning, shall wither neglected and forgotten. This work and myself I humbly present to your approved censure, it being the utmost of my wishes to have your honourable self my weighty and perspicuous comment; which grace so done me shall ever be acknowledged

Dramatis Personae

Ferdinand Duke of Calabria
Cardinal his brother
Antonio Bologna, Steward of the Household to the Duchess
Delio his friend
Daniel de Bosola, Gentleman of the Horse to the Duchess
Castruccio, an old Lord
Marquis of Pescara
Count Malatesti
Roderigo,
Silvio,
Grisolan, Lords
Doctor
The Several Madmen
Duchess of Malfi
Cariola her woman
Julia, Castruccio’s wife, and the Cardinal’s mistress
Old Lady
Ladies, Three Young Children, Two Pilgrims, Executioners, Court Officers, and Attendants

Scene: Malfi, Rome, Loretto, and Milan.

The Duchess of Malfi

Act I

Scene I

Malfi. The presence chamber in the palace of the Duchess.

	Enter Antonio* and Delio.*
Delio	You are welcome to your country, dear Antonio; You have been long in France, and you return A very formal Frenchman in your habit: How do you like the French court?
Antonio	I admire it: In seeking to reduce both state and people To a fix’d order, their judicious king Begins at home; quits first his royal palace Of flattering sycophants, of dissolute And infamous persons⁠—which he sweetly terms His master’s masterpiece, the work of heaven; Considering duly that a prince’s court Is like a common fountain, whence should flow Pure silver drops in general, but if’t chance Some curs’d example poison’t near the head, Death and diseases through the whole land spread. And what is’t makes this blessed government But a most provident council, who dare freely Inform him the corruption of the times? Though some o’ the court hold it presumption To instruct princes what they ought to do, It is a noble duty to inform them What they ought to foresee.2⁠—Here comes Bosola, The only court-gall; yet I observe his railing Is not for simple love of piety: Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants; Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud, Bloody, or envious, as any man, If he had means to be so.⁠—Here’s the cardinal.
	Enter Cardinal* and Bosala.*
Bosola	I do haunt you still.
Cardinal	So.
Bosola	I have done you better service than to be slighted thus. Miserable age, where only the reward of doing well is the doing of it!
Cardinal	You enforce your merit too much.
Bosola	I fell into the galleys in your service: where, for two years together, I wore two towels instead of a shirt, with a knot on the shoulder, after the fashion of a Roman mantle. Slighted thus! I will thrive some way. Blackbirds fatten best in hard weather; why not I in these dog-days?
Cardinal	Would you could become honest!
Bosola	With all your divinity do but direct me the way to it. I have known many travel far for it, and yet return as arrant knaves as they went forth, because they carried themselves always along with them. Exit Cardinal. Are you gone? Some fellows, they say, are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse.
Antonio	He hath denied thee some suit?
Bosola	He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing-pools; they are rich and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one of their flattering panders, I would hang on their ears like a horseleech, till I were full, and then drop off. I pray, leave me. Who would rely upon these miserable dependencies, in expectation to be advanc’d tomorrow? What creature ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus? Nor ever died any man more fearfully than he that hoped for a pardon. There are rewards for hawks and dogs when they have done us service; but for a soldier that hazards his limbs in a battle, nothing but a kind of geometry is his last supportation.
Delio	Geometry?
Bosola	Ay, to hang in a fair pair of slings, take his latter swing in the world upon an honourable pair of crutches, from hospital to hospital. Fare ye well, sir: and yet do not you scorn us; for places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man’s head lies at that man’s foot, and so lower and lower.
	Exit.
Delio	I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys For a notorious murder; and ’twas thought The cardinal suborn’d it: he was releas’d By the French general, Gaston de Foix, When he recover’d Naples.
Antonio	’Tis great pity He should be thus neglected: I have heard He’s very valiant. This foul melancholy Will poison all his goodness; for, I’ll tell you, If too immoderate sleep be truly said To be an inward rust unto the soul, If then doth follow want of action Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing, Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.

Scene II

The same.

	Antonio, Delio. Enter Silvio, Castruccio, Julia, Roderigo and Grisolan.
Delio	The presence ’gins to fill: you promis’d me To make me the partaker of the natures Of some of your great courtiers.
Antonio	The lord cardinal’s And other strangers’ that are now in court? I shall.⁠—Here comes the great Calabrian duke.
	Enter Ferdinand* and Attendants.*
Ferdinand	Who took the ring oftenest?3
Silvio	Antonio Bologna, my lord.
Ferdinand	Our sister duchess’ great-master of her household? Give him the jewel.⁠—When shall we leave this sportive action, and fall to action indeed?
Castruccio	Methinks, my lord, you should not desire to go to war in person.
Ferdinand	Now for some gravity.⁠—Why, my lord?
Castruccio	It is fitting a soldier arise to be a prince, but not necessary a prince descend to be a captain.
Ferdinand	No?
Castruccio	No, my lord; he were far better do it by a deputy.
Ferdinand	Why should he not as well sleep or eat by a deputy? This might take idle, offensive, and base office from him, whereas the other deprives him of honour.
Castruccio	Believe my experience, that realm is never long in quiet where the ruler is a soldier.
Ferdinand	Thou toldest me thy wife could not endure fighting.
Castruccio	True, my lord.
Ferdinand	And of a jest she broke of4 a captain she met full of wounds: I have forgot it.
Castruccio	She told him, my lord, he was a pitiful fellow, to lie, like the children of Ismael, all in tents.5
Ferdinand	Why, there’s a wit were able to undo all the chirurgeons6 o’ the city; for although gallants should quarrel, and had drawn their weapons, and were ready to go to it, yet her persuasions would make them put up.
Castruccio	That she would, my lord.⁠—How do you like my Spanish gennet?7
Roderigo	He is all fire.
Ferdinand	I am of Pliny’s opinion, I think he was begot by the wind; he runs as if he were ballass’d8 with quicksilver.
Silvio	True, my lord, he reels from the tilt often.
Roderigo	Ha, ha, ha!
Grisolan
Ferdinand	Why do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers should be my touchwood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.
Castruccio	True, my lord: I myself have heard a very good jest, and have scorn’d to seem to have so silly a wit as to understand it.
Ferdinand	But I can laugh at your fool, my lord.
Castruccio	He cannot speak, you know, but he makes faces; my lady cannot abide him.
Ferdinand	No?
Castruccio	Nor endure to be in merry company; for she says too much laughing, and too much company, fills her too full of the wrinkle.
Ferdinand	I would, then, have a mathematical instrument made for her face, that she might not laugh out of compass.⁠—I shall shortly visit you at Milan, Lord Silvio.
Silvio	Your grace shall arrive most welcome.
Ferdinand	You are a good horseman, Antonio; you have excellent riders in France: what do you think of good horsemanship?
Antonio	Nobly, my lord: as out of the Grecian horse issued many famous princes, so out of brave horsemanship arise the first sparks of growing resolution, that raise the mind to noble action.
Ferdinand	You have bespoke it worthily.
Silvio	Your brother, the lord cardinal, and sister duchess.
	Enter Cardinal, with Duchess* and Cariola.*
Cardinal	Are the galleys come about?
Grisolan	They are, my lord.
Ferdinand	Here’s the Lord Silvio is come to take his leave.
Delio	Now, sir, your promise: what’s that cardinal? I mean his temper? They say he’s a brave fellow, Will play his five thousand crowns at tennis, dance, Court ladies, and one that hath fought single combats.
Antonio	Some such flashes superficially hang on him for form; but observe his inward character: he is a melancholy churchman. The spring in his face is nothing but the engend’ring of toads; where he is jealous of any man, he lays worse plots for them than ever was impos’d on Hercules, for he strews in his way flatterers, panders, intelligencers, atheists, and a thousand such political monsters. He should have been Pope; but instead of coming to it by the primitive decency of the church, he did bestow bribes so largely and so impudently as if he would have carried it away without heaven’s knowledge. Some good he hath done⁠—
Delio	You have given too much of him. What’s his brother?
Antonio	The duke there? A most perverse and turbulent nature. What appears in him mirth is merely outside; If he laught heartily, it is to laugh All honesty out of fashion.
Delio	Twins?
Antonio	In quality. He speaks with others’ tongues, and hears men’s suits With others’ ears; will seem to sleep o’ the bench Only to entrap offenders in their answers; Dooms men to death by information; Rewards by hearsay.
Delio	Then the law to him Is like a foul, black cobweb to a spider⁠— He makes it his dwelling and a prison To entangle those shall feed him.
Antonio	Most true: He never pays debts unless they be shrewd turns, And those he will confess that he doth owe. Last, for this brother there, the cardinal, They that do flatter him most say oracles Hang at his lips; and verily I believe them, For the devil speaks in them. But for their sister, the right noble duchess, You never fix’d your eye on three fair medals Cast in one figure, of so different temper. For her discourse, it is so full of rapture, You only will begin then to be sorry When she doth end her speech, and wish, in wonder, She held it less vainglory to talk much, Than your penance to hear her. Whilst she speaks, She throws upon a man so sweet a look That it were able to raise one to a galliard.9 That lay in a dead palsy, and to dote On that sweet countenance; but in that look There speaketh so divine a continence As cuts off all lascivious and vain hope. Her days are practis’d in such noble virtue, That sure her nights, nay, more, her very sleeps, Are more in heaven than other ladies’ shrifts. Let all sweet ladies break their flatt’ring glasses, And dress themselves in her.
Delio	Fie, Antonio, You play the wire-drawer with her commendations.
Antonio	I’ll case the picture up: only thus much; All her particular worth grows to this sum⁠— She stains10 the time past, lights the time to come.
Cariola	You must attend my lady in the gallery, Some half and hour hence.
Antonio	I shall.
	Exeunt Antonio* and Delio.*
Ferdinand	Sister, I have a suit to you.
Duchess	To me, sir?
Ferdinand	A gentleman here, Daniel de Bosola, One that was in the galleys⁠—
Duchess	Yes, I know him.
Ferdinand	A worthy fellow he is: pray, let me entreat for The provisorship of your horse.
Duchess	Your knowledge of him Commends him and prefers him.
Ferdinand	Call him hither.
	Exit Attendant.
	We are now upon11 parting. Good Lord Silvio, Do us commend to all our noble friends At the leaguer.
Silvio	Sir, I shall.
Duchess	You are for Milan?
Silvio	I am.
Duchess	Bring the caroches.12⁠—We’ll bring you down To the haven.
	Exeunt Duchess, Silvio, Castruccio, Roderigo, Grisolan, Cariola, Julia, and Attendants.
Cardinal	Be sure you entertain that Bosola For your intelligence.13 I would not be seen in’t; And therefore many times I have slighted him When he did court our furtherance, as this morning.
Ferdinand	Antonio, the great-master of her household, Had been far fitter.
Cardinal	You are deceiv’d in him. His nature is too honest for such business.⁠— He comes: I’ll leave you.
	Exit.
	Re-enter Bosala.
Bosola	I was lur’d to you.
Ferdinand	My brother, here, the cardinal, could never Abide you.
Bosola	Never since he was in my debt.
Ferdinand	May be some oblique character in your face Made him suspect you.
Bosola	Doth he study physiognomy? There’s no more credit to be given to the face Than to a sick man’s urine, which some call The physician’s whore, because she cozens14 him. He did suspect me wrongfully.
Ferdinand	For that You must give great men leave to take their times. Distrust doth cause us seldom be deceiv’d. You see the oft shaking of the cedar-tree Fastens it more at root.
Bosola	Yet take heed; For to suspect a friend unworthily Instructs him the next way to suspect you, And prompts him to deceive you.
Ferdinand	There’s gold.
Bosola	So: What follows? Aside. Never rain’d such showers as these Without thunderbolts i’ the tail of them.⁠—Whose throat must I cut?
Ferdinand	Your inclination to shed blood rides post Before my occasion to use you. I give you that To live i’ the court here, and observe the duchess; To note all the particulars of her haviour, What suitors do solicit her for marriage, And whom she best affects. She’s a young widow: I would not have her marry again.
Bosola	No, sir?
Ferdinand	Do not you ask the reason; but be satisfied. I say I would not.
Bosola	It seems you would create me One of your familiars.
Ferdinand	Familiar! What’s that?
Bosola	Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh⁠— An intelligencer.15
Ferdinand	Such a kind of thriving thing I would wish thee; and ere long thou mayst arrive At a higher place by’t.
Bosola	Take your devils, Which hell calls angels! These curs’d gifts would make You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor; And should I take these, they’d take me [to] hell.
Ferdinand	Sir, I’ll take nothing from you that I have given. There is a place that I procur’d for you This morning, the provisorship o’ the horse; Have you heard on’t?
Bosola	No.
Ferdinand	’Tis yours: is’t not worth thanks?
Bosola	I would have you curse yourself now, that your bounty (Which makes men truly noble) e’er should make me A villain. O, that to avoid ingratitude For the good deed you have done me, I must do All the ill man can invent! Thus the devil Candies all sins o’er; and what heaven terms vile, That names he complimental.
Ferdinand	Be yourself; Keep your old garb of melancholy; ’twill express You envy those that stand above your reach, Yet strive not to come near ’em. This will gain Access to private lodgings, where yourself May, like a politic dormouse⁠—
Bosola	As I have seen some Feed in a lord’s dish, half asleep, not seeming To listen to any talk; and yet these rogues Have cut his throat in a dream. What’s my place? The provisorship o’ the horse? Say, then, my corruption Grew out of horse-dung: I am your creature.
Ferdinand	Away!
	Exit.
Bosola	Let good men, for good deeds, covet good fame, Since place and riches oft are bribes of shame. Sometimes the devil doth preach.
	Exit.

Scene III

Malfi. Gallery in the Duchess’ palace.

	Enter Ferdinand, Duchess, Cardinal, and Cariola.
Cardinal	We are to part from you; and your own discretion Must now be your director.
Ferdinand	You are a widow: You know already what man is; and therefore Let not youth, high promotion, eloquence⁠—
Cardinal	No, Nor anything without the addition, honour, Sway your high blood.
Ferdinand	Marry! they are most luxurious16 Will wed twice.
Cardinal	O, fie!
Ferdinand	Their livers are more spotted Than Laban’s sheep.17
Duchess	Diamonds are of most value, They say, that have pass’d through most jewellers’ hands.
Ferdinand	Whores by that rule are precious.
Duchess	Will you hear me? I’ll never marry.
Cardinal	So most widows say; But commonly that motion lasts no longer Than the turning of an hourglass: the funeral sermon And it end both together.
Ferdinand	Now hear me: You live in a rank pasture, here, i’ the court; There is a kind of honeydew that’s deadly; ’T will poison your fame; look to’t. Be not cunning; For they whose faces do belie their hearts Are witches ere they arrive at twenty years, Ay, and give the devil suck.
Duchess	This is terrible good counsel.
Ferdinand	Hypocrisy is woven of a fine small thread, Subtler than Vulcan’s engine:18 yet, believe’t, Your darkest actions, nay, your privat’st thoughts, Will come to light.
Cardinal	You may flatter yourself, And take your own choice; privately be married Under the eaves of night⁠—
Ferdinand	Think’t the best voyage That e’er you made; like the irregular crab, Which, though’t goes backward, thinks that it goes right Because it goes its own way: but observe, Such weddings may more properly be said To be executed than celebrated.
Cardinal	The marriage night Is the entrance into some prison.
Ferdinand	And those joys, Those lustful pleasures, are like heavy sleeps Which do fore-run man’s mischief.
Cardinal	Fare you well. Wisdom begins at the end: remember it.
	Exit.
Duchess	I think this speech between you both was studied, It came so roundly off.
Ferdinand	You are my sister; This was my father’s poniard, do you see? I’d be loth to see’t look rusty, ’cause ’twas his. I would have you give o’er these chargeable revels: A visor and a mask are whispering-rooms That were never built for goodness⁠—fare ye well⁠— And women like variety of courtship. What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale Make a woman believe? Farewell, lusty widow.
	Exit.
Duchess	Shall this move me? If all my royal kindred Lay in my way unto this marriage, I’d make them my low footsteps. And even now, Even in this hate, as men in some great battles, By apprehending danger, have achiev’d Almost impossible actions (I have heard soldiers say so), So I through frights and threatenings will assay This dangerous venture. Let old wives report I wink’d and chose a husband.⁠—Cariola, To thy known secrecy I have given up More than my life⁠—my fame.
Cariola	Both shall be safe; For I’ll conceal this secret from the world As warily as those that trade in poison Keep poison from their children.
Duchess	Thy protestation Is ingenious and hearty; I believe it. Is Antonio come?
Cariola	He attends you.
Duchess	Good dear soul, Leave me; but place thyself behind the arras, Where thou mayst overhear us. Wish me good speed; For I am going into a wilderness, Where I shall find nor path nor friendly clue To be my guide.
	Cariola goes behind the arras.
	Enter Antonio.
	I sent for you: sit down; Take pen and ink, and write: are you ready?
Antonio	Yes.
Duchess	What did I say?
Antonio	That I should write somewhat.
Duchess	O, I remember. After these triumphs and this large expense It’s fit, like thrifty husbands,19 we inquire What’s laid up for tomorrow.
Antonio	So please your beauteous excellence.
Duchess	Beauteous! Indeed, I thank you. I look young for your sake; You have ta’en my cares upon you.
Antonio	I’ll fetch your grace The particulars of your revenue and expense.
Duchess	O, you are An upright treasurer: but you mistook; For when I said I meant to make inquiry What’s laid up for tomorrow, I did mean What’s laid up yonder for me.
Antonio	Where?
Duchess	In heaven. I am making my will (as ’tis fit princes should, In perfect memory), and, I pray, sir, tell me, Were not one better make it smiling, thus, Than in deep groans and terrible ghastly looks, As if the gifts we parted with procur’d20 That violent distraction?
Antonio	O, much better.
Duchess	If I had a husband now, this care were quit: But I intend to make you overseer. What good deed shall we first remember? Say.
Antonio	Begin with that first good deed began i’ the world After man’s creation, the sacrament of marriage; I’d have you first provide for a good husband; Give him all.
Duchess	All!
Antonio	Yes, your excellent self.
Duchess	In a winding-sheet?
Antonio	In a couple.
Duchess	Saint Winifred, that were a strange will!
Antonio	’Twere stranger21 if there were no will in you To marry again.
Duchess	What do you think of marriage?
Antonio	I take’t, as those that deny purgatory, It locally contains or heaven or hell; There’s no third place in’t.
Duchess	How do you affect it?
Antonio	My banishment, feeding my melancholy, Would often reason thus.
Duchess	Pray, let’s hear it.
Antonio	Say a man never marry, nor have children, What takes that from him? Only the bare name Of being a father, or the weak delight To see the little wanton ride a-cock-horse Upon a painted stick, or hear him chatter Like a taught starling.
Duchess	Fie, fie, what’s all this? One of your eyes is bloodshot; use my ring to’t. They say ’tis very sovereign. ’Twas my wedding-ring, And I did vow never to part with it But to my second husband.
Antonio	You have parted with it now.
Duchess	Yes, to help your eyesight.
Antonio	You have made me stark blind.
Duchess	How?
Antonio	There is a saucy and ambitious devil Is dancing in this circle.
Duchess	Remove him.
Antonio	How?
Duchess	There needs small conjuration, when your finger May do it: thus. Is it fit? She puts the ring upon his finger: he kneels.
Antonio	What said you?
Duchess	Sir, This goodly roof of yours is too low built; I cannot stand upright in’t nor discourse, Without I raise it higher. Raise yourself; Or, if you please, my hand to help you: so. Raises him.
Antonio	Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness, That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms, But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt With the wild noise of prattling visitants, Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure. Conceive not I am so stupid but I aim22 Whereto your favours tend: but he’s a fool That, being a-cold, would thrust his hands i’ the fire To warm them.
Duchess	So, now the ground’s broke, You may discover what a wealthy mine I make your lord of.
Antonio	O my unworthiness!
Duchess	You were ill to sell yourself: This dark’ning of your worth is not like that Which tradesmen use i’ the city; their false lights Are to rid bad wares off: and I must tell you, If you will know where breathes a complete man (I speak it without flattery), turn your eyes, And progress through yourself.
Antonio	Were there nor heaven nor hell, I should be honest: I have long serv’d virtue, And ne’er ta’en wages of her.
Duchess	Now she pays it. The misery of us that are born great! We are forc’d to woo, because none dare woo us; And as a tyrant doubles with his words, And fearfully equivocates, so we Are forc’d to express our violent passions In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path Of simple virtue, which was never made To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom: I hope ’twill multiply love there. You do tremble: Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh, To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident: What is’t distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; ’Tis not the figure cut in alabaster Kneels at my husband’s tomb. Awake, awake, man! I do here put off all vain ceremony, And only do appear to you a young widow That claims you for her husband, and, like a widow, I use but half a blush in’t.
Antonio	Truth speak for me; I will remain the constant sanctuary Of your good name.
Duchess	I thank you, gentle love: And ’cause you shall not come to me in debt, Being now my steward, here upon your lips I sign your Quietus est.23 This you should have begg’d now. I have seen children oft eat sweetmeats thus, As fearful to devour them too soon.
Antonio	But for your brothers?
Duchess	Do not think of them: All discord without this circumference Is only to be pitied, and not fear’d: Yet, should they know it, time will easily Scatter the tempest.
Antonio	These words should be mine, And all the parts you have spoke, if some part of it Would not have savour’d flattery.
Duchess	Kneel.
	Cariola comes from behind the arras.
Antonio	Ha!
Duchess	Be not amaz’d; this woman’s of my counsel: I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber Per verba [de] presenti24 is absolute marriage. She and Antonio* kneel.*
	Bless, heaven, this sacred gordian25 which let violence Never untwine!
Antonio	And may our sweet affections, like the spheres, Be still in motion!
Duchess	Quickening, and make The like soft music!
Antonio	That we may imitate the loving palms, Best emblem of a peaceful marriage, That never bore fruit, divided!
Duchess	What can the church force more?
Antonio	That fortune may not know an accident, Either of joy or sorrow, to divide Our fixed wishes!
Duchess	How can the church build faster?26 We now are man and wife, and ’tis the church That must but echo this.⁠—Maid, stand apart: I now am blind.
Antonio	What’s your conceit in this?
Duchess	I would have you lead your fortune by the hand Unto your marriage-bed: (You speak in me this, for we now are one:) We’ll only lie and talk together, and plot To appease my humorous27 kindred; and if you please, Like the old tale in Alexander and Lodowick, Lay a naked sword between us, keep us chaste. O, let me shrowd my blushes in your bosom, Since ’tis the treasury of all my secrets!
	Exeunt Duchess* and Antonio.*
Cariola	Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows A fearful madness. I owe her much of pity.
	Exit.

Act II

Scene I

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

	Enter Bosala* and Castruccio.*
Bosola	You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?
Castruccio	’Tis the very main28 of my ambition.
Bosola	Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for’t already, and your nightcap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace, and in a set speech, at th’ end of every sentence, to hum three or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.
Castruccio	I would be a very merry president.
Bosola	Do not sup o’ nights; ’twill beget you an admirable wit.
Castruccio	Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel; for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for an eminent fellow?
Bosola	I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying, and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken for one of the prime nightcaps.29
	Enter an Old Lady.
	You come from painting now.
Old Lady	From what?
Bosola	Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not painted inclines somewhat near a miracle. These in thy face here were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress.30 There was a lady in France that, having had the smallpox, flayed the skin off her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedgehog.
Old Lady	Do you call this painting?
Bosola	No, no, but you call [it] careening31 of an old morphewed32 lady, to make her disembogue33 again: there’s roughcast phrase to your plastic.34
Old Lady	It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.
Bosola	One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews’ spittle, and their young children’s ordure; and all these for the face. 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. Here are two of you, whose sin of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew his foot-cloth with the spring, and change his high-pric’d courtesan with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. Observe my meditation now. What thing is in this outward form of man To be belov’d? We account it ominous, If nature do produce a colt, or lamb, A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling A man, and fly from’t as a prodigy: Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity In any other creature but himself. But in our own flesh though we bear diseases Which have their true names only ta’en from beasts⁠— As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle⁠— Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear, Nay, all our terror, is, lest our physician Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.⁠— Your wife’s gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot.
	Exeunt Castruccio* and Old Lady.*
	I observe our duchess Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes, The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue,35 She wanes i’ the cheek, and waxes fat i’ the flank, And, contrary to our Italian fashion, Wears a loose-bodied gown: there’s somewhat in’t. I have a trick may chance discover it, A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks, The first our spring yields.
	Enter Antonio* and Delio, talking together apart.*
Delio	And so long since married? You amaze me.
Antonio	Let me seal your lips forever: For, did I think that anything but th’ air Could carry these words from you, I should wish You had no breath at all.⁠—Now, sir, in your contemplation? You are studying to become a great wise fellow.
Bosola	O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter36 that runs all over a man’s body: if simplicity direct us to have no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.
Antonio	I do understand your inside.
Bosola	Do you so?
Antonio	Because you would not seem to appear to th’ world Puff’d up with your preferment, you continue This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.
Bosola	Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer’s mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and business; for, mark me, when a man’s mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both tire.
Antonio	You would look up to heaven, but I think The devil, that rules i’ th’ air, stands in your light.
Bosola	O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant,37 chief man with the duchess: a duke was your cousin-german remov’d. Say you were lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this? Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons: they are deceiv’d, there’s the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province, and batter down goodly cities with the cannon.
	Enter Duchess* and Ladies.*
Duchess	Your arm, Antonio: do I not grow fat? I am exceeding short-winded.⁠—Bosola, I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter; Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.
Bosola	The duchess us’d one when she was great with child.
Duchess	I think she did.⁠—Come hither, mend my ruff: Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and Thy breath smells of lemon-pills: would thou hadst done! Shall I swoon under thy fingers? I am So troubled with the mother!38
Bosola	Aside. I fear too much.
Duchess	I have heard you say that the French courtiers Wear their hats on ’fore that king.
Antonio	I have seen it.
Duchess	In the presence?
Antonio	Yes.
Duchess	Why should not we bring up that fashion? ’Tis ceremony more than duty that consists In the removing of a piece of felt. Be you the example to the rest o’ th’ court; Put on your hat first.
Antonio	You must pardon me: I have seen, in colder countries than in France, Nobles stand bare to th’ prince; and the distinction Methought show’d reverently.
Bosola	I have a present for your grace.
Duchess	For me, sir?
Bosola	Apricocks, madam.
Duchess	O, sir, where are they? I have heard of none to-year39
Bosola	Aside. Good; her colour rises.
Duchess	Indeed, I thank you: they are wondrous fair ones. What an unskilful fellow is our gardener! We shall have none this month.
Bosola	Will not your grace pare them?
Duchess	No: they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.
Bosola	I know not: yet I wish your grace had par’d ’em.
Duchess	Why?
Bosola	I forgot to tell you, the knave gardener, Only to raise his profit by them the sooner, Did ripen them in horse-dung.
Duchess	O, you jest.⁠— You shall judge: pray, taste one.
Antonio	Indeed, madam, I do not love the fruit.
Duchess	Sir, you are loth To rob us of our dainties. ’Tis a delicate fruit; They say they are restorative.
Bosola	’Tis a pretty art, This grafting.
Duchess	’Tis so; a bettering of nature.
Bosola	To make a pippin grow upon a crab, A damson on a blackthorn.⁠—Aside. How greedily she eats them! A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales! For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown, I should have discover’d apparently40 The young springal41 cutting a caper in her belly.
Duchess	I thank you, Bosola: they were right good ones, If they do not make me sick.
Antonio	How now, madam!
Duchess	This green fruit and my stomach are not friends: How they swell me!
Bosola	Aside. Nay, you are too much swell’d already.
Duchess	O, I am in an extreme cold sweat!
Bosola	I am very sorry.
	Exit.
Duchess	Lights to my chamber!⁠—O good Antonio, I fear I am undone!
Delio	Lights there, lights!
	Exeunt Duchess* and Ladies.*
Antonio	O my most trusty Delio, we are lost! I fear she’s fall’n in labour; and there’s left No time for her remove.
Delio	Have you prepar’d Those ladies to attend her; and procur’d That politic safe conveyance for the midwife Your duchess plotted?
Antonio	I have.
Delio	Make use, then, of this forc’d occasion. Give out that Bosola hath poison’d her With these apricocks; that will give some colour For her keeping close.
Antonio	Fie, fie, the physicians Will then flock to her.
Delio	For that you may pretend She’ll use some prepar’d antidote of her own, Lest the physicians should re-poison her.
Antonio	I am lost in amazement: I know not what to think on’t.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

A hall in the same palace.

	Enter Bosala* and Old Lady.*
Bosola	So, so, there’s no question but her techiness42 and most vulturous eating of the apricocks are apparent signs of breeding, now?
Old Lady	I am in haste, sir.
Bosola	There was a young waiting-woman had a monstrous desire to see the glasshouse⁠—
Old Lady	Nay, pray, let me go. I will hear no more of the glasshouse. You are still43 abusing women!
Bosola	Who, I? No; only, by the way now and then, mention your frailties. The orange-tree bears ripe and green fruit and blossoms all together; and some of you give entertainment for pure love, but more for more precious reward. The lusty spring smells well; but drooping autumn tastes well. If we have the same golden showers that rained in the time of Jupiter the thunderer, you have the same Danaes still, to hold up their laps to receive them. Didst thou never study the mathematics?
Old Lady	What’s that, sir?
Bosola	Why, to know the trick how to make a many lines meet in one centre. Go, go, give your foster-daughters good counsel: tell them, that the devil takes delight to hang at a woman’s girdle, like a false rusty watch, that she cannot discern how the time passes.
	Exit Old Lady.
	Enter Antonio, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Antonio	Shut up the court-gates.
Roderigo	Why, sir? What’s the danger?
Antonio	Shut up the posterns presently, and call All the officers o’ th’ court.
Grisolan	I shall instantly.
	Exit.
Antonio	Who keeps the key o’ th’ park-gate?
Roderigo	Forobosco.
Antonio	Let him bring’t presently.
	Re-enter Grisolan* with Servants.*
First Servant	O, gentleman o’ th’ court, the foulest treason!
Bosola	Aside. If that these apricocks should be poison’d now, Without my knowledge?
First Servant	There was taken even now a Switzer in the duchess’ bedchamber⁠—
Second Servant	A Switzer!
First Servant	With a pistol⁠—
Second Servant	There was a cunning traitor!
First Servant	And all the moulds of his buttons were leaden bullets.
Second Servant	O wicked cannibal!
First Servant	’Twas a French plot, upon my life.
Second Servant	To see what the devil can do!
Antonio	Are all the officers here?
Servants	We are.
Antonio	Gentlemen, We have lost much plate, you know; and but this evening Jewels, to the value of four thousand ducats, Are missing in the duchess’ cabinet. Are the gates shut?
Servant	Yes.
Antonio	’Tis the duchess’ pleasure Each officer be lock’d into his chamber Till the sun-rising; and to send the keys Of all their chests and of their outward doors Into her bedchamber. She is very sick.
Roderigo	At her pleasure.
Antonio	She entreats you take’t not ill: the innocent Shall be the more approv’d by it.
Bosola	Gentlemen o’ the wood-yard, where’s your Switzer now?
First Servant	By this hand, ’twas credibly reported by one o’ the black guard.44
	Exeunt all except Antonio* and Delio.*
Delio	How fares it with the duchess?
Antonio	She’s expos’d Unto the worst of torture, pain, and fear.
Delio	Speak to her all happy comfort.
Antonio	How I do play the fool with mine own danger! You are this night, dear friend, to post to Rome: My life lies in your service.
Delio	Do not doubt me.
Antonio	O, ’tis far from me: and yet fear presents me Somewhat that looks like danger.
Delio	Believe it, ’Tis but the shadow of your fear, no more: How superstitiously we mind our evils! The throwing down salt, or crossing of a hare, Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse, Or singing of a cricket, are of power To daunt whole man in us. Sir, fare you well: I wish you all the joys of a bless’d father; And, for my faith, lay this unto your breast⁠— Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.
	Exit.
	Enter Cariola.
Cariola	Sir, you are the happy father of a son: Your wife commends him to you.
Antonio	Blessed comfort!⁠— For heaven’ sake, tend her well: I’ll presently45 Go set a figure for’s nativity.46
	Exeunt.

Scene III

The court of the same palace.

	Enter Bosala, with a dark lantern.
Bosola	Sure I did hear a woman shriek: list, ha! And the sound came, if I receiv’d it right, From the duchess’ lodgings. There’s some stratagem In the confining all our courtiers To their several wards: I must have part of it; My intelligence will freeze else. List, again! It may be ’twas the melancholy bird, Best friend of silence and of solitariness, The owl, that screamed so.⁠—Ha! Antonio!
	Enter Antonio* with a candle, his sword drawn.*
Antonio	I heard some noise.⁠—Who’s there? What art thou? Speak.
Bosola	Antonio, put not your face nor body To such a forc’d expression of fear; I am Bosola, your friend.
Antonio	Bosola!⁠— Aside. This mole does undermine me.⁠—Heard you not A noise even now?
Bosola	From whence?
Antonio	From the duchess’ lodging.
Bosola	Not I: did you?
Antonio	I did, or else I dream’d.
Bosola	Let’s walk towards it.
Antonio	No: it may be ’twas But the rising of the wind.
Bosola	Very likely. Methinks ’tis very cold, and yet you sweat: You look wildly.
Antonio	I have been setting a figure47 For the duchess’ jewels.
Bosola	Ah, and how falls your question? Do you find it radical?48
Antonio	What’s that to you? ’Tis rather to be question’d what design, When all men were commanded to their lodgings, Makes you a nightwalker.
Bosola	In sooth, I’ll tell you: Now all the court’s asleep, I thought the devil Had least to do here; I came to say my prayers; And if it do offend you I do so, You are a fine courtier.
Antonio	Aside. This fellow will undo me.⁠— You gave the duchess apricocks today: Pray heaven they were not poison’d!
Bosola	Poison’d! a Spanish fig For the imputation!
Antonio	Traitors are ever confident Till they are discover’d. There were jewels stol’n too: In my conceit, none are to be suspected More than yourself.
Bosola	You are a false steward.
Antonio	Saucy slave, I’ll pull thee up by the roots.
Bosola	May be the ruin will crush you to pieces.
Antonio	You are an impudent snake indeed, sir: Are you scarce warm, and do you show your sting? You libel49 well, sir?
Bosola	No, sir: copy it out, And I will set my hand to’t.
Antonio	Aside. My nose bleeds. One that were superstitious would count This ominous, when it merely comes by chance. Two letters, that are wrought here for my name,50 Are drown’d in blood! Mere accident.⁠—For you, sir, I’ll take order I’ the morn you shall be safe.⁠—Aside. ’Tis that must colour Her lying-in.⁠—Sir, this door you pass not: I do not hold it fit that you come near The duchess’ lodgings, till you have quit yourself.⁠— Aside. The great are like the base, nay, they are the same, When they seek shameful ways to avoid shame.
	Exit.
Bosola	Antonio hereabout did drop a paper:⁠— Some of your help, false friend.51⁠—O, here it is. What’s here? a child’s nativity calculated! Reads. “The duchess was deliver’d of a son, ’tween the hours twelve and one in the night, Anno Dom. 1504,”⁠—that’s this year⁠—“decimo nono Decembris,”⁠—that’s this night⁠—“taken according to the meridian of Malfi,”⁠—that’s our duchess: happy discovery!⁠—“The lord of the first house being combust in the ascendant, signifies short life; and Mars being in a human sign, joined to the tail of the Dragon, in the eighth house, doth threaten a violent death. Caetera non scrutantur.”52 Why, now ’tis most apparent; this precise fellow Is the duchess’ bawd:⁠—I have it to my wish! This is a parcel of intelligency53 Our courtiers were cas’d up for: it needs must follow That I must be committed on pretence Of poisoning her; which I’ll endure, and laugh at. If one could find the father now! but that Time will discover. Old Castruccio 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 thrifty54 way! Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise, She’s oft found witty, but is never wise.
	Exit.

Scene IV

Rome. An apartment in the palace of the Cardinal.

	Enter Cardinal* and Julia.*
Cardinal	Sit: thou art my best of wishes. Prithee, tell me What trick didst thou invent to come to Rome Without thy husband?
Julia	Why, my lord, I told him I came to visit an old anchorite55 Here for devotion.
Cardinal	Thou art a witty false one⁠— I mean, to him.
Julia	You have prevail’d with me Beyond my strongest thoughts; I would not now Find you inconstant.
Cardinal	Do not put thyself To such a voluntary torture, which proceeds Out of your own guilt.
Julia	How, my lord!
Cardinal	You fear My constancy, because you have approv’d56 Those giddy and wild turnings in yourself.
Julia	Did you e’er find them?
Cardinal	Sooth, generally for women, A man might strive to make glass malleable, Ere he should make them fixed.
Julia	So, my lord.
Cardinal	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.
Julia	This is very well, my lord.
Cardinal	Why do you weep? Are tears your justification? The selfsame 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.
Julia	I’ll go home To my husband.
Cardinal	You may thank me, lady, I have taken you off your melancholy perch, Bore you upon my fist, and show’d you game, And let you fly at it.⁠—I pray thee, kiss me.⁠— When thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watch’d 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 fing’ring on the lute, Yet cannot tune it:⁠—still you are to thank me.
Julia	You told me of a piteous wound i’ th’ heart, And a sick liver, when you woo’d me first, And spake like one in physic.57
Cardinal	Who’s that?⁠—
	Enter Servant.
	Rest firm, for my affection to thee, Lightning moves slow to’t.
Servant	Madam, a gentleman, That’s come post from Malfi, desires to see you.
Cardinal	Let him enter: I’ll withdraw.
	Exit.
Servant	He says Your husband, old Castruccio, is come to Rome, Most pitifully tir’d with riding post.
	Exit.
	Enter Delio.
Julia	Aside. Signior Delio! ’tis one of my old suitors.
Delio	I was bold to come and see you.
Julia	Sir, you are welcome.
Delio	Do you lie here?
Julia	Sure, your own experience Will satisfy you no: our Roman prelates Do not keep lodging for ladies.
Delio	Very well: I have brought you no commendations from your husband, For I know none by him.
Julia	I hear he’s come to Rome.
Delio	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.
Julia	Your laughter Is my pity.
Delio	Lady, I know not whether You want money, but I have brought you some.
Julia	From my husband?
Delio	No, from mine own allowance.
Julia	I must hear the condition, ere I be bound to take it.
Delio	Look on’t, ’tis gold; hath it not a fine colour?
Julia	I have a bird more beautiful.
Delio	Try the sound on’t.
Julia	A lute-string far exceeds it. It hath no smell, like cassia or civet; Nor is it physical,58 though some fond doctors Persuade us seethe’t in cullises.59 I’ll tell you, This is a creature bred by⁠—
	Re-enter Servant.
Servant	Your husband’s come, Hath deliver’d a letter to the Duke of Calabria That, to my thinking, hath put him out of his wits.
	Exit.
Julia	Sir, you hear: Pray, let me know your business and your suit As briefly as can be.
Delio	With good speed: I would wish you, At such time as you are nonresident With your husband, my mistress.
Julia	Sir, I’ll go ask my husband if I shall, And straight return your answer.
	Exit.
Delio	Very fine! Is this her wit, or honesty, that speaks thus? I heard one say the duke was highly mov’d With a letter sent from Malfi. I do fear Antonio is betray’d. 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

Another apartment in the same palace.

	Enter Cardinal* and Ferdinand with a letter.*
Ferdinand	I have this night digg’d up a mandrake.60
Cardinal	Say you?
Ferdinand	And I am grown mad with’t.
Cardinal	What’s the prodigy?
Ferdinand	Read there⁠—a sister damn’d: she’s loose i’ the hilts;61 Grown a notorious strumpet.
Cardinal	Speak lower.
Ferdinand	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 conveyances for lust Than towns of garrison for service.
Cardinal	Is’t possible? Can this be certain?
Ferdinand	Rhubarb, O, for rhubarb To purge this choler! Here’s the cursed day To prompt my memory; and here’t shall stick Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge To wipe it out.
Cardinal	Why do you make yourself So wild a tempest?
Ferdinand	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 honours.
Cardinal	Shall our blood, The royal blood of Arragon and Castile, Be thus attainted?
Ferdinand	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.
Cardinal	What to do?
Ferdinand	Why, to make soft lint for his mother’s wounds, When I have hew’d her to pieces.
Cardinal	Curs’d creature! Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts So far upon the left side!62
Ferdinand	Foolish men, That e’er will trust their honour in a bark Made of so slight weak bulrush as is woman, Apt every minute to sink it!
Cardinal	Thus ignorance, when it hath purchas’d honour, It cannot wield it.
Ferdinand	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.
Cardinal	With whom?
Ferdinand	Happily with some strong-thigh’d bargeman, Or one o’ th’ wood-yard that can quoit the sledge63 Or toss the bar, or else some lovely squire That carries coals up to her privy lodgings.
Cardinal	You fly beyond your reason.
Ferdinand	Go to, mistress! ’Tis not your whore’s milk that shall quench my wildfire, But your whore’s blood.
Cardinal	How idly shows this rage, which carries you, As men convey’d 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.
Ferdinand	Have not you My palsy?
Cardinal	Yes, [but] I can be angry Without this rupture. There is not in nature A thing that makes man so deform’d, so beastly, As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself. You have divers men who never yet express’d Their strong desire of rest but by unrest, By vexing of themselves. Come, put yourself In tune.
Ferdinand	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.
Cardinal	Are you stark mad?
Ferdinand	I would have their bodies Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopp’d, That their curs’d 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-boil64 their bastard to a cullis, And give’t his lecherous father to renew The sin of his back.
Cardinal	I’ll leave you.
Ferdinand	Nay, I have done. I am confident, had I been damn’d 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 [loves] 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

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

	Enter Antonio* and Delio.*
Antonio	Our noble friend, my most beloved Delio! O, you have been a stranger long at court: Came you along with the Lord Ferdinand?
Delio	I did, sir: and how fares your noble duchess?
Antonio	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.
Delio	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.
Antonio	You have not been in law, friend Delio, Nor in prison, nor a suitor at the court, Nor begg’d the reversion of some great man’s place, Nor troubled with an old wife, which doth make Your time so insensibly hasten.
Delio	Pray, sir, tell me, Hath not this news arriv’d yet to the ear Of the lord cardinal?
Antonio	I fear it hath: The Lord Ferdinand, that’s newly come to court, Doth bear himself right dangerously.
Delio	Pray, why?
Antonio	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.
Delio	What say the common people?
Antonio	The common rabble do directly say She is a strumpet.
Delio	And your graver heads Which would be politic, what censure they?
Antonio	They do observe I grow to infinite purchase,65 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 unconfined 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.
Delio	The Lord Ferdinand Is going to bed.
	Enter Duchess, Ferdinand, and Attendants.
Ferdinand	I’ll instantly to bed, For I am weary.⁠—I am to bespeak A husband for you.
Duchess	For me, sir! Pray, who is’t?
Ferdinand	The great Count Malatesti.
Duchess	Fie upon him! A count! He’s a mere stick of sugar-candy; You may look quite through him. When I choose A husband, I will marry for your honour.
Ferdinand	You shall do well in’t.⁠—How is’t, worthy Antonio?
Duchess	But, sir, I am to have private conference with you About a scandalous report is spread Touching mine honour.
Ferdinand	Let me be ever deaf to’t: One of Pasquil’s paper-bullets,66 court-calumny, A pestilent air, which princes’ palaces Are seldom purg’d of. Yet, say that it were true, I pour it in your bosom, my fix’d love Would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny Faults, were they apparent in you. Go, be safe In your own innocency.
Duchess	Aside. O bless’d comfort! This deadly air is purg’d.
	Exeunt Duchess, Antonio, Delio, and Attendants.
Ferdinand	Her guilt treads on Hot-burning coulters.67
	Enter Bosala.
	Now, Bosola, How thrives our intelligence?68
Bosola	Sir, uncertainly: ’Tis rumour’d she hath had three bastards, but By whom we may go read i’ the stars.
Ferdinand	Why, some Hold opinion all things are written there.
Bosola	Yes, if we could find spectacles to read them. I do suspect there hath been some sorcery Us’d on the duchess.
Ferdinand	Sorcery! to what purpose?
Bosola	To make her dote on some desertless fellow She shames to acknowledge.
Ferdinand	Can your faith give way To think there’s power in potions or in charms, To make us love whether we will or no?
Bosola	Most certainly.
Ferdinand	Away! these are mere gulleries,69 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 lenitive70 poisons, such as are of force To make the patient mad; and straight the witch 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 bedchamber.
Bosola	I have.
Ferdinand	As I would wish.
Bosola	What do you intend to do?
Ferdinand	Can you guess?
Bosola	No.
Ferdinand	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.
Bosola	I do not Think so.
Ferdinand	What do you think, then, pray?
Bosola	That you Are your own chronicle too much, and grossly Flatter yourself.
Ferdinand	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.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

The bedchamber of the Duchess in the same.

	Enter Duchess, Antonio, and Cariola.
Duchess	Bring me the casket hither, and the glass.⁠— You get no lodging here tonight, my lord.
Antonio	Indeed, I must persuade one.
Duchess	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.
Antonio	I must lie here.
Duchess	Must! You are a lord of misrule.
Antonio	Indeed, my rule is only in the night.
Duchess	To what use will you put me?
Antonio	We’ll sleep together
Duchess	Alas, what pleasure can two lovers find in sleep?
Cariola	My lord, I lie with her often, and I know She’ll much disquiet you.
Antonio	See, you are complain’d of.
Cariola	For she’s the sprawling’st bedfellow.
Antonio	I shall like her the better for that.
Cariola	Sir, shall I ask you a question?
Antonio	Ay, pray thee, Cariola.
Cariola	Wherefore still, when you lie with my lady, Do you rise so early?
Antonio	Labouring men Count the clock oftenest, Cariola, Are glad when their task’s ended.
Duchess	I’ll stop your mouth. Kisses him.
Antonio	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?
Cariola	Never, my lord.
Antonio	O, fie upon this single life! forgo it. We read how Daphne, for her peevish [flight,]71 Became a fruitless bay-tree; Syrinx turn’d To the pale empty reed; Anaxarete Was frozen into marble: whereas those Which married, or prov’d kind unto their friends, Were by a gracious influence transhap’d Into the olive, pomegranate, mulberry, Became flowers, precious stones, or eminent stars.
Cariola	This is a vain poetry: but I pray you, tell me, If there were propos’d me, wisdom, riches, and beauty, In three several young men, which should I choose?
Antonio	’Tis a hard question. This was Paris’ case, And he was blind in’t, and there was a great cause; For how was’t possible he could judge right, Having three amorous goddesses in view, And they stark naked? ’Twas a motion Were able to benight the apprehension Of the severest counsellor of Europe. Now I look on both your faces so well form’d, It puts me in mind of a question I would ask.
Cariola	What is’t?
Antonio	I do wonder why hard-favour’d ladies, For the most part, keep worse-favour’d waiting-women To attend them, and cannot endure fair ones.
Duchess	O, that’s soon answer’d. Did you ever in your life know an ill painter Desire to have his dwelling next door to the shop Of an excellent picture-maker? ’Twould disgrace His face-making, and undo him. I prithee, When were we so merry?⁠—My hair tangles.
Antonio	Pray thee, Cariola, let’s steal forth the room, And let her talk to herself: I have divers times Serv’d her the like, when she hath chaf’d extremely. I love to see her angry. Softly, Cariola.
	Exeunt Antonio* and Cariola.*
Duchess	Doth not the colour of my hair ’gin to change? When I wax gray, I shall have all the court Powder their hair with arras,72 to be like me. You have cause to love me; I ent’red you into my heart
	Enter Ferdinand* unseen.*
	Before you would vouchsafe to call for the keys. We shall one day have my brothers take you napping. Methinks his presence, being now in court, Should make you keep your own bed; but you’ll say Love mix’d with fear is sweetest. I’ll assure you, You shall get no more children till my brothers Consent to be your gossips. Have you lost your tongue? ’Tis welcome: For know, whether I am doom’d to live or die, I can do both like a prince.
Ferdinand	Die, then, quickly! Giving her a poniard.
	Virtue, where art thou hid? What hideous thing Is it that doth eclipse thee?
Duchess	Pray, sir, hear me.
Ferdinand	Or is it true thou art but a bare name, And no essential thing?
Duchess	Sir⁠—
Ferdinand	Do not speak.
Duchess	No, sir: I will plant my soul in mine ears, to hear you.
Ferdinand	O most imperfect light of human reason, That mak’st [us] so unhappy to foresee What we can least prevent! Pursue thy wishes, And glory in them: there’s in shame no comfort But to be past all bounds and sense of shame.
Duchess	I pray, sir, hear me: I am married.
Ferdinand	So!
Duchess	Happily, not to your liking: but for that, Alas, your shears do come untimely now To clip the bird’s wings that’s already flown! Will you see my husband?
Ferdinand	Yes, if I could change Eyes with a basilisk.
Duchess	Sure, you came hither By his confederacy.
Ferdinand	The howling of a wolf Is music to thee, screech-owl: prithee, peace.⁠— Whate’er thou art that hast enjoy’d my sister, For I am sure thou hear’st me, for thine own sake Let me not know thee. I came hither prepar’d To work thy discovery; yet am now persuaded It would beget such violent effects As would damn us both. I would not for ten millions I had beheld thee: therefore use all means I never may have knowledge of thy name; Enjoy thy lust still, and a wretched life, On that condition.⁠—And for thee, vile woman, If thou do wish thy lecher may grow old In thy embracements, I would have thee build Such a room for him as our anchorites To holier use inhabit. Let not the sun Shine on him till he’s dead; let dogs and monkeys Only converse with him, and such dumb things To whom nature denies use to sound his name; Do not keep a paraquito, lest she learn it; If thou do love him, cut out thine own tongue, Lest it bewray him.
Duchess	Why might not I marry? I have not gone about in this to create Any new world or custom.
Ferdinand	Thou art undone; And thou hast ta’en that massy sheet of lead That hid thy husband’s bones, and folded it About my heart.
Duchess	Mine bleeds for’t.
Ferdinand	Thine! thy heart! What should I name’t unless a hollow bullet Fill’d with unquenchable wildfire?
Duchess	You are in this Too strict; and were you not my princely brother, I would say, too wilful: my reputation Is safe.
Ferdinand	Dost thou know what reputation is? I’ll tell thee⁠—to small purpose, since the instruction Comes now too late. Upon a time Reputation, Love, and Death, Would travel o’er the world; and it was concluded That they should part, and take three several ways. Death told them, they should find him in great battles, Or cities plagu’d with plagues: Love gives them counsel To inquire for him ’mongst unambitious shepherds, Where dowries were not talk’d of, and sometimes ’Mongst quiet kindred that had nothing left By their dead parents: “Stay,” quoth Reputation, “Do not forsake me; for it is my nature, If once I part from any man I meet, I am never found again.” And so for you: You have shook hands with Reputation, And made him invisible. So, fare you well: I will never see you more.
Duchess	Why should only I, Of all the other princes of the world, Be cas’d up, like a holy relic? I have youth And a little beauty.
Ferdinand	So you have some virgins That are witches. I will never see thee more.
	Exit.
	Re-enter Antonio* with a pistol, and Cariola.*
Duchess	You saw this apparition?
Antonio	Yes: we are Betray’d. How came he hither? I should turn This to thee, for that.
Cariola	Pray, sir, do; and when That you have cleft my heart, you shall read there Mine innocence.
Duchess	That gallery gave him entrance.
Antonio	I would this terrible thing would come again, That, standing on my guard, I might relate My warrantable love.⁠—
	She shows the poniard.
	Ha! what means this?
Duchess	He left this with me.
Antonio	And it seems did wish You would use it on yourself.
Duchess	His action seem’d To intend so much.
Antonio	This hath a handle to’t, As well as a point: turn it towards him, and So fasten the keen edge in his rank gall.
	Knocking within.
	How now! who knocks? More earthquakes?
Duchess	I stand As if a mine beneath my feet were ready To be blown up.
Cariola	’Tis Bosola.
Duchess	Away! O misery! methinks unjust actions Should wear these masks and curtains, and not we. You must instantly part hence: I have fashion’d it already.
	Exit Antonio.
	Enter Bosala.
Bosola	The duke your brother is ta’en up in a whirlwind; Hath took horse, and’s rid post to Rome.
Duchess	So late?
Bosola	He told me, as he mounted into the saddle, You were undone.
Duchess	Indeed, I am very near it.
Bosola	What’s the matter?
Duchess	Antonio, the master of our household, Hath dealt so falsely with me in’s accounts. My brother stood engag’d with me for money Ta’en up of certain Neapolitan Jews, And Antonio lets the bonds be forfeit.
Bosola	Strange!⁠—Aside. This is cunning.
Duchess	And hereupon My brother’s bills at Naples are protested Against.⁠—Call up our officers.
Bosola	I shall.
	Exit.
	Re-enter Antonio.
Duchess	The place that you must fly to is Ancona: Hire a house there; I’ll send after you My treasure and my jewels. Our weak safety Runs upon enginous wheels:73 short syllables Must stand for periods. I must now accuse you Of such a feigned crime as Tasso calls Magnanima menzogna, a noble lie, ’Cause it must shield our honours.⁠—Hark! they are coming.
	Re-enter Bosala* and Officers.*
Antonio	Will your grace hear me?
Duchess	I have got well by you; you have yielded me A million of loss: I am like to inherit The people’s curses for your stewardship. You had the trick in audit-time to be sick, Till I had sign’d your quietus;74 and that cur’d you Without help of a doctor.⁠—Gentlemen, I would have this man be an example to you all; So shall you hold my favour; I pray, let him; For h’as done that, alas, you would not think of, And, because I intend to be rid of him, I mean not to publish.⁠—Use your fortune elsewhere.
Antonio	I am strongly arm’d to brook my overthrow, As commonly men bear with a hard year. I will not blame the cause on’t; but do think The necessity of my malevolent star Procures this, not her humour. O, the inconstant And rotten ground of service! You may see, ’Tis even like him, that in a winter night, Takes a long slumber o’er a dying fire, A-loth to part from’t; yet parts thence as cold As when he first sat down.
Duchess	We do confiscate, Towards the satisfying of your accounts, All that you have.
Antonio	I am all yours; and ’tis very fit All mine should be so.
Duchess	So, sir, you have your pass.
Antonio	You may see, gentlemen, what ’tis to serve A prince with body and soul.
	Exit.
Bosola	Here’s an example for extortion: what moisture is drawn out of the sea, when foul weather comes, pours down, and runs into the sea again.
Duchess	I would know what are your opinions Of this Antonio.
Second Officer	He could not abide to see a pig’s head gaping: I thought your grace would find him a Jew.
Third Officer	I would you had been his officer, for your own sake.
Fourth Officer	You would have had more money.
First Officer	He stopped his ears with black wool, and to those came to him for money said he was thick of hearing.
Second Officer	Some said he was an hermaphrodite, for he could not abide a woman.
Fourth Officer	How scurvy proud he would look when the treasury was full! Well, let him go.
First Officer	Yes, and the chippings of the buttery fly after him, to scour his gold chain.75
Duchess	Leave us.
	Exeunt Officers.
	What do you think of these?
Bosola	That these are rogues that in’s prosperity, But to have waited on his fortune, could have wish’d His dirty stirrup riveted through their noses, And follow’d after’s mule, like a bear in a ring; Would have prostituted their daughters to his lust; Made their firstborn intelligencers;76 thought none happy But such as were born under his blest planet, And wore his livery: and do these lice drop off now? Well, never look to have the like again: He hath left a sort77 of flattering rogues behind him; Their doom must follow. Princes pay flatterers In their own money: flatterers dissemble their vices, And they dissemble their lies; that’s justice. Alas, poor gentleman!
Duchess	Poor! he hath amply fill’d his coffers.
Bosola	Sure, he was too honest. Pluto,78 the god of riches, When he’s sent by Jupiter to any man, He goes limping, to signify that wealth That comes on God’s name comes slowly; but when he’s sent On the devil’s errand, he rides post and comes in by scuttles.79 Let me show you what a most unvalu’d jewel You have in a wanton humour thrown away, To bless the man shall find him. He was an excellent Courtier and most faithful; a soldier that thought it As beastly to know his own value too little As devilish to acknowledge it too much. Both his virtue and form deserv’d a far better fortune: His discourse rather delighted to judge itself than show itself: His breast was fill’d with all perfection, And yet it seemed a private whisp’ring-room, It made so little noise of’t.
Duchess	But he was basely descended.
Bosola	Will you make yourself a mercenary herald, Rather to examine men’s pedigrees than virtues? You shall want80 him: For know an honest statesman to a prince Is like a cedar planted by a spring; The spring bathes the tree’s root, the grateful tree Rewards it with his shadow: you have not done so. I would sooner swim to the Bermoothes on Two politicians’ rotten bladders, tied Together with an intelligencer’s heart-string, Than depend on so changeable a prince’s favour. Fare thee well, Antonio! Since the malice of the world Would needs down with thee, it cannot be said yet That any ill happen’d unto thee, considering thy fall Was accompanied with virtue.
Duchess	O, you render me excellent music!
Bosola	Say you?
Duchess	This good one that you speak of is my husband.
Bosola	Do I not dream? Can this ambitious age Have so much goodness in’t as to prefer A man merely for worth, without these shadows Of wealth and painted honours? Possible?
Duchess	I have had three children by him.
Bosola	Fortunate lady! For you have made your private nuptial bed The humble and fair seminary of peace, No question but: many an unbenefic’d scholar Shall pray for you for this deed, and rejoice That some preferment in the world can yet Arise from merit. The virgins of your land That have no dowries shall hope your example Will raise them to rich husbands. Should you want Soldiers, ’twould make the very Turks and Moors Turn Christians, and serve you for this act. Last, the neglected poets of your time, In honour of this trophy of a man, Rais’d by that curious engine, your white hand, Shall thank you, in your grave, for’t; and make that More reverend than all the cabinets Of living princes. For Antonio, His fame shall likewise flow from many a pen, When heralds shall want coats to sell to men.
Duchess	As I taste comfort in this friendly speech, So would I find concealment.
Bosola	O, the secret of my prince, Which I will wear on th’ inside of my heart!
Duchess	You shall take charge of all my coin and jewels, And follow him; for he retires himself To Ancona.
Bosola	So.
Duchess	Whither, within few days, I mean to follow thee.
Bosola	Let me think: I would wish your grace to feign a pilgrimage To our Lady of Loretto, scarce seven leagues From fair Ancona; so may you depart Your country with more honour, and your flight Will seem a princely progress, retaining Your usual train about you.
Duchess	Sir, your direction Shall lead me by the hand.
Cariola	In my opinion, She were better progress to the baths at Lucca, Or go visit the Spa In Germany; for, if you will believe me, I do not like this jesting with religion, This feigned pilgrimage.
Duchess	Thou art a superstitious fool: Prepare us instantly for our departure. Past sorrows, let us moderately lament them, For those to come, seek wisely to prevent them.
	Exeunt Duchess* and Cariola.*
Bosola	A politician is the devil’s quilted anvil; He fashions all sins on him, and the blows Are never heard: he may work in a lady’s chamber, As here for proof. What rests81 but I reveal All to my lord? O, this base quality82 Of intelligencer! Why, every quality i’ the world Prefers but gain or commendation: Now, for this act I am certain to be rais’d, And men that paint weeds to the life are prais’d.
	Exit.

Scene III

An apartment in the Cardinal’s palace at Rome.

	Enter Cardinal, Ferdinand, Malatesti, Pescara, Delio, and Silvio.
Cardinal	Must we turn soldier, then?
Malatesti	The emperor, Hearing your worth that way, ere you attain’d This reverend garment, joins you in commission With the right fortunate soldier the Marquis of Pescara, And the famous Lannoy.
Cardinal	He that had the honour Of taking the French king prisoner?
Malatesti	The same. Here’s a plot drawn for a new fortification At Naples.
Ferdinand	This great Count Malatesti, I perceive, Hath got employment?
Delio	No employment, my lord; A marginal note in the muster-book, that he is A voluntary lord.
Ferdinand	He’s no soldier.
Delio	He has worn gunpowder in’s hollow tooth for the toothache.
Silvio	He comes to the leaguer with a full intent To eat fresh beef and garlic, means to stay Till the scent be gone, and straight return to court.
Delio	He hath read all the late service As the City-Chronicle relates it; And keeps two pewterers going, only to express Battles in model.
Silvio	Then he’ll fight by the book.
Delio	By the almanac, I think, To choose good days and shun the critical; That’s his mistress’ scarf.
Silvio	Yes, he protests He would do much for that taffeta.
Delio	I think he would run away from a battle, To save it from taking prisoner.
Silvio	He is horribly afraid Gunpowder will spoil the perfume on’t.
Delio	I saw a Dutchman break his pate once For calling him pot-gun; he made his head Have a bore in’t like a musket.
Silvio	I would he had made a touch-hole to’t. He is indeed a guarded sumpter-cloth,83 Only for the remove of the court.
	Enter Bosala.
Pescara	Bosola arriv’d! What should be the business? Some falling-out amongst the cardinals. These factions amongst great men, they are like Foxes, when their heads are divided, They carry fire in their tails, and all the country About them goes to wrack for’t.
Silvio	What’s that Bosola?
Delio	I knew him in Padua⁠—a fantastical scholar, like such who study to know how many knots was in Hercules’ club, of what colour Achilles’ beard was, or whether Hector were not troubled with the toothache. He hath studied himself half blear-eyed to know the true symmetry of Caesar’s nose by a shoeing-horn; and this he did to gain the name of a speculative man.
Pescara	Mark Prince Ferdinand: A very salamander lives in’s eye, To mock the eager violence of fire.
Silvio	That cardinal hath made more bad faces with his oppression than ever Michaelangelo made good ones. He lifts up’s nose, like a foul porpoise before a storm.
Pescara	The Lord Ferdinand laughs.
Delio	Like a deadly cannon That lightens ere it smokes.
Pescara	These are your true pangs of death, The pangs of life, that struggle with great statesmen.
Delio	In such a deformed silence witches whisper their charms.
Cardinal	Doth she make religion her riding-hood To keep her from the sun and tempest?
Ferdinand	That, that damns her. Methinks her fault and beauty, Blended together, show like leprosy, The whiter, the fouler. I make it a question Whether her beggarly brats were ever christ’ned.
Cardinal	I will instantly solicit the state of Ancona To have them banish’d.
Ferdinand	You are for Loretto: I shall not be at your ceremony; fare you well.⁠— Write to the Duke of Malfi, my young nephew She had by her first husband, and acquaint him With’s mother’s honesty.
Bosola	I will.
Ferdinand	Antonio! A slave that only smell’d of ink and counters, And never in’s life look’d like a gentleman, But in the audit-time.⁠—Go, go presently, Draw me out an hundred and fifty of our horse, And meet me at the footbridge.
	Exeunt.

Scene IV

	Enter Two Pilgrims to the Shrine of our Lady of Loretto.
First Pilgrim	I have not seen a goodlier shrine than this; Yet I have visited many.
Second Pilgrim	The Cardinal of Arragon Is this day to resign his cardinal’s hat: His sister duchess likewise is arriv’d To pay her vow of pilgrimage. I expect A noble ceremony.
First Pilgrim	No question.⁠—They come.
	Here the ceremony of the Cardinal’s instalment, in the habit of a soldier, perform’d in delivering up his cross, hat, robes, and ring, at the shrine, and investing him with sword, helmet, shield, and spurs; then Antonio, the Duchess and their children, having presented themselves at the shrine, are, by a form of banishment in dumb-show expressed towards them by the Cardinal and the state of Ancona, banished: during all which ceremony, this ditty is sung, to very solemn music, by divers churchmen: and then exeunt all except the Two Pilgrims.
	Arms and honours deck thy story, To thy fame’s eternal glory! Adverse fortune ever fly thee; No disastrous fate come nigh thee! I alone will sing thy praises, Whom to honour virtue raises, And thy study, that divine is, Bent to martial discipline is, Lay aside all those robes lie by thee; Crown thy arts with arms, they’ll beautify thee.
	O worthy of worthiest name, adorn’d in this manner, Lead bravely thy forces on under war’s warlike banner! O, mayst thou prove fortunate in all martial courses! Guide thou still by skill in arts and forces! Victory attend thee nigh, whilst fame sings loud thy powers; Triumphant conquest crown thy head, and blessings pour down showers!84
First Pilgrim	Here’s a strange turn of state! who would have thought So great a lady would have match’d herself Unto so mean a person? Yet the cardinal Bears himself much too cruel.
Second Pilgrim	They are banish’d.
First Pilgrim	But I would ask what power hath this state Of Ancona to determine of a free prince?
Second Pilgrim	They are a free state, sir, and her brother show’d How that the Pope, fore-hearing of her looseness, Hath seiz’d into th’ protection of the church The dukedom which she held as dowager.
First Pilgrim	But by what justice?
Second Pilgrim	Sure, I think by none, Only her brother’s instigation.
First Pilgrim	What was it with such violence he took Off from her finger?
Second Pilgrim	’Twas her wedding-ring; Which he vow’d shortly he would sacrifice To his revenge.
First Pilgrim	Alas, Antonio! If that a man be thrust into a well, No matter who sets hand to’t, his own weight Will bring him sooner to th’ bottom. Come, let’s hence. Fortune makes this conclusion general, All things do help th’ unhappy man to fall.
	Exeunt.

Scene V

Near Loretto.

	Enter Duchess, Antonio, Children, Cariola, and Servants.
Duchess	Banish’d Ancona!
Antonio	Yes, you see what power Lightens in great men’s breath.
Duchess	Is all our train Shrunk to this poor remainder?
Antonio	These poor men Which have got little in your service, vow To take your fortune: but your wiser buntings,85 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 Bosala* 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. Reads. “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: Reads. ’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 Bloodhounds abroad; which till I hear are muzzl’d, 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 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 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.
	Exeunt Antonio* and his son.*
Duchess	My laurel is all withered.
Cariola	Look, madam, what a troop of armed men Make toward us!
	Re-enter Bosala* visarded, with a Guard.*
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 counterfeit’st 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 heark’ned to the last too much.
Duchess	O misery! like to a rusty o’ercharg’d cannon, Shall I never 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 face86 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 dogfish, who encounters her With this rough language; “Why art thou so bold To mix thyself with our high state of floods, Being no eminent 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 pass’d 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 they’re 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.
	Exeunt.

Act IV

Scene I

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

	Enter Ferdinand* and Bosala.*
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 mastives that grow fierce with tying, Makes her too passionately apprehend Those pleasures she is 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* and Attendants.*
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.
	Exeunt Attendants with lights.
	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 practise, that he hath left A dead man’s hand here?
	Here is discovered, behind a traverse,87 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 yon’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,88 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 despatch 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 these 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;⁠—
	Exit Servant.
	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, Never be remembered 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.
	Re-enter Ferdinand.
Ferdinand	Excellent, as I would wish; she’s plagu’d in art.89 These presentations are but fram’d in wax By the curious master in that quality,90 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 run pure in’t, was more worth Than that which thou wouldst comfort, call’d 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 move forth the common hospital All the mad-folk, and place them near her lodging; There let them practise together, sing and dance, And act 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 intelligence91 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 nev’r will slack till it hath spent his fuel: Intemperate agues make physicians cruel.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

Another room in the lodging of the Duchess.

	Enter Duchess* and Cariola.*
Duchess	What hideous noise was that?
Cariola	’Tis the wild consort92 Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother Hath plac’d about your lodging. This tyranny, I think, was never practis’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.
Cariola	O, ’twill increase your melancholy!
Duchess	Thou art deceiv’d: To hear of greater grief would lessen mine. This is a prison?
Cariola	Yes, but you shall live To shake this durance off.
Duchess	Thou art a fool: The robin-red-breast and the nightingale Never live long in cages.
Cariola	Pray, dry your eyes. What think you of, madam?
Duchess	Of nothing; When I muse thus, I sleep.
Cariola	Like a madman, with your eyes open?
Duchess	Dost thou think we shall know one another In th’ other world?
Cariola	Yes, out of question.
Duchess	O, that it were possible we might But hold some two days’ conference with the dead! From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure, I never shall know here. I’ll tell thee a miracle: I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow: Th’ heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass, The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad. I am acquainted with sad misery As the tann’d galley-slave is with his oar; Necessity makes me suffer constantly, And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?
Cariola	Like to your picture in the gallery, A deal of life in show, but none in practice; Or rather like some reverend monument Whose ruins are even pitied.
Duchess	Very proper; And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight To behold my tragedy.⁠—How now! What noise is that?
	Enter Servant.
Servant	I am come to tell you Your brother hath intended you some sport. A great physician, when the Pope was sick Of a deep melancholy, presented him With several sorts93 of madmen, which wild object Being full of change and sport, forc’d him to laugh, And so the imposthume94 broke: the selfsame cure The duke intends on you.
Duchess	Let them come in.
Servant	There’s a mad lawyer; and a secular priest; A doctor that hath forfeited his wits By jealousy; an astrologian That in his works said such a day o’ the month Should be the day of doom, and, failing of’t, Ran mad; an English tailor craz’d i’ the brain With the study of new fashions; a gentleman-usher Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind The number of his lady’s salutations Or “How do you,” she employ’d him in each morning; A farmer, too, an excellent knave in grain,95 Mad ’cause he was hind’red transportation:96 And let one broker that’s mad loose to these, You’d think the devil were among them.
Duchess	Sit, Cariola.⁠—Let them loose when you please, For I am chain’d to endure all your tyranny.
	Enter Madmen.
	Here by a Madman this song is sung to a dismal kind of music. O, let us howl some heavy note, Some deadly dogged howl, Sounding as from the threatening throat Of beasts and fatal fowl! As ravens, screech-owls, bulls, and bears, We’ll bell, and bawl our parts, Till irksome noise have cloy’d your ears And corrosiv’d your hearts. At last, whenas our choir wants breath, Our bodies being blest, We’ll sing, like swans, to welcome death, And die in love and rest.
First Madman	Doom’s-day not come yet! I’ll draw it nearer by a perspective,97 or make a glass that shall set all the world on fire upon an instant. I cannot sleep; my pillow is stuffed with a litter of porcupines.
Second Madman	Hell is a mere glasshouse, where the devils are continually blowing up women’s souls on hollow irons, and the fire never goes out.
First Madman	I have skill in heraldry.
Second Madman	Hast?
First Madman	You do give for your crest a woodcock’s head with the brains picked out on’t; you are a very ancient gentleman.
Third Madman	Greek is turned Turk: we are only to be saved by the Helvetian translation.98
First Madman	Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you.
Second Madman	O, rather lay a corrosive: the law will eat to the bone.
Third Madman	He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damn’d.
Fourth Madman	If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should make all the women here call me mad doctor.
First Madman	What’s he? a rope-maker?
Second Madman	No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows the tombs, will have his hand in a wench’s placket.99
Third Madman	Woe to the caroche100 that brought home my wife from the masque at three o’clock in the morning! It had a large featherbed in it.
Fourth Madman	I have pared the devil’s nails forty times, roasted them in raven’s eggs, and cured agues with them.
Third Madman	Get me three hundred milch-bats, to make possets101 to procure sleep.
Fourth Madman	All the college may throw their caps at me: I have made a soap-boiler costive; it was my masterpiece.
	Here the dance, consisting of Eight Madmen, with music answerable thereunto; after which, Bosala, like an old man, enters.
Duchess	Is he mad too?
Servant	Pray, question him. I’ll leave you.
	Exeunt Servant and Madmen.
Bosola	I am come to make thy tomb.
Duchess	Ha! my tomb! Thou speak’st as if I lay upon my deathbed, Gasping for breath. Dost thou perceive me sick?
Bosala	Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.
Duchess	Thou art not mad, sure: dost know me?
Bosola	Yes.
Duchess	Who am I?
Bosola	Thou art a box of wormseed, at best but a salvatory102 of green mummy.103 What’s this flesh? a little crudded104 milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o’er our heads like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.
Duchess	Am not I thy duchess?
Bosola	Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid’s. Thou sleepest worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat’s ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow.
Duchess	I am Duchess of Malfi still.
Bosola	That makes thy sleep so broken: Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright, But, look’d to near, have neither heat nor light.
Duchess	Thou art very plain.
Bosola	My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living; I am a tomb-maker.
Duchess	And thou comest to make my tomb?
Bosola	Yes.
Duchess	Let me be a little merry:⁠—of what stuff wilt thou make it?
Bosola	Nay, resolve me first, of what fashion?
Duchess	Why, do we grow fantastical on our deathbed? Do we affect fashion in the grave?
Bosola	Most ambitiously. Princes’ images on their tombs do not lie, as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks, as if they died of the toothache. They are not carved with their eyes fix’d upon the stars, but as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the selfsame way they seem to turn their faces.
Duchess	Let me know fully therefore the effect Of this thy dismal preparation, This talk fit for a charnel.
Bosola	Now I shall:⁠—
	Enter Executioners, with a coffin, cords, and a bell.
	Here is a present from your princely brothers; And may it arrive welcome, for it brings Last benefit, last sorrow.
Duchess	Let me see it: I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good.
Bosola	This is your last presence-chamber.
Cariola	O my sweet lady!
Duchess	Peace; it affrights not me.
Bosola	I am the common bellman That usually is sent to condemn’d persons The night before they suffer.
Duchess	Even now thou said’st Thou wast a tomb-maker.
Bosola	’Twas to bring you By degrees to mortification. Listen. Hark, now everything is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud! Much you had of land and rent; Your length in clay’s now competent: A long war disturb’d your mind; Here your perfect peace is sign’d. Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping? Sin their conception, their birth weeping, Their life a general mist of error, Their death a hideous storm of terror. Strew your hair with powders sweet, Don clean linen, bathe your feet, And (the foul fiend more to check) A crucifix let bless your neck. ’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day; End your groan, and come away.
Cariola	Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers! Alas! What will you do with my lady?⁠—Call for help!
Duchess	To whom? To our next neighbours? They are mad-folks.
Bosola	Remove that noise.
Duchess	Farewell, Cariola. In my last will I have not much to give: A many hungry guests have fed upon me; Thine will be a poor reversion.
Cariola	I will die with her.
Duchess	I pray thee, look thou giv’st my little boy Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl Say her prayers ere she sleep.
	Cariola is forced out by the Executioners.
	Now what you please: What death?
Bosola	Strangling; here are your executioners.
Duchess	I forgive them: The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o’ th’ lungs, Would do as much as they do.
Bosola	Doth not death fright you?
Duchess	Who would be afraid on’t, Knowing to meet such excellent company In th’ other world?
Bosola	Yet, methinks, The manner of your death should much afflict you: This cord should terrify you.
Duchess	Not a whit: What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut With diamonds? or to be smothered With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls? I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits; and ’tis found They go on such strange geometrical hinges, You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven-sake, So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers That I perceive death, now I am well awake, Best gift is they can give or I can take. I would fain put off my last woman’s-fault, I’d not be tedious to you.
First Executioner	We are ready.
Duchess	Dispose my breath how please you; but my body Bestow upon my women, will you?
First Executioner	Yes.
Duchess	Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength Must pull down heaven upon me:⁠— Yet stay; heaven-gates are not so highly arch’d As princes’ palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees. Kneels.⁠—Come, violent death, Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!⁠— Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out, They then may feed in quiet.
	They strangle her.
Bosola	Where’s the waiting-woman? Fetch her: some other strangle the children.
	Enter Cariola.
	Look you, there sleeps your mistress.
Cariola	O, you are damn’d Perpetually for this! My turn is next; Is’t not so ordered?
Bosola	Yes, and I am glad You are so well prepar’d for’t.
Cariola	You are deceiv’d, sir, I am not prepar’d for’t, I will not die; I will first come to my answer,105 and know How I have offended.
Bosola	Come, despatch her.⁠— You kept her counsel; now you shall keep ours.
Cariola	I will not die, I must not; I am contracted To a young gentleman.
First Executioner	Here’s your wedding-ring.
Cariola	Let me but speak with the duke. I’ll discover Treason to his person.
Bosola	Delays:⁠—throttle her.
First Executioner	She bites and scratches.
Cariola	If you kill me now, I am damn’d; I have not been at confession This two years.
Bosola	To Executioners. When?106
Cariola	I am quick with child.
Bosola	Why, then, Your credit’s saved.
	Executioners strangle Cariola.
	Bear her into the next room; Let these lie still.
	Exeunt the Executioners with the body of Cariola.
	Enter Ferdinand.
Ferdinand	Is she dead?
Bosola	She is what You’d have her. But here begin your pity: Shows the Children strangled. Alas, how have these offended?
Ferdinand	The death Of young wolves is never to be pitied.
Bosola	Fix your eye here.
Ferdinand	Constantly.
Bosola	Do you not weep? Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. The element of water moistens the earth, But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.
Ferdinand	Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.
Bosola	I think not so; her infelicity Seem’d to have years too many.
Ferdinand	She and I were twins; And should I die this instant, I had liv’d Her time to a minute.
Bosola	It seems she was born first: You have bloodily approv’d the ancient truth, That kindred commonly do worse agree Than remote strangers.
Ferdinand	Let me see her face Again. Why didst thou not pity her? What An excellent honest man mightst thou have been, If thou hadst borne her to some sanctuary! Or, bold in a good cause, oppos’d thyself, With thy advanced sword above thy head, Between her innocence and my revenge! I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits, Go kill my dearest friend, and thou hast done’t. For let me but examine well the cause: What was the meanness of her match to me? Only I must confess I had a hope, Had she continu’d widow, to have gain’d An infinite mass of treasure by her death: And that was the main cause⁠—her marriage, That drew a stream of gall quite through my heart. For thee, as we observe in tragedies That a good actor many times is curs’d For playing a villain’s part, I hate thee for’t, And, for my sake, say, thou hast done much ill well.
Bosola	Let me quicken your memory, for I perceive You are falling into ingratitude: I challenge The reward due to my service.
Ferdinand	I’ll tell thee What I’ll give thee.
Bosola	Do.
Ferdinand	I’ll give thee a pardon For this murder.
Bosola	Ha!
Ferdinand	Yes, and ’tis The largest bounty I can study to do thee. By what authority didst thou execute This bloody sentence?
Bosola	By yours.
Ferdinand	Mine! was I her judge? Did any ceremonial form of law Doom her to not-being? Did a complete jury Deliver her conviction up i’ the court? Where shalt thou find this judgment register’d, Unless in hell? See, like a bloody fool, Thou ’st forfeited thy life, and thou shalt die for’t.
Bosola	The office of justice is perverted quite When one thief hangs another. Who shall dare To reveal this?
Ferdinand	O, I’ll tell thee; The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up, Not to devour the corpse, but to discover The horrid murder.
Bosola	You, not I, shall quake for’t.
Ferdinand	Leave me.
Bosola	I will first receive my pension.
Ferdinand	You are a villain.
Bosola	When your ingratitude Is judge, I am so.
Ferdinand	O horror, That not the fear of him which binds the devils Can prescribe man obedience!⁠— Never look upon me more.
Bosola	Why, fare thee well. Your brother and yourself are worthy men! You have a pair of hearts are hollow graves, Rotten, and rotting others; and your vengeance, Like two chain’d-bullets, still goes arm in arm: You may be brothers; for treason, like the plague, Doth take much in a blood. I stand like one That long hath ta’en a sweet and golden dream: I am angry with myself, now that I wake.
Ferdinand	Get thee into some unknown part o’ the world, That I may never see thee.
Bosola	Let me know Wherefore I should be thus neglected. Sir, I serv’d your tyranny, and rather strove To satisfy yourself than all the world: And though I loath’d the evil, yet I lov’d You that did counsel it; and rather sought To appear a true servant than an honest man.
Ferdinand	I’ll go hunt the badger by owl-light: ’Tis a deed of darkness.
	Exit.
Bosola	He’s much distracted. Off, my painted honour! While with vain hopes our faculties we tire, We seem to sweat in ice and freeze in fire. What would I do, were this to do again? I would not change my peace of conscience For all the wealth of Europe.⁠—She stirs; here’s life:⁠— Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine Out of this sensible hell:⁠—she’s warm, she breathes:⁠— Upon thy pale lips I will melt my heart, To store them with fresh colour.⁠—Who’s there? Some cordial drink!⁠—Alas! I dare not call: So pity would destroy pity.⁠—Her eye opes, And heaven in it seems to ope, that late was shut, To take me up to mercy.
Duchess	Antonio!
Bosola	Yes, madam, he is living; The dead bodies you saw were but feign’d statues. He’s reconcil’d to your brothers; the Pope hath wrought The atonement.
Duchess	Mercy! Dies.
Bosola	O, she’s gone again! there the cords of life broke. O sacred innocence, that sweetly sleeps On turtles’ feathers, whilst a guilty conscience Is a black register wherein is writ All our good deeds and bad, a perspective That shows us hell! That we cannot be suffer’d To do good when we have a mind to it! This is manly sorrow; These tears, I am very certain, never grew In my mother’s milk. My estate is sunk Below the degree of fear: where were These penitent fountains while she was living? O, they were frozen up! Here is a sight As direful to my soul as is the sword Unto a wretch hath slain his father. Come, I’ll bear thee hence, And execute thy last will; that’s deliver Thy body to the reverend dispose Of some good women: that the cruel tyrant Shall not deny me. Then I’ll post to Milan, Where somewhat I will speedily enact Worth my dejection.
	Exit with the body.

Act V

Scene I

Milan. A public place.

	Enter Antonio* and Delio.*
Antonio	What think you of my hope of reconcilement To the Arragonian brethren?
Delio	I misdoubt it; For though they have sent their letters of safe-conduct For your repair to Milan, they appear But nets to entrap you. The Marquis of Pescara, Under whom you hold certain land in cheat,107 Much ’gainst his noble nature hath been mov’d To seize those lands; and some of his dependants Are at this instant making it their suit To be invested in your revenues. I cannot think they mean well to your life That do deprive you of your means of life, Your living.
Antonio	You are still an heretic108 To any safety I can shape myself.
Delio	Here comes the marquis: I will make myself Petitioner for some part of your land, To know whither it is flying.
Antonio	I pray, do.
	Withdraws.
	Enter Pescara.
Delio	Sir, I have a suit to you.
Pescara	To me?
Delio	An easy one: There is the Citadel of Saint Bennet, With some demesnes, of late in the possession Of Antonio Bologna⁠—please you bestow them on me.
Pescara	You are my friend; but this is such a suit, Nor fit for me to give, nor you to take.
Delio	No, sir?
Pescara	I will give you ample reason for’t Soon in private:⁠—here’s the cardinal’s mistress.
	Enter Julia.
Julia	My lord, I am grown your poor petitioner, And should be an ill beggar, had I not A great man’s letter here, the cardinal’s, To court you in my favour.Gives a letter.
Pescara	He entreats for you The Citadel of Saint Bennet, that belong’d To the banish’d Bologna.
Julia	Yes.
Pescara	I could not have thought of a friend I could rather Pleasure with it: ’tis yours.
Julia	Sir, I thank you; And he shall know how doubly I am engag’d Both in your gift, and speediness of giving Which makes your grant the greater.
	Exit.
Antonio	How they fortify Themselves with my ruin!
Delio	Sir, I am Little bound to you.
Pescara	Why?
Delio	Because you deni’d this suit to me, and gave’t To such a creature.
Pescara	Do you know what it was? It was Antonio’s land; not forfeited By course of law, but ravish’d from his throat By the cardinal’s entreaty. It were not fit I should bestow so main a piece of wrong Upon my friend; ’tis a gratification Only due to a strumpet, for it is injustice. Shall I sprinkle the pure blood of innocents To make those followers I call my friends Look ruddier upon me? I am glad This land, ta’en from the owner by such wrong, Returns again unto so foul an use As salary for his lust. Learn, good Delio, To ask noble things of me, and you shall find I’ll be a noble giver.
Delio	You instruct me well.
Antonio	Why, here’s a man now would fright impudence From sauciest beggars.
Pescara	Prince Ferdinand’s come to Milan, Sick, as they give out, of an apoplexy; But some say ’tis a frenzy: I am going To visit him.
	Exit.
Antonio	’Tis a noble old fellow.
Delio	What course do you mean to take, Antonio?
Antonio	This night I mean to venture all my fortune, Which is no more than a poor ling’ring life, To the cardinal’s worst of malice. I have got Private access to his chamber; and intend To visit him about the mid of night, As once his brother did our noble duchess. It may be that the sudden apprehension Of danger⁠—for I’ll go in mine own shape⁠— When he shall see it fraight109 with love and duty, May draw the poison out of him, and work A friendly reconcilement. If it fail, Yet it shall rid me of this infamous calling; For better fall once than be ever falling.
Delio	I’ll second you in all danger; and howe’er, My life keeps rank with yours.
Antonio	You are still my lov’d and best friend.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

A gallery in the residence of the Cardinal and Ferdinand.

	Enter Pescara* and Doctor.*
Pescara	Now, doctor, may I visit your patient?
Doctor	If’t please your lordship; but he’s instantly To take the air here in the gallery By my direction.
Pescara	Pray thee, what’s his disease?
Doctor	A very pestilent disease, my lord, They call lycanthropia.
Pescara	What’s that? I need a dictionary to’t.
Doctor	I’ll tell you. In those that are possess’d with’t there o’erflows Such melancholy humour they imagine Themselves to be transformed into wolves; Steal forth to churchyards in the dead of night, And dig dead bodies up: as two nights since One met the duke ’bout midnight in a lane Behind Saint Mark’s church, with the leg of a man Upon his shoulder; and he howl’d fearfully; Said he was a wolf, only the difference Was, a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside, His on the inside; bade them take their swords, Rip up his flesh, and try. Straight I was sent for, And, having minister’d to him, found his grace Very well recover’d.
Pescara	I am glad on’t.
Doctor	Yet not without some fear Of a relapse. If he grow to his fit again, I’ll go a nearer way to work with him Than ever Paracelsus dream’d of; if They’ll give me leave, I’ll buffet his madness out of him. Stand aside; he comes.
	Enter Ferdinand, Cardinal, Malatesti, and Bosala.
Ferdinand	Leave me.
Malatesti	Why doth your lordship love this solitariness?
Ferdinand	Eagles commonly fly alone: they are crows, daws, and starlings that flock together. Look, what’s that follows me?
Malatesti	Nothing, my lord.
Ferdinand	Yes.
Malatesti	’Tis your shadow.
Ferdinand	Stay it; let it not haunt me.
Malatesti	Impossible, if you move, and the sun shine.
Ferdinand	I will throttle it. Throws himself down on his shadow.
Malatesti	O, my lord, you are angry with nothing.
Ferdinand	You are a fool: how is’t possible I should catch my shadow, unless I fall upon’t? When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe; for, look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.
Pescara	Rise, good my lord.
Ferdinand	I am studying the art of patience.
Pescara	’Tis a noble virtue.
Ferdinand	To drive six snails before me from this town to Moscow; neither use goad nor whip to them, but let them take their own time;⁠—the patient’st man i’ th’ world match me for an experiment:⁠—an I’ll crawl after like a sheep-biter.110
Cardinal	Force him up.
	They raise him.
Ferdinand	Use me well, you were best. What I have done, I have done: I’ll confess nothing.
Doctor	Now let me come to him.⁠—Are you mad, my lord? Are you out of your princely wits?
Ferdinand	What’s he?
Pescara	Your doctor.
Ferdinand	Let me have his beard saw’d off, and his eyebrows fil’d more civil.
Doctor	I must do mad tricks with him, for that’s the only way on’t.⁠—I have brought your grace a salamander’s skin to keep you from sunburning.
Ferdinand	I have cruel sore eyes.
Doctor	The white of a cockatrix’s111 egg is present remedy.
Ferdinand	Let it be a new-laid one, you were best. Hide me from him: physicians are like kings⁠—They brook no contradiction.
Doctor	Now he begins to fear me: now let me alone with him.
Cardinal	How now! put off your gown!
Doctor	Let me have some forty urinals filled with rosewater: he and I’ll go pelt one another with them.⁠—Now he begins to fear me.⁠—Can you fetch a frisk,112 sir?⁠—Let him go, let him go, upon my peril: I find by his eye he stands in awe of me; I’ll make him as tame as a dormouse.
Ferdinand	Can you fetch your frisks, sir!⁠—I will stamp him into a cullis,113 flay off his skin to cover one of the anatomies114 this rogue hath set i’ th’ cold yonder in Barber-Chirurgeon’s-hall. —Hence, hence! you are all of you like beasts for sacrifice. Throws the Doctor* down and beats him.* There’s nothing left of you but tongue and belly, flattery and lechery.
	Exit.
Pescara	Doctor, he did not fear you thoroughly.
Doctor	True; I was somewhat too forward.
Bosola	Mercy upon me, what a fatal judgment Hath fall’n upon this Ferdinand!
Pescara	Knows your grace What accident hath brought unto the prince This strange distraction?
Cardinal	Aside. I must feign somewhat.⁠—Thus they say it grew. You have heard it rumour’d, for these many years None of our family dies but there is seen The shape of an old woman, which is given By tradition to us to have been murder’d By her nephews for her riches. Such a figure One night, as the prince sat up late at’s book, Appear’d to him; when crying out for help, The gentleman of’s chamber found his grace All on a cold sweat, alter’d much in face And language: since which apparition, He hath grown worse and worse, and I much fear He cannot live.
Bosola	Sir, I would speak with you.
Pescara	We’ll leave your grace, Wishing to the sick prince, our noble lord, All health of mind and body.
Cardinal	You are most welcome.
	Exeunt Pescara, Malatesti, and Doctor.
	Are you come? so.⁠—Aside. This fellow must not know By any means I had intelligence In our duchess’ death; for, though I counsell’d it, The full of all th’ engagement seem’d to grow From Ferdinand.⁠—Now, sir, how fares our sister? I do not think but sorrow makes her look Like to an oft-dy’d garment: she shall now Take comfort from me. Why do you look so wildly? O, the fortune of your master here the prince Dejects you; but be you of happy comfort: If you’ll do one thing for me I’ll entreat, Though he had a cold tombstone o’er his bones, I’d make you what you would be.
Bosola	Anything; Give it me in a breath, and let me fly to’t. They that think long small expedition win, For musing much o’ th’ end cannot begin.
	Enter Julia.
Julia	Sir, will you come into supper?
Cardinal	I am busy; leave me.
Julia	Aside. What an excellent shape hath that fellow!
	Exit.
Cardinal	’Tis thus. Antonio lurks here in Milan: Inquire him out, and kill him. While he lives, Our sister cannot marry; and I have thought Of an excellent match for her. Do this, and style me Thy advancement.
Bosola	But by what means shall I find him out?
Cardinal	There is a gentleman call’d Delio Here in the camp, that hath been long approv’d His loyal friend. Set eye upon that fellow; Follow him to mass; may be Antonio, Although he do account religion But a school-name, for fashion of the world May accompany him; or else go inquire out Delio’s confessor, and see if you can bribe Him to reveal it. There are a thousand ways A man might find to trace him; as to know What fellows haunt the Jews for taking up Great sums of money, for sure he’s in want; Or else to go to the picture-makers, and learn Who bought115 her picture lately: some of these Happily may take.
Bosola	Well, I’ll not freeze i’ th’ business: I would see that wretched thing, Antonio, Above all sights i’ th’ world.
Cardinal	Do, and be happy.
	Exit.
Bosola	This fellow doth breed basilisks in’s eyes, He’s nothing else but murder; yet he seems Not to have notice of the duchess’ death. ’Tis his cunning: I must follow his example; There cannot be a surer way to trace Than that of an old fox.
	Re-enter Julia, with a pistol.
Julia	So, sir, you are well met.
Bosola	How Now!
Julia	Nay, the doors are fast enough: Now, sir, I will make you confess your treachery.
Bosola	Treachery!
Julia	Yes, confess to me Which of my women ’twas you hir’d to put Love-powder into my drink?
Bosola	Love-powder!
Julia	Yes, when I was at Malfi. Why should I fall in love with such a face else? I have already suffer’d for thee so much pain, The only remedy to do me good Is to kill my longing.
Bosola	Sure, your pistol holds Nothing but perfumes or kissing-comfits.116 Excellent lady! You have a pretty way on’t to discover Your longing. Come, come, I’ll disarm you, And arm you thus: yet this is wondrous strange.
Julia	Compare thy form and my eyes together, You’ll find my love no such great miracle. Now you’ll say I am wanton: this nice modesty in ladies Is but a troublesome familiar That haunts them.
Bosola	Know you me, I am a blunt soldier.
Julia	The better: Sure, there wants fire where there are no lively sparks Of roughness.
Bosola	And I want compliment.
Julia	Why, ignorance In courtship cannot make you do amiss, If you have a heart to do well.
Bosola	You are very fair.
Julia	Nay, if you lay beauty to my charge, I must plead unguilty.
Bosola	Your bright eyes Carry a quiver of darts in them sharper Than sunbeams.
Julia	You will mar me with commendation, Put yourself to the charge of courting me, Whereas now I woo you.
Bosola	Aside. I have it, I will work upon this creature.⁠— Let us grow most amorously familiar: If the great cardinal now should see me thus, Would he not count me a villain?
Julia	No; he might count me a wanton, Not lay a scruple of offence on you; For if I see and steal a diamond, The fault is not i’ th’ stone, but in me the thief That purloins it. I am sudden with you. We that are great women of pleasure use to cut off These uncertain wishes and unquiet longings, And in an instant join the sweet delight And the pretty excuse together. Had you been i’ th’ street, Under my chamber-window, even there I should have courted you.
Bosola	O, you are an excellent lady!
Julia	Bid me do somewhat for you presently To express I love you.
Bosola	I will; and if you love me, Fail not to effect it. The cardinal is grown wondrous melancholy; Demand the cause, let him not put you off With feign’d excuse; discover the main ground on’t.
Julia	Why would you know this?
Bosola	I have depended on him, And I hear that he is fall’n in some disgrace With the emperor: if he be, like the mice That forsake falling houses, I would shift To other dependance.
Julia	You shall not need Follow the wars: I’ll be your maintenance.
Bosola	And I your loyal servant: but I cannot Leave my calling.
Julia	Not leave an ungrateful General for the love of a sweet lady! You are like some cannot sleep in featherbeds, But must have blocks for their pillows.
Bosola	Will you do this?
Julia	Cunningly.
Bosola	Tomorrow I’ll expect th’ intelligence.
Julia	Tomorrow! get you into my cabinet; You shall have it with you. Do not delay me, No more than I do you: I am like one That is condemn’d; I have my pardon promis’d, But I would see it seal’d. Go, get you in: You shall see my wind my tongue about his heart Like a skein of silk.
	Exit Bosala.
	Re-enter Cardinal.
Cardinal	Where are you?
	Enter Servants.
Servants	Here.
Cardinal	Let none, upon your lives, have conference With the Prince Ferdinand, unless I know it.⁠— Aside. In this distraction he may reveal The murder.
	Exeunt Servants.
	Yond’s my lingering consumption: I am weary of her, and by any means Would be quit of.
Julia	How now, my lord! what ails you?
Cardinal	Nothing.
Julia	O, you are much alter’d: Come, I must be your secretary, and remove This lead from off your bosom: what’s the matter?
Cardinal	I may not tell you.
Julia	Are you so far in love with sorrow You cannot part with part of it? Or think you I cannot love your grace when you are sad As well as merry? Or do you suspect I, that have been a secret to your heart These many winters, cannot be the same Unto your tongue?
Cardinal	Satisfy thy longing⁠— The only way to make thee keep my counsel Is, not to tell thee.
Julia	Tell your echo this, Or flatterers, that like echoes still report What they hear though most imperfect, and not me; For if that you be true unto yourself, I’ll know.
Cardinal	Will you rack me?
Julia	No, judgment shall Draw it from you: it is an equal fault, To tell one’s secrets unto all or none.
Cardinal	The first argues folly.
Julia	But the last tyranny.
Cardinal	Very well: why, imagine I have committed Some secret deed which I desire the world May never hear of.
Julia	Therefore may not I know it? You have conceal’d for me as great a sin As adultery. Sir, never was occasion For perfect trial of my constancy Till now: sir, I beseech you⁠—
Cardinal	You’ll repent it.
Julia	Never.
Cardinal	It hurries thee to ruin: I’ll not tell thee. Be well advis’d, and think what danger ’tis To receive a prince’s secrets. They that do, Had need have their breasts hoop’d with adamant To contain them. I pray thee, yet be satisfi’d; Examine thine own frailty; ’tis more easy To tie knots than unloose them. ’Tis a secret That, like a ling’ring poison, may chance lie Spread in thy veins, and kill thee seven year hence.
Julia	Now you dally with me.
Cardinal	No more; thou shalt know it. By my appointment the great Duchess of Malfi And two of her young children, four nights since, Were strangl’d.
Julia	O heaven! sir, what have you done!
Cardinal	How now? How settles this? Think you your bosom Will be a grave dark and obscure enough For such a secret?
Julia	You have undone yourself, sir.
Cardinal	Why?
Julia	It lies not in me to conceal it.
Cardinal	No? Come, I will swear you to’t upon this book.
Julia	Most religiously.
Cardinal	Kiss it. She kisses the book.
	Now you shall never utter it; thy curiosity Hath undone thee; thou ’rt poison’d with that book. Because I knew thou couldst not keep my counsel, I have bound thee to’t by death.
	Re-enter Bosala.
Bosola	For pity-sake, hold!
Cardinal	Ha, Bosola!
Julia	I forgive you This equal piece of justice you have done; For I betray’d your counsel to that fellow. He overheard it; that was the cause I said It lay not in me to conceal it.
Bosola	O foolish woman, Couldst not thou have poison’d him?
Julia	’Tis weakness, Too much to think what should have been done. I go, I know not whither. Dies.
Cardinal	Wherefore com’st thou hither?
Bosola	That I might find a great man like yourself, Not out of his wits, as the Lord Ferdinand, To remember my service.
Cardinal	I’ll have thee hew’d in pieces.
Bosola	Make not yourself such a promise of that life Which is not yours to dispose of.
Cardinal	Who plac’d thee here?
Bosola	Her lust, as she intended.
Cardinal	Very well: Now you know me for your fellow-murderer.
Bosola	And wherefore should you lay fair marble colours Upon your rotten purposes to me? Unless you imitate some that do plot great treasons, And when they have done, go hide themselves i’ th’ grave Of those were actors in’t?
Cardinal	No more; there is A fortune attends thee.
Bosola	Shall I go sue to Fortune any longer? ’Tis the fool’s pilgrimage.
Cardinal	I have honours in store for thee.
Bosola	There are a many ways that conduct to seeming Honour, and some of them very dirty ones.
Cardinal	Throw to the devil Thy melancholy. The fire burns well; What need we keep a stirring of’t, and make A greater smother?117 Thou wilt kill Antonio?
Bosola	Yes.
Cardinal	Take up that body.
Bosola	I think I shall Shortly grow the common bier for churchyards.
Cardinal	I will allow thee some dozen of attendants To aid thee in the murder.
Bosola	O, by no means. Physicians that apply horseleeches to any rank swelling use to cut off their tails, that the blood may run through them the faster: let me have no train when I go to shed blood, less it make me have a greater when I ride to the gallows.
Cardinal	Come to me after midnight, to help to remove That body to her own lodging. I’ll give out She died o’ th’ plague; ’twill breed the less inquiry After her death.
Bosola	Where’s Castruccio her husband?
Cardinal	He’s rode to Naples, to take possession Of Antonio’s citadel.
Bosola	Believe me, you have done a very happy turn.
Cardinal	Fail not to come. There is the master-key Of our lodgings; and by that you may conceive What trust I plant in you.
Bosola	You shall find me ready.
	Exit Cardinal.
	O poor Antonio, though nothing be so needful To thy estate as pity, yet I find Nothing so dangerous! I must look to my footing: In such slippery ice-pavements men had need To be frost-nail’d well, they may break their necks else; The precedent’s here afore me. How this man Bears up in blood! seems fearless! Why, ’tis well; Security some men call the suburbs of hell, Only a dead wall between. Well, good Antonio, I’ll seek thee out; and all my care shall be To put thee into safety from the reach Of these most cruel biters that have got Some of thy blood already. It may be, I’ll join with thee in a most just revenge. The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes With the sword of justice. Still methinks the duchess Haunts me: there, there!⁠—’Tis nothing but my melancholy. O Penitence, let me truly taste thy cup, That throws men down only to raise them up!
	Exit.

Scene III

A fortification.

	Enter Antonio* and Delio. Echo from the Duchess’s grave.*
Delio	Yond’s the cardinal’s window. This fortification Grew from the ruins of an ancient abbey; And to yond side o’ th’ river lies a wall, Piece of a cloister, which in my opinion Gives the best echo that you ever heard, So hollow and so dismal, and withal So plain in the distinction of our words, That many have suppos’d it is a spirit That answers.
Antonio	I do love these ancient ruins. We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history; And, questionless, here in this open court, Which now lies naked to the injuries Of stormy weather, some men lie interr’d Lov’d the church so well, and gave so largely to’t, They thought it should have canopied their bones Till doomsday. But all things have their end; Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death that we have.
Echo	Like death that we have.
Delio	Now the echo hath caught you.
Antonio	It groan’d methought, and gave A very deadly accent.
Echo	Deadly accent.
Delio	I told you ’twas a pretty one. You may make it A huntsman, or a falconer, a musician, Or a thing of sorrow.
Echo	A thing of sorrow.
Antonio	Ay, sure, that suits it best.
Echo	That suits it best.
Antonio	’Tis very like my wife’s voice.
Echo	Ay, wife’s voice.
Delio	Come, let us walk further from ’t. I would not have you go to the cardinal’s tonight: Do not.
Echo	Do not.
Delio	Wisdom doth not more moderate wasting sorrow Than time. Take time for’t; be mindful of thy safety.
Echo	Be mindful of thy safety.
Antonio	Necessity compels me. Make scrutiny through the passages Of your own life, you’ll find it impossible To fly your fate.
Echo	O, fly your fate!
Delio	Hark! the dead stones seem to have pity on you, And give you good counsel.
Antonio	Echo, I will not talk with thee, For thou art a dead thing.
Echo	Thou art a dead thing.
Antonio	My duchess is asleep now, And her little ones, I hope sweetly. O heaven, Shall I never see her more?
Echo	Never see her more.
Antonio	I mark’d not one repetition of the echo But that; and on the sudden a clear light Presented me a face folded in sorrow.
Delio	Your fancy merely.
Antonio	Come, I’ll be out of this ague, For to live thus is not indeed to live; It is a mockery and abuse of life. I will not henceforth save myself by halves; Lose all, or nothing.
Delio	Your own virtue save you! I’ll fetch your eldest son, and second you. It may be that the sight of his own blood Spread in so sweet a figure may beget The more compassion. However, fare you well. Though in our miseries Fortune have a part, Yet in our noble sufferings she hath none. Contempt of pain, that we may call our own.
	Exeunt.

Scene IV

Milan. An apartment in the residence of the Cardinal and Ferdinand.

	Enter Cardinal, Pescara, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Cardinal	You shall not watch tonight by the sick prince; His grace is very well recover’d.
Malatesti	Good my lord, suffer us.
Cardinal	O, by no means; The noise, and change of object in his eye, Doth more distract him. I pray, all to bed; And though you hear him in his violent fit, Do not rise, I entreat you.
Pescara	So, sir; we shall not.
Cardinal	Nay, I must have you promise Upon your honours, for I was enjoin’d to’t By himself; and he seem’d to urge it sensibly.
Pescara	Let our honours bind this trifle.
Cardinal	Nor any of your followers.
Malatesti	Neither.
Cardinal	It may be, to make trial of your promise, When he’s asleep, myself will rise and feign Some of his mad tricks, and cry out for help, And feign myself in danger.
Malatesti	If your throat were cutting, I’d not come at you, now I have protested against it.
Cardinal	Why, I thank you.
Grisolan	’Twas a foul storm tonight.
Roderigo	The Lord Ferdinand’s chamber shook like an osier.
Malatesti	’Twas nothing put pure kindness in the devil To rock his own child.
	Exeunt all except the Cardinal.
Cardinal	The reason why I would not suffer these About my brother, is, because at midnight I may with better privacy convey Julia’s body to her own lodging. O, my conscience! I would pray now; but the devil takes away my heart For having any confidence in prayer. About this hour I appointed Bosola To fetch the body. When he hath serv’d my turn, He dies.
	Exit.
	Enter Bosala.
Bosola	Ha! ’twas the cardinal’s voice; I heard him name Bosola and my death. Listen; I hear one’s footing.
	Enter Ferdinand.
Ferdinand	Strangling is a very quiet death.
Bosola	Aside. Nay, then, I see I must stand upon my guard.
Ferdinand	What say to that? Whisper softly: do you agree to’t? So; it must be done i’ th’ dark; the cardinal would not for a thousand pounds the doctor should see it.
	Exit.
Bosola	My death is plotted; here’s the consequence of murder. We value not desert nor Christian breath, When we know black deeds must be cur’d with death.
	Enter Antonio* and Servant.*
Servant	Here stay, sir, and be confident, I pray; I’ll fetch you a dark lantern.
	Exit.
Antonio	Could I take him at his prayers, There were hope of pardon.
Bosola	Fall right, my sword!⁠—Stabs him. I’ll not give thee so much leisure as to pray.
Antonio	O, I am gone! Thou hast ended a long suit In a minute.
Bosola	What art thou?
Antonio	A most wretched thing, That only have thy benefit in death, To appear myself.
	Re-enter Servant with a lantern.
Servant	Where are you, sir?
Antonio	Very near my home.⁠—Bosola!
Servant	O, misfortune!
Bosola	Smother thy pity, thou art dead else.⁠—Antonio! The man I would have sav’d ’bove mine own life! We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls, struck and banded Which way please them.⁠—O good Antonio, I’ll whisper one thing in thy dying ear Shall make thy heart break quickly! Thy fair duchess And two sweet children⁠—
Antonio	Their very names Kindle a little life in me.
Bosola	Are murder’d.
Antonio	Some men have wish’d to die At the hearing of sad tidings; I am glad That I shall do’t in sadness.118 I would not now Wish my wounds balm’d nor heal’d, for I have no use To put my life to. In all our quest of greatness, Like wanton boys whose pastime is their care, We follow after bubbles blown in th’ air. Pleasure of life, what is’t? Only the good hours Of an ague; merely a preparative to rest, To endure vexation. I do not ask The process of my death; only commend me To Delio.
Bosola	Break, heart!
Antonio	And let my son fly the courts to princes. Dies.
Bosola	Thou seem’st to have lov’d Antonio.
Servant	I brought him hither, To have reconcil’d him to the cardinal.
Bosola	I do not ask thee that. Take him up, if thou tender thine own life, And bear him where the lady Julia Was wont to lodge.⁠—O, my fate moves swift! I have this cardinal in the forge already; Now I’ll bring him to th’ hammer. O direful misprision!119 I will not imitate things glorious. No more than base; I’ll be mine own example.⁠— On, on, and look thou represent, for silence, The thing thou bear’st.120
	Exeunt.

Scene V

Another apartment in the same.

	Enter Cardinal, with a book.
Cardinal	I am puzzl’d in a question about hell; He says, in hell there’s one material fire, And yet it shall not burn all men alike. Lay him by. How tedious is a guilty conscience! When I look into the fishponds in my garden, Methinks I see a thing arm’d with a rake, That seems to strike at me.
	Enter Bosala, and Servant bearing Antonio’s body.
	Now, art thou come? Thou look’st ghastly; There sits in thy face some great determination Mix’d with some fear.
Bosola	Thus it lightens into action: I am come to kill thee.
Cardinal	Ha!⁠—Help! our guard!
Bosola	Thou art deceiv’d; they are out of thy howling.
Cardinal	Hold; and I will faithfully divide Revenues with thee.
Bosola	Thy prayers and proffers Are both unseasonable.
Cardinal	Raise the watch! We are betray’d!
Bosola	I have confin’d your flight: I’ll suffer your retreat to Julia’s chamber, But no further.
Cardinal	Help! we are betray’d!
	Enter, above, Pescara, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Malatesti	Listen.
Cardinal	My dukedom for rescue!
Roderigo	Fie upon his counterfeiting!
Malatesti	Why, ’tis not the cardinal.
Roderigo	Yes, yes, ’tis he: But, I’ll see him hang’d ere I’ll go down to him.
Cardinal	Here’s a plot upon me; I am assaulted! I am lost, Unless some rescue!
Grisolan	He doth this pretty well; But it will not serve to laugh me out of mine honour.
Cardinal	The sword’s at my throat!
Roderigo	You would not bawl so loud then.
Malatesti	Come, come, let’s go to bed: he told us this much aforehand.
Pescara	He wish’d you should not come at him; but, believe’t, The accent of the voice sounds not in jest: I’ll down to him, howsoever, and with engines Force ope the doors.
	Exit above.
Roderigo	Let’s follow him aloof, And note how the cardinal will laugh at him.
	Exeunt, above, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Bosola	There’s for you first, ’Cause you shall not unbarricade the door To let in rescue. Kills the Servant.
Cardinal	What cause hast thou to pursue my life?
Bosola	Look there.
Cardinal	Antonio!
Bosola	Slain by my hand unwittingly. Pray, and be sudden. When thou kill’d’st thy sister, Thou took’st from Justice her most equal balance, And left her naught but her sword.
Cardinal	O, mercy!
Bosola	Now it seems thy greatness was only outward; For thou fall’st faster of thyself than calamity Can drive thee. I’ll not waste longer time; there! Stabs him.
Cardinal	Thou hast hurt me.
Bosola	Again!
Cardinal	Shall I die like a leveret, Without any resistance?⁠—Help, help, help! I am slain!
	Enter Ferdinand.
Ferdinand	Th’ alarm! Give me a fresh horse; Rally the vaunt-guard, or the day is lost, Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms Shake my sword over you; will you yield?
Cardinal	Help me; I am your brother!
Ferdinand	The devil! My brother fight upon the adverse party!
	He wounds the Cardinal, and, in the scuffle, gives Bosala* his death-wound.*
	There flies your ransom.
Cardinal	O justice! I suffer now for what hath former bin: Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.
Ferdinand	Now you’re brave fellows. Caesar’s fortune was harder than Pompey’s; Caesar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the feet of disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain’s nothing; pain many times is taken away with the apprehension of greater, as the toothache with the sight of a barber that comes to pull it out. There’s philosophy for you.
Bosola	Now my revenge is perfect.⁠—Sink, thou main cause Kills Ferdinand. Of my undoing!⁠—The last part of my life Hath done me best service.
Ferdinand	Give me some wet hay; I am broken-winded. I do account this world but a dog-kennel: I will vault credit and affect high pleasures Beyond death.
Bosola	He seems to come to himself, Now he’s so near the bottom.
Ferdinand	My sister, O my sister! there’s the cause on’t. Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust. Dies.
Cardinal	Thou hast thy payment too.
Bosola	Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth; ’Tis ready to part from me. I do glory That thou, which stood’st like a huge pyramid Begun upon a large and ample base, Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing.
	Enter, below, Pescara, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Pescara	How now, my lord!
Malatesti	O sad disaster!
Roderigo	How comes this?
Bosola	Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murdered By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia Poison’d by this man; and lastly for myself, That was an actor in the main of all Much ’gainst mine own good nature, yet i’ the end Neglected.
Pescara	How now, my lord!
Cardinal	Look to my brother: He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling Here i’ th’ rushes. And now, I pray, let me Be laid by and never thought of. Dies.
Pescara	How fatally, it seems, he did withstand His own rescue!
Malatesti	Thou wretched thing of blood, How came Antonio by his death?
Bosola	In a mist; I know not how: Such a mistake as I have often seen In a play. O, I am gone! We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves, That, ruin’d, yield no echo. Fare you well. It may be pain, but no harm, to me to die In so good a quarrel. O, this gloomy world! In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness, Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! Let worthy minds ne’er stagger in distrust To suffer death or shame for what is just: Mine is another voyage. Dies.
Pescara	The noble Delio, as I came to th’ palace, Told me of Antonio’s being here, and show’d me A pretty gentleman, his son and heir.
	Enter Delio, and Antonio’s Son.
Malatesti	O sir, you come too late!
Delio	I heard so, and Was arm’d for’t, ere I came. Let us make noble use Of this great ruin; and join all our force To establish this young hopeful gentleman In’s mother’s right. These wretched eminent things Leave no more fame behind ’em, than should one Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow; As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts, Both form and matter. I have ever thought Nature doth nothing so great for great men As when she’s pleas’d to make them lords of truth: Integrity of life is fame’s best friend, Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.
	Exeunt.

Endnotes

The twelfth Lord Berkeley. “My good lord,” says Massinger, inscribing The Renegado to him, “to be honoured for old nobility or hereditary titles, is not alone proper to yourself, but to some few of your rank, who may challenge the like privilege with you: but in our age to vouchsafe (as you have often done) a ready hand to raise the dejected spirits of the contemned sons of the Muses, such as would not suffer the glorious fire of poesy to be wholly extinguished, is so remarkable and peculiar to your lordship, that, with a full vote and suffrage, it is acknowledged that the patronage and protection of the dramatic poem is yours and almost without a rival.” ↩
Prevent. ↩
The reference is to the knightly sport of riding at the ring. ↩
At the expense of. ↩
Rolls of lint used to dress wounds. ↩
Surgeons. ↩
A small horse. ↩
Ballasted. ↩
A lively dance. ↩
Throws into the shade. ↩
At the point of. ↩
Coaches. ↩
Spy. ↩
Cheats. ↩
Spy. ↩
Lustful. ↩
Genesis xxxi, 31⁠–⁠42. ↩
The net in which he caught Venus and Mars. ↩
Housekeepers. ↩
Produced. ↩
Qq. read strange. ↩
Guess. ↩
The phrase used to indicate that accounts had been examined and found correct. ↩
Using words of present time; i.e., “I take,” not “I will take.” ↩
Knot. ↩
More firmly. ↩
Of difficult disposition. ↩
Chief part. ↩
Bullies (Hazlitt); lawyers (Vaughan). ↩
Royal journey. ↩
Turning a boat on its side for repairs. ↩
Scabbed. ↩
Empty. ↩
Face-modeling (Sampson). “There’s a plain statement of your practises.” ↩
Blue like those of a woman with child. ↩
Scurf. ↩
Person of highest influence. ↩
Hysteria. ↩
This year. ↩
Clearly. ↩
Youngster. ↩
Crossness. ↩
Always. ↩
The meaner servants. ↩
At once. ↩
Cast his horoscope. ↩
Making an astrological calculation. ↩
Going to the root of the matter. ↩
Write. ↩
i.e., on his handkerchief. ↩
Addressing the lantern. ↩
“The rest not considered.” ↩
A piece of news. ↩
Cleverly contrived. ↩
Religious recluse. ↩
Experienced. ↩
Sick. ↩
Medicinal. ↩
Strong broth. ↩
The mandrake was supposed to give forth shrieks when uprooted, which drove the hearer mad. ↩
Unchaste. ↩
Supposed to be a sign of folly. ↩
Throw the hammer. ↩
Boil to shreds. (Dyce.) Qq, to boil. ↩
Wealth. ↩
Lampoons. ↩
Plowshares. ↩
Spying. ↩
Deceptions. ↩
Soothing. ↩
Qq. read slight. ↩
Powder of orris-root. ↩
Wheels of craft. ↩
Certificate that the books were found correct. ↩
The badge of a steward. ↩
Spies. ↩
Lot. ↩
For Plutus. ↩
Quick steps. ↩
Miss. ↩
Remains. ↩
Profession. ↩
A decorated horse-cloth, used only when the court is traveling. ↩
The first quarto has in the margin: “The Author disclaims this Ditty to be his.” ↩
Small birds. ↩
His vizard. ↩
Curtain. ↩
The wife of Brutus, who died by swallowing fire. ↩
By artificial means. ↩
Profession. ↩
Spying. ↩
Band. ↩
Bands. ↩
Boil. ↩
Punning on the two senses of “dye” and “corn.” ↩
From exporting his grain. ↩
Optical glass. ↩
The Geneva Bible. ↩
Petticoat. ↩
Coach. ↩
A warm drink containing milk, wine, etc. ↩
Receptacle. ↩
A drug supposed to ooze from embalmed bodies. ↩
Curdled. ↩
Trial. ↩
An exclamation of impatience. ↩
In escheat; here, in fee. ↩
Disbeliever. ↩
Fraught. ↩
A dog which worries sheep. ↩
A fabulous serpent that killed by its glance. ↩
Cut a caper. ↩
Broth. ↩
Skeletons. ↩
So Dyce. Qq. brought. ↩
Perfumed sweetmeats for the breath. ↩
Smoke. ↩
Reality. ↩
Mistake. ↩
I.e., the dead body. ↩

The Duchess of Malfi
was published in 1623 by
John Webster.