The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster (ebook reader with internet browser .txt) 📗

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