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

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