The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster (books to read now txt) 📗

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.<112>

 

THIRD MADMAN. Woe to the caroche<113> that brought home my wife

from the masque at three o’clock in the morning! It had a large

feather-bed 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 possets<114>

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, BOSOLA, 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?

 

BOSOLA.

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 worm-seed, at best but a salvatory<115>

of green mummy.<116> What ‘s this flesh? a little crudded<117> 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 earth-worms. 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 milk-maid’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 glow-worms, 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 tooth-ache. 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,<118> 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?<119>

 

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