30 Thou that wants power, with dissemblance fight.
Exit Antonio.
Piero. Madam, O that you could remember to forget –
Maria. I had a husband and a happy son.
Piero. Most powerful beauty, that enchanting grace –
Maria. Talk not of beauty, nor enchanting grace.
My husband’s dead, my son’s distraught, accursed.
Come, I must vent my griefs, or heart will burst.
Exit Maria.
Piero. She’s gone – and yet she’s here: she hath left a print
Of her sweet graces fixed within my heart,
As fresh as is her face. I’ll marry her.
40 She’s most fair, true, most chaste, most false, because
Most fair; ’tis firm, I’ll marry her.
Act 2
Scene 5
Enter Strotzo.
Strotzo. My lord.
Piero. Ha, Strotzo, my other soul; my life,
Dear, hast thou steeled the point of thy resolve?
Will’t not turn edge in execution?
Strotzo. No.
Piero. Do it with rare passion, and present thy guilt,
As if ’twere wrung out with thy conscience grip.
Swear that my daughter’s innocent of lust,
And that Antonio bribed thee to defame
10 Her maiden honour, on inveterate hate
Unto my blood, and that thy hand was fee’d
By his large bounty, for his father’s death.
Swear plainly that thou choked Andrugio,
By his son’s only egging. Rush me in
Whilst Mellida prepares herself to die:
Halter about thy neck, and with such sighs,
Laments and acclamations lifen it,
As if impulsive power of remorse –
Strotzo. I’ll weep.
20 Piero. Ay, ay, fall on thy face and cry: ‘Why suffer you
So lewd a slave as Strotzo is to breathe?’
Strotzo. I’ll beg a strangling, grow importunate –
Piero. As if thy life were loathsome to thee: then I
Catch straight the cord’s end; and, as much incensed
With thy damned mischiefs, offer a rude hand,
As ready to gird in thy pipe of breath.
But on the sudden straight, I’ll stand amazed,
And fall in exclamations of thy virtues.
Strotzo. Applaud my agonies and penitence –
30 Piero. Thy honest stomach, that could not digest
The crudities of murder, but, surcharged,
Vomited’st them up in Christian piety.
Strotzo. Then clip me in your arms –
Piero. And call thee brother, mount thee straight to state,
Make thee of council; tut, tut, what not, what not?
Think on’t, be confident, pursue the plot.
Strotzo. look here’s a trope: a true rogue’s lips are mute.
I do not use to speak, but execute.
He lays a finger on his mouth and draws his dagger.
[Exit.]
Piero. So, so, run headlong to confusion.
40 Thou slight-brained mischief, thou art made as dirt,
To plaster up the bracks of my defects.
I’ll wring what may be squeezed from out his use:
And good night, Strotzo. Swell, plump bold heart.
For now thy tide of vengeance rolleth in.
O now Tragedia cothurnata mounts,
Piero’s thoughts are fixed on dire exploits.
Pell mell! Confusion and black murder guides
The organs of my spirit: shrink not, heart.
Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est.
Act 3
Scene 1
A dumbshow. The cornets sounding for the Act.
Enter Castilio and Forobosco, Alberto and Balurdo, with poleaxes; Strotzo talking with Piero, seemeth to send out Strotzo. Exit Strotzo. Enter Strotzo, Maria, Nutriche, and lucio. Piero passeth through his guard, and talks with her with seeming amorousness: she seemeth to reject this suit, flies to the tomb, kneels and kisseth it. Piero bribes Nutriche and lucio; they go to her, seeming to solicit his suit. She riseth, offers to go out, Piero stayeth her, tears open his breast, embraceth and kisseth her, and so they all go out in state.
Enter two pages, the one with two tapers, the other with a chafing-dish: a perfume in it. Antonio in his nightgown and a nightcap, unbraced, following after.
Antonio. The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings
’Bout heaven’s brow. [Clock strikes twelve.] ’Tis now stark dead night.
Is this Saint Mark’s Church?
Page. It is, my lord.
Antonio. Where stands my father’s hearse?
2 Page. Those streamers bear his arms: ay, that is it.
Antonio. Set tapers to the tomb, and lamp the church.
Give me the fire. Now depart and sleep.
Exeunt Pages.
I purify the air with odorous fume.
10 Graves, vaults and tombs, groan not to bear my weight.
Cold flesh, bleak trunks, wrapped in your half-rot shrouds,
I press you softly, with a tender foot.
Most honoured sepulchre, vouchsafe a wretch
Leave to weep o’er thee. Tomb, I’ll not be long
Ere I creep in thee, and with bloodless lips
Kiss my cold father’s cheek. I prithee, grave,
Provide soft mould to wrap my carcass in.
Thou royal spirit of Andrugio, where’er thou hoverest,
Airy intellect, I heave up tapers to thee – view thy son –
20 In celebration of due obsequies.
Once every night, I’ll dew thy funeral hearse
With my religious tears.
O, blessed father of a cursed son!
Thou diedst most happy, since thou livedst not
To see thy son most wretched, and thy wife
Pursued by him that seeks my guiltless blood.
O, in what orb thy mighty spirit soars,
Stoop and beat down this rising fog of shame
That strives to blur thy blood, and girt defame
30 About my innocent and spotless brows!
Non est mori miserum, sed misere mori.
[Enter Andrugio’s ghost.]
Andrugio. Thy pangs of anguish rip my cerecloth up:
And lo, the ghost of old Andrugio
Forsakes his coffin. Antonio, revenge!
I was empoisoned by Piero’s hand.
Revenge my blood! Take spirit, gentle boy;
Revenge my blood. Thy Mellida is chaste:
Only to frustrate thy pursuit in love
Is blazed unchaste. Thy mother yields consent
40 To be his wife, and give his blood a son,
That made her husbandless and doth complot
To make her sonless. But before I touch
The banks of rest, my ghost shall visit her.
Thou vigour of my youth, juice of my love:
Seize on revenge, grasp the stern-bended front
Of frowning vengeance, with unpeised clutch.
Alarum Nemesis, rouse up thy blood,
Invent some stratagem of vengeance
Which but to think on, may like lightning glide
With horror through thy breast! Remember this:
50 Scelera non ulcisceris, nisi vincis.
Exit Andrugio’s ghost.
Act 3
Scene 2
Enter Maria, her hair about her ears; Nutriche, and lucio, with pages, and torches.
Maria. Where left you him? Show me, good boys. Away!
Nutriche. God’s me, your hair!
Maria. Nurse, ’tis not yet proud day:
The neat gay mistress of the light’s not up,
Her cheeks not yet slurred over with the paint
Of borrowed crimson; the unpranked world
Wears yet the night-clothes. let flare my loosed hair:
<
br /> I scorn the presence of the night.
Where’s my boy? Run: I’ll range about the church.
10 Like frantic Bacchanal, or Jason’s wife,
Invoking all the spirits of the graves
To tell me where. Hah? O my poor wretched blood,
What dost thou up at midnight, my kind boy?
Dear soul, to bed: O, thou hast struck a fright
Unto thy mother’s panting –
Antonio. O quisquis nova
Supplicia functis durus umbrarum arbiter
Disponis, quisquis exeso iaces
Pavidus sub antro, quisquis venturi times
20 Montis ruinam, quisquis avidorum feros,
Rictus leonum, & dira furiarum agmina
Implicitus horres, Antonii vocem excipe
Properantis ad vos. Ulciscar.
Maria. Alas, my son’s distraught! Sweet boy, appease
Thy mutinying affections.
Antonio. By the astoning terror of swart night,
By the infectious damps of clammy graves,
And by the mould that presseth down
My dead father’s skull, I’ll be revenged.
30 Maria. Wherefore? On whom? For what? Go, go to bed
Good duteous son. Ho, but thy idle –
Antonio. So I may sleep, tombed in an honoured hearse
So may my bones rest in that sepulchre.
Maria. Forget not duty, son: to bed, to bed.
Antonio. May I be cursed by my father’s ghost,
And blasted with incensed breath of heaven,
If my heart beat on aught but vengeance.
May I be numbed with horror, and my veins
Pucker with a singeing torture, if my brain
40 Digest a thought but of dire vengeance.
May I be fettered slave to coward chance,
If blood, heart, brain, plot aught save vengeance.
Maria. Wilt thou to bed? I wonder when thou sleep’st,
I’faith, thou look’st sunk-eyed. Go, couch thy head.
Now ’faith, ’tis idle: sweet, sweet son, to bed.
Antonio. I have a prayer or two to offer up,
For the good, good prince, my most dear, dear lord,
The Duke Piero, and your virtuous self.
And then when those prayers have obtained success,
50 In sooth I’ll come (believe it now) and couch
My head in downy mould: but first I’ll see
You safely laid. I’ll bring ye all to bed.
Piero, Maria, Strotzo, lucio,
I’ll see you all laid. I’ll bring ye all to bed,
And then i’faith, I’ll come and couch my head,
And sleep in peace.
Maria. look then, we’ll go before.
Exeunt all but Antonio.
Antonio. Ay, so you must, before we touch the shore
Of wished revenge. O, you departed souls,
60 That lodge in coffined trunks which my feet press –
If Pythagorian axioms be true,
Of spirits’ transmigration – fleet no more
To human’s bodies. Rather live in swine,
Inhabit wolves’ flesh, scorpions, dogs and toads
Rather than man. The curse of heaven rains
In plagues unlimited through all his days;
His mature age grows only mature vice,
And ripens only to corrupt and rot
The budding hopes of infant modesty.
70 Still striving to be more than man, he proves
More than a devil: devilish suspect, devilish cruelty,
All hell-strained juice is poured to his veins,
Making him drunk with fuming surquedries,
Contempt of heaven, untamed arrogance,
Lust, state, pride, murder.
From above and beneath.
Andrugio. Murder!
Feliche. Murder!
Pandulpho. Murder!
Antonio. Ay, I will murder: graves and ghosts
80 Fright me no more, I’ll suck red vengeance
Out of Piero’s wounds, Piero’s wounds. [Hides himself.]
Enter two boys, with Piero in his nightgown and nightcap.
Piero. Maria, love, Maria! She took this aisle.
Left you her here? On lights, away!
I think we shall not warm our beds today.
Enter Julio, Forobosco and Castilio.
Julio. Ho, father? Father?
Piero. How now, Julio, my little pretty son?
Why suffer you the child to walk so late?
Forobosco. He will not sleep, but calls to follow you,
Crying that bugbears and spirits haunted him.
Antonio offers to come near and stab Piero, presently withdraws.
90 Antonio. [Aside] No, not so.
This shall be sought for. I’ll force him feed on life
Till he shall loathe it. This shall be the close
Of vengeance strain.
Piero. Away there! Pages, lead on fast with light.
The church is full of damps: ’tis yet dead night.
Exit all, saving Julio.
Act 3
Scene 3
[Antonio emerges.]
Julio. Brother Antonio, are you here, i’faith?
Why do you frown? Indeed my sister said
That I should call you brother, that she did,
When you were married to her. Buss me, good
Truth, I love you better than my father, ’deed.
Antonio. Thy father? Gracious, O bounteous heaven!
I do adore thy justice. Venit in nostras manus
Tandem vindicta, venit et tota quidem.
Julio. Truth, since my mother died, I loved you best.
10 Something hath angered you; pray you, look merrily.
Antonio. I will laugh, and dimple my thin cheek
With capering joy; chuck, my heart doth leap
To grasp thy bosom! Time, place, and blood:
How fit you close together. Heaven’s tones
Strike not such music to immortal souls,
As your accordance sweets my breast withal.
Methinks I pace upon the front of Jove,
And kick corruption with a scornful heel,
Gripping this flesh, disdain mortality.
20 O, that I knew which joint, which side, which limb
Were father all, and had no mother in’t:
That I might rip it vein by vein, and carve revenge
In bleeding races: but since ’tis mixed together,
Have at adventure, pell mell. No reverse.
Come hither, boy. This is Andrugio’s hearse.
Julio. O God, you’ll hurt me! For my sister’s sake,
Pray you do not hurt me, and you kill me, ’deed,
I’ll tell my father.
Antonio. O, for thy sister’s sake, I flag revenge.
[Enter Andrugio’s ghost.]
30 Andrugio. Revenge!
Antonio. Stay, stay, dear father, fright mine eyes no more!
[Exit Andrugio.]
Revenge as swift as lightning bursteth forth,
And clears his heart. Come, pretty tender child,
It is not thee I hate, not thee I kill.
Thy father’s blood that flows within thy veins,
Is it I loathe, is that revenge must suck.
I love thy soul: and were thy heart lapped up
In any flesh, but in Piero’s blood,
I would thus kiss it. But, being his: thus, thus,
40 And thus I’ll punch it. [Stabs Julio.] Abandon fears,
Whil’st thy wounds bleed, my brows shall gush out tears.
Julio. So you will love me, do even what you will.
Antonio. Now barks the wolf against the full-cheeked moon.
Now lions’ half-clammed entrails roar for food.
Now croaks the toad, and night-crows screech aloud,
Fluttering ’bout casements of departing souls.
Now gap
es the graves, and through their yawns let loose
Imprisoned spirits to revisit earth.
And now, swart night, so swell thy hour out,
50 Behold I spurt warm blood in thy black eyes.
From under the stage a groan.
Howl not, thy pury mould; groan not, ye graves:
Be dumb all breath. Here stands Andrugio’s son,
Worthy his father. So. I feel no breath:
His jaws are fallen, his dislodged soul is fled.
And now there’s nothing but Piero left.
He is all Piero, father all. This blood,
This breast, this heart, Piero all,
Whom thus I mangle. Spirit of Julio,
Forget this was thy trunk. I live thy friend.
60 May’st thou be twined with the softest embrace
Of clear eternity: but thy father’s blood,
I thus make incense of, to vengeance.
Ghost of my poisoned sire, suck this fume;
To sweet revenge perfume thy circling air
With smoke of blood. I sprinkle round his gore,
And dew thy hearse with these fresh reeking drops.
Lo, thus I heave my blood-dyed hands to heaven:
Even like insatiate hell, still crying: more.
My heart hath thirsting dropsies after gore.
70 Sound peace and rest to church, night ghosts, and graves;
Blood cries for blood, and murder murder craves.
Act 3
Scene 4
Enter two pages with torches. Maria, her hair loose, and Nutriche.
10 Nutriche. Fie, fie, tomorrow your wedding day, and weep! God’s my comfort. Andrugio could do well; Piero may do better. I have had four husbands myself. The first I called Sweet Duck; the second Dear Heart; the third, Pretty Pug; but the fourth, most sweet, dear, pretty, all in all – he was the very cockall of a husband. What lady? your skin is smooth, your blood warm, your cheek fresh, your eye quick. Change of pasture makes fat calves: choice of linen, clean bodies, and – no question – variety of husbands perfect wives. I would have you should know it, as few teeth as I have in my head, I have read Aristotle’s Problems, which sayeth, that woman receiveth perfection by the man. What then be the men? Go to, to bed; lie on your back; dream not on Piero. I say no more: tomorrow is your wedding day: do, dream not of Piero.
Enter Balurdo with a bass viol.
Maria. What an idle prate thou keep’st! Good nurse, go sleep.
I have a mighty task of tears to weep.
20 Balurdo. lady, with a most retort and obtuse leg I kiss the curled locks of your loose hair. The duke hath sent you the most musical Sir Geoffrey, with his not base, but most ennobled viol, to rock your baby thoughts in the cradle of sleep.
Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio's Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger's Tragedy (Penguin Classics) Page 21
