62. Tying the points of his trunk hose.
63. Christening.
64. The two are entreating each other to take precedence.
65. Trick.
66. Secretive.
67. Watch him carefully.
68. Disgrace.
69. Christened.
70. Many Puritans took refuge at Amsterdam.
71. Vigorous.
72. Lean.
73. Spoons with a little figure of an apostle on the handle; a common present at christenings.
74. Red is the traditional color of Judas’s hair.
75. Cheat.
76. Pieces.
77. Street of druggists who also sold sweetmeats.
78. Topple.
79. August 1.
80. In preparation.
81. Satisfied the university’s requirements for.
82. Cease.
83. The schoolmen, so named after Duns Scotus.
84. Not for that reason.
85. Cambridge, favored by Puritans.
86. Chamberpot.
87. So-called from its running in a small stream.
88. With which the floors were strewn.
89. The original form of shuttlecock.
90. Barren.
91. Bankrupt.
92. All aphrodisiacs. Eringo is sea-holly.
93. i.e., A friend at court.
94. Adversities.
95. He brought more than one “smock” with him.
96. An auction announced by the common crier.
97. Cost me.
98. Neglect.
99. Perhaps an obscenity followed and was deleted by the censor.
100. Fidgety.
101. Jumped over (a stool).
102. Fair.
103. Recent.
104. Into this new mood.
105. For a translation of this passage, see Appendix to A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, p. 462.
106. This has not been explained.
107. Signifying the first conjugation in the standard Latin grammar.
108. What is grammar?
109. The art of correct writing and speaking.
110. A common form of apology, usually for an indecency.
111. Marvel.
112. Kith.
113. Mistaken.
114. Oxen of small size.
115. The familiar Latin dictionary of the period.
116. Romford, near London, was famous for its hog market.
117. Save thee, also, most beautiful maiden: I don’t know what you want, and don’t care.
118. Cicero.
119. By heaven, it’s said, young lady, that in Wales you rejoice in great riches.
120. I say again, your rejoice in great riches, in mountains and fountains and, so to speak, runts; however, I am a small man by nature and by art a bachelor, not really ready for bed.
121. Can you speak Welsh? (partly unintelligible).
122. Cheat, lie (with sexual sense).
123. I won’t lie with you.
124. Some cheese and whey after a walk.
125. Taken a degree.
126. i.e., Welsh.
127. As my life; i.e., extremely.
128. Satisfy.
129. Perhaps censored.
130. Perhaps censored.
131. A complaisant cuckold.
132. Puritan schoolbooks.
133. Reform him.
134. An officer of a city company; also a pear.
135. Take the cure for venereal disease.
136. Scour.
137. Landing-place on the Thames.
138. Willing to return favors.
139. On the Thames, upstream to the west.
140. Chastity belt.
141. The poet speaks truth; Virgil says it.
142. Wanton girls.
143. Indulgently.
144. Perhaps meaning “suit” or “purpose.”
145. His seven children by Allwit’s wife.
146. Ruin.
147. Excellent.
148. Count out.
149. Contrived.
150. Since Adam.
151. Examples.
152. In an emergency.
153. Anticipate.
154. A ward in the prison.
155. “O times, O manners!”
156. i.e., He already had a “jade” (broken-down) horse.
157. Now he has another “jade” (loose woman) and will recoup his expenses by hiring her out.
158. If I cannot move the gods I will move the lower world.
159. A wife is not a whore, therefore you lie.
160. Word missing: obscene?
THE DUCHESS
OF MALFI
JOHN WEBSTER
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
FERDINAND, Duke of Calabria
THE 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
CASTRUCHIO
MARQUIS OF PESCARA
COUNT MALATESTE
GRISOLAN
DOCTOR
Several Madmen, Pilgrims, Executioners, Officers, Attendants, &c.
DUCHESS OF MALFI, sister of Ferdinand and the Cardinal
CARIOLA, her Woman
JULIA, Castruchio’s Wife, and the Cardinal’s Mistress
Old Lady, Ladies and Children
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
ACT I, SCENE I
Enter Antonio and Delio
DEL. 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?
ANT. I admire it:
In seeking to reduce both state and people
To a fixed order, their judicious king
Begins at home; quits1 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 cursed 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’ th’ 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.—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 the Cardinal and Bosola
BOS. I do haunt you still.
CARD. So.
BOS. 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!
CARD. You enforce your merit too much.
BOS. 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?
CARD. Would you could become honest!
BOS. 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.
ANT. He hath denied thee some suit?
BOS. He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing-pools; they are rich and o’er-laden 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 advanced to-morrow what creature ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus?2 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 in his last supportation.
DEL. Geometry?
BOS. Aye, to hang in a fair pair of slings, take his latter swing in the world upon an honorable 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
DEL. I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys
For a notorious murder; and ’twas thought
The Cardinal suborned it: he was released
By the French general, Gaston de Foix,3
When he recovered Naples.
ANT. ’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,
It then doth follow want of action
Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,
Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.
DEL. The presence ’gins to fill: you promised me
To make me the partaker of the natures
Of some of your great courtiers.
ANT. The lord Cardinal’s,
And other strangers’ that are now in court?
I shall.—Here comes the great Calabrian duke.
Enter Ferdinand, Castruchio, Silvio, Roderigo, Grisolan, and Attendants
FERD. Who took the ring oftenest?4
SILV. Antonio Bologna, my lord.
FERD. Our sister duchess’s great-master of her household? give him the jewel.—When shall we leave this sportive action, and fall to action indeed?
CAS. Methinks, my lord, you should not desire to go to war in person.
FERD. Now for some gravity:—why, my lord?
CAS. It is fitting a soldier arise to be a prince, but not necessary a prince descend to be a captain.
FERD. No?
CAS. No, my lord; he were far better do it by a deputy.
FERD. Why should he not as well sleep or eat by a deputy? this might take idle, offensive, and base office from him, where as the other deprives him of honor.
CAS. Believe my experience, that realm is never long in quiet where the ruler is a soldier.
FERD. Thou told’st me thy wife could not endure fighting.
CAS. True, my lord.
FERD. And of a jest she broke of a captain she met full of wounds: I have forgot it.
CAS. She told him, my lord, he was a pitiful fellow, to lie, like the children of Ismael, all in tents.5
FERD. Why, there’s a wit were able to undo all the chirurgeons 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.
CAS. That she would, my lord.
FERD. How do you like my Spanish gennet?
ROD. He is all fire.
FERD. I am of Pliny’s opinion, I think he was begot by the wind; he runs as if he were ballasted with quick-silver.
SILV. True, my lord, he reels from the tilt often.
ROD. AND GRIS. Ha, ha, ha!
FERD. Why do you laugh? methinks you that are courtiers should be my touchwood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh but when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.
CAS. True, my lord: I myself have heard a very good jest, and have scorned to seem to have so silly a wit as to understand it.
FERD. But I can laugh at your fool, my lord.
CAS. He cannot speak, you know, but he makes faces: my lady cannot abide him.
FERD. NO?
CAS. Nor endure to be in merry company; for she says too much laughing, and too much company, fills her too full of the wrinkle.
FERD. 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.
SILV. Your grace shall arrive most welcome.
FERD. You are a good horseman, Antonio: you have excellent riders in France: what do you think of good horsemanship?
ANT. 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.
FERD. You have bespoke it worthily.
SILV. Your brother, the lord Cardinal, and sister duchess.
Re-enter Cardinal, with Duchess, Cariola, and Julia
CARD. Are the galleys come about?
GRIS. They are, my lord.
FERD. Here’s the Lord Silvio is come to take his leave.
DEL. [Aside to Antonio] 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.
ANT. 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 engendering of toads; where he is jealous of any man, he lays worse plots for them than ever was imposed on Hercules, for he strews in his way flatterers, panders, intelligencers,6 atheists, and a thousand such political monsters. He should have been Pope; but instead of coming to it by the primitive decency7 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—
DEL. You have given too much of him. What’s his brother?
ANT. The duke there? a most perverse and turbulent nature:
What appears in him mirth is merely outside;
If he laughs heartily, it is to laugh
All honesty out of fashion.
DEL. Twins?
ANT. In quality.
He speaks with others’ tongues, and hears men’s suits
With others’ ears; will seem to sleep o’ th’ bench
Only to entrap offenders in their answers;
Dooms men to death by information;
Rewards by hearsay.
DEL. Then the law to him
Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider,—
He makes of it his dwelling and a prison
To entangle those shall feed him.
ANT. Most true:
He never pays debts unless they be shrewd turns,
And those he will confess that he doth owe.
Last, for his 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 fixed 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 vain-glory to talk much,
Than your penance to hear her: whilst she speaks,
She throw
s upon a man so sweet a look,
That it were able to raise one to a galliard8
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 practised in such noble virtue,
That sure her nights, nay, more, her very sleeps,
Are more in heaven than other ladies’ shrifts.9
Let all sweet ladies break their flattering glasses,
And dress themselves in her.
DEL. Fie, Antonio,
You play the wire-drawer10 with her commendations.
ANT. I’ll case the picture up: only thus much;
All her particular worth grows to this sum—
She stains the time past, lights the time to come.
CAR. You must attend my lady in the gallery,
Some half an hour hence.
ANT. I shall.
Exeunt Antonio and Delio
FERD. Sister, I have a suit to you.
DUCH. To me, sir?
FERD. A gentleman here, Daniel de Bosola,
One that was in the galleys—
DUCH. Yes, I know him.
FERD. A worthy fellow he is: pray, let me entreat for
The provisorship of your horse.
DUCH. Your knowledge of him
Commends him and prefers him.
FERD. Call him hither.
Exit Attendant
We are now upon parting. Good Lord Silvio,
Do us commend to all our noble friends
At the leaguer.11
SILV. Sir, I shall.
DUCH. You are for Milan?
SILV. I am.
DUCH. Bring the caroches.12 We’ll bring you down
To the haven.
Exeunt all but Ferdinand and the Cardinal
CARD. Be sure you entertain13 that Bosola
For your intelligence: I would not be seen in’t;
And therefore many times I have slighted him
When he did court our furtherance, as this morning.
FERD. Antonio, the great-master of her household,
Had been far fitter.
CARD. You are deceived in him:
His nature is too honest for such business.—
He comes: I’ll leave you.
Exit
Re-enter Bosola
BOS. I was lured to you.
FERD. My brother, here, the Cardinal could never
Abide you.
BOS. Never since he was in my debt.
FERD. Maybe some oblique character in your face
The Duchess of Malfi Page 47
