Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  DELIO: The presence ‘gins to fill. You promis’d me

  To make me the partaker of the natures

  Of some of your great courtiers.

  ANTONIO: The lord cardinal’s

  And other strangers that are now in court?

  I shall: here comes the great Calabrian Duke.

  FERDINAND: Who took the ring oftenest?

  SILVIO: Antonio Bologna, my lord.

  FERDINAND: Our sister Duchess’ great master of her household:

  Give him the jewel. When shall we leave this sportive action,

  And fall to action indeed?

  CASTRUCHIO: Methinks, my lord,

  You should not desire to go to war in person.

  FERDINAND: [aside] Now, for some gravity — why, my lord?

  CASTRUCHIO: It is fitting a soldier arise to be a prince, but not necessary

  A prince descend to be a captain.

  FERDINAND: No?

  CASTRUCHIO: No, my lord;

  He were far better do it by a deputy.

  FERDINAND: Why should he not as well sleep or eat by a deputy?

  This might take idle, offensive, and base office from him,

  Whereas the other deprives him of honor.

  CASTRUCHIO: Believe my experience: that realm is never long in quiet

  Where the ruler is a soldier.

  FERDINAND: Thou toldest me thy wife could not endure fighting.

  CASTRUCHIO: True, my lord.

  FERDINAND: And of a jest she broke of a captain she met full of wounds: I have forgot it.

  CASTRUCHIO: She told him, my lord, he was a pitiful fellow to lie

  Like the children of Ismael, all in tents.

  FERDINAND: Why, there’s a wit were able to undo

  All the chirugeons o’th’ 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.

  CASTRUCHIO: That she would, my lord.

  How do you like my Spanish jennet?

  RODERIGO: He is all fire.

  FERDINAND: I am of Pliny’s opinion, I think he was begot by the wind;

  He runs as if he were ballasted with quicksilver.

  SILVIO: True, my lord, he reels from the tilt often.

  RODERIGO and GRISOLAN: Ha, ha, ha!

  FERDINAND: Why do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers

  Should be my touchwood, take fire when I give fire;

  That is, not laugh but when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.

  CASTRUCHIO: 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.

  FERDINAND: But I can laugh at your fool, my lord.

  CASTRUCHIO: He cannot speak, you know, but he makes faces.

  My lady cannot abide him.

  FERDINAND: No?

  CASTRUCHIO: Nor endure to be in merry company, for she says

  Too much laughing and too much company fills her

  Too full of the wrinkle.

  FERDINAND: 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.

  SILVIO: Your grace shall arrive most welcome.

  FERDINAND: You are a good horseman, Antonio.

  You have excellent riders in France: what do you think of good horsemanship?

  ANTONIO: 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.

  FERDINAND: You have bespoke it worthily.

  SILVIO: Your brother, the lord Cardinal, and sister Duchess.

  Enter CARDINAL, DUCHESS, CARIOLA, and JULIA

  CARDINAL: Are the galleys come about?

  GRISOLAN: They are, my lord.

  FERDINAND: Here’s the Lord Silvio is come to take his leave.

  DELIO: [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.

  ANTONIO: 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 him than ever was imposed on

  Hercules, for he strews in his way flatterers, panders,

  Intelligencers, atheists, and a thousand such political

  Monsters. He should have been Pope, but instead of

  Coming to it by the primitive decency 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.

  DELIO: You have given too much of him: what’s his brother?

  ANTONIO: The duke there? a most perverse and turbulent nature.

  What appears in him mirth is merely outside.

  If he laugh heartily, it is to laugh

  All honesty out of fashion.

  DELIO: Twins?

  ANTONIO: 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.

  DELIO: Then the law to him

  Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider,

  He makes it his dwelling and a prison

  To entangle those shall feed him.

  ANTONIO: 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 fix’d 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 throws upon a man so sweet a look,

  That it were able to raise one to a galliard

  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 practic’d in such noble virtue

  That sure her nights, nay more, her very sleeps,

  Are more in heaven, than other ladies’ shrifts.

  Let all sweet ladies break their flattering glasses

  And dress themselves in her.

  DELIO: Fie, Antonio,

  You play the wire-drawer with her commendation.

  ANTONIO: 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.

  CARIOLA: You must attend my lady in the gallery

  Some half an hour hence.

  ANTONIO: I shall.

  Exit ANTONIO and DELIO

  FERDINAND: Sister, I have a suit to you.

  DUCHESS: To me, sir?

  FERDINAND: A gentleman here, Daniel de Bosola,

  One that was in the g
alleys.

  DUCHESS: Yes, I know him.

  FERDINAND: A worthy fellow h’is. Pray let me entreat for

  The provisorship of your horse.

  DUCHESS: Your knowledge of him

  Commends him and prefers him.

  FERDINAND: Call him hither.

  Exit Attendant

  We are now upon parting. Good Lord Silvio,

  Do us commend to all our noble friends

  At the leaguer.

  SILVIO: Sir, I shall.

  FERDINAND: You are for Milan?

  SILVIO: I am.

  DUCHESS: Bring the caroches: we’ll bring you down to the haven.

  Exit all but the CARDINAL and FERDINAND

  CARDINAL: Be sure you entertain 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.

  FERDINAND: Antonio, the great master of her household,

  Had been far fitter.

  CARDINAL: You are deceiv’d in him.

  His nature is too honest for such business.

  He comes: I’ll leave you

  Exit CARDINAL, enter BOSOLA

  BOSOLA: I was lur’d to you.

  FERDINAND: My brother here, the Cardinal, could never

  Abide you.

  BOSOLA: Never since he was in my debt.

  FERDINAND: May be some oblique character in your face

  Made him suspect you.

  BOSOLA: Doth he study physiognomy?

  There’s no more credit to be given to th’ face

  Than to a sick man’s urine, which some call

  The physician’s whore, because she cozens him.

  He did suspect me wrongfully.

  FERDINAND: For that

  You must give great men leave to take their times.

  Distrust doth cause us seldom be deceiv’d:

  You see, the oft shaking of the cedar-tree

  Fastens it more at root.

  BOSOLA: Yet take heed;

  For to suspect a friend unworthily

  Instructs him the next way to suspect you

  And prompts him to deceive you.

  FERDINAND: There’s gold.

  BOSOLA: So,

  What follows? Never rain’d such showers as these

  Without thunderbolts i’ th’ tail of them. Whose throat must I cut?

  FERDINAND: Your inclination to shed blood rides post

  Before my occasion to use you. I give you that

  To live i’th’ court here, and observe the duchess;

  To note all the particulars of her ‘haviour,

  What suitors do solicit her for marriage,

  And whom she best affects. She’s a young widow:

  I would not have her marry again.

  BOSOLA: No, sir?

  FERDINAND: Do not you ask the reason, but be satisfied

  I say I would not.

  BOSOLA: It seems you would create me

  One of your familiars.

  FERDINAND: Familiar? What’s that?

  BOSOLA: Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh:

  An intelligencer.

  FERDINAND: Such a kind of thriving thing

  I would wish thee, and ere long, thou may’st arrive

  At a higher place by’t.

  BOSOLA: Take your devils,

  Which hell calls angels. These curs’d gifts would make

  You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor,

  And should I take these, they’d take me to hell.

  FERDINAND: Sir, I’ll take nothing from you, that I have given.

  There is a place that I procur’d for you

  This morning, the provisorship o’th’horse;

  Have you heard on’t?

  BOSOLA: No.

  FERDINAND: ’Tis yours. Is’t not worth thanks?

  BOSOLA: I would have you curse yourself now, that your bounty

  (Which makes men truly noble) e’er should make

  Me a villain. O, that to avoid ingratitude

  For the good deed you have done me, I must do

  All the ill man can invent! Thus the devil

  Candies all sins o’er, and what heaven terms vile

  That names he complemental.

  FERDINAND: Be yourself;

  Keep your old garb of melancholy; ‘twill express

  You envy those that stand above your reach,

  Yet strive not to come near ‘em. This will gain

  Access to private lodgings, where yourself

  May, like a politic dormouse —

  BOSOLA: As I have seen some

  Feed in a lord’s dish, half asleep, not seeming

  To listen to any talk; and yet these rogues

  Have cut his throat in a dream. What’s my place?

  The provisorship o’th’ horse? Say, then, my corruption

  Grew out of horse-dung. I am your creature.

  FERDINAND: Away.

  BOSOLA: Let good men for good deeds covet good fame,

  Since place and riches oft are bribes of shame.

  Sometimes the devil doth preach.

  Exit BOSOLA, enter DUCHESS, CARDINAL, and CARIOLA

  CARDINAL: We are to part from you, and your own discretion

  Must now be your director.

  FERDINAND: You are a widow:

  You know already what man is, and therefore

  Let not youth, high promotion, eloquence —

  CARDINAL: No,

  Nor anything without the addition, honor,

  Sway your high blood.

  FERDINAND: Marry! They are most luxurious,

  Will wed twice.

  CARDINAL: O, fie!

  FERDINAND: Their livers are more spotted

  Than Laban’s sheep.

  DUCHESS: Diamonds are of most value,

  They say, that have past through most jewelers’ hands.

  FERDINAND: Whores by that rule are precious.

  DUCHESS: Will you hear me?

  I’ll never marry —

  CARDINAL: So most widows say;

  But commonly that motion lasts no longer

  Than the turning of an hour-glass: the funeral sermon

  And it, end both together.

  FERDINAND: Now hear me:

  You live in a rank pasture here i’th’ court.

  There is a kind of honey-dew that’s deadly,

  ‘Twill poison your fame. Look to’t: be not cunning;

  For they whose faces do belie their hearts

  Are witches ere they arrive at twenty years,

  Ay, and give the devil suck.

  DUCHESS: This is terrible good counsel.

  FERDINAND: Hypocrisy is woven of a fine small thread,

  Subtler than Vulcan’s engine: yet believ’t,

  Your darkest actions, nay, your privat’st thoughts,

  Will come to light.

  CARDINAL: You may flatter yourself

  And take your own choice, privately be married

  Under the eaves of night —

  FERDINAND: Think’t the best voyage

  That e’er you made; like the irregular crab,

  Which, though’t goes backward, thinks that it goes right,

  Because it goes its own way. But observe,

  Such weddings may more properly be said

  To be executed, than celebrated.

  CARDINAL: The marriage night

  Is the entrance into some prison.

  FERDINAND: And those joys,

  Those lustful pleasures, are like heavy sleeps

  Which do forerun man’s mischief.

  CARDINAL: Fare you well.

  Wisdom begins at the end: remember it.

  Exit CARDINAL

  DUCHESS: I think this speech between you both was studied,

  It came so roundly off.

  FERDINAND: You are my sister;

  This was my father’s poniard, do you see?

  I�
��d be loath to see’t look rusty, ‘cause ’twas his.

  I would have you to give o’er these chargeable revels,

  A visor and a mask are whispering rooms

  That were never built for goodness. Fare ye well,

  And beware that part, which like the lamprey,

  Hath never a bone in’t.

  DUCHESS: Fie, sir!

  FERDINAND: Nay,

  I mean the tongue, variety of courtship.

  What cannot a neat knave with a smooth tale

  Make a woman believe. Farewell, lusty widow.

  Exit FERDINAND

  DUCHESS: Shall this move me? If all my royal kindred

  Lay in my way unto this marriage,

  I’d make them my low footsteps. And even now,

  Even in this hate, as men in some great battles

  By apprehending danger have achiev’d

  Almost impossible actions — I have heard soldiers say so —

  So I through frights and threatenings will assay

  This dangerous venture. Let old wives report

  I wink’d, and chose a husband. Cariola,

  To thy known secrecy I have given up

  More than my life — my fame.

  CARIOLA: Both shall be safe,

  For I’ll conceal this secret from the world

  As warily as those that trade in poison

  Keep poison from their children.

  DUCHESS: Thy protestation

  Is ingenious and hearty: I believe it.

  Is Antonio come?

  CARIOLA: He attends you.

  DUCHESS: Good dear soul,

  Leave me, but place thyself behind the arras

  Where thou may’st overhear us. Wish me good speed,

  For I am going into a wilderness

  Where I shall find no path nor friendly clew

  To be my guide.

  Exit CARIOLA, enter ANTONIO

  I sent for you. Sit down;

  Take pen and ink, and write: are you ready?

  ANTONIO: Yes.

  DUCHESS: What did I say?

  ANTONIO: That I should write somewhat.

  DUCHESS: O, I remember.

  After these triumphs and this large expense,

  It’s fit, like thrifty husbands, we inquire

  What’s laid up for tomorrow.

  ANTONIO: So please your beauteous excellence.

  DUCHESS: Beauteous? Indeed I thank you:

  I look young for your sake;

  You have ta’en my cares upon you.

  ANTONIO: I’ll fetch your grace

  The particulars of your revenue and expense.

  DUCHESS: O, you are

  An upright treasurer, but you mistook;

  For when I said I meant to make inquiry

  What’s laid up for tomorrow, I did mean

  What’s laid up yonder for me.

  ANTONIO: Where?

  DUCHESS: In heaven.

  I am making my will, (as ’tis fit princes should

  In perfect memory) and, I pray, sir, tell me