Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  CARIOLA: O, ‘twill increase your melancholy.

  DUCHESS: Thou art deceiv’d.

  To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.

  This is a prison?

  CARIOLA: Yes, but you shall live

  To shake this durance off.

  DUCHESS: Thou art a fool.

  The robin red-breast and the nightingale

  Never live long in cages.

  CARIOLA: Pray, dry your eyes.

  What think you of, madam?

  DUCHESS: Of nothing.

  When I muse thus, I sleep.

  CARIOLA: Like a madman, with your eyes open?

  DUCHESS: Dost thou think we shall know one another

  In th’other world?

  CARIOLA: Yes, out of question.

  DUCHESS: O, that it were possible we might

  But hold some two days’ conference with the dead!

  From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,

  I never shall know here. I’ll tell thee a miracle;

  I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow.

  Th’ heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass,

  The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.

  I am acquainted with sad misery,

  As the tann’d galley-slave is with his oar;

  Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

  And custom makes it easy. Whom do I look like now?

  CARIOLA: Like to your picture in the gallery,

  A deal of life in show, but none in practice;

  Or rather like some reverend monument

  Whose ruins are even pitied.

  DUCHESS: Very proper,

  And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight

  To behold my tragedy.

  How now! What noise is that?

  Enter SERVANT

  SERVANT: I am come to tell you,

  Your brother hath intended you some sport.

  A great physician, when the pope was sick

  Of a deep melancholy, presented him

  With several sorts of madmen, which wild object

  Being full of change and sport, forc’d him to laugh,

  And so th’ imposthume broke. The selfsame cure

  The Duke intends on you.

  DUCHESS: Let them come in.

  Enter MADMEN

  SERVANT: There’s a mad lawyer; and a secular priest;

  A doctor, that hath forfeited his wits

  By jealousy; an astrologian

  That in his works said such a day o’th’ month

  Should be the day of doom, and failing of’t,

  Ran mad; an English tailor, craz’d i’th’ brain

  With the study of new fashion; a gentleman usher,

  Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind

  The number of his lady’s salutations,

  Or “How do you,” she employ’d him in each morning;

  A farmer too, an excellent knave in grain,

  Mad ‘cause he was hinder’d transportation;

  And let one broker that’s mad loose to these,

  You’d think the devil were among them.

  DUCHESS: Sit, Cariola. Let them loose when you please,

  For I am chain’d to endure all your tyranny.

  Here by a madman this song is sung, to a dismal kind of music.

  O, let us howl some heavy note,

  Some deadly dogged howl,

  Sounding, as from the threatening throat

  Of beasts and fatal fowl!

  As ravens, screech-owls, bulls, and bears,

  We’ll bell, and bawl our parts,

  Till irksome noise have cloy’d your ears,

  And corrosiv’d your hearts.

  At last, when as our quire wants breath,

  Our bodies being blest,

  We’ll sing, like swans, to welcome death,

  And die in love and rest.

  MAD ASTROLOGER: Doomsday not come yet? I’ll draw it nearer by a

  perspective, or make a glass that shall set all the world on fire upon an

  instant. I cannot sleep; my pillow is stuffed with a litter of porcupines.

  MAD LAWYER: Hell is a mere glass-house, where the devils are

  continually blowing up women’s souls on hollow irons, and the fire

  never goes out.

  MAD PRIEST: I will lie with every woman in my parish the tenth

  night; I will tithe them over like haycocks.

  MAD DOCTOR: Shall my ‘pothecary outgo me, because I am a

  cuckold? I have found out his roguery; he makes alum of his wife’s

  urine, and sells it to Puritans that have sore throats with overstraining.

  MAD ASTROLOGER: I have skill in heraldry.

  MAD LAWYER: Hast?

  MAD ASTROLOGER: You do give for your crest a woodcock’s head, with

  the brains picked out on’t; you are a very ancient gentleman.

  MAD PRIEST: Greek is turn’d Turk. We are only to be saved by

  the Helvetian translation.

  MAD ASTROLOGER: Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you.

  MAD LAWYER: O, rather lay a corrosive; the law will eat to the

  bone.

  MAD PRIEST: He that drinks but to satisfy nature, is damn’d.

  MAD DOCTOR: If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should

  make all the women here call me mad doctor.

  MAD ASTROLOGER: What’s he, a rope-maker?

  MAD LAWYER: No, no, no, a snuffling knave, that while he shows

  the tombs, will have his hand in a wench’s placket.

  MAD PRIEST: Woe to the caroche, that brought home my wife from

  the masque at three a’clock in the morning! It had a large featherbed in it.

  MAD DOCTOR: I have pared the devil’s nails forty time, roasted

  them in ravens’ eggs, and cur’d agues with them.

  MAD PRIEST: Get me three hundred milch bats, to make possets to

  procure sleep.

  MAD DOCTOR: All the college may throw their caps at me; I have

  made a soapboiler 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.

  Exit all but the DUCHESS and BOSOLA

  BOSOLA: I am come to make thy tomb.

  DUCHESS: Ha! my tomb?

  Thou speak’st, as if I lay upon my death-bed,

  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 thou know me?

  BOSOLA: Yes.

  DUCHESS: Who am I?

  BOSOLA: Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory

  Of green mummy. What’s this flesh? A little cruded 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 milkmaid’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 glowworms 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 com’st 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 in our death-bed?

  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:

  Rings the bell

  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

  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.

  EXECUTIONERS: We are ready.

  DUCHESS: Dispose my breath how please you, but my body

  Bestow upon my women, will you?

  EXECUTIONERS: 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. 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 order’d?

  BOSOLA: Yes, and I am glad

  You are so well prepar’d for’t.

  CARIOLA: You are deceiv’d, sir,

  I am not prepared for’t; I will not die.

  I will first come to my answer, and know

  How I have offended.

  BOSOLA: Come, dispatch 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.

  EXECUTIONERS: Here’s your wedding-ring.

  CARIOLA: Let me but speak with the duke; I’ll discover

  Treason to his person.

  BOSOLA: Delays! Throttle her.

  EXECUTIONERS: She bites and scratches.

  CARIOLA: If you kill me now,

  I am damn’d. I have not been at confession

  This two years.

  BOSOLA: When?

  CARIOLA: I am quick with child.

  BOSOLA: Why then,

  Your credit’s sav’d.

  They strangle her

  Bear her into the next room;

  Let this lie still.

  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 l
iv’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 not thou pity her? What an excellent

  Honest man might’st thou have been

  If thou hadst born 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 bad 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’th’ court?

  Where shalt thou find this judgment register’d,

  Unless in hell? See, like a bloody fool,

  Th’ hast 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 him, which binds the devils,

  Can prescribe man obedience.

  Never look upon me more.