Scene
V
Near Loretto.
Enter Duchess, Antonio, Children, Cariola, and Servants.
Duchess
Banish’d Ancona!
Antonio
Yes, you see what power
Lightens in great men’s breath.
Duchess
Is all our train
Shrunk to this poor remainder?
Antonio
These poor men
Which have got little in your service, vow
To take your fortune: but your wiser buntings,
Now they are fledg’d, are gone.
Duchess
They have done wisely.
This puts me in mind of death: physicians thus,
With their hands full of money, use to give o’er
Their patients.
Antonio
Right the fashion of the world:
From decay’d fortunes every flatterer shrinks;
Men cease to build where the foundation sinks.
Duchess
I had a very strange dream tonight.
Antonio
What was’t?
Duchess
Methought I wore my coronet of state,
And on a sudden all the diamonds
Were chang’d to pearls.
Antonio
My interpretation
Is, you’ll weep shortly; for to me the pearls
Do signify your tears.
Duchess
The birds that live i’ th’ field
On the wild benefit of nature live
Happier than we; for they may choose their mates,
And carol their sweet pleasures to the spring.
Enter Bosala with a letter.
Bosola
You are happily o’erta’en.
Duchess
From my brother?
Bosola
Yes, from the Lord Ferdinand your brother
All love and safety.
Duchess
Thou dost blanch mischief,
Would’st make it white. See, see, like to calm weather
At sea before a tempest, false hearts speak fair
To those they intend most mischief.
Reads. “Send Antonio to me; I want his head in a business.”
A politic equivocation!
He doth not want your counsel, but your head;
That is, he cannot sleep till you be dead.
And here’s another pitfall that’s strew’d o’er
With roses; mark it, ’tis a cunning one:
Reads. ’I stand engaged for your husband for several debts at Naples: let not that trouble him; I had rather have his heart than his money’:—
And I believe so too.
Bosola
What do you believe?
Duchess
That he so much distrusts my husband’s love,
He will by no means believe his heart is with him
Until he see it: the devil is not cunning enough
To circumvent us in riddles.
Bosola
Will you reject that noble and free league
Of amity and love which I present you?
Duchess
Their league is like that of some politic kings,
Only to make themselves of strength and power
To be our after-ruin; tell them so.
Bosola
And what from you?
Antonio
Thus tell him; I will not come.
Bosola
And what of this?
Antonio
My brothers have dispers’d
Bloodhounds abroad; which till I hear are muzzl’d,
No truce, though hatch’d with ne’er such politic skill,
Is safe, that hangs upon our enemies’ will.
I’ll not come at them.
Bosola
This proclaims your breeding.
Every small thing draws a base mind to fear,
As the adamant draws iron. Fare you well, sir;
You shall shortly hear from’s.
Exit.
Duchess
I suspect some ambush;
Therefore by all my love I do conjure you
To take your eldest son, and fly towards Milan.
Let us not venture all this poor remainder
In one unlucky bottom.
Antonio
You counsel safely.
Best of my life, farewell. Since we must part,
Heaven hath a hand in’t; but no otherwise
Than as some curious artist takes in sunder
A clock or watch, when it is out of frame,
To bring’t in better order.
Duchess
I know not which is best,
To see you dead, or part with you.—Farewell, boy:
Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding
To know thy misery; for all our wit
And reading brings us to a truer sense
Of sorrow.—In the eternal church, sir,
I do hope we shall not part thus.
Antonio
O, be of comfort!
Make patience a noble fortitude,
And think not how unkindly we are us’d:
Man, like to cassia, is prov’d best, being bruis’d.
Duchess
Must I, like to slave-born Russian,
Account it praise to suffer tyranny?
And yet, O heaven, thy heavy hand is in’t!
I have seen my little boy oft scourge his top,
And compar’d myself to’t: naught made me e’er
Go right but heaven’s scourge-stick.
Antonio
Do not weep:
Heaven fashion’d us of nothing; and we strive
To bring ourselves to nothing.—Farewell, Cariola,
And thy sweet armful.—If I do never see thee more,
Be a good mother to your little ones,
And save them from the tiger: fare you well.
Duchess
Let me look upon you once more, for that speech
Came from a dying father. Your kiss is colder
Than that I have seen an holy anchorite
Give to a dead man’s skull.
Antonio
My heart is turn’d to a heavy lump of lead,
With which I sound my danger: fare you well.
Exeunt Antonio and his son.
Duchess
My laurel is all withered.
Cariola
Look, madam, what a troop of armed men
Make toward us!
Reenter Bosala visarded, with a Guard.
Duchess
O, they are very welcome:
When Fortune’s wheel is over-charg’d with princes,
The weight makes it move swift: I would have my ruin
Be sudden.—I am your adventure, am I not?
Bosola
You are: you must see your husband no more.
Duchess
What devil art thou that counterfeit’st heaven’s thunder?
Bosola
Is that terrible? I would have you tell me whether
Is that note worse that frights the silly birds
Out of the corn, or that which doth allure them
To the nets? You have heark’ned to the last too much.
Duchess
O misery! like to a rusty o’ercharg’d cannon,
Shall I never fly in pieces?—Come, to what prison?
Bosola
To none.
Duchess
Whither, then?
Bosola
To your palace.
Duchess
I have heard
That Charon’s boat serves to convey all o’er
The dismal lake, but brings none back again.
Bosola
Your brothers mean you safety and pity.
Duchess
Pity!
With such a pity men preserve alive
Pheasants and quails, when they are not fat enough
To be eaten.
Bosola
These are your children?
Duchess
Yes.
Bosola
Can they prattle?
Duchess
No:
But I intend, since they were born accurs’d,
Curses shall be their first language.
Bosola
Fie, madam!
Forget this base, low fellow—
Duchess
Were I a man,
I’d beat that counterfeit face into thy other.
Bosola
One of no birth.
Duchess
Say that he was born mean,
Man is most happy when’s own actions
Be arguments and examples of his virtue.
Bosola
A barren, beggarly virtue.
Duchess
I prithee, who is greatest? Can you tell?
Sad tales befit my woe: I’ll tell you one.
A salmon, as she swam unto the sea.
Met with a dogfish, who encounters her
With this rough language; “Why art thou so bold
To mix thyself with our high state of floods,
Being no eminent courtier, but one
That for the calmest and fresh time o’ th’ year
Dost live in shallow rivers, rank’st thyself
With silly smelts and shrimps? And darest thou
Pass by our dog-ship without reverence?”
“O,” quoth the salmon, “sister, be at peace:
Thank Jupiter we both have pass’d the net!
Our value never can be truly known,
Till in the fisher’s basket we be shown:
I’ th’ market then my price may be the higher,
Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.”
So to great men the moral may be stretched;
Men oft are valu’d high, when they’re most wretched.—
But come, whither you please. I am arm’d ’gainst misery;
Bent to all sways of the oppressor’s will:
There’s no deep valley but near some great hill.
Exeunt.