Scene
II
Another room in the lodging of the Duchess.
Enter Duchess and Cariola.
Duchess
What hideous noise was that?
Cariola
’Tis the wild consort
Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother
Hath plac’d about your lodging. This tyranny,
I think, was never practis’d till this hour.
Duchess
Indeed, I thank him. Nothing but noise and folly
Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason
And silence make me stark mad. Sit down;
Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.
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. Who 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 the imposthume broke: the selfsame cure
The duke intends on you.
Duchess
Let them come in.
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’ the month
Should be the day of doom, and, failing of’t,
Ran mad; an English tailor craz’d i’ the brain
With the study of new fashions; 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 hind’red 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.
Enter Madmen.
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, whenas our choir wants breath,
Our bodies being blest,
We’ll sing, like swans, to welcome death,
And die in love and rest.
First Madman
Doom’s-day 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.
Second Madman
Hell is a mere glasshouse, where the devils are continually blowing up women’s souls on hollow irons, and the fire never goes out.
First Madman
I have skill in heraldry.
Second Madman
Hast?
First Madman
You do give for your crest a woodcock’s head with the brains picked out on’t; you are a very ancient gentleman.
Third Madman
Greek is turned Turk: we are only to be saved by the Helvetian translation.
First Madman
Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you.
Second Madman
O, rather lay a corrosive: the law will eat to the bone.
Third Madman
He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damn’d.
Fourth Madman
If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should make all the women here call me mad doctor.
First Madman
What’s he? a rope-maker?
Second Madman
No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows the tombs, will have his hand in a wench’s placket.
Third Madman
Woe to the caroche that brought home my wife from the masque at three o’clock in the morning! It had a large featherbed in it.
Fourth Madman
I have pared the devil’s nails forty times, roasted them in raven’s eggs, and cured agues with them.
Third Madman
Get me three hundred milch-bats, to make possets to procure sleep.
Fourth Madman
All the college may throw their caps at me: I have made a soap-boiler costive; it was my masterpiece.
Here the dance, consisting of Eight Madmen, with music answerable thereunto; after which, Bosala, like an old man, enters.
Duchess
Is he mad too?
Servant
Pray, question him. I’ll leave you.
Exeunt Servant and Madmen.
Bosola
I am come to make thy tomb.
Duchess
Ha! my tomb!
Thou speak’st as if I lay upon my deathbed,
Gasping for breath. Dost thou perceive me sick?
Bosala
Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.
Duchess
Thou art not mad, sure: dost know me?
Bosola
Yes.
Duchess
Who am I?
Bosola
Thou art a box of wormseed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What’s this flesh? a little crudded 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 earthworms. 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 comest 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 on our deathbed? 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 toothache. 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.
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 by the Executioners.
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.
First Executioner
We are ready.
Duchess
Dispose my breath how please you; but my body
Bestow upon my women, will you?
First Executioner
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. Kneels.—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 ordered?
Bosola
Yes, and I am glad
You are so well prepar’d for’t.
Cariola
You are deceiv’d, sir,
I am not prepar’d for’t, I will not die;
I will first come to my answer, and know
How I have offended.
Bosola
Come, despatch 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.
First Executioner
Here’s your wedding-ring.
Cariola
Let me but speak with the duke. I’ll discover
Treason to his person.
Bosola
Delays:—throttle her.
First Executioner
She bites and scratches.
Cariola
If you kill me now,
I am damn’d; I have not been at confession
This two years.
Bosola
To Executioners. When?
Cariola
I am quick with child.
Bosola
Why, then,
Your credit’s saved.
Executioners strangle Cariola.
Bear her into the next room;
Let these lie still.
Exeunt the Executioners with the body of Cariola.
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 liv’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 thou not pity her? What
An excellent honest man mightst thou have been,
If thou hadst borne 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 bade 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’ the court?
Where shalt thou find this judgment register’d,
Unless in hell? See, like a bloody fool,
Thou ’st 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.
Bosola
Why, fare thee well.
Your brother and yourself are worthy men!
You have a pair of hearts are hollow graves,
Rotten, and rotting others; and your vengeance,
Like two chain’d-bullets, still goes arm in arm:
You may be brothers; for treason, like the plague,
Doth take much in a blood. I stand like one
That long hath ta’en a sweet and golden dream:
I am angry with myself, now that I wake.
Ferdinand
Get thee into some unknown part o’ the world,
That I may never see thee.
Bosola
Let me know
Wherefore I should be thus neglected. Sir,
I serv’d your tyranny, and rather strove
To satisfy yourself than all the world:
And though I loath’d the evil, yet I lov’d
You that did counsel it; and rather sought
To appear a true servant than an honest man.
Ferdinand
I’ll go hunt the badger by owl-light:
’Tis a deed of darkness.
Exit.
Bosola
He’s much distracted. Off, my painted honour!
While with vain hopes our faculties we tire,
We seem to sweat in ice and freeze in fire.
What would I do, were this to do again?
I would not change my peace of conscience
For all the wealth of Europe.—She stirs; here’s life:—
Return, fair soul, from darkness, and lead mine
Out of this sensible hell:—she’s warm, she breathes:—
Upon thy pale lips I will melt my heart,
To store them with fresh colour.—Who’s there?
Some cordial drink!—Alas! I dare not call:
So pity would destroy pity.—Her eye opes,
And heaven in it seems to ope, that late was shut,
To take me up to mercy.
Duchess
Antonio!
Bosola
Yes, madam, he is living;
The dead bodies you saw were but feign’d statues.
He’s reconcil’d to your brothers; the Pope hath wrought
The atonement.
Duchess
Mercy! Dies.
Bosola
O, she’s gone again! there the cords of life broke.
O sacred innocence, that sweetly sleeps
On turtles’ feathers, whilst a guilty conscience
Is a black register wherein is writ
All our good deeds and bad, a perspective
That shows us hell! That we cannot be suffer’d
To do good when we have a mind to it!
This is manly sorrow;
These tears, I am very certain, never grew
In my mother’s milk. My estate is sunk
Below the degree of fear: where were
These penitent fountains while she was living?
O, they were frozen up! Here is a sight
As direful to my soul as is the sword
Unto a wretch hath slain his father.
Come, I’ll bear thee hence,
And execute thy last will; that’s deliver
Thy body to the reverend dispose
Of some good women: that the cruel tyrant
Shall not deny me. Then I’ll post to Milan,
Where somewhat I will speedily enact
Worth my dejection.
Exit with the body.