Act
II
Scene
I
Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.
Enter Bosala and Castruccio.
Bosola
You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?
Castruccio
’Tis the very main of my ambition.
Bosola
Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for’t already, and your nightcap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace, and in a set speech, at th’ end of every sentence, to hum three or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.
Castruccio
I would be a very merry president.
Bosola
Do not sup o’ nights; ’twill beget you an admirable wit.
Castruccio
Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel; for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for an eminent fellow?
Bosola
I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying, and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken for one of the prime nightcaps.
Enter an Old Lady.
You come from painting now.
Old Lady
From what?
Bosola
Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not painted inclines somewhat near a miracle. These in thy face here were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress. There was a lady in France that, having had the smallpox, flayed the skin off her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedgehog.
Old Lady
Do you call this painting?
Bosola
No, no, but you call [it] careening of an old morphewed lady, to make her disembogue again: there’s roughcast phrase to your plastic.
Old Lady
It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.
Bosola
One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews’ spittle, and their young children’s ordure; and all these for the face. I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague, than kiss one of you fasting. Here are two of you, whose sin of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew his foot-cloth with the spring, and change his high-pric’d courtesan with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. Observe my meditation now.
What thing is in this outward form of man
To be belov’d? We account it ominous,
If nature do produce a colt, or lamb,
A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling
A man, and fly from’t as a prodigy:
Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity
In any other creature but himself.
But in our own flesh though we bear diseases
Which have their true names only ta’en from beasts—
As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle—
Though we are eaten up of lice and worms,
And though continually we bear about us
A rotten and dead body, we delight
To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear,
Nay, all our terror, is, lest our physician
Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.—
Your wife’s gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot.
Exeunt Castruccio and Old Lady.
I observe our duchess
Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes,
The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue,
She wanes i’ the cheek, and waxes fat i’ the flank,
And, contrary to our Italian fashion,
Wears a loose-bodied gown: there’s somewhat in’t.
I have a trick may chance discover it,
A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks,
The first our spring yields.
Enter Antonio and Delio, talking together apart.
Delio
And so long since married?
You amaze me.
Antonio
Let me seal your lips forever:
For, did I think that anything but th’ air
Could carry these words from you, I should wish
You had no breath at all.—Now, sir, in your contemplation?
You are studying to become a great wise fellow.
Bosola
O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter that runs all over a man’s body: if simplicity direct us to have no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.
Antonio
I do understand your inside.
Bosola
Do you so?
Antonio
Because you would not seem to appear to th’ world
Puff’d up with your preferment, you continue
This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.
Bosola
Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer’s mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and business; for, mark me, when a man’s mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both tire.
Antonio
You would look up to heaven, but I think
The devil, that rules i’ th’ air, stands in your light.
Bosola
O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant, chief man with the duchess: a duke was your cousin-german remov’d. Say you were lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this? Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons: they are deceiv’d, there’s the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province, and batter down goodly cities with the cannon.
Enter Duchess and Ladies.
Duchess
Your arm, Antonio: do I not grow fat?
I am exceeding short-winded.—Bosola,
I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter;
Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.
Bosola
The duchess us’d one when she was great with child.
Duchess
I think she did.—Come hither, mend my ruff:
Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and
Thy breath smells of lemon-pills: would thou hadst done!
Shall I swoon under thy fingers? I am
So troubled with the mother!
Bosola
Aside. I fear too much.
Duchess
I have heard you say that the French courtiers
Wear their hats on ’fore that king.
Antonio
I have seen it.
Duchess
In the presence?
Antonio
Yes.
Duchess
Why should not we bring up that fashion?
’Tis ceremony more than duty that consists
In the removing of a piece of felt.
Be you the example to the rest o’ th’ court;
Put on your hat first.
Antonio
You must pardon me:
I have seen, in colder countries than in France,
Nobles stand bare to th’ prince; and the distinction
Methought show’d reverently.
Bosola
I have a present for your grace.
Duchess
For me, sir?
Bosola
Apricocks, madam.
Duchess
O, sir, where are they?
I have heard of none to-year
Bosola
Aside. Good; her colour rises.
Duchess
Indeed, I thank you: they are wondrous fair ones.
What an unskilful fellow is our gardener!
We shall have none this month.
Bosola
Will not your grace pare them?
Duchess
No: they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.
Bosola
I know not: yet I wish your grace had par’d ’em.
Duchess
Why?
Bosola
I forgot to tell you, the knave gardener,
Only to raise his profit by them the sooner,
Did ripen them in horse-dung.
Duchess
O, you jest.—
You shall judge: pray, taste one.
Antonio
Indeed, madam,
I do not love the fruit.
Duchess
Sir, you are loth
To rob us of our dainties. ’Tis a delicate fruit;
They say they are restorative.
Bosola
’Tis a pretty art,
This grafting.
Duchess
’Tis so; a bettering of nature.
Bosola
To make a pippin grow upon a crab,
A damson on a blackthorn.—Aside. How greedily she eats them!
A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales!
For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown,
I should have discover’d apparently
The young springal cutting a caper in her belly.
Duchess
I thank you, Bosola: they were right good ones,
If they do not make me sick.
Antonio
How now, madam!
Duchess
This green fruit and my stomach are not friends:
How they swell me!
Bosola
Aside. Nay, you are too much swell’d already.
Duchess
O, I am in an extreme cold sweat!
Bosola
I am very sorry.
Exit.
Duchess
Lights to my chamber!—O good Antonio,
I fear I am undone!
Delio
Lights there, lights!
Exeunt Duchess and Ladies.
Antonio
O my most trusty Delio, we are lost!
I fear she’s fall’n in labour; and there’s left
No time for her remove.
Delio
Have you prepar’d
Those ladies to attend her; and procur’d
That politic safe conveyance for the midwife
Your duchess plotted?
Antonio
I have.
Delio
Make use, then, of this forc’d occasion.
Give out that Bosola hath poison’d her
With these apricocks; that will give some colour
For her keeping close.
Antonio
Fie, fie, the physicians
Will then flock to her.
Delio
For that you may pretend
She’ll use some prepar’d antidote of her own,
Lest the physicians should re-poison her.
Antonio
I am lost in amazement: I know not what to think on’t.
Exeunt.
Scene
II
A hall in the same palace.
Enter Bosala and Old Lady.
Bosola
So, so, there’s no question but her techiness and most vulturous eating of the apricocks are apparent signs of breeding, now?
Old Lady
I am in haste, sir.
Bosola
There was a young waiting-woman had a monstrous desire to see the glasshouse—
Old Lady
Nay, pray, let me go. I will hear no more of the glasshouse. You are still abusing women!
Bosola
Who, I? No; only, by the way now and then, mention your frailties. The orange-tree bears ripe and green fruit and blossoms all together; and some of you give entertainment for pure love, but more for more precious reward. The lusty spring smells well; but drooping autumn tastes well. If we have the same golden showers that rained in the time of Jupiter the thunderer, you have the same Danaes still, to hold up their laps to receive them. Didst thou never study the mathematics?
Old Lady
What’s that, sir?
Bosola
Why, to know the trick how to make a many lines meet in one centre. Go, go, give your foster-daughters good counsel: tell them, that the devil takes delight to hang at a woman’s girdle, like a false rusty watch, that she cannot discern how the time passes.
Exit Old Lady.
Enter Antonio, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Antonio
Shut up the court-gates.
Roderigo
Why, sir? What’s the danger?
Antonio
Shut up the posterns presently, and call
All the officers o’ th’ court.
Grisolan
I shall instantly.
Exit.
Antonio
Who keeps the key o’ th’ park-gate?
Roderigo
Forobosco.
Antonio
Let him bring’t presently.
Reenter Grisolan with Servants.
First Servant
O, gentleman o’ th’ court, the foulest treason!
Bosola
Aside. If that these apricocks should be poison’d now, Without my knowledge?
First Servant
There was taken even now a Switzer in the duchess’ bedchamber—
Second Servant
A Switzer!
First Servant
With a pistol—
Second Servant
There was a cunning traitor!
First Servant
And all the moulds of his buttons were leaden bullets.
Second Servant
O wicked cannibal!
First Servant
’Twas a French plot, upon my life.
Second Servant
To see what the devil can do!
Antonio
Are all the officers here?
Servants
We are.
Antonio
Gentlemen,
We have lost much plate, you know; and but this evening
Jewels, to the value of four thousand ducats,
Are missing in the duchess’ cabinet.
Are the gates shut?
Servant
Yes.
Antonio
’Tis the duchess’ pleasure
Each officer be lock’d into his chamber
Till the sun-rising; and to send the keys
Of all their chests and of their outward doors
Into her bedchamber. She is very sick.
Roderigo
At her pleasure.
Antonio
She entreats you take’t not ill: the innocent
Shall be the more approv’d by it.
Bosola
Gentlemen o’ the wood-yard, where’s your Switzer now?
First Servant
By this hand, ’twas credibly reported by one o’ the black guard.
Exeunt all except Antonio and Delio.
Delio
How fares it with the duchess?
Antonio
She’s expos’d
Unto the worst of torture, pain, and fear.
Delio
Speak to her all happy comfort.
Antonio
How I do play the fool with mine own danger!
You are this night, dear friend, to post to Rome:
My life lies in your service.
Delio
Do not doubt me.
Antonio
O, ’tis far from me: and yet fear presents me
Somewhat that looks like danger.
Delio
Believe it,
’Tis but the shadow of your fear, no more:
How superstitiously we mind our evils!
The throwing down salt, or crossing of a hare,
Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse,
Or singing of a cricket, are of power
To daunt whole man in us. Sir, fare you well:
I wish you all the joys of a bless’d father;
And, for my faith, lay this unto your breast—
Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.
Exit.
Enter Cariola.
Cariola
Sir, you are the happy father of a son:
Your wife commends him to you.
Antonio
Blessed comfort!—
For heaven’ sake, tend her well: I’ll presently
Go set a figure for’s nativity.
Exeunt.
Scene
III
The court of the same palace.
Enter Bosala, with a dark lantern.
Bosola
Sure I did hear a woman shriek: list, ha!
And the sound came, if I receiv’d it right,
From the duchess’ lodgings. There’s some stratagem
In the confining all our courtiers
To their several wards: I must have part of it;
My intelligence will freeze else. List, again!
It may be ’twas the melancholy bird,
Best friend of silence and of solitariness,
The owl, that screamed so.—Ha! Antonio!
Enter Antonio with a candle, his sword drawn.
Antonio
I heard some noise.—Who’s there? What art thou? Speak.
Bosola
Antonio, put not your face nor body
To such a forc’d expression of fear;
I am Bosola, your friend.
Antonio
Bosola!—
Aside. This mole does undermine me.—Heard you not
A noise even now?
Bosola
From whence?
Antonio
From the duchess’ lodging.
Bosola
Not I: did you?
Antonio
I did, or else I dream’d.
Bosola
Let’s walk towards it.
Antonio
No: it may be ’twas
But the rising of the wind.
Bosola
Very likely.
Methinks ’tis very cold, and yet you sweat:
You look wildly.
Antonio
I have been setting a figure
For the duchess’ jewels.
Bosola
Ah, and how falls your question?
Do you find it radical?
Antonio
What’s that to you?
’Tis rather to be question’d what design,
When all men were commanded to their lodgings,
Makes you a nightwalker.
Bosola
In sooth, I’ll tell you:
Now all the court’s asleep, I thought the devil
Had least to do here; I came to say my prayers;
And if it do offend you I do so,
You are a fine courtier.
Antonio
Aside. This fellow will undo me.—
You gave the duchess apricocks today:
Pray heaven they were not poison’d!
Bosola
Poison’d! a Spanish fig
For the imputation!
Antonio
Traitors are ever confident
Till they are discover’d. There were jewels stol’n too:
In my conceit, none are to be suspected
More than yourself.
Bosola
You are a false steward.
Antonio
Saucy slave, I’ll pull thee up by the roots.
Bosola
May be the ruin will crush you to pieces.
Antonio
You are an impudent snake indeed, sir:
Are you scarce warm, and do you show your sting?
You libel well, sir?
Bosola
No, sir: copy it out,
And I will set my hand to’t.
Antonio
Aside. My nose bleeds.
One that were superstitious would count
This ominous, when it merely comes by chance.
Two letters, that are wrought here for my name,
Are drown’d in blood!
Mere accident.—For you, sir, I’ll take order
I’ the morn you shall be safe.—Aside. ’Tis that must colour
Her lying-in.—Sir, this door you pass not:
I do not hold it fit that you come near
The duchess’ lodgings, till you have quit yourself.—
Aside. The great are like the base, nay, they are the same,
When they seek shameful ways to avoid shame.
Exit.
Bosola
Antonio hereabout did drop a paper:—
Some of your help, false friend.—O, here it is.
What’s here? a child’s nativity calculated!
Reads. “The duchess was deliver’d of a son, ’tween the hours twelve and one in the night, Anno Dom. 1504,”—that’s this year—“decimo nono Decembris,”—that’s this night—“taken according to the meridian of Malfi,”—that’s our duchess: happy discovery!—“The lord of the first house being combust in the ascendant, signifies short life; and Mars being in a human sign, joined to the tail of the Dragon, in the eighth house, doth threaten a violent death. Caetera non scrutantur.”
Why, now ’tis most apparent; this precise fellow
Is the duchess’ bawd:—I have it to my wish!
This is a parcel of intelligency
Our courtiers were cas’d up for: it needs must follow
That I must be committed on pretence
Of poisoning her; which I’ll endure, and laugh at.
If one could find the father now! but that
Time will discover. Old Castruccio
I’ th’ morning posts to Rome: by him I’ll send
A letter that shall make her brothers’ galls
O’erflow their livers. This was a thrifty way!
Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise,
She’s oft found witty, but is never wise.
Exit.
Scene
IV
Rome. An apartment in the palace of the Cardinal.
Enter Cardinal and Julia.
Cardinal
Sit: thou art my best of wishes. Prithee, tell me
What trick didst thou invent to come to Rome
Without thy husband?
Julia
Why, my lord, I told him
I came to visit an old anchorite
Here for devotion.
Cardinal
Thou art a witty false one—
I mean, to him.
Julia
You have prevail’d with me
Beyond my strongest thoughts; I would not now
Find you inconstant.
Cardinal
Do not put thyself
To such a voluntary torture, which proceeds
Out of your own guilt.
Julia
How, my lord!
Cardinal
You fear
My constancy, because you have approv’d
Those giddy and wild turnings in yourself.
Julia
Did you e’er find them?
Cardinal
Sooth, generally for women,
A man might strive to make glass malleable,
Ere he should make them fixed.
Julia
So, my lord.
Cardinal
We had need go borrow that fantastic glass
Invented by Galileo the Florentine
To view another spacious world i’ th’ moon,
And look to find a constant woman there.
Julia
This is very well, my lord.
Cardinal
Why do you weep?
Are tears your justification? The selfsame tears
Will fall into your husband’s bosom, lady,
With a loud protestation that you love him
Above the world. Come, I’ll love you wisely,
That’s jealously; since I am very certain
You cannot make me cuckold.
Julia
I’ll go home
To my husband.
Cardinal
You may thank me, lady,
I have taken you off your melancholy perch,
Bore you upon my fist, and show’d you game,
And let you fly at it.—I pray thee, kiss me.—
When thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watch’d
Like a tame elephant:—still you are to thank me:—
Thou hadst only kisses from him and high feeding;
But what delight was that? ’Twas just like one
That hath a little fing’ring on the lute,
Yet cannot tune it:—still you are to thank me.
Julia
You told me of a piteous wound i’ th’ heart,
And a sick liver, when you woo’d me first,
And spake like one in physic.
Cardinal
Who’s that?—
Enter Servant.
Rest firm, for my affection to thee,
Lightning moves slow to’t.
Servant
Madam, a gentleman,
That’s come post from Malfi, desires to see you.
Cardinal
Let him enter: I’ll withdraw.
Exit.
Servant
He says
Your husband, old Castruccio, is come to Rome,
Most pitifully tir’d with riding post.
Exit.
Enter Delio.
Julia
Aside. Signior Delio! ’tis one of my old suitors.
Delio
I was bold to come and see you.
Julia
Sir, you are welcome.
Delio
Do you lie here?
Julia
Sure, your own experience
Will satisfy you no: our Roman prelates
Do not keep lodging for ladies.
Delio
Very well:
I have brought you no commendations from your husband,
For I know none by him.
Julia
I hear he’s come to Rome.
Delio
I never knew man and beast, of a horse and a knight,
So weary of each other. If he had had a good back,
He would have undertook to have borne his horse,
His breech was so pitifully sore.
Julia
Your laughter
Is my pity.
Delio
Lady, I know not whether
You want money, but I have brought you some.
Julia
From my husband?
Delio
No, from mine own allowance.
Julia
I must hear the condition, ere I be bound to take it.
Delio
Look on’t, ’tis gold; hath it not a fine colour?
Julia
I have a bird more beautiful.
Delio
Try the sound on’t.
Julia
A lute-string far exceeds it.
It hath no smell, like cassia or civet;
Nor is it physical, though some fond doctors
Persuade us seethe’t in cullises. I’ll tell you,
This is a creature bred by—
Reenter Servant.
Servant
Your husband’s come,
Hath deliver’d a letter to the Duke of Calabria
That, to my thinking, hath put him out of his wits.
Exit.
Julia
Sir, you hear:
Pray, let me know your business and your suit
As briefly as can be.
Delio
With good speed: I would wish you,
At such time as you are nonresident
With your husband, my mistress.
Julia
Sir, I’ll go ask my husband if I shall,
And straight return your answer.
Exit.
Delio
Very fine!
Is this her wit, or honesty, that speaks thus?
I heard one say the duke was highly mov’d
With a letter sent from Malfi. I do fear
Antonio is betray’d. How fearfully
Shows his ambition now! Unfortunate fortune!
They pass through whirlpools, and deep woes do shun,
Who the event weigh ere the action’s done.
Exit.
Scene
V
Another apartment in the same palace.
Enter Cardinal and Ferdinand with a letter.
Ferdinand
I have this night digg’d up a mandrake.
Cardinal
Say you?
Ferdinand
And I am grown mad with’t.
Cardinal
What’s the prodigy?
Ferdinand
Read there—a sister damn’d: she’s loose i’ the hilts;
Grown a notorious strumpet.
Cardinal
Speak lower.
Ferdinand
Lower!
Rogues do not whisper’t now, but seek to publish’t
(As servants do the bounty of their lords)
Aloud; and with a covetous searching eye,
To mark who note them. O, confusion seize her!
She hath had most cunning bawds to serve her turn,
And more secure conveyances for lust
Than towns of garrison for service.
Cardinal
Is’t possible?
Can this be certain?
Ferdinand
Rhubarb, O, for rhubarb
To purge this choler! Here’s the cursed day
To prompt my memory; and here’t shall stick
Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge
To wipe it out.
Cardinal
Why do you make yourself
So wild a tempest?
Ferdinand
Would I could be one,
That I might toss her palace ’bout her ears,
Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads,
And lay her general territory as waste
As she hath done her honours.
Cardinal
Shall our blood,
The royal blood of Arragon and Castile,
Be thus attainted?
Ferdinand
Apply desperate physic:
We must not now use balsamum, but fire,
The smarting cupping-glass, for that’s the mean
To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.
There is a kind of pity in mine eye—
I’ll give it to my handkercher; and now ’tis here,
I’ll bequeath this to her bastard.
Cardinal
What to do?
Ferdinand
Why, to make soft lint for his mother’s wounds,
When I have hew’d her to pieces.
Cardinal
Curs’d creature!
Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts
So far upon the left side!
Ferdinand
Foolish men,
That e’er will trust their honour in a bark
Made of so slight weak bulrush as is woman,
Apt every minute to sink it!
Cardinal
Thus ignorance, when it hath purchas’d honour,
It cannot wield it.
Ferdinand
Methinks I see her laughing—
Excellent hyena! Talk to me somewhat quickly,
Or my imagination will carry me
To see her in the shameful act of sin.
Cardinal
With whom?
Ferdinand
Happily with some strong-thigh’d bargeman,
Or one o’ th’ wood-yard that can quoit the sledge
Or toss the bar, or else some lovely squire
That carries coals up to her privy lodgings.
Cardinal
You fly beyond your reason.
Ferdinand
Go to, mistress!
’Tis not your whore’s milk that shall quench my wildfire,
But your whore’s blood.
Cardinal
How idly shows this rage, which carries you,
As men convey’d by witches through the air,
On violent whirlwinds! This intemperate noise
Fitly resembles deaf men’s shrill discourse,
Who talk aloud, thinking all other men
To have their imperfection.
Ferdinand
Have not you
My palsy?
Cardinal
Yes, [but] I can be angry
Without this rupture. There is not in nature
A thing that makes man so deform’d, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself.
You have divers men who never yet express’d
Their strong desire of rest but by unrest,
By vexing of themselves. Come, put yourself
In tune.
Ferdinand
So I will only study to seem
The thing I am not. I could kill her now,
In you, or in myself; for I do think
It is some sin in us heaven doth revenge
By her.
Cardinal
Are you stark mad?
Ferdinand
I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopp’d,
That their curs’d smoke might not ascend to heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in in pitch or sulphur,
Wrap them in’t, and then light them like a match;
Or else to-boil their bastard to a cullis,
And give’t his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back.
Cardinal
I’ll leave you.
Ferdinand
Nay, I have done.
I am confident, had I been damn’d in hell,
And should have heard of this, it would have put me
Into a cold sweat. In, in; I’ll go sleep.
Till I know who [loves] my sister, I’ll not stir:
That known, I’ll find scorpions to string my whips,
And fix her in a general eclipse.
Exeunt.