Duch. So, now the ground's broke,

You may discover what a wealthy mine
I make you lord of.

Ant. Oh, my unworthiness!

Duch. You were ill to sell yourself. This darkening of your worth is not like that Which tradesmen use i' the city; their false lights Are to rid bad wares off. And I must tell you, If you will know where breathes a cómplete man (I speak it without flattery), turn your eyes, And progress through yourself.

Ant. Were there nor heaven nor hell,

I should be honest. I have long serv'd virtue, And ne'er ta'en wages of her.

Duch. Now she pays it.

The misery of us that are born great!

We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us;
And as a tyrant doubles with his words,
And fearfully equivocates, so we
Are forc'd to express our violent passions
In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path
Of simple virtue, which was never made
To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag
You have left me heartless; mine is in your

bosom.

I do here put off all vain ceremony,

And only do appear to you a young widow

That claims you for her husband; and, like a widow,

I use but half a blush in't.

Ant. Truth speak for me;

I will remain the constant sanctuary

Of your good name.

Duch. I thank you, gentle love;

And 'cause you shall not come to me in debt,
Being now my steward, here upon your lips
I sign your Quietus est. This you should have
begg'd now:

I have seen children oft eat sweetmeats thus,
As fearful to devour them too soon.

Ant. But for your brothers?

Duch. Do not think of them.

All discord without this circumference
Is only to be pitied, and not fear'd.

Yet, should they know it, time will easily
Scatter the tempest.

Ant. These words should be mine,

And all the parts you have spoke, if some part of it

Would not have savour'd flattery.

Duch. Kneel.

Ant. Ha!

Enter CARIOLA.

Duch. Be not amaz'd; this woman's of my counsel.

I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber Per verba presenti1 is absolute marriage.

1 'By word of mouth in the presence of one

Duch. How can the church build faster? We now are man and wife, and 'tis the church That must but echo this.-Maid, stand apart; I now am blind.

Ant. What's your conceit in this?

Duch. I would have you lead your fortune by the hand

Unto your marriage-bed:

(You speak in me this, for we now are one): We'll only lic, and talk together, and plot To appease my humorous kindred; and, if you please,

Like the old tale in Alexander and Lodowick, Lay a naked sword between us, keep us chaste. Oh, let me shroud my blushes in your bosom, Since 'tis the treasury of all my secrets!

[Exeunt DUCHESS and ANTONIO. Cari. Whether the spirit of greatness or of

Bos. You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier ?

Cast. 'Tis the very main of my ambition. Bos. Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for't already, and your night-cap 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 the 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.

Cast. I would be a very merry president. Bos. Do not sup o'nights; 'twill beget you an admirable wit.

Cast. 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 ?

Bos. 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 night-caps.2

Enter an Old Lady.

You come from painting now.
Old Lady. From what?

1 roaring boys. See note 3, p. 183, col. 2. night-caps-the same as roaring boys.

Bos. 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 hedge-hog.

Old Lady. Do you call this painting?

Bos. No, no, but you call it careening of an old morphewed 2 lady, to make her disembogue again: there's rough-cast phrase to your plastic. Old Lady. It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.

'Bos. 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-cloth3 with the spring, and change his high-priced courtezan 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.

Del. And so long since married!

You amaze me.

Ant. Let me seal your lips for ever: For, did I think that anything but the 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.

1 progress-i.e. the progress of the sovereign through the kingdom.

2 morphewed. Morphew was a leprous eruption.
3 foot-cloth-housings of cloth hung over a horse.
4wolf-a term applied to an eating ulcer.

5 apricocks-the old form of apricots, from Lat. præcox, early ripe.

Bos. Oh, 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 Ant. I do understand your inside. Bos. Do you so?

honest.

Ant. Because you would not seem to appear to the world

Puff'd up with your preferment, you continue This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.

Bos. 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. Ant. You would look up to heaven, but I

think

The devil, that rules i' the air, stands in your light.

Bos. Oh, sir, you are lord of the ascendant, chief man with the duchess; a duke was your cousin-german removed. 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 deceived, there's the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar to 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.

Duch. 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. Bos. The duchess us'd one when she was great with child.

Duch. I think she did.-Come hither, mend my ruff:

Here, when?2 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!3

Bos. [aside.] I fear too much.

Duch. I have heard you say that the French courtiers

Wear their hats on 'fore the king

Ant. I have seen it.

Duch. In the presence?

Ant. Yes.

Duch. 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' the court;
Put on your hat first.

Ant. You must pardon me:

I have seen, in colder countries than in France, Nobles stand bare to the prince; and the distinction

Methought show'd reverently.

Bos. I have a present for your grace.

1 tetter-skin disease.

2 when an exclamation of impatience.

3 the mother-hysterical passions.

Duch. For me, sir?

Bos. Apricocks, madam.

Duch. Oh, sir, where are they?

I have heard of none to-year.

Bos. [aside.] Good; her colour rises.

Duch. Indeed, I thank you: they are wondrous fair ones.

What an unskilful fellow is our gardener!
We shall have none this month.

Bos. Will not your grace pare them?

Duch. No: they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.

Bos. I know not: yet I wish your grace had par'd 'em.

Duch. Why?

Bos. 'Tis a pretty art,

This grafting.

Duch. "Tis so; bettering of nature.

Bos. 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.

Duch. I thank you, Bosola: they were right good ones,

If they do not make me sick.

Ant. How now, madam!

Duch. This green fruit and my stomach are not friends:

Old Lady. I am in haste, sir.

Bos. There was a young waiting-woman had a monstrous desire to see the glasshouseOld Lady. Nay, pray let me go.

Bos. And it was only to know what strange instrument it was should swell up a glass to the fashion of a woman's belly.

Old Lady. I will hear no more of the glasshouse. You are still abusing women!

Bos. 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 Danäes still, to hold up their laps to receive them. Didst thou never study the mathematics?

Old Lady. What's that, sir?

Bos. 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.

Ant. Shut up the court-gates.

Rod. Why, sir? what's the danger? Ant. Shut up the posterns presently, and call All the officers o' the court.

1 Serv. With a pistol in his great cod-piece. Bos. Ha, ha, ha!

1 Serv. The cod-piece was the case for't.

2 Serv. There was a cunning traitor: who would have searched his cod-piece?

1 Serv. True, if he had kept out of the ladies' chambers and all the moulds of his buttons were leaden bullets.

2 Serv. Oh, wicked cannibal! a fire-lock in's cod-piece!

1 Serv. 'Twas a French plot, upon my life.
2 Serv. To see what the devil can do?
Ant. Are all the officers here?

Card. We had need go borrow that fantastic glass

Invented by Galileo the Florentine

To view another spacious world i' the moon,
And look to find a constant woman there.
Julia. This is very well, my lord.
Card. Why do you weep?

Are tears your justification? the self-same 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. Your laughter

Is my pity.

Del. Lady, I know not whether

You want money, but I have brought you some. Julia. From my husband?

Del. No, from mine own allowance.

Julia. I must hear the condition, ere I be bound to take it.

Del. Look on't, 'tis gold; hath it not a fine colour?

Julia. I have a bird more beautiful.

Del. 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.
This is a creature bred by-

Enter Servant.

Serv. Your husband's come,

I'll tell you,

Pray, let me know your business and your suit As briefly as can be.

Del. With good speed. I would wish you, At such time as you are non-resident

With your husband, my mistress.

Julia. Sir, I'll go ask my husband if I shall, And straight return your answer.

Del. Very fine!

[Exit.

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. [Ezit.

ACT II.--SCENE V.

Enter CARDINAL, and FERDINAND with a letter.
Ferd. I have this night digg'd up a mandrake.
Card. Say you?

Ferd. And I am grown mad with't.
Card. What's the prodigy?

1 physical-of the nature of physic, medicinal. 2 cullises See note 1, p. 52, col. 1.