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The Malcontent

by John Marston

Dramatis Personae

Act 1

Scene 1

ACTUS PRIMUS. SCAENA PRIMA.

The vilest out of tune Music being heard.

Enter Bilioso and Prepasso.

Bilioso.:Why how now? are ye mad? or drunk? or both? or what?

Prepasso:Are ye building Babylon there?

Bilioso.:Here’s a noise in Court you think you are in a Tavern, do you not?

Prepasso:You think you are in a brothel house do you not? This room is ill scented. [Enter one with a Perfume.] So; perfume; perfume; some upon me I pray thee: The Duke is upon instant entrance; so, make place there.

Scene 2

SCAENA SECUNDA.

Enter the Duke Pietro, Ferrardo, Count Equato, Count Celso before, and Guerrino.

Pietro Jacomo:Where breathes that Music?

Bilioso.:The discord rather than the Music is heard from the Malcontent Malevoles chamber

Ferrardo:Malevole.

Malevole: Yaugh, god a’ man what dost thou there: Duke’s [Out of his Chamber.] Ganymede Juno’s jealous of thy long stockings: shadow of a woman, what wouldst Weasel? thou lamb a’ Court: what dost thou bleat for? ah you smooth-chinned Catamite.

Pietro Jacomo:Come down thou rugged Cur, and snarl here, I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty: trot about and bespurtle whom thou pleasest.

Malevole:I’ll come among you, you Goatish-blooded Toderers, as Gum into Taffeta, to fret, to fret: I’ll fall like a sponge into water to suck up; to suck up. Howl again. I’ll pray, and come to you.

Pietro Jacomo:This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature; A man or rather a monster; more discontent than Lucifer when he was thrust out of the presence, his appetite is unsatiable as the Grave; as far from any content as from heaven, his highest delight is to procure others’ vexation, and therein he thinks he truly serves heaven; for ’tis his position, whosoever in this earth can be contented is a slave and damned; therefore does he afflict all in that to which they are most affected; the Elements struggle within him; his own soul is at variance; his speech is halter-worthy at all hours; I like him faith, he gives good intelligence to my spirit, makes me understand those weaknesses which others’ flattery palliate: hark they sing.

Scene 3

SCAENA TERTIA

A Song.

Enter Malevole after the Song.

Pietro Jacomo:See he comes; now shall you hear the extremity of a Malcontent: he is as free as air; he blows over every man. And sir whence come you now?

Malevole:From the public place of much dissimulation; the church

Pietro Jacomo:What didst there?

Malevole:Talk with a Usurer; take up at Interest.

Pietro Jacomo:I wonder what religion thou art?

Malevole:Of a Soldier’s religion.

Pietro Jacomo:And what dost thou think makes most Infidels now?

Malevole:Sects, sects, I have seen seeming Piety change her robe so oft, that sure none but some arch-devil can shape her a new Petticoat.

Pietro Jacomo:Of a religious policy.

Malevole:But damnation on a politic religion.

Pietro Jacomo:But what’s the common news abroad Malevole, thou dog’st rumor still.

Malevole:Common news? why common words are, God save ye, Fare ye well: common actions, Flattery and Cozenage: common things, Women and Cuckolds: and how does my little Ferrard: a ye lecherous Animal, my little Ferret, he goes sucking up and down the Palace into every Hen’s nest like a Weasel: and to what dost thou addict thy time to now, more than to those Antique painted drabs that are still affected of young Courtiers, Flattery, Pride and Venery.

Ferrardo:I study languages: who dost think to be the best linguist of our age?

Malevole:Phew, the Devil let him possess thee, he’ll teach thee to speak all languages, most readily and strangely, and great reason marry, he’s traveled greatly i’ the world; and is everywhere.

Ferrardo:Save i’ th’ Court.

Malevole:Ay save i’ th’ Court: and how does my old Muckhill overspread with fresh snow thou half a man half a Goat, [To Bilioso.] all a Beast: how does thy young wife old huddle?

Bilioso.:Out you improvident rascal.

Malevole:Do, kick thou hugely horned old Duke’s Ox, good Master Make-pleas.

Pietro Jacomo:How dost thou live nowadays Malevole?

Malevole:Why like the Knight Saint Patrick Penlobrans, with killing o’ Spiders for my Lady’s Monkey.

Pietro Jacomo:How dost spend the night, I hear thou never sleepest?

Malevole:O no, but dream the most fantastical: O heaven: O fubbery, fubbery.

Pietro Jacomo:Dream, what dreamest?

Malevole:Why methinks I see that Signior pawned his foot-cloth, that Metreza her Plate, this madam takes physic, that t’ other Monsieur may minister to her: here is a Pandar Jeweled: there a fellow in shift of Satin this day, that could not shift a shirt t’ other night, here a Paris supports that Helen, there’s a Lady Guinever bears up that sir Lancelot. Dreams, dreams, visions, fantasies, Chimaeras, imaginations, tricks, [To Prepasso.] conceits, Sir Tristram Trimtram come a loft Jackanapes with a whim-wham, here’s a Knight of the land of Catito shall play at trap with any Page in Europe; Do the sword dance, with any Morris-dancer in Christendom; ride at the Ring till the fin of his eyes look as blue as the welkin, and run the wild-goose chase even with Pompey the huge.

Pietro Jacomo:You run.

Malevole:To the devil: now Signior Guerrino; that thou from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loathed flatterer: Alas poor Celso, thy stars oppressed, thou art an honest Lord, ’tis pity.

Equato.:Is ’t pity?

Malevole:Ay marry is ’t Philosophical Equato, and ’tis pity that thou being so excellent a Scholar by Art, shouldst be so ridiculous a fool by Nature: I have a thing to tell you Duke; bid ’em avaunt, bid ’em avaunt.

Pietro Jacomo:Leave us, leave us, now sir what is ’t?

Exeunt all saving Pietro and Malevole

Malevole:Duke thou art a Becco, a Cornuto.

Pietro Jacomo:How?

Malevole:Thou art a Cuckold.

Pietro Jacomo:Speak; unshell him quick.

Malevole:With most tumbler-like nimbleness.

Pietro Jacomo:Who? by whom? I burst with desire.

Malevole:Mendoza is the man makes thee a horned beast; Duke ’tis Mendoza cornutes thee.

Pietro Jacomo:What conformance, relate, short, short.

Malevole:As a Lawyer’s beard, There is an old Crone in the Court, her name is Maquerelle, She is my Mistress sooth to say, and she doth ever tell me, Blirt o’ rhyme; blirt o’ rhyme; Maquerelle is a cunning Bawd, I am an honest villain, thy wife is a close Drab, and thou art a notorious Cuckold, farewell Duke.

Pietro Jacomo:Stay stay.

Malevole:Dull, dull Duke, can lazy patience make lame revenge; O God for a woman to make a man that which God never created, never made.

Pietro Jacomo:What did God never make?

Malevole:A Cuckold: To be made a thing that’s hoodwinked with kindness whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a Coxcomb with egregious horns pinned to a Lord’s back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it; Pistols and Poniards, Pistols and Poniards.

Pietro Jacomo:Death and damnation.

Malevole:Lightning and thunder.

Pietro Jacomo:Vengeance and torture.

Malevole:Catso.

Pietro Jacomo:O revenge.

Malevole:I would damn him and all his generation, my own hands should do it; ha I would not trust heaven with my vengeance anything.

Pietro Jacomo:Anything, anything Malevole thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds; farewell, remember, I forget thee not, farewell.

Exit Pietro.

Scene 4

SCAENA QUARTA.

Enter Celso.

Celso:My honored Lord.

Malevole:Peace, speak low; peace, O Celso, constant Lord, Thou to whose faith I only rest discovered, Thou one of full ten millions of men That lovest virtue only for itself, Thou in whose hands old OPS may put her soul; Behold forever-banished Altofront This Genoa’s last year’s Duke. O truly noble, I wanted those old instruments of state, Dissemblance, and suspect: I could not time it Celso, My throne stood like a point in midst of a circle, To all of equal nearness, bore with none: Reigned all alike, so slept in fearless virtue, Suspectless, too suspectless, till the crowd: (Still liquorous of untried novelties) Impatient with severer government: Made strong with Florence: banished Altofront.

Celso:Strong with Florence, Ay thence your mischief rose, For when the daughter of the Florentine: Was matched once with this Pietro now Duke, No stratagem of state untried was left, till you of all

Malevole:Of all was quite bereft, Alas Maria too close prisoned: My true faithed duchess i’ the Citadel.

Celso:I’ll still adhere, let’s mutiny and die.

Malevole:O climb not a falling tower Celso, ’Tis well held desperation, no Zeal: Hopeless to strive with fate (peace) Temporize. Hope, hope, that never forsakest the wretchedst man, Yet bidst me live, and lurk in this disguise, What play I well the free breathed discontent, Why man we are all philosophical monarchs or natural fools, Celso the Court’s afire, the duchess’ sheets will smoke forth ere it be long: Impure Mendoza that sharp nosed Lord, that made the cursed match linked Genoa with Florence now broad horns, the Duke which he now knows: Discord to malcontents is very Manna, when the ranks are burst then scuffle Altofront.

Celso:Ay but durst.

Malevole:’Tis gone, ’tis swallowed like a mineral, some way ’twill work, phewt i’ll not shrink, He’s resolute who can no lower sink.

Celso:Yonder’s Mendoza.

Malevole:True, the privy key.

Celso:I take my leave sweet Lord.

Exit Celso.

Malevole:’Tis fit, away.

Scene 5

SCAENA QUINTA.

Enter Mendoza with three or four suitors.

Mendoza:Leave your suits with me, I can and will: attend my secretary, leave me.

Malevole:Mendoza hark ye, hark ye, You are a treacherous villain, God b’ wi’ ye.

Mendoza:Out you base-born rascal.

Malevole:We are all the sons of heaven though a Tripe-wife were our mother; ah you whoreson hot-reined he-Marmoset, Aegisthus didst ever hear of one Aegisthus?

Mendoza:Gistus?

Malevole:Ay Aegisthus, he was a filthy incontinent Fleshmonger, such a one as thou art.

Mendoza:Out grumbling rogue.

Malevole:Orestes, beware Orestes.

Mendoza:Out beggar.

Malevole:I once shall rise,

Mendoza:Thou rise?

Malevole:Ay at the resurrection. No vulgar seed but once may rise and shall, No King so huge, but fore he die may fall.

Exit.

Mendoza:Now good Elysium, what a delicious heaven is it for a man to be in a Prince’s favor? ô sweet God, ô pleasure! ô Fortune! ô all thou best of life? what should I think? what say? what do? to be a favorite? a minion? to have a general timorous respect observe a man, a stateful silence in his presence: solitariness in his absence, a confused hum and busy murmur of obsequious suitors training him; the cloth held up, and way proclaimed before him; Petitionary vassals licking the pavement with their slavish knees, whilst some odd palace Lamprels that engender with Snakes, and are full of eyes on both sides with a kind of insinuating humbleness fix all their lights upon his brow: O blessed state what a ravishing prospect doth the Olympus of favor yield; Death, I cornute the Duke: sweet women, most sweet Ladies, nay Angels; by heaven he is more accursed than a Devil that hates you, or is hated by you, and happier than a God that loves you, or is beloved by you; you preservers of mankind, lifeblood of society, who would live, nay who can live without you? O Paradise, how majestical is your austerer presence? how imperiously chaste is your more modest face? but O! how full of ravishing attraction is your pretty, petulant, languishing, lasciviously-composed countenance: these amorous smiles, those soul-warming sparkling glances; ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless Phaeton; in body how delicate, in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant, in life how wary, in favors how judicious, in day how sociable, and in night how? O pleasure unutterable, indeed it is most certain, one man cannot deserve only to enjoy a beauteous woman: but a Duchess? in despite of Phoebus I’ll write a Sonnet instantly in praise of her.

Exit.

Scene 6

SCAENA SEXTA.

Enter Ferneze ushering Aurelia, Emilia and Maquerelle bearing up her train, Bianca attending: all go out but Aurelia, Maquerelle and Ferneze.

Aurelia:And is ’t possible? Mendoza slight me, possible?

Ferneze:Possible? what can be strange in him that’s drunk with favor, Grows insolent with grace, speak Maquerelle, speak.

Maquerelle:To speak feelingly, more, more richly in solid sense than worthless words, give me those Jewels of your ears to receive my enforced duty, as for my part ’tis well known I can put up anything; can bear patiently with any man: But when I heard he wronged your precious sweetness, I was enforced to take deep offense; ’Tis most certain he loves Emilia with high appetite; and as she told me (as you know we women impart our secrets one to another) when she repulsed his suit, in that he was possessed with your endeared grace: Mendoza most ingratefully renounced all faith to you.

Ferneze:Nay, called you, speak Maquerelle, speak.

Maquerelle:By heaven witch? dried biscuit, and contested blushlessly he loved you but for a spurt or so.

Ferneze:For maintenance.

Maquerelle:Advancement and regard.

Aurelia:O villain? O impudent Mendoza.

Maquerelle:Nay he is the rustiest-jawed, the foulest-mouthed knave in railing against our sex: he will rail again’ women.

Aurelia:How? how?

Maquerelle:I am ashamed to speak ’t, I.

Aurelia:I love to hate him, speak.

Maquerelle:Why when Emilia scorned his base unsteadiness the black-throated rascal scolded, and said.

Aurelia:What?

Maquerelle:Troth ’tis too shameless,

Aurelia:What said he?

Maquerelle:Why that at four women were fools, at fourteen Drabs, at forty Bawds, at fourscore witches, and a hundreth Cats.

Aurelia:O unlimitable impudency!

Ferneze:But as for poor Ferneze’s fixed heart, Was never shadeless meadow drier parched, Under the scorching heat of heaven’s dog, Then is my heart with your inforcing eyes.

Maquerelle:A hot simile.

Ferneze:Your smiles have been my heaven, your frowns my hell, O pity then; Grace should with beauty dwell.

Maquerelle:Reasonable perfect by ’r lady.

Aurelia:I will love thee, be it but in despite, Of that Mendoza, witch! Ferneze, witch! Ferneze thou art the Duchess’ favorite, Be faithful, private, but ’tis dangerous,

Ferneze: His love is liveless, that for love fears breath, The worst that’s due to sin, O would ’t were death.

Aurelia:Enjoy my favor, I will be sick instantly and take physic, Therefore in depth of night, visit

Maquerelle:Visit her chamber, but conditionally you shall not offend her bed: by this Diamond.

Ferneze:By this Diamond.

Gives it to Maquerelle.

Maquerelle:Nor tarry longer than you please: by this Ruby.

Ferneze:By this Ruby.

Maquerelle:And that the door shall not creak.

Ferneze:And that the door shall not creak.

Malevole:Nay but swear.

Ferneze:By this purse.

Maquerelle:Go to, I’ll keep your oaths for you: remember, visit.

Enter Mendoza reading a Sonnet.

Aurelia:Dried biscuit? look where the base wretch comes.

Mendoza:Beauty’s life, Heaven’s model, Love’s Queen.

Maquerelle:That’s his Emilia.

Mendoza:Nature’s triumph, best of Earth.

Maquerelle:Meaning Emilia.

Mendoza:Thou only wonder that the world hath seen.

Maquerelle:That’s Emilia.

Aurelia:Must I then hear her praised? Mendoza.

Mendoza:Madam, your excellency is graciously encountered; I have been writing passionate flashes in honor of —

Exit Ferneze

Aurelia:Out villain, villain, O judgement where have been my eyes? what bewitched election made me dote on thee? what sorcery made me love thee? but be gone, bury thy head; O that I could do more than loathe thee: Hence worst of ill, No reason else, my reason is my will.

Exit with Maquerelle.

Mendoza:Women? nay furies, nay worse, for they torment Only the bad, but women good and bad. Damnation of mankind, breath hast thou praised them for this: And is ’t you Ferneze are wriggled into smock grace; fit sure, O that I could rail against these monsters in nature, models of hell, curse of the earth, women that dare attempt anything, and what they attempt they care not how they accomplish, without all premeditation or prevention; rash in asking, desperate in working, impatient in suffering, extreme in desiring, slaves unto appetite, mistresses in dissembling, only constant in unconstancy, only perfect in counterfeiting: their words are feigned, their eyes forged, their sights dissembled, their looks counterfeit, their hair false, their given hopes deceitful, their very breath artificial: Their blood is their only God: Bad clothes, and old age are only the Devils they tremble at: That I could rail now.

Scene 7

SCAENA SEPTIMA.

Enter Pietro his sword drawn.

Pietro Jacomo:A mischief fill thy throat, thou foul-jawed slave Say thy prayers.

Mendoza:I ha’ forgot ’em.

Pietro Jacomo:Thou shalt die.

Mendoza:So shalt thou; I am heart mad.

Pietro Jacomo:I am horn mad.

Mendoza:Extreme mad.

Pietro Jacomo:Monstrously mad.

Mendoza:Why?

Pietro Jacomo:Why? thou thou hast dishonored my bed.

Mendoza:I? come, come, sit, here’s my bare heart to thee as steady as is this center to this glorious world, And yet hark thou art a Cornuto; but by me?

Pietro Jacomo:Yes slave by thee.

Mendoza:Do not, do not with tart and spleenful breath, Lose him can loose thee; I offend my Duke? Bare record O ye dumb and raw aired nights, How vigilant my sleepless eyes have been, To watch the Traitor; record thou spirit of truth, With what debasement I ha’ thrown myself, To under-offices, only to learn The truth, the party, time, the means, the place, By whom, and when and where thou wert disgraced: And am I paid with slave? hath my intrusion To places private, and prohibited, Only to observe the closer passages: Heaven knows with vows of revelation, Made me suspected, made me deemed a villain? What rogue hath wronged us?

Pietro Jacomo:Mendoza, I may err.

Mendoza:Err? ’tis too mild a name, but err and err, Run giddy with suspect, fore through me thou know, That which most creatures save thyself do know, Nay since my service hath so loathed reject, Fore I’ll reveal, shalt find them clipped together.

Pietro Jacomo:Mendoza thou know’st I am a most plain-breasted man.

Mendoza:The fitter to make a Cornuto, would your brows were most plain too.

Pietro Jacomo:Tell me, indeed I heard thee rail?

Mendoza:At women, true, why what cold phlegm could choose, Knowing a Lord so honest, virtuous, So boundless loving, bounteous, fair shaped, sweet, To be contemned, abused, defamed, made Cuckold, Heart, I hate all women for ’t: sweet sheets, wax lights, Antique bedposts, Cambric smocks, villainous curtains, Arras pictures, oiled hinges, and all ye tongue-tied lascivious witnesses of great creatures’ wantonness: what salvation can you expect?

Pietro Jacomo:Wilt thou tell me?

Mendoza:Why you may find it yourself, observe, observe.

Pietro Jacomo:I ha’ not the patience, wilt thou deserve me; tell, give it.

Mendoza:Take ’t, why Ferneze is the man, Ferneze, I’ll prove ’t, this night you shall take him, in your sheets, wilt serve.

Pietro Jacomo:It will, my bosom’s in some peace, till night.

Mendoza:What?

Pietro Jacomo:Farewell.

Mendoza:God how weak a Lord are you, Why do you think there is no more but so?

Pietro Jacomo:Why?

Mendoza:Nay then will I presume to counsel you, It should be thus; you with some guard upon the sudden Break into the Prince’s chamber, I stay behind Without the door, through which he needs must pass, Ferneze flies, let him, to me he comes, he’s killed By me, observe by me, you follow, I rail, And seem to save the body: Duchess comes On whom (respecting her advanced birth, And your fair nature) I know, nay I do know No violence must be used. She comes, I storm, I praise, excuse Ferneze, and still maintain The Duchess’ honor, she for this loves me, I honor you, shall know her soul, you mine, Then naught shall she contrive in vengeance, (As women are most thoughtful in revenge) Of her Ferneze, but you shall sooner know ’t Then she can think ’t, thus shall his death come sure, Your Duchess brain-caught; so your life secure.

Pietro Jacomo:It is too well, my bosom, and my heart, When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part.

Exit.

Mendoza:Who cannot feign friendship, can ne’er produce the effects of hatred: Honest fool Duke, subtle lascivious Duchess, silly novice ferneze; I do laugh at ye, my brain is in labor till it produce mischief, and I feel sudden throes, proofs sensible, the issue is at hand. As Bears shape young, so I’ll form my device, Which grown proves horrid: Vengeance makes men wise.

Act 2

Scene 1

ACTUS SECUNDUS. SCAENA PRIMA.

Enter Mendoza with a Sconce, to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who whilst the Act is playing: Enter unbraced two Pages before him with lights, is met by Maquerelle and conveyed in. The Duchess’ Pages sent away.

Mendoza:He’s caught, the Woodcock’s head is i’ th’ noose, Now treads Ferneze in dangerous path of lust, Swearing his sense is merely deified. The fool grasps clouds, and shall beget Centaurs. And now in strength of panting faint delight, The Goat bids heaven envy him; good Goose, I can afford thee nothing but the poor comfort of calamity, Pity. Lust’s like the plummets hanging on clock lines, Will ne’er a’ done till all is quite is undone. Such is the course salt-sallow lust doth run. Which thou shalt try; I’ll be revenged. Duke thy suspect, Duchess thy disgrace, Ferneze thy rivalship, Shall have swift vengeance, nothing so holy, No band of nature so strong, No law of friendship so sacred, But i’ll profane, burst, violate Fore i’ll endure disgrace: contempt and poverty: Shall I whose very hum, struck all heads bare, Whose face made silence: creaking of whose shoe, Forced the most private passages fly ope, Scrape like a servile dog at some latched door? Learn now to make a leg? and cry beseech ye, Pray ye is such a Lord within? be awed At some odd usher’s scoffed formality? First sear my brains: Unde cadis non quo refert. My heart cries perish all, how? how? what fate? Can once avoid revenge, that’s desperate, I’ll to the Duke, if all should ope, if? tush Fortune still dotes on those who cannot blush.

Scene 2

SCAENA Secunda.

Enter Malevole at one door, Bianca, Emilia and Maquerelle at the other door.

Malevole:Bless ye cast a’ Ladies; ha Dipsas, how dost thou old Coal.

Maquerelle:Old Coal?

Malevole:Ay old Coal, methinks thou liest like a brand under these billets of green wood. He that will inflame a young wench’s heart, let him lay close to her, an old Coal that hath first been fired a panderess, my half burned lint, who though thou canst not flame thyself yet art able to set a 1000. virgins’ tapers afire: and how does Janivere thy husband, my little periwinkle: is a troubled with the cough a’ the Lungs still, does he hawk a-nights still, he will not bite.

Bianca:No by my troth, I took him with his mouth empty of old teeth.

Malevole:And he took thee with thy belly full of young bones, marry he took his maim by the stroke of his enemy.

Bianca:And I mine by the stroke of my friend:

Malevole:The close stock, ô mortal wench: Lady ha’ ye now no restoratives for your decayed Jason, look ye, Crab’s guts baked, distilled Ox-pith, the pulverised hairs of a Lion’s upper lip, jelly of Cock-sparrows, He Monkey’s marrow, or powder of Fox-stones; and whither are all you ambling now?

Bianca:Why to bed, to bed.

Malevole:Do your husbands lie with ye?

Bianca:That were country fashion i’ faith.

Malevole:Ha’ ye no foregoers about you; come, whither in good deed la now?

Maquerelle:In good indeed la now, to eat the most miraculously, admirably, astonishable composed Posset with three Curds, without any drink: will ye help me with a He Fox: here’s the Duke.

Exeunt Ladies.

Scene 3

SCAENA TERTIA

Enter Duke Pietro, Count Celso, Count Equato, Bilioso, Ferrardo, and Mendoza.

Pietro Jacomo:The night grows deep and foul, what hour is ’t?

Celso:Upon the stroke of twelve.

Malevole:Save ye Duke.

Pietro Jacomo:From thee, begone I do not love thee, let me see thee no more, we are displeased.

Malevole:Why God b’ wi’ thee, heaven hear my curse, May thy wife and thee live long together.

Pietro Jacomo:Be gone sirrah.

Malevole:When Arthur first in Court began, — Agamemnon, Menelaus, — was ever any Duke a Cornuto,

Pietro Jacomo:Begone hence.

Malevole:What religion wilt thou be of next?

Mendoza:Out with him.

Malevole:With most servile patience, time will come, When wonder of thy error will strike dumb, Thy bezzled sense, slaves I’ favor, Ay marry shall he rise, Good God how subtle Hell doth flatter vice, Mount him aloft, and makes him seem to fly, As foul the Tortoise mocked: who to the sky, Th’ ambitious shell-fish raised, th’ end of all, Is only that from height he might dead fall.

Exit.

Pietro Jacomo:It shall be so.

Mendoza:It must be so, for where great States revenge, ’Tis requisite, the parts with piety And soft respect forbears, be closely dogged, Lay one into his breast shall sleep with him, Feed in the same dish, run in self faction, Who may dissever any shape of danger, For once disgraced, discovered in offense, It makes man blushless, and man is (all confess) More prone to vengeance than to gratefulness. Favors are writ in dust, but stripes we feel, Depraved nature stamps in lasting steel.

Pietro Jacomo:You shall be leagued with the Duchess.

Equato.:The plot is very good.

Mendoza:You shall both kill, and seem the course to save.

Ferrardo:A most fine brain trick.

Celso:Of a most cunning knave.

Pietro Jacomo:My Lords: The heavy action we intend Is death and shame, two of the ugliest shapes That can confound a soul, think, think of it; I strike but yet like him that ’gainst stone walls, Directs his shafts, rebounds in his own face, My Lady’s shame is mine, O God, ’tis mine. Therefore I do conjure all secrecy, Let it be as very little as may be; pray ye, as may be; Make frightless entrance, salute her with soft eyes, Stain naught with blood, only Ferneze dies, But not before her brows: O Gentlemen God knows I love her, nothing else, but this I am not well; if grief that sucks veins dry, Rivels the skin, casts ashes in men’s faces, Bedulls the eye, unstrengthens all the blood, Chance to remove me to another world, As sure I once must die: let him succeed: I have no child, all that my youth begot, Hath been your loves, which shall inherit me, Which as it ever shall, I do conjure it Mendoza may succeed, he’s nobly born; With me of much desert.

Celso:Much.

Pietro Jacomo:Your silence answers Ay, I thank you, come on now, ô that I might die, Before her shame’s displayed, would I were forced To burn my father’s Tomb; unhill his bones, And dash them in the dirt, rather than this: This both the living and the dead offends, Sharp surgery where naught but death amends.

Exit with others.

Scene 4

SCAENA QUARTA.

Enter Maquerelle, Emilia and Bianca, with a Posset.

Maquerelle:Even here it is, three curds in three regions individually distinct, Most methodically according to art composed, without any drink.

Bianca:Without any drink.

Maquerelle:Upon my honor, will ye sit and eat.

Emilia:Good the composure the receipt, how is ’t:

Maquerelle:’Tis a pretty pearl, by this pearl, (how dost with me) thus it is, seven and thirty yolks of Barbary hens’ eggs, eighteen spoonfuls and a half of the Juice of cock-sparrow bones, one ounce, three drams, four scruples, and one quarter of the Syrup of Ethiopian Dates, sweetened with three quarters of a pound of pure Candied Indian Eryngoes, strowed over with the powder of Pearl of America, Amber of Cataia, and Lamb stones of Muscovia.

Bianca:Trust me the ingredients are very Cordial, and no question good, and most powerful in operation.

Maquerelle:I know not what you mean by restoration, but this it doth, it purifieth the blood, smootheth the skin, enliveneth the eye, strengtheneth the veins mundifieth the teeth, comforteth the stomach, fortifieth the back, and quickeneth the wit, that’s all.

Emilia:By my troth I have eaten but two spoonfuls, and methinks I could discourse most swiftly, and wittily already.

Maquerelle:Have you the art to seem honest.

Bianca:I thank advice and practice.

Maquerelle:Why then eat me a this posset, quicken your blood, and preserve your beauty, do you know Doctor Plaster-face, by this curd he is the most exquisite in forging of veins, sprightening of eyes, dying of hair, sleeking of skins, blushing of cheeks, surfling of breasts, blanching and bleaching of teeth, that ever made an old lady gracious by torchlight: by this curd law.

Bianca:Well we are resolved, what God has given us we’ll cherish.

Maquerelle:Cherish anything saving your husband, keep him not too high lest he leap the pale: but for your beauty, let it be your Saint, bequeath two hours to it every morning in your closet, I ha’ been young, and yet in my conscience I am not above five and twenty, but believe me, preserve and use your beauty, for youth and beauty once gone, we are like Beehives without honey: out a fashion, apparel that no man will wear, therefore use me your beauty.

Emilia:Ay but men say.

Maquerelle:Men say, let men say what they will, life a’ woman, they are ignorant of our wants, the more in years the more in perfection they grow: if they lose youth and beauty, they gain wisdom and discretion: But when our beauty fades, goodnight with us, there cannot be an uglier thing to see than an old woman, from which, ô pruning, pinching, and painting, deliver all sweet beauties.

Bianca:Hark music.

Maquerelle:Peace ’tis i’ the Duchess’ bedchamber, good rest most prosperously graced ladies.

Emilia:Goodnight sentinel.

Bianca:Night dear Maquerelle.

Exeunt at several doors.

Maquerelle:May my posset’s operation send you my wit and honesty, And me your youth and beauty, the pleasingst rest.

Exit.

Scene 5

SCAENA QUINTA.

A Song.

Whilst the Song is singing, enter Mendoza with his sword drawn standing ready to murder Ferneze as he flies from the Duchess’ chamber.

Tumult within.

Bilioso., Celso, Equato., Pietro Jacomo, Ferrardo:Strike, strike.

Aurelia:Save my Ferneze, ô save my Ferneze.

Enter Ferneze in his shirt, and is received upon Mendoza’s sword.

Bilioso., Celso, Equato., Pietro Jacomo, Ferrardo:Follow, persue.

Aurelia:O save Ferneze.

Mendoza:Pierce, pierce, thou shallow fool drop there, He that attempts a Prince’s lawless love, Must have broad hands, close heart with Argos’ eyes, And back of Hercules, or else he dies.

Enter Aurelia, Duke Pietro, Ferrardo, Bilioso, Celso and Equato.

Bilioso., Celso, Equato., Pietro Jacomo, Ferrardo:Follow, follow,

Mendoza:Stand off, forbear, ye most uncivil Lords.

Mendoza bestrids the wounded body of Ferneze and seems to save him.

Pietro Jacomo:Strike.

Mendoza:Do not; tempt not a man resolved; Would you inhuman murderers more than death?

Aurelia:O poor Ferneze.

Mendoza:Alas now all defense too late.

Aurelia:He’s dead.

Pietro Jacomo:I am sorry for our shame, go to your bed, Weep not too much, but leave some tears to shed When I am dead?

Aurelia:What weep for thee? my soul no tears shall find.

Pietro Jacomo:Alas, alas, that women’s souls are blind.

Mendoza:Betray such beauty? murder such youth? contemn civility, He loves him not that rails not at him.

Pietro Jacomo:Thou canst not move us, we have blood enough; And please you Lady we have quite forgot All your defects: if not, why then

Aurelia:Not.

Pietro Jacomo:Not: the best of rest, good night.

Exit Pietro with other Courtiers.

Aurelia:Despite go with thee.

Mendoza:Madam, you ha’ done me foul disgrace, You have wronged him much, loves you too much. Go to; your soul knows you have.

Aurelia:I think I have.

Mendoza:Do you but think so?

Aurelia:Nay sure I have, my eyes have witnessed thy love, Thou hast stood too firm for me.

Mendoza:Why tell me fair-cheeked Lady, who even in tears Art powerfully beauteous, what unadvised passion Struck ye into such a violent heat against me, Speak, what mischief wronged us? what devil injured us? Speak?

Aurelia:That thing ne’er worthy of the name of man; Ferneze, Ferneze swore thou lov’st Emilia, Which to advance, with most reproachful breath, Thou both didst blemish and denounce my love.

Mendoza:Ignoble Villain, did I for this bestride Thy wounded limbs; for this? rank opposite Even to my Sovereign: for this? O God for this? Sunk all my hopes, and with my hopes my life, Ripped bare my throat unto the hangman’s Axe, Thou most dishonored trunk — Emilia? By life I know her not — Emilia? Did you believe him?

Aurelia:Pardon me, I did.

Mendoza:Did you, and thereupon you graced him?

Aurelia:I did.

Mendoza:Took him to favor, nay even clasped with him?

Aurelia:Alas I did.

Mendoza:This night?

Aurelia:This night.

Mendoza:And in your lustful twines the Duke took you?

Aurelia:A most sad truth.

Mendoza:O God, O God, how we dull honest souls, Heavy brained men, are swallowed in the bogs Of a deceitful ground, whilst nimble bloods, Light jointed spirits pent, cut good men’s throats, And scape alas, I am too honest for this age, Too full of phlegm and heavy steadiness: Stood still whilst this slave cast a noose about me; Nay then to stand in honor of him, and her, Who had even sliced my heart.

Aurelia:Come I did err, and am most sorry, I did err.

Mendoza:Why we are both but dead, the Duke hates us And those whom Princes do once groundly hate, Let them provide to die; as sure as fate, Prevention is the heart of policy.

Aurelia:Shall we murder him.

Mendoza:Instantly?

Aurelia:Instantly, before he casts a plot, Or further blaze my honor’s much known blot, Let’s murder him?

Mendoza:I would do much for you, will ye marry me?

Aurelia:I’ll make thee Duke, we are of Medicis, Florence our friend, in court my faction Not meanly strengthful; the Duke then dead, We well prepared for change, the multitude Irresolutely reeling, we in force, Our party seconded, the kingdom mazed, No doubt of swift success all shall be graced.

Mendoza:You do confirm me, we are resolute, Tomorrow look for change, rest confident, ’Tis now about the immodest waste of night, The mother of moist dew with pallid light, Spreads gloomy shades about the numbed earth, Sleep, sleep, whilst we contrive our mischief’s birth, This man i’ll get inhumed, farewell, to bed, I kiss thy pillow dream, the duke is dead. [Exit Aurelia.] So, so, good night, how fortune dotes on impudence, I am in private the adopted son of yon good Prince, I must be Duke, why if I must, I must, Most silly Lord, name me? O heaven I see God made honest fools, to maintain crafty knaves: The duchess is wholly mine too; must kill her husband To quit her shame, much: then marry her: Ay, O I grow proud in prosperous treachery, As wrestlers clip, so i’ll embrace you all, Not to support, but to procure your fall.

Enter Malevole.

Malevole:God arrest thee.

Mendoza:At whose suit?

Malevole:At the devil’s, ha you treacherous damnable monster, How dost how dost thou treacherous rogue, Ha ye rascal, I am banished the Court, Sirrah.

Mendoza:Prithee let’s be acquainted, I do love thee faith.

Malevole:At your service, by the Lord law, shall’s go to supper, Let’s be once drunk together and so unite a most virtuously strengthened friendship, shall’s Huguenot, shall’s?

Mendoza:Wilt fall upon my chamber tomorrow morn.

Malevole:As a Raven to a dunghill, they say there’s one dead here pricked for the pride of the flesh.

Mendoza:Ferneze: there he is, pray thee bury him.

Malevole:O most willingly, I mean to turn pure Rochelle Churchman, I.

Mendoza:Thou Churchman, why? why?

Malevole:Because i’ll live lazily, fail upon authority, deny King’s supremacy in things indifferent, and be a Pope in mine own parish.

Mendoza:Wherefore dost thou think Churches were made?

Malevole:To scour plowshares I ha’ seen Oxen plow up Altars: Et nunc seges ubi sion fuit

Mendoza:Strange.

Malevole:Nay monstrous, I ha’ seen a sumptuous steeple turned to a stinking privy: more beastly, the sacredst place made a Dog’s kennel: nay most inhuman, the stoned coffins of long dead Christians burst up, and made Hogs-troughs. Hic finis Priami. Shall I ha’ some sack, and cheese at thy chamber, Good night, good mischivous incarnate devil, goodnight Mendoza, ha, ye Inhuman villain goodnight, night fub:

Mendoza:Goodnight: tomorrow morn.

Exit Mendoza.

Malevole:Ay, I will come friendly Damnation, I will come, I do descry cross-points, honesty, and courtship, straddle as far asunder, as a true Frenchman’s legs.

Ferneze:O!

Malevole:Proclamations, more proclamations.

Ferneze:O a Surgeon.

Malevole:Hark lust cries for a surgeon, what news from Limbo How does the grand cuckold Lucifer.

Ferneze:O help, help, conceal and save me.

Ferneze stirs and Malevole helps him up and conveys him away.

Malevole:Thy shame more than thy wounds do grieve me far, Thy wounds but leave upon thy flesh some scar: But fame ne’er heals still rankles worse and worse, Such is of uncontrolled Lust the curse. Think what it is in lawless sheets to lie, But ô Ferneze what in lust to die: Then thou that shame respects ô fly converse, With women’s eyes and lisping wantonness: Stick candles ’gainst a virgin wall’s white back, If they not burn, yet at the least they’ll black, Come I’ll convey thee to a private port, Where thou shalt live (O happy man) from court. The beauty of the day begins to rise, From whose bright form Night’s heavy shadow flies. Now ’gins close plots to work, the Scene grows full, And craves his eyes who hath a solid Skull.

Exeunt.

Act 3

Scene 1

ACTUS TERTIUS. SCAENA PRIMA.

Enter Pietro the Duke, Mendoza Count Equato and Bilioso.

Pietro Jacomo:’Tis grown to youth of day, how shall we waste this light? My heart’s more heavy than a tyrant’s crown. Shall we go hunt? Prepare for field.

Exit Equato.

Mendoza:Would ye could be merry.

Pietro Jacomo:Would God I could: Mendoza bid ’em haste. [Exit Mendoza] I would fain shift place, O vain relief. Sad souls may well change place, but not change grief: As Deer being struck fly thorough many soils, Yet still the shaft stick fast, so, A good old simile my honest Lord, I am not much unlike to some sick-man, That long desired hurtful drink; at last Swills in and drinks his last, ending at once Both life and thirst: O would I ne’er had known My own dishonor: good God, that men should Desire to search out that, which being found kills all Their joy of life: to taste the tree of Knowledge, And then be driven from out Paradise. Canst give me some comfort?

Bilioso.:My Lord, I have some books which have been dedicated to my honor, and I ne’er read ’em, and yet they had very fine names: Physic for Fortune: Lozenges of sanctified sincerity; very pretty works of Curates, Scriveners and Schoolmasters. Marry I remember one Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Pietro Jacomo:Out upon him, he writ of Temperance and Fortitude, yet lived like a voluptuous Epicure, and died like an effeminate coward. Haste thee to Florence: here take our Letters, see ’em sealed, away: report in private to the honored duke his daughter’s forced disgrace, tell him at length we know too much, due complaints advance. There’s naught that’s safe and sweet but Ignorance.

Exit Duke.

Scene 2

SCAENA SECUNCA.

Enter Malevole in some frieze gown whilst Bilioso reads his Patent.

Malevole:I cannot sleep my eyes ill neighboring lids Will hold no fellowship: O thou pale sober night, Thou that in sluggish fumes all sense dost steep: Thou that gives all the world full leave to play, Unbend’st the feebled veins of sweaty labor; The Galley-slave, that all the toilsome day, Tugs at his oar against the stubborn wave, Straining his rugged veins; snores fast: The stooping Scytheman that doth barb the field, Thou mak’st wink sure: in night all creatures sleep, Only the Malcontent, that ’gainst his fate, Repines and quarrels, alas he’s goodman tell-clock, His sallow jaw-bones sink with wasting moan, Whilst other beds are down, his pillow’s stone.

Bilioso.:Malevole.

Malevole:Elder of Israel, thou honest defect of wicked nature and obstinate ignorance, when did thy wife let thee lie with her?

Bilioso.:I am going Ambassador to Florence.

Malevole:Ambassador, now for thy country’s honor, prithee do not put up Mutton and Porridge i’ thy clock bag: thy young lady wife goes to Florence with thee too does she not?

Bilioso.:No, I leave her at the Palace.

Malevole:At the Palace? now discretion shield man, for God’s love let’s ha’ no more cuckolds, Hymen begins to put off his Saffron robe, keep thy wife i’ the state of grace, heart a’ truth, I would sooner leave my lady singled in a Bordello, then in the Genoa palace, sin there appearing in her sluttish shape Would soon grow loathsome, even to blush’s sense, Surfeit would cloak intemperate appetite, Make the soul scent the rotten breath of lust. When in an Italian lascivious Palace, a Lady guardianless. Left to the push of all allurement, The strongest incitements to immodesty, To have her bound, incensed with wanton sweets, Her veins filled high with heating delicates, Soft rest, sweet Music, amorous Masquerers, lascivious banquets, sin itself gilt o’er, strong fantasy tricking up strange delights, presenting it dressed pleasingly to sense, sense leading it unto the soul, confirmed with potent example, impudent custom enticed by that great bawd opportunity, thus being prepared, clap to her easy ear, youth in good clothes, well shaped, rich, fair spoken, promising noble, ardent blood-full, witty, flattering, Ulysses absent, O Ithaca can chastest Penelope hold out.

Bilioso.:Mass i’ll think on ’t farewell.

Exit Bilioso.

Malevole:Farewell, take thy wife with thee, farewell, To Florence, um? it may prove good, it may, And we may once unmask our brows.

Scene 3

SCAENA TERTIA

Enter Count Celso.

Celso:My honored Lord.

Malevole:Celso peace, how is ’t? speak low, pale fears suspect that hedges, walls and trees have ears, speak how runs all?

Celso:I’ faith my Lord, that beast with many heads, The staggering multitude recoils apace, Though thorough great men’s envy, most men’s malice, Their much intemperate heat hath banished you. Yet now they feigned envy and malice ne’er, Produce faint reformation. The Duke, the too soft Duke lies as a block, For which two tugging factions seem to saw, But still the Iron through the ribs they draw.

Malevole:I tell thee Celso, I have ever found Thy breast most far from shifting cowardice And fearful baseness: therefore i’ll tell thee Celso, I find the wind begins to come about, I’ll shift my suit of fortune, I know the Florentine whose only force, By marrying his proud daughter to this Prince, Both banished me, and made this weak Lord Duke, Will now forsake them all, be sure he will: I’ll lie in ambush for conveniency, Upon their severance to confirm myself.

Celso:Is Ferneze interred?

Malevole:Of that at leisure: he lives.

Celso:But how stands Mendoza, how is ’t with him?

Malevole:Faith like a pair of Snuffers, snibs filth in other men, and retains it in himself.

Celso:He does fly from public notice methinks, as a Hare does from hounds, the feet whereon he flies betrays him.

Malevole:I can track him Celso: O my disguise fools him most powerfully: For that I seem a desperate malcontent He fain would clasp with me: he is the true slave, That will put on the most affected grace, [Enter Mendoza] For some vild second cause.

Celso:He’s here.

Malevole:Give place. Illo, ho ho ho, art there old true penny, [Exit Celso.] Where hast thou spent thyself this morning? I see flattery in thine eyes, and damnation i’ thy soul. Ha ye huge Rascal.

Mendoza:Thou art very merry.

Malevole:As a scholar futuens gratis: How does the devil go with thee now.

Mendoza:Malevole, thou art an arrant knave.

Malevole:Who I? I have been a Sergeant man.

Mendoza:Thou art very poor.

Malevole:As Job, an Alchemist, or a Poet.

Mendoza:The Duke hates thee.

Malevole:As Irishmen do bum-cracks.

Mendoza:Thou hast lost his amity.

Malevole:As pleasing as Maids lose their virginity.

Mendoza:Would thou wert of a lusty spirit, would thou wert noble.

Malevole:Why sure my blood gives me I am noble, sure I am of noble kind, for I find myself possessed with all their qualities: love Dogs, Dice and Drabs scorn wit in stuff clothes, have beat my Shoemaker, knocked my Sempstress, cuckold my Pothecary, and undone my Tailor. Noble, why not? since the Stoic said; Neminem seruum non ex regibus, neminem regem non ex servis esse oriundum, only busy fortune touses, and the provident chances blends them together; I’ll give you a simile: did you e’er see a Well with two buckets, whilst one comes up full to be emptied, another goes down empty to be filled; such is the state of all humanity: why look you, I may be the son of some Duke, for believe me intemperate lascivious bastardy makes nobility doubtful, I have a lusty daring heart Mendoza.

Mendoza:Let’s grasp? I do like thee infinitely, wilt enact one thing for me?

Malevole:Shall I get by it? [Gives him his purse.] Command me, I am thy slave, beyond death and hell.

Mendoza:Murder the Duke?

Malevole:My heart’s wish, my soul’s desire, my fantasy’s dream, My blood’s longing, the only height of my hopes, how? O God how? O how my united spirits throng together, So strengthen my resolve.

Mendoza:The Duke is now a-hunting.

Malevole:Excellent, admirable, as the devil would have it, lend me, lend me, Rapier Pistol, Crossbow: so, so, i’ll do it.

Mendoza:Then we agree.

Malevole:As Lent and Fishmongers, come a cap-à-pie, how in form?

Mendoza:Know that this weak-brained duke, who only stands on Florence stilts, hath out of witless zeal made me his heir, and secretly confirmed the wreath to me after his life’s full point.

Malevole:Upon what merit?

Mendoza:Merit? by heaven I horn him, only Ferneze’s death gave me state’s life: tut we are politic, he must not live now.

Malevole:No reason marry: but how must he die now.

Mendoza:My utmost project is to murder the Duke, that I might have his state, because he makes me his heir: to banish the Duchess, that I might be rid of a cunning Lacedaemonian, because I know Florence will forsake her, and then to marry Maria the banished duke Altofront’s wife, that her friends might strengthen me and my faction, this is all law.

Malevole:Do you love Maria.

Mendoza:Faith no great affection, but as wise men do love great women to ennoble their blood and augment their revenue: to accomplish this now, thus now. The Duke is in the forest next the Sea, single him kill him, hurl him i’ the main, and proclaim thou saw’st Wolves eat him.

Malevole:Um, not so good, methinks when he is slain to get some Hypocrite, some dangerous wretch that’s muffled, or with feigned holiness to swear he heard the Duke on some steep cliff lament his wife’s dishonor, and in an agony of his heart’s torture hurled his groaning sides into the swollen sea, this circumstance well made, sounds probable, and hereupon the Duchess.

Mendoza:May well be banished: ô unpeerable invention, rare, Thou God of policy! it honeys me.

Malevole:Then fear not for the wife of Altofront, i’ll close to her.

Mendoza:Thou shalt, thou shalt, our excellency is pleased: why wert not thou an Emperor, when we are Duke i’ll make thee some great man sure?

Malevole:Nay make me some rich knave, and I’ll make myself some great man.

Mendoza:In thee be all my spirit, retain ten souls, unite thy virtual powers, resolve, ha, remember greatness, heart farewell. [Enter Celso.] The fate of all my hopes in thee doth dwell.

Malevole:Celso didst hear? ô heaven didst hear? Such devilish mischief, sufferest thou the world Carouse damnation even with greedy swallow, And still dost wink, still does thy vengeance slumber, If now thy brows are clear; when will they thunder.

Exit.

Scene 4

SCAENA QUARTA.

Enter Pietro, Ferrardo, Prespasso and three Pages.

Ferrardo:The Dogs are at a fault.

Cornets like horns.

Pietro Jacomo:Would God nothing but the dogs were at it? let the Deer pursue safely, the Dogs follow the game, and do you follow the dogs, as for me, ’tis unfit one beast should hunt another; I ha’ one chaseth me: and please you I would be rid of ye a little.

Ferrardo:Would your grief would as soon as we, leave you to quietness.

Exeunt.

Pietro Jacomo:I thank you: Boy; what dost thou dream of now?

Page:Of a dry summer my Lord for here’s a hot world towards: but my Lord I had a strange dream last night.

Pietro Jacomo:What strange dream?

Page:Why methought I pleased you with singing, and then I dreamt you gave me that short sword.

Pietro Jacomo:Prettily begged: hold thee, i’ll prove thy dream true, take ’t.

Page:My duty: But still I dreamt on my Lord, and methought and shall please your excellency, you would needs out of your royal bounty give me that jewel in your Hat.

Pietro Jacomo:O thou didst but dream boy, do not believe it, dreams prove not always true, they may hold in a short sword, but not in a Jewel. But now sir you dream you had pleased me with singing, make that true as I ha’ made the other.

Page:Faith my Lord I did but dream, and dreams you say prove not always true: they may hold in a good sword, but not in a good song: the truth is, I ha’ lost my voice.

Pietro Jacomo:Lost thy voice, how?

Page:With dreaming faith but here’s a couple of Sirenical rascals shall inchant ye: What shall they sing my good Lord?

Pietro Jacomo:Sing of the nature of women, and then the song shall be surely full of variety, old crochets and most sweet closes; it shall be humorous, grave, fantastic, amorous, melancholy, sprightly, one in all, and all in one.

Page, Pages, Pages:All in one?

Pietro Jacomo:By ’r Lady too many sing, my speech grows culpable of unthrifty idleness, sing.

The Song.

Scene 5

SCAENA QUINTA.

Enter Malevole with Crossbow and Pistol.

Pietro Jacomo:A, so. so, sing, I am heavy, walk off, I shall talk in my sleep walk off.

Exeunt Pages.

Malevole:Brief, brief, who? the Duke? good heaven that fools should stumble upon greatness? do not sleep duke, give ye good morrow: must be brief Duke. I am fee’d to murder thee, start not; Mendoza, Mendoza hired me, here’s his gold, his Pistol, Crossbow, Sword, ’tis all as firm as earth: O fool, fool, choked with the common maze of easy Idiots, credulity make him thine heir, what thy sworn murderer?

Pietro Jacomo:O can it be?

Malevole:Can?

Pietro Jacomo:Discovered he not Ferneze?

Malevole:Yes, but why? but why? for love to thee, much, much, to be revenged upon his rival, who had thrust his jaws awry, who being slain supposed by thine own hands; defended by his sword, made thee most loathsome, him most gracious, with thy loose Princes, thou closely yielding egress and regress to her, madest him heir, whose hot unquiet lust straight toused thy sheets, and now would seize thy state, politician, wise man, death to be led to the stake, like a Bull by the horns to make even kindness cut a gentle throat, life, why art thou numbed: Thou foggy dullness speak? lives not more faith in a home thrusting tongue, then in these fencing tip tap Courtiers.

Enter Celso with a Hermit’s gown and beard.

Celso:Lord Malevole, if this be true

Malevole:If? come shade thee with this disguise, if? thou shalt handle it, he shall thank thee for killing thyself, come follow my directions, and thou shalt see strange sleights.

Pietro Jacomo:World whither wilt thou?

Malevole:Why to the Devil: come, the morn grows late. A steady quickness is the soul of state.

Exeunt.

Act 4

Scene 1

ACTUS QUARTUS, SCAENA PRIMA.

Enter Maquarelle, knocking at the Ladies’ door.

Maquerelle:Madam, Madam, are you stirring Madam, if you be stirring Madam, if I thought I should disturb ye.

Page:My Lady is up forsooth.

Maquerelle:A, pretty boy, faith how old art thou?

Page:I think fourteen.

Maquerelle:Nay, and ye be in the teens, are ye a gentleman born, do you know me, my name is Madam Maquerelle, I lie in the old Cunny Court. [Enter Bianca and Emilia.] See here the Ladies.

Bianca:A fair day to ye Maquerelle.

Emilia:Is the Duchess up yet Sentinel?

Maquerelle:O Ladies, the most abominable mischance, O dear Ladies the most piteous disaster, Ferneze was taken last night in the Duchess’ Chamber: Alas the Duke catched him and killed him.

Bianca:Was he found in bed?

Maquerelle:O no, but the villainous certainty is, the door was not bolted, the tongue-tied hatch held his peace, so the naked troth is, he was found in his shirt, whilst I like an errand beast lay in the outward Chamber, heard nothing, and yet they came by me in the dark, and yet I felt them not, like a senseless creature as I was. O beauties, look to your busk-points, if not chastely, yet charily: be sure the door be bolted: is your Lord gone to Florence?

Bianca:Yes Maquarelle.

Maquerelle:I hope you’ll find the discretion to purchase a fresh gown fore his return: Now by my troth beauties, I would ha’ ye once wise: he loves ye, pish: he is witty, bubble: fair proportioned, mew: nobly born, wind; let this be still your fixed position, esteem me every man according to his good gifts, and so ye shall ever remain most dear, and most worthy to be most dear Ladies.

Emilia:Is the Duke returned from hunting yet?

Maquerelle:They say, not yet.

Bianca:’Tis now in midst of day.

Emilia:How bears the Duchess with this blemish now?

Maquerelle:Faith boldly, strongly defies defame, as one that has a Duke to her father. And there’s a note to you, be sure of a stout friend in a corner, that may always awe your husband. Mark the ’havior of the Duchess now, she dares defame, cries, Duke do what thou canst, i’ll quite mine honor: nay, as one confirmed in her own virtue against ten thousand mouths that mutter her disgrace, she’s presently for dances.

Enter Ferrardo.

Bianca:For dances?

Maquerelle:Most true.

Emilia:Most strange, see, here’s my servant young Ferrard: How many servants thinkst thou I have, Maquarelle?

Maquerelle:The more the merrier: ’twas well said, use your servants as you do your smocks, have many, use one, and change often, for that’s most sweet and courtlike.

Ferrardo:Save ye fair Ladies, is the Duke returned?

Bianca:Sweet Sir, no voice of him as yet in Court.

Ferneze:’Tis very strange.

Bianca:And how like you my servant, Maquarelle?

Maquerelle:I think he could hardly draw Ulysses’ bow, but by my fidelity, were his nose narrower, his eyes broader, his hands thinner, his lips thicker, his legs bigger, his feet lesser, his hair blacker, and his teeth whiter, he were a tolerable sweet youth i’ faith. And he will come to my Chamber, I will read him the fortune of his beard.

Cornets sound.

Ferrardo:Not yet returned I fear, but The Duchess approacheth.

Enter Mendoza supporting the Duchess: Guerrino, the Ladies that are on the Stage rise: Ferrardo Ushers in the Duchess, and then takes a Lady to tread a measure.

Scene 2

SCAENA SECUNDA.

Aurelia:We will dance, music, we will dance.

Guerrino:Les quanto (Lady) penses bien, passa regis, or Bianca’s brawl.

Aurelia:We have forgot the brawl.

Ferrardo:So soon? ’tis wonder.

Guerrino:Why ’tis but two singles on the left, two on the right, three double forward, a traverse of six round: do this twice, three singles side, galliard trick of twenty, coranto pace; a figure of eight, three singles broken down, come up, meet two doubles, fall back, and then honor.

Aurelia:O Daedalus! thy maze, I have quite forgot it.

Maquerelle:Trust me so have I, saving the falling back, and then honor.

Enter Prepasso.

Aurelia:Music, music.

Prepasso:Who saw the duke? the duke.

Enter Equato.

Aurelia:Music.

Equato.:The duke, is the duke returned?

Aurelia:Music:

Enter Celso.

Celso:The duke is either quite invisible, or else is not.

Aurelia:We are not pleased with your intrusion upon our private retirement: we are not pleased: you have forgot yourselves.

Enter a Page.

Celso:Boy, thy Master, where’s the Duke?

Page:Alas, I left him burying the earth with his spread joyless limbs: he told me he was heavy, would sleep, bade me walk off, for that the strength of fantasy oft made him talking in his dreams: I straight obeyed, nor never saw him since: but, wheresoe’er he is, he’s sad.

Aurelia:Music sound high, as is our heart, sound high.

Scene 3

SCAENA TERTIA

Enter Malevole and Pietro disguised like an Hermit.

Malevole:The Duke, peace, the Duke is dead.

Aurelia:Music.

Malevole:Is ’t Music?

Mendoza:Give proof.

Ferrardo:How?

Celso:Where.

Prepasso:When?

Malevole:Rest in peace, as the Duke does, quietly sit: for my own part, I beheld him but dead, that’s all: marry here’s one can give you a more particular account of him.

Mendoza:Speak holy father, nor let any brow within this presence fright thee from the truth: speak confidently and freely.

Aurelia:We attend.

Pietro Jacomo:Now had the mounting Sun’s all-ripening wings Swept the cold sweat of night from earth’s dank breast, When I (whom men call Hermit of the Rock) Forsook my Cell, and clambered up a cliff, Against whose base, the heady Neptune dashed His high curled brows, there ’twas I eased my limbs, When lo, my entrails melted with the moan, Some one, who far ’bove me was climbed, did make: I shall offend.

Mendoza:Not.

Aurelia:On.

Pietro Jacomo:Methinks I hear him yet, O female faith! Go sow the ingrateful sand, and love a woman: And do I live to be the scoff of men, To be their wittol cuckold, even to hug my poison? Thou knowest ô Truth! Sooner hard steel will melt with Southern wind; A Seaman’s whistle calm the Ocean; A town on fire be extinct with tears, Then women vowed to blushless impudence, With sweet behavior and soft minioning, Will turn from that where appetite is fixed. O powerful blood! how thou dost slave their soul? I washed an Ethiop, who for recompense Sullied my name. And must I then be forced. To walk, to live thus black: must, must, fie, He that can bear with must, he cannot die. With that he sighed so passionately deep, That the dull air even groaned, at last he cries: Sink shame in seas, sink deep enough, so dies. For then I viewed his body fall and souse Into the foamy main, O then I saw That which methinks I see, it was the Duke, Whom straight the nicer stomached sea Belched up: but then,

Malevole:Then came I in, but ’las all was too late, For even straight he sunk.

Pietro Jacomo:Such was the Duke’s sad fate.

Celso:A better fortune to our Duke Mendoza.

Aurelia, Prepasso, Equato., Ferrardo, Malevole, Mendoza, Guerrino, Maquerelle, Emilia, Celso, Bianca:Mendoza:

Cornets flourish.

Enter a guard.

Mendoza:A guard, a guard, we full of hearty tears, For our good father’s loss, For so we well may call him: Who did beseech your loves, for our succession, Cannot so lightly over-jump his death. As leave his woes revengeless: woman of shame, [To Emilia,] We banish thee forever to the place, From whence this good man comes, Nor permit on death unto the body any ornament: But base as was thy life, depart away.

Aurelia:Ungrateful.

Mendoza:Away.

Aurelia:Villain hear me.

Prepasso and Guerrino leads away the Duchess.

Mendoza:Be gone my Lords, address to public counsel, ’Tis most fit, The train of Fortune is borne up by wit. Away, our presence shall be sudden, haste.

All depart saving Mendoza, Malevole, and Pietro.

Malevole:Now you egregious devil, ha’ ye murdering politician, how dost duke? how dost look now? brave duke i’ faith.

Mendoza:How did you kill him?

Malevole:Slatted his brains out, then soused him in the briny sea.

Mendoza:Brained him and drowned him too?

Malevole:O ’twas best, sure work: For he that strikes a great man, let him strike home, or else ’ware, he’ll prove no man: shoulder not a huge fellow, unless you may be sure to lay him in the kennel.

Mendoza:A most sound brain-pan, I’ll make you both Emperors

Malevole:Make us christians, make us christians.

Mendoza:I’ll hoist ye, ye shall mount.

Malevole:To the gallows, say ye? O ô me, Praemium incertum petit certum scelus. How stands the Progress?

Mendoza:Here, take my ring unto the Citadel, Have entrance to Maria the grave Duchess Of banished Altofront. Tell her we love her: Omit no circumstance to grace our Person (do ’t)

Malevole:I’ll make an excellent pander: Duke farewell, due adieu Duke.

Exit

Mendoza:Take Maquerelle with thee; for ’tis found, None cuts a Diamond but a Diamond. Hermit, thou art a man for me, my Confessor, O thou selected spirit, born for my good, Sure thou wouldst make an excellent elder in a deformed church: Come, we must be inward, thou and I all one.

Pietro Jacomo:I am glad I was ordained for ye.

Mendoza:Go to then, thou must know that Malevole is a strange villain: dangerous, very dangerous, you see how broad ’a speaks, a gross-jawed rogue, I would have thee poison him: he’s like a corn upon my great toe, I cannot go for him: he must be cored out: he must, wilt do ’t, ha?

Pietro Jacomo:Anything, anything.

Mendoza:Heart of my life, thus then to the Citadel, Thou shalt consort with this Malevole, There being at supper, poison him, It shall be laid upon Maria, who yields love, or dies, Scud quick.

Pietro Jacomo:Like lightning good deeds crawl, but mischief flies.

Enter Malevole.

Exit Pietro

Malevole:Your devilship’s ring has no virtue, the buff-captain, the sallow-westphalian gammon-faced zaza cries stand out, must have a stiffer warrant, or no pass into the castle of Comfort.

Mendoza:Command our sudden Letter: not enter? sha’t, what place is there in Genoa, but thou shalt into my heart, into my very heart: come, let’s love, we must love, we two, soul and body.

Malevole:How didst like the Hermit? A strange Hermit sirrah.

Mendoza:A dangerous fellow, very perilous: he must die.

Malevole:Ay, he must die.

Mendoza:Thoust kill him: we are wise, we must be wise.

Malevole:And provident.

Mendoza:Yea provident; beware an hypocrite. A Churchman once corrupted, oh avoid A fellow that makes Religion his stalking horse, He breeds a plague: thou shalt poison him.

Malevole:Ho, ’tis wondrous necessary: how?

Mendoza:You both go jointly to the Citadel, There sup, there poison him: and Maria, Because she is our opposite, shall bear The sad suspect, on which she dies, or loves us.

Malevole:I run.

Exit Malevole

Mendoza:We that are great, our sole self good still moves us: They shall die both, for their deserts craves more Than we can recompense, their presence still Imbraids our fortunes with beholdingness, Which we abhor, like deed, not doer: then conclude, They live not to cry out Ingratitude. One stick burns t’ other, steel cuts steel alone: ’Tis good trust few: but O, ’tis best trust none.

Exit Mendoza.

Scene 4

SCAENA QUARTA.

Enter Malevole and Pietro still disguised, at several doors.

Malevole:How do you? how dost Duke?

Pietro Jacomo:O let the last day fall, drop, drop in our cursed heads! Let heaven unclasp itself, vomit forth flames:

Malevole:O do not rave, do not turn Player, there’s more of them, than can well live one by another already. What, art an Infidel still?

Pietro Jacomo:I am mazed, struck in a swoon with wonder, I am commanded to poison thee.

Malevole:I am commanded to poison thee, at supper.

Pietro Jacomo:At supper?

Malevole:In the Citadel.

Pietro Jacomo:In the Citadel.

Malevole:Cross capers, tricks? truth a heaven would discharge us as boys do elder guns, one pellet to strike out another: of what faith art now?

Pietro Jacomo:All is damnation, wickedness extreme, there is no faith in man.

Mendoza:In none but usurers and brokers, they deceive no man, men take ’em for bloodsuckers, and so they are: now God deliver me from my friends.

Pietro Jacomo:Thy friends?

Malevole:Yes, from my friends, for from mine enemies I’ll deliver myself. O, cutthroat friendship is the rankest villainy, mark this Mendoza, mark him for a villain: but heaven will send a plague upon him for a rogue.

Pietro Jacomo:O world!

Malevole:World? ’Tis the only region of Death, the greatest shop of the Devil, the cruelest prison of men, out of the which none pass without paying their dearest breath for a fee, there’s nothing perfect in it, but extreme extreme calamity, such as comes yonder.

Scene 5

SCAENA QUINTA.

Enter Aurelia, two Halberds before, and two after, supported by Celso and Ferrardo, Aurelia in base mourning attire.

Aurelia:To banishment, led on to banishment

Pietro Jacomo:Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you.

Aurelia:Why, why, I can desire nothing but death, nor deserve anything but hell. If heaven should give sufficiency of grace To clear my soul, it would make heaven graceless: My sins would make the stock of mercy poor, Oh they would try heaven’s goodness to reclaim them: Judgement is just yet from that vast villain: But sure he shall not miss sad punishment, For he shall rule on to my Cell of shame.

Pietro Jacomo:My Cell ’tis Lady, where instead of Masques, Music, Tilts, Tourneys, and such Courtlike shows, The hollow murmur of the checkless winds Shall groan again, whilst the unquiet sea Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery: There Usherless the air comes in and out, The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep, Whilst you behold true desolation: A rocky barrenness shall pain your eyes, Where all at once one reaches, where he stands, With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.

Aurelia:It is too good, blessed spirit of my Lord: O in what orb soe’er thy soul is throned, Behold me worthily most miserable: O let the anguish of my contrite spirit, Entreat some reconciliation: If not, O joy! triumph in my just grief, Death is the end of woes, and tears relief.

Pietro Jacomo:Belike your Lord not loved you, was unkind.

Aurelia:O heaven, As the soul loved the body, so loved he, ’Twas death to him to part my presence, Heaven to see me pleased: Yet I like to a wretch given o’er to hell, Brake all the sacred rites of marriage, To clip a base ungentle faithless villain: O God, a very Pagan reprobate! What should I say, ungrateful throws me out, For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honor: But ’tis most fit: why should a better fate Attend on any, who forsake chaste sheets, Fly the embrace of a devoted heart, Joined by a solemn vow ’fore God and man, To taste the brackish blood of beastly lust In an adulterous touch? Oh ravenous immodesty, Insatiate impudence of appetite: Look, here’s your end, for mark what sap in dust, What sin in good, even so much love in lust: Joy to thy ghost, sweet Lord, pardon to me.

Celso:It is the Duke’s pleasure this night you rest in court.

Aurelia:Soul lurk in shades, run shame from brightsome skies, In night, the blind man misseth not his eyes.

exit Aurelia

Malevole:Do not weep kind cuckold, take comfort man, thy betters have been Beccos: Agamemnon Emperor of all the merry Greeks; that tickled all the true Trojans, was a Cornuto: Prince Arthur that cut off twelve Kings’ beards was a Cornuto: Hercules, whose back, bore up heaven, and got forty wenches with child in one night.

Pietro Jacomo:Nay ’twas fifty.

Malevole:Faith forty’s enough a conscience, yet was a Cornuto: patience, mischief grows proud, be wise.

Pietro Jacomo:Thou pinchest too deep, art too keen upon me.

Malevole:Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous sore. I’ll tent thee to the ground. Thinkst I’ll sustain myself by flattering thee, because thou art a Prince? I had rather follow a drunkard, and live by licking up his vomit, than by servile flattery.

Pietro Jacomo:Yet great men ha’ done ’t.

Malevole:Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a coal-basket, though the common usher of prince’s presence fortune ha’ blindly given them better place, I am vowed to be thy affliction.

Pietro Jacomo:Prithee be, I love much misery, and be thou son to me.

Enter Biliosa.

Malevole:Because you are an usurping Duke, Your Lordship’s well returned for Florence.

To Biliosa.

Bilioso.:Well returned, I praise my horse.

Malevole:What news from the Florentines?

Bilioso.:I will conceal the great Duke’s pleasure, only this was his charge, his pleasure is, that his daughter die, Duke Pietro be banished for banishing his blood’s dishonor, and that Duke Altofront be reaccepted: this is all, but I hear Duke Pietro is dead.

Malevole:Ay, and Mendoza is Duke, what will you do?

Bilioso.:Is Mendoza strongest?

Malevole:Yet he is.

Bilioso.:Then yet I’ll hold with him.

Malevole:But if that Altofront should turn straight again?

Bilioso.:Why then I would turn straight again: ’Tis good run still with him that has most might: I had rather stand with wrong, then fall with right

Malevole:Your Lordship sweats, your young Lady will get you a cloth for your old worship’s brows, [Exit Biliosa.] here’s a fellow to be damned, this is his inviolable Maxim. (flatter the greatest, and oppress the least:) a whoreson flesh fly, that still gnaws upon the lean galled backs.

Pietro Jacomo:Why dost then salute him?

Malevole:Faith as bawds go to Church, for fashion sake: come, be not confounded, th’ art but in danger to lose a Dukedom, think this: this earth is the only grave and golgotha wherein all things that live must rot: ’tis but the draught wherein the heavenly bodies discharge their corruption, the very muckhill on which the sublunary orbs cast their excrements: man is the slime of this dungpit, and Princes are the governors of these men: for, for our souls, they are as free as Emperors, all of one piece, there goes but a pair of shears betwixt an Emperor and the son of a bagpiper: only the dying, dressing, pressing, glossing makes the difference: now what art thou like to lose? A jailor’s office to keep men in bonds, Whilst toil and treason, all life’s good confounds.

Pietro Jacomo:I here renounce forever Regency, O Altofront, I wrong thee to supplant thy right: To trip thy heels up with a devilish slight. For which I now from Throne am thrown, world tricks abjure, For vengeance that comes slow, yet it comes sure. O I am changed, for herefore the dread power In true contrition I do dedicate, My breath to solitary holiness, My lips to prayer, and my breasts care shall be, Restoring Altofront to regency.

Malevole:Thy vows are heard, and we accept thy faith. [undisguiseth himself.] [Enter Ferneze and Celso Altofront, Ferneze, Celso, Pietro.] Banish amazement: come, we four must stand full shock of Fortune, be not so wonder-stricken.

Pietro Jacomo:Doth Ferneze live?

Ferneze:For your pardon.

Pietro Jacomo:Pardon and love, give leave to recollect My thoughts dispersed in wild astonishment: My vows stand fixed in heaven, and from hence I crave all love and pardon.

Malevole:Who doubts of providence, That sees this change, a hearty faith to all: He needs must rise, who can no lower fall, For still impetuous Vicissitude Loseth the world, then let no maze intrude Upon your spirits: wonder not I rise, For who can sink that close can temporize? The time grows ripe for action, I’ll detect My privat’st plot, lest ignorance fear suspect: Let’s close to counsel, leave the rest to fate, Mature discretion is the life of state.

Exeunt.

Act 5

Scene 1

Actus quartus Scaena prima.

Enter Malevole and Maquarelle, at several doors opposite, singing.

Malevole:The Dutchman for a drunkard,

Maquerelle:The Dane for golden locks:

Malevole:The Irishman for usquebaugh,

Maquerelle:The Frenchman for the ( )

Malevole:O thou art a blessed creature, had I a modest woman to conceal, I would put her to thy custody, for no reasonable creature would ever suspect her to be in thy company: ha, thou art a melodious Maquarelle, thou picture of a woman and substance of a beast, and how dost thou think a’ this transformation of state now?

Maquerelle:Very very well, for we women always note, the falling of the one, is the rising of the other: some must be fat, some must be lean, some must be fools, and some must be Lords: some must be knaves, and some must be officers, some must be beggars, some must be Knightes some must be cuckolds, and some must be citizens: as for example, I have two court dogs, most fawning curs the one called Watch, th’ other Catch: now I, like Lady Fortune, sometimes love this dog sometimes rouse that dog, sometimes favor Watch, most commonly fancy Catch: Now that dog which I favor I feed and he’s so ravenous, that what I give he never chaws it, gulps it down whole without any relish of what he has, but with a greedy expectation of what he shall have: the other dog now

Malevole:No more dog, soot Maquarelle no more dog and what hope hast thou of the Duchess Maria, will she stoop to the Duke’s lure, will she come, thinkst?

Maquerelle:Let me see where’s the sign now? ha’ ye e’er a calendar, where’s the sign trow you?

Malevole:Sign? why, is there any moment in that?

Maquerelle:O believe me a most secret power, look ye a Caldean, or an Assyrian, I am sure ’twas a most sweet Jew told me, court any woman in the right sign, you shall not miss, but you must take her in the right vein then: As when the sign is in Pisces, a fishmonger’s wife is very sociable: in Cancer, a precisian’s wife is very flexible: in Capricorn, a Merchant’s wife hardly holds out: in Libra, a Lawyer’s wife is very tractable, especially, if her husband be at the term: only, in Scorpio ’tis very dangerous meddling, has the Duke sent any jewel, any rich stones?

Enter Captain.

Malevole:Ay, I think those are the best signs, to take a Lady in: by your favor signor: I must discourse with the Lady Maria, Altofront’s Duchess: I must enter for the Duke.

Captain:She here shall give you interview, I received the guardship of this Citadel from the good Altofront, and for his use I’ll keep ’t, till I am of no use.

Malevole:Wilt thou, O heaven that a christian should be found in a buff-jerkin, Captain conscience? I love thee Captain. [Exit Captain.] we attend, and what hope hast thou of this Duchess easiness?

Maquerelle:’Twill go hard, she was a cold creature ever, she hated monkeys, fools, jesters, and gentlemen ushers extremely: she had the vild trick on ’t, not only to be truly modestly honorable in her own conscience but she would avoid the least wanton carri that might incur suspect, as God bless me, she had almost brought bed pressing out of fashion: I could scarce get a fine, for the lease of a Lady’s favor once in a fortnight.

Malevole:Now in the name of immodesty, how many maidenheads hast thou brought to the block?

Maquerelle:Let me see: heaven forgive us our misdeeds, here’s the Duchess.

Scene 2

SCAENA Secunda.

Enter Maria and Captain.

Malevole:God bless thee Lady,

Maria:out of thy company:

Malevole:We have brought thee tender of a husband,

Maria:I hope I have one already.

Maquerelle:Nay, by mine honor madam, as good he ne’er a husband, as a banished husband, he’s in another world now, I’ll tell ye Lady, I have heard of a sect that maintained, when the husband was asleep, the wife might lawfully entertain another man: for then her husband was as dead, much more when he is banished.

Maria:Unhonest creature:

Maquerelle:Pish, honesty is but an art to seem so: pray ye what’s honesty? what’s constancy? but fables feigned, odd old fools chat devised by jealous fools, to wrong our liberty.

Malevole:Mully, he that loves thee is a Duke, Mendoza, he will maintain thee royally, love thee ardently, defend thee powerfully, marry thee sumptuously, and keep thee in despite of Rosicleer, or Donzel del Phoebo there’s jewels, if thou wilt, so, if not, so.

Maria:Captain, for God’s love save poor wretchedness, From tyranny of lustful insolence: Enforce me in the deepest dungeon dwell Rather than here, here round about is hell. O my dearest Altofront where ere thou breathe, Let my soul sink into the shades beneath: Before I stain thine honor, ’tis thou hast, And long as I can die I will live chaste.

Malevole:’Gainst him that can enforce how vain is strife?

Maria:She that can be enforced has ne’er a knife. She that through force her limbs with lust enrols, Wants Cleopatra’s asps and Portia’s coals. God amend you.

Exit with Captain.

Malevole:Now the fear of the Devil forever go with thee. Maquerelle, I tell thee I have found an honest woman, faith I perceive when all is done, there is of women as of all other things: some good, most bad, some saints, some sinners: for as nowadays no Courtier but has his mistress, no Captain but has his cockatrice, no Cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather: even so no woman but has her weakness and feather too, no sex but has his: I can hunt the letter no further: O God how loathsome this toying is to me, that a Duke should be forced to fool it: well, Stultorum plena sunt omnia, better play the fool Lord, then be the fool Lord: now, where’s your slights Madam Maquarelle?

Maquerelle:Why, are ye ignorant that ’tis said, a squeamish affected niceness is natural to women, and that the excuse of their yielding, is only forsooth the difficult obtaining, you must put her to ’t, women are flax, and will fire in a moment.

Malevole:Why was the flax put into thy mouth, and yet thou? thou set fire? thou inflame her.

Maquerelle:Marry, but I’ll tell ye now, you were too hot

Malevole:The fitter to have inflamed the flaxwoman.

Maquerelle:You were too boisterous spleeny for indeed.

Malevole:Go, go, thou art a weak panderess, now I see. Sooner earth’s fire heaven itself shall waste, Than all with heat can melt a mind that’s chaste. Go thou the Duke’s lime-twig, I’ll make the Duke turn thee out of thine office, what not get one touch of hope, and had her at such advantage.

Maquerelle:Now a’ my conscience, now I think in my discretion, we did not take her in the right sign, the blood was not in the true vein, sure.

Exit.

Scene 3

SCAENA TERTIA

Enter Prepasso and Ferrando, two pages with lights, Celso and Equato, Mendoza in Duke’s robes, Bilioso and Guerrino. :Exeunt all saving: Malevole.

Mendoza:On on, leave us, leave us stay where is the hermit

Malevole:With Duke Pietro, with Duke Pietro.

Mendoza:Is he dead? is he poisoned

Malevole:Dead as the Duke is.

Mendoza:Good, excellent, he will not blab secureness lives in secrecy come hither come hither.

Malevole:Thou hast a certain strong villainous scent about thee, my nature cannot endure.

Mendoza:Scent man? what returns Maria? what answer to our suit?

Malevole:Cold frosty, she is obstinate.

Mendoza:Then she’s but dead ’tis resolute, she dies: Black deed only through black deeds safely flies

Malevole:Pew, per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.

Mendoza:What art a scholar? art a politician? sure thou art an arrant knave.

Malevole:Who I? I ha’ been twice an under-sheriff, man.

Mendoza:Canst thou empoison canst thou empoison?

Malevole:Excellently no Jew Pothecary, or Politician better: look ye, here’s a box, whom wouldst thou empoison, here’s a box, which opened, and the fume ta’en up in conduits, thorough which the brain purges itself, doth instantly for twelve hours’ space, bind up all show of life in a deep senseless sleep: here’s another, which being opened under the sleeper’s nose, chokes all the pores of life, kills him suddenly.

Enter Celso

Mendoza:I’ll try experiments, ’tis good not to be deceived so, so, Catzo: [Seems to poison Malevole.] Who would fear that may destroy, death hath no teeth, nor tongue, And he that’s great to him one slaves shame, Murder, fame and wrong Celso

Celso:My honored Lord.

Mendoza:The good Malevole, that plain-tongued man, alas, is dead on sudden wondrous strangely, he held in our esteem good place, Celso, see him buried, see him buried.

Celso:I shall observe ye.

Mendoza:And Celso, prithee let it be thy care tonight To have some pretty show to solemnize Our high instalment, some music, masquery: We’ll give fair entertain unto Maria The Duchess to the banished Altofront: Thou shalt conduct her from the Citadel Unto the Palace, think on some masquery.

Celso:Of what shape, sweet Lord,

Mendoza:Why shape? why any quick done fiction, As some brave spirits of the Genoan Dukes, To come out of Elysium forsooth, Led in by Mercury to gratulate Our happy fortune, some such any thing, some far fet trick, good for Ladies, some stale toy or other, no matter so ’t be of our devising. Do thou prepare ’t, ’tis but for fashion sake, Fear not, it shall be graced man, it shall take.

Celso:All service.

Mendoza:All thanks, our hand shall not be close to thee: farewell Now is my treachery secure, nor can we fall: Mischief that prospers men do virtue call, I’ll trust no man, he that by tricks gets wreathes, Keeps them with steel, no man securely breathes, Out of distuned ranks the Crowd will mutter fool: Who cannot bear with spite he cannot rule: The chiefest secret for a man of state, Is to live senseless of a strengthless hate.

Exit Mendoza.

Malevole:Death of the damned thief, I’ll make one i’ the masque, thou shalt ha’ some Brave spirits of the antique Dukes.

Celso:My Lord, what strange delusion?

Malevole:Most happy, dear Celso, poisoned with an empty [Starts up and speaks.] box I’ll give thee all anon: my Lady comes to court, there is a whirl of fate comes tumbling on the Castle’s captain stands for me, the people pray for me, and the great leader of the just stands for me: then courage Celso. For no disastrous chance can ever move him, That leaveth nothing but a God above him.

Exeunt.

Enter Prepasso and Bilioso, two Pages, before them Maquarelle Bianca, and Emilia.

Bilioso.:Make room there, room for the ladies: why gentlemen, will not ye suffer the ladies to be entered in the great chamber? why gallants? and you sir, to drop your Torch where the beauties must sit too.

Prepasso:And there’s a great fellow plays the knave, why dost not strike him?

Bilioso.:Let him play the knave a’ God’s name, thinkst thou I have no more wit than to strike a great fellow, the music, more lights, revelling, scaffolds: do you hear? let there be oaths enough ready at the door, swear out the devil himself. Let’s leave the Ladies, and go see if the Lords be ready for them.

All save the Ladies depart.

Maquerelle:And by my troth Beauties, why do you not put you into the fashion, this is a stale cut you must come in fashion: look ye, you must be all felt, felt and feather, a felt upon your head: look ye, these tiring things are justly out of request now: and do ye hear? you must wear falling bands, you must come into the falling fashion: there is such a deal a’ pinning these ruffs, when the fine clean fall is worth all: and again if you should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling band requires no poting-stick to recover his form: believe me, no fashion to the falling band I say.

Bianca:And is not signior Saint Andrew Jaques gallant fellow now?

Maquerelle:By my maidenhead la, honor and he agrees as well together, as a satin suit and woolen stockings.

Emilia:But, is not Marshal Make-room my servant in reversion, a proper gentleman?

Maquerelle:Yes in reversion as he had his office, as in truth he hath all things in reversion: he has his Mistress in reversion, his clothes in reversion, his wit in reversion, and indeed, is a suitor to me for my dog in reversion: but in good verity la, he is as proper a gentleman in reversion as: and indeed, as fine a man as may be, having a red beard and a pair of warped legs,

Bianca:But I’ faith I am most monstrously in love with count Quidlibet in Quodlibet, is he not a pretty dapper windle gallant?

Maquerelle:He is even one of the most busy fingered lords, he will put the beauties to the squeak most hideously.

Bilioso.:Room, make a lane there, the Duke is entering: stand handsomely for beauty’s sake, take up the Ladies there. So, cornets, cornets.

Scene 4

SCAENA QUARTA.

Enter Prepasso joins to Bilioso two pages with lights, Ferrardo, Mendoza, at the other door two pages with lights, and the Captain leading in Maria, the Duke meets Maria, and closeth with her, the rest fall back.

Mendoza:Madam, with gentle ear receive my suit, A kingdom’s safety should o’er peise slight rites, Marriage is merely Nature’s policy: Then since unless our royal beds be joined, Danger and civil tumult frights the state, Be wise as you are fair, give way to fate.

Maria:What wouldst thou, thou affliction to our house? Thou ever devil, ’twas thou that banishedst my truly noble Lord.

Mendoza:I?

Maria:Ay, by thy plots by thy black stratagems, Twelve Moons have suffered change since I beheld The loved presence of my dearest Lord. O thou fair worse than death, he parts but soul From a weak body, but thou soul from soul Dissever’st, that which God’s own hand did knit. Thou scant of honor, full of devilish wit.

Mendoza:We’ll check your too intemperate lavishness, Ay I can, and will.

Maria:What canst?

Mendoza:Go to, in banishment thy husband dies.

Maria:He ever is at home that’s ever wise.

Mendoza:Youst never meet more Reason should Love control,

Maria:Not meet? She that dear loves, her love’s still in her soul.

Mendoza:You are but a woman Lady, you must yield.

Maria:O save me thou innated bashfulness, Thou only ornament of woman’s modesty.

Mendoza:Modesty? Death I’ll torment thee,

Maria:Do, urge all torments, all afflictions try, I’ll die, my Lords, as long as I can die.

Mendoza:Thou obstinate, thou shalt die: captain, that Lady’s life is forfeited to Justice, we have examined her, And we do find, she hath empoisoned The reverend Hermit, therefore we command Severest custody. Nay, if you’ll do ’s no good, Youst do ’s no harm, a tyrant’s peace is blood.

Maria:O thou art merciful, O gracious devil, Rather by much let me condemned be, For seeming murder than be damned for thee. I’ll mourn no more, come girt my brows with flowers, Revel and dance, soul, now thy wish thou hast, Die like a Bride, poor heart thou shalt die chaste. [Enter Aurelia in mourning habit.] Life is a frost of cold felicity,

Aurelia:And death the thaw of all our vanity. Wast not an honest Priest that wrote so?

Mendoza:Who? let her in.

Bilioso.:Forbear.

Prepasso:Forbear.

Aurelia:Alas calamity is everywhere. Sad misery, despite your double doers Will enter even in court. [Unto Maria.]

Bilioso.:Peace.

Aurelia:I ha’ done; one word, take heed, I ha’ done.

Enter Mercury with loud music.

Mercury:Cyllenian Mercury, the God of ghosts, From gloomy shades that spread the lower coasts, Calls four high famed Genoa Dukes to come, And make this presence their Elysium: To pass away this high triumphal night, With song and dances, courts more soft delight.

Aurelia:Are you God of ghosts, I have a suit depending in hell betwixt me and my conscience, I would fain have thee help me to an advocate.

Bilioso.:Mercury shall be your lawyer Lady,

Aurelia:Nay faith, Mercury has too good a face to be a right lawyer.

Prepasso:Peace, forbear: Mercury presents the masque.

Cornets: The song to the Cornets, which playing the masque enters. Enter Malevole, Pietro, Ferneze, and Celso in white robes, with Duke’s Crowns upon laurel, wreathes, pistolets and short swords under their robes.

Mendoza:Celso, Celso, court Maria for our love Lady, be gracious, yet grace.

Maria:With me Sir?

Malevole:Yes more loved than my breath: [Malevole takes his wife to dance.] With you I’ll dance.

Maria:Why then you dance with death, But come Sir, I was ne’er more apt for mirth. Death gives eternity a glorious breath O, to die honored, who would fear to die.

Malevole:They die in fear who live in villainy.

Mendoza:Yes, believe him Lady, and be ruled by him.

Pietro Jacomo:Madam with me?

Pietro takes his wife Aurelia to dance

Aurelia:Wouldst then be miserable?

Pietro Jacomo:I need not wish.

Aurelia:O, yet forbear my hand, away, fly, fly, O seek not her that only seeks to die.

Pietro Jacomo:Poor loved soul.

Aurelia:What, wouldst court misery?

Pietro Jacomo:Yes.

Aurelia:She’ll come too soon O my grieved heart.

Pietro Jacomo:Lady ha’ done, ha’, done. Come down let’s dance, be once from sorrow free.

Aurelia:Art a sad man?

Pietro Jacomo:Yes sweet.

Aurelia:Then we’ll agree.

Ferneze takes Maquerelle, and Celso Bianca: then the cornets sound the measure, on change, and rest.

Ferneze:Believe it Lady, shall I swear, let me enjoy you in private, and I’ll marry you by my soul. [To Bianca.]

Bianca:I had rather you would swear by your body: I think that would prove the more regarded oath with you.

Ferneze:I’ll swear by them both, to please you.

Bianca:O damn them not both, to please me, for God’s sake.

Ferneze:Faith sweet creature let me enjoy you tonight, and I’ll marry you tomorrow fortnight, by my troth lo.

Maquerelle:On his troth lo, believe him not, that kind of coney-catching is as stale as sir Oliver Anchovy’s perfumed jerkin: promise of matrimony by a young Gallant, to bring a virgin Lady into a fool’s paradise: make her a great woman, and then cast her off: ’tis as common as natural to a Courtier, as jealousy to a Citizen, gluttony to a Puritan, wisdom to an Alderman, pride to a Tailor, or an empty to one of these sixpenny damnations: of his troth lo, believe him not, traps to catch polecats.

Malevole:Keep your face constant, let no sudden passion speak in your eyes. [To Maria.]

Maria:O my Altofront.

Pietro Jacomo:A tyrant’s jealousies are very nimble, you receive it all. [To Aurelia.]

Aurelia:My heart though not my knees doth humbly fall, Lo as the earth to thee.

Pietro Jacomo:Peace, next change, no words.

Maria:Speech to such ay O what will affords

Cornets sound the measure over again which danced they unmask

Mendoza:Malevole

They environ Mendoza bending their Pistols on him.

Malevole:No.

Mendoza:Altofront, Duke Lorenzo Ferneze, hah?

Ferneze, Pietro Jacomo, Celso:Duke Altofront, Duke Altofront.

Cornets, a-flourish.

Mendoza:Are we surprized? what strange delusions mock Our senses, do I dream? or have I dreamt This two days’ space? where am I?

They seize upon Mendoza.

Malevole:Where an arch villain is.

Mendoza:O lend me breath to live till I am fit to die. For peace with heaven, for your own soul’s sake Vouchsafe me life.

Pietro Jacomo:Ignoble villain, whom neither heaven nor hell, goodness of God or man could once make good.

Malevole:Base treacherous wretch, what grace canst thou expect, That hast grown impudent in gracelessness.

Mendoza:O life!

Malevole:Slave, take thy life. Wert thou defensed through blood and wounds, The sternest horror of a civil fight, Would I achieve thee, but prostrate at my feet, I scorn to hurt thee, ’tis the heart of slaves That deigns to triumph over peasant’s graves. For such thou art since birth doth ne’er enroll A man ’mong monarchs, but a glorious soul [To Pietro and Aurelia.] You are joyed spirits, wipe your long wet eyes. [Malevole kicks out Mendoza.] [To Maquerelle] Hence with this man: an Eagle takes not flies. [To Bilioso.] You to your vows [to Pietro and Aurelia,] and thou unto the suburbs. [To Celso and the Captain:] You to my worst friend I would hardly give: Thou art a perfect old knave all pleased live [To Maria.] You two unto my breast, thou to my heart And as for me I here assume my right, To which I hope all’s pleased: to all goodnight.

Cornets a-fourish. Exeunt. omnes.