Chapter LXXVII: Act IV: Scene I.2735

_Enter_ MAQUERELLE, _knocking at the ladies’ door_.

_Maq._ Medam, medam, are you stirring, medam? If you be stirring,
medam,—if I thought I should disturb ye—

[_Enter_ Page.]

_Page._ My lady is up, forsooth.

_Maq._ A pretty boy, faith: how old art thou?

_Page._ I think fourteen. 6

_Maq._ Nay, an ye be in the teens—are ye a gentleman born? Do you
know me? My name is Medam Maquerelle; I lie in the old Cunny-court. 10

_Enter_ BIANCA _and_ EMILIA.

[_Page._] See, here the ladies.

_Bian._ A fair day to ye, Maquerelle.

_Emil._ Is the duchess up yet, sentinel?

_Maq._ O ladies, the most abominable mischance! O dear ladies the
most piteous disaster! (15) Ferneze was taken last night in the
duchess’ chamber. Alas, the duke catcht him and kill’d him!

_Bian._ Was he found in bed?

_Maq._ O, no; but the villanous certainty is, (20) 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 arrant beast, lay in
the outward chamber, heard nothing; and yet they came by me in the
dark, and (25) yet I felt them not, like a senseless creature as I
was. O beauties, look to your busk-points;[2736] if not chastely, yet
charily: be sure the door be bolted.—Is your lord gone to Florence?

_Bian._ Yes, Maquerelle. 30

_Maq._ 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 (35) this be still your fixed position: esteem
me every man according to his good gifts, and so ye shall ever remain
most worthy to be most dear ladies.

_Emil._ Is the duke returned from hunting yet? 40

_Maq._ They say not yet.

_Bian._ ’T is now in midst of day.

_Emil._ How bears the duchess with this blemish now?

_Maq._ Faith, boldly; strongly defies defame, as one that has a
duke to her father. And (45) there ’s a note to you: be sure of a
stout friend in a corner, that may always awe your husband. Mark the
behaviour of the duchess now: she dares defame, cries, “Duke, do what
thou canst, I ’ll quit mine honour:” nay, as one (50) confirmed in
her own virtue against ten thousand mouths that mutter her disgrace,
she ’s presently for dances.

_Enter_ FERRARDO.

_Bian._ For dances!

_Maq._ Most true. 55

_Emil._ Most strange. See, here ’s my servant,[2737] young Ferrardo.
How many servants thinkest thou I have, Maquerelle?[2738]

_Maq._ The more, the merrier. ’T was well (59) said, use your
servants as you do your smocks; have many, use one, and change often;
for that ’s most sweet and courtlike.

_Fer._ Save ye, fair ladies! Is the duke return’d?

_Bian._ Sweet sir, no voice of him as yet in court.

_Fer._ ’T is very strange. 65

_Bian._ And how like you my servant, Maquerelle?

_Maq._ I think he could hardly draw Ulysses’ bow; but, by my
fidelity, were his nose narrower, his eyes broader, his hands
thinner, (69) 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._ 74

_Fer._ Not yet return’d! I fear—but the duchess approacheth.

SCENE II.[2739]

_Enter_ MENDOZA _supporting the_ Duchess _and_ GUERRINO: _the ladies that are on the stage rise_: FERRARDO _ushers in the_ Duchess, _and then takes a lady to tread a measure_.[2740]

_Aur._ We will dance: music!—we will dance.

_Guer. Les quanto_,[2741] lady, _Pensez bien_, _Passa regis_, or
_Bianca’s brawl_?

_Aur._ We have forgot the brawl.

_Fer._ So soon? ’T is wonder. 5

_Guer._ Why, ’t is but two singles on the left, two on the right,
three doubles 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, (10) come up, meet, two doubles,
fall back, and then honour.

_Aur._ O Daedalus, thy maze! I have quite forgot it.

_Maq._ Trust me, so have I, saving the falling-back,
and then honour. 16

_Enter_ PREPASSO.

_Aur._ Music, music!

_Prep._ Who saw the duke? the duke?

_Enter_ EQUATO.

_Aur._ Music!

_Equato._ The duke? is the duke returned? 20

_Aur._ Music!

_Enter_ CELSO.

_Celso._ The duke is either quite invisible, or else is not.

_Aur._ We are not pleased with your intrusion upon our private
retirement; we are not (25) 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, 30
for that the strength of fantasy oft made him talk in his dreams. I
straight obeyed, nor ever saw him since: but whereso’er he is, he ’s
sad.

_Aur._ Music, sound high, as is our heart! Sound high! 35

SCENE III.[2742]

[_To them_] _enter_ MALEVOLE, _and_ PIETRO _disguised like an hermit_.

_Mal._ The duke,—peace!—the duke is dead.

_Aur._ Music!

_Mal._ Is ’t music?

_Men._ Give proof.

_Fer._ How? 5

_Celso._ Where?

_Prep._ When?

_Mal._ 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 10
a more particular account of him.

_Men._ Speak, holy father, nor let any brow
Within this presence fright thee from the truth:
Speak confidently and freely.

_Aur._ We attend.

_Pietro._ Now had the mounting sun’s all-ripening wings 15
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 dash’d
His high-curl’d brows; there ’t was I eas’d my limbs: 20
When, lo! my entrails melted with the moan
Some one, who far ’bove me was climb’d, did make—
I shall offend.

_Men._ Not.

_Aur._ On. 25

_Pietro._ 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, O truth! 30
Sooner hard steel will melt with southern wind,
A seaman’s whistle calm the ocean,
A town on fire be extinct with tears,
Than women, vow’d to blushless impudence,
With sweet behaviour and soft minioning 35
Will turn from that where appetite is fix’d.
O powerful blood! how thou dost slave their soul!
I wash’d an Ethiop, who, for recompense,
Sullied my name: and must I, then, be forc’d 39
To walk, to live thus black? Must! must! fie!
He that can bear with ’must,’ he cannot die.”
With that he sigh’d so passionately deep,
That the dull air even groan’d: at last he cries,
“Sink shame in seas, sink deep enough!” so dies;
For then I viewed his body fall, and souse 45
Into the foamy main. O, then I saw,
That which methinks I see, it was the duke;
Whom straight the nicer-stomach’d sea belch ’d up:
But then——

_Mal._ Then came I in; but, ’las, all was too late! 50
For even straight he sunk.

_Pietro._ Such was the duke’s sad fate.

_Celso._ A better fortune to our Duke Mendoza!

_Omnes._ Mendoza! _Cornets flourish._

_Men._ A guard, a guard!
_Enter a_ Guard.
We, full of hearty tears,
For our good father’s loss, 55
(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.—(_To_ AURELIA.) Woman of shame,
We banish thee for ever to the place 60
From whence this good man comes; nor permit,
On death, unto thy body any ornament;
But, base as was thy life, depart away.

_Aur._ Ungrateful!

_Men._ Away! 65

_Aur._ Villain, hear me!

PREPASSO _and_ GUERRINO _lead away_ AURELIA.

_Men._ Begone! My lords,
Address to[2743] public council; ’t is most fit:
The train of fortune is borne up by wit.
Away! our presence shall be sudden; haste. 70
_All depart saving_ MENDOZA, MALEVOLE, _and_ PIETRO.

_Mal._ Now, you egregious devil! Ha, ye murdering politician! How
dost, duke? How dost look now? Brave duke, i’ faith.

_Men._ How did you kill him?

_Mal._ Slatted his brains out, then soused him in the briny sea. 76

_Men._ Brained him, and drowned him too?

_Mal._ O ’t was best, sure work; for he that strikes a great man, let
him strike home, or else ’ware, he’ll prove no man. Shoulder not 80
a huge fellow, unless you may be sure to lay him in the kennel.

_Men._ A most sound brain-pan! I’ll make you both emperors.

_Mal._ Make us Christians, make us Christians.

_Men._ I’ll hoist ye, ye shall mount. 86

_Mal._ To the gallows, say ye? Come: _praemium incertum petit, certum
scelus_.[2744] How stands the progress?

_Men._ Here, take my ring unto the citadel; 90
[_Giving ring._]
Have entrance to Maria, the grave duchess
Of banish’d Altofront. Tell her we love her;
Omit no circumstance to grace our person: do ’t.

_Mal._ I’ll make an excellent pander: duke, farewell; ’dieu, adieu,
duke. 95

_Men._ Take Maquerelle with thee; for ’t is found
None cuts a diamond but a diamond.
_Exit_ MALEVOLE.
Hermit,
Thou art a man for me, my confessor:
O thou selected spirit, born for my good,
Sure thou wouldst make 100
An excellent elder in a deform’d church.
Come, we must be inward,[2745] thou and I all one.

_Pietro._ I am glad I was ordained for ye.

_Men._ Go to, then; thou must know that Malevole is a strange
villain; dangerous, very (105) 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? 110

_Pietro._ Anything, anything.

_Men._ 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. 115
Send quick.

_Pietro._ Like lightning: good deeds crawl, but mischief flies.
_Exit._

_Re-enter_ MALEVOLE.

_Mal._ 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 (121) of comfort.

_Men._ 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 (125) and body.

_Mal._ How didst like the hermit? A strange hermit, sirrah.

_Men._ A dangerous fellow, very perilous. He must die. 131

_Mal._ Ay, he must die.

_Men._ Thou’st kill him. We are wise; we must be wise.

_Mal._ And provident. 135

_Men._ Yea, provident: beware an hypocrite;
A churchman once corrupted. O, avoid!
A fellow that makes religion his stalking-horse.[2746]
He breeds a plague. Thou shalt poison him.

_Mal._ O, ’tis wondrous necessary: how? 140

_Men._ You both go jointly to the citadel;
There sup, there poison him: and Maria,
Because she is our opposite,[2747] shall bear
The sad suspect; on which she dies or loves us.

_Mal._ I run. _Exit._

_Men._ We that are great, our sole self-good still moves us. 146
They shall die both, for their deserts crave more
Than we can recompense: their presence still
Imbraids[2748] our fortunes with beholdingness,
Which we abhor; like deed, not doer: then conclude, 150
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._

SCENE IV.[2749]

_Enter_ MALEVOLE _and_ PIETRO, _still disguised, at several doors_.

_Mal._ How do you? How dost duke?

_Pietro._ O, let
The last day fall! drop, drop on our curs’d heads!
Let heaven unclasp itself, vomit forth flames.

_Mal._ O, do not rave, do not turn player; (5) there’s more of them
than can well live one by another already. What, art an infidel still?

_Pietro._ I am amazed, struck in a swoon with wonder: I am commanded
to poison thee—

_Mal._ I am commanded to poison thee at (10) supper—

_Pietro._ At supper—

_Mal._ In the citadel—

_Pietro._ In the citadel.

_Mal._ Cross capers! tricks! Truth o’ (15) heaven! he would discharge
us as boys do eldern guns one pellet to strike out another. Of what
faith art now?

_Pietro._ All is damnation; wickedness extreme: There is no faith in
man. 20

_Mal._ In none but usurers and brokers; they deceive no man: men take
’em for blood-suckers, and so they are. Now, God deliver me from my
friends!

_Pietro._ Thy friends! 25

_Mal._ Yes, from my friends; for from mine enemies I’ll deliver
myself. O, cut-throat friendship is the rankest villainy! Mark this
Mendoza; mark him for a villain: but heaven will send a plague upon
him for a rogue. 30

_Pietro._ O world!

_Mal._ 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; (35) there’s nothing perfect
in it but extreme, extreme calamity, such as comes yonder.

SCENE V.[2750]

_Enter_ AURELIA, _two halberts before and two after, supported by_ CELSO _and_ FERRARDO; AURELIA _in base mourning attire_.

_Aur._ To banishment! led on to banishment!

_Pietro._ Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you!

_Aur._ Why, why, I can desire nothing but death,
Nor deserve anything but hell. 5
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;
O, they would tire heaven’s goodness to reclaim them!
Judgment is just, yet from that vast villain, 10
But, sure, he shall not miss sad punishment
’Fore he shall rule.—On to my cell of shame!

_Pietro._ My cell ’tis, lady; where, instead of masks,
Music, tilts, tourneys, and such court-like shows,
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds 15
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. 20
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.

_Aur._ It is too good.—Bless’d spirit of my lord,
O, in what orb so’er thy soul is thron’d, 25
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. 30

_Pietro._ Belike your lord not lov’d you, was unkind.

_Aur._ O heaven!
As the soul loves[2751] the body, so lov’d he:
’T was death to him to part my presence, heaven
To see me pleas’d. 35
Yet I, like a wretch given o’er to hell,
Brake all the sacred rites of marriage,
To clip[2752] a base ungentle faithless villain;
O God! a very pagan reprobate—
What should I say? ungrateful, throws me out, 40
For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honour.
But ’t is most fit: why should a better fate
Attend on any who forsake chaste sheets;
Fly the embrace of a devoted heart,
Join’d by a solemn vow ’fore God and man, 45
To taste the brackish[2753] flood[2754] of beastly lust
In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty!
Insatiate impudence of appetite!
Look, here ’s your end; for mark, what sap in dust,
What good in sin,[2755] even so much love in lust. 50
Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord! pardon to me!

_Celso._ ’T is the duke’s pleasure this night you rest in court.

_Aur._ Soul, lurk in shades; run, shame, from brightsome skies;
In night the blind man misses not his eyes. 55
_Exit_ [_with_ CELSO, FERRARDO, _and halberts_].

_Mal._ Do not weep, kind cuckold: take comfort, man; thy betters have
been beccos:[2756] Agamemnon, emperor of all the merry Greeks, that
tickled all the true Trojans, was a cornuto; Prince Arthur, that cut
off twelve kings’ (60) beards, was a cornuto; Hercules, whose back
bore up heaven, and got forty wenches with child in one night,—

_Pietro._ Nay, ’t was fifty.

_Mal._ Faith, forty ’s enow, o’ conscience,—yet (65) was a cornuto.
Patience; mischief grows proud: be wise.

_Pietro._ Thou pinchest too deep; art too keen upon me.

_Mal._ Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous (70) sore; I ’ll
tent[2757] thee to the ground. Thinkest 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. 75

_Pietro._ Yet great men ha’ done ’t.

_Mal._ Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a
coal-basket;[2758] though the common usher of princes’ presence,
Fortune, ha’ blindly given them better place. I am (80) vowed to be
thy affliction.

_Pietro._ Prithee, be:
I love much misery, and be thou son to me.

_Mal._ Because you are an usurping duke.—
_Enter_ BILIOSO.
Your lordship’s well returned from Florence.

_Bil._ Well return’d, I praise my horse. 85

_Mal._ What news from the Florentines?

_Bil._ I will conceal the great duke’s pleasure; only this was his
charge: his pleasure is, that his daughter die; Duke Pietro be
banished (90) for publishing[2759] his blood’s dishonour; and that
Duke Altofront be re-accepted. This is all: but I hear Duke Pietro is
dead.

_Mal._ Ay, and Mendoza is duke: what will you do? 95

_Bil._ Is Mendoza strongest?

_Mal._ Yet he is.

_Bil._ Then yet I ’ll hold with him.

_Mal._ But if that Altofront should turn straight again? 100

_Bil._ Why, then, I would turn straight again.
’T is good run still with him that has most might:
I had rather stand with wrong, than fall with right.

_Mal._ What religion will you be of now?

_Bil._ Of the Duke’s religion, when I know what it is. 106

_Mal._ O Hercules!

_Bil._ Hercules! Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.

_Mal._ Your lordship is a very wit-all. 110

_Bil._ Wittal!

_Mal._ Aye, all-wit.

_Bil._ Amphitryo was a cuckold.

_Mal._ Your lordship swears; your young lady will get you a cloth for
your old worship’s (115) brows. (_Exit_ BILIOSO.) Here’s a fellow to
be damn’d: this is his inviolable maxim.—flatter the greatest and
oppress the least: a whoreson flesh-fly, that still knaws upon the
lean galled backs. 120

_Pietro._ Why dost, then, salute him?

_Mal._ Faith, as bawds go to church, for fashion sake. Come, be
not confounded; thou ’rt but in danger to lose a dukedom. Think
this:—this earth is the only grave and Golgotha (125) wherein all
things that live must rot; ’t is but the draught wherein the heavenly
bodies discharge their corruption; the very muck-hill on which the
sublunary orbs cast their excrements: man is the slime of this dung
pit, (130) 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[2760] an emperor and the son of a
bagpiper; only the dying, dressing, pressing, glossing, (135) makes
the difference.
Now, what art thou like to lose?
A gaoler’s office to keep men in bonds,
Whilst toil and treason all life’s good confounds.

_Pietro._ I here renounce for ever regency: 140
O Altofront, I wrong thee to supplant thy right,
To trip thy heels up with a devilish sleight!
For which I now from throne am thrown: world-tricks abjure;
For vengeance, though ’t comes slow, yet it comes sure.
O, I am chang’d! for here, ’fore the dread power, 145
In true contrition, I do dedicate
My breath to solitary holiness,
My lips to prayer, and my breast’s care shall be,
Restoring Altofront to regency.

_Mal._ Thy vows are heard, and we accept thy faith.
_Undisguiseth himself._
_Re-enter_ FERNEZE _and_ CELSO.
Banish amazement: come, we four must stand 151
Full shock of fortune: be not so wonder-stricken.

_Pietro._ Doth Ferneze live?

_Fer._ For your pardon.

_Pietro._ Pardon and love. Give leave to recollect 155
My thoughts-dispers’d in wild astonishment.
My vows stand fix’d in heaven, and from hence
I crave all love and pardon.

_Mal._ Who doubts of providence,
That sees this change? A hearty faith to all!
He needs must rise who can no lower fall: 161
For still impetuous vicissitude
Touseth the world; then let no maze intrude
Upon your spirits: wonder not I rise;
For who can sink that close can temporize? 165
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._