Chapter XI: Act III: Scene I

_A dumb show. The cornets sounding for the Act._

_Enter_ CASTILIO _and_ FOROBOSCO, ALBERTO _and_ BALURDO, _with
poleaxes_; PIERO, _talking with_ STROTZO, _seemeth to send him out:
exit_ STROTZO. _Re-enter_ STROTZO _with_ MARIA, NUTRICHE, _and_
LUCIO. PIERO _passeth through his guard, and talks with_ MARIA _with
seeming amorousness; she seemeth to reject his suit, flies to the
tomb, kneels, and kisseth it_. PIERO _bribes_ NUTRICHE _and_ LUCIO;
_they go to her, seeming to solicit his suit. She riseth, offers to
go out_; PIERO _stayeth her, tears open his breast, embraceth and
kisseth her; and so they go all out in state_.

_After the dumb show enter two_ Pages, _the one with tapers, the
other holding a chafing-dish with a perfume in it_; ANTONIO, _in his
night-gown and a night-cap, unbraced, following after_.

_Ant._ The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings[263]
'Bout heaven's brow: [_clock strikes twelve_] 'tis now stark dead
night.
Is this Saint Mark's Church?

_1st Pa._ It is, my lord.

_Ant._ Where stands my father's hearse?

_2d Pa._ Those streamers bear his arms. Ay, that is it.

_Ant._ Set tapers to the tomb, and lamp the church:
Give me the fire.--Now depart and sleep.

[_Exeunt_ Pages.

I purify the air with odorous fume.
Graves, vaults, and tombs, groan not to bear my weight;
Cold flesh, bleak trunks, wrapt in your half-rot shrouds,
I press you softly with a tender foot. 11
Most honour'd sepulchre, vouchsafe a wretch
Leave to weep o'er thee. Tomb, I'll not be long
Ere I creep in thee, and with bloodless lips
Kiss my cold father's cheek. I prithee, grave,
Provide soft mold to wrap my carcass in.
Thou royal spirit of Andrugio,
Where'er thou hover'st, airy intellect,
I heave up tapers to thee (view thy son)
In celebration of due obsequies; 20
Once every night I'll dew thy funeral hearse
With my religious tears.
O, blessèd father of a cursèd son,
Thou died'st most happy, since thou lived'st not
To see thy son most wretched, and thy wife
Pursued by him that seeks my guiltless blood!
O, in what orb thy mighty spirit soars,
Stoop and beat down this rising fog of shame,
That strives to blur thy blood, and girt defame
About my innocent and spotless brows. 30
_Non est mori miserum, sed misere mori._

[_Ghost of_ ANDRUGIO _rises_.

_Ghost of And._ Thy pangs of anguish rip my cerecloth up,
And, lo, the ghost of old Andrugio
Forsakes his coffin. Antonio, revenge!
I was empoison'd by Piero's hand.
Revenge my blood! take spirit, gentle boy;
Revenge my blood! Thy Mellida is chaste:
Only to frustrate thy pursuit in love,
Is blazed unchaste. Thy mother yields consent
To be his wife, and give his blood a son, 40
That made her husbandless, and doth complot
To make her sonless; but before I touch
The banks of rest, my ghost shall visit her.
Thou vigour of my youth, juice of my love,
Seize on revenge, grasp the stern-bended front
Of frowning vengeance with unpaiz'd[264] clutch.[265]
Alarum Nemesis, rouse up thy blood!
Invent some stratagem of vengeance,
Which, but to think on, may like lightning glide
With horror through thy breast! Remember this: 50
_Scelera[266] non ulcisceris, nisi vincis_.

[_Exit_ ANDRUGIO'S _ghost_.

_Enter_ MARIA, _her hair about her ears_; NUTRICHE _and_
LUCIO, _with Pages, and torches_.

_Mar._ Where left you him? show me, good boys, away!

_Nut._ God's me, your hair!

_Mar._ Nurse, 'tis not yet proud day:
The neat gay mists of the light's not up,
Her cheek's not yet slur'd over with the paint
Of borrow'd crimson; the unprankèd world
Wears yet the night-clothes. Let flare my loosèd hair!
I scorn the presence of the night.--
Where's my boy?--Run: I'll range about the church,
Like frantic Bacchanal or Jason's wife, 60
Invoking all the spirits of the graves
To tell me where.--Ha? O my poor wretched blood!
What dost thou up at midnight, my kind boy?
Dear soul, to bed! O thou hast struck a fright
Unto thy mother's panting----

_Ant._[267] _O quisquis nova
Supplicia functis dirus umbrarum arbiter
Disponis, quisquis exeso jaces
Pavidus sub antro,[268] quisquis venturi times
Montis ruinam, quisquis avidorum feros[269]
Rictus leonum, et dira furiarum agmina_ 70
_Implicitus horres, Antonii vocem excipe
Properantis ad vos--Ulciscar!_

_Mar._ Alas! my son's distraught. Sweet boy, appease
Thy mutining affections.

_Ant._ By the astonning terror of swart night,
By the infectious damps of clammy graves,
And[270] by the mould that presseth down
My dead father's skull, I'll be revenged!

_Mar._ Wherefore? on whom? for what? Go, go to bed,
Good, duteous son. Ho, but thy idle---- 80

_Ant._ So I may sleep tomb'd in an honour'd hearse,
So may my bones rest in that sepulchre,----

_Mar._ Forget not duty, son: to bed, to bed.

_Ant._ May I be cursèd by my father's ghost,
And blasted with incensèd breath of Heaven,
If my heart beat[271] on ought but vengeance!
May I be numb'd with horror, and my veins
Pucker with singeing torture, if my brain
Disgest[272] a thought but of dire vengeance;
May I be fetter'd slave to coward Chance, 90
If blood, heart, brain, plot ought save vengeance.

_Mar._ Wilt thou to bed? I wonder when thou sleep'st!
I'faith thou look'st sunk-ey'd; go couch thy head:
Now, faith, 'tis idle: sweet, sweet son, to bed.

_Ant._ I have a prayer or two to offer up
For the good, good prince, my most dear, dear lord,
The duke Piero, and your virtuous self;
And then, when those prayers have obtain'd success,
In sooth I'll come (believe it now) and couch
My head in downy mould. But first I'll see 100
You safely laid: I'll bring ye all to bed.
Piero, Maria, Strotzo, Lucio,
I'll see you all laid: I'll bring you all to bed,
And then, i'faith, I'll come and couch my head,
And sleep in peace.

_Mar._ Look then, we go before.

[_Exeunt all but_ ANTONIO.

_Ant._ Ay, so you must, before we touch the shore
Of wish'd revenge. O, you departed souls,
That lodge in coffin'd trunks, which my feet press,
(If Pythagorean Axioms be true,
Of spirits' transmigration) fleet no more 110
To human bodies, rather live in swine,
Inhabit wolves' flesh, scorpions, dogs, and toads,
Rather than man. The curse of Heaven rains
In plagues unlimited through all his days:
His mature age grows only mature vice,
And ripens only to corrupt and rot
The budding hopes of infant modesty.
Still striving to be more than man, he proves
More than a devil. Devilish suspect,
Devilish cruelty, 120
All hell-strai[n']d juice is pourèd to his veins,
Making him drunk with fuming surquedries;[273]
Contempt of Heaven, untam'd arrogance,
Lust, state, pride, murder.

_Ghost of And._ Murder! }
_Ghost of Feli._ Murder! } _From above and beneath._
_Pan._[274] Murder! }

_Ant._ Ay, I will murder: graves and ghosts
Fright me no more, I'll suck red vengeance
Out of Piero's wounds, Piero's wounds!

[_Retires to the back of the stage._

_Enter two boys, with_ PIERO _in his night-gown and
night-cap_.

_Pier._ Maria, love, Maria! she took this aisle.
Left you her here? On, lights, away!
I think we shall not warm our beds to-day. 130

_Enter_ JULIO, FOROBOSCO, _and_ CASTILIO.

_Jul._ Ho, father! father!

_Pier._ How now, Julio, my little pretty son?
Why suffer you the child to walk so late?

_For._ He will not sleep, but calls to follow you,
Crying that bug-bears and spirits haunted him.

[ANTONIO _offers to come near and stab_; PIERO
_presently withdraws_.

_Ant._ [_Aside._] No, not so.
This shall be sought for; I'll force him feed on life
Till he shall loath it. This shall be the close
Of vengeance' strain.

_Pier._ Away there, pages, lead on fast with light; 140
The church is full of damps; 'tis yet dead night.

[_Exeunt all, saving_ JULIO _and_ ANTONIO.

_Jul._ Brother Antonio, are you here, i'faith?
Why do you frown? Indeed my sister said
That I should call you brother, that she did,
When you were married to her. Buss me: good truth,
I love you better than my father, 'deed.

_Ant._ Thy father? Gracious, O bounteous Heaven!
I do adore thy justice: _venit in nostras manus
Tandem vindicta, venit et tota quidem_.[275]

_Jul._ Truth, since my mother died, I loved you best. 150
Something hath anger'd you; pray you, look merrily.

_Ant._ I will laugh, and dimple my thin cheek
With cap'ring joy; chuck, my heart doth leap
To grasp thy bosom.--[_Aside._] Time, place, and blood,
How fit you close together! Heaven's tones
Strike not such music to immortal souls
As your accordance sweets my breast withal.
Methinks I pace upon the front of Jove,
And kick corruption with a scornful heel!
Griping this flesh, disdain mortality! 160
O that I knew which joint, which side, which limb,
Were father all, and had no mother in't,
That I might rip it vein by vein, and carve revenge
In bleeding races! but since 'tis mix'd together,
Have at adventure, pell mell, no reverse.--
Come hither, boy. This is Andrugio's hearse.

_Jul._ O God, you'll hurt me. For my sister's sake,
Pray you do not hurt me. And you kill me, 'deed,
I'll tell my father.

_Ant._ O, for thy sister's sake, I flag revenge. 170

_Ghost of And._ Revenge!

_Ant._ Stay, stay, dear father, fright mine eyes no more.
Revenge as swift as lightning bursteth forth,
And cleaves[276] his heart.--Come, pretty tender child,
It is not thee I hate, not thee I kill.
Thy father's blood that flows within thy veins,
Is it I loathe; is that revenge must suck.
I love thy soul: and were thy heart lapp'd up
In any flesh but in Piero's blood,
I would thus kiss it; but being his, thus, thus, 180
And thus I'll punch it. Abandon fears:
Whilst thy wounds bleed, my brows shall gush out tears.

_Jul._ So you will love me, do even what you will.

_Ant._ Now barks the wolf against the full-cheek'd moon;
Now lions half-clam'd[277] entrails roar for food;
Now croaks the toad, and night-crows screech aloud,
Fluttering 'bout casements of departed souls;
Now gapes the graves, and through their yawns let loose
Imprison'd spirits to revisit earth;
And now, swart night, to swell thy hour out, 190
Behold I spurt warm blood in thy black eyes.

[_He stabs_ JULIO.--_From under the stage a groan._

Howl not, thou putry[278] mould; groan not, ye graves;
Be dumb, all breath. Here stands Andrugio's son,
Worthy his father. So: I feel no breath.
His jaws are fall'n, his dislodg'd soul is fled:
And now there's nothing but Piero left:
He is all Piero, father all. This blood,
This breast, this heart, Piero all:
Whom thus I mangle. Sprite of Julio,
Forget this was thy trunk. I live thy friend: 200
May'st thou be twinèd with the soft'st embrace
Of clear eternity: but thy father's blood
I thus make incense of to vengeance.
Ghost of my poison'd sire, suck this fume:
To sweet revenge perfume thy circling air
With smoke of blood. I sprinkle round his gore,
And dew thy hearse with these fresh-reeking drops.
Lo thus I heave my blood-dyed hands to heaven,
Even like insatiate hell still crying, More!
My heart hath thirsting dropsies after gore. 210
Sound peace and rest to church, night-ghosts, and graves:
Blood cries for blood, and murder murder craves.

[_Exit._

[263] See note 1, p. 111.

[264] We should have expected "paizèd," _i.e._, steady,
unfaltering. (The reader will note that Marston constantly uses
"vengeance" as a trisyllable.)

[265] Cf. p. 178. "The fist of strenuous vengeance is
clutch'd"--a line which Ben Jonson ridicules in _The Poetaster_
(v. i.)

[266] A quotation from Seneca's _Thyestes_, 194-5.

[267] Not marked in old eds.--The Latin lines are from Seneca's
_Thyestes_. ll. 13-14, 75-80.

[268] Ed. 1602 "antri."

[269] Old eds. "_feres_."

[270] The metre might be restored by reading--
"And by the mould that presseth down the skull
Of my dead father, I will be revenged."

[271] Is busy with.--So in _The Tempest_:--
"Do not infest your mind with _beating on_
The strangeness of this business."

[272] Old form of _digest_.

[273] Wanton excesses.

[274] It is hard to see why Pandulfo should be shouting with the
ghosts.

[275] Senec., _Thyestes_, 494-5:--
"Venit in nostras manus
Tandem Thyestes; venit et totus quidem."

[276] Old eds. "cleares."

[277] Half-starved.

[278] So ed. 1633.--Ed. 1602 "pury."

SCENE II.

_Chamber of Maria._

_Enter two Pages with torches_; MARIA, _her hair loose,
and_ NUTRICHE.

_Nut._ Fie, fie; to-morrow your wedding day, and
weep! God's my comfort! Andrugio could do well:
Piero may do better. I have had four husbands myself.
The first I called, sweet duck; the second, dear heart;
the third, pretty pug;[279] but the fourth, most sweet, dear,
pretty, all in all; he was the very cockall of a husband.
What, lady? your skin is smooth, your blood warm,
your cheek fresh, your eye quick: change of pasture
makes fat calves; choice of linen clean bodies, and (no
question) variety of husbands perfect wives. I would
you should know it: as few teeth as I have in my head,
I have read _Aristotle's Problems_,[280] which saith that woman
receiveth perfection by the man. What then be the
men? Go to, to bed, lie on your back, dream not on
Piero; I say no more. To-morrow is your wedding:
go,[281] dream not of Piero. 16

_Enter_ BALURDO _with a base viol_.

_Mar._ What an idle prate thou keep'st, good nurse; go sleep.
I have a mighty task of tears to weep.

_Bal._ Lady, with a most retort and obtuse leg,
I kiss the curlèd locks of your loose hair. 20
The Duke hath sent you the most musical Sir Jeffrey,
with his not base, but most ennobled viol, to rock your
baby thoughts in the cradle of sleep.

_Mar._ I give the noble Duke respective[282] thanks.

_Bal._ Respective; truly a very pretty word. Indeed,
madam, I have the most respective fiddle; did you ever
smell a more sweet sound? My ditty must go thus;
very witty, I assure you: I myself in an humorous
passion made it, to the tune of my mistress Nutriche's
beauty. Indeed, very pretty, very retort, and obtuse,
I'll assure you; 'tis thus:-- 31

My mistress' eye doth oil my joints,
And makes my fingers nimble:
O love, come on, untruss your points,
My fiddlestick wants rozen.
My lady's duggs are all so smooth,
That no flesh must them handle:
Her eyes do shine, for to say sooth,
Like a new-snuffèd candle.

_Mar._ Truly, very pathetical and unvulgar. 40

_Bal._ Pathetical and unvulgar; words of worth, excellent
words. In sooth, madam, I have taken a murr,[283]
which makes my nose run most pathetically, and unvulgarly.
Have you any tobacco?

_Mar._ Good Signior, your song.

_Bal._ Instantly, most unvulgarly, at your service.
Truly, here's the most pathetical rozen. Umh.

[_A Song._

_Mar._ In sooth, most knightly sung, and like Sir Jeffrey.

_Bal._ Why, look you, lady, I was made a knight
only for my voice; and a councillor only for my wit. 51

_Mar._ I believe it. Good night, gentle sir, good night.

_Bal._ You will give me leave to take my leave of my
mistress, and I will do it most famously in rhyme.

Farewell, adieu! saith thy love true,
As to part loath.
Time bids us part, mine own sweet heart,
God bless us both.

[_Exit_ BALURDO.

_Mar._ Good night, Nutriche. Pages, leave the room.
The life of night grows short, 'tis almost dead. 60

[_Exeunt Pages and_ NUTRICHE.

O thou cold widow-bed, sometime thrice blest
By the warm pressure of my sleeping lord,
Open thy leaves, and whilst on thee I tread,
Groan out,--Alas, my dear Andrugio's dead!

[MARIA _draweth the curtain: and the ghost of_
ANDRUGIO _is displayed, sitting on the bed_.

Amazing terror, what portent is this!

_Ghost of And._ Disloyal to our hymeneal[284] rites,
What raging heat reigns in thy strumpet blood?
Hast thou so soon forgot Andrugio?
Are our love-bands so quickly cancellèd?
Where lives thy plighted faith unto this breast? 70
O weak Maria! Go to, calm thy fears.
I pardon thee, poor soul! O shed no tears;
Thy sex is weak. That black incarnate fiend
May trip thy faith that hath o'erthrown my life:
I was impoison'd by Piero's hand.
Join with my son to bend up strain'd revenge,
Maintain a seeming favour to his suit,
Till time may form our vengeance absolute.

_Enter_ ANTONIO, _his arms bloody, bearing a torch,
and a poniard_.

_Ant._ See, unamazed I will behold thy face;
Outstare the terror of thy grim aspect, 80
Daring the horrid'st object of the night.
Look how I smoke in blood, reeking the steam
Of foaming vengeance. O my soul's enthroned
In the triumphant chariot of revenge!
Methinks I am all air, and feel no weight
Of human dirt clog. This is Julio's blood!
Rich music, father: this is Julio's blood!
Why lives that mother?

_Ghost of And._ Pardon ignorance.
Fly, dear Antonio:
Once more assume disguise, and dog the court 90
In feignèd habit, till Piero's blood
May even o'erflow the brim of full revenge.
Peace and all blessèd fortunes to you both!
Fly thou from court, be peerless in revenge:

[_Exit_ ANTONIO.

Sleep thou in rest, lo, here I close thy couch.

[_Exit_ MARIA _to her bed_, ANDRUGIO _drawing the curtains_.

And now ye sooty coursers of the night,
Hurry your chariot into hell's black womb.
Darkness, make flight; graves, eat your dead again:
Let's repossess our shrouds. Why lags delay?
Mount sparkling brightness, give the world his day! 100

[_Exit_ ANDRUGIO.

[279] A common term for endearment.

[280] _The Problemes of Aristotle, with other Philosophers and
Phisitions, wherein are contayned diuers questions, with their
answers, touching the estate of man's bodie_, 1595, 1597,
&c.--an old chap-book.

[281] Old eds. "do."

[282] Respectful.

[283] Violent cold.

[284] Ed. 1602 "Hymniall."