Chapter XIV: Act I: Scene I

_Palace of the Duke of Genoa._

_The vilest out-of-tune music being heard, enter_ BILIOSO
_and_ PREPASSO.

_Bil._ Why, how now! are ye mad, or drunk, or both,
or what?

_Pre._ Are ye building Babylon there?

_Bil._ Here's a noise in court! you think you are in a
tavern, do you not?

_Pre._ 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!

_Enter_ PIETRO, FERRARDO, EQUATO; CELSO _and_
GUERRINO _before_.

_Pietro._ Where breathes that music? 10

_Bil._ The discord rather than the music is heard from
the malcontent Malevole's chamber.

_Fer._ [_calling_] Malevole!

_Mal._ [_above, out of his chamber_] Yaugh, god-a-man,
what dost thou there? Duke's Ganymede, Juno's jealous
of thy long stockings: shadow of a woman, what wouldst,
weasel? thou lamb o'court, what dost thou bleat for? ah,
you smooth-chinned catamite!

_Pietro._ Come down, thou rugged[350] cur, and snarl here;
I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty: trot about and
bespurtle whom thou pleasest. 21

_Mal._ I'll come among you, you goatish-blooded
toderers,[351] as gum into taffata, to fret, to fret: I'll fall
like a sponge into water, to suck up, to suck up. [_Howls
again._[352]] I'll go to church,[353] and come to you.

[_Exit above._

_Pietro._ 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 within herself;[354]
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
palliates.--Hark! they sing. [_A song._] See, he comes.
Now shall you hear the extremity of a malcontent: he is
as free as air; he blows over every man. 42

_Enter_ MALEVOLE _below_.

And, sir, whence come you now?

_Mal._ From the public place of much dissimulation,
the church.[355]

_Pietro._ What didst there?

_Mal._ Talk with a usurer; take up at interest.

_Pietro._ I wonder what religion thou art of?[356]

_Mal._ Of a soldier's religion.

_Pietro._ And what dost thou[357] think makes most infidels
now? 51

_Mal._ Sects, sects. I have seen seeming piety change
her robe so oft, that sure none but some arch-devil can
shape her a new[358] petticoat.

_Pietro._ O, a religious policy.

_Mal._ But, damnation on a politic religion! I am
weary: would I were one of the duke's hounds now![359]

_Pietro._ But what's the common news abroad, Malevole?
thou doggest rumour still. 59

_Mal._ 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? Ah, 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 effected of young
courtiers,--flattery, pride, and venery?

_Fer._ I study languages. Who dost think to be the
best linguist of our age? 70

_Mal._ Phew! the devil: let him possess thee; he'll
teach thee to speak all languages most readily and
strangely;[360] and great reason, marry, he's travelled greatly
i' the world, and is everywhere.

_Fer._ Save i' the court.

_Mal._ Ay, save i' the court.--[_To_ BILIOSO.] And how
does my old muckhill, overspread with fresh snow? thou
half a man, half a goat, all a beast! how does thy young
wife, old huddle?[361]

_Bil._ Out, you improvident rascal! 80

_Mal._ Do, kick, thou hugely-horned old duke's ox,
good Master Make-pleas.

_Pietro._ How dost thou live nowadays, Malevole?

_Mal._ Why, like the knight Sir Patrick Penlohans,[362]
with killing o' spiders for my lady's monkey.[363]

_Pietro._ How dost spend the night? I hear thou never
sleepest.

_Mal._ O, no; but dream the most fantastical! O heaven!
O fubbery, fubbery!

_Pietro._ Dream! what dreamest? 90

_Mal._ Why, methinks I see that signior pawn his footcloth,[364]
that metreza[365] her plate: this madam takes physic,
that t'other monsieur may minister to her: here is a
pander jewelled; there is[366] 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,
chimeras, imaginations, tricks, conceits!--[_To_ PREPASSO.]
Sir Tristram Trimtram, come aloft,[367] Jack-an-apes, 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[368] till the fin[369] of his eyes look as blue as the
welkin; and run the wildgoose-chase even with Pompey
the Huge.[370] 105

_Pietro._ You run!

_Mal._ To the devil.--Now, signior Guerrino, that thou
from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loathed
flatterer!--Alas, poor Celso, thy star's oppressed: thou
art an honest lord: 'tis pity. 110

_Equato._ Is't pity?

_Mal._ Ay, marry is't, philosophical Equato; and 'tis
pity that thou, being so excellent a scholar by art, should
be so ridiculous a fool by nature.--I have a thing to tell
you, duke: bid 'em avaunt, bid 'em avaunt.

_Pietro._ Leave us, leave us.

[_Exeunt all except_ PIETRO _and_ MALEVOLE.

Now, sir, what is't?

_Mal._ Duke, thou art a becco,[371] a cornuto.

_Pietro._ How!

_Mal._ Thou art a cuckold. 120

_Pietro._ Speak, unshale[372] him quick.

_Mal._ With most tumbler-like nimbleness.

_Pietro._ Who? by whom? I burst with desire.

_Mal._ Mendoza is the man makes thee a horned beast;
duke, 'tis Mendoza cornutes thee.

_Pietro._ What conformance? relate; short, short.

_Mal._ 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. 132

_Pietro._ Stay, stay.

_Mal._ 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._ What did God never make?

_Mal._ 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! 143

_Pietro._ Death and damnation!

_Mal._ Lightning and thunder!

_Pietro._ Vengeance and torture!

_Mal._ Catso![373]

_Pietro._ O, revenge!

_Mal._[374] Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs
A lady far inferior to the most,
In fair proportion both of limb and soul;
To take her from austerer check of parents,
To make her his by most devoutful rites, 150
Make her commandress of a better essence
Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man;
To hug her with as rais'd an appetite
As usurers do their delv'd-up treasury
(Thinking none tells it but his private self);
To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,
Distilling panting ardour to her heart;
True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood,
To give her height of hymeneal sweets,----

_Pietro._ O God! 160

_Mal._ Whilst she lisps, and gives him some
court-_quelquechose_,[375]
Made only to provoke, not satiate:
And yet even then the thaw of her delight
Flows from lewd heat of apprehension,
Only from strange imagination's rankness,
That forms the adulterer's presence in her soul,
And makes her think she clips the foul knave's loins.

_Pietro._ Affliction to my blood's root!

_Mal._ Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this;
Adultery is often the mother of incest. 170

_Pietro._ Incest!

_Mal._ Yes, incest: mark:--Mendoza of his wife begets
perchance a daughter: Mendoza dies; his son marries
this daughter: say you? nay, 'tis frequent, not only
probable, but no question often acted, whilst ignorance,
fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed.

_Pietro._ Hideous imagination!

_Mal._ Adultery? why, next to the sin of simony, 'tis
the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation. 180

_Pietro._ Next to simony!

_Mal._ Ay, next to simony, in which our men in next
age shall not sin.

_Pietro._ Not sin! why?

_Mal._ Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age
will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery, O
dulness! should show[376] exemplary punishment, that intemperate
bloods may freeze but to think it. I would
damn him and all his generation: my own hands should
do it; ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance:
--anything. 191

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

[_Exit_ PIETRO.

_Mal._[377] Farewell.
Lean thoughtfulness, a sallow meditation,
Suck thy veins dry, distemperance rob thy sleep!
The heart's disquiet is revenge most deep:
He that gets blood, the life of flesh but spills,
But he that breaks heart's peace, the dear soul kills. 200
Well, this disguise doth yet afford me that
Which kings do seldom hear, or great men use,--
Free speech: and though my state's usurp'd,
Yet this affected strain gives me a tongue
As fetterless as in an emperor's.
I may speak foolishly, ay, knavishly,
Always carelessly, yet no one thinks it fashion
To poise my breath; for he that laughs and strikes
Is lightly felt, or seldom struck again.
Duke, I'll torment thee now; my just revenge 210
From thee than crown a richer gem shall part:
Beneath God, naught's so dear as a calm heart.

_Re-enter_ CELSO.

_Celso._ My honour'd lord,--

_Mal._ Peace, speak low, peace! O Celso, constant lord,
(Thou to whose faith I only rest discover'd,
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-banish'd Altofront,
This Genoa's last year's duke. O truly noble! 220
I wanted those old instruments of state,
Dissemblance and suspect: I could not time it, Celso;
My throne stood like a point midst[378] of a circle,
To all of equal nearness; bore with none;
Rein'd all alike; so slept in fearless virtue,
Suspectless, too suspectless; till the crowd,
(Still lickorous of untried novelties)
Impatient with severer government
Made strong with Florence, banish'd Altofront.

_Celso._ Strong with Florence! ay, thence your mischief rose; 230
For when the daughter of the Florentine
Was match'd once with this Pietro, now duke,
No stratagem of state untried was left,
Till you of all----

_Mal._ Of all was quite bereft:
Alas, Maria too close prisonèd,
My true-faith'd duchess, i' the citadel!

_Celso._ I'll still adhere: let's mutiny and die.

_Mal._ O, no,[379] climb not a falling tower, Celso;
'Tis well held desperation, no zeal,
Hopeless to strive with fate: peace; temporise. 240
Hope, hope, that ne'er forsak'st the wretched'st man,
Yet bidd'st me live, and lurk in this disguise!
What, play I well the free-breath'd discontent?
Why, man, we are all philosophical monarchs
Or natural fools. Celso, the court's a-fire;
The duchess' sheets will smoke for't ere't be long:
Impure Mendoza, that sharp-nos'd lord, that made
The cursèd match link'd Genoa with Florence,
Now broad-horns the duke, which he now knows.
Discord to malcontents is very manna: 250
When the ranks are burst, then scuffle, Altofront.

_Celso._ Ay, but durst----

_Mal._ 'Tis gone; 'tis swallow'd like a mineral:
Some way 'twill work; pheut, I'll not shrink:
He's resolute who can no lower sink.

BILIOSO _re-entering_, MALEVOLE _shifteth his speech_.

O[380] the father of May-poles! did you never see a
fellow whose strength consisted in his breath, respect
in his office, religion in[381] his lord, and love in himself?
why, then, behold.

_Bil._ Signior,-- 260

_Mal._ My right worshipful lord, your court night-cap
makes you have a passing high forehead.

_Bil._ I can tell you strange news, but I am sure you
know them already: the duke speaks much good of you.

_Mal._ Go to, then: and shall you and I now enter
into a strict friendship?

_Bil._ Second one another?

_Mal._ Yes.

_Bil._ Do one another good offices?

_Mal._ Just: what though I called thee old ox, egregious
wittol, broken-bellied coward, rotten mummy? yet, since
I am in favour---- 272

_Bil._ Words of course, terms of disport. His grace
presents you by me a chain, as his grateful remembrance
for--I am ignorant for what; marry, ye may impart: yet
howsoever--come--dear friend; dost know my son?

_Mal._ Your son!

_Bil._ He shall eat wood-cocks, dance jigs, make
possets, and play at shuttle-cock with any young lord
about the court: he has as sweet a lady too; dost know
her little bitch? 281

_Mal._ 'Tis a dog, man.

_Bil._ Believe me, a she-bitch: O, 'tis a good creature!
thou shalt be her servant. I'll make thee acquainted with
nothing. 'Tis grown to supper-time; come to my table:
that, anything I have, stands open to thee.

_Mal._ [_aside to_ CELSO] How smooth to him that is in state
of grace,
How servile is the rugged'st courtier's face!
What profit, nay, what nature would keep down, 290
Are heav'd to them are minions to a crown.
Envious ambition never sates his thirst,
Till sucking all, he swells and swells, and burst.[382]

_Bil._ I shall now leave you with my always-best wishes;
only let's hold betwixt us a firm correspondence, a mutual
friendly-reciprocal kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued----

_Mal._ Did your signiorship ne'er see a pigeon-house
that was smooth, round, and white without, and full of
holes and stink within? ha' ye not, old courtier? 300

_Bil._ O, yes, 'tis the form, the fashion of them all.

_Mal._ Adieu, my true court-friend; farewell, my dear
Castilio.[383]

[_Exit_ BILIOSO.

_Celso._ Yonder's Mendoza.

_Mal._ True, the privy-key.

[_Descries_ MENDOZA.

_Celso._ I take my leave, sweet lord.

_Mal._ 'Tis fit; away!

[_Exit_ CELSO.

_Enter_ MENDOZA _with three or four Suitors_.

_Men._ Leave your suits with me; I can and will:
attend my secretary; leave me.

[_Exeunt Suitors._

_Mal._ Mendoza, hark ye, hark ye. You are a
treacherous villain: God b' wi' ye!

_Men._ Out, you base-born rascal! 310

_Mal._ We are all the sons of heaven, though a tripe-wife
were our mother: ah, you whoreson, hot-reined he-marmoset!
Ægisthus! didst ever hear of one Ægisthus?

_Men._ Gisthus?

_Mal._ Ay, Ægisthus: he was a filthy incontinent fleshmonger,
such a one as thou art.

_Men._ Out, grumbling rogue!

_Mal._ Orestes, beware Orestes!

_Men._ Out, beggar!

_Mal._ I once shall rise. 320

_Men._ Thou rise!

_Mal._ Ay, at the resurrection.
No vulgar seed but once may rise and shall;
No king so huge but 'fore he die may fall.

[_Exit._

_Men._ Now, good Elysium! what a delicious heaven
is it for a man to be in a prince's favour! O sweet
God! O pleasure! O fortune! O all thou best of
life! what should I think, what say, what do to be a
favourite, 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-lampreels that engender with snakes,
and are full of eyes on both sides, with a kind of insinuated[384]
humbleness, fix all their delights[385] upon his
brow. O blessed state! what a ravishing prospect
doth the Olympus of favour 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, life-blood 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,[386] in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant,
in life how wary, in favours 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. 357

[_Exit._

[349] In the margin of old eds., opposite the title, is printed
"_Vexat censura columbas_." (Juvenal, _Sat._ ii. 63.)

[350] So ed. 1.--Ed. 2. "ragged."

[351] "I suppose this is a word coined from _tod_, a certain
weight of sheep's wool. He seems willing to intimate that the
duke, &c., are _mutton_-mongers. The meaning of _laced mutton_ is
well known."--_Steevens._--Not at all satisfactory.

[352] Old eds. "Howle againe"--printed as part of the text.

[353] So ed. 2.--Ed. 1. "pray."

[354] "Within herself"--added in ed. 2.

[355] "The church"--added in ed. 2.

[356] "Of"--added in ed. 2.

[357] Omitted in ed. 2.

[358] Omitted in ed. 2.

[359] "I am weary ... now"--added in ed. 2.

[360] There is an allusion to the old superstition (which Ben
Jonson has amusingly illustrated in _The Devil is an Ass_, v. 5),
that a person possessed by the devil was able to converse in
various tongues.

[361] A term of contempt for a sordid old man.--Cf. _The Widow_,
ii. 2:--"Hear you me that, _old huddle_" (Middleton, v. 165).

[362] Ed. 2. "Penlolians."

[363] "_Monkeys_, apes, stellions, lizards, wasps, ichneumons,
swallows, sparrows, muskins, hedge-sparrows _feed on spiders_,"
says Dr. Muffet in one of his delightful chapters on spiders in
_The Theater of Insects_ (Topsel's _Nat. Hist._, ed. 1658, p.
1073).

[364] The housings of a horse.

[365] Mistress (_Ital._).

[366] Added in ed. 2.

[367] The cry of the ape-ward when the ape was to climb the pole
and display his feats of agility.

[368] The sport of Running at the Ring, in which the tilter tried
to drive the point of his spear through a suspended ring.

[369] This word is used in the _Duchess of Malfi_, ii. 1:--"The
_fins_ of her eyelids look most teeming blue!"

[370] "Greater than Great, great, great, great Pompey! _Pompey
the Huge!_"--_Love's Labour Lost_, v. 2.

[371] Cuckold (_Ital._).

[372] Unshell.

[373] Obscene exclamation (from the Italian).

[374] "Nay, to select ... freeze but to think it" (ll.
146-188).--This passage was added in ed. 2.

[375] See Skeat's _Etym. Dict. s._ KICKSHAWS.

[376] For "should show" old ed. gives "shue should."

[377] This speech was added in ed. 2.

[378] Ed. 2. "in middest."

[379] Added in ed. 2.

[380] "O the father ... my dear Castilio" (ll. 256-303).--This
passage was added in ed. 2.

[381] Old ed. "on."

[382] Old ed. "burstes."

[383] An allusion to Baldessar Castiglione, author of the famous
book of manners, _Il Cortese_, which was translated into English
(in 1561) by Sir Thomas Hoby.

[384] Ed. 1. "insinuating."

[385] Ed. 1. "lights."

[386] "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how
infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and
admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how
like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of
animals!"--_Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2.

SCENE II.

_Palace of the Duke of Genoa._

_Enter_ FERNEZE _ushering_ AURELIA, EMILIA _and_ MAQUERELLE
_bearing up her train_, BIANCA _attending: then
exeunt_ EMILIA _and_ BIANCA.

_Aurel._ And is't possible? Mendoza slight me!
possible?

_Fer._ Possible!
What can be strange in him that's drank with favour,[387]
Grows insolent with grace?--Speak, Maquerelle, speak.

_Maq._ 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[388] anything [FERNEZE _privately
feeds_ MAQUERELLE'S _hands with jewels during this speech_];
can bear patiently with any man: but when I heard he
wronged your precious sweetness, I was enforced to take
deep offence. '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. 16

_Fer._ Nay, called you--Speak, Maquerelle, speak.

Maq. By heaven, witch, dried biscuit; and contested
blushlessly he loved you but for a spurt or so.

_Fer._ For maintenance.

_Maq._ Advancement and regard.

_Aurel._ O villain! O impudent Mendoza!

_Maq._ Nay, he is the rustiest-jawed,[389] the foulest-mouthed
knave in railing against our sex: he will rail
against[390] women--

_Aurel._ How? how?

_Maq._ I am ashamed to speak't, I.

_Aurel._ I love to hate him: speak.

_Maq._ Why, when Emilia scorned his base unsteadiness,
the black-throated rascal scolded, and said-- 30

_Aurel._ What?

_Maq._ Troth, 'tis too shameless.

_Aurel._ What said he?

_Maq._ Why, that, at four, women were fools; at fourteen,
drabs; at forty, bawds; at fourscore, witches; and
[at] a hundred, cats.

_Aurel._ O unlimitable impudency!

_Fer._ But as for poor Ferneze's fixèd heart,
Was never shadeless meadow drier parch'd
Under the scorching heat of heaven's dog, 40
Than is my heart with your enforcing eyes.

_Maq._ A hot simile.

_Fer._ Your smiles have been my heaven, your frowns my hell:
O, pity, then! grace should with beauty dwell.

_Maq._ Reasonable perfect, by'r lady.

_Aurel._ I will love thee, be it but in despite
Of that Mendoza:--witch!--Ferneze,--witch!--
Ferneze, thou art the duchess' favourite:
Be faithful, private: but 'tis dangerous.

_Fer._ His love is lifeless that for love fears breath: 50
The worst that's due to sin, O, would 'twere death!

_Aurel._ Enjoy my favour. I will be sick instantly and
take physic: therefore in depth of night visit--

_Maq._ Visit her chamber, but conditionally you shall
not offend her bed: by this diamond!

_Fer._ By this diamond. [_Giving diamond to_ MAQ.

_Maq._ Nor tarry longer than you please: by this ruby!

_Fer._ By this ruby. [_Giving ruby to_ MAQ.

_Maq._ And that the door shall not creak. 60

_Fer._ And that the door shall not creak.

_Maq._ Nay, but swear.

_Fer._ By this purse. [_Giving purse to_ MAQ.

_Maq._ Go to, I'll keep your oaths for you: remember,
visit.

_Aurel._ Dried biscuit!--Look where the base wretch
comes.

_Enter_ MENDOZA, _reading a sonnet_.

_Men._ "_Beauty's life, heaven's model, love's queen_,"--

_Maq._ That's his Emilia.

_Men._ "_Natures triumph, best on[391] earth_,"-- 70

_Maq._ Meaning Emilia.

_Men._ "_Thou only wonder that the world hath seen_,"--

_Maq._ That's Emilia.

_Aurel._ Must I, then, hear her praised?--Mendoza!

_Men._ Madam, your excellency is graciously encountered:
I have been writing passionate flashes in
honour of--

[_Exit_ FERNEZE.

_Aurel._ Out, villain, villain!
O judgment, where have been my eyes? what
Bewitch'd election made me dote on thee? 80
What sorcery made me love thee? But, be gone;
Bury thy head. O, that I could do more
Than loath thee! hence, worst of ill!
No reason ask, our reason is our will.[392]

[_Exit with_ MAQUERELLE.

_Men._ 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? sit 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
sighs[393] 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! 102

_Enter_ PIETRO, _his sword drawn_.

_Pietro._ A mischief fill thy throat, thou foul-jaw'd slave!
Say thy prayers.

_Men._ I ha' forgot 'em.

_Pietro._ Thou shalt die.

_Men._ So shalt thou. I am heart-mad.

_Pietro._ I am horn-mad.

_Men._ Extreme mad.

_Pietro._ Monstrously mad.

_Men._ Why? 111

_Pietro._ Why! thou, thou hast dishonoured my bed.

_Men._ I! Come, come, sit; here's my bare heart to thee,
As steady as is the centre to this[394] glorious world:
And yet, hark, thou art a cornuto,--but by me?

_Pietro._ Yes, slave, by thee.

_Men._ Do not, do not with tart and spleenful breath
Lose him can lose thee. I offend my duke!
Bear record, O ye dumb and raw-air'd nights,
How vigilant my sleepless eyes have been 120
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 disgrac'd!
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 deem'd a villain? 130
What rogue hath wrong'd us?

_Pietro._ Mendoza, I may err.

_Men._ 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 loath'd reject,
'Fore I'll reveal, shalt find them clipt together.

_Pietro._ Mendoza, thou knowest I am a most plain-breasted
man.

_Men._ The fitter to make a cornuto:[395] would your
brows were most plain too! 140

_Pietro._ Tell me: indeed, I heard thee rail--

_Men._ At women, true: why, what cold fleam[396] could choose,
Knowing a lord so honest, virtuous,
So boundless loving, bounteous, fair-shap'd, sweet,
To be contemn'd, abus'd, defam'd, made cuckold?
Heart! I hate all women for't: sweet sheets, wax lights,
antic bedposts, cambric smocks, villainous curtains, arras
pictures, oiled hinges, and all the[397] tongue-tied lascivious
witnesses of great creatures' wantonness,--what salvation
can you expect? 150

_Pietro._ Wilt thou tell me?

_Men._ Why, you may find it yourself; observe,
observe.

_Pietro._ I ha' not the patience: wilt thou deserve me,
tell, give it.

_Men._ Take't: why, Ferneze is the man, Ferneze: I'll
prove't; this night you shall take him in your sheets:
will't serve?

_Pietro._ It will; my bosom's in some peace: till night--

_Men._ What?

_Pietro._ Farewell.

_Men._ God! how weak a lord are you! 160
Why, do you think there is no more but so?

_Pietro._ Why!

_Men._ Nay, then, will I presume to counsel you:
It should be thus. You with some guard upon the sudden
Break into the princess' chamber: I stay behind,
Without the door, through which he needs must pass:
Ferneze flies; let him: to me he comes; he's kill'd
By me, observe, by me: you follow: I rail,
And seem to save the body. Duchess comes,
On whom (respecting her advancèd birth, 170
And your fair nature), I know, nay, I do know,
No violence must be us'd; she comes: I storm,
I praise, excuse Ferneze, and still maintain
The duchess' honour: she for this loves me.
I honour 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
Than she can think't. Thus shall his death come sure,
Your duchess brain-caught: so your life secure. 180

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

[_Exit._

_Men._ 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 labour 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.

[_Exit._

[387] "With favour"--omitted in some copies of ed. 2.

[388] Omitted in ed. 2.

[389] Ed. 2. "rustiest jade."

[390] Ed. 1. "agen."

[391] Ed. 1. "of."

[392] Ed. 1. gives:--
"No reason else, my reason is my will."

[393] Old eds. "sights" (and, as Dyce remarks, so the word was
sometimes written).

[394] Ed. 1. "this center to this."--Ed. 2. "this centre to the."

[395] Ed. 2. "cuckolde."

[396] Phlegm.

[397] Ed. 1. "ye."

SCENE III.[398]

_The palace of the Duke of Genoa._

_Enter_ MALEVOLE _and_ PASSARELLO.

_Mal._ Fool, most happily encountered: canst sing,
fool?

_Pass._ Yes, I can sing, fool, if you'll bear the burden;
and I can play upon instruments, scurvily, as gentlemen
do. O, that I had been gelded! I should then have
been a fat fool for a chamber, a squeaking fool for a
tavern, and a private fool for all the ladies.

_Mal._ You are in good case since you came to court,
fool: what, guarded, guarded![399] 9

_Pass._ Yes, faith, even as footmen and bawds wear
velvet, not for an ornament of honour, but for a badge
of drudgery; for, now the duke is discontented, I am
fain to fool him asleep every night.

_Mal._ What are his griefs?

_Pass._ He hath sore eyes.

_Mal._ I never observed so much.

_Pass._ Horrible sore eyes; and so hath every cuckold,
for the roots of the horns spring in the eyeballs, and
that's the reason the horn of a cuckold is as tender as
his eye, or as that growing in the woman's forehead twelve
years since,[400] that could not endure to be touched. The
duke hangs down his head like a columbine. 22

_Mal._ Passarello, why do great men beg fools?[401]

_Pass._ As the Welshman stole rushes when there was
nothing else to filch; only to keep begging in fashion.

_Mal._ Pooh, thou givest no good reason; thou speakest
like a fool.

_Pass._ Faith, I utter small fragments, as your knight
courts your city widow with jingling[402] of his gilt spurs,
advancing his bush-coloured beard,[403] and taking tobacco:
this is all the mirror of their knightly complements.[404] Nay,
I shall talk when my tongue is a-going once; 'tis like a
citizen on horseback, evermore in a false gallop. 33

_Mal._ And how doth Maquerelle fare nowadays?

_Pass._ Faith, I was wont to salute her as our English
women are at their first landing in Flushing;[405] I would
call her whore: but now that antiquity leaves her as an
old piece of plastic[406] to work by, I only ask her how her
rotten teeth fare every morning, and so leave her. She
was the first that ever invented perfumed smocks for the
gentlewomen, and woollen shoes, for fear of creaking
for the visitant. She were an excellent lady, but that
her face peeleth like Muscovy glass.[407] 43

_Mal._ And how doth thy old lord, that hath wit enough
to be a flatterer, and conscience enough to be a knave?

_Pass._ O, excellent: he keeps beside me fifteen jesters,
to instruct him in the art of fooling, and utters their jests
in private to the duke and duchess: he'll lie like to
your Switzer or lawyer; he'll be of any side for most
money. 50

_Mal._ I am in haste, be brief.

_Pass._ As your fiddler when he is paid.--He'll thrive,
I warrant you, while your young courtier stands like
Good-Friday in Lent; men long to see it, because more
fatting days come after it; else he's the leanest and pitifullest
actor in the whole pageant. Adieu, Malevole.

_Mal._ [_Aside._] O world most vile, when thy loose vanities,
Taught by this fool, do make the fool seem wise!

_Pass._ You'll know me again, Malevole.

_Mal._ O, ay, by that velvet. 60

_Pass._ Ay, as a pettifogger by his buckram bag. I
am as common in the court as an hostess's lips in the
country; knights, and clowns, and knaves, and all share
me: the court cannot possibly be without me. Adieu,
Malevole.

[_Exeunt._

[398] This scene was added in ed. 2.

[399] Ornamented with _guards_ or facings.--The coats of fools
were commonly guarded.

[400] "The woman with the horn in her forehead was probably
Margaret Griffith, wife of David Owen, of Llan Gaduain, in
Montgomery. A portrait of her is in existence, prefixed to a
scarce pamphlet, entitled, '_A miraculous and monstrous, but yet
most true and certayne Discourse of a Woman, now to be seen in
London, of the age of threescore yeares or thereabouts, in the
midst of whose forehead there groweth out a crooked Horne of four
ynches long. Imprinted at London, by Thomas Orwin, and are to be
sold by Edward White, dwelling at the little north dore of Paules
Church, at the signe of the Gun_, 1588.'"--_Gilchrist._

[401] _To beg a person for a fool_ was to apply to be made
guardian of a person who had been legally proved to be an idiot.
It was in the king's power to grant the custody of an idiot's
person and the profits of his estate to any subject.

[402] Gallants prided themselves on wearing spurs that jingled.
Middleton, after elaborately describing a young prodigal's
attire, adds:--"Lastly, he walked the chamber with such a
pestilent jingle that his spurs over-squeaked the lawyer"
(_Works_, viii. 71). So Chapman in _Monsieur D'Olive_:--"You may
hear them (the gallants) half a mile ere they come at you--six or
seven make a perfect morice-dance; they need no bells, their
spurs serve their turn."

[403] This is the reading of Dyce's copy of ed. 2. Other copies
read:-- "Faith, I utter small fragments as your knight courtes
your Citty widow _with something of his guilt: some aduancing his
high-colored beard_," &c.

[404] Accomplishments.

[405] "At this time Flushing was in the hands of the English as
part of the security for money advanced by Queen Elizabeth to the
Dutch. The governor and garrison were all Englishmen."--_Reed._

[406] Model in wax or clay.

[407] Talc.--Reed quotes from Giles Fletcher's _Russe
Commonwealth_, 1591, p. 10:--"In the province of Corelia, and
about the river Duyna towards the North-sea, there groweth a soft
rock which they call Slude. This they cut into pieces, and so
tear it into thin _flakes, which naturally it is apt for_, and so
use it for glasse lanthorns and such like. It giveth both inwards
and outwards a clearer light then glasse, and for this respect is
better than either glasse or horne; for that it neither breaketh
like glasse, nor yet will burne like the lanthorne."