The Duchess of Malfi John Webster (intellectual books to read TXT) 📖

should have been Pope; but instead of coming to it by the primitive decency of the church, he did bestow bribes so largely and so impudently as if he would have carried it away without heaven’s knowledge. Some good he hath done⁠— Delio

You have given too much of him. What’s his brother?

Antonio

The duke there? A most perverse and turbulent nature.
What appears in him mirth is merely outside;
If he laught heartily, it is to laugh
All honesty out of fashion.

Delio

Twins?

Antonio

In quality.
He speaks with others’ tongues, and hears men’s suits
With others’ ears; will seem to sleep o’ the bench
Only to entrap offenders in their answers;
Dooms men to death by information;
Rewards by hearsay.

Delio

Then the law to him
Is like a foul, black cobweb to a spider⁠—
He makes it his dwelling and a prison
To entangle those shall feed him.

Antonio

Most true:
He never pays debts unless they be shrewd turns,
And those he will confess that he doth owe.
Last, for this brother there, the cardinal,
They that do flatter him most say oracles
Hang at his lips; and verily I believe them,
For the devil speaks in them.
But for their sister, the right noble duchess,
You never fix’d your eye on three fair medals
Cast in one figure, of so different temper.
For her discourse, it is so full of rapture,
You only will begin then to be sorry
When she doth end her speech, and wish, in wonder,
She held it less vainglory to talk much,
Than your penance to hear her. Whilst she speaks,
She throws upon a man so sweet a look
That it were able to raise one to a galliard.9
That lay in a dead palsy, and to dote
On that sweet countenance; but in that look
There speaketh so divine a continence
As cuts off all lascivious and vain hope.
Her days are practis’d in such noble virtue,
That sure her nights, nay, more, her very sleeps,
Are more in heaven than other ladies’ shrifts.
Let all sweet ladies break their flatt’ring glasses,
And dress themselves in her.

Delio

Fie, Antonio,
You play the wire-drawer with her commendations.

Antonio

I’ll case the picture up: only thus much;
All her particular worth grows to this sum⁠—
She stains10 the time past, lights the time to come.

Cariola

You must attend my lady in the gallery,
Some half and hour hence.

Antonio

I shall.

Exeunt Antonio and Delio. Ferdinand

Sister, I have a suit to you.

Duchess

To me, sir?

Ferdinand

A gentleman here, Daniel de Bosola,
One that was in the galleys⁠—

Duchess

Yes, I know him.

Ferdinand

A worthy fellow he is: pray, let me entreat for
The provisorship of your horse.

Duchess

Your knowledge of him
Commends him and prefers him.

Ferdinand

Call him hither.

Exit Attendant.

We are now upon11 parting. Good Lord Silvio,
Do us commend to all our noble friends
At the leaguer.

Silvio

Sir, I shall.

Duchess

You are for Milan?

Silvio

I am.

Duchess

Bring the caroches.12⁠—We’ll bring you down
To the haven.

Exeunt Duchess, Silvio, Castruccio, Roderigo, Grisolan, Cariola, Julia, and Attendants. Cardinal

Be sure you entertain that Bosola
For your intelligence.13 I would not be seen in’t;
And therefore many times I have slighted him
When he did court our furtherance, as this morning.

Ferdinand

Antonio, the great-master of her household,
Had been far fitter.

Cardinal

You are deceiv’d in him.
His nature is too honest for such business.⁠—
He comes: I’ll leave you.

Exit. Re-enter Bosala. Bosola

I was lur’d to you.

Ferdinand

My brother, here, the cardinal, could never
Abide you.

Bosola

Never since he was in my debt.

Ferdinand

May be some oblique character in your face
Made him suspect you.

Bosola

Doth he study physiognomy?
There’s no more credit to be given to the face
Than to a sick man’s urine, which some call
The physician’s whore, because she cozens14 him.
He did suspect me wrongfully.

Ferdinand

For that
You must give great men leave to take their times.
Distrust doth cause us seldom be deceiv’d.
You see the oft shaking of the cedar-tree
Fastens it more at root.

Bosola

Yet take heed;
For to suspect a friend unworthily
Instructs him the next way to suspect you,
And prompts him to deceive you.

Ferdinand

There’s gold.

Bosola

So:
What follows? Aside. Never rain’d such showers as these
Without thunderbolts i’ the tail of them.⁠—Whose throat must I cut?

Ferdinand

Your inclination to shed blood rides post
Before my occasion to use you. I give you that
To live i’ the court here, and observe the duchess;
To note all the particulars of her haviour,
What suitors do solicit her for marriage,
And whom she best affects. She’s a young widow:
I would not have her marry again.

Bosola

No, sir?

Ferdinand

Do not you ask the reason; but be satisfied.
I say I would not.

Bosola

It seems you would create me
One of your familiars.

Ferdinand

Familiar! What’s that?

Bosola

Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh⁠—
An intelligencer.15

Ferdinand

Such a kind of thriving thing
I would wish thee; and ere long thou mayst arrive
At a higher place by’t.

Bosola

Take your devils,
Which hell calls angels! These curs’d gifts would make
You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor;
And should I take these, they’d take me [to] hell.

Ferdinand

Sir, I’ll take nothing from you that I have given.
There is a place that I procur’d for you
This morning, the provisorship o’ the horse;
Have you heard on’t?

Bosola

No.

Ferdinand

’Tis yours: is’t not worth thanks?

Bosola

I would have you curse yourself now, that your bounty
(Which makes men truly noble) e’er should make me
A villain. O, that to avoid ingratitude
For the good deed you have done me, I must do
All the ill man can invent! Thus the devil
Candies all sins o’er; and what heaven terms vile,
That names he complimental.

Ferdinand

Be yourself;
Keep your old garb of melancholy; ’twill express
You envy those that stand above your reach,
Yet strive not to come near