[Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
Lactantio’s lodging in the Cardinal’s mansion.
Page. I prithee, Dondolo, take this shirt and air it a little against my master rises; I had rather do any thing than do’t, i’faith. Don. O monstrous, horrible, terrible, intolerable! are not you big enough to air a shirt? were it a smock now, you liquorish page, you’d be hanged ere you’d part from’t. If thou dost not prove as arrant a smell-smock as any the town affords in a term-time, I’ll lose my judgment in wenching.
Page. Pish; here, Dondolo, prithee, take it.
Don. It’s no more but up and ride with you then! all my generation were beadles and officers, and do you think I’m so easily entreated? you shall find a harder piece of work, boy, than you imagine, to get any thing from my hands; I will not disgenerate so much from the nature of my kindred; you must bribe me one way or other, if you look to have any thing done, or else you may do’t yourself: ’twas just my father’s humour when he bore office. You know my mind, page; the song! the song! I must either have the song you sung to my master last night when he went to bed, or I’ll not do a stitch of service for you from one week’s end to the other. As I am a gentleman, you shall brush cloaks, make clean spurs, nay, pull off strait boots, although in the tugging you chance to fall and hazard the breaking of your little buttocks; I’ll take no more pity of your marrow-bones than a butcher’s dog of a rump of beef; nay, ka me, ka thee;[883] if you will ease the melancholy of my mind with singing, I will deliver you from the calamity of boots-haling.
Page. Alas, you know I cannot sing!
Don. Take heed; you may speak at such an hour that your voice may be clean taken away from you: I have known many a good gentlewoman say so much as you say now, and have presently gone to bed and lay speechless: ’tis not good to jest, as old Chaucer was wont to say, that broad famous English poet. Cannot you sing, say you? O that a boy should so keep cut with[884] his mother, and be given to dissembling!
Page. Faith, to your knowledge in’t, ill may seem well;
But as I hope in comforts, I’ve no skill.
Don. A pox of skill! give me plain simple cunning: why should not singing be as well got without skill as the getting of children? You shall have the arrantest fool do as much there as the wisest coxcomb of 'em all, let 'em have all the help of doctors put to 'em, both the directions of physicians, and the erections of pothecaries; you shall have a plain hobnailed country fellow, marrying some dairy-wench, tumble out two of a year, and sometimes three, byrlady,[885] as the crop falls out; and your nice paling physicking gentlefolks some one in nine years, and hardly then a whole one as it should be; the wanting of some apricock or something loses a member on him, or quite spoils it. Come, will you sing, that I may warm the shirt? by this light, he shall put it on cold for me else.
Page. A song or two I learnt with hearing gentlewomen practise themselves.
Don. Come, you are so modest now, ’tis pity that thou wast ever bred to be thrust through a pair of canions;[887] thou wouldst have made a pretty foolish waiting-woman but for one thing. Wilt sing?
Page. As well as I can, Dondolo.
Don. Give me the shirt then, I’ll warm’t as well[’s] I can too.
Why, look, you whoreson coxcomb, this is a smock!
Page. No, ’tis my master’s shirt.
Don. Why, that’s true too;
Who knows not that? why, ’tis the fashion, fool;
All your young gallants[888] here of late wear smocks,
Those without beards especially.
Page. Why, what’s the reason, sir?
Don. Marry, very great reason in’t: a young gallant lying a-bed with his wench, if the constable should chance to come up and search, being both in smocks, they’d be taken for sisters, and I hope a constable dare go no further; and as for the knowing of their heads, that’s well enough too, for I know many young gentlemen wear longer hair than their mistresses.
Page. ’Tis a hot world the whilst.
Don. Nay, that’s most certain; and a most witty age of a bald one, for all languages; you’ve many daughters so well brought up, they speak French naturally at fifteen, and they are turned to the Spanish and Italian half a year after.
Page. That’s like learning the grammar first, and the accidence after, they go backward so.
Don. The fitter for th’ Italian: thou’st no wit, boy;
Hadst had a tutor, he’d have taught thee that.
Come, come, that I may be gone, boy!
Page [sings].
Cupid is Venus’[889] only joy,
But he is a wanton boy,
A very, very wanton boy;
He shoots at ladies’ naked breasts,
He is the cause of most men’s crests,
I mean upon the forehead,
Invisible, but horrid;
Of the short velvet mask he was deviser,
That wives may kiss, the husbands ne’er the wiser;
'Twas he first thought upon the way
To keep a lady’s lips in play.
Don. O rich, ravishing, rare, and enticing! Well, go thy ways for as sweet a breasted page[890] as ever lay at his master’s feet in a truckle-bed.
Page. You’ll hie you in straight, Dondolo?
Don. I’ll not miss you. [Exit Page.
This smockified shirt, or shirted smock,
I will go toast. Let me see what’s a’clock:
I must to th’ castle straight to see his love,
Either by hook or crook: my master storming
Sent me last night, but I’ll be gone this morning.
[Exit.
ACT II. SCENE I.
An Apartment in the House of the Duchess.
Enter Duchess and Celia.
Duch. Seek out the lightest colours can be got,
The youthfull’st dressings; tawny is too sad,
I am not thirty yet; I’ve wrong’d my time
To go so long in black, like a petitioner:
See that the powder that I use about me
Be rich in cassia.
Celia. Here’s a sudden change! [Aside.
Duch. O, I’m undone in faith! Stay, art thou certain
Lactantio, nephew to the cardinal, was present
In the late entertainment of the general?
Celia. Upon my reputation with your excellence,
These eyes beheld him: he came foremost, madam;
'Twas he in black and yellow.
Duch. Nay, ’tis no matter, either for himself
Or for the affectation of his colours,
So you be sure he was there.
Celia. As sure as sight
Can discern man from man, madam.
Duch. It suffices. [Exit Celia.
O, an ill cause had need of many helps,
Much art, and many friends, ay, and those mighty,
Or else it sets in shame! A faith once lost
Requires great cunning ere’t be entertain’d
Into the breast of a belief again;
There’s no condition so unfortunate,
Poor, miserable, to any creature given,
As hers that breaks in vow; she breaks with heaven.
Enter Cardinal.
Car. Increase of health and a redoubled courage
To chastity’s great soldier! what, so sad, madam?—
The memory of her seven-years-deceas’d lord
Springs yet into her eyes as fresh and full
As at the seventh hour after his departure:
What a perpetual fountain is her virtue!— [Aside.
Too much t’ afflict yourself with ancient sorrow
Is not so strictly for your strength requir’d;
Your vow is charge enough, believe me ’tis, madam,
You need no weightier task.
Duch. Religious sir,
You heard the last words of my dying lord.
Car. Which I shall ne’er forget.
Duch. May I entreat
Your goodness but to speak 'em over to me,
As near as memory can befriend your utterance,
That I may think awhile I stand in presence
Of my departing husband.
Car. What’s your meaning
In this, most virtuous madam?
Duch. ’Tis a courtesy
I stand in need of, sir, at this time specially;
Urge it no further yet; as it proves to me,
You shall hear from me; only I desire it
Effectually from you, sir, that’s my request.
Car. I wonder, yet I’ll spare to question farther.—
[Aside.
You shall have your desire.
Duch. I thank you, sir;
A blessing come along with’t!
Car. You see, my lords, what all earth’s glory is,
Rightly defin’d in me, uncertain breath;
A dream of threescore years to the long sleeper,
To most not half the time: beware ambition;
Heaven is not reach’d with pride, but with submission.
And you, lord cardinal, labour to perfect
Good purposes begun; be what you seem,
Stedfast and uncorrupt; your actions noble,
Your goodness simple, without gain[891] or art,
And not in vesture holier than in heart.
But ’tis a pain, more than the pangs of death,
To think that we must part, fellow[892] of life,
Thou richness of my joys, kind and dear princess;
Death had no sting but for our separation;
It would come more calm than an evening’s peace
That brings on rest to labours: thou’rt so precious,
I should depart in everlasting envy
Unto the man that ever should enjoy thee:
O, a new torment strikes his force into me
When I but think on’t! I am rack’d and torn;
Pity me in thy virtues.
Duch. My lov’d lord,
Let you[r]confirm’d opinion of my life,
My love, my faithful love, seal an assurance
Of quiet to your spirit, that no forgetfulness
Can cast a sleep so deadly on my senses,
To draw my affections to a second liking.
Of my great love to thee. For once to marry
Is honourable in woman, and her ignorance
Stands for a virtue, coming new and fresh;
But second marriage shews desires in flesh;
Thence lust, and heat, and common custom grows;
But she’s part virgin who but one man knows.
I here expect a work of thy great faith
At my last parting; I can crave no more,
And with thy vow I rest myself for ever;
My soul and it shall fly to heaven together:
Seal to my spirit that quiet satisfaction,
And I go hence in peace.
Duch. Then here I vow never——
Car. Why, madam!
Duch. I can go no further.
Car. What,
Have you forgot your vow?
Duch. I have, too certainly.
Car. Your vow? that cannot be; it follows now
Just where I left.
Duch. My frailty gets before it;
Nothing prevails but ill.
Car. What ail you, madam?
Duch. Sir, I’m in love.
Car. O, all you powers of chastity,
Look to this woman! let her not faint now,
For honour of yourselves! If she be lost,
I know not where to seek my hope in woman.
Madam, O madam!
Duch. My desires are sicken’d
Beyond recovery of good counsel, sir.
Car. What mischief ow’d a malice to the sex,
To work this spiteful ill! better the man
Had never known creation, than to live
th’ unlucky ruin of so fair a temple.
Yet think upon your vow, revive in faith;
Those are eternal things: what are all pleasures,
Flatteries of men, and follies upon earth,
To your most excellent goodness? O she’s dead,
Stark cold to any virtuous claim within her!
What now is heat is sin’s. Have I approv’d
Your constancy for this, call’d your faith noble,
Writ volumes of your victories and virtues?
I have undone my judgment, lost my praises,
Blemish’d the truth of my opinion.
Give me the man, that I may pour him out
To all contempt and curses.
Duch. The man’s innocent,
Full of desert and grace; his name Lactantio.
Car. How?
Duch. Your nephew.
Car. My nephew?
Duch. Beshrew the sight of him! he lives not, sir,
That could have conquer’d me, himself excepted.
Car. He that I lov’d so dearly, does he wear
Such killing poison in his eye to sanctity?
He has undone himself for ever by’t;
Has lost a friend of me, and a more sure one.
Farewell all natural pity! though my affection
Could hardly spare him from my sight an hour,
I’ll lose him now eternally, and strive
To live without him; he shall straight to Rome.
Duch. Not if you love my health or life, my lord.
Car. This day he shall set forth.
Duch. Despatch me rather.
Car. I’ll send him far enough.
Duch. Send me to death first.
Car. No basilisk, that strikes dead pure affection
With venomous eye, lives under my protection. [Exit.
Duch. Now my condition’s worse than e’er ’twas yet;
My cunning takes not with him; has broke through
The net that with all art was set for him,
And left the snarer here herself entangled
With her own toils. O, what are we poor souls,
When our dissembling fails us? surely creatures
As full of want as any nation can be,
That scarce have food to keep bare life about 'em.
Had this but took effect, what a fair way
Had I made for my love to th’ general,
And cut off all suspect, all reprehension!
My hopes are kill’d i’ th’ blossom. [Exit.
SCENE III.
The Cardinal’s closet.
Enter Cardinal.
Car. Let me think upon’t;
Set holy anger by awhile. There’s time
Allow’d for natural argument: ’tis she
That loves my nephew; she that loves, loves first;
What cause have I to lay a blame on him then?
He’s in no fault in this: say ’twas his fortune,
At the free entertainment of the general,
'Mongst others the deserts and hopes of Milan,
To come into her sight, where’s the offence yet?
What sin was that in him? Man’s sight and presence
Are free to public view: she might as well
Have fix’d her heart’s love then upon some other;
I would’t had lighted any where but there!
Yet I may err to wish’t, since it appears
The hand of heaven, that only pick’d him out
To reward virtue in him by this fortune;
And through affection I’m half conquer’d now;
I love his good as dearly as her vow,
Yet there my credit lives in works and praises:
I never found a harder fight within me,
Since zeal first taught me war; say I should labour
To quench this love, and so quench life and all,
As by all likelihood it would prove her death,
For it must needs be granted she affects him
As dearly as the power of love can force,
Since her vow awes her not, that was her saint;
What right could that be to religion,
To be her end, and dispossess my kinsman?
No, I will bear in pity to her heart,
The rest commend to fortune and my art. [Exit.
SCENE IV.
An apartment in the Castle.
Enter Aurelia’s Father, Governor, Aurelia, and Andrugio disguised.
[Aside.
I could shew many marks of resolution,
But modesty could wish 'em rather hidden:
I fetch’d home three-and-twenty wounds together
In one set battle, where I was defeated
At the same time of the third part of my nose;
But meeting with a skilful surgeon,
Took order for my snuffling.
Gov. And a nose
Well heal’d is counted a good cure in these days;
It saves many a man’s honesty, which else
Is quickly drawn into suspicion.
This night shall bring you acquainted with your charge;
In the meantime you and your valour’s welcome:
Would w’had more store of you, although they come
With fewer marks about 'em!
Fath. So wish I, sir. [Exeunt Father and Governor.
And. I was about to call her, and she stays
Of her own gift, as if she knew my mind;
Certain she knows me not, not possible. [Aside.
Aur. What if I left my token and my letter
With this strange fellow, so to be convey’d
Without suspicion to Lactantio’s servant?
Not so, I’ll trust no freshman with such secrets;
His ignorance may mistake, and give’t to one
That may belong to th’ general, for I know
He sets some spies about me; but all he gets
Shall not be worth his pains. I would Lactantio
Would seek some means to free me from this place;
’Tis prisonment enough to be a maid,
But to be mew’d up too, that case is hard,
As if a toy were kept by a double guard.
[Aside, and going.
And. Away she steals again, not minding me:
'Twas not at me she offer’d. [Aside.]—Hark you, gentlewoman.
Aur. With me, sir?
And. I could call you by your name,
But gentle’s the best attribute to woman.
Aur. Andrugio? O, as welcome to my lips
As morning-dew to roses! my first love!
And. Why, have you more then?
Aur. What a word was there!
More than thyself what woman could desire,
If reason had a part of her creation?
For loving you, you see, sir, I’m a prisoner,
There’s all the cause they have against me, sir;
A happy persecution I so count on’t:
If any thing be done to me for your sake,
’Tis pleasing to me.
And. Are you not abus’d,
Either through force or by your own consent?
Hold you your honour perfect and unstain’d?
Are you the same still that at my departure
My honest thoughts maintain’d you to my heart?
Aur. The same most just.
And. Swear’t.
Aur. By my hope of fruitfulness,
Love, and agreement, the three joys of marriage!
And. I am confirm’d; and in requital on’t,
Ere long expect your freedom.
Aur. O, you flatter me!
It is a wrong to make a wretch too happy,
So suddenly upon affliction;
Beshrew me, if I be not sick upon’t!
’Tis like a surfeit after a great feast:
My freedom, said you?
And. Does’t o’ercome you so?
Aur. Temptation never overcame a sinner
More pleasingly than this sweet news my heart:
Here’s secret joy can witness, I am proud on’t.
And. Violence I will not use; I come a friend;
'Twere madness to force that which wit can end.
Aur. Most virtuously deliver’d!
And. Thou’rt in raptures.
Aur. My love, my love!
And. Most virtuously deliver’d!
Spoke like the sister of a puritan midwife!
Will you embrace the means that I have thought on
With all the speed you can?
Aur. Sir, any thing;
You cannot name 't too dangerous or too homely.
And. Fie, [fie], you overact your happiness;
You drive slight things to wonders.
Aur. Blame me not, sir;
You know not my affection.
And. Will you hear me?
There are a sect of pilfering juggling people
The vulgar tongue call gipsies.
Aur. True, the same, sir;
I saw the like this morning. Say no more, sir;
I apprehend you fully.
And. What, you do not?
Aur. No? hark you, sir. [Whispers.
And. Now by this light ’tis true!
Sure if you prove as quick as your conceit,[896]
You’ll be an excellent breeder.
Aur. I should do reason by the mother’s side, sir,
If fortune do her part in a good getter.
And. That’s not to do now, sweet, the man stands near thee.
Aur. Long may he stand most fortunately, sir,
Whom her kind goodness has appointed for me.
And. A while I’ll take my leave t’ avoid suspicion.
Aur. I do commend your course: good sir, forget me not.
And. All comforts sooner.
Aur. Liberty is sweet, sir.
And. I know there’s nothing sweeter, next to love,
But health itself, which is the prince of life.
Aur. Your knowledge raise you, sir!
And. Farewell till evening. [Exit.
Aur. And after that, farewell, sweet sir, for ever.
A good kind gentleman to serve our turn with,
But not for lasting; I have chose a stuff
Will wear out two of him, and one finer too:
I like not him that has two mistresses,
War and his sweetheart; he can ne’er please both:
And war’s a soaker, she’s no friend to us;
Turns a man home sometimes to his mistress
Some forty ounces poorer than he went;
All his discourse out of the Book of Surgery,
Cere-cloth and salve, and lies you all in tents,[897]
Like your camp-vict’lers: out upon’t! I smile
To think how I have fitted him with an office:
His love takes pains to bring our loves together,
Much like your man that labours to get treasure,
To keep his wife high for another’s pleasure. [Exit.
ACT III. SCENE I.
Lactantio’s lodgings in the Cardinal’s mansion.
Page. Think of your shame and mine.
Lac. I prithee, peace:
Thou art th’ unfortunat’st piece of taking business
That ever man repented when day peep’d;
I’ll ne’er keep such a piece of touchwood again,
And[899] I were rid of thee once. Well fare those
That never sham’d their master! I’ve had such,
And I may live to see the time again;
I do not doubt on’t.
Page. If my too much kindness
Receive your anger only for reward,
The harder is my fortune: I must tell you, sir,
To stir your care up to prevention,
(Misfortunes must be told as well as blessings,)
When I left all my friends in Mantua,
For your love’s sake alone, then, with strange oaths,
You promis’d present marriage.
Lac. With strange oaths, quoth 'a?
They’re not so strange to me; I’ve sworn the same things
I’m sure forty times over, not so little;
I may be perfect in 'em, for my standing.
Page. You see ’tis high time now, sir.
Lac. Yes, yes, yes,
Marriage is nothing with you; a toy[900] till death.
If I should marry all those I have promis’d,
'Twould make one vicar hoarse ere he could despatch us.—
I must devise some shift when she grows big,
Those masculine hose[901] will shortly prove too little:
What if she were convey’d to nurse’s house?
A good sure old wench; and she’d love the child well,
Because she suckled the father: no ill course,
By my mortality; I may hit worse.— [Aside.
Enter Dondolo.
Now, Dondolo, the news?
Don. The news?
Lac. How does she?
Don. Soft, soft, sir; you think ’tis nothing to get news
Out o’ th’ castle: I was there.
Lac. Well, sir.
Don. As you know,
A merry fellow may pass any where.
Lac. So, sir.
Don. Never in better fooling in my life.
Lac. What’s this to th’ purpose?
Don. Nay, ’twas nothing to th’ purpose, that’s certain.
Lac. How wretched this slave makes me! Didst not see her?
Don. I saw her.
Lac. Well, what said she then?
Don. Not a word, sir.
Lac. How, not a word?
Don. Proves her the better maid,
For virgins should be seen more than they’re heard.
Don. No, faith, sir, for you keep me in foul linen.
Lac. Turn’d scurvy rhymer, are you?
Don. Not scurvy neither,
Though I be somewhat itchy in the profession:
If you could hear me out with patience, I know
Her mind as well as if I were in her belly.
Lac. Thou saidst even now she never spake a word.
Don. But she gave certain signs, and that’s as good.
Lac. Canst thou conceive by signs?
Don. O, passing well, sir,
Even from an infant! did you ne’er know that?
I was the happiest child in all our country;
I was born of a dumb woman.
Lac. How?
Don. Stark dumb, sir.
My father had a rare bargain of her, a rich pennyworth;
There would have been but too much money given for her:
A justice of peace was about her; but my father,
Being then constable, carried her before him.
Lac. Well, since we’re enter’d into these dumb shows,
What were the signs she gave you?
Don. Many and good, sir.
Imprimis, she first gap’d, but that I guess’d
Was done for want of air, 'cause she’s kept close;
But had she been abroad and gap’d as much,
'T had been another case: then cast she up
Her pretty eye and wink’d; the word methought was then,
Come not till twitterlight:[903]
Next, thus her fingers went, as who should say,
I’d fain have a hole broke to ’scape away:
Then look’d upon her watch, and twice she nodded,
As who should say, the hour will come, sweetheart,
That I shall make two noddies of my keepers.
Lac. A third of thee. Is this your mother-tongue?
My hopes are much the wiser for this language:
There’s no such curse in love to[904] an arrant ass!
Don. O yes, sir, yes, an arrant whore’s far worse.
You never lin[905]
Railing on me from one week’s end to another;
But you can keep a little tit-mouse page there,
That’s good for nothing but to carry toothpicks,
Put up your pipe or so, that’s all he’s good for:
He cannot make him ready[906] as he should do;
I am fain to truss his points[907] every morning;
Yet the proud, scornful ape, when all the lodgings
Were taken up with strangers th’ other night,
He would not suffer me to come to bed to him,
But kick’d, and prick’d, and pinch’d me like an urchin;[908]
There’s no good quality in him: o’ my conscience,
I think he scarce knows how to stride a horse;
I saw him with a little hunting nag
But thus high t’other day, and he was fain
To lead him to a high rail, and get up like a butter-wench:
There’s no good fellowship in this dandiprat,[909]
This dive-dapper,[910] as is in other pages;
They’d go a-swimming with me familiarly
I’ th’ heat of summer, and clap what-you-call-'ems;
But I could never get that little monkey yet
To put off his breeches:
A tender, puling, nice, chitty-fac’d squall[911] ’tis.
Lac. Is this the good you do me? his love’s wretched,
And most distress’d, that must make use of fools.
Don. Fool to my face still! that’s unreasonable;
I will be a knave one day for this trick,
Or’t shall cost me a fall, though it be from a gibbet;
It has been many a proper man’s last leap.
Nay, sure I’ll be quite out of the precincts
Of a fool if I live but two days to an end;
I will turn gipsy presently,
And that’s the highway to the daintiest knave
That ever mother’s son took journey to.
O those dear gipsies!
They live the merriest lives, eat sweet stoln hens,
Pluck’d over pales or hedges by a twitch;
They’re ne’er without a plump and lovely goose,
Or beautiful sow-pig;
Those things I saw with mine own eyes to-day:
They call those vanities and trifling pilfries;
But if a privy search were made amongst 'em,
They should find other manner of ware about 'em,
Cups, rings, and silver spoons, byrlady![912] bracelets,
Pearl necklaces, and chains of gold sometimes:
They are the wittiest thieves! I’ll stay no longer,
But even go look what I can steal now presently,
And so begin to bring myself acquainted with 'em.