The Arraignment of Vittoria.
MONTICELSO
Forbear, my lord. Here is no place assigned you.
This business by his Holiness is left
To our examination.
BRACCIANO
May it thrive with you.
[He] lays a rich gown under him.
FRANCISCO
A chair there for his lordship!
BRACCIANO
Forbear your kindness. An unbidden guest
Should travel as Dutchwomen go to church:
Bear their stools with them.
MONTICELSO
At your pleasure, sir.
Stand to the table, gentlewomen. Now, signor,
Fall to your plea.
LAWYER
10 Domine Judex converte oculos in hanc pestem mulierum corruptissimam.1
VITTORIA
What’s he?
FRANCISCO
A lawyer that pleads against you.
Pray, my lord, let him speak his usual tongue.
I’ll make no answer else.
FRANCISCO
Why? You understand Latin.
VITTORIA
I do, sir, but amongst this auditory1
Which come to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in’t.
MONTICELSO
Go on, sir.
VITTORIA
By your favour,
I will not have my accusation clouded
20 In a strange tongue. All this assembly
Shall hear what you can charge me with.
FRANCISCO
Signor,
You need not stand on’t much. Pray, change your language.
MONTICELSO
Oh, for God’s sake. Gentlewoman, your credit2
Shall be more famous by it.
LAWYER
Well then, have at you.
VITTORIA
I am at the mark, sir; I’ll give aim to you,3
And tell you how near you shoot.
LAWYER
Most literated judges, please your lordships
So to connive4 your judgements to the view
Of this debauched and diversivolent5 woman,
30 Who such a black concatenation1
Of mischief hath effected, that to extirp
The memory of’t must be the consummation
Of her and her projections.2
VITTORIA
What’s all this?
LAWYER
Hold your peace!
Exorbitant sins must have exulceration.3
VITTORIA
Surely, my lords, this lawyer here hath swallowed
Some ’pothecary’s bills4 or proclamations,5
And now the hard and undigestable words
Come up6 like stones we use give hawks for physic.7
Why, this is Welsh8 to Latin.
LAWYER
40 My lords, the woman
Knows not her tropes nor figures, nor is perfect
In the academic derivation
Of grammatical elocution.
FRANCISCO
Sir, your pains
Shall be well spared, and your deep eloquence
Be worthily applauded amongst those
Which understand you.
LAWYER
My good lord –
FRANCISCO (speaks this as in scorn)
Sir,
Put up your papers in your fustian1 bag –
Cry mercy, sir, ’tis buckram2 – and accept
My notion of your learn’d verbosity.
LAWYER
50 I most graduatically3 thank your lordship.
I shall have use for them elsewhere. [Exit.]
MONTICELSO
I shall be plainer with you, and paint out
Your follies in more natural red and white
Than that upon your cheek.
VITTORIA
Oh, you mistake.
You raise a blood as noble in this cheek
As ever was your mother’s.
MONTICELSO
I must spare you, till proof cry ‘whore’ to that.
Observe this creature here, my honoured lords,
A woman of a most prodigious spirit
In her effected –
VITTORIA
60 Honourable my lord,
It doth not suit a reverend cardinal
To play the lawyer thus.
MONTICELSO
Oh, your trade instructs your language!
You see, my lords, what goodly fruit she seems.
Yet like those apples travellers report
To grow where Sodom and Gomorrah4 stood,
I will but touch her and you straight shall see
She’ll fall to soot and ashes.
Your envenomed
’Pothecary should do’t.
MONTICELSO
I am resolved,
70 Were there a second paradise to lose
This devil would betray it.
VITTORIA
O poor charity,
Thou art seldom found in scarlet.1
MONTICELSO
Who knows not how, when several night by night
Her gates were choked with coaches, and her rooms
Outbraved the stars with several kind of lights;
When she did counterfeit a prince’s court
In music, banquets and most riotous surfeits,
This whore, forsooth, was holy.
VITTORIA
Ha? ‘Whore’? What’s that?
MONTICELSO
Shall I expound ‘whore’ to you? Sure, I shall;
80 I’ll give their perfect character.2 They are first
Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man’s nostril
Poisoned perfumes. They are coz’ning3 alchemy,
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores?
Cold Russian winters that appear so barren,
As if that nature had forgot the spring.
They are the true material fire of hell,
Worse than those tributes4 i’th’ Low Countries paid –
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep;
Ay, even on man’s perdition, his sin.
90 They are those brittle evidences of law
Which forfeit all a wretched man’s estate
For leaving out one syllable. What are whores?
They are those flattering bells have all one tune
At weddings and at funerals; your rich whores
Are only treasuries by extortion filled,
And emptied by cursed riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begged at gallows
And wrought upon by surgeons,1 to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What’s a whore?
She’s like the guilty,2 counterfeited coin
100 Which, whosoe’er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it.
VITTORIA
This character ’scapes me.
MONTICELSO
You, gentlewoman –
Take from all beasts and from all minerals
Their deadly poison –
VITTORIA
Well, what then?
MONTICELSO
FRENCH AMBASSADOR [Aside]
She hath lived ill.
ENGLISH AMBASSADOR [Aside]
True, but the Cardinal’s too bitter.
MONTICELSO
You know what whore is: next the devil, Adult’ry,
Enters the devil, Murder.
FRANCISCO
110 Your unhappy husband
Is dead –
Oh, he’s a happy husband;
Now he owes nature nothing.
FRANCISCO
And by a vaulting-engine.
MONTICELSO
An active plot:
He jumped into his grave.
FRANCISCO
MONTICELSO
I’th’ rushes.2
FRANCISCO
And what’s more,
Upon the instant lose all use of speech,
All vital motion, like a man had lain
Wound up3 three days. Now mark each circumstance.
MONTICELSO
120 And look upon this creature was his wife.
She comes not like a widow; she comes armed
With scorn and impudence. Is this a mourning habit?
VITTORIA
Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest,
I would have bespoke4 my mourning.
MONTICELSO
Oh, you are cunning.
VITTORIA
You shame your wit and judgement
To call it so. What, is my just defence
By him that is my judge called impudence?
Let me appeal then from this Christian court
To the uncivil Tartar!1
MONTICELSO
See, my lords,
She scandals2 our proceedings.
VITTORIA [kneeling]
130 Humbly thus,
Thus low, to the most worthy and respected
Lieger ambassadors, my modesty
And womanhood I tender; but withal
So entangled in a cursèd accusation
That my defence, of force,3 like Perseus,4
Must personate masculine virtue to the point.5
Find me but guilty: sever head from body;
We’ll part good friends. I scorn to hold my life
At yours or any man’s entreaty, sir.
ENGLISH AMBASSADOR
She hath a brave spirit.
MONTICELSO
140 Well, well, such counterfeit jewels
Make true ones oft suspected.
VITTORIA
You are deceived;
For know, that all your strict-combinèd6 heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers: they shall break.
These are but feignèd shadows of my evils.
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy.7 For your names
Of ‘whore’ and ‘murd’ress’, they proceed from you;
As if a man should spit against the wind,
150 The filth returns in’s face.
MONTICELSO
Pray you, mistress, satisfy me one question:
Who lodged beneath your roof that fatal night
Your husband brake his neck?
BRACCIANO
That question
Enforceth me break silence. I was there.
MONTICELSO
Your business?
BRACCIANO
Why, I came to comfort her
And take some course for settling her estate,
Because I heard her husband was in debt
To you, my lord.
MONTICELSO
He was.
BRACCIANO
And ’twas strangely feared
That you would cozen1 her.
MONTICELSO
Who made you overseer?
BRACCIANO
160 Why, my charity, my charity, which should flow
From every generous and noble spirit
To orphans and to widows.
MONTICELSO
Your lust!
BRACCIANO
Cowardly dogs bark loudest. Sirrah priest,
I’ll talk with you hereafter. Do you hear?
The sword2 you frame of such an excellent temper3
I’ll sheathe in your own bowels.
There are a number of thy coat1 resemble
Your common post-boys.2
MONTICELSO
Ha?
BRACCIANO
Your mercenary post-boys;
Your letters carry truth, but ’tis your guise
170 To fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies.
[He makes to leave.]
SERVANT
My lord, your gown –
[He offers it to BRACCIANO.]
BRACCIANO
Thou liest, ’twas my stool.
Bestow’t upon thy master that will challenge3
The rest o’th’ household-stuff; for Bracciano
Was ne’er so beggarly to take a stool
Out of another’s lodging. Let him make
Valance for his bed on’t, or a demi-footcloth
For his most reverend moil.4 Monticelso,
Nemo me impune lacessit.5 Exit BRACCIANO.
MONTICELSO
Your champion’s gone.
VITTORIA
The wolf may prey the better.
FRANCISCO
180 My lord, there’s great suspicion of the murder,
But no sound proof who did it. For my part,
I do not think she hath a soul so black
To act a deed so bloody. If she have,
As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines,
And with warm blood manure them, even so
One summer she will bear unsavoury fruit,
And ere next spring wither both branch and root.
The act of blood let pass; only descend
To matter of incontinence.
VITTORIA
I discern poison
190 Under your gilded pills.1
MONTICELSO [bringing out a letter]
Now the Duke’s gone, I will produce a letter,
Wherein ’twas plotted he and you should meet
At an apothecary’s summer-house,
Down by the river Tiber – view’t, my lords –
[He passes the letter to the AMBASSADORS.]
Where, after wanton bathing and the heat
Of a lascivious banquet – I pray, read it.
I shame to speak the rest.
VITTORIA
Grant I was tempted;
Temptation to lust proves not the act;
Casta est quam nemo rogavit.2
200 You read his hot love to me, but you want3
My frosty answer.
MONTICELSO
Frost i’th’ dog-days?4 Strange!
VITTORIA
Condemn you me for that the Duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic, distracted man
Hath drowned himself in’t.
MONTICELSO
Truly drowned, indeed.
Sum up my faults, I pray, and you shall find
That beauty and gay clothes, a merry heart
And a good stomach to a feast are all,
All the poor crimes that you can charge me with.
210 In faith, my lord, you might go pistol1 flies –
The sport would be more noble.
MONTICELSO
Very good.
VITTORIA
But take you your course. It seems you have beggared me first,
And now would fain undo me. I have houses,
Jewels and a poor remnant of crusadoes;2
Would those would make you charitable.
MONTICELSO
If the devil
Did ever take good shape, behold his picture.
VITTORIA
You have one virtue left:
You will not flatter me.
FRANCISCO
Who brought this letter?
VITTORIA
I am not compelled to tell you.
MONTICELSO
220 My lord Duke sent to you a thousand ducats
The twelfth of August.
VITTORIA
’Twas to keep your cousin
From prison; I paid use3 for’t.
MONTICELSO
I rather think
’Twas interest for his lust.
Who says so but yourself? If you be my accuser,
Pray cease to be my judge. Come from the bench,
Give in your evidence ’gainst me, and let these
Be moderators. My lord Cardinal,
Were your intelligencing ears1 as long
As to my thoughts, had you an honest tongue,
230 I would not care though you proclaimed them all.
MONTICELSO
VITTORIA
O’your own grafting?
MONTICELSO
You were born in Venice,3 honourably descended
From the Vitelli. ’Twas my cousin’s fate –
Ill may I name the hour – to marry you;
He bought you of your father.
VITTORIA
Ha?
MONTICELSO
He spent there in six months
Twelve thousand ducats, and to my acquaintance
240 Received in dowry with you not one julio.4
’Twas a hard penny-worth, the ware being so light.5
I yet but draw the curtain; now to your picture:
You came from thence a most notorious strumpet,
And so you have continued.
VITTORIA
My lord!
Nay, hear me.
You shall have time to prate. My Lord Bracciano –
Alas, I make but repetition
Of what is ordinary and Rialto talk,
And balladed,1 and would be played o’th’ stage,
But that vice many times finds such loud friends
250 That preachers are charmed silent.
You gentlemen, Flaminio and Marcello,
The court hath nothing now to charge you with;
Only you must remain upon your sureties2
For your appearance.
FRANCISCO
I stand for Marcello.
FLAMINIO
And my lord Duke for me.
MONTICELSO
For you, Vittoria, your public fault,
Joined to th’condition of the present time,
Takes from you all the fruits of noble pity.
Such a corrupted trial have you made,
260 Both of your life and beauty, and been styled
No less in ominous fate than blazing stars
To princes.3 Here’s your sentence: you are confined
Unto a house of convertites,4 and your bawd –
FLAMINIO [Aside]
Who I?
MONTICELSO
– the Moor.
FLAMINIO [Aside]
Oh, I am a sound man again.
VITTORIA
A house of convertites? What’s that?
A house
Of penitent whores.
VITTORIA
Do the noblemen in Rome
Erect it for their wives, that I am sent
To lodge there?
FRANCISCO
You must have patience.
VITTORIA
I must first have vengeance.
I fain would know if you have your salvation
By patent,1 that you proceed thus.
MONTICELSO
270 Away with her!
Take her hence.
[GUARDS lead VITTORIA and ZANCHE away.]
VITTORIA
A rape, a rape!
MONTICELSO
How?
VITTORIA
Yes, you have ravished Justice,
Forced her to do your pleasure.
MONTICELSO
Fie, she’s mad!
VITTORIA
Die with these pills in your most cursèd maw2
Should bring you health, or while you sit o’th’ bench
Let your own spittle choke you –
MONTICELSO
She’s turned fury.
– That the last day of judgement may so find you,
And leave you the same devil you were before.
Instruct me, some good horse-leech,1 to speak treason;
280 For since you cannot take my life for deeds,
Take it for words. Oh, woman’s poor revenge
Which dwells but in the tongue! I will not weep;
No, I do scorn to call up one poor tear
To fawn on your injustice. Bear me hence
Unto this house of – what’s your mitigating title?
MONTICELSO
Of convertites.
VITTORIA
It shall not be a house of convertites.
My mind shall make it honester to me
Than the Pope’s palace, and more peaceable
290 Than thy soul, though thou art a cardinal.
Know this, and let it somewhat raise your spite:
Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.
Exeunt VITTORIA [and ZANCHE, with GUARDS].
Enter BRACCIANO.
BRACCIANO
Now you and I are friends, sir, we’ll shake hands
In a friends’ grave together – a fit place,
Being the emblem of soft peace t’atone our hatred.
FRANCISCO
Sir, what’s the matter?
BRACCIANO
I will not chase more blood from that loved cheek;
You have lost too much already. Fare you well. [Exit.]
FRANCISCO
How strange these words sound. What’s the interpretation?
FLAMINIO [Aside]
300 Good, this is a preface to the discovery of the Duchess’s death. He carries it well. Because now I cannot counterfeit a whining passion for the death of my lady, I will feign a mad humour for the disgrace of my sister, and that will keep off idle questions. Treason’s tongue hath a villainous palsy1 in’t; I will talk to any man, hear no man, and for a time appear a politic madman. [Exit.]
Enter GIOVANNI [and] Count LODOVICO [both in mourning].
FRANCISCO
How now, my noble cousin. What, in black?
GIOVANNI
Yes, uncle, I was taught to imitate you
In virtue, and you must imitate me
310 In colours for your garments. My sweet mother
Is –
FRANCISCO
How? Where?
GIOVANNI
– is there. No, yonder – indeed, sir, I’ll not tell you,
For I shall make you weep.
FRANCISCO
Is dead?
GIOVANNI
Do not blame me now.
I did not tell you so.
LODOVICO
She’s dead, my lord.
FRANCISCO
Dead?
MONTICELSO
Blessèd lady, thou art now above thy woes.
Wilt please your lordships to withdraw a little?
[Exeunt AMBASSADORS.]
GIOVANNI
320 What do the dead do, uncle? Do they eat,
Hear music, go a-hunting and be merry,
As we that live?
FRANCISCO
No, coz, they sleep.
Lord, Lord, that I were dead!
I have not slept these six nights. When do they wake?
FRANCISCO
When God shall please.
GIOVANNI
Good God, let her sleep ever!
For I have known her wake an hundred nights,
When all the pillow, where she laid her head,
Was brine-wet with her tears. I am to complain to you, sir.
I’ll tell you how they have used her, now she’s dead:
330 They wrapped her in a cruel fold of lead,
And would not let me kiss her.
FRANCISCO
Thou didst love her.
GIOVANNI
I have often heard her say she gave me suck;
And it should seem by that she dearly loved me,
Since princes seldom do it.1
FRANCISCO
Oh, all of my poor sister that remains!
Take him away, for God’s sake.
[Exeunt GIOVANNI and ATTENDANTS.]
MONTICELSO
How now, my lord?
FRANCISCO
Believe me, I am nothing but her grave,
And I shall keep her blessèd memory
340 Longer than thousand epitaphs. [Exeunt.]
Enter FLAMINIO as distracted1 [with MARCELLO, and LODOVICO, who observes unseen].
FLAMINIO
We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.
Enter SAVOY [AMBASSADOR].
Would I had rotted in some surgeon’s house at Venice, built upon the pox as well as on piles,5 ere I had served Bracciano.
SAVOY AMBASSADOR
10 You must have comfort.
FLAMINIO
Your comfortable words are like honey. They relish well in your mouth that’s whole, but in mine that’s wounded they go down as if the sting of the bee were in them. Oh, they have wrought their purpose cunningly, as if they would not seem to do it of malice. In this a politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a cannon: wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you.
Enter the FRENCH [AMBASSADORS].
FRENCH AMBASSADOR
The proofs are evident.
Proof? ’Twas corruption. O gold, what a god art thou! And
20 O man, what a devil art thou to be tempted by that cursed mineral! Yon diversivolent1 lawyer, mark him. Knaves turn informers as maggots turn to flies; you may catch gudgeons2 with either. A cardinal? I would he would hear me. There’s nothing so holy but money will corrupt and putrify it, like victual under the line.3
Enter ENGLISH AMBASSADOR.
You are happy in England, my lord; here they sell justice with those weights they press men to death with. O horrible salary!4
ENGLISH AMBASSADOR
Fie, fie, Flaminio!
FLAMINIO
Bells ne’er ring well, till they are at their full pitch;5 and I
30 hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well, till he come to the scaffold.
[Exeunt AMBASSADORS.]
If they were racked now to know the confederacy! But your noblemen are privileged from the rack, and well may,6 for a little thing would pull some of them i’pieces afore they came to their arraignment. Religion! Oh, how it is commeddled7 with policy.8 The first bloodshed9 in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew!
MARCELLO
Oh, there are too many.
40 You are deceived. There are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.
MARCELLO
How?
FLAMINIO
I’ll prove it. For if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms,1 whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, should not aspire to gentility. Farewell. Let others live by begging. Be thou one of them. Practise the art of Wolner2 in England to swallow all’s given thee; and yet let one purgation
50 make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a sawpit. I’ll go hear the screech-owl.3 Exit.
LODOVICO [Aside]
This was Bracciano’s pander, and ’tis strange
That in such open and apparent guilt
Of his adulterous sister he dare utter
So scandalous a passion. I must wind4 him.
Enter FLAMINIO.
FLAMINIO [Aside]
How dares this banished count return to Rome,
His pardon not yet purchased?5 I have heard
The deceased Duchess gave him pension,
And that he came along from Padua
60 I’th’ train of the young prince. There’s somewhat in’t.
Physicians that cure poisons still do work
With counter-poisons.
MARCELLO [Aside]
Mark this strange encounter!
The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,
And let the stigmatic1 wrinkles in thy face,
Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide,
One still overtake another.
LODOVICO
FLAMINIO
How croaks the raven?3
Is our good Duchess dead?
LODOVICO
Dead.
FLAMINIO
LODOVICO
Shalt thou and I join housekeeping?
FLAMINIO
Yes, content.
Let’s be unsociably sociable.
LODOVICO
Sit some three days together and discourse.
FLAMINIO
Only with making faces. Lie in our clothes –
LODOVICO
With faggots5 for our pillows.
FLAMINIO
And be lousy.6
FLAMINIO
Yes, and like your melancholic hare
Feed after midnight.2
Enter ANTONELLI [and GASPARO, both laughing].
80 We are observed: see how yon couple grieve.
LODOVICO
What a strange creature is a laughing fool,
As if man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth.
FLAMINIO
I’ll tell thee what,
It would do well, instead of looking-glasses,
To set one’s face each morning by a saucer
Of a witch’s congealèd blood.3
LODOVICO
Precious rogue,
We’ll never part.
FLAMINIO
Never, till the beggary of courtiers,
The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers,
And all the creatures that hang manacled,
Of fortune’s wheel be taught, in our two lives,
To scorn that world which life of means deprives.
ANTONELLI
My lord, I bring good news. The Pope on’s death-bed,
At th’earnest suit of the great Duke of Florence,
Hath signed your pardon, and restored unto you –
I thank you for your news. [Laughing] Look up again,
Flaminio, see my pardon!
FLAMINIO
Why do you laugh?
There was no such condition in our covenant.
LODOVICO
Why?
FLAMINIO
You shall not seem a happier man than I.
100 You know our vow, sir; if you will be merry,
Do it i’th’ like posture, as if some great man
Sat while his enemy were executed.
Though it be very lechery unto thee,
Do’t with a crabbèd politician’s face.
LODOVICO
Your sister is a damnable whore.
FLAMINIO
Ha?
LODOVICO
Look you, I spake that laughing.
FLAMINIO
Dost ever think to speak again?
LODOVICO
Do you hear?
Wilt sell me forty ounces of her blood
To water a mandrake?
FLAMINIO
Poor lord, you did vow
To live a lousy creature.
LODOVICO
Yes.
FLAMINIO
Ha, ha!
FLAMINIO
I do not greatly wonder you do break;1
Your lordship learnt long since. But I’ll tell you –
LODOVICO
What?
FLAMINIO
And’t shall stick by you2 –
LODOVICO
I long for it.
FLAMINIO
This laughter scurvily becomes your face.
If you will not be melancholy, be angry.
Strikes him.
See, now I laugh too.
MARCELLO
You are to blame. I’ll force you hence.
Exeunt MARCELLO and FLAMINIO.
[ANTONELLI and GASPARO restrain LODOVICO.]
LODOVICO
Unhand me!
120 That e’er I should be forced to right myself
Upon a pander!
ANTONELLI
My lord!
LODOVICO
H’ had been as good met with his fist a thunderbolt.
GASPARO
How this shows!
LODOVICO
Ud’s death,3 how did my sword miss him?
These rogues that are most weary of their lives
Still ’scape the greatest dangers.
A pox upon him! All his reputation –
Nay, all the goodness of his family –
Is not worth half this earthquake.
I learnt it of no fencer to shake thus.
130 Come, I’ll forget him, and go drink some wine. Exeunt.
Enter FRANCISCO and MONTICELSO.
MONTICELSO
Come, come, my lord, untie your folded thoughts,
And let them dangle loose as a bride’s hair.
Your sister’s poisoned.
FRANCISCO
Far be it from my thoughts
To seek revenge.
MONTICELSO
What, are you turned all marble?
FRANCISCO
Shall I defy him, and impose a war
Most burdensome on my poor subjects’ necks,
Which at my will I have not power to end?
You know, for all the murders, rapes and thefts,
Committed in the horrid lust of war,
10 He that unjustly caused it first proceed
Shall find it in his grave and in his seed.
MONTICELSO
That’s not the course I’d wish you. Pray, observe me:
We see that undermining1 more prevails
Than doth the cannon. Bear your wrongs concealed,
And, patient as the tortoise, let this camel
Stalk o’er your back unbruised. Sleep with the lion,
And let this brood of secure, foolish mice
Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe
For th’bloody audit and the fatal gripe.
20 Aim like a cunning fowler:1 close one eye,
That you the better may your game espy.
FRANCISCO
Free me, my innocence, from treacherous acts.
I know there’s thunder yonder, and I’ll stand
Like a safe valley, which low bends the knee
To some aspiring mountain, since I know
Treason, like spiders weaving nets for flies,
By her foul work is found, and in it dies.
To pass away these thoughts, my honoured lord,
It is reported you possess a book
The names of all notorious offenders
Lurking about the city.
MONTICELSO
Sir, I do;
And some there are which call it my ‘black book’ –
Well may the title hold. For though it teach not
The art of conjuring, yet in it lurk
The names of many devils.
FRANCISCO
Pray, let’s see it.
MONTICELSO
I’ll fetch it to your lordship. Exit MONTICELSO.
FRANCISCO
Monticelso,
I will not trust thee, but in all my plots
I’ll rest as jealous4 as a town besieged.
40 Thou canst not reach what I intend to act.
Your flax soon kindles, soon is out again,
But gold slow heats, and long will hot remain.
Enter MONTICELSO [who] presents FRANCISCO with a book.1
MONTICELSO
’Tis here, my lord.
FRANCISCO
First, your intelligencers – pray, let’s see.
MONTICELSO [turning the pages]
Their number rises strangely, and some of them
You’d take for honest men. Next are panders.
These are your pirates; and these following leaves
For base rogues that undo young gentlemen
By taking up commodities;2 for politic bankrupts;3
50 For fellows that are bawds to their own wives,
Only to put off4 horses and slight jewels,
Clocks, defaced plate and such commodities,
At birth of their first children –
FRANCISCO
Are there such?
MONTICELSO
These are for impudent bawds
That go in men’s apparel; for usurers
That share with scriveners5 for their good reportage;
For lawyers that will antedate their writs;
And some divines you might find folded there,
But that I slip them o’er for conscience’ sake.
60 Here is a general catalogue of knaves.
A man might study all the prisons o’er,
Yet never attain this knowledge.
‘Murderers’.
Fold down the leaf, I pray.
Good my lord, let me borrow this strange doctrine.
MONTICELSO
Pray, use’t, my lord.
[He gives him the book.]
FRANCISCO
I do assure your lordship,
You are a worthy member of the state,
And have done infinite good in your discovery
Of these offenders.
MONTICELSO
Somewhat, sir.
FRANCISCO
MONTICELSO
70 I must make bold
To leave your lordship.
FRANCISCO
Dearly, sir, I thank you.
If any ask for me at court, report
You have left me in the company of knaves.
Exit MONTICELSO.
I gather now by this some cunning fellow
That’s my lord’s officer – one that lately skipped
From a clerk’s desk up to a justice’ chair –
Hath made this knavish summons, and intends,
As th’Irish rebels wont were to sell heads,2
So to make prize of these. And thus it happens:
80 Your poor rogues pay for’t, which have not the means
To present bribe in fist; the rest o’th’ band
Are razed out of the knaves’ record, or else
My lord he winks at them with easy will.
His man grows rich, the knaves are the knaves still.
But to the use I’ll make of it: it shall serve
To point me out a list of murderers,
Agents for any villainy. Did I want
Ten leash1 of courtesans, it would furnish me;
Nay, laundress2 three armies. That in so little paper
90 Should lie th’undoing of so many men!
’Tis not so big as twenty declarations.3
See the corrupted use some make of books!
Divinity, wrested4 by some factious blood,
Draws swords, swells battles, and o’erthrows all good.
To fashion my revenge more seriously,
Let me remember my dead sister’s face.
Call for her picture – no, I’ll close mine eyes,
And in a melancholic thought I’ll frame
Her figure ’fore me.
Enter ISABELLA’s GHOST.
Now I ha’t – how strong
100 Imagination works! How she can frame
Things which are not! Methinks she stands afore me,
And by the quick5 idea of my mind,
Were my skill pregnant,6 I could draw her picture.
Thought, as a subtle juggler,7 makes us deem
Things supernatural which have cause
Common as sickness. ’Tis my melancholy.
[To GHOST] How cam’st thou by thy death? – How idle am I
To question mine own idleness!8 Did ever
Man dream awake till now? Remove this object;
110 Out of my brain with’t! What have I to do
With tombs or death-beds, funerals or tears,
That have to meditate upon revenge? [Exit GHOST.]
So now ’tis ended, like an old wives’ story.
Statesmen think often they see stranger sights
Than madmen. Come, to this weighty business.
My tragedy must have some idle mirth in’t,
Else it will never pass. I am in love,
In love with Corombona, and my suit
Thus halts to her in verse –
He writes.
120 I have done it rarely. Oh, the fate of princes!
I am so used to frequent flattery
That, being alone, I now flatter myself;
But it will serve; ’tis sealed.
Enter SERVANT.
Bear this
To th’house of convertites [giving him the letter]; and watch your leisure
To give it to the hands of Corombona,
Or to the matron, when some followers
Of Bracciano may be by. Away! Exit SERVANT.
He that deals all by strength, his wit is shallow;
When a man’s head goes through, each limb will follow.
130 The engine for my business: bold Count Lodovic.
’Tis gold must such an instrument procure,
With empty fist no man doth falcons lure.
Bracciano, I am now fit for thy encounter.
Like the wild Irish1 I’ll ne’er think thee dead,
Till I can play at football with thy head.
Flectere sine queo superos, Acheronta movebo.2
Exit MONTICELSO.
Enter the MATRON and FLAMINIO.
MATRON
Should it be known the Duke hath such recourse
To your imprisoned sister, I were like
T’incur much damage by it.
FLAMINIO
Not a scruple.1
The Pope lies on his death-bed, and their heads
Are troubled now with other business
Than guarding of a lady.
Enter SERVANT.
SERVANT [Aside]
Yonder’s Flaminio in conference
With the Matrona.
[FLAMINIO withdraws. SERVANT approaches the MATRON.]
Let me speak with you.
I would entreat you to deliver for me
10 This letter to the fair Vittoria.
MATRON
I shall, sir.
Enter BRACCIANO.
SERVANT
– With all care and secrecy.
Hereafter you shall know me, and receive
Thanks for this courtesy. [Exit SERVANT.]
FLAMINIO
How now, what’s that?
MATRON
A letter.
To my sister? [Taking the letter] I’ll see’t delivered.
[Exit MATRON.]
BRACCIANO
What’s that you read, Flaminio?
FLAMINIO
Look.
BRACCIANO
Ha? [Reads] ‘To the most unfortunate, his best respected Vittoria.’
Who was the messenger?
FLAMINIO
I know not.
BRACCIANO
No? Who sent it?
FLAMINIO
20 Ud’s foot,1 you speak as if a man
Should know what fowl is coffined2 in a baked meat
Afore you cut it up.
BRACCIANO
I’ll open’t, were’t her heart! What’s here subscribed?
‘Florence’? This juggling3 is gross and palpable.
I have found out the conveyance.4 Read it, read it!
FLAMINIO (Reads the letter)
‘Your tears I’ll turn to triumphs, be but mine.
Your prop is fall’n. I pity that a vine
Which princes heretofore have longed to gather,
Wanting supporters, now should fade and wither.’
30 Wine, i’faith, my lord, with lees5 would serve his turn.
[Reads] ‘Your sad imprisonment I’ll soon uncharm,
And with a princely, uncontrollèd6 arm
Lead you to Florence, where my love and care
Shall hang your wishes in my silver hair.’
A halter1 on his strange equivocation!
[Reads] ‘Nor for my years return me the sad willow.2
Who prefer blossoms before fruit that’s mellow?’
Rotten, on my knowledge, with lying too long i’th’ bed-straw!3
[Reads] ‘And all the lines of age this line convinces:4
40 The gods never wax old, no more do princes.’
A pox on’t! Tear it! Let’s have no more atheists,5 for God’s sake.
BRACCIANO
Ud’s death, I’ll cut her into atomies,6
And let th’irregular7 north wind sweep her up
And blow her int’ his nostrils! Where’s this whore?
FLAMINIO
That –? What do you call her?
BRACCIANO
Oh, I could be mad –
Prevent the cursed disease8 she’ll bring me to,
And tear my hair off. Where’s this changeable stuff?9
FLAMINIO
O’er head and ears in water,10 I assure you.
She is not for your wearing.
BRACCIANO
In, you pander!
FLAMINIO
50 What me, my lord? Am I your dog?
FLAMINIO
Stand you? Let those that have diseases run;4
I need no plasters.
BRACCIANO
Would you be kicked?
FLAMINIO
Would you have your neck broke?5
I tell you, Duke, I am not in Russia;6
My shins must be kept whole.
BRACCIANO
Do you know me?
FLAMINIO
Oh, my lord, methodically.
As in this world there are degrees of evils,
So in this world there are degrees of devils.
60 You’re a great duke, I your poor secretary.
I do look now for a Spanish fig or an Italian sallet7 daily.
BRACCIANO
Pander, ply your convoy,8 and leave your prating.
FLAMINIO
All your kindness to me is like that miserable courtesy of Polyphemus to Ulysses:9 you reserve me to be devoured last. You would dig turves10 out of my grave to feed your larks – that would be music to you. Come, I’ll lead you to her.
[He walks out backwards.]
Do you face me?
FLAMINIO
Oh sir, I would not go before a politic enemy with my back towards him, though there were behind me a whirlpool.
Enter VITTORIA to BRACCIANO and FLAMINIO.
BRACCIANO [showing her the letter]
70 Can you read, mistress? Look upon that letter.
There are no characters,1 nor hieroglyphics.
You need no comment;2 I am grown your receiver.3
God’s precious,4 you shall be a brave, great lady,
A stately and advanced whore!
VITTORIA
Say, sir?
BRACCIANO
Come, come, let’s see your cabinet.5 Discover
Your treasury of love-letters. Death and furies,
I’ll see them all!
VITTORIA
Sir, upon my soul,
I have not any. Whence was this directed?
BRACCIANO
Confusion on6 your politic ignorance!
And let you fly to the devil.
[BRACCIANO gives her the letter.]
FLAMINIO
’Ware hawks, my lord.
[reads] ‘Florence’? This is some treacherous plot, my lord.
To me, he ne’er was lovely,1 I protest,
So much as in my sleep.
BRACCIANO
Right: they are plots.
Your beauty – oh, ten thousand curses on’t!
How long have I beheld the devil in crystal?2
Thou hast led me, like an heathen sacrifice,
With music and with fatal yokes of flowers,
To my eternal ruin. Woman to man
Is either a god or a wolf.3
VITTORIA [weeping]
My lord –
BRACCIANO
90 Away!
We’ll be as differing as two adamants:4
The one shall shun the other. What? Dost weep?
Procure but ten of thy dissembling trade,
Ye’d furnish all the Irish funerals
With howling, past wild Irish.5
FLAMINIO
Fie, my lord.
BRACCIANO
That hand, that cursèd hand, which I have wearied
With doting kisses! O my sweetest Duchess,
How lovely art thou now! [To VITTORIA] Thy loose thoughts
Scatter like quicksilver. I was bewitched;
For all the world speaks ill of thee.
100 No matter.
I’ll live so now I’ll make that world recant
And change her speeches. You did name your Duchess.
BRACCIANO
Whose death God pardon.
VITTORIA
Whose death God revenge
On thee, most godless Duke.
FLAMINIO [Aside]
Now for two whirlwinds!
VITTORIA
What have I gained by thee but infamy?
Thou hast stained the spotless honour of my house,
And frighted thence noble society,
Like those which, sick o’th’ palsy and retain
Ill-scenting foxes1 ’bout them, are still shunned
110 By those of choicer nostrils. What do you call this house?
Is this your palace? Did not the judge style it
A house of penitent whores? Who sent me to it?
Who hath the honour to advance Vittoria
To this incontinent college? Is’t not you?
Is’t not your high preferment?2 Go, go brag
How many ladies you have undone, like me.
Fare you well, sir; let me hear no more of you.
I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer,
But I have cut it off; and now I’ll go
120 Weeping to heaven on crutches.3 For your gifts,
I will return them all; and I do wish
That I could make you full executor
To all my sins. Oh, that I could toss myself
Into a grave as quickly. For all thou art worth
I’ll not shed one tear more; I’ll burst first.
She throws herself upon a bed.
I have drunk Lethe.1 Vittoria?
My dearest happiness! Vittoria?
What do you ail, my love? Why do you weep?
VITTORIA
Yes, I now weep poniards.2 Do you see?
BRACCIANO
Are not those matchless eyes mine?
VITTORIA
130 I had rather
They were not matches.3
BRACCIANO
Is not this lip mine?
VITTORIA
Yes, thus to bite it off, rather than give it thee.
FLAMINIO
Turn to my lord, good sister.
VITTORIA
Hence, you pander!
FLAMINIO
Pander? Am I the author of your sin?
VITTORIA
Yes, he’s a base thief that a thief lets in.
FLAMINIO
We’re blown up,4 my lord.
BRACCIANO
Wilt thou hear me?
Once to be jealous of thee is t’express
That I will love thee everlastingly,
And never more be jealous.
VITTORIA
O thou fool,
140 Whose greatness hath by much o’ergrown thy wit!
What dar’st thou do that I not dare to suffer,
Excepting to be still thy whore? For that,
In the sea’s bottom sooner thou shalt make
A bonfire.
FLAMINIO
Oh, no oaths, for God’s sake.
BRACCIANO
Will you hear me?
VITTORIA
Never.
FLAMINIO
What a damned impostume1 is a woman’s will!
Can nothing break it? [Aside to BRACCIANO] Fie, fie, my lord,
150 Women are caught as you take tortoises:
She must be turned on her back. [To VITTORIA] Sister, by this hand,
I am on your side. [To BRACCIANO] Come, come, you have wronged her.
[Aside to BRACCIANO] What a strange, credulous man were you, my lord,
To think the Duke of Florence could love her?
Will any mercer2 take another’s ware
When once ’tis toused3 and sullied? [To VITTORIA] And yet, sister,
How scurvily this frowardness4 becomes you!
[Aside to BRACCIANO] Young leverets stand not long;5 and women’s anger
Should, like their flight, procure a little sport:
A full cry6 for a quarter of an hour,
And then be put to th’dead quat.7
160 Shall these eyes,
Which have so long time dwelt upon your face,
Be now put out?
FLAMINIO
No cruel landlady i’th’ world,
Which lends forth groats1 to broom-men2 and takes use3 for them,
Would do’t.
[Aside to BRACCIANO] Hand4 her, my lord, and kiss her. Be not like
A ferret to let go your hold with blowing.5
BRACCIANO
Let us renew right hands.
[He takes VITTORIA’s hand.]
VITTORIA
Hence.
BRACCIANO
Never shall rage, or the forgetful6 wine,
Make me commit like fault.
FLAMINIO [Aside to BRACCIANO]
170 Now you are i’th’ way on’t, follow’t hard.
BRACCIANO
Be thou at peace with me; let all the world
Threaten the cannon.
FLAMINIO [To VITTORIA]
Mark his penitence.
Best natures do commit the grossest faults
When they’re giv’n o’er to jealousy, as best wine
Dying makes strongest vinegar. I’ll tell you,
The sea’s more rough and raging than calm rivers,
But nor so sweet nor wholesome. A quiet woman
Is a still water under a great bridge:
A man may shoot her1 safely.
VITTORIA
O ye dissembling men!
FLAMINIO
180 We sucked that, sister, from women’s breasts
In our first infancy.
VITTORIA
To add misery to misery!
BRACCIANO
Sweetest –
VITTORIA
Am I not low enough?
Ay, ay, your good heart gathers like a snowball
Now your affection’s cold.
FLAMINIO
Ud’s foot, it shall melt
To a heart again, or all the wine in Rome
Shall run o’th’ lees for’t.
VITTORIA
Your dog or hawk should be rewarded better
Than I have been. I’ll speak not one word more.
FLAMINIO
Stop her mouth with a sweet kiss, my lord.
[BRACCIANO kisses VITTORIA.]
190 So now the tide’s turned, the vessel’s come about.
He’s a sweet armful. Oh, we curled-haired men
Are still2 most kind to women. This is well.
BRACCIANO [To VITTORIA]
That you should chide thus!
FLAMINIO
Oh, sir, your little chimneys
Do ever cast most smoke; I sweat for you.
Couple together with as deep a silence
As did the Grecians in their wooden horse.3
My lord, supply your promises with deeds;
You know that painted meat no hunger feeds.
BRACCIANO
Stay – Ingrateful Rome!
FLAMINIO
Rome? It deserves
200 To be called ‘Barbary’1 for our villainous usage.
BRACCIANO
Soft! The same project which the Duke of Florence –
Whether in love or gullery2 I know not –
Laid down for her escape will I pursue.
FLAMINIO
And no time fitter than this night, my lord:
The Pope being dead, and all the cardinals entered
The conclave3 for th’electing a new Pope;
The city in a great confusion.
We may attire her in a page’s suit,
Lay her post-horse,4 take shipping, and amain
210 For Padua.
BRACCIANO
I’ll instantly steal forth the Prince Giovanni,
And make for Padua. You two, with your old mother
And young Marcello that attends on Florence,
If you can work him to it, follow me.
I will advance you all. For you, Vittoria,
Think of a duchess’ title.
FLAMINIO
Lo you, sister!
Stay, my lord, I’ll tell you a tale. The crocodile, which lives in the river Nilus, hath a worm breeds i’th’ teeth of’t which puts it to extreme anguish. A little bird, no bigger than a wren, is
220 barber-surgeon5 to this crocodile; flies into the jaws of’t, picks out the worm, and brings present remedy. The fish, glad of ease but ingrateful to her that did it, that the bird may not talk largely of her abroad for non-payment, closeth her chaps intending to swallow her, and so put her to perpetual silence. But nature, loathing such ingratitude, hath armed this bird with a quill or prick on the head, top o’th’ which wounds the crocodile i’th’ mouth, forceth her open her bloody prison, and away flies the pretty tooth-picker from her cruel patient.
BRACCIANO
Your application is I have not rewarded
The service you have done me.
FLAMINIO
230 No, my lord.
You, sister, are the crocodile: you are blemished in your fame; my lord cures it. And though the comparison hold not in every particle, yet observe, remember, what good the bird with the prick i’th’ head hath done you, and scorn ingratitude.
[Aside] It may appear to some ridiculous
Thus to talk knave and madman; and sometimes
Come in with a dried sentence,1 stuffed with sage.2
But this allows3 my varying of shapes:
Knaves do grow great by being great men’s apes. Exeunt.