The Duchess of Malfi, The White Devil, The Broken Heart and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore

[Reads] ‘I stand engaged for your husband for several debts at Naples. Let not that trouble him. I had rather have his heart than his money.’

Methought I wore my coronet of state,

And on a sudden all the diamonds

Were changed to pearls.

ANTONIO

My interpretation

Is you’ll weep shortly; for, to me, the pearls

Do signify your tears.

DUCHESS

The birds that live i’th’ field,

On the wild benefit ¹ of nature, live

Happier than we, for they may choose their mates,

20 And carol their sweet pleasures to the spring.

[Enter BOSOLA.]

BOSOLA

You are happily o’erta’en.

[He hands the DUCHESS a letter.]

DUCHESS

From my brother?

BOSOLA

Yes, from the Lord Ferdinand, your brother,

All love and safety.

DUCHESS

Thou dost blanch mischief;

Wouldst make it white. See, see, like to calm weather

At sea, before a tempest, false hearts speak fair

To those they intend most mischief.

[Reads] (A Letter) ‘Send Antonio to me. I want his head in a business.’

A politic equivocation!

He doth not want your counsel, but your head;

30 That is, he cannot sleep till you be dead.

And here’s another pitfall that’s strewed o’er

With roses; mark it – ’tis a cunning one.

And I believe so too.

BOSOLA

What do you believe?

DUCHESS

That he so much distrusts my husband’s love

He will by no means believe his heart is with him

Until he see it. The devil is not cunning enough

40 To circumvent us in riddles.

BOSOLA

Will you reject that noble and free league

Of amity and love which I present you?

DUCHESS

Their league is like that of some politic kings:

Only to make themselves of strength and power

To be our after-ruin. Tell them so.

BOSOLA [To ANTONIO]

And what from you?

ANTONIO

Thus tell him

I will not come.

BOSOLA

And what of this?

ANTONIO

My brothers ¹ have dispersed

Bloodhounds abroad, which till I hear are muzzled

50 No truce, though hatched with ne’er such politic skill,

Is safe that hangs upon our enemies’ will.

I’ll not come at them.

BOSOLA

This proclaims your breeding.

Every small thing draws a base mind to fear,

As the adamant ¹ draws iron. Fare you well, sir.

You shall shortly hear from’s. Exit.

DUCHESS

I suspect some ambush;

Therefore, by all my love, I do conjure you

To take your eldest son and fly towards Milan.

Let us not venture all this poor remainder

In one unlucky bottom.²

ANTONIO

You counsel safely.

60 Best of my life, farewell. Since we must part

Heaven hath a hand in’t; but no otherwise

Than as some curious artist takes in sunder

A clock or watch when it is out of frame,

To bring’t in better order.

DUCHESS

I know not which is best:

To see you dead or part with you. [To her eldest son] Farewell, boy.

Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding

To know thy misery; for all our wit

And reading brings us to a truer sense

Of sorrow. [To ANTONIO] In the eternal Church,³ sir,

I do hope we shall not part thus.

ANTONIO

70 Oh, be of comfort!

Make patience a noble fortitude,

And think not how unkindly we are used.

Man, like to cassia,⁴ is proved best being bruised.

DUCHESS

Must I, like to a slave-born Russian,

Account it praise to suffer tyranny?

And yet, O heaven, thy heavy hand is in’t.

I have seen my little boy oft scourge his top,¹

And compared myself to’t: naught made me e’er

Go right but heaven’s scourge-stick.

ANTONIO

Do not weep.

80 Heaven fashioned us of nothing, and we strive

To bring ourselves to nothing. Farewell, Cariola,

And thy sweet armful.² [To the DUCHESS] If I do never see thee more,³

Be a good mother to your little ones,

And save them from the tiger. Fare you well.
[He kisses her.]

DUCHESS

Let me look upon you once more, for that speech

Came from a dying father. Your kiss is colder

Than that I have seen an holy anchorite⁴

Give to a dead man’s skull.

ANTONIO

My heart is turned to a heavy lump of lead

90 With which I sound my danger⁵. Fare you well.

Exeunt [ANTONIO and his eldest son].

DUCHESS

My laurel is all withered.⁶

CARIOLA

Look, madam, what a troop of armèd men

Make toward us.

Enter BOSOLA [masked] with a GUARD⁷ [wearing vizards].

Oh, they are very welcome.

When Fortune’s wheel is overcharged with princes,

The weight makes it move swift. I would have my ruin

Be sudden. [To BOSOLA] I am your adventure,¹ am I not?

BOSOLA

You are. You must see your husband no more.

DUCHESS

What devil art thou that counterfeits heaven’s thunder?

BOSOLA

Is that terrible? I would have you tell me

100 Whether is that note worse that frights the silly² birds

Out of the corn, or that which doth allure them

To the nets? You have hearkened to the last too much.

DUCHESS

O misery! Like to a rusty o’ercharged cannon,

Shall I never fly in pieces? Come: to what prison?

BOSOLA

To none.

DUCHESS

Whither then?

BOSOLA

To your palace.

DUCHESS

I have heard that Charon’s boat serves to convey

All o’er the dismal lake,³ but brings none back again.

BOSOLA

Your brothers mean you safety and pity.

DUCHESS

Pity?

With such a pity men preserve alive

110 Pheasants and quails, when they are not fat enough

To be eaten.

‘O,’ quoth the salmon, ‘sister, be at peace.

These are your children?

DUCHESS

Yes.

BOSOLA

Can they prattle?

DUCHESS

No,

But I intend, since they were born accursed,

Curses shall be their first language.

BOSOLA

Fie, madam,

Forget this base, low fellow.

DUCHESS

Were I a man,

I’d beat that counterfeit face ¹ into thy other.

BOSOLA

One of no birth.

DUCHESS

Say that he was born mean,

Man is most happy when’s own actions

Be arguments and examples of his virtue.

BOSOLA

120 A barren, beggarly virtue.

DUCHESS

I prithee, who is greatest? Can you tell?

Sad tales befit my woe; I’ll tell you one.

A salmon, as she swam unto the sea,

Met with a dog-fish, who encounters her

With this rough language: ‘Why art thou so bold

To mix thyself with our high state of floods,

Being no eminent courtier, but one

That for the calmest and fresh time o’th’ year

Dost live in shallow rivers, rank’st thyself

130 With silly smelts ² and shrimps? And darest thou

Pass by our dog-ship without reverence?’

Thank Jupiter, we both have passed the net.

Our value never can be truly known,

Till in the fisher’s basket we be shown.

I’th’ market then my price may be the higher,

Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.’

So, to great men the moral may be stretched:

Men oft are valued high, when th’are most wretch’d.

140 But come: whither you please. I am armed ’gainst misery,

Bent to all sways of the oppressor’s will.

There’s no deep valley, but near some great hill. Exeunt.

ACT 4

Scene 1

[Enter] FERDINAND, BOSOLA [and] SERVANTS
[with torches].¹

FERDINAND

How doth our sister Duchess bear herself

In her imprisonment?

BOSOLA

Nobly; I’ll describe her:

She’s sad, as one long used to’t, and she seems

Rather to welcome the end of misery

Than shun it; a behaviour so noble,

As gives a majesty to adversity.

You may discern the shape of loveliness

More perfect in her tears than in her smiles.

She will muse four hours together, and her silence,

10 Methinks, expresseth more than if she spake.

FERDINAND

Her melancholy seems to be fortified

With a strange disdain.

’Tis so; and this restraint,

Like English mastiffs that grow fierce with tying,

Makes her too passionately apprehend

Those pleasures she’s kept from.

FERDINAND

Curse upon her!

I will no longer study in the book

Of another’s heart. Inform her what I told you. Exit.

[Enter DUCHESS and CARIOLA.]

BOSOLA

All comfort to your Grace –

DUCHESS

I will have none.

Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poisoned pills

20 In gold and sugar?

BOSOLA

Your elder brother,¹ the Lord Ferdinand,

Is come to visit you, and sends you word

’Cause once he rashly made a solemn vow

Never to see you more, he comes i’th’ night;

And prays you, gently, neither torch nor taper

Shine in your chamber. He will kiss your hand

And reconcile himself, but, for his vow,

He dares not see you.

DUCHESS

At his pleasure.

Take hence the lights. [Exeunt SERVANTS with torches.]

[Enter FERDINAND.]

He’s come.

FERDINAND

Where are you?

DUCHESS

Here, sir.

Send it to him that owed it; you shall see

This darkness suits you well.

30 DUCHESS

I would ask you pardon.

FERDINAND

You have it;

For I account it the honorabl’st revenge,

Where I may kill, to pardon. Where are your cubs?

DUCHESS

Whom?

FERDINAND

Call them your children;

For though our national law distinguish bastards

From true, legitimate issue, compassionate nature

Makes them all equal.

DUCHESS

Do you visit me for this?

You violate a sacrament o’th’ Church

Shall make you howl in hell for’t.

FERDINAND

It had been well

40 Could you have lived thus always; for, indeed,

You were too much i’th’ light.¹ But no more;

I come to seal my peace with you. Here’s a hand,

To which you have vowed much love. The ring upon’t

You gave.

[He] gives her a dead man’s hand.²

DUCHESS

I affectionately kiss it.

FERDINAND

Pray do, and bury the print of it in your heart.

I will leave this ring with you for a love-token,

And the hand, as sure as the ring; and do not doubt

But you shall have the heart too. When you need a friend,

Whether he can aid you.

DUCHESS

50 You are very cold.

I fear you are not well after your travel.

Ha? Lights! Oh horrible!

FERDINAND

Let her have lights enough. Exit.

[Enter SERVANTS with torches.]

DUCHESS

What witchcraft doth he practise that he hath left

A dead man’s hand here?

Here is discovered, behind a traverse,¹ the artificial figures of
ANTONIO and his CHILDREN, appearing as
if they were dead.²

BOSOLA

Look you, here’s the piece from which ’twas ta’en.

He doth present you this sad spectacle

That, now you know directly they are dead,

Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve

60 For that which cannot be recoverèd.

DUCHESS

There is not between heaven and earth one wish

I stay for after this. It wastes me more

Than were’t my picture, fashioned out of wax,

Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried

In some foul dunghill. And yond’s an excellent property³

For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

BOSOLA

What’s that?

If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk,¹

And let me freeze to death.

BOSOLA

Come, you must live.

DUCHESS

70 That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell:

In hell that they must live, and cannot die.

Portia, I’ll new-kindle thy coals again,

And revive the rare and almost dead example

Of a loving wife.²

BOSOLA

O fie! Despair? Remember

You are a Christian.

DUCHESS

The Church enjoins fasting:

I’ll starve myself to death.

BOSOLA

Leave this vain sorrow.

Things being at the worst begin to mend;

The bee when he hath shot his sting into your hand

May then play with your eyelid.

DUCHESS

Good, comfortable³ fellow,

80 Persuade a wretch that’s broke upon the wheel⁴

To have all his bones new-set; entreat him live

To be executed again. Who must dispatch me?

I account this world a tedious theatre,

For I do play a part in’t ’gainst my will.

BOSOLA

Come, be of comfort; I will save your life.

As cannot pity it. I am full of daggers.¹

Indeed, I have not leisure to tend so small a business.

BOSOLA

Now, by my life, I pity you.

DUCHESS

Thou art a fool then,

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched

90 Puff! Let me blow these vipers² from me.

[To SERVANT] What are you?

SERVANT

One that wishes you long life.

DUCHESS

I would thou wert hanged for the horrible curse

Thou hast given me. I shall shortly grow one

Of the miracles of pity. I’ll go pray – No,

I’ll go curse.

BOSOLA

Oh fie!

DUCHESS

I could curse the stars –

BOSOLA

Oh fearful!

DUCHESS

And those three smiling seasons of the year

Into a Russian winter – nay, the world

To its first chaos.

BOSOLA

Look you, the stars shine still.

DUCHESS

Oh, but you must remember,

100 My curse hath a great way to go –

Plagues, that make lanes³ through largest families,

Consume them.

110 Excellent! As I would wish. She’s plagued in art.¹

Fie, lady!

DUCHESS

Let them, like tyrants,

Never be remembered but for the ill they have done.

Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

Churchmen forget them.

BOSOLA

Oh uncharitable!

DUCHESS

Let heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs,

To punish them.

Go, howl them this, and say I long to bleed.

It is some mercy when men kill with speed.

Exeunt [DUCHESS and CARIOLA with SERVANTS].

[Enter FERDINAND.]

FERDINAND

These presentations are but framed in wax

By the curious² master in that quality,

Vincentio Lauriola,³ and she takes them

For true, substantial bodies.

BOSOLA

Why do you do this?

FERDINAND

To bring her to despair.

BOSOLA

’Faith, end here,

And go no farther in your cruelty.

Send her a penitential garment to put on

Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her

With beads and prayer-books.

That’s forfeited by my intelligence,¹

120 Damn her! That body of hers,

While that my blood ran pure in’t, was more worth

Than that which thou wouldst comfort, called a soul.

I will send her masques of common courtesans,

Have her meat served up by bawds and ruffians,

And, ’cause she’ll needs be mad, I am resolved

To remove forth the common hospital

All the mad-folk and place them near her lodging.

There let them practise together: sing and dance

And act their gambols to the full o’th’ moon.

130 If she can sleep the better for it, let her.

Your work is almost ended.

BOSOLA

Must I see her again?

FERDINAND

Yes.

BOSOLA

Never.

FERDINAND

You must.

BOSOLA

Never in mine own shape;

And this last cruel lie. When you send me next,

The business shall be comfort.

FERDINAND

Very likely!

Thy pity is nothing of kin to thee. Antonio

Lurks about Milan. Thou shalt shortly thither

To feed a fire as great as my revenge,

140 Which ne’er will slack till it have spent his fuel.

Intemperate agues make physicians cruel. Exeunt.

Scene 2

[Enter] DUCHESS [and] CARIOLA.

DUCHESS

What hideous noise was that?

CARIOLA

’Tis the wild consort ¹

Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother

Hath placed about your lodging. This tyranny,

I think, was never practised till this hour.

DUCHESS

Indeed, I thank him. Nothing but noise and folly

Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason

And silence make me stark mad. Sit down;

Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.

CARIOLA

Oh, ’twill increase your melancholy.

DUCHESS

Thou art deceived;

10 To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.

This is a prison?

CARIOLA

Yes, but you shall live

To shake this durance off.

DUCHESS

Thou art a fool.

The robin redbreast and the nightingale

Never live long in cages.

CARIOLA

Pray, dry your eyes.

What think you of, madam?

Of nothing.

When I muse thus, I sleep.

CARIOLA

Like a madman, with your eyes open?

DUCHESS

Dost thou think we shall know one another

In th’other world?

CARIOLA

Yes, out of question.

DUCHESS

20 Oh, that it were possible we might

But hold some two days’ conference with the dead.

From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure

I never shall know here. I’ll tell thee a miracle:

I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow.

Th’ heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass,

The earth of flaming sulphur,¹ yet I am not mad.

I am acquainted with sad misery,

As the tanned galley-slave is with his oar.

Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

30 And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?

CARIOLA

Like to your picture in the gallery:

A deal of life in show,² but none in practice;

Or rather like some reverend monument

Whose ruins are even pitied.

DUCHESS

Very proper;

And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight³

To behold my tragedy.

[Noises of MADMEN within.]

How now,

What noise is that?

[Enter SERVANT.]

SERVANT

I am come to tell you

Your brother hath intended you some sport.

A great physician, when the Pope was sick

40 Of a deep melancholy, presented him

With several sorts of madmen, which wild object,

Being full of change and sport, forced him to laugh

And so th’impostume ¹ broke. The self-same cure

The Duke intends on you.

DUCHESS

Let them come in.

SERVANT

There’s a mad lawyer and a secular priest;²

A doctor that hath forfeited his wits

By jealousy; an astrologian

That in his works said such a day o’th’ month

Should be the day of doom, and failing of’t

50 Ran mad; an English tailor, crazed i’th’ brain

With the study of new fashion; a gentleman-usher

Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind

The number of his lady’s salutations,

Or ‘How do you?’, she employed him in each morning;

A farmer too, an excellent knave in grain,³

Mad ’cause he was hindered transportation;⁴

And let one broker⁵ that’s mad loose to these,

You’d think the devil were among them.

No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows the tombs, will have his hand in a wench’s placket.¹

Sit, Cariola. [To SERVANT] Let them loose when you please,

60 For I am chained to endure all your tyranny.

[Enter MADMEN.]

Here, by a MADMAN, this song is sung, to a dismal kind of music.

[MADMAN sings] Oh, let us howl some heavy note,

Some deadly, doggèd howl,

Sounding, as from the threat’ning throat,

Of beasts and fatal fowl.

As ravens, screech-owls, bulls and bears,

We’ll bill¹ and bawl our parts,

Till irksome noise have cloyed your ears,

And corrosived² your hearts.

At last, when as our choir wants breath,

70 Our bodies being blessed,

We’ll sing like swans to welcome death,³

And die in love and rest.

MAD ASTROLOGER

Doomsday not come yet? I’ll draw it nearer by a perspective,⁴ or make a glass⁵ that shall set all the world on fire upon an instant. I cannot sleep –

my pillow is stuffed with a litter of porcupines.

MAD LAWYER

Hell is a mere glass-house,⁶ where the devils are continually blowing up women’s souls on hollow irons, and the fire never goes out.

MAD PRIEST

80 I will lie with every woman in my parish the tenth night; I will tithe them over like haycocks.

MAD DOCTOR

Shall my ’pothecary outgo me because I am a cuckold? I have found out his roguery: he makes alum ¹ of his wife’s urine and sells it to Puritans that have sore throats with over-straining.

MAD ASTROLOGER

I have skill in heraldry.

MAD LAWYER

Hast?

MAD ASTROLOGER

You do give for your crest a woodcock’s head,² with the brains picked out³ on’t. You are a very ancient gentleman.

MAD PRIEST

Greek is turned Turk;⁴ we are only to be saved by the

90 Helvetian translation.⁵

MAD ASTROLOGER [To the MAD LAWYER]

Come on, sir, I will lay⁶ the law to you.

MAD LAWYER

Oh, rather lay a corrosive – the law will eat to the bone.

MAD PRIEST

He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damned.

MAD DOCTOR

If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should make all the women here call me mad doctor.

MAD ASTROLOGER [pointing at the MAD PRIEST]

What’s he? A rope-maker?

MAD LAWYER

MAD PRIEST

Woe to the caroche that brought home my wife from the

100 masque at three o’clock in the morning! It had a large featherbed in it.

MAD DOCTOR

I have pared the devil’s nails forty times, roasted them in raven’s eggs, and cured agues with them.

MAD PRIEST

Get me three hundred milch-bats to make possets² to procure sleep.

MAD DOCTOR

All the college may throw their caps at me,³ I have made a soap-boiler costive.⁴ It was my masterpiece.

Here the dance, consisting of eight MADMEN, with music
answerable thereunto, after which [they exeunt and]
BOSOLA, [disguised] like an old man, enters.

DUCHESS [Indicating BOSOLA]

Is he mad too?

SERVANT

Pray, question him. I’ll leave you. [Exit.]

BOSOLA

I am come to make thy tomb.

DUCHESS

Ha? My tomb?

110 Thou speak’st as if I lay upon my death-bed,

Gasping for breath. Dost thou perceive me sick?

BOSOLA

Yes, and the more dangerously since thy sickness is insensible.⁵

Thou art not mad, sure. Dost know me?

BOSOLA

Yes.

DUCHESS

Who am I?

BOSOLA

Thou art a box of worm-seed;¹ at best, but a salvatory² of green mummy.³ What’s this flesh? A little crudded⁴ milk, fantastical puff-paste.⁵ Our bodies are weaker than those paper

120 prisons boys use to keep flies in – more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o’er our heads like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

DUCHESS

Am not I thy Duchess?

BOSOLA

Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot⁶ begins to sit on thy forehead, clad in grey hairs, twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid’s. Thou sleep’st worse than if a mouse

130 should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat’s ear. A little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow.

DUCHESS

I am Duchess of Malfi still.

BOSOLA

That makes thy sleeps so broken.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,

But looked to near, have neither heat nor light.⁷

Thou art very plain.

BOSOLA

My trade is to flatter the dead not the living;

I am a tomb-maker.

DUCHESS

140 And thou com’st to make my tomb?

BOSOLA

Yes.

DUCHESS

Let me be a little merry:

Of what stuff wilt thou make it?

BOSOLA

Nay, resolve me first of what fashion.

DUCHESS

Why, do we grow fantastical in our death-bed?

Do we affect fashion in the grave?

BOSOLA

Most ambitiously. Princes’ images on their tombs do not lie, as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven, but with their hands under their cheeks, as if they died of the toothache.

150 They are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars, but as their minds were wholly bent upon the world – the self-same way they seem to turn their faces.

DUCHESS

Let me know fully, therefore, the effect

Of this thy dismal preparation,

This talk fit for a charnel.

BOSOLA

Now, I shall.

[Enter EXECUTIONERS with] a [shrouded] coffin, cords and a bell.

Here is a present from your princely brothers,

And may it arrive welcome, for it brings

Last benefit, last sorrow.

I am the common bellman,¹

Let me see it.

I have so much obedience in my blood,

160 I wish it in their veins to do them good.

BOSOLA

This is your last presence-chamber.

[He reveals the coffin.]

CARIOLA

O my sweet lady!

DUCHESS

Peace, it affrights not me.

BOSOLA

That usually is sent to condemned persons

The night before they suffer.

DUCHESS

Even now thou said’st

Thou wast a tomb-maker.

BOSOLA

’Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification.² Listen!

[BOSOLA rings the bell.]

Hark, now everything is still,

The screech-owl and the whistler³ shrill

170 Call upon our dame, aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud.

Much you had of land and rent,

Your length in clay’s now competent.⁴

A long war disturbed your mind,

Here your perfect peace is signed.

Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping?

Sin their conception, their birth weeping,

Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror.

180 Strew your hair with powders sweet,¹

Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And – the foul fiend more to check –

A crucifix let bless your neck.

’Tis now full tide ’tween night and day;

End your groan and come away.

[The EXECUTIONERS approach.]

CARIOLA

Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers! Alas,

What will you do with my lady? – Call for help!

DUCHESS

To whom? To our next neighbours? They are mad folks.

BOSOLA

Remove that noise.

[EXECUTIONERS seize CARIOLA.]

DUCHESS

Farewell, Cariola.

190 In my last will, I have not much to give.

A many hungry guests have fed upon me;

Thine will be a poor reversion.²

CARIOLA

I will die with her.

DUCHESS

I pray thee, look thou giv’st my little boy

Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl

Say her prayers ere she sleep.

[Exeunt EXECUTIONERS with CARIOLA.]

Now what you please:

What death?

BOSOLA

Strangling.

[Re-enter EXECUTIONERS.]

Here are your executioners.

DUCHESS

I forgive them.

The apoplexy, catarrh or cough o’th’ lungs

Would do as much as they do.

BOSOLA

Doth not death fright you?

DUCHESS

200 Who would be afraid on’t,

Knowing to meet such excellent company

In th’other world?

BOSOLA

Yet, methinks

The manner of your death should much afflict you;

This cord should terrify you.

DUCHESS

Not a whit.

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds, or to be smothered

With cassia, or to be shot to death with pearls?

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits; and ’tis found

210 They go on such strange, geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways.¹ Any way, for heaven’ sake,

So I were out of your whispering! Tell my brothers

That I perceive death, now I am well awake,

Best gift is they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman’s fault:²

I’d not be tedious to you.

[EXECUTIONERS place the noose around her neck and hold each end.]

EXECUTIONER

We are ready.

DUCHESS

Dispose my breath how please you, but my body

Bestow upon my women. Will you?

EXECUTIONER

Yes.

DUCHESS

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength

220 Must pull down heaven upon me.

Yet, stay. Heaven gates are not so highly arched

As princes’ palaces; they that enter there

Must go upon their knees. [Kneels] Come, violent death,

Serve for mandragora ¹ to make me sleep.

Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out²

They then may feed in quiet.

They strangle her.

BOSOLA

Where’s the waiting-woman?

Fetch her. Some other strangle the children.

[EXECUTIONERS exeunt and re-enter with CARIOLA.]

Look you, there sleeps your mistress.

CARIOLA

Oh, you are damned

Perpetually for this! My turn is next;

Is’t not so ordered?

BOSOLA

230 Yes, and I am glad

You are so well prepared for’t.

CARIOLA

You are deceived, sir;

I am not prepared for’t. I will not die!

I will first come to my answer, and know

How I have offended.

BOSOLA [To EXECUTIONERS]

Come, dispatch her.

[To CARIOLA] You kept her counsel, now you shall keep ours.

CARIOLA

I will not die; I must not. I am contracted

To a young gentleman.

EXECUTIONER

Here’s your wedding-ring.

[Showing her the noose]

CARIOLA

Let me but speak with the Duke: I’ll discover

Treason to his person.

BOSOLA

Delays – throttle her!

EXECUTIONER

She bites and scratches.

CARIOLA

240 If you kill me now

I am damned! I have not been at confession

This two years.

BOSOLA

When?¹

CARIOLA

I am quick with child.

BOSOLA

Why then,

Your credit’s² saved.

[EXECUTIONERS strangle CARIOLA.]

Bear her into th’next room.

Let this lie still.

[Exeunt EXECUTIONERS with CARIOLA’s body.]

[Enter FERDINAND.]

Is she dead?

BOSOLA

She is what

You’d have her. But here begin your pity.

[He draws a curtain and] shows the children strangled.

Alas, how have these offended?

FERDINAND

The death

Of young wolves is never to be pitied.

BOSOLA [indicating the DUCHESS]

Fix your eye here.

FERDINAND

Constantly.

BOSOLA

Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.

250 The element of water moistens the earth,

But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

FERDINAND

Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle.¹ She died young.

BOSOLA

I think not so [covering her face]; her infelicity

Seemed to have years too many.

FERDINAND

She and I were twins,

And should I die this instant, I had lived

Her time to a minute.

BOSOLA

It seems she was born first.

You have bloodily approved the ancient truth

That kindred commonly do worse agree

Than remote strangers.

Let me see her face again.

[BOSOLA uncovers her.]

260 Why didst not thou pity her? What an excellent,

Honest man might’st thou have been

If thou hadst borne her to some sanctuary,

Or, bold in a good cause, opposed thyself

With thy advancèd sword above thy head,

Between her innocence and my revenge!

I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits,

Go kill my dearest friend,¹ and thou hast done’t.

For let me but examine well the cause:

What was the meanness of her match to me?

270 Only, I must confess, I had a hope,

Had she continued widow, to have gained

An infinite mass of treasure by her death,²

And that was the main cause: her marriage –

That drew a stream of gall quite through my heart.

For thee – as we observe in tragedies

That a good actor many times is cursed

For playing a villain’s part – I hate thee for’t,

And, for my sake, say thou hast done much ill well.

BOSOLA

Let me quicken your memory, for I perceive

280 You are falling into ingratitude. I challenge³

The reward due to my service.

FERDINAND

I’ll tell thee

What I’ll give thee –

BOSOLA

Do.

I’ll give thee a pardon

For this murder.

BOSOLA

Ha?

FERDINAND

Yes, and ’tis

The largest bounty I can study to do thee.

By what authority didst thou execute

This bloody sentence?

BOSOLA

By yours.

FERDINAND

Mine? Was I her judge?

Did any ceremonial form of law

Doom her to not-being? Did a complete jury

Deliver her conviction up i’th’ court?

290 Where shalt thou find this judgement registered

Unless in hell? See, like a bloody fool

Th’hast forfeited thy life, and thou shalt die for’t.

BOSOLA

The office of justice is perverted quite

When one thief hangs another. Who shall dare

To reveal this?

FERDINAND

Oh, I’ll tell thee:

The wolf shall find her grave, and scrape it up –

Not to devour the corpse, but to discover

The horrid murder.¹

BOSOLA

You, not I, shall quake for’t.

FERDINAND

Leave me.

BOSOLA

I will first receive my pension.

You are a villain.

BOSOLA

300 When your ingratitude

Is judge, I am so.

FERDINAND

O horror!

That not the fear of him which binds the devils

Can prescribe man obedience!

Never look upon me more.

BOSOLA

Why, fare thee well.

Your brother and yourself are worthy men;

You have a pair of hearts are hollow graves,

Rotten, and rotting others; and your vengeance,

Like two chained bullets,¹ still goes arm-in-arm.

You may be brothers: for treason, like the plague,

310 Doth take much in a blood.² I stand like one

That long hath ta’en a sweet and golden dream;

I am angry with myself now that I wake.

FERDINAND

Get thee into some unknown part o’th’ world

That I may never see thee.

BOSOLA

Let me know

Wherefore I should be thus neglected? Sir,

I served your tyranny, and rather strove

To satisfy yourself than all the world;

And though I loathed the evil, yet I loved

You that did counsel it, and rather sought

320 To appear a true servant than an honest man.

FERDINAND

I’ll go hunt the badger by owl-light³ –

’Tis a deed of darkness. Exit.