A street before Imperia’s house
Enter Camillo, Hipolito, Virgilio and others, the duke and gentlemen with him, Blurt and his watch on his side, with torches.
OMNES
We are dishonour’d! Give us way! He dies, he dies!
DUKE
I charge you, by your duties to the state,
And love to gentry, sheathe your weapons.
BLURT
Stand! I charge you put up your naked weapons, and we’ll put up our rusty bills.
CAMILLO
Up to the hilts we will in his French body.
My lord, we charge you by the ravish’d honour
Of an Italian lady, by our wrongs,
By that eternal blot, which, if this slave
Pass free without revenge, like leprosy
Will run over all the body of our fames,
Give open way to our just wrath, lest barr’d —
DUKE
Gentlemen —
CAMILLO
Breaking the bonds of honour and of duty,
We cut a passage through you with our swords.
OMNES
He that withstands us, run him through!
BLURT
I charge you, i’ th’ duke’s name, before his own face, to keep the peace.
CAMILLO
Keep thou the peace, that hast a peasant’s heart.
WATCH
Peasant?
CAMILLO
Our peace must have her cheeks painted with blood.
OMNES
Away, through —
BLURT
Sweet gentlemen, though you have called the duke’s own ghost peasant, for I walk for him i’ th’ night — Kilderkin and Pissbreech, hold out — yet hear me, dear bloods: the duke here for fault of a better and myself — Cuckoo, fly not hence — for fault of a better, are to lay you by the heels if you go thus with fire and sword, for the duke is the head, and I, Blurt, am the purtenance. Woodcock, keep by my side. Now sir —
OMNES
A plague upon this Woodcock; kill the watch!
DUKE
Now, in the name of manhood, I conjure ye,
Appear in your true shapes; Italians,
You kill your honours more in this revenge
Than in his murder. Stay, stand; here’s the house.
BLURT
Right, sir, this is the whorehouse; here he calls and sets in his staff.
DUKE
Sheathe all your weapons, worthy gentlemen,
And by my life I swear, if Fontinell
Have stain’d the honour of your sister’s bed,
The fact being death, I’ll pay you his proud head.
CAMILLO
Arrest him then before our eyes, and see,
Our fury sleeps.
DUKE
This honest officer —
BLURT
Blurt, sir.
DUKE
Shall fetch him forth. [To Blurt] Go, sirrah, in our name;
Attach the French lord.
BLURT
Garlic and the rest, follow strongly.
Exeunt [Blurt and the watch].
DUKE
O, what a scandal were it to a state,
To have a stranger, and a prisoner,
Murdered by such a troop. Besides, through Venice
Are numbers of his countrymen dispers’d,
Whose rage, meeting with yours, none can prevent
The mischief of a bloody consequent.
Enter Blurt and watch, holding Fontinell and his weapons.
BLURT
The duke is within an inch of your nose and therefore I dare play with it, if you put not up; deliver, I advise you.
FONTINELL
Yield up my weapons, and my foe so nigh?
Myself and weapons shall together yield;
Come anyone, come all.
OMNES
Kill, kill the Frenchman! Kill him!
DUKE
Be satisfy’d, my noble countrymen.
I’ll trust you with his life, so you will pawn
The faiths of gentlemen, no desperate hand
Shall rob him of it; otherwise, he runs
Upon this dangerous point, that dares appose
His rage ‘gainst our authority. [To Fontinell] French lord,
Yield up this strength; our word shall be your guard.
FONTINELL
Who defies death needs none; he’s well prepared.
DUKE
My honest fellow, with good defence
Enter again; fetch out the courtesan
And all that are within.
BLURT
I’ll tickle her; it shall ne’er be said that a brown bill look’d pale.
Exeunt [Blurt and] watch.
CAMILLO
Frenchman, thou art indebted to our duke.
FONTINELL
For what?
CAMILLO
Thy life, for but for him, thy soul
Had long ere this hung trembling in the air,
Being frighted from thy bosom with our swords.
FONTINELL
I do not thank your duke. Yet if you will,
Turn bloody executioners; who dies
For so bright beauty is a bright sacrifice.
DUKE
The beauty you adore so is profane;
The breach of wedlock by our law is death.
FONTINELL
Law! Give me law!
DUKE
With all severity.
FONTINELL
In my love’s eyes immortal joys do dwell.
She is my heaven; she from me, I am in hell.
Therefore, your law, your law!
DUKE
Make way, she comes.
Enter Blurt leading Imperia, watch with Violetta mask’d.
IMPERIA
Fie, fie, fie.
BLURT
Your fie, fie, fie, nor your foh, foh, foh, cannot serve your turn. Your must now bear it off with head and shoulders.
DUKE
Now fetch Curvetto and the Spaniard hither;
Their punishments shall lie under one doom.
What is she mask’d?
BLURT
A punk, too. [To watch] Follow, fellows; Slubber, afore.
Exeunt [Blurt with the watch].
VIOLETTA
She that is mask’d is leader of this masque.
What’s here? Bows, bills and guns? [Unmasks] Noble Camillo,
I am sure you are lord of all this misrule; I pray
For who’s sake do you make this swaggering fray?
CAMILLO
For yours, and for [our] own, we come resolv’d
To murther him that poisons your chaste bed,
To take revenge on you for your false heart.
And, wanton dame, our wrath here must not sleep;
Your sin being deep’st, your share shall be most deep.
VIOLETTA
With pardon of your grace, myself to you all,
At your own weapons, thus do answer all.
For paying away my heart, that was my own;
Fight not to win that, in good troth, ’tis gone.
For my dear love’s abusing my chaste bed
And her sweet theft, alack, you are misled;
This was a plot of mine, only to try
Your love’s strange temper. Sooth, I do not lie.
My Fontinell ne’er dally’d in her arms;
She never bound his heart with amorous charms.
My Fontinell ne’er loath’d my sweet embrace;
She never drew love’s picture by his face.
When he from her white hand would strive to go,
She never cry’d fie, fie, nor no, no, no.
With prayers and bribes we hired her, both to lie
Under that roof: for this must my love die?
Who dare be so hard-hearted? Look you, we kiss,
And if he loathe his Violetta, judge by this.
Kiss.
FONTINELL
O sweetest Violet, I blush.
VIOLETTA
Good [sign],
Wear still that maiden blush, but still be mine.
FONTINELL
I seal myself thine own, with both my hands,
In this true deed of gift. Gallants, here stands
This lady’s champion; at his foot I’ll lie
That dares touch her. Who taints my constancy,
I am no man for him; fight he with her
And yield, for she’s a noble conqueror.
DUKE
This combat shall not need, for see, asham’d
Of their rash vows these gentlemen here break
This storm, and do with hands what tongues should speak.
OMNES
All friends? All friends.
HIPOLITO
[To Imperia] Punk, you may laugh at this.
Here’s tricks, but, mouth, I’ll stop you with a kiss.
Enter Curvetto and Lazarillo, led by Blurt and the watch.
BLURT
Room; keep all the scabs back, for here comes Lazarus.
DUKE
Oh, here’s our other spirits that walk i’ th’ night.
Signior Curvetto, by complaint from her
And by your writing here, I reach the depth
Of your offense. They charge your climbing up
To be to rob her; if so, then by law
You are to die unless she marry you.
IMPERIA
I? Fie, fie, fie, I will be burnt to ashes first.
CURVETTO
How? Die or marry her? Then call me daw.
Marry her — she’s more common than the law —
For boys to call me ox? No, I am not drunk.
I’ll play with her but, hang her, wed no punk.
I shall be a hoary courtier then, indeed,
And have a perilous head; then I were best
Lie close, lie close to hid my forked crest.
No; fie, fie, fie, hang me before the door
Where I was drown’d ere I marry with a whore.
DUKE
Well, signior, for we rightly understand
From your accusers how you stood her guest,
We pardon you and pass it as a jest.
And for the Spaniard sped so hardly too,
Discharge him, Blurt; signior, we pardon you.
BLURT
Sir, he’s not to be dischar’d, nor so to be shot off; I have put him into a new suit and have enter’d into him with an action. He owes me two and thirty shillings.
LAZARILLO
It is thy honour to have me die in thy debt.
BLURT
It would be more honor to thee to pay me before thou diest; twenty shillings of this debt came out of his nose.
LAZARILLO
Bear witness, great duke, he’s paid twenty shillings.
BLURT
Signior No, you cannot smoke me so. He took twenty shillings of it in a fume, and the rest I charge him with for his lying.
LAZARILLO
My lying, most pitiful prince, was abominable.
BLURT
He did lie, for the time, as well as any knight of the post did ever lie.
LAZARILLO
I do here put off thy suit, and appeal. I warn thee to the court of conscience, and will pay thee by two-pence a week, which I will rake out of the hot embers of tobacco ashes, and then travel on foot to the Indies for more gold, whose red cheeks I will kiss, and beat thee, Blurt, if thou watch for me.
HIPOLITO
There be many of your countrymen in Ireland, signior; travel to them.
LAZARILLO
No, I will fall no more into bogs.
DUKE
Sirrah, his debt ourself will satisfy.
BLURT
Blurt, my lord, dare take your word for as much more.
DUKE
And since this heat of fury is all spent,
And tragic shapes meet comical event,
Let this bright morning merrily be crown’d
With dances, banquets, and choice music’s sound.
Exeunt.