The palace
Enter Lussurioso with Hippolito.
LUSSURIOSO
Hippolito.
HIPPOLITO
My lord, has your good lordship
Ought to command me in?
LUSSURIOSO
I prithee leave us.
HIPPOLITO
[Aside] How’s this? Come and leave us?
LUSSURIOSO
Hippolito.
HIPPOLITO
Your honour,
I stand ready for any duteous employment.
LUSSURIOSO
Heart, what mak’st thou here?
HIPPOLITO
[Aside] A pretty, lordly humour:
He bids me to be present, to depart;
Something has stung his honour.
LUSSURIOSO
Be nearer, draw nearer:
Ye are not so good, methinks; I’m angry with you.
HIPPOLITO
With me, my lord? I’m angry with myself for’t.
LUSSURIOSO
You did prefer a goodly fellow to me.
’Twas wittily elected, ’twas; I thought
H’ad been a villain, and he proves a knave,
To me a knave.
HIPPOLITO
I chose him for the best, my lord.
’Tis much my sorrow if neglect in him,
Breed discontent in you.
LUSSURIOSO
Neglect? ’Twas will! Judge of it:
Firmly to tell of an incredible act,
Not to be thought, less to be spoken of,
‘Twixt my stepmother and the bastard, oh,
Incestuous sweets between ‘em!
HIPPOLITO
Fie, my lord!
LUSSURIOSO
I, in kind loyalty to my father’s forehead,
Made this a desperate arm, and in that fury
Committed treason on the lawful bed,
And with my sword e’en [ras’d] my father’s bosom,
For which I was within a stroke of death.
HIPPOLITO
Alack, I’m sorry.
Enter Vindici [disguised as Piato].
[Aside] ‘Sfoot, just upon the stroke
Jars in my brother; ‘twill be villainous music.
VINDICI
My honoured lord.
LUSSURIOSO
Away! Prithee forsake us;
Hereafter we’ll not know thee.
VINDICI
Not know me, my lord? Your lordship cannot choose.
LUSSURIOSO
Be gone, I say: thou art a false knave.
VINDICI
Why, the easier to be known, my lord.
LUSSURIOSO
Push, I shall prove too bitter with a word,
Make thee a perpetual prisoner,
And lay this ironage upon thee!
VINDICI
Mum,
For there’s a doom would make a woman dumb.
[Aside] Missing the bastard, next him, the wind’s come about;
Now ’tis my brother’s turn to stay, mine to go out.
Exit Vindici.
LUSSURIOSO
H’as greatly mov’d me.
HIPPOLITO
Much to blame, i’faith.
LUSSURIOSO
But I’ll recover to his ruin: ’twas told me lately,
I know not whether falsely, that you’d a brother.
HIPPOLITO
Who I? Yes, my good lord, I have a brother.
LUSSURIOSO
How chance the court ne’er saw him? Of what nature?
How does he apply his hours?
HIPPOLITO
Faith, to curse fates,
Who, as he thinks, ordain’d him to be poor,
Keeps at home full of want and discontent.
LUSSURIOSO
There’s hope in him, for discontent and want
Is the best clay to mould a villain of.
Hippolito, wish him repair to us,
If there be ought in him to please our blood;
For thy sake we’ll advance him and build fair
His meanest fortunes, for it is in us
To rear up towers from cottages.
HIPPOLITO
It is so, my lord, he will attend your honour;
But he’s a man in whom much melancholy dwells.
LUSSURIOSO
Why, the better; bring him to court.
HIPPOLITO
With willingness and speed.
[Aside] Whom he cast off e’en now must now succeed.
Brother, disguise must off;
In thine own shape now I’ll prefer thee to him:
How strangely does himself work to undo him.
Exit.
LUSSURIOSO
This fellow will come fitly; he shall kill
That other slave that did abuse my spleen
And made it swell to treason. I have put
Much of my heart into him; he must die.
He that knows great men’s secrets and proves slight,
That man ne’er lives to see his beard turn white.
Ay, he shall speed him; I’ll employ the brother:
Slaves are but nails to drive out one another.
He being of black condition, suitable
To want and ill content, hope of preferment
Will grind him to an edge.
The Nobles enter.
FIRST NOBLE
Good days unto your honour.
LUSSURIOSO
My kind lords, I do return the like.
SECOND NOBLE
Saw you my lord the duke?
LUSSURIOSO
My lord and father, is he from court?
FIRST NOBLE
He’s sure from court,
But where, which way his pleasure took, we know not,
Nor can we hear on’t.
[Enter the Duke’s Gentlemen.]
LUSSURIOSO
Here come those should tell.
Saw you my lord and father?
[FIRST GENTLEMAN]
Not since two hours before noon, my lord,
And then he privately rid forth.
LUSSURIOSO
Oh, he’s [rid] forth?
FIRST NOBLE
’Twas wondrous privately.
SECOND NOBLE
There’s none i’ th’ court had any knowledge on’t.
LUSSURIOSO
His grace is old and sudden; ’tis no treason
To say the duke my father has a humour
Or such a toy about him: what in us
Would appear light, in him seems virtuous.
[FIRST GENTLEMAN]
’Tis oracle, my lord.
Exeunt.