Vindici’s house
Enter [Vindici] and Hippolito bringing out [their] mother [Gratiana], one by one shoulder, and the other by the other, with daggers in their hands.
VINDICI
Oh, thou for whom no name is bad enough!
[GRATIANA]
What means my sons? What, will you murder me?
VINDICI
Wicked, unnatural parent!
HIPPOLITO
Fiend of women!
[GRATIANA]
Oh! Are sons turn’d monsters? Help!
VINDICI
In vain.
[GRATIANA]
Are you so barbarous to set iron nipples
Upon the breast that gave you suck?
VINDICI
That breast
Is turned to quarled poison.
[GRATIANA]
Cut not your days for’t: am not I your mother?
VINDICI
Thou dost usurp that title now by fraud,
For in that shell of mother breeds a bawd.
[GRATIANA]
A bawd? Oh, name far loathsomer than hell!
HIPPOLITO
It should be so, knew’st thou thy office well.
[GRATIANA]
I hate it!
VINDICI
Ah, is’t possible, you powers on high,
That women should dissemble when they die?
[GRATIANA]
Dissemble!
VINDICI
Did not the duke’s son direct
A fellow of the world’s condition hither,
That did corrupt all that was good in thee,
Made thee uncivilly forget thyself,
And work our sister to his lust?
[GRATIANA]
Who, I?
That had been monstrous! I defy that man
For any such intent: none lives so pure
But shall be soil’d with slander.
Good son, believe it not.
VINDICI
Oh, I’m in doubt,
Whether I’m myself or no.
Stay, let me look again upon this face.
Who shall be sav’d when mothers have no grace?
HIPPOLITO
’Twould make one half despair.
VINDICI
I was the man.
Defy me now? Let’s see do’t modestly.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, hell unto my soul!
VINDICI
In that disguise, I sent from the duke’s son,
Tried you, you, and found you base metal
As any villain might have done.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, no,
No tongue but yours could have bewitch’d me so.
VINDICI
Oh, nimble in damnation, quick in tune;
There is no devil could strike fire so soon!
I am confuted in a word.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, sons,
Forgive me; to myself I’ll prove more true:
You that should honour me, I kneel to you.
VINDICI
A mother to give aim to her own daughter.
HIPPOLITO
True, brother, how far beyond nature ’tis,
Tho’ many mothers do’t.
VINDICI
Nay, and you draw tears once, go you to bed.
Wet will make iron blush and change to red:
Brother, it rains, ‘twill spoil your dagger; house it.
HIPPOLITO
’Tis done.
VINDICI
I’faith, ’tis a sweet shower; it does much good.
The fruitful grounds and meadows of her soul
Has been long dry: pour down thou blessed dew.
Rise, mother; troth, this shower has made you higher.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, you heavens!
Take this infectious spot out of my soul;
I’ll rinse it in seven waters of mine eyes.
Make my tears salt enough to taste of grace.
To weep is to our sex naturally given,
But to weep truly, that’s a gift from heaven.
VINDICI
Nay, I’ll kiss you now. Kiss her, brother.
Let’s marry her to our souls, wherein’s no lust,
And honourably love her.
HIPPOLITO
Let it be.
VINDICI
For honest women are so [seld] and rare,
’Tis good to cherish those poor few that are.
Oh, you of easy wax, do but imagine
Now the disease has left you, how leprously
That office would have cling’d unto your forehead.
All mothers that had any graceful hue
Would have worn masks to hide their face at you;
It would have grown to this: at your foul name
Green-colour’d maids would have turn’d red with shame.
HIPPOLITO
And then our sister, full of hire and baseness —
VINDICI
There had been boiling lead again.
The duke’s son’s great concubine!
A drab of state, a cloth-a’-silver slut,
To have her train borne up and her soul trail
I’ th’ dirt: great!
HIPPOLITO
To be miserably great; rich,
To be eternally wretched.
VINDICI
Oh, common madness!
Ask but the thriving’st harlot in cold blood,
She’d give the world to make her honour good.
Perhaps you’ll say but only to th’ duke’s son
In private; why, she first begins with one
Who afterward to thousand proves a whore:
“Break ice in one place, it will crack in more.”
[GRATIANA]
Most certainly applied.
HIPPOLITO
Oh, brother, you forget our business.
VINDICI
And well rememb’red; joy’s a subtle elf:
I think man’s happiest when he forgets himself.
Farewell, once dried, now holy-wat’red mead;
Our hearts wear feathers that before wore lead.
[GRATIANA]
I’ll give you this, that one I never knew
Plead better for and ‘gainst the devil than you.
VINDICI
You make me proud on’t.
HIPPOLITO
Commend us in all virtue to our sister.
VINDICI
Ay, for the love of heaven, to that true maid.
[GRATIANA]
With my best words.
VINDICI
Why, that was motherly said.
Exeunt [Vindici and Hippolito].
[GRATIANA]
I wonder now what fury did transport me?
I feel good thoughts begin to settle in me.
Oh, with what forehead can I look on her
Whose honour I’ve so impiously beset?
[Enter Castiza.]
And here she comes.
CASTIZA
Now, mother, you have wrought with me so strongly
That what for my advancement, as to calm
The trouble of your tongue: I am content.
[GRATIANA]
Content to what?
CASTIZA
To do as you have wish’d me,
To prostitute my breast to the duke’s son,
And to put myself to common usury.
[GRATIANA]
I hope you will not so!
CASTIZA
Hope you I will not?
That’s not the hope you look to be saved in.
[GRATIANA]
Truth, but it is.
CASTIZA
Do not deceive yourself;
I am as you e’en out of marble wrought.
What would you now? Are ye not pleas’d yet with me?
You shall not wish me to be more lascivious
Than I intend to be.
[GRATIANA]
Strike not me cold.
CASTIZA
How often have you charg’d me on your blessing
To be a cursed woman! When you knew
Your blessing had no force to make me lewd,
You laid your curse upon me. That did more;
The mother’s curse is heavy: where that fights,
Suns set in storm and daughters lose their lights.
[GRATIANA]
Good child, dear maid, if there be any spark
Of heavenly intellectual fire within thee,
Oh, let my breath revive it to a flame!
Put not all out with woman’s wilful follies.
I am recover’d of that foul disease
That haunts too many mothers. Kind, forgive me;
Make me not sick in health: if then
My words prevail’d when they were wickedness,
How much more now when they are just and good?
CASTIZA
I wonder what you mean. Are not you she
For whose infect persuasions I could scarce
Kneel out my prayers, and had much ado
In three hours reading to untwist so much
Of the black serpent as you wound about me?
[GRATIANA]
’Tis unfruitful, held tedious to repeat what’s past;
I’m now your present mother.
CASTIZA
Push, now ’tis too late.
[GRATIANA]
Bethink again, thou know’st not what thou sayst.
CASTIZA
No? Deny advancement, treasure, the duke’s son?
[GRATIANA]
Oh, see,
I spoke those words, and now they poison me!
What will the deed do then?
Advancement? True, as high as shame can pitch.
For treasure, whoe’er knew a harlot rich,
Or could build by the purchase of her sin
An hospital to keep their bastards in?
The duke’s son! Oh, when women are young courtiers,
They are sure to be old beggars!
To know the miseries most harlots taste,
Thou’dst wish thyself unborn when thou art unchaste.
CASTIZA
Oh, mother, let me twine about your neck,
And kiss you till my soul melt on your lips:
I did but this to try you.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, speak truth!
CASTIZA
Indeed, I did not, for no tongue has force
To alter me from honest.
If maidens would, men’s words could have no power.
A virgin honour is a crystal tower,
Which being weak is guarded with good spirits:
Until she basely yields no ill inherits.
[GRATIANA]
Oh, happy child! Faith and thy birth hath saved me.
‘Mongst thousands daughters happiest of all others!
[Be] thou a glass for maids, and I for mothers.
Exeunt.