Enter Duchess and Celia
DUCHESS
Seek out the lightest colours can be got,
The youthfull’st dressings; tawny is too sad.
I am not thirty yet, I have wronged my time
To go so long in black, like a petitioner.
See that the powder that I use about me
Be rich in cassia.
CELIA
[leaving] Here’s a sudden change.
DUCHESS
[aside]
O, I’m undone, in faith! — Stay, art thou certain
Lactantio, nephew to the Cardinal, was present
In the late entertainment of the General?
CELIA
Upon my reputation with your excellence,
These eyes beheld him. He came foremost, madam.
’Twas he in black and yellow.
DUCHESS
Nay, ’tis no matter, either for himself
Or for the affectation of his colours,
So you be sure he was there.
CELIA
As sure as sight
Can discern man from man, madam.
DUCHESS
It suffices.
Exit [Celia]
O, an ill cause had need of many helps,
Much art, and many friends, ay, and those mighty,
Or else it sets in shame. A faith once lost
Requires great cunning ere’t be entertained
Into the breast of a belief again.
There’s no condition so unfortunate,
Poor, miserable, to any creature given,
As hers that breaks in vow; she breaks with heaven.
[She weeps.] Enter Lord Cardinal
LORD CARDINAL
Increase of health, and a redoubled courage
To chastity’s great soldier! What, so sad, madam? —
The memory of her seven years’ deceased lord
Springs yet into her eyes, as fresh and full
As at the seventh hour after his departure.
What a perpetual fountain is her virtue! —
Too much to afflict yourself with ancient sorrow
Is not so strictly for your strength required.
Your vow is charge enough, believe me ’tis, madam;
You need no weightier task.
DUCHESS
Religious sir,
You heard the last words of my dying lord.
LORD CARDINAL
Which I shall ne’er forget.
DUCHESS
May I entreat
Your goodness but to speak ‘em over to me
As near as memory can befriend your utterance,
That I may think a while I stand in presence
Of my departing husband?
LORD CARDINAL
What’s your meaning
In this, most virtuous madam?
DUCHESS
’Tis a courtesy
I stand in need of, sir, at this time specially.
Urge it no further yet. As it proves to me,
You shall hear from me; only I desire it
Effectually from you, sir; that’s my request.
LORD CARDINAL
I wonder, yet I’ll spare to question farther.
You shall have your desire.
DUCHESS
I thank you, sir.
A blessing come along with’t.
LORD CARDINAL
‘You see, my lords, what all earth’s glory is,
Rightly defined in me: uncertain breath,
A dream of threescore years to the long sleeper,
To most not half the time. Beware ambition;
Heaven is not reached with pride, but with submission.
And you, Lord Cardinal, labour to perfect
Good purposes begun; be what you seem,
Steadfast and uncorrupt, your actions noble,
Your goodness simple, without gain of art,
And not in vesture holier than in heart. —
But ’tis a pain more than the pangs of death
To think that we must part, fellows of life.
Thou richness of my joys, kind and dear princess,
Death had no sting but for our separation;
’Twould come more calmer than an ev’ning’s peace
That brings on rest to labours. Thou art so precious
I should depart in everlasting envy
Unto the man that ever should enjoy thee.
O, a new torment strikes his force into me
When I but think on’t; I am racked and torn.
Pity me in thy virtues.’
DUCHESS
‘My loved lord,
Let your confirmed opinion of my life,
My love, my faithful love, seal an assurance
Of quiet to your spirit, that no forgetfulness
Can cast a sleep so deadly on my senses
To draw my affections to a second liking.’
LORD CARDINAL
“T ‘as ever been thy promise, and the spring
Of my great love to thee. For once to marry
Is honourable in woman, and her ignorance
Stands for a virtue, coming new and fresh.
But second marriage shows desires in flesh;
Thence lust and heat and common custom grows.
But she’s part virgin who but one man knows.
I here expect a work of thy great faith
At my last parting. I can crave no more,
And with thy vow I rest myself for ever;
My soul and it shall fly to heaven together.
Seal to my spirit that quiet satisfaction,
And I go hence in peace.’
DUCHESS
‘Then here I vow, never—’
LORD CARDINAL
Why, madam!
DUCHESS
I can go no further.
LORD CARDINAL What,
Have you forgot your vow?
DUCHESS
I have, too certainly.
LORD CARDINAL
Your vow? That cannot be; it follows now
Just where I left.
DUCHESS
My frailty gets before it.
Nothing prevails but ill.
LORD CARDINAL
What, ail you, madam?
DUCHESS
Sir, I’m in love.
LORD CARDINAL
O all you powers of chastity,
Look to this woman! Let her not faint now
For honour of yourselves. If she be lost
I know not where to seek my hope in woman.
Madam, O madam!
DUCHESS
My desires are sickened
Beyond recovery of good counsel, sir.
LORD CARDINAL
What mischief owed a malice to the sex,
To work this spiteful ill? Better the man
Had never known creation than to live
Th’unlucky ruin of so fair a temple.
Yet think upon your vow, revive in faith;
Those are eternal things. What are all pleasures,
Flatteries of men, and follies upon earth,
To your most excellent goodness? O, she’s dead,
Stark cold to any virtuous claim within her.
What now is heat is sin’s. Have I approved
Your constancy for this, called your faith noble,
Writ volumes of your victories and virtues?
I have undone my judgement, lost my praises,
Blemished the truth of my opinion.
Give me the man, that I may pour him out
To all contempt and curses.
DUCHESS
The man’s innocent,
Full of desert and grace; his name, Lactantio.
LORD CARDINAL
How?
DUCHESS
Your nephew.
LORD CARDINAL
My nephew!
DUCHESS
Beshrew the sight of him! He lives not, sir,
That could have conquered me, himself excepted.
LORD CARDINAL
He that I loved so dearly, does he wear
Such killing poison in his eye to sanctity?
He has undone himself for ever by’t,
Has lost a friend of me, and a more sure one.
Farewell, all natural pity. Though my affection
Could hardly spare him from my sight an hour,
I’ll lose him now eternally, and strive
To live without him. He shall straight to Rome.
DUCHESS
Not if you love my health or life, my lord.
LORD CARDINAL
This day he shall set forth.
DUCHESS
Dispatch me rather.
LORD CARDINAL
I’ll send him far enough.
DUCHESS
Send me to death first.
LORD CARDINAL
No basilisk that strikes dead pure affection
With venomous eye lives under my protection. Exit
DUCHESS
Now my condition’s worse than e’er ’twas yet.
My cunning takes not with him. He’s broke through
The net that with all art was set for him,
And left the snarer here herself entangled
With her own toils. O, what are we, poor souls,
When our dissembling fails us? Surely creatures
As full of want as any nation can be
That scarce have food to keep bare life about ‘em.
Had this but took effect, what a fair way
Had I made for my love to th’ General,
And cut off all suspect, all reprehension!
My hopes are killed i’th’ blossom. Exit
Enter Lord Cardinal
LORD CARDINAL Let me think upon’t,
Set holy anger by a while; there’s time
Allowed for natural argument. ’Tis she
That loves my nephew, she that loves, loves first.
What cause have I to lay a blame on him then?
He’s in no fault in this. Say ’twas his fortune
At the free entertainment of the General,
‘Mongst others the deserts and hopes of Milan,
To come into her sight, where’s th’offence yet?
What sin was that in him? Man’s sight and presence
Are free to public view. She might as well
Have fixed her heart’s love then upon some other.
I would’t had lighted anywhere but there! —
Yet I may err to wish’t, since it appears
The hand of heaven that only picked him out,
To reward virtue in him by this fortune.
And through affection I’m half conquered now.
I love his good as dearly as her vow —
Yet there my credit lives in works and praises.
I never found a harder fight within me
Since zeal first taught me war. Say I should labour
To quench this love? — And so quench life and all,
As by all likelihood it would prove her death.
For it must needs be granted she affects him
As dearly as the power of love can force,
Since her vow awes her not, that was her saint.
What right could that be to religion
To be her end, and disposess my kinsman?
No, I will bear, in pity to her heart;
The rest commend to fortune and my art. Exit
Enter Father, Governor, Aurelia, and Andrugio disguised [as a poor soldier]
GOVERNOR
I like him passing well.
FATHER
He’s a tall fellow.
ANDRUGIO
[aside]
A couple of tall wits! — I have seen some service, sir.
GOVERNOR
Nay, so it seems by thy discourse, good fellow.
ANDRUGIO
[aside]
‘Good-fellow’: calls me thief familiarly. —
I could show many marks of resolution,
But modesty could wish ‘em rather hidden.
I fetched home three and twenty wounds together
In one set battle, where I was defeated
At the same time of the third part of my nose;
But, meeting with a skilful surgeon,
Took order for my snuffling.
GOVERNOR
And a nose
Well healed is counted a good cure in these days.
It saves many a man’s honesty, which else
Is quickly drawn into suspicion.
This night shall bring you acquainted with your charge;
In the mean time you and your valour’s welcome.
Would we had more store of you, although they come
With fewer marks about ‘em.
FATHER
So wish I, sir.
Exeunt Father and Governor
ANDRUGIO
[aside]
I was about to call her, and she stays
Of her own gift, as if she knew my mind.
Certain she knows me not, not possible.
AURELIA [aside]
What if I left my token and my letter
With this strange fellow, so to be conveyed
Without suspicion to Lactantio’s servant?
Not so, I’ll trust no freshman with such secrets.
His ignorance may mistake, and give’t to one
That may belong to th’ General, for I know
He sets some spies about me; but all he gets
Shall not be worth his pains. I would Lactantio
Would seek some means to free me from this place.
’Tis prisonment enough to be a maid;
But to be mewed up too, that case is hard,
As if a toy were kept by a double guard.
ANDRUGIO
[aside]
Away she steals again, not minding me.
’Twas not at me she offered. — Hark you, gentlewoman.
AURELIA
With me, sir?
ANDRUGIO
I could call you by your name,
But gentle’s the best attribute to woman.
AURELIA
Andrugio! O, as welcome to my lips
As morning dew to roses! My first love!
ANDRUGIO
Why, have you more then?
AURELIA
What a word was there!
More than thyself what woman could desire,
If reason had a part of her creation?
For loving you, you see, sir, I’m a prisoner;
There’s all the cause they have against me, sir;
A happy persecution, I so count on’t.
If anything be done to me for your sake,
’Tis pleasing to me.
ANDRUGIO
Are you not abused,
Either through force or by your own consent?
Hold you your honour perfect and unstained?
Are you the same still that at my departure
My honest thoughts maintained you to my heart?
AURELIA
The same, most just.
ANDRUGIO
Swear’t.
AURELIA
By my hope of fruitfulness,
Love, and agreement, the three joys of marriage.
ANDRUGIO
I am confirmed, and in requital on’t
Ere long expect your freedom.
AURELIA
O, you flatter me!
It is a wrong to make a wretch too happy,
So suddenly upon affliction.
Beshrew me if I be not sick upon’t.
’Tis like a surfeit after a great feast.
My freedom, said you?
ANDRUGIO
Does’t o’ercome you so?
AURELIA
Temptation never overcame a sinner
More pleasingly than this sweet news my heart.
Here’s secret joy can witness, I am proud on’t.
ANDRUGIO
Violence I will not use, I come a friend,
‘Twere madness to force that which wit can end.
AURELIA
Most virtuously delivered.
ANDRUGIO
Thou art in raptures.
AURELIA
My love, my love.
ANDRUGIO
[aside] ‘Most virtuously delivered’!
Spoke like the sister of a puritan midwife. —
Will you embrace the means that I have thought on
With all the speed you can?
AURELIA
Sir, anything;
You cannot name’t too dangerous or too homely.
ANDRUGIO
Fie, you overact your happiness,
You drive slight things to wonders.
AURELIA
Blame me not, sir;
You know not my affection.
ANDRUGIO
Will you hear me?
There are a sect of pilf ring juggling people
The vulgar tongue call Gypsies.
AURELIA
True, the same, sir;
I saw the like this morning. Say no more, sir,
I apprehend you fully.
ANDRUGIO
What, you do not!
AURELIA
No? Hark you, sir.
[She whispers]
ANDRUGIO
Now by this light, ’tis true.
Sure if you prove as quick as your conceit
You’ll be an exc’llent breeder.
AURELIA
I should do reason, by the mother’s side, sir,
If fortune do her part, in a good getter.
ANDRUGIO
That’s not to do now, sweet: the man stands near thee.
AURELIA
Long may he stand most fortunately, sir,
Whom her kind goodness has appointed for me.
ANDRUGIO
A while I’ll take my leave to avoid suspicion.
AURELIA
I do commend your course. Good sir, forget me not.
ANDRUGIO
All comforts sooner.
AURELIA
Liberty is sweet, sir.
ANDRUGIO
I know there’s nothing sweeter, next to love —
But health itself, which is the prince of life.
AURELIA
Your knowledge raise you, sir.
ANDRUGIO
Farewell till evening.
Exit
AURELIA
And after that, farewell, sweet sir, for ever.
A good kind gentleman to serve our turn with,
But not for lasting. I have chose a stuff
Will wear out two of him, and one liner too.
I like not him that has two mistresses,
War and his sweet-heart; he can ne’er please both.
And war’s a soaker; she’s no friend to us;
Turns a man home sometimes to his mistress
Some forty ounces poorer than he went,
All his discourse out of the book of surgery,
Cerecloth and salve, and lies you all in tents
Like your camp-vict’lers. Out upon’t, I smile
To think how f have fitted him with an office!
His love takes pains to bring our loves together,
Much like your man that labours to get treasure
To keep his wife high for another’s pleasure. Exit
Finis Actus Secundus