THE DEVIL'S LAW CASE; OR, WHEN WOMEN GO TO LAW, THE DEVIL IS FULL OF BUSINESS. A TRAGI-COMEDY,
CONTARINO challenges ERCOLE to fight with him for the possession of
JOLENTA, whom they both love.
Con. Sir; my love to you has proclaim'd you one,
Whose word was still led by a noble thought,
And that thought follow'd by as fair a deed:
Deceive not that opinion: we were students
At Padua together, and have long
To the world's eye shown like friends.
Was it hearty on your part to me?
Erc. Unfeigned.
To the good thought I held of
Join the worst part of man to you, your malice,
To uphold that falsehood. Sacred innocence
Is fled your bosom. Signior, I must tell you;
To draw the picture of unkindness truly,
Is to express two that have dearly loved,
And fallen at variance. 'Tis a wonder to me,
Knowing my interest in the fair Jolenta,
That you should love her.
Erc. Compare her beauty and my youth together,
And you will find the fair effects of love
No miracle at all.
Prodigious to you: I must stay your voyage. Erc. Your warrant must be mighty.
From heaven to do it, since you'd ravish from me
What's there entitled mine; and yet I vow,
By the essential front of spotless virtue,
I have compassion of both our youths:
To approve which, I have not taken the way
Like an Italian, to cut
By practice that had given you now for dead
And never frown'd upon you.
You must fight with me.
Con. And instantly.
Erc. I will haste before you.
Con. Why, you speak nobly; and, for this fair dealing,
Were the rich jewel (which we vary for)
A thing to be divided, by my life,
I would be well content to give you half:
But since 'tis vain to think we can be friends,
'Tis needful one of us be taken
From being the other's
Erc. Yet, methinks,
This looks not like a quarrel.
Con. Not a quarrel!
Erc. You have not apparelled your fury well; goes too plain, like a scholar.
Makes it more terrible; and shall find it,
A weighty injury, and attended on
By discreet valour; because I do not strike you,
Or give you the lie, (such foul preparatives
Would show like the stale injury of wine,)
I reserve my rage to sit on my sword's point;
Which a great quantity of your best blood
Can't satisfy.
Erc. You promise well to yourself.
Shall's have no seconds?
Con. None, for fear of prevention.
Erc. The length of our weapons-
Con. We'll fit them by the way :
So whether our time calls us to live or die,
Let us do both like noble gentlemen,
And true Italians.
Erc. For that, let me embrace you.
Con. Methinks, being an Italian, I trust
To come somewhat too near me:
But your jealousy gave that embrace, to try
If I were arm'd-did it not?
Erc. No, believe me.
I take your heart to be sufficient proof
Without a privy coat: and, for my part,
A taffety is all the shirt of mail
I am arm'd with.
Con. You deal equally'.
1 I have selected this scene as the model of a well-managed and gen tlemanlike difference.
Sitting for a Picture.
Must you have my picture?
You will enjoin me to a strange punishment.
With what a compell'd face a woman sits
While she is drawing! I have noted divers
Either to feign smiles, or suck in the lips,
To have a little mouth; ruffle the cheeks,
To have the dimple seen; and so disorder
The face with affectation, at next sitting
It has not been the same: I have known others
Have lost the entire fashion of their face
In half an hour's sitting-in hot weather-
The painting on their face has been so mellow,
They have left the poor man harder work by half
To mend the copy he wrought by. But indeed,
If ever I would have mine drawn to the life,
I would have a painter steal it at such a time
I were devoutly kneeling at my prayers;
There is then a heavenly beauty in 't, the soul
Moves in the superficies.
O, my lord, lie not idle :
The chiefest action for a man of great spirit
Is never to be out of action. We should think;
The soul was never put into the body,
Which has so many rare and curious pieces
Of mathematical motion, to stand still.
Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds:
In the trenches for the soldier; in the wakeful study For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea
For men of our profession: of all which
Arise and spring up honour.
Selling of Land.
I could wish
That noblemen would ever live in the country,
Rather than make their visits up to the city
About such business. Noble houses
Have no such goodly prospects any way
As into their own land: the decay of that
(Next to their begging church-land) is a ruin
Worth all men's pity.
Dirge in a Funeral Pageant.
All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying:
These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time.
Survey our progress from our birth;
We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,
All bewitching appetites.
Sweetest breath and clearest eye
(Like perfumes) go out and die;
And consequently this is done,
As shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain the ambition of kings,
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind.
APPIUS AND VIRGINIA: A TRAGEDY, BY JOHN WEBSTER.
APPIUS, the Roman Decemvir, not being able to corrupt the innocence of VIRGINIA, daughter to VIRGINIUS the Roman general, and newly married to ICILIUS a young and noble gentleman; to get possession of her person, suborns one CLODIUS to claim her as the daughter of a deceased bond-woman of his, on the testimony of certain forged writings, pretended to be the deposition of that woman, on her deathbed, confessing that the child had been spuriously passed upon VIRGINIUS for his own : the cause is tried at Rome before APPIUS.
APPIUS. VIRGINIA. VIRGINIUS, her father. ICILIUS, her
husband. Senators of Rome. Nurse, and other Witnesses.
Virginius. My lords, believe not this spruce orator'.
Had 1 but fee'd him first, he would have told
As smooth a tale on our side.
Appius. Give us leave.
Virginius. He deals in formal glosses, cunning shows,
And cares not greatly which way the case goes.
Examine, I beseech you, this old woman,
Who is the truest witness of her birth.
Appius. Soft you, is she your only witness?
Virginius. She is, my lord.
Appius. Why, is it possible,
Such a great lady, in her time of child-birth,
Should have no other witness but a nurse?
Virginius. For aught I know, the rest are dead, my lord.
Appius. Dead? no, my lord, belike they were of counsel
With your deceased lady, and so shamed
Twice to give colour to so vile an act.
Thou nurse, observe me, thy offence already
Doth merit punishment above our censure;
Pull not more whips upon thee.
Nurse. I defy your whips, my lord.
Appius. Command her silence, lictors.
Virginius. O injustice! you frown away my witness.
Is this law, is this uprightness ?
Appius. Have you view'd the writings?
This is a trick to make our slaves our heirs
Beyond prevention.
Virginius. Appius, wilt thou hear me?
You have slander'd a sweet lady that now sleeps
In a most noble monument.
I would have taken her simple word to gage
Before his soul or thine.
Appius. That makes thee wretched.
Old man, I am sorry for thee; that thy love
By custom is grown natural, which by nature
Should be an absolute loathing. Note the sparrow;
That having hatch'd a cuckoo, when it sees
Her brood a monster to her proper kind,
Forsakes it, and with more fear shuns the nest
Than she had care in the spring to have it drest.
Here's witness, most sufficient witness.
Think you, my lord, our laws are writ in snow,
And that your breath can melt them?
Virginius. No, my lord,
We have not such hot livers: mark you that?
Virginia. Remember yet the gods, O Appius;
Who have no part in this. Thy violent lust
Shall, like the biting of the envenom'd aspick,
Steal thee to hell. So subtle are thy evils;
In life they'll seem good angels, in death devils.
Appius. Observe you not this scandal ?
Icilius. Sir, 'tis none.
|