And 'cause you shall not come to me in debt
(Being now my steward), here upon your lips
I sign your quietus est: this you should have begg'd now.
I have seen children oft eat sweetmeats thus,

As fearful to devour them too soon.

Ant. But, for

your brothers

Duch. Do not think of them.

All discord, without this circumference,
Is only to be pitied, and not fear'd:
Yet, should they know it, time will easily
Scatter the tempest.

Ant. These words should be mine,

And all the parts you have spoke; if some part of it
Would not have savour'd flattery.

Duch. Kneel.

Ant. Ha!

[CARIOLA comes forward.

Duch. Be not amazed; this woman's of

my council.
I have heard lawyers say, a contract in a chamber
Per verba præsenti is absolute marriage;

Bless, heaven, this sacred Gordian, which let violence.
Never untwine.

Ant. And may our sweet affections, like the spheres,
Be still in motion.

Duch. Quickening, and make

The like soft music.

Car. Whether the spirit of greatness, or of woman,
Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows
A fearful madness: I owe her much of pity.

The DUCHESS's marriage with ANTONIO being discovered, her brother FERDINAND shuts her up in a prison, and torments her with various trials of studied cruelty. By his command, BOSOLA, the instrument of his devices, shows her the bodies of her husband and children counterfeited in wax, as dead.

Bos. He doth present you this sad spectacle,

That now you know directly they are dead,
Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
For that which cannot be recovered.

Duch. There is not between heaven and earth one wish
I stay for after this: it wastes me more

Than were 't my picture fashion'd out of wax,
Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried

In some foul dunghill; and 'yond's an excellent property
For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

Bos. What's that?

Duch. If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk,
And let me freeze to death.

Bos. Come, you must live.

Leave this vain sorrow.

Things being at the worst begin to mend.
The bee,

When he hath shot his sting into your hand,
May then play with your eyelid.

Duch. Good comfortable fellow,

Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel
To have all his bones new set; entreat him live
To be executed again. Who must despatch me?
I account this world a tedious theatre,

For I do play a part in 't 'gainst my will.
Bos. Come, be of comfort; I will save your life.
Duch. Indeed I have not leisure to attend
So small a business.

I will go pray.-No: I'll go curse.
Bos. O fie!

Duch. I could curse the stars!

Bos. O fearful.

Duch. And those three smiling seasons of the year
Into a Russian winter: nay, the world

To its first chaos.

Plagues (that make lanes through largest families)
Consume them1!

Let them like tyrants

Ne'er be remember'd but for the ill they've done!
Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

Churchmen forget them!

Let heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs,

To punish them! go, howl them this; and say, I long

to bleed:

It is some mercy when men kill with speed.

FERDINAND enters.

[Exit.

Ferd. Excellent, as I would wish: she's plagued in art.
These presentations are but framed in wax,
By the curious master in that quality

1 Her brothers.

Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them
For true substantial bodies.

Bos. Why do you do this?

Ferd. To bring her to despair.

Bos. Faith, end here;

And go no further in your cruelty.

Send her a penitential garment to put on
Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her
With beads and prayer-books.

Ferd. Damn her; that body of hers,

While that my blood ran pure in 't, was more worth
Than that, which thou wouldst comfort, call'd a soul.
I'll send her masques of common courtezans,
Have her meat served up by bawds and ruffians,
And ('cause she 'll need be mad) I am resolved
To remove forth the common hospital

All the mad folk, and place them near her lodging:
There let them practise together, sing, and dance,
And act their gambols to the full of the moon.

She is kept waking with noises of Madmen: and, at last, is strangled by common Executioners.

DUCHESS.

CARIOLA.

Duch. What hideous noise was that?

Car. 'Tis the wild consort

Of madmen, lady; which your tyrant brother
Hath placed about your lodging: this tyranny
I think was never practised till this hour.
Duch. Indeed I thank him; nothing but noise and folly
Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason
And silence make me stark mad; sit down,
Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.

Car. O, 'twill increase your melancholy.
Duch. Thou art deceived.

To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.
This is a prison?

Car, Yes: but thou shalt live

To shake this durance off.

Duch. Thou art a fool.

The robin-redbreast and the nightingale

Never live long in cages.

Car. Pray, dry your eyes.

What think you of, madam?

Duch. Of nothing:

When I muse thus, I sleep.

Car. Like a madman, with your eyes open?

Duch. Dost thou think we shall know one another

In the other world?

Car. Yes, out of question.

Duch. O that it were possible we might

But hold some two days' conference with the dead!
From them I should learn somewhat I am sure

I never shall know here. I'll tell thee a miracle;
I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow.

The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad;
I am acquainted with sad misery,

As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar;
Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now? Car. Like to your picture in the gallery :

A deal of life in show, but none in practice:
Or rather, like some reverend monument
Whose ruins are ev'n pitied.

Duch. Very proper:

And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight,
To behold my tragedy: how now,

What noise is that?

A Servant enters.

Serv. I am come to tell

you,

Your brother hath intended you some sport.
A great physician, when the Pope was sick
Of a deep melancholy, presented him

With several sorts of madmen, which wild object
(Being full of change and sport) forced him to laugh,
And so the imposthume broke: the selfsame cure
The duke intends on you.

Duch. Let them come in.

Here follows a Dance of sundry sorts of Madmen, with music answerable thereto: after which BosOLA (like an old man) enters.

Duch. Is he mad too?

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.

Duch. Ha! my tomb?

Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my deathbed,
Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is

insensible.

Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me?

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in, more contemptible; since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass; and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. Duch. Am not I thy duchess?

Bos. Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milk-maid's. Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still.

Bos. That makes thy sleeps so broken:

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;
But, look'd too near, have neither heat nor light.

Duch. Thou art very plain.

Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living.
I am a tomb-maker.

Duch. And thou comest to make my tomb?

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Let me be a little merry.

Of what stuff wilt thou make it ?

Bos. Nay, resolve me first; of what fashion?

Duch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our death-bed?
Do we affect fashion in the grave?

Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks (as if they died of the tooth-ache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as