The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster [famous ebook reader .TXT] 📗

this rupture. There is not in nature
A thing that makes man so deform’d, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself.
You have diverse men who never yet express’d
Their strong desire of rest but by unrest,
By vexing of themselves. Come, put yourself
In tune. Ferdinand

So I will only study to seem
The thing I am not. I could kill her now,
In you, or in myself; for I do think
It is some sin in us heaven doth revenge
By her.

Cardinal

Are you stark mad?

Ferdinand

I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopp’d,
That their curs’d smoke might not ascend to heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in in pitch or sulphur,
Wrap them in’t, and then light them like a match;
Or else to-boil64 their bastard to a cullis,
And give’t his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back.

Cardinal

I’ll leave you.

Ferdinand

Nay, I have done.
I am confident, had I been damn’d in hell,
And should have heard of this, it would have put me
Into a cold sweat. In, in; I’ll go sleep.
Till I know who [loves] my sister, I’ll not stir:
That known, I’ll find scorpions to string my whips,
And fix her in a general eclipse.

Exeunt. Act III Scene I

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

Enter Antonio and Delio. Antonio

Our noble friend, my most beloved Delio!
O, you have been a stranger long at court:
Came you along with the Lord Ferdinand?

Delio

I did, sir: and how fares your noble duchess?

Antonio

Right fortunately well: she’s an excellent
Feeder of pedigrees; since you last saw her,
She hath had two children more, a son and daughter.

Delio

Methinks ’twas yesterday. Let me but wink,
And not behold your face, which to mine eye
Is somewhat leaner, verily I should dream
It were within this half hour.

Antonio

You have not been in law, friend Delio,
Nor in prison, nor a suitor at the court,
Nor begg’d the reversion of some great man’s place,
Nor troubled with an old wife, which doth make
Your time so insensibly hasten.

Delio

Pray, sir, tell me,
Hath not this news arriv’d yet to the ear
Of the lord cardinal?

Antonio

I fear it hath:
The Lord Ferdinand, that’s newly come to court,
Doth bear himself right dangerously.

Delio

Pray, why?

Antonio

He is so quiet that he seems to sleep
The tempest out, as dormice do in winter.
Those houses that are haunted are most still
Till the devil be up.

Delio

What say the common people?

Antonio

The common rabble do directly say
She is a strumpet.

Delio

And your graver heads
Which would be politic, what censure they?

Antonio

They do observe I grow to infinite purchase,65
The left hand way; and all suppose the duchess
Would amend it, if she could; for, say they,
Great princes, though they grudge their officers
Should have such large and unconfined means
To get wealth under them, will not complain,
Lest thereby they should make them odious
Unto the people. For other obligation
Of love or marriage between her and me
They never dream of.

Delio

The Lord Ferdinand
Is going to bed.

Enter Duchess, Ferdinand, and Attendants. Ferdinand

I’ll instantly to bed,
For I am weary.⁠—I am to bespeak
A husband for you.

Duchess

For me, sir! Pray, who is’t?

Ferdinand

The great Count Malatesti.

Duchess

Fie upon him!
A count! He’s a mere stick of sugar-candy;
You may look quite through him. When I choose
A husband, I will marry for your honour.

Ferdinand

You shall do well in’t.⁠—How is’t, worthy Antonio?

Duchess

But, sir, I am to have private conference with you
About a scandalous report is spread
Touching mine honour.

Ferdinand

Let me be ever deaf to’t:
One of Pasquil’s paper-bullets,66 court-calumny,
A pestilent air, which princes’ palaces
Are seldom purg’d of. Yet, say that it were true,
I pour it in your bosom, my fix’d love
Would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny
Faults, were they apparent in you. Go, be safe
In your own innocency.

Duchess

Aside. O bless’d comfort!
This deadly air is purg’d.

Exeunt Duchess, Antonio, Delio, and Attendants. Ferdinand

Her guilt treads on
Hot-burning coulters.67

Enter Bosala.

Now, Bosola,
How thrives our intelligence?68

Bosola

Sir, uncertainly:
’Tis rumour’d she hath had three bastards, but
By whom we may go read i’ the stars.

Ferdinand

Why, some
Hold opinion all things are written there.

Bosola

Yes, if we could find spectacles to read them.
I do suspect there hath been some sorcery
Us’d on the duchess.

Ferdinand

Sorcery! to what purpose?

Bosola

To make her dote on some desertless fellow
She shames to acknowledge.

Ferdinand

Can your faith give way
To think there’s power in potions or in charms,
To make us love whether we will or no?

Bosola

Most certainly.

Ferdinand

Away! these are mere gulleries,69 horrid things,
Invented by some cheating mountebanks
To abuse us. Do you think that herbs or charms
Can force the will? Some trials have been made
In this foolish practice, but the ingredients
Were lenitive70 poisons, such as are of force
To make the patient mad; and straight the witch
Swears by equivocation they are in love.
The witchcraft lies in her rank blood. This night
I will force confession from her. You told me
You had got, within these two days, a false key
Into her bedchamber.

Bosola

I have.

Ferdinand

As I would wish.

Bosola

What do you intend to do?

Ferdinand

Can you guess?

Bosola

No.

Ferdinand

Do not ask, then:
He that can compass me, and know my drifts,
May say he hath put a girdle ’bout the world,
And sounded all her quicksands.

Bosola

I do not
Think so.

Ferdinand

What do you think, then, pray?

Bosola

That you
Are your own chronicle too much, and grossly
Flatter yourself.

Ferdinand

Give me thy hand; I thank thee:
I never gave pension but to flatterers,
Till I entertained thee. Farewell.
That friend a great man’s ruin strongly checks,
Who rails into his belief all his defects.

Exeunt. Scene