The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster [famous ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: John Webster
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I’ll tell thee—to small purpose, since the instruction
Comes now too late.
Upon a time Reputation, Love, and Death,
Would travel o’er the world; and it was concluded
That they should part, and take three several ways.
Death told them, they should find him in great battles,
Or cities plagu’d with plagues: Love gives them counsel
To inquire for him ’mongst unambitious shepherds,
Where dowries were not talk’d of, and sometimes
’Mongst quiet kindred that had nothing left
By their dead parents: “Stay,” quoth Reputation,
“Do not forsake me; for it is my nature,
If once I part from any man I meet,
I am never found again.” And so for you:
You have shook hands with Reputation,
And made him invisible. So, fare you well:
I will never see you more. Duchess
Why should only I,
Of all the other princes of the world,
Be cas’d up, like a holy relic? I have youth
And a little beauty.
So you have some virgins
That are witches. I will never see thee more.
You saw this apparition?
AntonioYes: we are
Betray’d. How came he hither? I should turn
This to thee, for that.
Pray, sir, do; and when
That you have cleft my heart, you shall read there
Mine innocence.
That gallery gave him entrance.
AntonioI would this terrible thing would come again,
That, standing on my guard, I might relate
My warrantable love.—
Ha! what means this?
DuchessHe left this with me.
AntonioAnd it seems did wish
You would use it on yourself.
His action seem’d
To intend so much.
This hath a handle to’t,
As well as a point: turn it towards him, and
So fasten the keen edge in his rank gall.
How now! who knocks? More earthquakes?
DuchessI stand
As if a mine beneath my feet were ready
To be blown up.
’Tis Bosola.
DuchessAway!
O misery! methinks unjust actions
Should wear these masks and curtains, and not we.
You must instantly part hence: I have fashion’d it already.
The duke your brother is ta’en up in a whirlwind;
Hath took horse, and’s rid post to Rome.
So late?
BosolaHe told me, as he mounted into the saddle,
You were undone.
Indeed, I am very near it.
BosolaWhat’s the matter?
DuchessAntonio, the master of our household,
Hath dealt so falsely with me in’s accounts.
My brother stood engag’d with me for money
Ta’en up of certain Neapolitan Jews,
And Antonio lets the bonds be forfeit.
Strange!—Aside. This is cunning.
DuchessAnd hereupon
My brother’s bills at Naples are protested
Against.—Call up our officers.
I shall.
Exit. Re-enter Antonio. DuchessThe place that you must fly to is Ancona:
Hire a house there; I’ll send after you
My treasure and my jewels. Our weak safety
Runs upon enginous wheels:73 short syllables
Must stand for periods. I must now accuse you
Of such a feigned crime as Tasso calls
Magnanima menzogna, a noble lie,
’Cause it must shield our honours.—Hark! they are coming.
Will your grace hear me?
DuchessI have got well by you; you have yielded me
A million of loss: I am like to inherit
The people’s curses for your stewardship.
You had the trick in audit-time to be sick,
Till I had sign’d your quietus;74 and that cur’d you
Without help of a doctor.—Gentlemen,
I would have this man be an example to you all;
So shall you hold my favour; I pray, let him;
For h’as done that, alas, you would not think of,
And, because I intend to be rid of him,
I mean not to publish.—Use your fortune elsewhere.
I am strongly arm’d to brook my overthrow,
As commonly men bear with a hard year.
I will not blame the cause on’t; but do think
The necessity of my malevolent star
Procures this, not her humour. O, the inconstant
And rotten ground of service! You may see,
’Tis even like him, that in a winter night,
Takes a long slumber o’er a dying fire,
A-loth to part from’t; yet parts thence as cold
As when he first sat down.
We do confiscate,
Towards the satisfying of your accounts,
All that you have.
I am all yours; and ’tis very fit
All mine should be so.
So, sir, you have your pass.
AntonioYou may see, gentlemen, what ’tis to serve
A prince with body and soul.
I would know what are your opinions
Of this Antonio.
Leave us.
Exeunt Officers.What do you think of these?
BosolaThat these are rogues that in’s prosperity,
But to have waited on his fortune, could have wish’d
His dirty stirrup riveted through their noses,
And follow’d after’s mule, like a bear in a ring;
Would have prostituted their daughters to his lust;
Made their firstborn intelligencers;76 thought none happy
But such as were born under his blest planet,
And wore his livery: and do these lice drop off now?
Well, never look to have the like again:
He hath left a sort77 of flattering rogues behind him;
Their doom must follow. Princes pay flatterers
In their own money: flatterers dissemble their vices,
And they dissemble their lies; that’s justice.
Alas, poor gentleman!
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