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

And I believe so too.

Bosola

What do you believe?

Duchess

That he so much distrusts my husband’s love,
He will by no means believe his heart is with him
Until he see it: the devil is not cunning enough
To circumvent us in riddles.

Bosola

Will you reject that noble and free league
Of amity and love which I present you?

Duchess

Their league is like that of some politic kings,
Only to make themselves of strength and power
To be our after-ruin; tell them so.

Bosola

And what from you?

Antonio

Thus tell him; I will not come.

Bosola

And what of this?

Antonio

My brothers have dispers’d
Bloodhounds abroad; which till I hear are muzzl’d,
No truce, though hatch’d with ne’er such politic skill,
Is safe, that hangs upon our enemies’ will.
I’ll not come at them.

Bosola

This proclaims your breeding.
Every small thing draws a base mind to fear,
As the adamant draws iron. Fare you well, sir;
You shall shortly hear from’s.

Exit. Duchess

I suspect some ambush;
Therefore by all my love I do conjure you
To take your eldest son, and fly towards Milan.
Let us not venture all this poor remainder
In one unlucky bottom.

Antonio

You counsel safely.
Best of my life, farewell. Since we must part,
Heaven hath a hand in’t; but no otherwise
Than as some curious artist takes in sunder
A clock or watch, when it is out of frame,
To bring’t in better order.

Duchess

I know not which is best,
To see you dead, or part with you.⁠—Farewell, boy:
Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding
To know thy misery; for all our wit
And reading brings us to a truer sense
Of sorrow.⁠—In the eternal church, sir,
I do hope we shall not part thus.

Antonio

O, be of comfort!
Make patience a noble fortitude,
And think not how unkindly we are us’d:
Man, like to cassia, is prov’d best, being bruis’d.

Duchess

Must I, like to slave-born Russian,
Account it praise to suffer tyranny?
And yet, O heaven, thy heavy hand is in’t!
I have seen my little boy oft scourge his top,
And compar’d myself to’t: naught made me e’er
Go right but heaven’s scourge-stick.

Antonio

Do not weep:
Heaven fashion’d us of nothing; and we strive
To bring ourselves to nothing.⁠—Farewell, Cariola,
And thy sweet armful.⁠—If I do never see thee more,
Be a good mother to your little ones,
And save them from the tiger: fare you well.

Duchess

Let me look upon you once more, for that speech
Came from a dying father. Your kiss is colder
Than that I have seen an holy anchorite
Give to a dead man’s skull.

Antonio

My heart is turn’d to a heavy lump of lead,
With which I sound my danger: fare you well.

Exeunt Antonio and his son. Duchess

My laurel is all withered.

Cariola

Look, madam, what a troop of armed men
Make toward us!

Re-enter Bosala visarded, with a Guard. Duchess

O, they are very welcome:
When Fortune’s wheel is over-charg’d with princes,
The weight makes it move swift: I would have my ruin
Be sudden.⁠—I am your adventure, am I not?

Bosola

You are: you must see your husband no more.

Duchess

What devil art thou that counterfeit’st heaven’s thunder?

Bosola

Is that terrible? I would have you tell me whether
Is that note worse that frights the silly birds
Out of the corn, or that which doth allure them
To the nets? You have heark’ned to the last too much.

Duchess

O misery! like to a rusty o’ercharg’d cannon,
Shall I never fly in pieces?⁠—Come, to what prison?

Bosola

To none.

Duchess

Whither, then?

Bosola

To your palace.

Duchess

I have heard
That Charon’s boat serves to convey all o’er
The dismal lake, but brings none back again.

Bosola

Your brothers mean you safety and pity.

Duchess

Pity!
With such a pity men preserve alive
Pheasants and quails, when they are not fat enough
To be eaten.

Bosola

These are your children?

Duchess

Yes.

Bosola

Can they prattle?

Duchess

No:
But I intend, since they were born accurs’d,
Curses shall be their first language.

Bosola

Fie, madam!
Forget this base, low fellow⁠—

Duchess

Were I a man,
I’d beat that counterfeit face86 into thy other.

Bosola

One of no birth.

Duchess

Say that he was born mean,
Man is most happy when’s own actions
Be arguments and examples of his virtue.

Bosola

A barren, beggarly virtue.

Duchess

I prithee, who is greatest? Can you tell?
Sad tales befit my woe: I’ll tell you one.
A salmon, as she swam unto the sea.
Met with a dogfish, who encounters her
With this rough language; “Why art thou so bold
To mix thyself with our high state of floods,
Being no eminent courtier, but one
That for the calmest and fresh time o’ th’ year
Dost live in shallow rivers, rank’st thyself
With silly smelts and shrimps? And darest thou
Pass by our dog-ship without reverence?”
“O,” quoth the salmon, “sister, be at peace:
Thank Jupiter we both have pass’d the net!
Our value never can be truly known,
Till in the fisher’s basket we be shown:
I’ th’ market then my price may be the higher,
Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.”
So to great men the moral may be stretched;
Men oft are valu’d high, when they’re most wretched.⁠—
But come, whither you please. I am arm’d ’gainst misery;
Bent to all sways of the oppressor’s will:
There’s no deep valley but near some great hill.

Exeunt. Act IV Scene I

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

Enter Ferdinand and Bosala. Ferdinand

How doth our sister duchess bear herself
In her imprisonment?

Bosola

Nobly: I’ll describe her.
She’s sad as one long us’d to’t, and she seems
Rather to welcome the end of misery
Than shun it; a behaviour so noble
As gives a majesty to adversity:
You may discern the shape of loveliness
More perfect in her tears than in her smiles:
She will muse for hours together; and her