The Jew of Malta, Christopher Marlowe [ebook voice reader .TXT] 📗

ye shall have straight. Pilia-Borza

Ay, and the rest too, or else⁠—

Barabas

I must make this villain away. Aside.

Please you dine with me, sir;⁠—and you shall be most heartily poisoned. Aside.

Pilia-Borza

No, God-a-mercy. Shall I have these crowns?

Barabas

I cannot do it; I have lost my keys.

Pilia-Borza

O, if that be all, I can pick ope your locks.

Barabas

Or climb up to my counting-house window: you know my meaning.

Pilia-Borza

I know enough, and therefore talk not to me of your counting-house. The gold! or know, Jew, it is in my power to hang thee.

Barabas

I am betrayed.⁠—Aside.
’Tis not five hundred crowns that I esteem,
I am not moved at that: this angers me,
That he, who knows I love him as myself,
Should write in this imperious vein. Why, sir,
You know I have no child, and unto whom
Should I leave all but unto Ithamore?

Pilia-Borza

Here’s many words, but no crowns: the crowns!

Barabas

Commend me to him, sir, most humbly,
And unto your good mistress, as unknown.

Pilia-Borza

Speak, shall I have ’em, sir?

Barabas

Sir, here they are. Gives money.
O, that I should part with so much gold! Aside.
Here, take ’em, fellow, with as good a will⁠—
As I would see thee hanged; Aside. O, love stops my breath:
Never loved man servant as I do Ithamore!

Pilia-Borza

I know it, sir.

Barabas

Pray, when, sir, shall I see you at my house?

Pilia-Borza

Soon enough to your cost, sir. Fare you well.

Exit. Barabas

Nay, to thine own cost, villain, if thou com’st!
Was ever Jew tormented as I am?
To have a shag-rag knave to come, force from me
Three hundred crowns, and then five hundred crowns!
Well, I must seek a means to rid ’em all,
And presently; for in his villany
He will tell all he knows, and I shall die for’t.
I have it:
I will in some disguise go see the slave,
And how the villain revels with my gold.

Exit. Scene VI Enter Bellamira, Ithamore, and Pilia-Borza.86 Bellamira

I’ll pledge thee, love, and therefore drink it off.

Ithamore

Say’st thou me so? have at it; and do you hear? Whispers.

Bellamira

Go to, it shall be so.

Ithamore

Of87 that condition I will drink it up.
Here’s to thee.

Bellamira

Nay, I’ll have all or none.

Ithamore

There, if thou lov’st me, do not leave a drop.

Bellamira

Love thee! fill me three glasses.

Ithamore

Three and fifty dozen, I’ll pledge thee.

Pilia-Borza

Knavely spoke, and like a knight-at-arms.

Ithamore

Hey, Rivo Castiliano!88 a man’s a man.

Bellamira

Now to the Jew.

Ithamore

Ha! to the Jew; and send me money he were best.

Pilia-Borza

What would’st thou do, if he should send thee none?

Ithamore

Do nothing; but I know what I know; he’s a murderer.

Bellamira

I had not thought he had been so brave a man.

Ithamore

You knew Mathias and the governor’s son; he and I killed ’em both, and yet never touched ’em.

Pilia-Borza

O, bravely done.

Ithamore

I carried the broth that poisoned the nuns; and he and I, snickle hand too fast,89 strangled a friar.

Bellamira

You two alone?

Ithamore

We two; and ’twas never known, nor never shall be for me.

Pilia-Borza

This shall with me unto the governor. Aside to Bellamira.

Bellamira

And fit it should: but first let’s ha’ more gold. Aside to Pilia-Borza.
Come, gentle Ithamore, lie in my lap.

Ithamore

Love me little, love me long: let music rumble,
Whilst I in thy incony90 lap do tumble.

Enter Barabas, disguised as a French musician, with a lute, and a nosegay in his hat. Bellamira

A French musician! come, let’s hear your skill.

Barabas

Must tuna my lute for sound, twang, twang, first.

Ithamore

Wilt drink, Frenchman? here’s to thee with a⁠—Pox on this drunken hiccup!

Barabas

Gramercy, monsieur.

Bellamira

Prithee, Pilia-Borza, bid the fiddler give me the posy in his hat there.

Pilia-Borza

Sirrah, you must give my mistress your posy.

Barabas

A votre commandement, madame. Giving nosegay.

Bellamira

How sweet, my Ithamore, the flowers smell!

Ithamore

Like thy breath, sweetheart; no violet like ’em.

Pilia-Borza

Foh! methinks they stink like a hollyhock.

Barabas

So, now I am revenged upon ’em all:
The scent thereof was death; I poisoned it. Aside.

Ithamore

Play, fiddler, or I’ll cut your cat’s guts into chitterlings.

Barabas

Pardonnez moi, be no in tune yet: so, now, now all be in.

Ithamore

Give him a crown, and fill me out more wine.

Pilia-Borza

There’s two crowns for thee; play. Giving money.

Barabas

How liberally the villain gives me mine own gold! Aside, Barabas then plays.

Pilia-Borza

Methinks he fingers very well.

Barabas

So did you when you stole my gold. Aside.

Pilia-Borza

How swift he runs!

Barabas

You run swifter when you threw my gold out of my window. Aside.

Bellamira

Musician, hast been in Malta long?

Barabas

Two, three, four month, madam.

Ithamore

Dost not know a Jew, one Barabas?

Barabas

Very mush: monsieur, you no be his man?

Pilia-Borza

His man?

Ithamore

I scorn the peasant; tell him so.

Barabas

He knows it already. Aside.

Ithamore

’Tis a strange thing of that Jew, he lives upon pickled grasshoppers and sauced mushrooms.

Barabas

What a slave’s this? the governor feeds not as I do. Aside.

Ithamore

He never put on clean shirt since he was circumcised.

Barabas

O rascal! I change myself twice a day. Aside.

Ithamore

The hat he wears, Judas left under the elder91 when he hanged himself.

Barabas

’Twas sent me for a present from the Great Cham. Aside.

Pilia-Borza

A musty slave he is.⁠—Whither now, fiddler?

Barabas

Pardonnez moi, monsieur, me be no well.

Pilia-Borza

Farewell, fiddler!

Exit Barabas.

One letter more to the Jew.

Bellamira

Prithee, sweet love, one more, and write it sharp.

Ithamore

No, I’ll send by word of mouth now⁠—Bid him deliver thee a thousand crowns, by the same token, that the nuns loved rice, that Friar Barnardine slept in his own clothes; any of ’em will do it.

Pilia-Borza

Let me alone to urge it, now I