SCENE VII.[2672

_Enter_ PIETRO, _his sword drawn_.

_Pietro._ A mischief fill thy throat, thou foul-jaw’d slave! Say thy prayers.

_Men._ I ha’ forgot ’em.

_Pietro._ Thou shalt die.

_Men._ So shalt thou. I am heart-mad.

_Pietro._ I am horn-mad.

_Men._ Extreme mad.

_Pietro._ Monstrously mad.

_Men._ Why?

_Pietro._ Why! thou, thou hast dishonoured my bed. 5

_Men._ I! Come, come, sit; here ’s my bare heart to thee, As steady as is the[2673] centre to this[2674] glorious world: And yet, hark, thou art a cornuto,—but by me?

_Pietro._ Yes, slave, by thee.

_Men._ Do not, do not with tart and spleenful breath 10 Lose him can lose thee. I offend my duke! Bear record, O ye dumb and raw-air’d nights, How vigilant my sleepless eyes have been To watch the traitor! Record, thou spirit of truth, With what debasement I ha’ thrown myself 15 To under offices, only to learn The truth, the party, time, the means, the place, By whom, and when, and where thou wert disgrac’d! And am I paid with “slave”? Hath my intrusion To places private and prohibited, 20 Only to observe the closer passages, Heaven knows with vows of revelation, Made me suspected, made me deem’d a villain? What rogue hath wrong’d us?

_Pietro._ Mendoza, I may err.

_Men._ Err! ’t is too mild a name: but err and err, 25 Run giddy with suspect, ’fore through me thou know That which most creatures, save thyself, do know: Nay, since my service hath so loath’d reject, ’Fore I ’ll reveal, shalt find them clipt[2675] together. 29

_Pietro._ Mendoza, thou know’st I am a most plain-breasted man.

_Men._ The fitter to make a cuckold: would your brows were most plain too!

_Pietro._ Tell me: indeed, I heard thee rail—

_Men._ At women, true: why, what cold phlegm could choose, 35 Knowing a lord so honest, virtuous, So boundless loving, bounteous, fair-shap’d, sweet, To be contemn’d, abus’d, defam’d, made cuckold? Heart! I hate all women for ’t: sweet sheets, (39) wax lights, antique bedposts, cambric smocks, villanous curtains, arras pictures, oil’d hinges, and all ye tongue-tied lascivious witnesses of great creatures’ wantonness,—what salvation can you expect?

_Pietro._ Wilt thou tell me? 45

_Men._ Why, you may find it yourself; observe, observe.

_Pietro._ I ha’ not the patience. Wilt thou deserve me, tell, give it.

_Men._ Take ’t. why, Ferneze is the man, (50) Ferneze: I’ll prove ’t; this night you shall take him in your sheets. Will ’t serve?

_Pietro._ It will; my bosom ’s in some peace: till night—

_Men._ What?

_Pietro._ Farewell.

_Men._ God! how weak a lord are you! Why, do you think there is no more but so? 55

_Pietro._ Why!

_Men._ Nay, then, will I presume to counsel you: It should be thus. You with some guard upon the sudden Break into the princess’ chamber: I stay behind, Without the door, through which he needs must pass: 60 Ferneze flies; let him: to me he comes; he’s kill’d By me, observe, by me: you follow: I rail, And seem to save the body. Duchess comes, On whom (respecting her advanced birth, 64 And your fair nature), I know, nay, I do know, No violence must be us’d; she comes: I storm, I praise, excuse Ferneze, and still maintain The duchess’ honour; she for this loves me. I honour you; shall know her soul, you mine: Then naught shall she contrive in vengeance 70 (As women are most thoughtful in revenge) Of her Ferneze, but you shall sooner know ’t Than she can think ’t. Thus shall his death come sure, Your duchess brain-caught: so your life secure.

_Pietro._ It is too well: my bosom and my heart 75 When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part. _Exit._

_Men._ Who cannot feign friendship can ne’er produce the effects of hatred. Honest fool duke! subtle lascivious duchess! silly novice Ferneze! I do laugh at ye. My brain is in labour till it (80) produce mischief, and I feel sudden throes, proofs sensible, the issue is at hand. As bears shape young, so I’ll form my device, Which grown proves horrid: vengeance makes men wise. [_Exit._]

[SCENE VIII.][2676]

[_Enter_ MALEVOLE _and_ PASSARELLO.

_Mal._ Fool, most happily encount’red: canst sing, fool?

_Pass._ Yes, I can sing, fool, if you’ll hear the burden; and I can play upon instruments, scurvily, as gentlemen do. O, that I had been (5) gelded! I should then have been a fat fool for a chamber, a squeaking fool for a tavern, and a private fool for all the ladies.

_Mal._ You are in good case since you came to court, fool: what, guarded,[2677] guarded! 10

_Pass._ Yes, faith, even as footmen and bawds wear velvet, not for an ornament of honour, but for a badge of drudgery; for, now the duke is discontented, I am fain to fool him asleep every night. 15

_Mal._ What are his griefs?

_Pass._ He hath sore eyes.

_Mal._ I never observed so much.

_Pass._ Horrible sore eyes; and so hath every cuckold, for the roots of the horns spring in (20) the eyeballs, and that ’s the reason the horn of a cuckold is as tender as his eye, or as that growing in the woman’s forehead, twelve years since, that could not endure to be toucht.[2678] The duke hangs down his head like a columbine. 25

_Mal._ Passarello, why do great men beg fools?[2679]

_Pass._ As the Welshman stole rushes when there was nothing else to filch; only to keep begging in fashion. 30

_Mal._ Pooh, thou givest no good reason; thou speakest like a fool.

_Pass._ Faith, I utter small fragments, as your knight courts your city widow with jingling of his gilt spurs,[2680] advancing his bush-coloured (35) beard, and taking tobacco: this is all the mirror of their knightly complements.[2681] Nay, I shall talk when my tongue is a-going once; ’t is like a citizen on horseback, evermore in a false gallop. 40

_Mal._ And how doth Maquerelle fare nowadays?

_Pass._ Faith, I was wont to salute her as our English women are at their first landing in Flushing;[2682] I would call her whore: but now (45) that antiquity leaves her as an old piece of plastic to work by, I only ask her how her rotten teeth fare every morning, and so leave her. She was the first that ever invented perfum’d smocks for the gentlewomen, and (50) woollen shoes, for fear of creaking for the visitant. She were an excellent lady, but that her face peeleth like Muscovy glass.[2683]

_Mal._ And how doth thy old lord, that hath wit enough to be a flatterer, and conscience enough to be a knave? 55

_Pass._ O, excellent: he keeps beside me fifteen jesters, to instruct him in the art of fooling, and utters their jests in private to the duke and duchess. He’ll lie like to your Switzer or (60) lawyer; he’ll be of any side for most money.

_Mal._ I am in haste, be brief.

_Pass._ As your fiddler when he is paid.—He ’ll thrive, I warrant you, while your young (64) courtier stands like Good Friday in Lent; men long to see it, because more fatting days come after it; else he’s the leanest and pitifullest actor in the whole pageant. Adieu, Malevole.

_Mal._ O world most vile, when thy loose vanities, 69 Taught by this fool, do make the fool seem wise!

_Pass._ You’ll know me again, Malevole.

_Mal._ O, ay, by that velvet.

_Pass._ Ay, as a pettifogger by his buckram bag. I am as common in the court as an hostess’s (74) lips in the country; knights, and clowns, and knaves, and all share me; the court cannot possibly be without me. Adieu, Malevole. [_Exeunt._]