SCENE I.

_Palace of the Duke of Genoa._

_The vilest out-of-tune music being heard, enter_ BILIOSO _and_ PREPASSO.

_Bil._ Why, how now! are ye mad, or drunk, or both, or what?

_Pre._ Are ye building Babylon there?

_Bil._ Here's a noise in court! you think you are in a tavern, do you not?

_Pre._ You think you are in a brothel-house, do you not?--This room is ill-scented.

_Enter One with a perfume._

So, perfume, perfume; some upon me, I pray thee.-- The duke is upon instant entrance: so, make place there!

_Enter_ PIETRO, FERRARDO, EQUATO; CELSO _and_ GUERRINO _before_.

_Pietro._ Where breathes that music? 10

_Bil._ The discord rather than the music is heard from the malcontent Malevole's chamber.

_Fer._ [_calling_] Malevole!

_Mal._ [_above, out of his chamber_] Yaugh, god-a-man, what dost thou there? Duke's Ganymede, Juno's jealous of thy long stockings: shadow of a woman, what wouldst, weasel? thou lamb o'court, what dost thou bleat for? ah, you smooth-chinned catamite!

_Pietro._ Come down, thou rugged[350] cur, and snarl here; I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty: trot about and bespurtle whom thou pleasest. 21

_Mal._ I'll come among you, you goatish-blooded toderers,[351] as gum into taffata, to fret, to fret: I'll fall like a sponge into water, to suck up, to suck up. [_Howls again._[352]] I'll go to church,[353] and come to you.

[_Exit above._

_Pietro._ This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer when he was thrust out of the presence. His appetite is unsatiable as the grave; as far from any content as from heaven: his highest delight is to procure others' vexation, and therein he thinks he truly serves heaven; for 'tis his position, whosoever in this earth can be contented is a slave and damned; therefore does he afflict all in that to which they are most affected. The elements struggle within him; his own soul is at variance within herself;[354] his speech is halter-worthy at all hours. I like him, faith: he gives good intelligence to my spirit, makes me understand those weaknesses which others' flattery palliates.--Hark! they sing. [_A song._] See, he comes. Now shall you hear the extremity of a malcontent: he is as free as air; he blows over every man. 42

_Enter_ MALEVOLE _below_.

And, sir, whence come you now?

_Mal._ From the public place of much dissimulation, the church.[355]

_Pietro._ What didst there?

_Mal._ Talk with a usurer; take up at interest.

_Pietro._ I wonder what religion thou art of?[356]

_Mal._ Of a soldier's religion.

_Pietro._ And what dost thou[357] think makes most infidels now? 51

_Mal._ Sects, sects. I have seen seeming piety change her robe so oft, that sure none but some arch-devil can shape her a new[358] petticoat.

_Pietro._ O, a religious policy.

_Mal._ But, damnation on a politic religion! I am weary: would I were one of the duke's hounds now![359]

_Pietro._ But what's the common news abroad, Malevole? thou doggest rumour still. 59

_Mal._ Common news! why, common words are, God save ye, Fare ye well; common actions, flattery and cozenage; common things, women and cuckolds.--And how does my little Ferrard? Ah, ye lecherous animal!--my little ferret, he goes sucking up and down the palace into every hen's nest, like a weasel:--and to what dost thou addict thy time to now more than to those antique painted drabs that are still effected of young courtiers,--flattery, pride, and venery?

_Fer._ I study languages. Who dost think to be the best linguist of our age? 70

_Mal._ Phew! the devil: let him possess thee; he'll teach thee to speak all languages most readily and strangely;[360] and great reason, marry, he's travelled greatly i' the world, and is everywhere.

_Fer._ Save i' the court.

_Mal._ Ay, save i' the court.--[_To_ BILIOSO.] And how does my old muckhill, overspread with fresh snow? thou half a man, half a goat, all a beast! how does thy young wife, old huddle?[361]

_Bil._ Out, you improvident rascal! 80

_Mal._ Do, kick, thou hugely-horned old duke's ox, good Master Make-pleas.

_Pietro._ How dost thou live nowadays, Malevole?

_Mal._ Why, like the knight Sir Patrick Penlohans,[362] with killing o' spiders for my lady's monkey.[363]

_Pietro._ How dost spend the night? I hear thou never sleepest.

_Mal._ O, no; but dream the most fantastical! O heaven! O fubbery, fubbery!

_Pietro._ Dream! what dreamest? 90

_Mal._ Why, methinks I see that signior pawn his footcloth,[364] that metreza[365] her plate: this madam takes physic, that t'other monsieur may minister to her: here is a pander jewelled; there is[366] a fellow in shift of satin this day, that could not shift a shirt t'other night: here a Paris supports that Helen; there's a Lady Guinever bears up that Sir Lancelot: dreams, dreams, visions, fantasies, chimeras, imaginations, tricks, conceits!--[_To_ PREPASSO.] Sir Tristram Trimtram, come aloft,[367] Jack-an-apes, with a whim-wham: here's a knight of the land of Catito shall play at trap with any page in Europe; do the sword-dance with any morris-dancer in Christendom; ride at the ring[368] till the fin[369] of his eyes look as blue as the welkin; and run the wildgoose-chase even with Pompey the Huge.[370] 105

_Pietro._ You run!

_Mal._ To the devil.--Now, signior Guerrino, that thou from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loathed flatterer!--Alas, poor Celso, thy star's oppressed: thou art an honest lord: 'tis pity. 110

_Equato._ Is't pity?

_Mal._ Ay, marry is't, philosophical Equato; and 'tis pity that thou, being so excellent a scholar by art, should be so ridiculous a fool by nature.--I have a thing to tell you, duke: bid 'em avaunt, bid 'em avaunt.

_Pietro._ Leave us, leave us.

[_Exeunt all except_ PIETRO _and_ MALEVOLE.

Now, sir, what is't?

_Mal._ Duke, thou art a becco,[371] a cornuto.

_Pietro._ How!

_Mal._ Thou art a cuckold. 120

_Pietro._ Speak, unshale[372] him quick.

_Mal._ With most tumbler-like nimbleness.

_Pietro._ Who? by whom? I burst with desire.

_Mal._ Mendoza is the man makes thee a horned beast; duke, 'tis Mendoza cornutes thee.

_Pietro._ What conformance? relate; short, short.

_Mal._ As a lawyer's beard. There is an old crone in the court, her name is Maquerelle, She is my mistress, sooth to say, and she doth ever tell me. Blirt o' rhyme, blirt o' rhyme! Maquerelle is a cunning bawd; I am an honest villain; thy wife is a close drab; and thou art a notorious cuckold. Farewell, duke. 132

_Pietro._ Stay, stay.

_Mal._ Dull, dull duke, can lazy patience make lame revenge? O God, for a woman to make a man that which God never created, never made!

_Pietro._ What did God never make?

_Mal._ A cuckold: to be made a thing that's hoodwinked with kindness, whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a coxcomb with egregious horns pinned to a lord's back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it: pistols and poniards! pistols and poniards! 143

_Pietro._ Death and damnation!

_Mal._ Lightning and thunder!

_Pietro._ Vengeance and torture!

_Mal._ Catso![373]

_Pietro._ O, revenge!

_Mal._[374] Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs A lady far inferior to the most, In fair proportion both of limb and soul; To take her from austerer check of parents, To make her his by most devoutful rites, 150 Make her commandress of a better essence Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man; To hug her with as rais'd an appetite As usurers do their delv'd-up treasury (Thinking none tells it but his private self); To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss, Distilling panting ardour to her heart; True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood, To give her height of hymeneal sweets,----

_Pietro._ O God! 160

_Mal._ Whilst she lisps, and gives him some court-_quelquechose_,[375] Made only to provoke, not satiate: And yet even then the thaw of her delight Flows from lewd heat of apprehension, Only from strange imagination's rankness, That forms the adulterer's presence in her soul, And makes her think she clips the foul knave's loins.

_Pietro._ Affliction to my blood's root!

_Mal._ Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this; Adultery is often the mother of incest. 170

_Pietro._ Incest!

_Mal._ Yes, incest: mark:--Mendoza of his wife begets perchance a daughter: Mendoza dies; his son marries this daughter: say you? nay, 'tis frequent, not only probable, but no question often acted, whilst ignorance, fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed.

_Pietro._ Hideous imagination!

_Mal._ Adultery? why, next to the sin of simony, 'tis the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation. 180

_Pietro._ Next to simony!

_Mal._ Ay, next to simony, in which our men in next age shall not sin.

_Pietro._ Not sin! why?

_Mal._ Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery, O dulness! should show[376] exemplary punishment, that intemperate bloods may freeze but to think it. I would damn him and all his generation: my own hands should do it; ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance: --anything. 191

_Pietro._ Anything, anything, Malevole: thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds. Farewell; remember I forget thee not; farewell.

[_Exit_ PIETRO.

_Mal._[377] Farewell. Lean thoughtfulness, a sallow meditation, Suck thy veins dry, distemperance rob thy sleep! The heart's disquiet is revenge most deep: He that gets blood, the life of flesh but spills, But he that breaks heart's peace, the dear soul kills. 200 Well, this disguise doth yet afford me that Which kings do seldom hear, or great men use,-- Free speech: and though my state's usurp'd, Yet this affected strain gives me a tongue As fetterless as in an emperor's. I may speak foolishly, ay, knavishly, Always carelessly, yet no one thinks it fashion To poise my breath; for he that laughs and strikes Is lightly felt, or seldom struck again. Duke, I'll torment thee now; my just revenge 210 From thee than crown a richer gem shall part: Beneath God, naught's so dear as a calm heart.

_Re-enter_ CELSO.

_Celso._ My honour'd lord,--

_Mal._ Peace, speak low, peace! O Celso, constant lord, (Thou to whose faith I only rest discover'd, Thou, one of full ten millions of men, That lovest virtue only for itself; Thou in whose hands old Ops may put her soul) Behold forever-banish'd Altofront, This Genoa's last year's duke. O truly noble! 220 I wanted those old instruments of state, Dissemblance and suspect: I could not time it, Celso; My throne stood like a point midst[378] of a circle, To all of equal nearness; bore with none; Rein'd all alike; so slept in fearless virtue, Suspectless, too suspectless; till the crowd, (Still lickorous of untried novelties) Impatient with severer government Made strong with Florence, banish'd Altofront.

_Celso._ Strong with Florence! ay, thence your mischief rose; 230 For when the daughter of the Florentine Was match'd once with this Pietro, now duke, No stratagem of state untried was left, Till you of all----

_Mal._ Of all was quite bereft: Alas, Maria too close prisonèd, My true-faith'd duchess, i' the citadel!

_Celso._ I'll still adhere: let's mutiny and die.

_Mal._ O, no,[379] climb not a falling tower, Celso; 'Tis well held desperation, no zeal, Hopeless to strive with fate: peace; temporise. 240 Hope, hope, that ne'er forsak'st the wretched'st man, Yet bidd'st me live, and lurk in this disguise! What, play I well the free-breath'd discontent? Why, man, we are all philosophical monarchs Or natural fools. Celso, the court's a-fire; The duchess' sheets will smoke for't ere't be long: Impure Mendoza, that sharp-nos'd lord, that made The cursèd match link'd Genoa with Florence, Now broad-horns the duke, which he now knows. Discord to malcontents is very manna: 250 When the ranks are burst, then scuffle, Altofront.

_Celso._ Ay, but durst----

_Mal._ 'Tis gone; 'tis swallow'd like a mineral: Some way 'twill work; pheut, I'll not shrink: He's resolute who can no lower sink.

BILIOSO _re-entering_, MALEVOLE _shifteth his speech_.

O[380] the father of May-poles! did you never see a fellow whose strength consisted in his breath, respect in his office, religion in[381] his lord, and love in himself? why, then, behold.

_Bil._ Signior,-- 260

_Mal._ My right worshipful lord, your court night-cap makes you have a passing high forehead.

_Bil._ I can tell you strange news, but I am sure you know them already: the duke speaks much good of you.

_Mal._ Go to, then: and shall you and I now enter into a strict friendship?

_Bil._ Second one another?

_Mal._ Yes.

_Bil._ Do one another good offices?

_Mal._ Just: what though I called thee old ox, egregious wittol, broken-bellied coward, rotten mummy? yet, since I am in favour---- 272

_Bil._ Words of course, terms of disport. His grace presents you by me a chain, as his grateful remembrance for--I am ignorant for what; marry, ye may impart: yet howsoever--come--dear friend; dost know my son?

_Mal._ Your son!

_Bil._ He shall eat wood-cocks, dance jigs, make possets, and play at shuttle-cock with any young lord about the court: he has as sweet a lady too; dost know her little bitch? 281

_Mal._ 'Tis a dog, man.

_Bil._ Believe me, a she-bitch: O, 'tis a good creature! thou shalt be her servant. I'll make thee acquainted with nothing. 'Tis grown to supper-time; come to my table: that, anything I have, stands open to thee.

_Mal._ [_aside to_ CELSO] How smooth to him that is in state of grace, How servile is the rugged'st courtier's face! What profit, nay, what nature would keep down, 290 Are heav'd to them are minions to a crown. Envious ambition never sates his thirst, Till sucking all, he swells and swells, and burst.[382]

_Bil._ I shall now leave you with my always-best wishes; only let's hold betwixt us a firm correspondence, a mutual friendly-reciprocal kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued----

_Mal._ Did your signiorship ne'er see a pigeon-house that was smooth, round, and white without, and full of holes and stink within? ha' ye not, old courtier? 300

_Bil._ O, yes, 'tis the form, the fashion of them all.

_Mal._ Adieu, my true court-friend; farewell, my dear Castilio.[383]

[_Exit_ BILIOSO.

_Celso._ Yonder's Mendoza.

_Mal._ True, the privy-key.

[_Descries_ MENDOZA.

_Celso._ I take my leave, sweet lord.

_Mal._ 'Tis fit; away!

[_Exit_ CELSO.

_Enter_ MENDOZA _with three or four Suitors_.

_Men._ Leave your suits with me; I can and will: attend my secretary; leave me.

[_Exeunt Suitors._

_Mal._ Mendoza, hark ye, hark ye. You are a treacherous villain: God b' wi' ye!

_Men._ Out, you base-born rascal! 310

_Mal._ We are all the sons of heaven, though a tripe-wife were our mother: ah, you whoreson, hot-reined he-marmoset! Ægisthus! didst ever hear of one Ægisthus?

_Men._ Gisthus?

_Mal._ Ay, Ægisthus: he was a filthy incontinent fleshmonger, such a one as thou art.

_Men._ Out, grumbling rogue!

_Mal._ Orestes, beware Orestes!

_Men._ Out, beggar!

_Mal._ I once shall rise. 320

_Men._ Thou rise!

_Mal._ Ay, at the resurrection. No vulgar seed but once may rise and shall; No king so huge but 'fore he die may fall.

[_Exit._

_Men._ Now, good Elysium! what a delicious heaven is it for a man to be in a prince's favour! O sweet God! O pleasure! O fortune! O all thou best of life! what should I think, what say, what do to be a favourite, a minion? to have a general timorous respect observe a man, a stateful silence in his presence, solitariness in his absence, a confused hum and busy murmur of obsequious suitors training him; the cloth held up, and way proclaimed before him; petitionary vassals licking the pavement with their slavish knees, whilst some odd palace-lampreels that engender with snakes, and are full of eyes on both sides, with a kind of insinuated[384] humbleness, fix all their delights[385] upon his brow. O blessed state! what a ravishing prospect doth the Olympus of favour yield! Death, I cornute the duke! Sweet women! most sweet ladies! nay, angels! by heaven, he is more accursed than a devil that hates you, or is hated by you; and happier than a god that loves you, or is beloved by you: you preservers of mankind, life-blood of society, who would live, nay, who can live without you? O paradise! how majestical is your austerer presence! how imperiously chaste is your more modest face! but, O, how full of ravishing attraction is your pretty, petulant, languishing, lasciviously-composed countenance! these amorous smiles, those soul-warming sparkling glances, ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless Phaeton! in body how delicate,[386] in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant, in life how wary, in favours how judicious, in day how sociable, and in night how---- O pleasure unutterable! indeed, it is most certain, one man cannot deserve only to enjoy a beauteous woman: but a duchess! in despite of Phoebus, I'll write a sonnet instantly in praise of her. 357

[_Exit._

[349] In the margin of old eds., opposite the title, is printed "_Vexat censura columbas_." (Juvenal, _Sat._ ii. 63.)

[350] So ed. 1.--Ed. 2. "ragged."

[351] "I suppose this is a word coined from _tod_, a certain weight of sheep's wool. He seems willing to intimate that the duke, &c., are _mutton_-mongers. The meaning of _laced mutton_ is well known."--_Steevens._--Not at all satisfactory.

[352] Old eds. "Howle againe"--printed as part of the text.

[353] So ed. 2.--Ed. 1. "pray."

[354] "Within herself"--added in ed. 2.

[355] "The church"--added in ed. 2.

[356] "Of"--added in ed. 2.

[357] Omitted in ed. 2.

[358] Omitted in ed. 2.

[359] "I am weary ... now"--added in ed. 2.

[360] There is an allusion to the old superstition (which Ben Jonson has amusingly illustrated in _The Devil is an Ass_, v. 5), that a person possessed by the devil was able to converse in various tongues.

[361] A term of contempt for a sordid old man.--Cf. _The Widow_, ii. 2:--"Hear you me that, _old huddle_" (Middleton, v. 165).

[362] Ed. 2. "Penlolians."

[363] "_Monkeys_, apes, stellions, lizards, wasps, ichneumons, swallows, sparrows, muskins, hedge-sparrows _feed on spiders_," says Dr. Muffet in one of his delightful chapters on spiders in _The Theater of Insects_ (Topsel's _Nat. Hist._, ed. 1658, p. 1073).

[364] The housings of a horse.

[365] Mistress (_Ital._).

[366] Added in ed. 2.

[367] The cry of the ape-ward when the ape was to climb the pole and display his feats of agility.

[368] The sport of Running at the Ring, in which the tilter tried to drive the point of his spear through a suspended ring.

[369] This word is used in the _Duchess of Malfi_, ii. 1:--"The _fins_ of her eyelids look most teeming blue!"

[370] "Greater than Great, great, great, great Pompey! _Pompey the Huge!_"--_Love's Labour Lost_, v. 2.

[371] Cuckold (_Ital._).

[372] Unshell.

[373] Obscene exclamation (from the Italian).

[374] "Nay, to select ... freeze but to think it" (ll. 146-188).--This passage was added in ed. 2.

[375] See Skeat's _Etym. Dict. s._ KICKSHAWS.

[376] For "should show" old ed. gives "shue should."

[377] This speech was added in ed. 2.

[378] Ed. 2. "in middest."

[379] Added in ed. 2.

[380] "O the father ... my dear Castilio" (ll. 256-303).--This passage was added in ed. 2.

[381] Old ed. "on."

[382] Old ed. "burstes."

[383] An allusion to Baldessar Castiglione, author of the famous book of manners, _Il Cortese_, which was translated into English (in 1561) by Sir Thomas Hoby.

[384] Ed. 1. "insinuating."

[385] Ed. 1. "lights."

[386] "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"--_Hamlet_, act ii. sc. 2.