SCENE II.

_Court of the Palace._

_Enter_ MALEVOLE _and_ PIETRO, _still disguised, at several doors_.

_Mal._ How do you? how dost, duke?

_Pietro._ O, let The last day fall! drop, drop on[506] our curs'd heads! Let heaven unclasp itself, vomit forth flames:

_Mal._ O, do not rave,[507] do not turn player; there's [_Exit._more of them than can well live one by another already. What, art an infidel still?

_Pietro._ I am amazed;[508] struck in a swown with wonder: I am commanded to poison thee--

_Mal._ I am commanded to poison thee at supper--

_Pietro._ At supper--

_Mal._ In the citadel--

_Pietro._ In the citadel. 10

_Mal._ Cross capers! tricks! truth o' heaven! he[509] would discharge us as boys do eldern guns, one pellet to strike out another. Of what faith art now?

_Pietro._ All is damnation; wickedness extreme: There is no faith in man.

_Mal._ In none but usurers and brokers; they deceive no man: men take 'em for blood-suckers, and so they are. Now, God deliver me from my friends!

_Pietro._ Thy friends! 19

_Mal._ Yes, from my friends; for from mine enemies I'll deliver myself. O, cut-throat friendship is the rankest villainy! Mark this Mendoza; mark him for a villain: but heaven will send a plague upon him for a rogue.

_Pietro._ O world!

_Mal._ World! 'tis the only region of death, the greatest shop of the devil; the crudest prison of men, out of the which none pass without paying their dearest breath for a fee; there's nothing perfect in it but extreme, extreme calamity, such as comes yonder.

_Enter_ AURELIA, _two halberts before and two after, supported by_ CELSO _and_ FERRARDO; AURELIA _in base mourning attire_.

_Aur._ To banishment! lead[510] on to banishment! 30

_Pietro._ Lady, the blessedness of repentance to you!

_Aur._ Why, why, I can desire nothing but death, Nor deserve anything but hell. If heaven should give sufficiency of grace To clear my soul, it would make heaven graceless: My sins would make the stock of mercy poor; O, they would tire[511] heaven's goodness to reclaim them! Judgment is just yet[512] from that vast villain; But, sure, he shall not miss sad punishment 'Fore he shall rule.--On to my cell of shame! 40

_Pietro._ My cell 'tis, lady; where, instead of masks, Music, tilts, tourneys, and such court-like shows, The hollow murmur of the checkless winds Shall groan again; whilst the unquiet sea Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery. There usherless[513] the air comes in and out: The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep, Whilst you behold true desolation: A rocky barrenness shall pain[514] your eyes, Where all at once one reaches where he stands, 50 With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.

_Aur._ It is too good.--Bless'd spirit of my lord, O, in what orb soe'er thy soul is thron'd, Behold me worthily most miserable! O, let the anguish of my contrite spirit Entreat some reconciliation! If not, O, joy, triumph in my just grief! Death is the end of woes and tears' relief.

_Pietro._ Belike your lord not lov'd you, was unkind.

_Aur._ O heaven! 60

As the soul loves[515] the body, so lov'd he: 'Twas death to him to part my presence, heaven To see me pleas'd. Yet I, like to a wretch given o'er to hell, Brake all the sacred rites of marriage, To clip a base ungentle faithless villain; O God! a very pagan reprobate-- What should I say? ungrateful, throws me out, For whom I lost soul, body, fame, and honour. But 'tis most fit: why should a better fate 70 Attend on any who forsake chaste sheets; Fly the embrace of a devoted heart, Join'd by a solemn vow 'fore God and man, To taste the brackish flood[516] of beastly lust In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty! Insatiate impudence of appetite! Look, here's your end; for mark, what sap in dust, What good in sin,[517] even so much love in lust. Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord! pardon to me!

_Celso._ 'Tis the duke's pleasure this night you rest in court. 80

_Aur._ Soul, lurk in shades; run, shame, from brightsome skies: In night the blind man misseth not his eyes.

[_Exit with_ CELSO, FERRARDO, _and halberts_.

_Mal._ Do not weep, kind cuckold: take comfort, man; thy betters have been beccos:[518] Agamemnon, emperor of all the merry Greeks, that tickled all the true Trojans, was a cornuto; Prince Arthur, that cut off twelve kings' beards, was a cornuto; Hercules, whose back bore up heaven, and got forty wenches with child in one night,--

_Pietro._ Nay, 'twas fifty. 90

_Mal._ Faith, forty's enow, o' conscience,--yet was a cornuto. Patience; mischief grows proud: be wise.

_Pietro._ Thou pinchest too deep; art too keen upon me.

_Mal._ Tut, a pitiful surgeon makes a dangerous sore: I'll tent thee to the ground. Thinkest I'll sustain myself by flattering thee, because thou art a prince? I had rather follow a drunkard, and live by licking up his vomit, than by servile flattery.

_Pietro._ Yet great men ha' done 't. 100

_Mal._ Great slaves fear better than love, born naturally for a coal-basket;[519] though the common usher of princes' presence, Fortune, ha'[520] blindly given them better place. I am vowed to be thy affliction.

_Pietro._ Prithee, be; I love much misery, and be thou son to me.

_Mal._ Because you are an usurping duke.----

_Enter_ BILIOSO.

Your lordship's well returned from Florence.

_Bil._ Well returned, I praise my horse.

_Mal._ What news from the Florentines?

_Bil._ I will conceal the great duke's pleasure; only this was his charge: his pleasure is, that his daughter die; Duke Pietro be banished for banishing his blood's dishonour; and that Duke Altofront be re-accepted. This is all: but I hear Duke Pietro is dead. 114

_Mal._ Ay, and Mendoza is duke: what will you do?

_Bil._ Is Mendoza strongest?

_Mal._ Yet he is.

_Bil._ Then yet I'll hold with him.

_Mal._ But if that Altofront should turn straight again?

_Bil._ Why, then, I would turn straight again. 120 'Tis good run still with him that has most might: I had rather stand with wrong, than fall with right.

_Mal._[521] What religion will you be of now?

_Bil._ Of the duke's religion,[522] when I know what it is.

_Mal._ O Hercules!

Bil. Hercules! Hercules was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.

_Mal._ Your lordship is a very wit-all.

_Bil._ Wittal!

_Mal._ Ay, all-wit. 130

_Bil._ Amphitryo was a cuckold.

_Mal._ Your lordship sweats; your young lady will get you a cloth for your old worship's brows.

[_Exit_ BILIOSO.

Here's a fellow to be damned: this is his inviolable maxim,--flatter the greatest and oppress the least: a whoreson flesh-fly, that still gnaws upon the lean galled backs.

_Pietro._ Why dost, then, salute him? 138

_Mal._ Faith,[523] as bawds go to church, for fashion' sake. Come, be not confounded; thou'rt but in danger to lose a dukedom. Think this:--this earth is the only grave and Golgotha wherein all things that live must rot; 'tis but the draught wherein the heavenly bodies discharge their corruption; the very muck-hill on which the sublunary orbs cast their excrements: man is the slime of this dung-pit, and princes are the governors of these men; for, for our souls, they are as free as emperors, all of one piece; there[524] goes but a pair of shears betwixt an emperor and the son of a bagpiper; only the dying, dressing, pressing, glossing, makes the difference. Now, what art thou like to lose? 151

A gaoler's office to keep men in bonds, Whilst toil and treason all life's good confounds.

_Pietro._ I here renounce for ever regency: O Altofront, I wrong thee to supplant thy right, To trip thy heels up with a devilish sleight! For which I now from throne am thrown: world-tricks abjure; For vengeance though't[525] comes slow, yet it comes sure. O, I am chang'd! for here, 'fore the dread power, In true contrition, I do dedicate 160 My breath to solitary holiness, My lips to prayer, and my breast's care shall be, Restoring Altofront to regency.

_Mal._ Thy vows are heard, and we accept thy faith.

[_Undisguiseth himself._

_Re-enter_ FERNEZE _and_ CELSO.

Banish amazement: come, we four must stand Full shock of fortune: be not so wonder-stricken.

_Pietro._ Doth Ferneze live?

_Fer._ For your pardon.

_Pietro._ Pardon and love. Give leave to recollect My thoughts dispers'd in wild astonishment. My vows stand fix'd in heaven, and from hence 170 I crave all love and pardon.

_Mal._ Who doubts of providence, That sees this change? a hearty faith to all! He needs must rise who[526] can no lower fall: For still impetuous vicissitude Touseth[527] the world; then let no maze intrude Upon your spirits: wonder not I rise; For who can sink that close can temporise? The time grows ripe for action: I'll detect My privat'st plot, lest ignorance fear suspect. Let's close to counsel, leave the rest to fate: 180 Mature discretion is the life of state.

[_Exeunt._

[506] Ed. 1. "in."

[507] Ed. 2. "rand."

[508] Some copies of ed. 1. "mazde."

[509] Added in ed. 2.

[510] Ed. 1. "led."--Ed. 2. "ledde."

[511] Some copies of ed. 1. "try."

[512] The text is not satisfactory, though the meaning is perfectly plain.--Quy. "Judgment is just, _yea_, _e'en_ from," &c.

[513] "_i.e._ without the ceremony of an usher to give notice of its approach, as is usual in courts. As fine as Shakespeare: 'the bleak air thy boisterous chamberlain.'"--_Charles Lamb._

[514] Ed. 2. "pierce."

[515] Old eds. "lou'd."

[516] Old eds. "bloud."

[517] Old eds. "What sinne in good," &c.

[518] Cuckolds.

[519] _To carry coals_ was esteemed the vilest employment to which a man could be put.

[520] Ed. 2. "hath."

[521] "What [ed. 1. _Of what_] religion ... cuckold" (ll. 123-137).--This passage is not found in some copies of ed. 1.

[522] Cf. Day's _Isle of Gulls_, iii. 1:-- "_Lys._ Thou speak'st like a Christian: prethee what religion art of? _Man._ How many soever I make use of, I'll answer with Piavano Orlotto the Italian, I profess the Duke's only. _Demet._ What's his reason for that? _Man._ A very sound reason: for, says he, I came raw into the world and I would not willingly go roasted out."

[523] Ed. 2. "Yfaith."

[524] "There goes but a pair of shears betwixt"--_i.e._, they are cut out of the same piece. An old proverbial expression.

[525] Ed. 1. "that."

[526] Omitted in ed. 2.

[527] Ed. 1. "Looseth"