SCENE I.--_An Apartment in the Palace of the_ DUCHESS.

_Enter_ BOSOLA _and_ CASTRUCCIO.

_Bos._ You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?

_Cast._ 'Tis the very main of my ambition.

_Bos._ Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for't already, and your night-cap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace, and in a set speech, at the end of every sentence, to hum three or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.

_Cast._ I would be a very merry president.

_Bos._ Do not sup o' nights; 'twill beget you an admirable wit.

_Cast._ Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel; for they say, your roaring boys[113] eat meat seldom, and that makes them so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for an eminent fellow?

_Bos._ I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying, and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken for one of the prime night-caps.[114]

_Enter an_ Old Lady.

You come from painting now.

_Old Lady._ From what?

_Bos._ Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not painted inclines somewhat near a miracle; these in thy face here were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress.[115] There was a lady in France that, having had the small-pox, flayed the skin off her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedgehog.

_Old Lady._ Do you call this painting?

_Bos._ No, no, but you call it careening of an old morphewed[116] lady, to make her disembogue again: there's rough-cast phrase to your plastic.

_Old Lady._ It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.

_Bos._ One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews' spittle, and their young children's ordure; and all these for the face. I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. Here are two of you, whose sin of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew his foot-cloth[117] with the spring, and change his high-priced courtezan with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. Observe my meditation now. What thing is in this outward form of man To be beloved? We account it ominous, If nature do produce a colt, or lamb, A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling A man, and fly from't as a prodigy: Man stands amazed to see his deformity In any other creature but himself. But in our own flesh, though we bear diseases Which have their true names only ta'en from beasts,-- As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle,-- Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear, Nay, all our terror, is lest our physician Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.-- Your wife's gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot. [_Exeunt_ CASTRUCCIO _and_ Old Lady. I observe our duchess Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes, The fins of her eye-lids looks most teeming blue, She wanes i' the cheek, and waxes fat i' the flank, And, contrary to our Italian fashion, Wears a loose-bodied gown: there's somewhat in't. I have a trick may chance discover it, A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks, The first our spring yields.

_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ DELIO.

_Delio._ And so long since married! You amaze me.

_Ant._ Let me seal your lips for ever: For, did I think that any thing but the air Could carry these words from you, I should wish You had no breath at all.--Now, sir, in your contemplation? You are studying to become a great wise fellow.

_Bos._ O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tether that runs all over a man's body: if simplicity direct us to have no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.

_Ant._ I do understand your inside.

_Bos._ Do you so?

_Ant._ Because you would not seem to appear to the world Puffed up with your preferment, you continue This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.

_Bos._ Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer's mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and business; for, mark me, when a man's mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both tire.

_Ant._ You would look up to Heaven, but I think The devil, that rules i' the air, stands in your light.

_Bos._ O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant, chief man with the duchess; a duke was your cousin-german removed. Say you are lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this? search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons: they are deceived, there's the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar to go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province, and batter down goodly cities with the cannon.

_Enter_ DUCHESS _and_ Ladies.

_Duch._ Your arm, Antonio: do I not grow fat? I am exceeding short-winded.--Bosola, I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter; Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.

_Bos._ The duchess used one when she was great with child.

_Duch._ I think she did.--Come hither, mend my ruff; Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and Thy breath smells of lemon-pills; would thou hadst done! Shall I swoon under thy fingers! I am So troubled with the mother![118]

_Bos._ [_Aside._] I fear too much.

_Duch._ I have heard you say that the French courtiers Wear their hats on 'fore the king.

_Ant._ I have seen it.

_Duch._ In the presence?

_Ant._ Yes.

_Duch._ Why should not we bring up that fashion? 'Tis ceremony more than duty that consists In the removing of a piece of felt: Be you the example to the rest o' the court; Put on your hat first.

_Ant._ You must pardon me: I have seen, in colder countries than in France, Nobles stand bare to the prince; and the distinction Methought showed reverently.

_Bos._ I have a present for your grace.

_Duch._ For me, sir?

_Bos._ Apricocks, madam.

_Duch._ O, sir, where are they? I have heard of none to-year.

_Bos._ [_Aside._] Good; her colour rises.

_Duch._ Indeed, I thank you: they are wondrous fair ones. What an unskilful fellow is our gardener! We shall have none this month.

_Bos._ Will not your grace pare them?

_Duch._ No: they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.

_Bos._ I know not: yet I wish your grace had pared 'em.

_Duch._ Why?

_Bos._ I forgot to tell you, the knave gardener, Only to raise his profit by them the sooner, Did ripen them in horse-dung.

_Duch._ O, you jest-- You shall judge: pray taste one.

_Ant._ Indeed, madam, I do not love the fruit.

_Duch._ Sir, you are loth To rob us of our dainties: 'tis a delicate fruit; They say they are restorative.

_Bos._ 'Tis a pretty art, This grafting.

_Duch._ 'Tis so; bettering of nature.

_Bos._ To make a pippin grow upon a crab, A damson on a blackthorn.--[_Aside._] How greedily she eats them! A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales! For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown, I should have discovered apparently The young springal[119] cutting a caper in her belly.

_Duch._ I thank you, Bosola: they are right good ones, If they do not make me sick.

_Ant._ How now, madam!

_Duch._ This green fruit and my stomach are not friends: How they swell me!

_Bos._ [_Aside._] Nay, you are too much swelled already.

_Duch._ O, I am in an extreme cold sweat!

_Bos._ I am very sorry.

_Duch._ Lights to my chamber!--O good Antonio, I fear I am undone!

_Delio._ Lights there, lights! [_Exeunt_ DUCHESS _and_ Ladies.--_Exit, on the other side_, BOSOLA.]

_Ant._ O my most trusty Delio, we are lost! I fear she's fall'n in labour; and there's left No time for her remove.

_Delio._ Have you prepared Those ladies to attend her? and procured That politic safe conveyance for the midwife Your duchess plotted?

_Ant._ I have.

_Delio._ Make use, then, of this forced occasion: Give out that Bosola hath poisoned her With these apricocks; that will give some colour For her keeping close.

_Ant._ Fie, fie, the physicians Will then flock to her.

_Delio._ For that you may pretend She'll use some prepared antidote of her own, Lest the physicians should re-poison her.

_Ant._ I am lost in amazement: I know not what to think on't. [_Exeunt._