SCENE III.--_Hall of State in the Palace.

_In a dumb show, the possessing_[233] _of the_ YOUNG DUKE _with all his_ Nobles; _sounding music. A furnished table is brought forth; then enter the_ DUKE _and his_ Nobles _to the banquet. A blazing star appeareth._

_1st Noble._ Many harmonious hours and choicest pleasures Fill up the royal number of your years!

_Lus._ My lords, we're pleased to thank you, though we know 'Tis but your duty now to wish it so.

_1st Noble._ That shine makes us all happy.

_3rd Noble._ His grace frowns.

_2nd Noble._ Yet we must say he smiles.

_1st Noble._ I think we must.

_Lus._ That foul incontinent duchess we have banished; The bastard shall not live. After these revels, I'll begin strange ones: he and the step-sons Shall pay their lives for the first subsidies; We must not frown so soon, else't had been now. [_Aside._

_1st Noble._ My gracious lord, please you prepare for pleasure. The masque is not far off.

_Lus._ We are for pleasure. Beshrew thee, what art thou? thou mad'st me start! Thou has committed treason. A blazing star!

_1st Noble._ A blazing star! O, where, my lord?

_Lus._ Spy out.

_2nd Noble._ See, see, my lords, a wondrous dreadful one!

_Lus._ I am not pleased at that ill-knotted fire, That bushing, staring star. Am I not duke? It should not quake me now. Had it appeared Before, it I might then have justly feared; But yet they say, whom art and learning weds, When stars wear locks, they threaten great men's heads: Is it so? you are read, my lords.

_1st Noble._ May it please your grace, It shows great anger.

_Lus._ That does not please our grace.

_2nd Noble._ Yet here's the comfort, my lord: many times, When it seems most near, it threatens farthest off.

_Lus._ Faith, and I think so too.

_1st Noble._ Beside, my lord, You're gracefully established with the loves Of all your subjects; and for natural death, I hope it will be threescore years a-coming.

_Lus._ True? no more but threescore years?

_1st Noble._ Fourscore, I hope, my lord.

_2nd Noble._ And fivescore, I.

_3rd Noble._ But 'tis my hope, my lord, you shall ne'er die.

_Lus._ Give me thy hand; these others I rebuke: He that hopes so is fittest for a duke: Thou shalt sit next me; take your places, lords; We're ready now for sports; let 'em set on: You thing! we shall forget you quite anon!

_3rd Noble._ I hear 'em coming, my lord.

_Enter the Masque of revengers:_ VENDICE _and_ HIPPOLITO, _with two_ Lords.

_Lus._ Ah, 'tis well! Brothers and bastard, you dance next in hell! [_Aside._

[_They dance; at the end they steal out their swords, and kill the four seated at the table. Thunder._

_Ven._ Mark, thunder! Dost know thy cue, thou big-voiced crier? Dukes' groans are thunder's watchwords.

_Hip._ So, my lords, you have enough.

_Ven._ Come, let's away, no lingering.

_Hip._ Follow! go! [_Exeunt except_ VENDICE.

_Ven._ No power is angry when the lustful die; When thunder claps, heaven likes the tragedy. [_Exit._

_Lus._ O, O!

_Enter the Masque of intended murderers:_ AMBITIOSO, SUPERVACUO, SPURIO, _and a_ Lord, _coming in dancing._ LUSSURIOSO _recovers a little in voice, groans, and calls_, "A guard! treason!" _at which the_ Dancers _start out of their measure, and, turning towards the table, find them all to be murdered._

_Spu._ Whose groan was that?

_Lus._ Treason! a guard!

_Amb._ How now? all murdered!

_Sup._ Murdered!

_3rd. Lord._ And those his nobles?

_Amb._ Here's a labour saved; I thought to have sped him. 'Sblood, how came this?

_Spu._ Then I proclaim myself; now I am duke.

_Amb._ Thou duke! brother, thou liest.

_Spu._ Slave! so dost thou. [_Kills_ AMBITIOSO.

_3rd Lord._ Base villain! hast thou slain my lord and master? [_Stabs_ SPURIO.

_Re-enter_ VENDICE _and_ HIPPOLITO _and the two_ Lords.

_Ven._ Pistols! treason! murder! Help! guard my lord the duke!

_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ Guard.

_Hip._ Lay hold upon this traitor.

_Lus._ O!

_Ven._ Alas! the duke is murdered.

_Hip._ And the nobles.

_Ven._ Surgeons! surgeons! Heart! does he breathe so long? [_Aside._

_Ant._ A piteous tragedy! able to make An old man's eyes bloodshot.

_Lus._ O!

_Ven._ Look to my lord the duke. A vengeance throttle him! [_Aside._ Confess, thou murderous and unhallowed man, Didst thou kill all these?

_3rd Lord._ None but the bastard, I.

_Ven._ How came the duke slain, then?

_3rd Lord._ We found him so.

_Lus._ O villain!

_Ven._ Hark!

_Lus._ Those in the masque did murder us.

_Ven._ La you now, sir-- O marble impudence! will you confess now?

_3rd Lord._ 'Sblood, 'tis all false.

_Ant._ Away with that foul monster, Dipped in a prince's blood.

_3rd Lord._ Heart! 'tis a lie.

_Ant._ Let him have bitter execution.

_Ven._ New marrow! no, I cannot be expressed. How fares my lord the duke?

_Lus._ Farewell to all; He that climbs highest has the greatest fall. My tongue is out of office.

_Ven._ Air, gentlemen, air. Now thou'lt not prate on't, 'twas Vendice murdered thee. [_Whispers in his ear._

_Lus._ O!

_Ven._ Murdered thy father. [_Whispers._

_Lus._ O! [_Dies._

_Ven._ And I am he--tell nobody: [_Whispers_] So, so, the duke's departed.

_Ant._ It was a deadly hand that wounded him. The rest, ambitious who should rule and sway After his death, were so made all away.

_Ven._ My lord was unlikely--

_Hip._ Now the hope Of Italy lies in your reverend years.

_Ven._ Your hair will make the silver age again, When there were fewer, but more honest men.

_Ant._ The burthen's weighty, and will press age down; May I so rule, that Heaven may keep the crown!

_Ven._ The rape of your good lady has been quitted With death on death.

_Ant._ Just is the law above. But of all things it put me most to wonder How the old duke came murdered!

_Ven._ O my lord!

_Ant._ It was the strangeliest carried: I've not heard of the like.

_Hip._ 'Twas all done for the best, my lord.

_Ven._ All for your grace's good. We may be bold to speak it now, 'Twas somewhat witty carried, though we say it-- 'Twas we two murdered him.

_Ant._ You two?

_Ven._ None else, i' faith, my lord. Nay, 'twas well-managed.

_Ant._ Lay hands upon those villains!

_Ven._ How! on us?

_Ant._ Bear 'em to speedy execution.

_Ven._ Heart! was't not for your good, my lord?

_Ant._ My good! Away with 'em: such an old man as he! You, that would murder him, would murder me.

_Ven._ Is't come about?

_Hip._ 'Sfoot, brother, you begun.

_Ven._ May not we set as well as the duke's son? Thou hast no conscience, are we not revenged? Is there one enemy left alive amongst those? 'Tis time to die, when we're ourselves our foes: When murderers shut deeds close, this curse does seal 'em: If none disclose 'em, they themselves reveal 'em! This murder might have slept in tongueless brass But for ourselves, and the world died an ass. Now I remember too, here was Piato Brought forth a knavish sentence once; No doubt (said he), but time Will make the murderer bring forth himself. 'Tis well he died; he was a witch. And now, my lord, since we are in for ever, This work was ours, which else might have been slipped! And if we list, we could have nobles clipped, And go for less than beggars; but we hate To bleed so cowardly: we have enough, I' faith, we're well, our mother turned, our sister true, We die after a nest of dukes. Adieu! [_Exeunt._

_Ant._ How subtlely was that murder closed![234] Bear up Those tragic bodies: 'tis a heavy season; Pray Heaven their blood may wash away all treason! [_Exit._

NOTES.

[1] See J. A. Symonds' _Shakespeare's Predecessors_, chap. xii., for a definition and description of this dramatic genus.

[2] This play will be included in another volume of the Mermaid Series.

[3] It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned that the remarks which follow are adapted in part from an essay on Webster published in my _Italian By-ways_.

[4] Readers of this volume who are anxious to obtain more light upon Webster's art, must be referred to Lamb's notes in the _Specimens from English Dramatic Poets_, to Mr. Swinburne's article on John Webster in _The Nineteenth Century_ for June, 1886, and to my own essay upon _Vittoria Accoramboni_ in _Italian By-ways_ (Smith and Elder, 1883).

The text adopted for Webster's two tragedies is that of Dyce's edition. His arrangement of scenes has been followed, except in the case of the _Vittoria Corombona_, which Dyce left undivided. The notes, too, are in the main extracted from the same source. With reference to Cyril Tourneur's plays, the text of _The Atheist's Tragedy_ has been modernised from Mr. Churton Collins's edition; that of _The Revenger's Tragedy_ is based upon the modernised version in Hazlitt's edition of Dodsley, collated throughout with Mr. Collins's text. Students of the English drama owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Churton Collins for his scholarly issue of the complete works of Tourneur.

[5] Martial, xiii. 2.

[6] Martial, iv. 87.

[7] Martial, xiii. 2.

[8] Horace, _Epod._ iii.

[9] _Epist._ i. 7.

[10] Valerius Maximus, Lib. iii. 7.

[11] Martial, x. 2.

[12] Requite.

[13] Violently dashed.

[14] Different kinds of mummy were formerly used in medicine. "Mummie is become merchandise," says Sir Thomas Browne, "Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams." _Urn-Burial._

[15] Open-work embroidery.

[16] A sounding (but not a flourish) of trumpets or other wind instruments.

[17] Coach. Fr. _Carrosse_.

[18] _i.e._ More feathers were not dislodged from the helmets of the combatants at the great tilting-match.--_Steevens_.

[19] Housings.

[20] It is hardly possible to mark with any certainty the stage-business of this play. Though Brachiano, who has just withdrawn into a "closet," appears again when Flamineo calls him (_See_ p. 15), it would seem that the audience were to _imagine_ that a change of scene took place here to another apartment, as Flamineo says (p. 13): "Sister, my lord attends you in the banqueting-house."--_Dyce._

[21] Quarrel.

[22] _i.e._ Allow an adversary to aim in order to draw him on to continue playing.

[23] The jack at bowls.

[24] Leash.

[25] A measuring instrument.

[26] Vended.

[27] A mark of good-will.

[28] The lowest menials who rode in the vehicles which carried the domestic utensils from mansion to mansion.

[29] Flamineo's speeches are half-asides.

[30] Magnet.

[31] State journey.

[32] A prized antidote. "Andrea Racci, a physician of Florence, affirms the pound of 16 ounces to have been sold in the apothecaries' shops for 1,536 crowns, when the same weight of gold was only worth 148 crowns."--Chambers's _Dict._, quoted by Dyce.

[33] Haply, peradventure.

[34] Danish.

[35] See _Hamlet_, Act v. sc. 2. "This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head."

[36] Polander.

[37] Virgil, _Æn._ i. 26.

[38] Antimony.

[39] Read perhaps "lethal."

[40] _i.e._ The motto.

[41] Ovid, _Metam._ iii. 466.

[42] Horse.

[43] Given in charge.

[44] Resident.

[45] Shoes of leather.

[46] Poulterer.

[47] "And there besyden growen trees, that beren fulle faire Apples, and faire of colour to beholde; but whoso brekethe hem, or cuttethe hem in two, he schalle fynde within hem Coles and Cyndres."--_Maundeville's Travels_.

[48] _i.e._ Convinced.

[49] With which floors were formerly strewed, before the introduction of carpets.

[50] Corrupt text.

[51] Cheat.

[52] Mule.

[53] Ovid, _Amor._ i. 8.

[54] Portuguese coins, so called from the cross on one side.

[55] Equal to sixpence.

[56] "This White Devil of Italy sets off a bad cause so speciously, and pleads with such an innocence-resembling boldness, that we seem to see that matchless beauty of her face which inspires such gay confidence into her; and are ready to expect, when she has done her pleadings, that her very judges, her accusers, the grave ambassadors who sit as spectators, and all the court, will rise and make proffer to defend her in spite of the utmost conviction of her guilt; as the shepherds in Don Quixote make proffer to follow the beautiful shepherdess Marcela, 'without reaping any profit out of her manifest resolution made there in their hearing.'

"'So sweet and lovely does she make the shame, Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose, Does spot the beauty of her budding name.'" C. Lamb. (_Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets._)

[57] Muddled up.

[58] A man famous for his power of digesting all sorts of strange food.

[59] Branded.

[60] Ingenuously.

[61] Rogue. Fr. _Gueux._

[62] A corruption of God's death.

[63] Brides formerly walked to church with their hair hanging loose behind. Anne Bullen's was thus dishevelled when she went to the altar with King Henry the Eighth.--_Steevens._

[64] Registered.

[65] _i.e._ Supplying borrowers with goods to be debited to them as cash.

[66] An allusion to the tribute imposed by Edgar which led to the extirpation of wolves in Britain.

[67] Virgil, _Æn._ vii. 312.

[68] Anticipate.

[69] Syphilis.

[70] "Let him have Russian law for all his sins. What's that? A hundred blows on his bare shins." Day's _Parliament of Bees_, 1641.

[71] Two mediums for administering poison.

[72] A play upon terms of hawking.

[73] A magic glass.

[74] Squat, _i.e._ the seat or form of a hare.

[75] See _Herodotus_, lib. ii. c. 68, on the trochilus.

[76] _i.e._ Fine.

[77] This was nearly the form in which the election of a Pope was declared to the people.

[78] Foolish.

[79] Terms of the _manège_.

[80] In the year 1598 Edward Squire was convicted of anointing the pummel of the Queen's saddle with poison, for which he was afterwards executed.--_Reed._

[81] Alluding to a woman's longing during pregnancy.

[82] Here the audience were to suppose that a change of scene had taken place--that the stage now represented Brachiano's chamber: later on Gasparo says, "For Christian charity, avoid the chamber."

[83] Rosette.

[84] Orris powder.

[85] See Pliny, Nat. Hist., viii. 27.

[86] A species of plover.

[87] Strong broth.

[88] Smother.

[89] A curtain on the stage.

[90] "I never saw anything like this dirge, except the ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates."--C. Lamb, _Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets_.

[91] Assured.

[92] A low term for women.

[93] Pir.

[94] This plant, respecting which many superstitions prevailed, was said to give a loud shriek when it was torn up.

[95] Bitch-hounds.

[96] One of the fifty daughters of Danaus, the son of Belus, brother of Ægyptus. She preserved her husband Lynceus, who afterwards slew Danaus.

[97] A French and Italian sword dance of fools.

[98] Slang for "sword."

[99] Martial ii. 91.

[100] An actor of considerable eminence, who is supposed to have originally played the part of Brachiano. He is known to have been the original performer of Captain Goodlack in Heywood's _Fair Maid of the West_, of Sir John Belfare in Shirley's _Wedding_, and of Hanno in Nabbes's _Hannibal and Scipio._ When Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_ was revived about 1633 Perkins acted Barabas.

[101] The twelfth Lord Berkeley. "My good lord," says Massinger, inscribing _The Renegado_ to him, "to be honoured for old nobility or hereditary titles, is not alone proper to yourself, but to some few of your rank, who may challenge the like privilege with you: but in our age to vouchsafe (as you have often done) a ready hand to raise the dejected spirits of the contemned sons of the Muses, such as would not suffer the glorious fire of poesy to be wholly extinguished, is so remarkable and peculiar to your lordship, that, with a full vote and suffrage, it is acknowledged that the patronage and protection of the dramatic poem is yours and almost without a rival."

[102] An allusion to the sport called "Running at the Ring," at which the tilter, while riding at full speed, endeavoured to thrust the point of his lance through, and to bear away, the ring, which was suspended in the air.--_Dyce._

[103] A play upon the word, "tent" meaning also a roll of lint or other bandage.

[104] A lively dance.

[105] Coaches.

[106] Behaviour.

[107] _i.e._ Ornamental, belonging to accomplishments.--_Dyce._

[108] Incontinent.

[109] The net in which he caught Mars and Venus.

[110] _i.e._ Ingenuous.

[111] As previously Antonio has been told that he must attend the Duchess "in the gallery," it would seem that the audience were to imagine a change of scene had taken place (_i.e._, at the exit of Ferdinand).--_Dyce._

[112] _The Two Faithful Friends, the pleasant History of Alexander and Lodwicke, who were so like one another, that none could know them asunder; wherein is declared how Lodwicke married the Princesse of Hungaria, in Alexander's name, and how each night he layd a naked sword betweene him and the Princesse, because he would not wrong his friend,_ is reprinted from the Pepys collection in Evans's _Old Ballads_. There was also a play written by Martin Slaughter, called _Alexander and Lodowick.--Dyce._

[113] A cant term for the insolent bloods and vapourers of the time--_Dyce._

[114] Another cant term.

[115] State journey.

[116] A leperous eruption.

[117] Buy new housings for his beast.

[118] Hysterics.

[119] Rascal.

[120] The lowest class of menials.

[121] Strong broths. The old receipt-books recommend "pieces of gold" among the ingredients.--_Dyce._

[122] Compare Shakespeare:

"And shrieks, like mandrakes torn out of the earth, That living mortals hearing them run mad." _Romeo and Juliet_, A. iv. s. 3.

[123] Query "rapture."

[124] Substance or property.

[125] _i.e._ Foolish.

[126] Orris.

[127] Plutus.

[128] "The vexed Bermoothes" was the island of Bermuda.

[129] Francis I., who surrendered to Lannoy at the battle of Pavia.

[130] Plan.

[131] Camp.

[132] Trimmed.

[133] Dyce suggests that here the audience had to imagine a change of scene--to the lodging of the Duchess, who is confined to certain apartments in her own palace.

[134] Curtain.

[135] Band.

[136] Coach.

[137] "She has lived among horrors till she is become 'native and endowed unto that element.' She speaks the dialect of despair, her tongue has a smatch of Tartarus and the souls in bale. What are 'Luke's iron crown,' the brazen bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bell-man, the living person's dirge, the mortification by degrees! To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit; this only a Webster can do. Writers of an inferior genius may 'upon horror's head horrors accumulate,' but they cannot do this. They mistake quantity for quality, they 'terrify babes with painted devils,' but they know not how a soul is capable of being moved; their terrors want dignity, their affrightments are without decorum."--C. Lamb, _Spec. of Eng. Dram. Poets._

[138] This was a common superstition of the time.

[139] Fraught.

[140] Skeletons.

[141] Sugar-plums perfumed for sweetening the breath.

[142] _i.e._ Earnest.

[143] With which it was the custom to strew the floors.

[144] The quarto drops the "her."

[145] At the siege of Ostend, which is described in Borachio's speech.

[146] Appearance. This meaning passes into that of countenance.

[147] This way of description, which seems unwilling ever to leave off weaving parenthesis within parenthesis, was brought to its height by Sir Philip Sidney. He seems to have set the example to Shakespeare. Many beautiful instances may be found all over the _Arcadia_. These bountiful wits always give full measure, pressed down and overflowing.--_Charles Lamb._

[148] Play on the double meaning--clown, leathern flagon--of the word "jack."

[149] With the O of one in pain. An odd and tragical application of a rule from the Latin grammar.--_Collins._

[150] Sanctified Puritan.

[151] To man is to attend or escort.

[152] Preserves, sweetmeats.

[153] A reference to Arctic voyages.

[154] In full course. A metaphor from the jousting-ground.

[155] This trick of a woman, caught with a lover, to deceive her husband is frequently employed by the Italian novelists.

[156] An allusion, of course, to the Straits of Gibraltar, where Hercules was supposed to have set up columns forbidding further exploration of the ocean.

[157] _i.e._ Tangible, yielding impressions to the senses of another person.

[158] So in _Two Noble Kinsmen_ pleurisy is used for plethora--"The pleurisy of people."

[159] _i.e._ A farthing.

[160] See on page 263, Sebastian's exclamation, "A rape!" near end of