The Duchess of Malfi. Webster John

DUCHESS and ANTONIO.]

        CARIOLA.  Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman

        Reign most in her, I know not; but it shows

        A fearful madness.  I owe her much of pity.

      [Exit.]

      Act II

      Scene I30

      [Enter] BOSOLA and CASTRUCCIO

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

        CASTRUCCIO.  'Tis the very main31 of my ambition.

      BOSOLA. 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 th' 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.

        CASTRUCCIO.  I would be a very merry president.

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

      CASTRUCCIO. Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel;

      for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them

      so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for

      an eminent fellow?

      BOSOLA. 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.32 [Enter an Old Lady]

      You come from painting now.

        OLD LADY.  From what?

      BOSOLA. 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.33 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 hedge-hog.

        OLD LADY.  Do you call this painting?

      BOSOLA. No, no, but you call [it] careening34 of an old

      morphewed35 lady, to make her disembogue36 again:

      there 's rough-cast phrase to your plastic.37

        OLD LADY.  It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.

      BOSOLA. 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 with the spring, and change his high-pric'd 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 belov'd?  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 amaz'd 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 look most teeming blue,38

      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, talking together apart]

        DELIO.                        And so long since married?

        You amaze me.

        ANTONIO.       Let me seal your lips for ever:

        For, did I think that anything but th' 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.

      BOSOLA. O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter39 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.

        ANTONIO.  I do understand your inside.

        BOSOLA.                                 Do you so?

        ANTONIO.  Because you would not seem to appear to th' world

        Puff'd up with your preferment, you continue

        This out-of-fashion melancholy:  leave it, leave it.

      BOSOLA. Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment

      whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look

30

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

31

Chief part.

32

Bullies (Hazlitt); lawyers (Vaughan).

33

Royal journey.

34

Turning a boat on its side for repairs.

35

Scabbed.

36

Empty.

37

Face-modeling (Sampson). "There's a plain statement of your practises."

38

Blue like those of a woman with child.

39

Scurf.