We now are man and wife and ’tis the church
That must but echo this. Maid, stand apart;
I now am blind!
ANTONIO
What do you mean by this ?
DUCHESS
I would have you lead your fortune by the hand
Unto your marriage bed:
(You speak in me in this, for we now are one.)
We’ll only lie and talk together and plot
To appease my passionate kindred; and if you please,
Like the old tale, in Alexander and Lodowicke,
Lay a naked sword between us, keep us chaste.
Oh let me shroud my blushes in your bosom,
Since ’tis the treasury of all my secrets!
Duchess and Antonio exit.
CARIOLA
Whether the spirit of greatness or of woman
Reign in her most, I know not; but it shows
A fearful madness. I owe her much of pity.
Scene 3
A room in the Duchess’ palace. Some months later.
Enter Bosola with a book.
BOSOLA
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 it as a prodigy.
Man stands amazed to see his own deformity
In any other creature but himself.
But in our own flesh, though we bear diseases
Which have their true names only taken from beasts
And the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle;
Though we are eaten up with 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.
But I have work on foot: I observe our duchess
Is sick a days, she pukes, her stomach seethes,
The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue,
She wanes in the cheek and waxes fat in the flank
And, contrary to our Italian fashion,
Wears a loose-bodied gown; there’s somewhat in it.
I have a trick may chance discover it—
A pretty one—I have bought some apricots,
The first our spring yields.
Enter Antonio.
ANTONIO
Pointing to book.
You are studying to become a great wise fellow?
BOSOLA
Let me be simply honest.
ANTONIO
I do understand your inside.
BOSOLA
Do you so?
Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than I can reach: They are gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer’s mule of a slow pace will suit both my disposition and business. For, mark me, when a man’s mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they both quickly tire.
ANTONIO
You would look up to heaven but I think the devil that rules in the air stands in your light.
BOSOLA
Oh sir, you are lord of the ascendant, chief man with the Duchess. 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 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 of her court.
DUCHESS
Your arm, Antonio: do I now 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.
BOSOLA
The duchess used one when she was great with child.
DUCHESS
I think she did.
To lady.
Come hither, mend my ruff,
Here, when? Thou art such a tedious lady
And thy breath smells of lemon peels—would thou hadst
done!
Shall I swoon under thy fingers ? I am
So troubled with the vapours!
BOSOLA
Aside.
I fear too much.
DUCHESS
I have heard you say the French courtiers
Wear their hats on fore the king.
ANTONIO
I have seen it.
DUCHESS
In the presence.
ANTONIO
Yes.
DUCHESS
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’ th’ court.
Put on your hat first.
ANTONIO
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.
BOSOLA
I have a present for your grace.
DUCHESS
For me, sir?
BOSOLA
Apricots, madam.
DUCHESS
O sir, where are they?
I have heard of none to year.
BOSOLA
Aside.
Good, her colour rises.
DUCHESS
As they are brought on.
Indeed I thank you; they are wondrous fair ones.
What an unskilful fellow is our gardener!
We shall have none this month.
BOSOLA
As she bites into one.
Will not your grace pare them?
DUCHESS
No, they taste of musk methinks; indeed they do.
BOSOLA
I know not; yet I wish your Grace had pared them.
DUCHESS
Why?
BOSOLA
I forgot to tell you the knave gardener,
Only to raise his profit by them sooner,
Did ripen them in horse dung.
DUCHESS
Oh you jest.
You shall judge. Pray taste one.
ANTONIO
Indeed, madam,
I do not love the fruit.
DUCHESS
Sir, you are loath
To rob us of our dainties. ’Tis a delicate fruit;
They say they are restorative.
BOSOLA
’Tis a pretty
Art, this grafting.
DUCHESS
’Tis so; a bettering of nature.
BOSOLA
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 cutting a caper in her belly.
DUCHESS
I thank you, Bosola, they were right good ones,
If they do not make me sick.
ANTONIO
How now, madam?
DUCHESS
This green fruit and my stomach are not friends—
How they swell me!
BOSOLA
Aside.
Nay, you are too much swelled already!
DUCHESS
Oh, I am in an extreme cold sweat!
BOSOLA
I am very sorry.
DUCHESS
Lights to my chamber! O, good Antonio,
I fear I am undone!
Exit with her ladies.
&nbs
p; ANTONIO
Shut up the court gates.
CASTRUCHIO
Why, sir? What’s the danger?
ANTONIO
Shut up the posterns presently and call
All the officers of the court.
CASTRUCHIO
I shall instantly.
They exit.
BOSOLA
So, so, there’s no question but her tetchiness and most vulturous eating of the apricots are apparent signs of breeding. Now!
Exits.
After a moment Antonio enters from one side, Cariola and an old lady from the other, carrying linens and a ewer of water.
OLD LADY
Sir, you are the happy father of a son,
Your wife commends him to you.
ANTONIO
Blessed comfort!
For heaven’s sake tend her well. I’ll presently
Go set a figure for his nativity.
Scene 4
The court of the palace.
Enter Bosola with a dark lantern.
BOSOLA
Sure I did hear a woman shriek
And the sound came, if I received it right,
From the Duchess’ lodgings. There’s some stratagem
In the confining all our courtiers
To their several wards. I must have part of it;
My intelligence will freeze else.
It may be ’twas the melancholy bird,
Best friend of silence and of solitariness,
The owl that screamed so. Hsh! Antonio!
ANTONIO
Enters with a candle and his sword drawn.
I heard some noise. Who’s there? What art thou? Speak.
BOSOLA
Antonio? Put not your face nor body
To such a forced expression of fear.
I am Bosola, your friend.
ANTONIO
Bosola?
Aside.
This mole does undermine me.—Heard you not
A noise even now?
BOSOLA
From whence?
ANTONIO
From the Duchess’ lodging.
BOSOLA
Not I. Did you?
ANTONIO
I did or else I dreamed.
BOSOLA
Let’s walk towards it.
ANTONIO
No; it may be ’twas
But the rising of the wind.
BOSOLA
Very likely.
Methinks ’tis very cold and yet you sweat.
You look wildly.
ANTONIO
I have been setting a figure
For the Duchess’ jewels. They are stolen.
BOSOLA
And what have you discovered?
ANTONIO
What’s that to you?
’Tis rather to be questioned what design,
When all men are commanded to their lodgings,
Makes you a night walker?
BOSOLA
In sooth I’ll tell you.
Now all the court’s asleep, I thought the devil
Had least to do here. I came to say my prayers.
ANTONIO
Aside.
I fear this fellow will undo me.
To Bosola:
You gave the Duchess apricots today.
Pray heaven they were not poisoned.
BOSOLA
Poisoned? A Spanish fig
For the imputation.
ANTONIO
Traitors are ever confident
Till they are discovered. There were jewels stolen, too.
In my belief none are to be suspected
More than yourself.
BOSOLA
You are a false steward.
ANTONIO
Saucy slave! I’ll pull thee up by the roots.
You are an impudent snake indeed, sir.
Are you scarce warm and do you show your sting?
You libel well, sir!
BOSOLA
Now, sir, copy it out
And I will set my hand to it.
ANTONIO
My nose bleeds.
Takes out handkerchief and drops paper as he does so.
One that were superstitious would count
This ominous, when it merely comes by chance.
Two letters that are wrought here for my name
Are drowned in blood. Mere accident. For you, sir,
I’ll take order. This door you pass not.
I do not hold it fit that you come near
The Duchess’ lodgings till you have quit yourself.
Exits.
BOSOLA
Antonio here did drop a paper—
Raises lantern.
Some of your help, false friend—Oh, here it is. What’s here?
A child’s nativity calculated ?
‘The duchess was delivered of a son tween the hours twelve
and one in the night, Anno Dom. 1504’.
That’s this year—
‘decimo nono Decembris’,
That’s this night—
‘Taken according to the meridian of Malfi’.
That’s our Duchess. Happy discovery!
‘The lord of the first house being in the ascendant signifies
short life; and Mars being in a human sign joined to the
tail of the Dragon, in the eighth house, doth threaten a
violent death. Caetera non scrutantur’.
Why, now ’tis most apparent this precise fellow
Is the Duchess’ pimp. I have it to my wish.
This is news indeed.
Our courtiers were cased up for it. It needs must follow
That I must be committed on pretence
Of poisoning her which I’ll endure and laugh at.
If one could find the father now! But that
Time will discover. Let me be dismissed,
I’ll bear intelligence of this to the Duke
Shall make his gall overflow his liver.
Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise,
She’s oft found witty but is never wise.
Scene 1
The Duke of Calabria’s tent.
Ferdinand attended by a Negro page who hands him his armour on state. Offstage a soldier sings.
SONG
I wrote my love a letter
When we entered fair Milan:
Oh the war will soon be over
For the cook has lost his coppers
And the captain’s lost his head
And we’ve shot away our lead.
FERDINAND
Methinks this war, like a long winter, hath no end
And Spring, frost-bitten, waits on victory.
To page:
My corselet.
Page begins to buckle it on.
How now, boy? How fares it with your love?
PAGE
She is well save for the stripes she hath earned from my rival. She hath an eye like a dark lantern for its light is securely hidden.
FERDINAND
‘Tis time you rid her of this scurvy knave.
PAGE
How can I ? I am so small a thing she cannot see me. ’Tis e’en the same to her an I had not been born.
FERDINAND
And you born for her!
PAGE
She hath received no intelligence of it. Or mayhap she puts no credence i’ th’ stars.
FERDINAND
A tragedy.
PAGE
If she but knew it.
Soldier enters.
SOLDIER
Entering.
A gentleman would see the Duke.
FERDINAND
His name?
SOLDIER
Bosola.
FERDINAND
Bosola here?
’Tis very strange. What should be his business ? I’ll see him.
To page:
Now my beaver.
Soldier exits and Bosola enters.
BOS
OLA
Travel-stained and ragged.
Your Grace.
FERDINAND
How fares the Duchess ?
BOSOLA
Blackbirds, they say, fatten best in hard weather. Why not I? Sir, I am worn out in your service. ’Tis two years since I left Malfi. There are rewards for horses and dogs but for a faithful servant only a sore breech from riding, these several scars, and scarce enough rags to cover my flesh.
FERDINAND
How fares the Duchess ?
BOSOLA
Your Grace, I was pitifully misdirected. I have been robbed, lain in prison, took sick of the plague and like to have died only to bring you intelligence shall earn your ingratitude. I am like a raven of ill omen that endures a score of tempests, two score snowstorms, eludes the hawk and the fowler, to croak a message against which all would stop their ears. Thus I am very industrious to work my own ruin.
FERDINAND
I said: how fares the Duchess ?
BOSOLA
Excellently.
She hath a son.
Ferdinand stands amazed.
BOSOLA
I said she hath a son.
FERDINAND
No!
The Duke half draws his sword. Bosola quickly hands him a paper.
BOSOLA
Read this nativity. It speaks for me.
While the Duke reads the paper the soldier sings offstage.
But when we left the city
Then a second war began
Though the first was scarcely over
And I’ll drink a thousand beakers
With a whore upon my knee
Till my love again I see.
FERDINAND
Reads.
The Duchess was delivered of a son …
Reads on, then speaks slowly.
Mars joined to the Dragon’s tail doth prophesy
Short life, a violent death.—Although ere now
I put little faith i’ the stars, this forecast
I’d believe—could I believe thee, lying knave!
Suddenly.
Who is the man?
BOSOLA
I know not.
FERDINAND
Violently.
Uncase me, slave!
He begins to tear off his armour. Outside alarms and sounds of battle.
Ho, send me Delio. He shall command for me. I’ll go to Malfi.
Delio enters. He is bleeding.
DELIO
Your Grace, the enemy hath surprised us. They fall upon us mightily with a great body of fresh horse. The Duchess’ great standard hath been taken.
FERDINAND
No matter.
We give you our command. I am for Malfi.
You shall lead our troops.
DELIO
Alas, I can not.
He falls.
FERDINAND
What’s this? Delio’s hurt? We are undone!
A Soldier rushes in.
SOLDIER
Sir, you are sorely needed.
Ferdinand snatches up his armour and rushes out buckling it on. The sound of battle grows. Ferdinand turns back suddenly and speaks to Bosola.
FERDINAND
Thou villain, ’tis false! Thy paper is counterfeit.
Yet I’ll come in a fortnight. Depend upon it—