Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them For true substantial bodies. And go no further in your cruelty. With beads and prayer-books. While that my blood ran pure in 't, was more worth And act their gambols to the full of the moon. common Executioners. DUCHESS. CARIOLA. Of madmen, lady; which your tyrant brother till this hour. Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason Discourse to me some dismal tragedy. To hear of greater grief would lessen mine. This is a prison ? To shake this durance off. The robin-redbreast and the nightingale Never live long in cages. Car. Pray, dry your eyes. What think you of, madam ? Duch. Of nothing : When I muse thus, I sleep. In the other world ? But hold some two days' conference with the dead ! And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now? Car. Like to your picture in the gallery : A deal of life in show, but none in practice : Whose ruins are ev'n pitied. And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight, A Servant enters. you, Your brother hath intended you some sport. A great physician, when the Pope was sick Of a deep melancholy, presented him With several sorts of madmen, which wild object (Being full of change and sport) forced him to laugh, And so the imposthume broke: the selfsame cure The duke intends on you. able thereto: after which BOSOLA (like an old man) enters. Thou speak’st as if I lay upon my deathbed, Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible. Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me ? Bos. Yes. Duch. Who am I? Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh ? a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in, more contemptible; since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass ; and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable know ledge of the small compass of our prison. Duch. Am not I thy duchess ? Bos. Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milk-maid's. Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still. Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; But, look’d too near, have neither heat nor light. I am a tomb-maker. my tomb ? Bos. Yes. Duch. Let me be a little merry: Do we affect fashion in the grave ? not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks (as if they died of the tooth-ache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the selfsame way they seem to turn their faces. Duch. Let me know fully therefore the effect Of this thy dismal preparation, This talk, fit for a charnel. Here is a present from your princely brothers; Last benefit, last sorrow. I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good. That usually is sent to condemn’d persons The night before they suffer. Thou wast a tomb-maker. Dirge. Car. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers : alas! What will you do with my lady? Call for help. Duch. To whom; to our next neighbours ? They are mad Farewell, Cariola. [folks. I pray thee look thou givest my little boy Some syrup for his cold; and let the girl W hat death? The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough of the lungs, Would do as much as they do. Bos. Doth not death fright you ? Duch. Who would be afraid on 't, Knowing to meet such excellent corupany In the other world ? Bos. Yet methinks, The manner of your death should much afflict you ; This cord should terrify you. What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut them both ways; any way: (for heaven's go upon their knees. Come, violent death, [They strangle her, kneeling. You may open |
