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I will no longer study in the book

Of another's heart; inform her what I told you.

The Dutchess, Bosola.

Bos. All comfort to your grace.

Dutch. I will have none:

Pray thee, why dost thou wrap thy poison'd pills
In gold and sugar?

Bos. Your eldest brother, the Lord Ferdinand,
Is come to visit you; and sends you word,
'Cause once he rashly made a solemn vow
Never to see you more, he comes i'th' night;
And
prays you (gently) neither torch nor taper
Shine in your chamber; he will kiss your hand,
And reconcile himself; but, for his vow,
He dares not see you.

Dutch. At his pleasure.

Take hence the lights, he's come.
Fer. Where are you?

Dutch. Here, sir.

Fer. This darkness suits you well.
Dutch. I would ask your pardon.

Fer. You have it;

For I account it the honorabl'st revenge,

Where I may kill, to pardon: where are your cubs ?
Dutch. Whom?

Fer. Call them your children;

For though our national law distinguish bastards
From true legitimate issue, compassionate nature
Makes them all equal.

Dutch. Do you visit me for this?

You violate a sacrament o'th' church
Shall make you howl in hell for't.

Fer. It had been well,

Could you have liv'd thus always; for indeed
You were too much i'th' light; but, no more.

I come to seal my peace with you: here's a hand

To which

You gave.

[exeunt.

[gives her a dead man's hand. you have vow'd much love; the ring upon't

Dutch. I affectionately kiss it.

Fer. Pray do; and bury the print of it in your heart.

I will leave this ring with you, for a love token;

And the hand, as sure as the ring; and do not doubt

But you shall have the heart too: when you need a friend,

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Fer. Let her have lights enough.

[exit.

Dutch. What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left A dead man's hand here?

[here is discovered the artificial figures of Antonio and his
children, appearing as if they were dead.

Bos. Look you, here's the piece from which it was ta'en;
He doth present you this sad spectacle,
That now you know directly they are dead.
Hereafter you may (wisely) cease to grieve
For that which cannot be recovered.

Dutch. There is not, between heav'n and earth, one wish
I stay for after this: it wastes me more

Than were't my picture, fashion'd out of wax,
Stuck with a magical needle, and then buried

In some foul dung-hill; and yond's an excellent property
For a tyrant, which I would account mercy.

Bos. What's that?

Dutch. If they would bind me to that liveless trunk, And let me freeze to death.

Bos. Come, you must live.

Dutch. That's the greatest torture souls feel in hell;

In hell that they must live, and cannot die :
Portia, I'll new kindle thy coals again,

And revive the rare, and almost dead example
Of a loving wife.

Bos. O fie, despair! remember

You are a Christian.

Dutch. The church enjoins fasting;

I'll starve myself to death.

Bos. Leave this vain sorrow;

Things being at the worst, begin to mend;

The bee, when he hath shot his sting into your hand,
May then play with your eye-lid.

Dutch. Good comfortable fellow,

Persuade a wretch that's broke upon the wheel
To have all his bones new set; entreat him live,
To be executed again: who must despatch me?
I account this world a tedious theatre,

For I do play a part in't 'gainst my will.

Bos. Come, be of comfort, I will save your life.

Dutch. Indeed I have not leisure to 'tend so final a business.
Bos. Now, by my life, I pity you.

Dutch. Thou art a fool then

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched
As cannot pity it: I am full of daggers:
Puff! let me blow these vipers from me.
What are you?

Serv. One that wishes you long life.

[enter a Servant.

Dutch. I would thou wert hang'd for the horrible curse

Thou hast given me; I shall shortly grow one

Of the miracles of pity; I'll go pray; no,

I'll go curse.

Bos. O fie!

Dutch. I could curse the stars.

Bos. O fearful!

Dutch. And those three smiling seasons of the year Into a Russian winter; nay, the world

To its first chaos.

Bos. Look you, the stars shine still.

Dutch. Oh, but you must remember, my curse hath a great

way to go.

Plagues (that make lanes through largest families)

Consume them.

Bos. Fie, lady.

Dutch. Let them, like tyrants,

Never be remembered, but for the ill they have done;

Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

Church-men forget them.

Bos. O uncharitable !

Dutch. Let Heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs, To punish them; go, howl them this; and say, I long to bleed :

'It is some mercy, when men kill with speed.'

Fer. Excellent! as I would wish; she's plagu'd in art.

These presentations are but fram'd in wax,

By the curious master in that quality,

Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them
For true substantial bodies.

Bos. Why do you do this?
Fer. To bring her to despair.
Bos. 'Faith, end here,

And go no farther in your cruelty;

Send her a penitential garment, to put on

Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her

With beads and prayer-books.

Fer. Damn her: that body of hers,

While that my blood ran pure in't, was more worth
Than that which thou would'st comfort, call'd a soul.
I will send her masques of common courtezans;
Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and ruffians;
And (cause she'll needs be mad) I am resolv'd
To remove forth the common hospital

All the mad folk, and place them near her lodging;
There let them practise together, sing and dance,
And act their gambols to the full o'th' moon:
If she can sleep the better for it, let her;

Your work is almost ended.

Enter Dutchess, Cariola, Servant, Mad-men, Bosola, Executioners, Ferdinand.

Dutch. What hideous noise was that?

Cari. "Tis the wild consort

Of mad-men, lady, which your tyrant brother
Hath plac'd about your lodging; this tyranny

I think was never practis'd till this hour.

Dutch. Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason

And silence make me stark mad: sit down,

Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.

Cari. O't will increase your melancholy.
Dutch. Thou art deceived;

To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.
This is a prison?

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To shake this durance off.

Dutch. Thou art a fool.

The robin red-breast and the nightingale

Never live long in cages.

Cari. Pray, dry your eyes.

What think you of, madam?
Dutch. Of nothing:

When I muse thus, I sleep.

Cari. Like a mad-man, with your eyes open.

Dutch. Dost thou think we shall know one another

In th' other world?

Cari. Yes, out of question.

Dutch. O, that it were possible we might

But hold some two days' conference with the dead:

From them I should learn somewhat I am sure
I never shall know here: I'll tell thee a miracle;
I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow.

Th' heaven o're my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur; yet I am not mad:
I am acquainted with sad misery,

As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar;
Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?
Cari. Like to your picture in the gallery,

A deal of life in show, but none in practice;
Or rather like some reverend monument
Whose ruins are even pitied.

Dutch. Very proper;

And fortune seems only to have her eye sight,
To behold my tragedy. How now,
What noise is that?

Serv. I am come to tell you

Your brother hath intended you some sport.
A great physician, when the pope was sick
Of a deep melancholly, presented him

With several sorts of mad-men, which wild object
(Being full of change and sport) forc'd him to laugh,
And so th' imposthume broke: the self-same cure
The duke intends on you.

Dutch. Let them come in.

[here the dance, consisting of eight mad-men, with music answerable thereunto; after which, Bosola (like an old man) enters.

Dutch. Is he mad too?

Serv. Pray question him: I'll leave you.

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.

Dutch. Hah! my tomb?

Thou speak'st, as if I lay upon my death-bed,

Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.

Dutch. Thou art mad sure, dost know me?

Bos. Yes.

Dutch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best, but a salvatory of green mummy: what's this flesh? a little curded 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 earth-worms: didst thou never 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

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