To grow where Sodom and Gomorrah stood,
I will but touch her, and you straight shall see
She'll fall to soot and ashes.

Vit. Your envenom'd pothecary should do 't.
Mon. I am resolved,

Were there a second paradise to lose,

This devil would betray it.

Vit. O poor charity!

Thou art seldom found in scarlet.

Mon. Who knows not how, when several night by night

Her gates were chok'd with coaches, and her rooms
Outbrav'd the stars with several kinds of lights;
When she did counterfeit a prince's court

In music, banquets, and most riotous surfeits?
This whore, forsooth, was holy.

Vit. Ha! whore! what's that?

Mon. Shall I expound whore to you? sure I shall.
I'll give their perfect character. They are first,
Sweetmeats which rot the eater; in man's nostrils
Poison'd perfumes: they are cozening alchymy;
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores?
Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren,
As if that nature had forgot the spring:
They are the true material fire of hell:
Worse than those tributes i' the low countries paid,
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep,
Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin :
They are those brittle evidences of law
Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate
For leaving out one syllable. What are whores?
They are those flattering bells have all one tune,
At weddings and at funerals. Your rich whores
Are only treasuries by extortion fill'd,

And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows,
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man

Wherein he is imperfect. What 's a whore?
She's like the guilty counterfeited coin,

Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it.

Vit. This character scapes me.

Mon. You, gentlewoman!

Take from all beasts and from all minerals

Their deadly poison

Vit. Well, what then?

Mon. I'll tell thee;

I'll find in thee a pothecary's shop,

To sample them all.

Fr. Emb. She hath liv'd ill.

En. Emb. True; but the cardinal 's too bitter.

Mon. You know what whore is. Next the devil

adultery,

Enters the devil murder.

Fra. Your unhappy husband
Is dead.

Vit. O, he's a happy husband,

Now he owes nature nothing. Fra. And by a vaulting engine. Mon. An active plot ;

He jump'd into his grave. Fra. What a prodigy was 't

That from some two yards' height, a slender man

Should break his neck!

Mon. I' the rushes!

Fra. And what 's more,

Upon the instant lose all use of speech,

All vital motion, like a man had lain

Wound up three days. Now mark each circum

stance.

Mon. And look upon this creature was his wife.

She comes not like a widow; she comes arm'd With scorn and impudence: is this a mourninghabit?

Vit. Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest,
I would have bespoke my mourning.
Mon. O, you are cunning.

Vit. You shame your wit and judgement,
To call it so. What is my just defence
By him that is my judge call'd impudence?
Let me appeal, then, from this Christian court
To the uncivil Tartar.

Mon. See, my lords,

She scandals our proceedings.

Vit. Humbly thus,

Thus low, to the most worthy and respected
Lieger ambassadors, my modesty

And womanhood I tender; but withal,
So entangled in a cursed accusation,
That my defence, of force, like Perseus,

my

life

Must personate masculine virtue. To the point. Find me but guilty, sever head from body, We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold At yours or any man's entreaty, sir. En. Emb. She hath a brave spirit. Mon. Well, well, such counterfeit jewels Make true ones oft suspected.

Vit. You are deceiv'd;

For know, that all your strict combined heads,
Which strike against this mine of diamonds,
Shall prove but glassen hammers-they shall break.
These are but feigned shadows of my evils:
Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;
I am past such needless palsy. For your names
Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;

The filth returns in 's face.

Mon. Pray you, mistress, satisfy me one question : Who lodged beneath your roof that fatal night Your husband brake his neck?

Bra. That question

Enforceth me brake silence: I was there. Mon. Your business?

Bra. Why, I came to comfort her,

And take some course for settling her estate,
Because I heard her husband was in debt
To you, my lord.

Mon. He was.

Bra. And 'twas strangely fear'd

That you would cozen her.

Mon. Who made

you overseer

?

Bra. Why, my charity, my charity, which should

flow

From every generous and noble spirit,

To orphans and to widows.

Mon. Your lust.

Bra. Cowardly dogs bark loudest ; sirrah priest,
I'll talk with you hereafter.Do you hear?
The sword you frame of such an excellent temper
I'll sheath in your own bowels.

There are a number of thy coat resemble
Your common post-boys.

Mon. Ha!

Bra. Your mercenary post-boys!

Your letters carry truth, but 'tis your guise To fill your mouths with gross and impudent lies. Servant. My lord, your gown.

Bra. Thou liest, 'twas my stool :

Bestow't upon thy master, that will challenge
The rest o' the household stuff; for Brachiano
Was ne'er so beggarly to take a stool

Out of another's lodging: let him make

Valance for his bed on 't, or demy foot-cloth
For his most reverend moil.

impune lacessit.

Mon. Your champion 's

gone.

Monticelso, nemo me

[Exit BRACHIANO.

Vit. The wolf may prey the better.

Fra. My lord, there's great suspicion of the murder,

But no sound proof who did it.

For my part, I do not think she hath a soul so black

To act a deed so bloody: if she have,

As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines,
And with warm blood manure them, even so
One summer she will bear unsavoury fruit,
And ere next spring wither both branch and root.
The act of blood let pass; only descend

To matter of incontinence.

Vit. I discern poison

Under your gilded pills.

Mon. Now the duke 's gone, I will produce a letter,
Wherein 'twas plotted he and you should meet,
At an apothecary's summer-house,

Down by the river Tiber,-view 't, my lords,
Where, after wanton bathing and the heat
Of a lascivious banquet,-I pray read it,
I shame to speak the rest.

Vit. Grant I was tempted;

Temptation to lust proves not the act:
Casta est quam nemo rogavit.

You read his hot love to me, but you want
My frosty answer.

Mon. Frost i' the dog-days! strange !

Vit. Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?

So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't.

Mon. Truly drown'd, indeed.

Vit. Sum up my faults, I pray, and you shall find,
That beauty, and gay clothes, a merry heart,
And a good stomach to [a] feast, are all,

All the poor crimes that you can charge me with.
In faith, my lord, you might go pistol flies,
The sport would be more noble.

Mon. Very good.