Matron of the House of Convertites.
SCENE—Rome and Padua.
THE WHITE DEVIL; OR, VITTORIA COROMBONA.
ACT THE FIRST.
SCENE I.—A Street in Rome.
Enter Count Lodovico, Antonelli, and Gasparo.
Lod. Banished!
Ant. It grieved me much to hear the sentence.
Lod. Ha, ha! O Democritus, thy gods
That govern the whole world! courtly reward
And punishment. Fortune's a right whore:
If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
That she may take away all at one swoop.
This 'tis to have great enemies:—God quit[12] them!
Your wolf no longer seems to be a wolf
Than when she's hungry.
Gasp. You term those enemies
Are men of princely rank.
Lod. O, I pray for them:
The violent thunder is adored by those
Are pashed[13] in pieces by it.
Ant. Come, my lord,
You are justly doomed: look but a little back
Into your former life; you have in three years
Ruined the noblest earldom.
Gasp. Your followers
Have swallowed you like mummia[14] and, being sick
With such unnatural and horrid physic,
Vomit you up i' the kennel.
Ant. All the damnable degrees
Of drinkings have you staggered through: one citizen
Is lord of two fair manors called you master
Only for caviare.
Gasp. Those noblemen
Which were invited to your prodigal feasts
(Wherein the phœnix scarce could scape your throats)
Laugh at your misery; as fore-deeming you
An idle meteor, which, drawn forth the earth,
Would be soon lost i' the air.
Ant. Jest upon you,
And say you were begotten in an earthquake,
You have ruined such fair lordships.
Lod. Very good.
This well goes with two buckets: I must tend
The pouring out of either.
Gasp. Worse than these;
You have acted certain murders here in Rome,
Bloody and full of horror.
Lod. 'Las, they were flea-bitings.
Why took they not my head, then?