Spu. Madam, unlock yourself;
Should it be seen, your arm would be suspected.
Duch. Who is't that dares suspect or this or these?
May not we deal our favours where we please?
Spu. I'm confident you may.
[Exeunt Duchess and Spurio.
Amb. 'Sfoot, brother, hold.
Sup. Wouldst let the bastard shame us?
Amb. Hold, hold, brother! there's fitter time than now.
Sup. Now, when I see it!
Amb. 'Tis too much seen already.
Sup. Seen and known;
The nobler she's, the baser is she grown.
Amb. If she were bent lasciviously (the fault
Of mighty women, that sleep soft)—O death!
Must she needs choose such an unequal sinner,
To make all worse?—
Sup. A bastard! the duke's bastard! shame heaped on shame!
Amb. O our disgrace!
Most women have small waists the world throughout;
But their desires are thousand miles about.
Sup. Come, stay not here, let's after, and prevent,
Or else they'll sin faster than we'll repent. [Exeunt.
SCENE IV.—A Room in Gratiana's House.
Enter Vendice and Hippolito, bringing out Gratiana by the shoulders, and with daggers in their hands.
Ven. O thou, for whom no name is bad enough!
Gra. What mean my sons? what, will you murder me?
Ven. Wicked, unnatural parent!
Hip. Fiend of women!
Gra. O! are sons turned monsters? help!
Ven. In vain.
Gra. Are you so barbarous to set iron nipples
Upon the breast that gave you suck?
Ven. That breast
Is turned to quarled[225] poison.
Gra. Cut not your days for't! am not I your mother?[226]
Ven. Thou dost usurp that title now by fraud,
For in that shell of mother breeds a bawd.
Gra. A bawd! O name far loathsomer than hell!
Hip. It should be so, knew'st thou thy office well.
Gra. I hate it.
Ven. Ah! is't possible? thou only? Powers on high,
That women should dissemble when they die!
Gra. Dissemble!
Ven. Did not the duke's son direct
A fellow of the world's condition hither,
That did corrupt all that was good in thee?
Made thee uncivilly forget thyself,
And work our sister to his lust?
Gra. Who, I?
That had been monstrous. I defy that man
For any such intent! none lives so pure,
But shall be soiled with slander. Good son, believe it not.
Ven. O, I'm in doubt,
Whether I am myself, or no—[Aside.
Stay, let me look again upon this face.
Who shall be saved, when mothers have no grace?
Hip. 'Twould make one half despair.
Ven. I was the man.
Defy me now; let's see, do't modestly.
Gra. O hell unto my soul!
Ven. In that disguise, I, sent from the duke's son,
Tried you, and found you base metal,
As any villain might have done.
Gra. O, no,
No tongue but yours could have bewitched me so.
Ven. O nimble in damnation, quick in tune!
There is no devil could strike fire so soon:
I am confuted in a word.
Gra. O sons, forgive me! to myself I'll prove more true;
You that should honour me, I kneel to you.
[Kneels and weeps.
Ven. A mother to give aim to her own daughter![227]
Hip. True, brother; how far beyond nature 'tis.
Ven. Nay, an you draw tears once, go you to bed;
We will make iron blush and change to red.
Brother, it rains. 'Twill spoil your dagger: house it.
Hip. 'Tis done.
Ven. I' faith, 'tis a sweet shower, it does much good.
The fruitful grounds and meadows of her soul
Have been long dry: pour down, thou blessed dew!
Rise, mother; troth, this shower has made you higher!
Gra. O you Heavens! take this infectious spot out of my soul,
I'll rinse it in seven waters of mine eyes!
Make my tears salt enough to taste of grace.
To weep is to our sex naturally given:
But to weep truly, that's a gift from Heaven.
Ven. Nay, I'll kiss you now. Kiss her, brother:
Let's marry her to our souls, wherein's no lust,
And honourably love her.
Hip. Let it be.
Ven. For honest women are so seld and rare,
'Tis good to cherish those poor few that are.
O you of easy wax! do but imagine
Now the disease has left you, how leprously
That office would have clinged unto your forehead!
All mothers that had any graceful hue
Would have worn masks to hide their face at you:
It would have grown to this—at your foul name,
Green-coloured maids would have turned red with shame.
Hip. And then our sister, full of hire and baseness—
Ven. There had been boiling lead again,
The duke's son's great concubine!
A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail i' the dirt!
Hip. Great, to be miserably great; rich, to be eternally wretched.
Ven. O common madness!
Ask but the thrivingest harlot in cold blood,
She'd give the world to make her honour good.
Perhaps you'll say, but only to the duke's son
In private; why she first begins with one,
Who afterward to thousands prove a whore:
"Break ice in one place, it will crack in more."
Gra. Most certainly applied!
Hip. O brother, you forget our business.
Ven. And well-remembered; joy's a subtle elf,
I think man's happiest when he forgets himself.
Farewell, once dry, now holy-watered mead;
Our hearts wear feathers, that before wore lead.
Gra. I'll give you this—that one I never knew
Plead better for and 'gainst the devil than you.
Ven. You make me proud on't.
Hip. Commend us in all virtue to our sister.
Ven. Ay, for the love of Heaven, to that true maid.
Gra. With my best words.
Ven. Why, that was motherly said.[228]
[Exeunt Vendice and Hippolito.
Gra. I wonder now, what fury did transport me!
I feel good thoughts begin to settle in me.
O, with what forehead can I look on her,
Whose honour I've so impiously beset?
And here she comes—
Enter Castiza.
Cas. Now, mother, you have wrought with me so strongly
That what for my advancement, as to calm
The trouble of your tongue, I am content.
Gra. Content, to what?
Cas. To do as you have wished me;
To prostitute my breast to the duke's son;
And put myself to common usury.
Gra. I hope you will not so!
Cas. Hope you I will not?
That's not the hope you look to be saved in.
Gra. Truth, but it is.
Cas. Do not deceive yourself;
I am as you, e'en out of marble wrought.
What would you now? are ye not pleased yet with me?
You shall not wish me to be more lascivious
Than I intend to be.
Gra. Strike not me cold.
Cas. How often have you charged me on your blessing
To be a cursèd woman? When you knew
Your blessing had no force to make me lewd,
You laid your curse upon me: that did more,
The mother's curse is heavy; where that fights,
Suns set in storm, and daughters lose their lights.
Gra. Good child, dear maid, if there be any spark
Of heavenly intellectual fire within thee,
O, let my breath revive it to a flame!
Put not all out with woman's wilful follies.
I am recovered of that foul disease,
That haunts too many mothers; kind, forgive me,
Make me not sick in health! If then
My words prevailed, when they were wickedness,
How much more now, when they are just and good?
Cas. I wonder what you mean! are not you she,
For whose infect persuasions I could scarce
Kneel out my prayers, and had much ado
In three hours' reading to untwist so much
Of the black serpent as you wound about me?
Gra. 'Tis unfruitful, child, and tedious to repeat
What's past; I'm now your present mother.
Cas. Tush! now 'tis too late.
Gra. Bethink again: thou know'st not what thou say'st.
Cas. No! deny advancement? treasure? the duke's son?
Gra. O, see! I spoke those words, and now they poison me!
What will the deed do then?
Advancement? true; as high as shame can pitch!
For treasure; who e'er knew a harlot rich?
Or could build by the purchase of her sin
An hospital to keep her bastards in?
The duke's son! O, when women are young courtiers,
They are sure to be old beggars;
To know the miseries most harlots taste,
Thou'dst wish thyself unborn, when thou art unchaste.
Cas. O mother, let me twine about your neck,
And kiss you, till my soul melt on your lips!
I did but this to try you.
Gra. O, speak truth!
Cas. Indeed I did but; for no tongue has force
To alter me from honest.
If maidens would, men's words could have no power;
A virgin's honour is a crystal tower
Which (being weak) is guarded with good spirits;
Until she basely yields, no ill inherits.
Gra, O happy child! faith, and thy birth hath saved me.
'Mong thousand daughters, happiest of all others:
Be thou a glass for maids, and I for mothers.
[Exeunt.