Flam. We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.
Who shall do me right now? is this the end of service? I'd rather go weed garlic; travel through France, and be mine own ostler; wear sheepskin linings, or shoes that stink of blacking; be entered into the list of the forty thousand pedlers in Poland.
Re-enter Ambassadors.
Would I had rotted in some surgeon's house at Venice, built upon the pox as well as on piles, ere I had served Brachiano!
Savoy Am. You must have comfort.
Flam. Your comfortable words are like honey; they relish well in your mouth that's whole, but in mine that's wounded they go down as if the sting of the bee were in them. O, they have wrought their purpose cunningly, as if they would not seem to do it of malice! In this a politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a cannon; wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you.
Fr. Am. The proofs are evident.
Flam. Proof! 'twas corruption. O gold, what a god art thou! and O man, what a devil art thou to be tempted by that cursed mineral! Your diversivolent lawyer, mark him: knaves turn informers, as maggots turn to flies; you may catch gudgeons with either. A cardinal! I would he would hear me: there's nothing so holy but money will corrupt and putrify it, like victual under the line. You are happy in England, my lord: here they sell justice with those weights they press men to death with. O horrible salary!
Eng. Am. Fie, fie, Flamineo! [Exeunt Ambassadors.
Flam. Bells ne'er ring well, till they are at their full pitch; and I hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well till he come to the scaffold. If they were racked now to know the confederacy,—but your noblemen are privileged from the rack; and well may, for a little thing would pull some of them a-pieces afore they came to their arraignment. Religion, O, how it is commedled[57] with policy! The first bloodshed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew!
Mar. O, there are too many.