Flam. You are deceived: there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.
Mar. How?
Flam. I'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, should not aspire to gentility. Farewell: let others live by begging; be thou one of them practise the art of Wolner[58] in England, to swallow all's given thee; and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit. I'll go hear the screech-owl. [Exit.
Lod. [Aside]. This was Brachiano's pander and 'tis strange
That, in such open and apparent guilt
Of his adulterous sister, he dare utter
So scandalous a passion. I must wind him.
Re-enter Flamineo.
Flam. [Aside]. How dares this banished count return to Rome,
His pardon not yet purchased! I have heard
The deceased duchess gave him pension,
And that he came along from Padua
I' the train of the young prince. There's somewhat in't:
Physicians, that cure poisons, still do work
With counter-poisons.
Mar. Mark this strange encounter.
Flam. The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,
And let the stigmatic[59] wrinkles in thy face,
Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide,
One still overtake another.
Lod. I do thank thee,
And I do wish ingeniously[60] for thy sake
The dog-days all year long.
Flam. How croaks the raven?
Is our good duchess dead?
Lod. Dead.
Flam. O fate!
Misfortune comes, like the coroner's business,
Huddle upon huddle.
Lod. Shalt thou and I join house-keeping?
Flam. Yes, content:
Let's be unsociably sociable.
Lod. Sit some three days together, and discourse.
Flam. Only with making faces: lie in our clothes.
Lod. With faggots for our pillows.
Flam. And be lousy.
Lod. In taffata linings; that's genteel melancholy:
Sleep all day.
Flam. Yes; and, like your melancholic hare,
Feed after midnight.—
We are observed: see how yon couple grieve!
Lod. What a strange creature is a laughing fool!
As if man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth.
Flam. I'll tell thee what,—
It would do well, instead of looking-glasses,
To set one's face each morning by a saucer
Of a witch's congealèd blood.
Lod. Precious gue![61]
We'll never part.
Flam. Never, till the beggary of courtiers,
The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers,
And all the creatures that hang manacled,
Worse than strappadoed, on the lowest felly
Of Fortune's wheel, be taught, in our two lives,
To scorn that world which life of means deprives.
Enter Antonelli and Gasparo.
Anto. My lord, I bring good news. The Pope, on's death-bed,
At the earnest suit of the Great Duke of Florence,
Hath signed your pardon, and restored unto you—
Lod. I thank you for your news.—Look up again,
Flamineo; see my pardon.
Flam. Why do you laugh?
There was no such condition in our covenant.
Lod. Why!
Flam. You shall not seem a happier man than I:
You know our vow, sir; if you will be merry,
Do it i' the like posture as if some great man
Sate while his enemy were executed;
Though it be very lechery unto thee,
Do't with a crabbèd politician's face.
Lod. Your sister is a damnable whore.
Flam. Ha!
Lod. Look you, I spake that laughing.
Flam. Dost ever think to speak again?
Lod. Do you hear?
Wilt sell me forty ounces of her blood
To water a mandrake?
Flam. Poor lord, you did vow
To live a lousy creature.
Lod. Yes.
Flam. Like one
That had for ever forfeited the daylight
By being in debt.
Lod. Ha, ha!
Flam. I do not greatly wonder you do break;
Your lordship learned't long since. But I'll tell you,—
Lod. What?
Flam. And't shall stick by you,—
Lod. I long for it.
Flam. This laughter scurvily becomes your face:
If you will not be melancholy, be angry. [Strikes him.
See, now I laugh too.
Mar. You are to blame: I'll force you hence.
Lod. Unhand me.
[Exeunt Marcello and Flamineo.
That e'er I should be forced to right myself
Upon a pander!
Anto. My lord,—
Lod. H'ad been as good met with his fist a thunderbolt.
Gas. How this shows!
Lod. Ud's death,[62] how did my sword miss him?
These rogues that are most weary of their lives
Still scape the greatest dangers.
A pox upon him! all his reputation,
Nay, all the goodness of his family,
Is not worth half this earthquake:
I learned it of no fencer to shake thus:
Come, I'll forget him, and go drink some wine.
[Exeunt.