Enter Lodovico, Gasparo, Pedro, and Carlo.

Flam. What noise is that? ha! false keys i' the court!
Lod. We have brought you a mask.
Flam. A matachin,[97] it seems by your drawn swords.
Churchmen turned revellers!
Carlo. Isabella! Isabella!
Lod. Do you know us now?
Flam. Lodovico! and Gasparo!
Lod. Yes; and that Moor the duke gave pension to
Was the great Duke of Florence.
Vit. Cor. O, we are lost!
Flam. You shall not take justice from forth my hands,—
O, let me kill her!—I'll cut my safety
Through your coats of steel. Fate's a spaniel,
We cannot beat it from us. What remains now?
Let all that do ill, take this precedent,—
Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent:
And of all axioms this shall win the prize,—
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.
Gas. Bind him to the pillar.
Vit. Cor. O, your gentle pity!
I have seen a blackbird that would sooner fly
To a man's bosom, than to stay the gripe
Of the fierce sparrowhawk.
Gas. Your hope deceives you.
Vit. Cor. If Florence be i' the court, would he would kill me!

Gas. Fool! princes give rewards with their own hands,
But death or punishment by the hands of others.
Lod. Sirrah, you once did strike me: I'll strike you
Into the centre.
Flam. Thou'lt do it like a hangman, a base hangman,
Not like a noble fellow; for thou see'st
I cannot strike again.
Lod. Dost laugh?
Flam. Would'st have me die, as I was born, in whining?
Gas. Recommend yourself to Heaven.
Flam. No, I will carry mine own commendations thither.
Lod. O, could I kill you forty times a day,
And use't four year together, 'twere too little!
Naught grieves but that you are too few to feed
The famine of our vengeance. What dost think on?
Flam. Nothing; of nothing: leave thy idle questions.
I am i' the way to study a long silence:
To prate were idle. I remember nothing.
There's nothing of so infinite vexation
As man's own thoughts.
Lod. O thou glorious strumpet!
Could I divide thy breath from this pure air
When't leaves thy body, I would suck it up,
And breathe't upon some dunghill.
Vit. Cor. You, my death's-man!
Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough,
Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman:
If thou be, do thy office in right form;
Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness.
Lod. O, thou hast been a most prodigious comet
But I'll cut off your train,—kill the Moor first.

Vit. Cor. You shall not kill her first; behold my breast:
I will be waited on in death; my servant
Shall never go before me.
Gas. Are you so brave?
Vit. Cor. Yes, I shall welcome death
As princes do some great ambassadors;
I'll meet thy weapon half way.
Lod. Thou dost tremble:
Methinks fear should dissolve thee into air.
Vit. Cor. O, thou art deceived, I am too true a woman:
Conceit can never kill me. I'll tell thee what,
I will not in my death shed one base tear;
Or if look pale, for want of blood, not fear.
Carlo. Thou art my task, black Fury,
Zanche. I have blood
As red as either of theirs: wilt drink some?
'Tis good for the falling-sickness. I am proud
Death cannot alter my complexion,
For I shall ne'er look pale.
Lod. Strike, strike,
With a joint motion.
[They stab Vittoria, Zanche, and Flamineo.
Vit. Cor. 'Twas a manly blow:
The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;
And then thou wilt be famous.
Flam. O, what blade is't?
A Toledo, or an English fox?[98]
I ever thought a cutler should distinguish
The cause of my death, rather than a doctor.
Search my wound deeper; tent it with the steel
That made it.
Vit. Cor. O, my greatest sin lay in my blood
Now my blood pays for't.

Flam. Thou'rt a noble sister!
I love thee now: if woman do breed man,
She ought to teach him manhood: fare thee well.
Know, many glorious women that are famed
For masculine virtue have been vicious,
Only a happier silence did betide them:
She hath no faults who hath the art to hide them.
Vit. Cor. My soul, like to a ship in a black storm,
Is driven, I know not whither.
Flam. Then cast anchor.
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
We cease to grieve, cease to be fortune's slaves,
Nay, cease to die, by dying. Art thou gone?
And thou so near the bottom? false report,
Which says that women vie with the nine Muses
For nine tough durable lives! I do not look
Who went before, nor who shall follow me;
No, at myself I will begin and end.
While we look up to Heaven, we confound
Knowledge with knowledge. O, I am in a mist!
Vit. Cor. O, happy they that never saw the court,
Nor ever knew great men but by report! [Dies.
Flam. I recover like a spent taper, for a flash,
And instantly go out.
Let all that belong to great men remember the old wives' tradition, to be like the lions i' the Tower, on Candlemas-day: to mourn if the sun shine, for fear of the pitiful remainder of winter to come.
'Tis well yet there's some goodness in my death;
My life was a black charnel. I have caught
An everlasting cold; I have lost my voice
Most irrecoverably. Farewell, glorious villains!
This busy trade of life appears most vain,
Since rest breeds rest, where all seek pain by pain.
Let no harsh flattering bells resound my knell;
Strike, thunder, and strike loud, to my farewell!
[Dies.
Eng. Am. [Within]. This way, this way! break ope the doors! this way!
Lod. Ha! are we betrayed?
Why, then let's constantly die all together;
And having finished this most noble deed,
Defy the worst of fate, not fear to bleed:

Enter Ambassadors and Giovanni.

Eng. Am. Keep back the prince: shoot, shoot. [They shoot, and Lodovico falls.

Lod. O, I am wounded!
I fear I shall be ta'en.
Gio. You bloody villains,
By what authority have you committed
This massacre?
Lod. By thine.
Gio. Mine!
Lod. Yes; thy uncle,
Which is a part of thee, enjoined us to't:
Thou know'st me, I am sure; I am Count Lodowick;
And thy most noble uncle in disguise
Was last night in thy court.
Gio. Ha!
Carlo. Yes, that Moor
Thy father chose his pensioner.
Gio. He turned murderer!—
Away with them to prison and to torture!
All that have hands in this shall taste our justice,
As I hope Heaven.
Lod. I do glory yet
That I can call this act mine own. For my part,
The rack, the gallows, and the torturing wheel,
Shall be but sound sleeps to me: here's my rest;
I limned this night-piece, and it was my best.
Gio. Remove the bodies.—See, my honoured lords,
What use you ought make of their punishment:
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
[Exeunt.

Instead of an EPILOGUE, only this of Martial supplies me:

Hæc fuerint nobis præmia, si placui.[99]

For the action of the play, 'twas generally well, and I dare affirm, with the joint-testimony of some of their own quality, for the true imitation of life; without striving to make nature a monster, the best that ever became them: whereof as I make a general acknowledgment, so in particular I must remember the well-approved industry of my friend Master Perkins,[100] and confess the worth of his action did crown both the beginning and end.