Ferd. I have this night digged up a mandrake.
Card. Say you?
Ferd. And I am grown mad with't.[122]
Card. What's the prodigy?
Ferd. Read there,—a sister damned: she's loose i' the hilts;
Grown a notorious strumpet.
Card. Speak lower.
Ferd. Lower!
Rogues do not whisper't now, but seek to publish't
(As servants do the bounty of their lords)
Aloud; and with a covetous searching eye,
To mark who note them. O, confusion seize her!
She hath had most cunning bawds to serve her turn,
And more secure conveyances for lust
Than towns of garrison for service.
Card. Is't possible?
Can this be certain?
Ferd. Rhubarb, O, for rhubarb
To purge this choler! here's the cursèd day
To prompt my memory; and here't shall stick
Till of her bleeding heart I make a sponge
To wipe it out.
Card. Why do you make yourself
So wild a tempest?
Ferd. Would I could be one,
That I might toss her palace 'bout her ears,
Root up her goodly forests, blast her meads,
And lay her general territory as waste
As she hath done her honours.
Card. Shall our blood,
The royal blood of Arragon and Castile,
Be thus attainted?
Ferd. Apply desperate physic:
We must not now use balsamum, but fire,
The smarting cupping-glass, for that's the mean
To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.
There is a kind of pity in mine eye,—
I'll give it to my handkercher; and now 'tis here,
I'll bequeath this to her bastard.
Card. What to do?
Ferd. Why, to make soft lint for his mother's wounds,
When I have hewed her to pieces.
Card. Cursèd creature!
Unequal nature, to place women's hearts
So far upon the left side!
Ferd. Foolish men,
That e'er will trust their honour in a bark
Made of so slight weak bulrush as is woman,
Apt every minute to sink it!
Card. Thus
Ignorance, when it hath purchased honour,
It cannot wield it.
Ferd. Methinks I see her laughing—
Excellent hyena! Talk to me somewhat quickly,
Or my imagination will carry me
To see her in the shameful act of sin.
Card. With whom?
Ferd. Happily with some strong-thighed bargeman,
Or one o' the woodyard that can quoit the sledge
Or toss the bar, or else some lovely squire
That carries coals up to her privy lodgings.
Card. You fly beyond your reason.
Ferd. Go to, mistress!
'Tis not your whore's milk that shall quench my wild fire,
But your whore's blood.
Card. How idly shows this rage, which carries you,
As men conveyed by witches through the air,
On violent whirlwinds! this intemperate noise
Fitly resembles deaf men's shrill discourse,
Who talk aloud, thinking all other men
To have their imperfection.
Ferd. Have not you
My palsy?
Card. Yes, but I can be angry
Without this rupture:[123] there is not in nature
A thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger. Chide yourself.
You have divers men who never yet expressed
Their strong desire of rest but by unrest,
By vexing of themselves. Come, put yourself
In tune.
Ferd. So I will only study to seem
The thing I am not. I could kill her now,
In you, or in myself; for I do think
It is some sin in us Heaven doth revenge
By her.
Card. Are you stark mad?
Ferd. I would have their bodies
Burnt in a coal-pit with the ventage stopped,
That their cursed smoke might not ascend to Heaven;
Or dip the sheets they lie in in pitch or sulphur,
Wrap them in't, and then light them like a match;
Or else to boil their bastard to a cullis,
And give't his lecherous father to renew
The sin of his back.
Card. I'll leave you.
Ferd. Nay, I have done.
I am confident, had I been damned in hell,
And should have heard of this, it would have put me
Into a cold sweat. In, in; I'll go sleep.
Till I know who leaps my sister, I'll not stir:
That known, I'll find scorpions to string my whips,
And fix her in a general eclipse. [Exeunt.
ACT THE THIRD.
SCENE I.—An Apartment in the Palace of the Duchess.
Enter Antonio and Delio.
Ant. Our noble friend, my most belovèd Delio!
O, you have been a stranger long at court;
Came you along with the Lord Ferdinand?
Delio. I did, sir: and how fares your noble duchess?
Ant. Right fortunately well: she's an excellent
Feeder of pedigrees; since you last saw her,
She hath had two children more, a son and daughter.
Delio. Methinks 'twas yesterday: let me but wink,
And not behold your face, which to mine eye
Is somewhat leaner, verily I should dream
It were within this half hour.
Ant. You have not been in law, friend Delio,
Nor in prison, nor a suitor at the court,
Nor begged the reversion of some great man's place,
Nor troubled with an old wife, which doth make
Your time so insensibly hasten.
Delio. Pray, sir, tell me,
Hath not this news arrived yet to the ear
Of the lord cardinal?
Ant. I fear it hath:
The Lord Ferdinand, that's newly come to court,
Doth bear himself right dangerously.
Delio. Pray, why?
Ant. He is so quiet that he seems to sleep
The tempest out, as dormice do in winter:
Those houses that are haunted are most still
Till the devil be up.
Delio. What say the common people?
Ant. The common rabble do directly say
She is a strumpet.
Delio. And your graver heads
Which would be politic, what censure they?
Ant. They do observe I grow to infinite purchase,[124]
The left hand way, and all suppose the duchess
Would amend it, if she could; for, say they,
Great princes, though they grudge their officers
Should have such large and unconfinèd means
To get wealth under them, will not complain,
Lest thereby they should make them odious
Unto the people; for other obligation
Of love or marriage between her and me
They never dream of.
Delio. The Lord Ferdinand
Is going to bed.
Enter Duchess, Ferdinand, and Attendants.
Ferd. I'll instantly to bed,
For I am weary.—I am to bespeak
A husband for you.
Duch. For me, sir! pray, who is't?
Ferd. The great Count Malatesti.
Duch. Fie upon him!
A count! he's a mere stick of sugar-candy;
You may look quite through him. When I choose
A husband, I will marry for your honour.
Ferd. You shall do well in't.—How is't, worthy Antonio?
Duch. But, sir, I am to have private conference with you
About a scandalous report is spread
Touching mine honour.
Ferd. Let me be ever deaf to't:
One of Pasquil's paper bullets, court-calumny,
A pestilent air, which princes' palaces
Are seldom purged of. Yet say that it were true,
I pour it in your bosom, my fixed love
Would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny
Faults, were they apparent in you. Go, be safe
In your own innocency.
Duch. [Aside.] O blessed comfort!
This deadly air is purged.
[Exeunt Duchess, Antonio, Delio, and Attendants.
Ferd. Her guilt treads on
Hot-burning coulters.