[Here several lacquey-devils and porter-devils, with the rest of the mob of hell, bring on the first band to the bar in Italian garbs.]
Speak, criminal, whence thou art? Of what nation, quality, or condition in the world? And what’s the happy cause of thy coming hither?
Ghost. First, Signor, adjust some points in dispute, which highly concern the honour of our country, and the decorum of good breeding, and I shall, for all this noble train that follow me, answer to your devilship’s queries. Coming to the confines of your flourishing empire, we were met by some of the officers of this honourable assembly, who gave us safe conduct to your royal presence: but just now, entring into these lifts, confronted us a company of paltry scoundrels, and press’d for precedence, swearing, That they were Englishmen, and ought to take place of all that were damn’d for cuckolds. We urg’d our title in heraldry, that we ought to take place of all nations, being the successors of the once masters of the universe; but they were deaf to reason here, as well as in the world, and one swore d—me, bl—d and z—ns, another, oaths all round the compass; and in this volly of mouth-grenadoes, one very demure gentleman press’d, by Yea and Nay, that we were in the wrong; and had it not been for this honourable devil here, that’s a friend to our nation, we had been worm’d out of our birth-right by the arse and refuse of the world: Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, as our noble country-man has it, Dogs shut out of doors from all the rest of mankind. I therefore appeal to this thrice excellent senate, and you the right and most reverend doge, to redress this affront.
Lucif. Hey-day? What, has not hell yet brought you to your senses, that you can think we devils are such sots to trouble our heads about the ridiculous whims of ceremonious mankind? But since they were so obstreperous to make a disturbance in hell, they shall be the last heard: Therefore proceed to the question.
Ghost. An’t please your thrice puissant devilship, noble signor, I was coming to that point: Therefore, to be brief, (for I hate prolixity) I am, Sir, an Italian by nation, and a noble-man by quality. My own vanity, and ill chance, give me a pretty wife, and my honour made me chuse her of an illustrious house; but she prov’d lewd and prodigal, the natural issue of beauty and high birth; my dotage on her charms hath bred in me such a fond, blind, uxorious vice (which my countrymen are seldom guilty of) that I was almost ruin’d before I found I was betray’d: but travelling towards Genoa, I met the spark, my pretended friend, on the road to my dwelling; I seemingly pass’d on my way, but in the night return’d, unexpected, and surpriz’d ’em all, and, therefore, as my honour bid me, I murder’d him, and bak’d him in a pye, and (ingeniously in my revenge) swore she should eat no other food but her lover: the crust she a while did eat, but one day, having prepar’d a stelleto, at supper she dispatch’d me thus to your thrice noble and illustrious devilship.
Lucif. Very well! and worthy thou art of such a punishment, that could’st not forgive beauty a gentle slip of that nature thou thyself hadst so often transgress’d. Speak the next.
2 Ghost. I am also an Italian; and observing a gentleman often ogling my wife, which she did not a little encourage, I sent a bravo to dispatch him; (for we Italians do not love to look revenge in the face ourselves) but the rogue of a bravo, won by my wife, and by a great sum of money of my adversary’s, comes back to me, and cuts my throat. And this, most noble signor, is most of our cases; our wives have given us the casting throw for damnation.
Lucif. You, the rest of the malignant train, is this true, that your wives have sent you hither?
Omnes. Yes, yes; we have all had wives.—— All the plagues of Egypt let us undergo, but no wives, we most humbly beseech your most noble devilship.
Lucif. Prayers are in vain; transgressions are to be punish’d by the same way they are committed; nor must you be your own carvers here in hell, gentlemen. Away with ’em, down into cuckolds-cave, ten thousand fathom deeper than the whore-masters, and next the keeping-cullies, and let each have two wives to torment him.