Читать книгу The Duchess of Malfi - Webster John - Страница 3

  DELIO.  You are welcome to your country, dear Antonio;

  You have been long in France, and you return

  A very formal Frenchman in your habit:

  How do you like the French court?

  ANTONIO.                          I admire it:

  In seeking to reduce both state and people

  To a fix'd order, their judicious king

  Begins at home; quits first his royal palace

  Of flattering sycophants, of dissolute

  And infamous persons, – which he sweetly terms

  His master's master-piece, the work of heaven;

  Considering duly that a prince's court

  Is like a common fountain, whence should flow

  Pure silver drops in general, but if 't chance

  Some curs'd example poison 't near the head,

  Death and diseases through the whole land spread.

  And what is 't makes this blessed government

  But a most provident council, who dare freely

  Inform him the corruption of the times?

  Though some o' the court hold it presumption

  To instruct princes what they ought to do,

  It is a noble duty to inform them

  What they ought to foresee.2– Here comes Bosola,

  The only court-gall; yet I observe his railing

  Is not for simple love of piety:

  Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants;

  Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud,

  Bloody, or envious, as any man,

  If he had means to be so. – Here's the cardinal.

  BOSOLA.  I do haunt you still.

  CARDINAL.  So.

BOSOLA. I have done you better service than to be slighted thus.

Miserable age, where only the reward of doing well is the doing

of it!

  CARDINAL.  You enforce your merit too much.

BOSOLA. I fell into the galleys in your service: where, for two

years together, I wore two towels instead of a shirt, with a knot

on the shoulder, after the fashion of a Roman mantle. Slighted thus!

I will thrive some way. Black-birds fatten best in hard weather;

why not I in these dog-days?

  CARDINAL.  Would you could become honest!

BOSOLA. With all your divinity do but direct me the way to it.

I have known many travel far for it, and yet return as arrant knaves

as they went forth, because they carried themselves always along with

them. [Exit CARDINAL.] Are you gone? Some fellows, they say,

are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able

to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse.

  ANTONIO.  He hath denied thee some suit?

BOSOLA. He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked

over standing-pools; they are rich and o'erladen with fruit, but none

but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one

of their flattering panders, I would hang on their ears like a

horseleech, till I were full, and then drop off. I pray, leave me.

Who would rely upon these miserable dependencies, in expectation

to be advanc'd to-morrow? What creature ever fed worse than hoping

Tantalus? Nor ever died any man more fearfully than he that hoped

for a pardon. There are rewards for hawks and dogs when they have

done us service; but for a soldier that hazards his limbs in a

battle, nothing but a kind of geometry is his last supportation.

  DELIO.  Geometry?

BOSOLA. Ay, to hang in a fair pair of slings, take his latter swing

in the world upon an honourable pair of crutches, from hospital

to hospital. Fare ye well, sir: and yet do not you scorn us;

for places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where

this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower.

  DELIO.  I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys

  For a notorious murder; and 'twas thought

  The cardinal suborn'd it:  he was releas'd

  By the French general, Gaston de Foix,

  When he recover'd Naples.

  ANTONIO.                  'Tis great pity

  He should be thus neglected:  I have heard

  He 's very valiant.  This foul melancholy

  Will poison all his goodness; for, I 'll tell you,

  If too immoderate sleep be truly said

  To be an inward rust unto the soul,

  If then doth follow want of action

  Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,

  Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.