Читать книгу The Duchess of Malfi - Webster John - Страница 6

  BOSOLA.  You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?

  CASTRUCCIO.  'Tis the very main31 of my ambition.

BOSOLA. Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for 't already,

and your night-cap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would

have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace,

and in a set speech, at th' end of every sentence, to hum three

or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your

memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you

smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and

threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.

  CASTRUCCIO.  I would be a very merry president.

  BOSOLA.  Do not sup o' nights; 'twill beget you an admirable wit.

CASTRUCCIO. Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel;

for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them

so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for

an eminent fellow?

BOSOLA. I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying,

and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken

for one of the prime night-caps.32 [Enter an Old Lady]

You come from painting now.

  OLD LADY.  From what?

BOSOLA. Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not

painted inclines somewhat near a miracle. These in thy face here

were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress.33 There was

a lady in France that, having had the small-pox, flayed the skin off

her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked

like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedge-hog.

  OLD LADY.  Do you call this painting?

BOSOLA. No, no, but you call [it] careening34 of an old

morphewed35 lady, to make her disembogue36 again:

there 's rough-cast phrase to your plastic.37

  OLD LADY.  It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.

BOSOLA. One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it

the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews' spittle, and their young

children's ordure; and all these for the face. I would sooner eat

a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the

plague, than kiss one of you fasting. Here are two of you, whose sin

of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew

his foot-cloth with the spring, and change his high-pric'd courtezan

with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves.

  Observe my meditation now.

  What thing is in this outward form of man

  To be belov'd?  We account it ominous,

  If nature do produce a colt, or lamb,

  A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling

  A man, and fly from 't as a prodigy:

  Man stands amaz'd to see his deformity

  In any other creature but himself.

  But in our own flesh though we bear diseases

  Which have their true names only ta'en from beasts, —

  As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle, —

  Though we are eaten up of lice and worms,

  And though continually we bear about us

  A rotten and dead body, we delight

  To hide it in rich tissue:  all our fear,

  Nay, all our terror, is, lest our physician

  Should put us in the ground to be made sweet. —

Your wife 's gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to

the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot.

  I observe our duchess

  Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes,

  The fins of her eye-lids look most teeming blue,38

She wanes i' the cheek, and waxes fat i' the flank,

  And, contrary to our Italian fashion,

  Wears a loose-bodied gown:  there 's somewhat in 't.

  I have a trick may chance discover it,

  A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks,

  The first our spring yields.

  DELIO.                        And so long since married?

  You amaze me.

  ANTONIO.       Let me seal your lips for ever:

  For, did I think that anything but th' air

  Could carry these words from you, I should wish

  You had no breath at all. – Now, sir, in your contemplation?

  You are studying to become a great wise fellow.

BOSOLA. O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter39 that runs all over a man's body: if simplicity direct us to have

no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly

proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.

  ANTONIO.  I do understand your inside.

  BOSOLA.                                 Do you so?

  ANTONIO.  Because you would not seem to appear to th' world

  Puff'd up with your preferment, you continue

  This out-of-fashion melancholy:  leave it, leave it.

BOSOLA. Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment

whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than

I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses.

A lawyer's mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and

business; for, mark me, when a man's mind rides faster than his horse

can gallop, they quickly both tire.

  ANTONIO.  You would look up to heaven, but I think

  The devil, that rules i' th' air, stands in your light.

BOSOLA. O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant,40 chief man with

the duchess: a duke was your cousin-german remov'd. Say you were

lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this?

Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find

them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes

were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner

persons: they are deceiv'd, there 's the same hand to them; the like

passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar go to law for

a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole

province, and batter down goodly cities with the cannon.

  DUCHESS.  Your arm, Antonio:  do I not grow fat?

  I am exceeding short-winded. – Bosola,

  I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter;

  Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.

  BOSOLA.  The duchess us'd one when she was great with child.

  DUCHESS.  I think she did. – Come hither, mend my ruff:

  Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and

  Thy breath smells of lemon-pills:  would thou hadst done!

  Shall I swoon under thy fingers?  I am

  So troubled with the mother!41

  BOSOLA.  [Aside.]             I fear too much.

  DUCHESS.  I have heard you say that the French courtiers

  Wear their hats on 'fore that king.

  ANTONIO.  I have seen it.

  DUCHESS.                   In the presence?

  ANTONIO.                                     Yes.

  DUCHESS.  Why should not we bring up that fashion?

  'Tis ceremony more than duty that consists

  In the removing of a piece of felt.

  Be you the example to the rest o' th' court;

  Put on your hat first.

  ANTONIO.                You must pardon me:

  I have seen, in colder countries than in France,

  Nobles stand bare to th' prince; and the distinction

  Methought show'd reverently.

  BOSOLA.  I have a present for your grace.

  DUCHESS.                                   For me, sir?

  BOSOLA.  Apricocks, madam.

  DUCHESS.                    O, sir, where are they?

  I have heard of none to-year42

  BOSOLA.  [Aside.]              Good; her colour rises.

  DUCHESS.  Indeed, I thank you:  they are wondrous fair ones.

  What an unskilful fellow is our gardener!

  We shall have none this month.

  BOSOLA.  Will not your grace pare them?

  DUCHESS.  No:  they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.

  BOSOLA.  I know not:  yet I wish your grace had par'd 'em.

  DUCHESS.  Why?

  BOSOLA.         I forgot to tell you, the knave gardener,

  Only to raise his profit by them the sooner,

  Did ripen them in horse-dung.

  DUCHESS.                       O, you jest. —

  You shall judge:  pray, taste one.

  ANTONIO.                            Indeed, madam,

  I do not love the fruit.

  DUCHESS.                  Sir, you are loth

  To rob us of our dainties.  'Tis a delicate fruit;

  They say they are restorative.

  BOSOLA.                        'Tis a pretty art,

  This grafting.

  DUCHESS.  'Tis so; a bettering of nature.

  BOSOLA.  To make a pippin grow upon a crab,

  A damson on a black-thorn. – [Aside.] How greedily she eats them!

  A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales!

  For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown,

  I should have discover'd apparently43

The young springal44 cutting a caper in her belly.

  DUCHESS.  I thank you, Bosola:  they were right good ones,

  If they do not make me sick.

  ANTONIO.                      How now, madam!

  DUCHESS.  This green fruit and my stomach are not friends:

  How they swell me!

  BOSOLA.  [Aside.]    Nay, you are too much swell'd already.

  DUCHESS.  O, I am in an extreme cold sweat!

  BOSOLA.                                      I am very sorry.

  DUCHESS.  Lights to my chamber! – O good Antonio,

  I fear I am undone!

  DELIO.               Lights there, lights!

  ANTONIO.  O my most trusty Delio, we are lost!

  I fear she 's fall'n in labour; and there 's left

  No time for her remove.

  DELIO.                   Have you prepar'd

  Those ladies to attend her; and procur'd

  That politic safe conveyance for the midwife

  Your duchess plotted?

  ANTONIO.               I have.

  DELIO.  Make use, then, of this forc'd occasion.

  Give out that Bosola hath poison'd her

  With these apricocks; that will give some colour

  For her keeping close.

  ANTONIO.                Fie, fie, the physicians

  Will then flock to her.

  DELIO.  For that you may pretend

  She'll use some prepar'd antidote of her own,

  Lest the physicians should re-poison her.

  ANTONIO.  I am lost in amazement:  I know not what to think on 't.

BOSOLA. So, so, there 's no question but her techiness46 and most vulturous eating of the apricocks are apparent signs

of breeding, now?

  OLD LADY.  I am in haste, sir.

BOSOLA. There was a young waiting-woman had a monstrous desire

to see the glass-house —

  OLD LADY.  Nay, pray, let me go.  I will hear no more

  of the glass-house.  You are still47 abusing women!

BOSOLA. Who, I? No; only, by the way now and then, mention your

frailties. The orange-tree bears ripe and green fruit and blossoms

all together; and some of you give entertainment for pure love,

but more for more precious reward. The lusty spring smells well;

but drooping autumn tastes well. If we have the same golden showers

that rained in the time of Jupiter the thunderer, you have the same

Danaes still, to hold up their laps to receive them. Didst thou

never study the mathematics?

  OLD LADY.  What 's that, sir?

BOSOLA. Why, to know the trick how to make a many lines meet in one

centre. Go, go, give your foster-daughters good counsel: tell them,

that the devil takes delight to hang at a woman's girdle, like

a false rusty watch, that she cannot discern how the time passes.

  ANTONIO.  Shut up the court-gates.

  RODERIGO.                           Why, sir?  What 's the danger?

  ANTONIO.  Shut up the posterns presently, and call

  All the officers o' th' court.

  GRISOLAN.                       I shall instantly.

  ANTONIO.  Who keeps the key o' th' park-gate?

  RODERIGO.                                      Forobosco.

  ANTONIO.  Let him bring 't presently.

  FIRST SERVANT.  O, gentleman o' th' court, the foulest treason!

  BOSOLA.  [Aside.] If that these apricocks should be poison'd now,

  Without my knowledge?

  FIRST SERVANT.

  There was taken even now a Switzer in the duchess' bed-chamber —

  SECOND SERVANT.  A Switzer!

  FIRST SERVANT.  With a pistol —

  SECOND SERVANT.  There was a cunning traitor!

  FIRST SERVANT.

  And all the moulds of his buttons were leaden bullets.

  SECOND SERVANT.  O wicked cannibal!

  FIRST SERVANT.  'Twas a French plot, upon my life.