| |
[ Enter B OSOLA, with a dark lantern] 1
BOS. Sure I did hear a woman shriek: list, ha! | |
| And the sound came, if I receiv’d to right, | |
| From the duchess’ lodgings. There ’s some stratagem | |
| In the confining all our courtiers | 4 |
| To their several wards: I must have part of it; | |
| My intelligence will freeze else. List, again! | |
| It may be ’twas the melancholy bird, | |
| Best friend of silence and of solitariness, | 8 |
| The owl, that screamed so.—Ha! Antonio! | |
| |
[Enter ANTONIO with a candle, his sword drawn]
ANT. I heard some noise.—Who ’s there? What art thou? Speak. | |
| BOS. Antonio, put not your face nor body | |
| To such a forc’d expression of fear; | 12 |
| I am Bosola, your friend. | |
| ANT. Bosola!— | |
| [Aside.] This mole does undermine me.—Heard you not | |
| A noise even now? | 16 |
| BOS. From whence? | |
| ANT. From the duchess’ lodging. | |
| BOS. Not I: did you? | |
| ANT. I did, or else I dream’d. | 20 |
| BOS. Let ’s walk towards it. | |
| ANT. No: it may be ’twas | |
| But the rising of the wind. | |
| BOS. Very likely. | 24 |
| Methinks ’tis very cold, and yet you sweat: | |
| You look wildly. | |
| ANT. I have been setting a figure 2 | |
| For the duchess’ jewels. | 28 |
| BOS. Ah, and how falls your question? | |
| Do you find it radical? 3 | |
| ANT. What ’s that to you? | |
| ’Tis rather to be question’d what design, | 32 |
| When all men were commanded to their lodgings, | |
| Makes you a night-walker. | |
| BOS. In sooth, I ’ll tell you: | |
| Now all the court ’s asleep, I thought the devil | 36 |
| Had least to do here; I came to say my prayers; | |
| And if it do offend you I do so, | |
| You are a fine courtier. | |
| ANT. [Aside.] This fellow will undo me.— | 40 |
| You gave the duchess apricocks to-day: | |
| Pray heaven they were not poison’d! | |
| BOS. Poison’d! a Spanish fig | |
| For the imputation! | 44 |
| ANT. Traitors are ever confident | |
| Till they are discover’d. There were jewels stol’n too: | |
| In my conceit, more are to be suspected | |
| More than yourself. | 48 |
| BOS. You are a false steward. | |
| ANT. Saucy slave, I ’ll pull thee up by the roots. | |
| BOS. May be the ruin will crush you to pieces. | |
| ANT. You are an impudent snake indeed, sir: | 52 |
| Are you scarce warm, and do you show your sting? | |
| You libel 4 well, sir? | |
| BOS. No, sir: copy it out, | |
| And I will set my hand to ’t. | 56 |
| ANT. [Aside.] My nose bleeds. | |
| One that were superstitious would count | |
| This ominous, when it merely comes by chance. | |
| Two letters, that are wrought here for my name, 5 | 60 |
| Are drown’d in blood! | |
| Mere accident.—For you, sir, I ’ll take order | |
| I’ the morn you shall be safe.—[Aside.] ’Tis that must colour | |
| Her lying-in.—Sir, this door you pass not: | 64 |
| I do not hold it fit that you come near | |
| The duchess’ lodgings, till you have quit yourself.— | |
| [Aside.] The great are like the base, nay, they are the same, | |
| When they seek shameful ways to avoid shame. Exit. | 68 |
| BOS. Antonio hereabout did drop a paper:— | |
| Some of your help, false friend. 6—O, here it is. | |
| What ’s here? a child’s nativity calculated! [Reads.] | |
| ‘The duchess was deliver’d of a son, ’tween the hours twelve and one in the night, Anno Dom. 1504,’—that ’s this year—‘decimo nono Decembris,’—that ’s this night—‘taken according to the meridian of Malfi,’—that ’s our duchess: happy discovery!—‘The lord of the first house being combust in the ascendant, signifies short life; and Mars being in a human sign, joined to the tail of the Dragon, in the eighth house, doth threaten a violent death. Cætera non scrutantur.’ 7 | 72 |
| Why, now ’tis most apparent; this precise fellow | |
| Is the duchess’ bawd:—I have it to my wish! | |
| This is a parcel of intelligency 8 | |
| Our courtiers were cas’d up for: it needs must follow | 76 |
| That I must be committed on pretence | |
| Of poisoning her; which I ’ll endure, and laugh at. | |
| If one could find the father now! but that | |
| Time will discover. Old Castruccio | 80 |
| I’ th’ morning posts to Rome: by him I ’ll send | |
| A letter that shall make her brothers’ galls | |
| O’erflow their livers. This was a thrifty 9 way! | |
| Though lust do mask in ne’er so strange disguise, | 84 |
| She ’s oft found witty, but is never wise. [Exit.] | |
