DUKE

Come my Biancha, revel in mine arms, While I, wrapped in my admiration, view Lilies and Roses growing in thy cheeks. Fernando! o thou half my self! no joy Could make my pleasures full without thy presence! I am a Monarch of felicity, Proud in a pair of Jewels, rich and beautiful; A perfect Friend, a Wife above compare. Of partner in my Dukedom, in my heart, As freely as the privilege of blood Hath made them mine, Phillippo and Fernando Shall be without distinction: Look, Biancha, On this good man; in all respects to him Be as to me: only the name of husband, And reverent observance of our bed Shall differ us in persons, else in soul We are all one. Sister. You are too silent; Quicken your sad remembrance: though the lose Of your dead husband be of more account Then slight neglect, yet it's a sin against The state of Princes to exceed a mean In mourning for the dead. Friend, in thy judgement I approve thy love, And love thee better for thy judging mine: Though my grayheaded Senate in the laws Of strict opinion and severe dispute, Would tie the limits of our free effects, (Like superstitious Jews, to match with none But in a tribe of Princes Like our selves) Gross nurtured slaves, who force their wretched souls To crouch to profit; nay, for trash and wealth, Dote on some crooked or mishapen form, Hugging wise Nature's lame deformity, Begetting creatures ugly as themselves: But why should Princes do so, that command The storehouse of the earth's hid minerals? No, my Bianchae, thou art to me as deer As if thy portion had been Europes riches, Since in thine eyes lies more than these are worth: Set on; they shall be strangers to my heart That envy thee thy Fortune's: Come, Fernando, my but divided self, what we have done We are only debtor to heaven for.—On. Prethe no more, Ferentes, by the faith I owe to honour, thou hast made me laugh Beside my spleen; Fernando, hadst thou herd The pleasant humour of Maurucio's dotage Discoursed, how in the winter of his age He is become a Lover, thou wouldst swear A Morris-dance were but a Tragedy Compared to that: well, we will see the youth: What Council hold you now, sirs? How? why, have not we As gallant Riders here? Pish, your affection leads you; I dare Wage a thousand Ducats not a man in France Outrides Roseilli. Where is he? How is't we see him not? True; but we meant a day or two at most, Should be his furthest term; not yet returned? Where's D'auolos? You know our minds, How comes it thus to pass, we miss Roseilli. The Spanish Court! now by the blessed bones Of good S. Francis, let there posts be sent To call him back, or I will post thy head Beneath my foot; would! you, you know my mind, Look that you get him back; the Spanish Court, And without our Commission,—say! Fie, fie, Biancha; It's such a gross indignity, I'de rather Have lost seven years revenue.—The Spanish Court! How now, what ails our sister? Look to her; come Fernando, come Biancha, Let's strive to overpass this choleric heat: Sirrah, see that you trifle not. How we, Who sway the manage of authority, May be abused by smooth officious agents? But look well to our sister.—— Observe him and be silent. Sister, you are his aim. What think you of this language, sister? Silence, note the rest. Be shrew the chance, we are discovered. We pardon you, most wise and learned Lord, And that we may all glorify your wit, Entreat your wisdoms company to day, To grace our talk with your graven discourse: What says your mighty eloquence? We take your word, and wish your honour health. Away then; come Biancha, we have found A salve for melancholy. Mirth & ease.— Roseilli will not come then? will not? well, His pride shall ruin him.—Our letters speak The Duchess Uncle will be here to morrow. To morrow, D'auolos. Your Uncle (Sweet-hart) at his next return, Must be saluted Cardinal: Ferentes, Be it your charge to think on some device To entertain the present with delight. Friend, thou honourest me: But can it be so speedily performed? Wee'll meet our Uncle in a solemn grace Of zealous presence, as becomes the Church: See all the Choir be ready, D'auolos. Would, what's that thou mislikest D'auolos? We are too sad, me thinks the life of mirth Should still be fed where we are; Where's Maurucio? Would a were here, I have a kind of dulness Hangs on me since my hunting, that I feel As 'twere a disposition to be sick, my head is ever aching. Again! what is't you Like not? The game's too tedious. Now prethe question him, Maurucio. We understand him not. How happy is that Idiot, whose ambition Is but to eat, and sleep, and shun the rod: Men that have more of wit, and use it ill, Are fools in proof. But what? speak out; plague on your muttering Grumbling, I hear you, Sir, what is't? Well, Sir, remember.—Friend, you promised study. I am not well in temper; come Biancha, Attend our friend Ferentes. Thou art a Traitor: do not think the gloss Of smooth evasion, by your cunning sts, And coinage of your politicians brain, Shall jig me off: I'll know't, I vow I will. Did not I note your dark abrupted ends Of words half spoke? your well's, if all were known? Your short, I Like not that? your girds, and Buts? Yes (Sir) I did: such broken language argues More matter then your subtlety shall hide: Tell me, what is't? by Honours self I'll know. Thou liest, dissembler; on thy brow I read Worser stracted herrors figured in thy ookes. On thy allegiance, D'auolos, as ever Thou hopest to live in grace with us, unfold What by thy party halting of thy speech Thy knowledge can discover: By the faith We bear to sacred Justice, we protest, Be it or good, or evi l, thy reward Shall be our special thanks, and love vn-term'd: Speak, on thy duty, we thy Prince command. Dishonour! then my soul is cleft with fear: I half presage my misery, say on; Speak it at once, for I am great with grief. By all our wish of joys, we pardon thee. Keep in the word,—a Cuckold: My heart is split. The ycy current of my frozen blood Is kindled up in Agonies as hight As slames of burning sulphur: o my sat! A Cuckold? had my Duke domes whole inheritance Been rend, mine honours leveled in the dust, So she, that wicked woman, might have slept Chaste in my bosom, had been all a sport. And he, that Villain, viper to my heart, That he should be the man! That he should be the man; death above utterance! Take heed you prove this true. If not, I'll tear thee joint by joint.—Pew, me thinks I should not be; Biancha! why, I took her From lower then a bondage; hell of hels? See that you make it good. See it? Enough:—what news Fernando? We will give him welcome As shall befit our love and his respect: Come mine own best Fernando, my deer friend.— Right Reverend Uncle, though our minds be scanted In giving welcome as our hearts would wish, Yet we will strive to show how much we joy Your presence, with a Courtly show of mirth. Please you to fit. Our humble duty Seat you, my Lords: now let the Masquers enter. Slai e? take this visor off; we are betrayed: Cease on them, two are yonder, hold, Ferentes; Follow the rest, apparent treachery. Forbear, you monstrous women, do not add Mu there to lust: your lives shall pay this forfeit. He is dead, to prison with those monstrous strum pets. To prison with him; bear the body hence. Be gentle in your tortutes, ee'ne for pity; For pity's cause I beg it. Endless immortal plague. Forbear; the ashy paleness of my cheek Is scarleted in ruddy flakes of wrath: And Like some bearded met shall suck up, With swiftest terror, all those dusky mists That overcloud Compassion in our breast. You have roused a sleeping Lion, whom no Art, No sawning smoothness shall reclaim, but blood. And Sister thou, thou Roderico, thou, From whom I take the surfeit of my bane, Henceforth no more so eagerly pursue, To whet my dulness; you shall see Caraffa Equal his birth, and matchless in revenge. Does it? come hither, Sister; thou art near In nature, and as near to me in love. I love thee; yes, by yond bright firmament, I love thee dearly: but observe me well: If any private grudge, or female spleen, Malice, or envy, or such woman's frailty, Have spurred thee on to set my soul on fire, Without apparent certainty; I vow And vow again, by all Princely blood, Hadst thou a double soul, or were the lives Of father's, mother's, children, or the hearts Of all our Tribes in thine, I would unrip That womb of bloody mischief with these nails, Where such a cursed plot as this was hatched. But D'auolos, for thee—no more; to work A yet more strong impression in my brain, You must produce and instance to mine eye, Both present and apparent.—nay, you shall—Or— Shrewdly urged,—it's piercing D'ee play upon me? as I am your Prince, There's some shall roar for this: why what was I, Both to be thought or made so vild a thing? Stay— Madam Marquess, —ho Roderico, you Sir, Bear witness, that if ever I neglect One day, one hour, one minute, to wear out With toil of plot, or practice of conceit, My busy skull, till I have found a death More horrid then the Bull of Phalaris, Or all the fabling Poets; dreaming whips: If ever I take rest, or force a smile Which is not borrowed from a Royal vengeance, Before I know which way to satisfy Fury and wrong: (nay kneel down) let me die More wretched then despair, reproach, contempt, Langhter and poverty it self can make me: Let's rise on all sides, friends; now all's agreed; If the Moon serve, some that are safe shall bleed. Biancha! would, how is't? How is't, Biancha? what Fernando? come, Shall's shake hands, sirs? faith this is kindly done: Here's three as one; welcome deer Wise, sweet Friendship and. She puts my friend before most kindly still. What must? Must join, you say. Your honour, Madam! now beshrew you for't, Engage your honour on so slight a ground: Honour's a precious Jewel, I can tell you; Nay, it's Biancha. —Go too, D'auolos, Bring us Maurucio hither. You Sir, look on that woman; are you pleased, If we remit your body from the jail, To take her for your wife. Why, foolish man, hast thou so soon forgotten The public sh me of her abused womb? Her being mother to a Bastards birth? Or caused thou but imagine she will be True to thy bed, who to her self was false? And shalt: Fernando, thou shalt have the grace To join their hands, put they together, friend. Even so: well, do it. It's enough,—now know our pleasure henceforth. It's our will, if ever thou, Maurucio, or thy wife, Be seen within a dozen miles at Court, We will recall our mercy: no entreat Shall warrant thee a minute of thy life: Wee'll have no servile slavery of lust Shall breath near us; dispatch and get you hence, Biancha, come with me.—o my cle to soul! Troubled! yes, I have cause: Oh Blancha! Here uva my fa e engraved in thy brow, This smoo h pol shed table; in thy cheeks Nature sum ed up thy dower: 'twas not wealth, The Myser God, n r Royalty of blood, Advam c'd thee to my bed; b to love, and hope Of Virtue, that might equal those sweet looks: If then thou shouldst betray my trust, thy faith, To the pollution of a base desire, Thou Wertenberg a wretched woman. Both, both; Biancha, know, That ightly languish of my worser ll unrest Hath stamped a strong opinion; for me though ght (Mark what I say) as I in glorious pomp Was sitting on my Throne, while I had hemmed My best b loved Biancha in mine arms, She reached my cap of State, and cast it down Beneath her foot, and spurned it in the dust; While I (o 'twas a dream too full of fate) Was stooping down to reach it; on my head, Fernando, Like a Tray to to his vows, Clapped, in disgrace, a Coronet of horues: But by the honour of anointed kings, Were both of you hid in a rock of fire, Guarded by ministers of flaming hell, I have a sword (' is here) should make my way Through fire, through darkness, death, and all To hew your lust engendered flesh to shreds, Pound you to mortar, cut your throats, and mince Your lesh to mites; I will,— not,—I will. Yes.—O! I cry thee mercy.—how the rage Of my undreamt of wrongs, made me forget All sense of suff rance! blame me not, Biancha; One such another dream would quite worser stract Reason and self humanity; yet tell me, Was't not and ominous vision? The heart? Nay, strumpet, to the soul; and tear it off From life, to damn it in immortal death I am mad.— Forgive me, good Biancha; still me thinks I dream, and dream anew: now prethe chide me. Sickness, and these divisions, so distract My senses, that I take things possible As if they were: which to remove, I mean To speed me straight to Lucam; where, perhaps, Absence and bathing in those healthful springs May soon recover me: mean time, deer sweet, Pity my troubled heart; griefs are extreme; Yet, Sweet, when I am gone, think on my dream. Who waits without, ho? is provision ready, To pass to Lucam? Friend, hold; take here from me this Jewel, this: Be she your care till my return from Lucam: Honest Fernando, wife respect my friend, Let's go: but hear you wife, think on my dream. Would! did you? know you who I am? I am too angry in my rage, To scourge thee unprovided; take him hence: Away with h him.—— Yet again: Confine him to his Chamber. Leave us all; None stay, not one, shut up the doors. Woman, stand forth before me,—wretched whore. What canst thou hope for? Strumpet I am, and in my hand hold up The edge that must uncut thy twist of life. Dost thou not shake? What! shameless harlot; Rip up the Cradle of thy cursed womb, In which the mixture of that Traitors lust Impostumes for a birth of Bastardy: Yet come, and if thou thinkest thou canst deserve One mite of mercy, ever the boundless spleen Of just-consuming wrath overswell my reason, Tell me, bade woman, tell me what could move Thy heart to cra e variety of youth? Shameless intolerable whore. Oh my stars! Here's impudence above all history: Why thou detested Reprobate in virtue; Durst thou, without a blush, before mine eyes, Speak such immodest language? Excellent, excellent! the pangs of death are music Forgive me, my good Genius, I had thought (to this. I matched a woman, but I find she is A devil, worse then the worst in hell. Nay, nay, since we are in, ee'ne come, say on, I mark you to a sillable: you say, The fault was his, not yours: why, virtuous Mistress, Can you imagine you have so much art Which may persuade me, you and your close markman Did not a little traffic in my right? Such another As thou art, (miserable Creature) would Sink the whole sex of women: yet confess What witchcraft used the wretch to charm the ar Of the once spotless temple of thy mind? For without witchcraft it could never be done. Nay then Thou temptest me oh thy ruin; come black angel, Fair devil, in thy prayers reckon up The sum, in gross, of all thy vained follies: There, amongst other, weep in tears of blood, For one above the rest; Adultery, Adultery, Biancha; such a gilded, As were the sluices of thine eyes let up, Tears cannot wash it off: it's not the tied Of trivial wontonnesse from youth to youth, But thy abusing of thy lawful bed, Thy husbands bed; his, in whose breast thou sleepest: His, that did prize thee more then all the trash Which hoarding worldlings make and Idol of: When thou shalt find the Catalogue enrolled Of thy mis-d eds, there shall be writ, in Text, Thy bastarding, the issues of a Prince. Now turn thine eyes into thy hovering soul, And do not hope for life: would Angels sing A r quiem at my hearse? but to dispense With my Revenge on thee, 'twere all in vain: Prepare to die. Would I say you so too? Give me thy hand, Biancha. Farewell. Thus go in everlasting sleep to dwell: Here's blood for lust, & sacrifice for wrong Sister she's dead. Good: I le slake no time while I am hight in blood. Stand, and behold thy executioner, Thou glorious Traeytor: I will keep no form Of Ceremonious law, to try thy gilded: Look here, it's written on my poigniards point, The bloody evidence of thy untruth, Wherein thy Conscience, and the wrathful rod Of heavens scourge for lust, at once give up The verdict of thy crying villainies. I see th'art armed; prepare, I crave no odds, Greater then is the justice of my cause. Fight, or I'll kill thee. How? To add affliction to thy trembling ghost, Look on my daggers crimson die, and I dge. Not dead? yes, by my Honor's truth: why fool, Dost think I'll hug my injuries? no, Traitor; I'll mix your souls together in your death's, As you did both your bodies in her life: Have at thee. Faint hearted Coward, Art thou so poor in spirit? and ight, Or, by the glories of my now and me, In e kill thee basely. Pish, this is stale dissimulation, I'll hear no more. It's false: as much in death for thee she spoke. Fernando, darest thou swear upon my sword To justify thy words? Biancha chased! Chaste, chased, and killed by me; to her I offer up this remnant of my— Whither now, Shall I run from the day, where never man Nor eye, nor eye of heaven, may see a dog So hateful as I am? Biancha chaste, Had not the fury of some h llish rage Blinded all reasons sighed, I might have see ne Her clearness in her confidence to die. —your leave— 'Tis done, come friend, now for her love, Her love that praised thee in the pangs of death, I'll hold thee deer: Lords, do not care for me, I am too wise to die yet—o Biancha. Slave, torture me no more, note him my Lords, If you would choose a devil in the shape Of man, and Arch-arch-diuell, there stands one. Weel meet our Uncle—order straight Petruchio Our Duchess may be coffined, it's our will She forth with be interred with all the speed And privacy you may, ' the College Church Amongst Caraffa's ancient monuments. Some three days hence we'll keep her funeral. Damned villain, bloody villain—o Biancha, No counsel from our cruel wills can win us, "But ils once done we bear our gilded within us. Peace and sweet rest sleep here; let not the touch Of this my impious hand, profane the shrine Of fairest purity, which hovers yet About those blessed bones inhearst within: If in the bosom of this sacred Tomb, Biancha thy disturbed ghost does range; Behold, I offer up the sacrifice Of bleeding tears, shed from a faithful spring; Roaring oblations of a mourning heart. To thee, offended spirit, I confess I am Caraffa, he, that wretched man, That Butcher, who in my enraged spleen Slaughtered the life of Innocence and Beauty: Now come I to pay tribute to those wounds Which I dug up, and reconcile the wrongs My fury wrought; and my Contrition mourns. So chased, so deer a wife was never man, But I, enjoyed: yet in the bloom and pride Of all her years, untimely took her life. Enough; set open the Tomb, that I may take My last farewell, and bury griefs with her. Fernando, man of darkness, Never till now (before these dreadful fights) Did I abhor thy friendship; thou hast robbed My resolution of a glorious name. Come out, or by the thunder of my rage, Thou diest a death more fearful then the scourge Of death can whip thee with. Guard lay hands, And drag him out. None stir: Who steps a foot, steps to his utter ruin. And art thou gone? Fernando, art thou gone? Thou Wertenberg a friend vnma ch'd, rest in thy fame. Sister, when I have finished my last days, Lodge me, my wife, and this vnequali worser friend, All in one monument. Now to my vows: Never henceforth let any passionate tongue Mention Biancha's and Caraffa's name, But let each letter in that tragic found Beget a sighs, and every sighs a tear: Children unborn, and widows whose lean cheeks Are furrowed up by age, shall weep whole nights, peating but the story of our fates; While in the perjod, closing up their tale, They must conclude, how for Biancha's love, Caraffa in revenge of wrongs to her, Thus on h r Altar sacrificed his life.—— Do, do, I was too willing to strike home To be prevented: Fools, why could you dream I would outlive my outrage sprightful flood Run out in Rivers? o that these thick streams Could gather head, and make a standing pool, That jealous husbands here might bath in blood. So; I grow sweetly empty; all the pipes Of fe vn-ve fell life; now heavens wipe out The writing of my sin: Biancha, us I creep to thee—to thee—to thee By—and—cham. Not this; I'll none of this: it's not so fit: Why should I kill her? she may live and change, Or—