D'AVOLOS

Such was the Dukes command. Never, my Lord. You have the open world before you. Not so; My warrant is only to command you from the Court, Within five hours to depart after notice taken, And not to live within thirty miles of it, Until it be thought meet by his Excellence To call you back: now I have warned you, my Lord, At your peril be it if you disobey; I shall Inform the Duke of your discontent.— Bitter and shrewd. I do, Lady; it's a smooth praise. Madam, I will omit no Art, My honoured Lord Fernando. Let me beseech your Lordship To excuse me, in the nobleness of your wisdom, If I exceed good manners: I am one, my Lord, Who in the admiration of your perfect virtues, Do so truly honour and reverence your deserts, That there is not a creature bears life Shall more faithfully study to do you service In all offices of duty, and vows of endue respect. I beseech your care a little, good my Lord; what I Have to speak, concerns your reputation and best fortune. I do repute my self The blessedest man alive, that I shall be the first Gives your Lordship news of your perpetual comfort. If singular beauty, unimitable virtues, honour, youth, And absolute goodness be a fortune, all those are at once Offered to your particular choice. The great and gracious Lady Fiormonda love you, Infinitely loves you.—But, my Lord, as ever you tendered A servant to your pleasures, let me not be revealed, that I gave you notice on't. Nay, my Lord, Whatsoever I infer, you may break with her in it If you please, for rather than silence should hinder You one step to such a fortune, I will expose my self To any rebuke for your sake, my good Lord. Gone already; 'Sfoot I would marred all, this is worse and worse, he's as cold as Hemlock; if her Highness knows how I have gone to work, she'll thank me scurvily: a pox of all dull brains; I took the clean contrary course: there is a mystery in this slight carelessness of his, I must si to it, and I will find it. vd's me, fool my self out of my wit: well, I'll choose some fitter opportunity to inveigle him, and till then, smooth her up, that he is a man overjoyed with the report.——— Let your Highness, and you all, my Lords, take adui e How you motion his Excellency on Roseillie's behalf: There is more danger in that man than is fit to be Publicly reported; I could wish things were other wise For his own sake; but I'll assure you, you will exceedingly Altar his Excellencies disposition (he now is in) if you but Mention the name of Roseilli to his ear; I am so much Acquainted in the process of his actions. O confusion on this villainous occasion. My Lord. My Lord, in a sudden discontent I hear he departed towards Benevento, determining (as I am given to under stand) to pass to Si l, minding to visit his Cozen Done Pedro de Toledo, in the Spanish Court. Now is the time; alone; reading a letter; good; how now? striking his breast? what, in the name of policy, should this mean? tearing his hair? passion, by all the Hope's of my life, plain passion: now I perceive it; if this be not a fit of some violent affection, I am and ass in vnderstan ding; why it's plain, plainer and plainer: Love in the ex treamest: o for the party, who now? the greatness of his spirits is to high cherished to be caught with some ordinary stuff, and if it be my Lady Fiormonda, I am strangely mi stook: well, that I have fit occasion soon to understand: I have here two pictures, newly drawn, to be sent for a present to the Abbot of Monacho, the Duchess Uncle, her own and my Ladies: I'll observe which of these may, per haps, bewray him:—a turns about, my noble Lord. Me, my Lord? for what, my Lord? No secret, my Lord, but may be imparted to you: A couple of Pictures, my good Lord, please you see them. Th'one is for my Lords sister, the other is the Duchess. Yes, my Lord:—sure the word startled him— —Observe that. Service, my honoured Lord, howsoever you please to term it. I beseech your Lordship; They are, as I am, constant to your pleasure: This (my Lord) is the widow Marquesses, as it now newly came from the Picture-drawers, the oil yet green a sweet Picture; and in my judgement, Art hath not been a niggard in striving to equal the life. Michael Angelo himself needed not blush to own the workmanship. For the Dukes, my Lord, who determines to send it with all speed as a present to Paul Baglione, Uncle to the Duchess; that he may see the riches of two such lustres as shine in the Court of Pavy. This (my Lord) is for the Duchess Biancha, a wondrous sweet Picture, if you well observe with what sin gularity the Arts-man hath strove to set forth each limb in exquisitest proportion, not missing a hair. She cannot more formally, Or (if it may be lawful to use the word) more really, behold her own Symmetry in her glass, then in taking a sensible view of this counterfeit: when I first saw it, I verily almost was of a mind that this was her very lip. How constantly he dwells upon this portraiture? Nay, I'll assure your Lordship there is no defect of cunning. His eye is fixed as if it were incorporated there.—Were not the party her self alive to witness that there is a Creature composed of flesh and blood, as naturally enriched with such harmony of admiral beauty, as is here artificially counter feited, a very curious eye might repute it as and imaginary rapture of some transported conceit, to aim at and impossi bility; whose very first gaze is of force almost to persuade a substantial love in a settled heart. I am confirmed.—Whst ails your Lordship? I am all your servant:—blessed, blessed discovery! Please you to command me? By the Castles farther drawbridge, near Galzazzo's statue; his name is Alphonso Trinultio —happy above all fate. But had your Grace seen the infinite appetite of lust in the piercing adultery of his eye, you would— Not altogether in health, it was the excuse he made. Come, sweet heart, wilt along with me? Are you so apt to try his skill, Madam Duchess? Very good. Marry needs she not; how gladly will she too't? it's a Rook to a Queen, she heaves a pawn to a Knights place; by'rlady, if all be truly noted, to a Dukes place; and that's be side the play, I can tell you. At it already? admirable hast. Not kissing yet? still on vour knees? Oh for a plump Bed and clean sheets, to comfort the aching of his shins! We shall have they clip anon, and lisp kisses; here's ceremo nigh with a vengeance. Now, now, now the game is a foot, your grey Jennet with the white face is curried, forsooth; please your Lord ship leap up into the saddle, forsooth;—poor Duke, how does thy head ache now? So, via —to be cuckold (mercy and providence) is as natural to a married man, as to eat sleep or wear a night cap. Friends! I will rather trust mine arm in the throat of a Lion, my purse with a Courtesan, my neck with the chance on a Die, or my Religion in a Synagogue of Jews, then my wife with a friend; wherein do Princes exceed the poorest peasant that ever was yoked to a sixpenny strumpet, but that the horns of the one are mounted some two inches higher by a Choppine then the other? o Acteon! the goodliest headed beast of the Forest, amongst wild cattle, is a Stag; and the goodliest beast amongst tame fools in a Corporation is a Cuckold. Above the prevention of Fate, Madam: I saw him kneel make pitiful faces, kiss hands and forefingers, rise and by this time he is up, up Madam: dobtlesse the youth aims to be Duke, for he is got into the Dukes seat and hour ago. Oracle, oracle; siege was laid, parley admitted, come sition offered, and the Fort entrred; there's no interruption, the Duke will be at home to morrow (gentle Animal) what d'ee resolve? To morrow night, my Lord, but not to make more then one days abided here: for his Holiness has commanded him to be at Room the tenth of this month, the Conclave of Cardinals not being resolved to fit till his coming. I have already made your Highness pleasure known to them. Beshrew my heart, but that's not so good. Nothing, my Lord,—but I was hammering a conceit of mine own, which cannot (I find) in so short a time thrive, as a days practice. A shrewd ominous token; I Like not that neither. I beseech your Highness excuse me; I am so busy with his frivolous project, and can bring it to no shape, that it almost confounds my capacity. Bitter girds if all were known,—but— Nothing, I protest, to your Highness pertinent, to any moment. What would you know, my Lord? I confess I owe my life and service to you, as to my Prince; the one you have, the other you may take from me at your pleasure: should I devise matter to feed your distrust, or suggest likelihoods without appearance? what would you have me say? I know nothing. O my disaster! my Lord, I am so charmed by those powerful repetitions of love and duty, that I cannot con ceale what I know of your dishonour. I trust your Highness will pardon me, yet I will not deliver a sillable which shall be less innocent then truth it self. Get from me cowardly servility, my service is no ble, and my loyalty and Armour of brass: in short, my Lord, and plain discovery, you are a Cuckold. Fernande is your Rival, has stolen your Duchess heart, murdered friendship, horns your head, and laughs at your horns. Take courage, be a Prince in resolution; I knew it would nettle you in the fire of your composition, and was loath to have g ven the first report of this more then ridicu lous blemish to all patience or moderation. But, o my Lord, what would not a subject do to approve his loyalty to his Sovereign? yet, good Sir, take it as quietly as you can: I must needs say, it's a soul fault, but what man is he und the Sun, that is free from the Career of his destiny? may be she will in time reclaim the errors of her youth: or 'twere a great happiness in you, if you could not believe it; that's the surest way, my Lord, in my poor counsel. My Lord. As for that, would it were as good as I would make it, I can (if you will temper your distractions) but bring you where you shall see it; no more. I, see it, if that be proof sufficient: I for my partly, will slack no service that may testify my simplicity. Excellent! now for a horned Moon. But I hear the preparation for the entertainment of this great Abbot, let him come and go, that matters nothing to this; while he rides abroad in hope to purchase a purple hat, our Duke shall as earnestly heat the pericranion of his noddle, with a yellow hood at home: I hear they coming. On to your victuals; some of ye, I know, seed up on wormwood. One, my Lord, that does so palpably, so apparently make her Adulteries a Trophy, while the poting-sticke to her unsatiate and more then goatish abomination, jeers at, and flouts your sleepish, and more then sleepish security. More base in the infiniteness of her sensuality, Then corruption can infect: to clip and inveigle Your friend too, o unsufferable! A friend? how of All men are you most unfortunate? to pour out Your soul into the bosom of such a creature, As holds it Religion to make your own trust a key, To open the passage to your own wines womb, To be drunk in the privacies of your bed: Think upon that, Sir. There's the mischief, Sir: In the mean time you shall be sure to have a Bastard, (of whom you did not so much as beget a little toe, a left ear, or half the further side of and upper lip) inherit both your Throne and Name; this would kill the soul of very patience ence it self. And it becomes my Lord most Princely. Right; would you desire, my Lord, to see them ex change , sucking one another's lips, nay, begetting and heir to the Dukedom, or practising more then the very act of adultery it self? Give but a little way by a feigned absence, and you shall find they—I blush to speak doing what: I am mad to think on't, you are most shamefully, most sin fully, most scornfully cornuted. I do not Like this now, it shows scurvily to me, I shall, my Lord.—— Come on, Sir, the Duke stays for you. Here's argument to jealousy, as good as drink to the dropsy, she will share any disgrace with him: I could not wish it better. Not by a dozen miles, indeed Sir: your only course I can advise you, is to pass to Naples, and set up a house of Carnality, there are very fair and frequent suburbs, and you needs not fear the contagion of any pestilent disease, for the worst is very proper to the place. Will you go, Sir. Will you go, Sir? Away, away, sirs.— Julia mine own—speak softly. What? hast thou learned out any thing of this pale widgeon? Speak soft, what does she say? Honest Julia, peace: th'art a woman worth a king dome: let me never be believed now, but I think it will be my destiny to be thy husband at last: what though thou have a child, or perhaps two? Well, one; is that such a matter? I Like thee the better for't: it shows thou hast a good tenantable and fer tile womb, worth twenty of your barren, dry, bloodless devourers of youth; but come, I will talk with thee more privately; the Duke has a journey in hand, and will not be long absent: see, he is come already.—let's pass away easily. Is there confidence in credit now, Sir? belief in your own eyes? do you see? do you see, Sir? Can you be hold it without lightning? You must go, Sir: The Lord Abbot of Monacho, sir, is in his return from Room, lodged last night late in the City, very privately; and hearing the report of your journey, only intends to visit your Duchess to morrow. God boyee. Arch-arch-diuell: why I am paid, Here's bounty for good service; beshrew my heart it is a right princely rewa worser: now must I say my prayers, that I have lived to so ripe and age to have my head stri ken off; I cannot tell, 'tmay be my Lady Fiormonda will stand on my behalf to the Duke: that's but a single hope; a disgraced Courtier oftener finds enemies to sink him when he is fall ling, then friends to relieve him: I must resolve to stand to the hazard of all brunts now. Come what may, I will not die Like a Cow, and the world shall know it.— Whom have we here? Roseilli the supposed fool? It's he; nay then help me a brazen face; My honourable Lord. Madam, I trust the service— As a private man! what remedy? This way they must come, and here I will stand to fallen amongst em in the rear. Above hope, here's labour saved, I could bless the Destinies My gracious Lord: Mercy, new Duke: here's my comfort, I make but one in the number of the Tragedy of Princes. Please but to speak to her, be but Courtly ceremonious With her, use once but the language of affection, if I Misreport ought beside my knowledge, let me never Have place in your good opinion: o, these women, my Lord Are as brittle mettle as your glasses, as smooth, as slippery: Their very first substance was quicksands; let they look Never so demurely, one Philip chokes them: my Lord, She loves you I know it.—But I beseech your Lordship Not to discover me; I would not for the world she Should know that you know it by me. Madam, I shall observe they with all cunning secrecy. I marry, the match is made, clap hands and too't ho. My honoured Lord.