Early Modern Drama · Character Archetypes

ROMELIO

in The Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business) — Webster, John

Metadata

PlayThe Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business)
AuthorWebster, John
Year (catalogued)1623
First performance1619
Decade1620s
GenreTragicomedy
Play typeAdult Professional
CompanyQueen Anne's Men
Speech prefix(es)Rom. | Rom | Ro. | Rom,
Words5828
Characters30842
Typicality0.15 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP idA14869
BritDrama no.1875
ClusterCluster 7 — Pedants, satyrs & Latin wit

Important excerpts

No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).

Full speech

I'll give the King of Spain Ten thousand Ducats yearly, and discharge My yearly Custom. The Hollanders scarce trade More generally then I: my Factors wives Wear Shaperoones of Velvet, and my Scriveners Merely through my employment, grow so rich, They built their Palaces and Belvidears With musical Waterworks: Never in my life Had I a lose at Sea. They call me on th'Exchange, The fortunate Youngman and make great suit To venture with me: Shall I tell you Sir, Of a strange confidence in my way of Trading, I reckon it as certain as the gain In erecting a Lottery. How well? for a man to be melted to snow water, With toiling in the world from three and twenty, Till threescore for poor fifty thousand Ducats. Faith, and for Silver, Should I not send it packing to east Indies, We should have a glut on't. Yes Sir, but to you, As my most trusted friend, I utter it, I will break the alliance. What tell you me of Gentry, it's nought else But a superstitious relic of time passed: And sift it to the true worth, it is nothing But ancient riches: and in him you know They are pitifully in the wane; he makes his colour Of visiting us so often, to fell land, And thinks if he can gain my sisters love, To recover the Triple valve. Faith, though she were Crooked shoulderd, having such a portion, She would have noble Suitors; but truth is, I would wish my noble Venturer take heed, It may be while he Hope's to catch a Gilded head, He may draw up a Gudgeon. Yes. Not yet my Lord: Do you intend to travel? O then you lose That which makes man most absolute. O my Lord, lie not idle; The chiefest Actium for a man of great spirit, Is never to be out of Actium: we should think The soul was never put into the body, Which has so many rare and curious pieces Of Mathematical motion, to stand still. Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds: In the Trenches for the Soldier; in the wakeful study For the Scholar; in the sorrows of the sea For men of our Profession, of all which Arise and spring up Honour. Come, I know You have some noble great Design in hand, That you levy so much money. How Sir? Are you to be married, my Lord? You are dark to me yet, Tomb-maker? look you, The king of Spain greets you. Proces? come you would be witty now. Infinite grace to you it is a Letter From his Catholic Majesty, for the commends Of this Gentleman for your Husband. Undo your self? he does proclaim him here You are not mad; For one of the Noblest Gentlemen. Voluntary: what mean you by that? I pray come hither, have I any interest in you? I would have you then use me with that respect, You may still keep me so, and to be swayed In this main business of life, which wants Greatest consideration, your Marriage, By my direction: Here's a Gentleman— Come, too much light Makes you Moon-eyed, are you in love with title? I will have a Herald, whose continual practice Is all in pedigree, come a wooing to you, Or and Antiquary in old Buskin's. Why sir? Stay my Lord. Do you long to have my throat cut? Good my Lord, Stay but a little, till I have removed This Court-mist from her eyes, till I wake her From this dull sleep, wherein sheele dream herself To a deformed Beggar: you would marry The great Lord Contarino. And that flew after. Oh yes, their credit in the way of gaming Is the main thing they stand on, that must be paid, Though the Brewer bawl for's money; and this Lord Does she prefer i'th way of marriage, Before our Choice. Here noble Ercole, Come, you are mad already, And I shall never hear you speak good sense, Till you name him for Husband. Stay sir, what do you mean to do? Giu`t rue then: O what rare workmanship have I seen this To finish with your needle, what excellent music Have these struck upon the Viol! Now I'll teach a piece of Art. Kiss her my Lord, if crying had been regarded, Maidenheads had never been lost, at least some appearance Of crying, as and April shower i'th Sunshine. Nay, continue your station, and deal you in dumb show; kiss this doggedness out of her. Yet suppose that they were hearty. O what else; and you remember, we observe the Like in greater Ceremonies then these Contracts, At the Conseration of Prelates, they use ever Twice to say nay, and take it. I, I, all you women, Although you be of never so low stature, Have gall in you most abundant, it exceeds Your brains by two ounces. I was saying somewhat; O do but observe ith City, and yowl find The thriftiest bargains that were ever made, What a deal of wrangling ere they could be brought To and upshot. With revelling faces, nor is it necessary They should; the strangeness and unwillingness Wears the greater state, and gives occasion that The people may buzz and talk of't, though the Bells' Be tongue-tide at the Wedding. Husband, I husband: come you peevish thing, Smile me a thank for the pains I have taken. You Lady of the Laundry, come hither. Look as you love your life, you have and eye Upon your Mistress; I do henceforth bar her All Visitants: I do hear there are Bawds abroad, That bring Cut-works, & Man-toons, & convey Letters To such young Gentlewomen, and there are others That deal in Corn-cutting, and Fortunetelling, Let none of these come at her on your life, Nor Dews ace the wafer woman, that prigs abroad With Muskmeloons, and Malakatoones; Nor the Scotchwoman with the Cittern, do you mark, Nor a Dancer by any means, though he ride on's footcloth, Nor a Hackney Coachman, if he can speak French. By no means: no more words; Nor the woman with Maribone puddings. I have herd Strange juggling tricks have been conveyed to a woman In a pudding: you are apprehensive? When you had a Bastard, you traveled indeed: But my precious Chaperoones, I trust thee the better for that; for I have herd, There is no warier Keeper of a Park, To prevent Stalkers, or your Night-walkers, Then such a man, as in his youth has been A most notorious Dear-stealer. By no means Winifrid, that were the way To make thee travel again: Come be not angry, I do but jest, thou knowest, wit and a woman, Are two very frail things, and so I leave you. Here's the man brought word your father died i'th Indies. Here's and old Gentleman says he was chamber fellow to your father, when they studied the Law toga there at Barcelona. Not I, he's newly come to Naples. A says he's come to read you good counsel. A hundred ducats a month in breaking Venice glasses. I, and wearing Cutwork, a pound a Pearl. And studying a pussing Arithmatick at the cock pit. And resorting to your whore in hired velvet, With a spangled copper fringe at her netherlands. Who I sir? May be there are such. From whence? You are very welcome. Willingly, pray walk sir. O I am poured out Like water, the greatest Rivers i'th world are lost in the Sea, And so am I: pray leave me. Where's Lord Ercole? Contarino? One mischief never comes alone: They are gone to fight. And you be Gentlemen, Do not talk, but make haste after them. Take up the body, and convey it To Saint Sebastians Monastery. Sir, my losses I know, but you I do not. Of what profession are you? Of all men living, You Lawyers I account the only men To confirm patience in us, your delays Would make three parts of this little Christian world Run out of their wits else. Now I remember, you read Lectures to Julio, Are you such a Leech for patience? You are married then I am certain. And have you studied patience? Did you ever see your wife make you Cuckold? I ask it seriously, and you have not seen that, Your patience has not taken the right degree Of wearing Scarlet; I should rather take you For a Bachelor in the Art, then for a Doctor. No sir, with leave of your patience, I am horrible Why I'll tell you, Most radically to try your patience, And the mere question shows you but a Dunse in't. It has made you angry; there's another Lawyers beard In your forehead, you do brissle. The very Spice in them, Had they been shipwracked here upon our coast, Would have made all our Sea a Drench. You are conceited too, Is there any ill Omen in giving names to ships? Very right sir. Come, you are superstitious, I'll give you my opinion, and 'tis serious: I am persuaded there came not Cuckolds enough To the first Launching of them, And 'twas that made them thrive the worse for't. O your Cuckolds handsel is prayed for i'th City. So sir: how now? Are the Scritch-owls abroad already? No such matter, It is the common Bellman goes about, To publish the sale of goods. Denied Christian burial, I pray what does that, Or the dead lazy march in the Funeral, Or the flattery in the Epitaphs, which shows More sluttish far then all the Spiders webs Shall ever grow upon it: what do these Add to our well being after death? Very well then, I have a certain Meditation, If I can think of somewhat to this purpose, I'll say it to you, while my mother there Numbers her Beads. You that dwell near these graves and vaults, Which oft do hide Physicians faults, Note what a small Room does suffice, To express men's good, their vanities, Would fill more volume in small hand, Then all the Evidence of Church-land. Funerals hide men in civil wearing, And are to the Drapers a good hearing, Make the Heralds laugh in their black Payment, And all die Worthies die worth payment. To the Altar Offerings, though their fame, And all the charity of their name, Between heaven and this yield no more light, Then rotten trees, which shine i'th night. O look the last Act be the best i'th Play, And then rest gentle bones, yet pray, That when by the precise you are viewed, A Supersede as be not sued, To remooub you to a place more airy, That in your stead they may keep chary Stockfish, or Seacole, for the abuses Of sacrilege have turned graves to vilder uses. How then can any Monument say, Here rest these bones, till the last day, When time swift both of foe and feather, May bear them the Sexton ens not whither. What care I then, though my last sleep, Be in the Desert, or in the deep, No Lamp, nor Taper, day and night, To give my Charnel chargeable light: I have there Like quantity of ground, And at the last day I shall be found. Now I pray leave me. Um sir the more spacious that the Tennis court is, The more large is the Hazard. I dare the spiteful Fortune do her worst, I can now fear nothing. Living? the worse luck. How? How oft has he been dressed? Do you prize his life so? O, is't nothing else? Here is cruelty appareled in kindness. I am full of thoughts, stram ̄ ge ones, but they're no good ones. I must visit Contarino, upon that Depends and Engine shall weigh up my losses, Were they sunk as low as hell; yet let me think, How I am impaired in a hour, and the cause of't, Lost in security: o how this wicked world bewitches, Especially made insolent with riches: So Sails with fore-winds stretched, do soonest break, And Piramides ath top, are still most weak. Excellently well habited, why me thinks, That I could play with mine own shadow now, And be a rare Italienated Jew; To have as many several change of faces, As I have seen carved upon on Cherrystone; To wind about a man Like rotten Ivy, Eat into him Like Quicksilver, poison a friend with pulling but a lose hair from ̄ is beard, or give a dre ̄ changed, He should singer of't nine years, and never complain, But in the Spring and Fallen, and so the cause Imputed to the disease natural, for sleight villainies, As to coin money, corrupt Ladies Honours, Betray a Town to'th Turk, or make a Bonfire A'th Christian Navy, I could settle too't, As if I had eat a Politician, And digested him to nothing but pure blood. But stay, I lose my self, this is the house. Within there. You are the men of Art, that as I hear, Have the Lord Contarino under cure. Why, is he dead? Listen to me Gentlemen, so I protest, If you will seriously mind your own good, I am come about a business shall convey I arge legacies from Contarino's Will To both of you. I pray attend me: I am a Physician. In Room. Store? why look you, I can kill my oh a month And work but i'th forenoons: you will give me leave To jest and be merry with you, but as I said, All my study has been Physic, I am sent From a noble Roman that is near a kin To Contarino, and that ought indeed, By the Law of Iliance, be his only heir, To practice his good and yours. I can by and Extraction which I have, Though he were speechless, his eyes set in's head, His pulses without motion, restore to him For half and hours space, the use of sense, And perhaps a little speech: having done this, If we can work him, as no doubt we shall, To make another Will, and therein assign This Gentleman his Heir, I will assure you, Before I depart this house, ten thousand Ducats, And then weel pull the pillow from his head, And let him ne go whither the Religion sends him That he died in. Well said, you are honest men, And go to the business roundly: but Gentlemen, I must use my Art singly. And the doors locked to me. Excellent as I would wish: these credulous fools Have given me freely what I would have bought With a great deal of money. -Softly, hers breuth yet; Now Ercole, for partly of the Revenge, Which I have vowed for thy untimely death: Beside, this politic working of my own, That scorns President, why should this great man live, And not enjoy my sister, as I have vowed He never shall? O, he may alters will Every New Moon if he please; to prevent which, I must put in a strong Caveat. Come forth then My desperate Steeletto, that may be worn In a woman's hair, and never discovered, And either would be taken for a Bodkin, Or a curling iron at most; why 'tis and engine, That's only fit to put in execution Barmotho Pigs, A most unmanly weapon, That steals into a men life he knows not how: Oh great Caesar, he that passed the shock Of so many armed Pikes, and poisoned Darts, Swords, Slings, and Battleaxes, should at length Sitting at ease on a cushion, come to die By such a Shoemakers aule as this, his soul et forth At a hold, no bigger then the incision Made for a wheal : vos foot, I am horribly angry, That he should die so scurvily: yet wherefore Do I condemn thee thereof so cruelly? Yet shake him by the hand, 'tis to express, That I would never have such weapons used, But in a plot Like this, that's treacherous: Yet this shall prove most merciful to thee, For it shall preserve thee From dying on a public Scaffold, and withal Bring thee and absolute Cure, thus. So, 'tis done: and now for my escape. Hold, I turn Christian. I am Romelio the Merchant. You may read why I came hither. I did hate this man, each minute of his breath Was torture to me. But he had died then, And my revenge unsatisfied: here's gold; Never did wealthy man purchase the silence Of a terrible scolding wife at a dearer rate, Then I will pay for yours: here's your earnest In a bag of double Ducats. The west Indies shall sooner want gold, then you Why, I pray tell me, Is not the shortest fever the best? and are not bade Plays The worse for their length? O be not angry; Indeed the Court to well composed nature Adds much to perfection: for it is or should be, As a bright Crystal, Mirror to the world, To dress it self; but I must tell you sister, If the excellency of the place could have wrought salvation, The Devil had never fallen from heaven; he was proud, Leave us, leave us? Come, take your seat again, I have a plot, If you will listen to it seriously, That goes beyond example, it shall breed Out of the death of these two Noble men, The advancement of our House. Nay, nay, hear me. 'Tis somewhat indirectly, I confess: But there is much advancement in the world, That comes in indirectly. I pray mind me: You are already made by absolute Will, Contarino's heir: now, if it can be proved, That you have issue by Lord Ercole, I will make you inherit his Land too. I know you would wonder how it could be done, But I have laid the case so radically, Not all the Lawyers in Christendom, Shall find any the least slavum in't: I have a Mistress Of the Order of Saint Clare, a beauteous Nun, Who being cloistered ere she knew the heat, Her blood would arrive to, had only time enough To repent, and idleness sufficient To fallen in love with me; and to be short, I have so much disordered the holy Order, I have God this Nun with child. I am glad you grow thus pleasant. Now will I have you presently give out, That you are full two months quickened with child By Ercole, which rumour can beget No scandal to you, since we will affirm, The Precontract was so exactly done, By the same words used in the form of marriage, That with a little Dispensation, A money matter, it shall be registered Absolute Matrimony. Right: for at such time My Mistress falls in labour, you must feign the Like. Not capable? Would by whom? O misfortune! Your child must then be reputed Ercoles. No matter for that, So I preserve her fame. I am strangely puzzled: Why, suppose that she be brought abed before you, And we conceal her issue till the time Of your delivery, and then give out, That you have two at a birth, would, Wertenberg not excellent? That's done already. What purpose? This will not do; the Devil has on the sudden furnished me with a rare charm, yet a most unnatural falsehood: no matter so it'll take. Stay sister, I would utter to you a business, But I am very loath: a thing indeed, Nature would have compassionately concealed, Till my mother's eyes be closed. You did observe, With what a deer regard our mother tendered The Lord Contarino, yet how passionately She sought to cross the match: why this was merely To blind the eye o'th world; for she did know That you would marry him, and he was capable My mother doted upon him, and it was plotted Cunningly between them, after you were married, Living all three together in one house, A thing I cannot whisper without horror: Why, the malice scarce of Devils would suggest, Incontinence between them two. Upon my soul, this Jewel, With a piece of the holy Cross in't, this relic, Vallewed at many thousand crowns, she would have sent him, lying upon his death bed. His Will was made afore he went to fight, When he was first a Suitor to you. For the affront sake, a word you understand not, Because Ercole was pretended Rival to him, To clear your suspicion; I was gulled in't too: Should he not have fought vpon't, He had undergone the censure of a Coward. His Surgeon overheard it, As he did sighs it out to his Confessor, Some half hour before he died. No, but direct falsehood, As ever was banished the Court: did you ever hear Of a mother that has kept her daughters husband For her own tooth? He fancied you in one kind, For his lust, and he loved Our mother in another kind, for her money, The Gallants fashion right. But come, never think on't, Throw the fowl to the Devil that hatched it, and let this Bury all ill that's in't, she is our mother. But were Contarino living. Would? Why? Come, come, come, You must leave these bitter flashes. Eat unripe fruit, and Oatmeal, to take away your colour. And when you are up, Make to your petticoat a quilted preface, To advance your belly. I'll get one shall be as tractable too't as Stockfish. So, nothing in the world could have done this, But to beget in her a strong distaste Of the Lord Contarino: o Jealousy, How violent, especially in women, How often has it raised the devil up in form of a law case! My especial care must be, to nourish craftily this fiend, Tween the mother and the daughter, that the deceit Be not perceived. My next task, that my sister, After this suppofed childbirth, be persuaded To enter into Religion: 'tis concluded, She must never marry; so I am left guardian To her estate: and lastly, that my two Surgeons Be waged to the East Indies: let them prate, When they are beyond the Line; the Callenture, Or the Scurvy, or the Indian Pox, I hope, Will take order for their coming back. O here's my mother: I would strange news for you, My sister is with child. Strange, that you can skip From the former sorrow to such a question! I'll tell you, in the absence of his Surgeon, My charity did that for him in a trice, They would have done at leisure, and been paid for't. I have killed him. Would? I will heal it presently mother: for this sorrow Belongs to your error: you would have him live, Because you think he's father of the child; But Iolenta vows by all the rights of Truth, 'Tis Ercole's: it makes me smile to think, How cunningly my sister could be drawn To the Contract, and yet how familiarly To his bed. Doves never couple Without a kind of murmur. Your old disease, when you are grieved, You are troubled with the Mother. Pray tend my sister, I am infinitely full of business. Pray my Lord, who is my accuser? She has discovered Contarino's murder: If she prove so unnatural, to call My life in question, I am armed to suffer This to end all my losses. What are you sir? Prithee stand further, I shall gall your gout else. My Lord, I am so strengthened in my innocence, For any the least shadow of a crime, Committed gainst my mother, or the world, That she can charge me with, here do I make it My humble suit, only this hour and place, May give it as full hearing, and as free, And unrestrained a Sentence. Let fear dwell with Earthquakes, Shipwracks at Sea, or Prodigies in heaven, I cannot set my self so many fathom Beneath the haight of my true heart, as fear. I do not ask thee, prithee hold thy prating. Out upon thee, I would thou Wertenberg of his fidem, The devil and thee together on each hand, To prompt the Lawyers memory when he founders. How, a Bastard? O mother, Now the day begins grow hight on your side. I had forgotten that; was my father married to any other woman, at the time of my begetting? I turn me then to you that were my mother, But by what name I am to call you now, You must instruct me: were you ever married To my father? None my Lord. Not any. None that ever arrived at my knowledge. Could I conceive this Publication Grew from a hearty penitence, I could bear My undoing the more patiently; but my Lord, There is no reason, as you said even now, To satisfy me: but this suit of hers Springs from a devilish malice, and liar pretence, Of a grieved Conscience, and Religion, Like to the horrid Powder-Treason in England, Has a most bloody unnatural revenge Hid under it: O the violences of women! Why they are creatures made up and compounded Of all monsters, poisoned Myneralls, And sorcerous Herbs that grows. Would men express a bade one, Let him forsake all natural example, And compare one to another; they have no more mercy, Then minous fires in great tempests. Hard hearted creatures good for nothing else, But to wind dead bodies. Yet why do I Take Bastardy so distastefully, when i'th world, A many things that are essential parts Of greatness, are but by-slips, and are fathered On the wrong parties. Preferment in the world a many times, Basely begotten: nay, I have observed The immaculate Justice of a poor men cause, In such a Court as this, has not known whom To call Father, which way to direct it self For Compassion: but I forget my temper, Only that I may stop that Lawyers throat, I do beseech the Court, and the whole world, They will not think the baselyer of me, For the vice of a mother: for that woman's sin, To which you all dare swear when it was done, I would not give my consent. For your own gravities, And the reverence of the Court, I do beseech you, Rip up the cause no further, but proceed to Sentence. Strange, unheard of, more practice yet! Let him, I will fight with the ̄ both, sixteen of them. I do entreat the Court, there be a guard Placed over my Sister, that she enter not Into Religion: she's rich my Lords, And the persuasions of Friars, to gain All her possessions to their Monasteries, May do much upon her. You question me, as if I were graved already, When I have quenched this wild-sire In Ercoles tame blood, I'll tell you. No, no, the world and I Have not made up our accounts yet. Whither you do or no, I care not. No matter, I will be mine own Pilot: Do not you trouble your head with the business. Phew, I took out that Lesson, When I once lay sick of and Ague: I do now Labour for life, for life. Sir, can you tell me, Whither your Tolledo, or your Milan Blade Be best tempered? But these are things you know, I must practice with to morrow. Turn you, were I in your case, I should laugh at mine one shadow. Who has hired you to make me Coward? That's a scurvy question now. Did you ask it as a Confessor, or as a spy? Um, you are but weakly made for't: He's a cunning wrestler, I can tell you, and has broke many a men neck. Let it go by what it will, Get me some good victuals to breakfast, I am hungry. Pew, I am not to commence Doctor: For then the word, Devour that book, were proper. I am to sighed, to sighed sir, and I'll doo't, As I would feed, with a good stomach. Why sir? Is not Death A hungry companion? Say? is not the graven Said to be a great devourer? Get me some victuals. I knew a man that was to lose his head, Feed with and excellent good appetite, To strengthen his heart, scarce half and hour before. And if he did it, that only was to speak, What should I, that am to do? You must understand, that Resolution Should ever wait upon a noble death, As Captains bring their Soldiers out o'th field, And come off last: for, I pray what is death? The safest Trench i'th world to keep man free From Fortune's Gunshot; to be afraid of that, Would prove me weaker then a teeming woman, That does endure a thousand times more pain In bearing of a child. I am armed for't. 'Tis very welcome, this is a decent garment Will never be out of fashion. I will kiss it. All the Flowers of the Spring, Meet to perfume our burying: These have but their growing prime, And man does slourish but his time. Survey our progress from our birth, We are set, we grow, we turn to earth. Courts adieu, and all delights, All bewitching appetites; Sweetest Breath, and clearest eye, Like perfumes go out and die; And consequently this is done, As shadows wait upon the Sun. Vain the ambition of Kings, Who seek by trophies and dead things, To leave a living name behind And weave but nets to catch the wind: Oh you have wrought a miracle, and melted A heart of Adamant, you have comprised In this dumb Pageant, a right excellent form Of penitence. More Divinity yet? Good sir, do one thing first, there's in my Closet A Prayer book that is covered with gilded Vellom, Fetch it, and pray you certify my mother, I'll presently come to her. So now you are safe. Why I have locked them up Into a Turret of the Castle safe enough, For troubling us this four hours; and he please, He may open a Casement, and whistle out to'th Sea, Like a Boson, not any creature can hear him. Wast not thou a weary of his preaching? So much the better, I am rid of her howling at parting. Let him knock till his Sandals fly in pieces. I, I, he means he would have Contarino's living Bestowed upon his Monastery, it's that He only fish for. So, it's break of day, We shall be called to the combat presently. What's that? Now to'th Combat. If I do not dream, I am happy to. I shall my Lord. Most willingly. A mere Beggar He's worth some fifty thousand Ducats. Believe me Sir, as on the principal Colume To advance our House: why you bring honour with you, Which is the soul of Wealth. I shall be proud To live to see my little Nephews ride O'th upper hand of their Uncle's; and the Daughters Be ranked by Heralds at Solemnities Before the Mother: all this derived From your Nobility. Do not blame me sir, If I be taken with't exceedingly: For this same honour with us Citizens, Is a thing we are mainly found of, especially When it comes without money, which is very seldom, But as you do perceive my present temper, Be sure I am yours, fierd with scorn and laughter, At your over confident purpose, and no doubt, My mother will be of your mind. O sister come, the Taylor must to work, To make your wedding Clothes. No, but I met the devil in villainous tidings. I have herd some talk of it very much, and many times to their Auditors impatience; but I pray, What practice do they make of't in their lives? They are too full of choler with living honest, And some of them not only impatient Of their own sleightest injuries, but stark mad, At one another's preferment: now to you sir, I have lost three goodly Carracks. Is he not dead? He has made a Will I hear. And deputed Iolenta his heir. Has not Romelio been with you yet, To give you thanks, and ample recompense For the pains you have taken. Upon my Iewisme. Why do you grieve thus? take a Lookingglass, And see if this sorrow become you; that pale face Will make men think you used some Art before, Some odious painting: Contarino's dead. O most assuredly, make you smile to think, How many times ith world Lordship's descend To diverse men, that might and truth were known Be heir, for any thing belongs to'th flesh, As well to the Turks richest Eunuch. I am here my Lord, and called I do protest, To answer what I know not, for as yet I am wholly ignorant, of what the Court Will charge me with. Speaks he all this to me? O sir, you are happily restored to life, And to us your friends. Withal, let me continue And honest man, which I am very certain, A coward can never be; you take upon you A Physicians place, rather then a Divines. You go about to bring my body so low, I should sighed i'th Lists to morrow Like a Dormouse, And be made away in a slumber. Stay, I do not well know whither I am going: 'Twere needful therefore, though at the last gasp, To have some Church men prayer. Run I pray thee, To Castle Novo; this key will release A Capuchin and my mother, whom I shut Into a Turret, bid them make hast, and pray I may be dead ere he comes. Now, Victory a ceux que droit. Keep your possession, you have the door bithring, That's Livery and Seasin in England; but my Lord, Kiss that tear from her lip, yowl find the Rose The sweeter for the dew. Why thats well, it'll make your prayer complete, To pray for your Husband. And wearing more taffaty for a garter, then would serve the Galley dung-boat for streamers. (strissimi. Poor Iolenta, should she hear of this? She would not after the report keep fresh, So long as flowers in graves. How now Prospero. You will be secret How unfortunately was I surprised, I have made my self a slave perpetually to these two beggars. O by all means, 'tis fit, my sister is his heir. This object does persuade me to forgive The wrong she has done me, which I count the way To be forgiven yonder: and this Shroud Shows me how rankly we do smel of earth, When we are in all our glory. Will it please you Enter that Closet, where I shall confer Bout matters of most weighty consequence, Before the Duel. I, and make you beget More children when yare married: some Doctors Are of that opinion. You see my Lord, we are merry At the Contract, your sport is to come hereafter.

Plot summary

Plot — The Devil's Law Case (When Women Go to Law the Devil Is Full of Business)
Contarino, who has been wooing Jolenta, asks her family’s permission to marry her, but her widowed mother Leonora misunderstands his oblique request and thinks she is herself the object of his interest. Meanwhile Jolenta’s brother, Romelio, would prefer her to marry Ercole; but she refuses him and Ercole takes offence. Contarino fights a duel with Ercole, and they wound one another. The bodies are sent to a 1618 monastery. Ercole recovers and decides to forgo his interest in Jolenta to Contarino, should he too survive. Concerned that he should not, Romelio visits the monastery disguised as a Jewish physician, and stabs Contarino’s body. He is seen by two surgeons, who plan to blackmail him; but ironically the stab clears Contarino’s wound and facilitates his recovery. Romelio’s financial situation is perilous: he has lost his mercantile carracks of spice. Contarino has named Jolenta his heir; Romelio plans to make her Ercole’s too, by fabricating the story that she is pregnant by him. Romelio himself will supply the eventual baby: he has got a nun, Angiolella, with child, and wants both to cover this up and ensure that his issue will inherit both suitors’ property. Jolenta, however, claims that she really is pregnant, by Contarino; so Romelio proposes that she should produce twins. Knowing of Leonora’s interest in Contarino, he fosters jealousy between mother and daughter. The Spanish judge Crispiano comes to Naples in disguise with three objectives: to observe his son’s lifestyle, to investigate reports of illegal gold-mining by Romelio, and to appoint the lawyer Ariosto as a judge. Blaming her son for Contarino’s death, Leonora brings a false law-case that will deprive him of his patrimony by establishing his illegitimacy: he was conceived, she claims, during his father’s absence. Crispiano sits as judge, and attributes the action to malice, but stands down when he becomes a party in the case: Leonora names him as Romelio’s natural father. Ariosto takes his place on the bench, and Crispiano demonstrates that he was not even in Europe at the time in question. To evade punishment, Leonora claims to have become a nun. Ercole, present in disguise, is arrested for killing Contarino, but accuses Romelio of the crime. In the absence of a witness, this is to be settled in a trial by combat. Contarino, incognito, agrees to fight on Ercole’s side. The news of Contarino’s survival reaches Leonora via her confessor, a Capuchin, but Romelio locks them in a tower on…