MONTICELSO

Ever I begin Let me entreat your grace forgo all passion Which may be raised by my free discourse: It is a wonder to your noble friends, That you have as 'twere entered the world, With a free Sceptre in your able hand, And have to use of nature well applied High gifts of learning, should in your prime-age Neglect your awful throne, for the soft down Of and insatiate bed. o my Lord, The Drunkard after all his lavish cups, Is dry, and then is sober, so at length, When you awake from this lascivious dream, Repentance then will follow; Like the sting Placed in the Adders tail: wretched are Princes When fortune blasteth but a petty flower Of their unwieldy crowns; or rauesheth But one pearl from their Sceptre: but alas! When they to wilful shipwreck lose good Fame All Princely titles perish with their name. Oh good Madame. Here is and Emblem nephew pray peruse it. 'Twas thrown in at your window, Do not fear it, I'll be your ranger. I expect good from you, Your parting is so merry. Why that was it; To what scorned purpose else should we make choice Of him for a sea Captain, and beside, Count Lodowick which was rumoured for a pirate. Is now in Padua. Most certain. I have letters from him, which are suppliant To work his quick repeal from banishment, He means to address himself for pension, Unto our sister Duchess. Forbear my Lord, here is no place assing'd you, This business by his holiness is left To our examination. Your business? He was. Who made you overseer? Your lust. Would? Your Champions gone. Go to, go to. After your goodly and vainglorious banquet, I'll give you a choke pear. How does the Duke employ you, that his bonnet Fell with such compliment unto his knee, When he departed from you? Take you heed: Least the Jade break your neck. Do you put me off With your wild horse-tricks? Sirrah you do lie. Oh, thou'rt a foul black cloud, and thou dost threat A violent storm. Wretched creature! I know that thou art fashioned for all ill, Like dogs, that once get blood, they'll ever kill. About some murder? wast not? You have oretane me. To the Duke of Florence? Enough to give you taste How far I am from flattering your greatness? My Lords, you shall not word it any further Without a milder limit. My Lord. No more my Lord, hear comes a Champion, Shall end the difference between you both, Your son the Prince Giovanni, see my Lords What Hope's you store in him, this is a casket For both your Crowns, & should be held Like deer: Now is he apt for knowledge, therefore know It is a more direct and even way To train to virtue those of Princely blood, By examples then by precepts: if by examples Whom should he rather strive to imitate Then his own father: be his pattern then, Leave him a stock of virtue that may last, Should fortune rend his sails, and split his mast. Witty Prince. That is. Plenty of horns hath made him poor of horns. I'll tell you, it's given out You are a Cocould. Look you cossin. Go change the air for shame see if your absence, Will blast your Cornucopia, Marcello Is chosen with you joint commissioner For the relieving our Italian coast From pirates. It may be objected I am dishonourable, To play thus with my kinsman, but I answer. For my revenge I'de stake a brother's life, That being wronged durst not avenge himself. Curse of greatness, Sure he'll not leave her. 'Twas not ill, For sir you know we have nought but circumstances To charge her with, about her husbands death, Their approbation therefore to the proofs Of her black lust, shall make her infamous To all our neighbouring Kingdoms, I wonder (pable If Brachiano will be here. At your pleasure Sir. Stand to the table gentlewomen: now Signior Fallen to your plea. Go on Sir: O for God sake: gentlewoman, your credit Shall be more famous by it. I shall be plainer with you, and paint out Your follies in more natural read and white. Then that upon your cheek. I must spare you till proof cry whore to that, Observe this creature here my honoured Lords, A woman of a most prodigious spirit In her effected. O your trade instructs your language! You see my Lords what goodly fruit she seems, Yet Like those apples travellers report To grow where Sodom and Gomora stood. I will but touch her and you straight shall see Sheele fallen to soot and ashes. I am resolved. Were there a second Paradise to lose This Devil would betray it. Who knows not how, when several night by night Her gates were choked with coaches, and her rooms. Outbraved the stars with several kind of lights, When she did counterfeit a Princes Court. In music banquets and most riotous surfeits This whore, forsooth, was holy. Shall I expound whore to you? sure I shall; I'll give their perfect character. They are first, Sweet meats which rot the eater: In men nostril Poisoned perfumes. They are cozening Alcumy, Shipwracks in Calmest weather? What are whores? Cold Russian winter's, that appear so barren, As if that nature had forgotten the spring. They are the true material fire of hell, Worse then those tributes ith low countries paid, Exactions upon meat, drink, garments sleep. I even on men perdition, his sin. They are those brittle evidences of law Which forfeit all a wretched men estate For leaving out one sillable. What are whores? They are those flattering bells have all one tune: At weddings, and at funerals, your rich whores Are only treasuries by extortion filled, And empted by cursed riot. They are worse, Worse then dead bodies, which are begged at gallows And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man Wherein he is imperfect. Whats a whore? She's Like the guilty conterfetted coin Which who so ear first stamps it bring in trouble All that receive it You gentlewoman; Take from all beasts, and from all minerals Their deadly poison. I'll tell thee I'll find in thee a Pothecaries shop To sample them all. You know what Whore is next the devil; Adultery. Enters the devil, murder. And active plot He jumped into his graven. Ith' rushes. And look upon this creature was his wife. She comes not Like a widow: she comes armed With scorn and impudence: Is this a mourning habit. Oh you are Cunning. See my Lords. She scandals our proceedings. Well, well, such counterfeit Jewels Make true on's oft suspected. Pray you Mistress satisfy me one question: Who lodged beneath your roof that fatal night Your husband brake his neck? Now the Duke's gone, I will produce a letter, Wherein 'twas plotted, her and you should meet, At and Appoticaries summer-house. Down by the river Tiber: veiw't my Lords: Where after wanton bathing and the heat Of a lascivious banquet.—I pray read it, I shame to speak the rest. Frost i'th dogdays! strange! Truly drowned indeed. Very good. If the devil Did ever take good shape behold his picture. My Lord Duke sent to you a thousand ducats, The twelfth of August. I rather think 'Twas Interest for his lust. You were born in Venice, honourably descended, From the Vittelli, 'twas my cossins fate, Ill may I name the hour to marry you, He bought you of your father. He spent there in six months Twelve thousand Dukets, and to my acquaintance Received in dowry with you not one Julio: 'Twas a hard pennyworth, the beware being so light, I yet but draw the curtain now to your picture, You came from thence a most notorious strumpet, And so you have continued. Nay hear me, You shall have time to prate my Lord Brachiano, Alas I make but repetition, Of what is ordinary and Ryalto talk, And ballasted, and would be played a'th stage, But that vice many times finds such loud Friends. That Preachers are charmed filent. You Gentlemen Flamineo and Marcello, The Court hath nothing now to charge you with, Only you must remain upon your sureties, For your appearance. For you Vittoria, your public fault, Joined to'th condition of the present time, Takes from you all the fruits of noble pity. Such a corrupted trial have you made Both of your life and beauty, and be stiled No less in ominous fate then blazing stars To Princes hears; your sentence, you are confined, The More. A house of penitent whores. Away with her? Take her hence. How? fie she's mad She's turned fury. Of convertites. Blessed Lady; Thou art now above thy woes, Wilt please your Lordship's to withdraw a little. How now my Lord? Come, come my Lord, untie your folded thoughts, And let them dangle lose as a brid's hair. Your sister's poisoned. What, are you turned all marble? That's not the course I'de wish you: pray, observe me, We see that undermining more prevails Then does the Canon, Bear your wrongs concealed, And, patient as the Tortoise, let this Camel Stalk over your back unbruised: sleep with the Lion, And let this brood of secure foolish mice Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe For bloody audit, and the fatal gripe: Aim Like a cunning fouler, close one eye, That you the better may your game espy. Sir I do And some there are which call it my black book: Well may the title hold: for though it teach not The Art of conjuring, yet in it lurk, The names of many devils. I'll fetch it to your Lordship. It's here my Lord. Their number rises strangely, And some of them You'd Take for honest men. Next are Panders. These are your Pirates: and these following leaves, For base rogues that undo young Gentlemen, By taking up commodities: for politic bankrupts: For fellows that are bawds to their own wives, Only to put off horses and slight jewels, Clocks, defaced plate, and such commodities, At birth of their first children. These are for Impudent bawds, That go in men's apparel: for usurers That share with scriveners for their good reportage: For Lawyers that will antedate their writes: And some Divines you might find folded there; But that I slip them over for conscience sake. Here is a general catalogue of knaves. A man might study all the prisons over, Yet never attain this knowledge. Pray vse't my Lord. Somewhat Sir. I must make bold To leave your Lordship. My Lord reports Vittoria Corombona Is stol'ne from forth the house of Convertites By Brachiano, and they're fled the City. Now, though this be the first day of our state, We cannot better please the divine power, Than to sequester from the holy Church These cursed persons. Make it therefore known, We do denounce excommunication Against them both: all that are theirs in Room We likewise banish. Set on. I know you're cunning. Come, what devil was that That you were raising? Miserable Creature! If thou persist in this, it's damnable. Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood And not be tainted with a shameful fallen? Or Like the black, and melancholic Eugh-tree, Dost think to root thy self in dead men's graves, And yet to prosper? Instruction to thee Comes Like sweet showers to over-hardened ground: They wet, but Pierce not deep. And so I leave thee Withal the Furies hanging bout thy neck, Till by thy penitence thou remove this evil, In conjuring from thy breast that cruel Devil.