Act 2

Scene I

Malfi. An apartment in the palace of the Duchess.

	Enter Bosala* and Castruccio.*
Bosola	You say you would fain be taken for an eminent courtier?
Castruccio	’Tis the very main28 of my ambition.
Bosola	Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for’t already, and your nightcap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would have you learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace, and in a set speech, at th’ end of every sentence, to hum three or four times, or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your memory. When you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and threaten him, let him be sure to scape the gallows.
Castruccio	I would be a very merry president.
Bosola	Do not sup o’ nights; ’twill beget you an admirable wit.
Castruccio	Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel; for they say, your roaring boys eat meat seldom, and that makes them so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for an eminent fellow?
Bosola	I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying, and if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken for one of the prime nightcaps.29
	Enter an Old Lady.
	You come from painting now.
Old Lady	From what?
Bosola	Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not painted inclines somewhat near a miracle. These in thy face here were deep ruts and foul sloughs the last progress.30 There was a lady in France that, having had the smallpox, flayed the skin off her face to make it more level; and whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater, after she resembled an abortive hedgehog.
Old Lady	Do you call this painting?
Bosola	No, no, but you call [it] careening31 of an old morphewed32 lady, to make her disembogue33 again: there’s roughcast phrase to your plastic.34
Old Lady	It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.
Bosola	One would suspect it for a shop of witchcraft, to find in it the fat of serpents, spawn of snakes, Jews’ spittle, and their young children’s ordure; and all these for the face. I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of one sick of the plague, than kiss one of you fasting. Here are two of you, whose sin of your youth is the very patrimony of the physician; makes him renew his foot-cloth with the spring, and change his high-pric’d courtesan with the fall of the leaf. I do wonder you do not loathe yourselves. Observe my meditation now. What thing is in this outward form of man To be belov’d? We account it ominous, If nature do produce a colt, or lamb, A fawn, or goat, in any limb resembling A man, and fly from’t as a prodigy: Man stands amaz’d to see his deformity In any other creature but himself. But in our own flesh though we bear diseases Which have their true names only ta’en from beasts⁠— As the most ulcerous wolf and swinish measle⁠— Though we are eaten up of lice and worms, And though continually we bear about us A rotten and dead body, we delight To hide it in rich tissue: all our fear, Nay, all our terror, is, lest our physician Should put us in the ground to be made sweet.⁠— Your wife’s gone to Rome: you two couple, and get you to the wells at Lucca to recover your aches. I have other work on foot.
	Exeunt Castruccio* and Old Lady.*
	I observe our duchess Is sick a-days, she pukes, her stomach seethes, The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue,35 She wanes i’ the cheek, and waxes fat i’ the flank, And, contrary to our Italian fashion, Wears a loose-bodied gown: there’s somewhat in’t. I have a trick may chance discover it, A pretty one; I have bought some apricocks, The first our spring yields.
	Enter Antonio* and Delio, talking together apart.*
Delio	And so long since married? You amaze me.
Antonio	Let me seal your lips forever: For, did I think that anything but th’ air Could carry these words from you, I should wish You had no breath at all.⁠—Now, sir, in your contemplation? You are studying to become a great wise fellow.
Bosola	O, sir, the opinion of wisdom is a foul tetter36 that runs all over a man’s body: if simplicity direct us to have no evil, it directs us to a happy being; for the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom: let me be simply honest.
Antonio	I do understand your inside.
Bosola	Do you so?
Antonio	Because you would not seem to appear to th’ world Puff’d up with your preferment, you continue This out-of-fashion melancholy: leave it, leave it.
Bosola	Give me leave to be honest in any phrase, in any compliment whatsoever. Shall I confess myself to you? I look no higher than I can reach: they are the gods that must ride on winged horses. A lawyer’s mule of a slow pace will both suit my disposition and business; for, mark me, when a man’s mind rides faster than his horse can gallop, they quickly both tire.
Antonio	You would look up to heaven, but I think The devil, that rules i’ th’ air, stands in your light.
Bosola	O, sir, you are lord of the ascendant,37 chief man with the duchess: a duke was your cousin-german remov’d. Say you were lineally descended from King Pepin, or he himself, what of this? Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water. Some would think the souls of princes were brought forth by some more weighty cause than those of meaner persons: they are deceiv’d, there’s the same hand to them; the like passions sway them; the same reason that makes a vicar go to law for a tithe-pig, and undo his neighbours, makes them spoil a whole province, and batter down goodly cities with the cannon.
	Enter Duchess* and Ladies.*
Duchess	Your arm, Antonio: do I not grow fat? I am exceeding short-winded.⁠—Bosola, I would have you, sir, provide for me a litter; Such a one as the Duchess of Florence rode in.
Bosola	The duchess us’d one when she was great with child.
Duchess	I think she did.⁠—Come hither, mend my ruff: Here, when? thou art such a tedious lady; and Thy breath smells of lemon-pills: would thou hadst done! Shall I swoon under thy fingers? I am So troubled with the mother!38
Bosola	Aside. I fear too much.
Duchess	I have heard you say that the French courtiers Wear their hats on ’fore that king.
Antonio	I have seen it.
Duchess	In the presence?
Antonio	Yes.
Duchess	Why should not we bring up that fashion? ’Tis ceremony more than duty that consists In the removing of a piece of felt. Be you the example to the rest o’ th’ court; Put on your hat first.
Antonio	You must pardon me: I have seen, in colder countries than in France, Nobles stand bare to th’ prince; and the distinction Methought show’d reverently.
Bosola	I have a present for your grace.
Duchess	For me, sir?
Bosola	Apricocks, madam.
Duchess	O, sir, where are they? I have heard of none to-year39
Bosola	Aside. Good; her colour rises.
Duchess	Indeed, I thank you: they are wondrous fair ones. What an unskilful fellow is our gardener! We shall have none this month.
Bosola	Will not your grace pare them?
Duchess	No: they taste of musk, methinks; indeed they do.
Bosola	I know not: yet I wish your grace had par’d ’em.
Duchess	Why?
Bosola	I forgot to tell you, the knave gardener, Only to raise his profit by them the sooner, Did ripen them in horse-dung.
Duchess	O, you jest.⁠— You shall judge: pray, taste one.
Antonio	Indeed, madam, I do not love the fruit.
Duchess	Sir, you are loth To rob us of our dainties. ’Tis a delicate fruit; They say they are restorative.
Bosola	’Tis a pretty art, This grafting.
Duchess	’Tis so; a bettering of nature.
Bosola	To make a pippin grow upon a crab, A damson on a blackthorn.⁠—Aside. How greedily she eats them! A whirlwind strike off these bawd farthingales! For, but for that and the loose-bodied gown, I should have discover’d apparently40 The young springal41 cutting a caper in her belly.
Duchess	I thank you, Bosola: they were right good ones, If they do not make me sick.
Antonio	How now, madam!
Duchess	This green fruit and my stomach are not friends: How they swell me!
Bosola	Aside. Nay, you are too much swell’d already.
Duchess	O, I am in an extreme cold sweat!
Bosola	I am very sorry.
	Exit.
Duchess	Lights to my chamber!⁠—O good Antonio, I fear I am undone!
Delio	Lights there, lights!
	Exeunt Duchess* and Ladies.*
Antonio	O my most trusty Delio, we are lost! I fear she’s fall’n in labour; and there’s left No time for her remove.
Delio	Have you prepar’d Those ladies to attend her; and procur’d That politic safe conveyance for the midwife Your duchess plotted?
Antonio	I have.
Delio	Make use, then, of this forc’d occasion. Give out that Bosola hath poison’d her With these apricocks; that will give some colour For her keeping close.
Antonio	Fie, fie, the physicians Will then flock to her.
Delio	For that you may pretend She’ll use some prepar’d antidote of her own, Lest the physicians should re-poison her.
Antonio	I am lost in amazement: I know not what to think on’t.
	Exeunt.