Act 5

Scene V

Another apartment in the same.

	Enter Cardinal, with a book.
Cardinal	I am puzzl’d in a question about hell; He says, in hell there’s one material fire, And yet it shall not burn all men alike. Lay him by. How tedious is a guilty conscience! When I look into the fishponds in my garden, Methinks I see a thing arm’d with a rake, That seems to strike at me.
	Enter Bosala, and Servant bearing Antonio’s* body.*
	Now, art thou come? Thou look’st ghastly; There sits in thy face some great determination Mix’d with some fear.
Bosola	Thus it lightens into action: I am come to kill thee.
Cardinal	Ha!⁠—Help! our guard!
Bosola	Thou art deceiv’d; they are out of thy howling.
Cardinal	Hold; and I will faithfully divide Revenues with thee.
Bosola	Thy prayers and proffers Are both unseasonable.
Cardinal	Raise the watch! We are betray’d!
Bosola	I have confin’d your flight: I’ll suffer your retreat to Julia’s chamber, But no further.
Cardinal	Help! we are betray’d!
	Enter, above, Pescara, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Malatesti	Listen.
Cardinal	My dukedom for rescue!
Roderigo	Fie upon his counterfeiting!
Malatesti	Why, ’tis not the cardinal.
Roderigo	Yes, yes, ’tis he: But, I’ll see him hang’d ere I’ll go down to him.
Cardinal	Here’s a plot upon me; I am assaulted! I am lost, Unless some rescue!
Grisolan	He doth this pretty well; But it will not serve to laugh me out of mine honour.
Cardinal	The sword’s at my throat!
Roderigo	You would not bawl so loud then.
Malatesti	Come, come, let’s go to bed: he told us this much aforehand.
Pescara	He wish’d you should not come at him; but, believe’t, The accent of the voice sounds not in jest: I’ll down to him, howsoever, and with engines Force ope the doors.
	Exit above.
Roderigo	Let’s follow him aloof, And note how the cardinal will laugh at him.
	Exeunt, above, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Bosola	There’s for you first, ’Cause you shall not unbarricade the door To let in rescue. Kills the Servant.
Cardinal	What cause hast thou to pursue my life?
Bosola	Look there.
Cardinal	Antonio!
Bosola	Slain by my hand unwittingly. Pray, and be sudden. When thou kill’d’st thy sister, Thou took’st from Justice her most equal balance, And left her naught but her sword.
Cardinal	O, mercy!
Bosola	Now it seems thy greatness was only outward; For thou fall’st faster of thyself than calamity Can drive thee. I’ll not waste longer time; there! Stabs him.
Cardinal	Thou hast hurt me.
Bosola	Again!
Cardinal	Shall I die like a leveret, Without any resistance?⁠—Help, help, help! I am slain!
	Enter Ferdinand.
Ferdinand	Th’ alarm! Give me a fresh horse; Rally the vaunt-guard, or the day is lost, Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms Shake my sword over you; will you yield?
Cardinal	Help me; I am your brother!
Ferdinand	The devil! My brother fight upon the adverse party!
	He wounds the Cardinal, and, in the scuffle, gives Bosala* his death-wound.*
	There flies your ransom.
Cardinal	O justice! I suffer now for what hath former bin: Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.
Ferdinand	Now you’re brave fellows. Caesar’s fortune was harder than Pompey’s; Caesar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the feet of disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain’s nothing; pain many times is taken away with the apprehension of greater, as the toothache with the sight of a barber that comes to pull it out. There’s philosophy for you.
Bosola	Now my revenge is perfect.⁠—Sink, thou main cause Kills Ferdinand. Of my undoing!⁠—The last part of my life Hath done me best service.
Ferdinand	Give me some wet hay; I am broken-winded. I do account this world but a dog-kennel: I will vault credit and affect high pleasures Beyond death.
Bosola	He seems to come to himself, Now he’s so near the bottom.
Ferdinand	My sister, O my sister! there’s the cause on’t. Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust. Dies.
Cardinal	Thou hast thy payment too.
Bosola	Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth; ’Tis ready to part from me. I do glory That thou, which stood’st like a huge pyramid Begun upon a large and ample base, Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing.
	Enter, below, Pescara, Malatesti, Roderigo, and Grisolan.
Pescara	How now, my lord!
Malatesti	O sad disaster!
Roderigo	How comes this?
Bosola	Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murdered By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia Poison’d by this man; and lastly for myself, That was an actor in the main of all Much ’gainst mine own good nature, yet i’ the end Neglected.
Pescara	How now, my lord!
Cardinal	Look to my brother: He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling Here i’ th’ rushes. And now, I pray, let me Be laid by and never thought of. Dies.
Pescara	How fatally, it seems, he did withstand His own rescue!
Malatesti	Thou wretched thing of blood, How came Antonio by his death?
Bosola	In a mist; I know not how: Such a mistake as I have often seen In a play. O, I am gone! We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves, That, ruin’d, yield no echo. Fare you well. It may be pain, but no harm, to me to die In so good a quarrel. O, this gloomy world! In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness, Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! Let worthy minds ne’er stagger in distrust To suffer death or shame for what is just: Mine is another voyage. Dies.
Pescara	The noble Delio, as I came to th’ palace, Told me of Antonio’s being here, and show’d me A pretty gentleman, his son and heir.
	Enter Delio, and Antonio’s* Son.*
Malatesti	O sir, you come too late!
Delio	I heard so, and Was arm’d for’t, ere I came. Let us make noble use Of this great ruin; and join all our force To establish this young hopeful gentleman In’s mother’s right. These wretched eminent things Leave no more fame behind ’em, than should one Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow; As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts, Both form and matter. I have ever thought Nature doth nothing so great for great men As when she’s pleas’d to make them lords of truth: Integrity of life is fame’s best friend, Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.
	Exeunt.