Dutch. Indeed I have not leisure to 'tend so final a business.
Bos. Now, by my life, I pity you.

Dutch. Thou art a fool then

To waste thy pity on a thing so wretched
As cannot pity it: I am full of daggers:
Puff! let me blow these vipers from me.
What are you?

Serv. One that wishes you long life.

[enter a Servant.

Dutch. I would thou wert hang'd for the horrible curse

Thou hast given me; I shall shortly grow one

Of the miracles of pity; I'll go pray; no,

I'll go curse.

Bos. O fie!

Dutch. I could curse the stars.

Bos. O fearful!

Dutch. And those three smiling seasons of the year Into a Russian winter; nay, the world

To its first chaos.

Bos. Look you, the stars shine still.

Dutch. Oh, but you must remember, my curse hath a great

way to go.

Plagues (that make lanes through largest families)

Consume them.

Bos. Fie, lady.

Dutch. Let them, like tyrants,

Never be remembered, but for the ill they have done;

Let all the zealous prayers of mortified

Church-men forget them.

Bos. O uncharitable!

Dutch. Let Heaven a little while cease crowning martyrs,

To punish them; go, howl them this; and say, I long to bleed :

It is some mercy, when men kill with speed.'

Fer. Excellent! as I would wish; she's plagu'd in art.

These presentations are but fram'd in wax,

By the curious master in that quality,

Vincentio Lauriola, and she takes them
For true substantial bodies.

Bos. Why do you do this?
Fer. To bring her to despair.
Bos. 'Faith, end here,

And go no farther in your cruelty;

Send her a penitential garment, to put on

Next to her delicate skin, and furnish her

With beads and prayer-books.

Fer. Damn her: that body of hers,

While that my blood ran pure in't, was more worth
Than that which thou would'st comfort, call'd a soul.
I will send her masques of common courtezans;
Have her meat serv'd up by bawds and ruffians;
And (cause she'll needs be mad) I am resolv'd
To remove forth the common hospital

All the mad folk, and place them near her lodging;
There let them practise together, sing and dance,
And act their gambols to the full o'th' moon:

If she can sleep the better for it, let her;

Your work is almost ended.

Enter Dutchess, Cariola, Servant, Mad-men, Bosola, Executioners, Ferdinand.

Dutch. What hideous noise was that?

Cari. 'Tis the wild consort

Of mad-men, lady, which your tyrant brother
Hath plac'd about your lodging; this tyranny

I think was never practis'd till this hour.

Dutch. Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason

And silence make me stark mad: sit down,

Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.

Cari. O't will increase your melancholy.
Dutch. Thou art deceived;

To hear of greater grief would lessen mine.
This is a prison?

Cari. Yes, but you shall live

To shake this durance off.

Dutch. Thou art a fool.

The robin red-breast and the nightingale

Never live long in cages.

Cari. Pray, dry your eyes.

What think you of, madam?
Dutch. Of nothing:

When I muse thus, I sleep.

Cari. Like a mad-man, with your eyes open.

Dutch. Dost thou think we shall know one another

In th' other world?

Cari. Yes, out of question.

Dutch. O, that it were possible we might

But hold some two days' conference with the dead:
From them I should learn somewhat I am sure

I never shall know here: I'll tell thee a miracle ;
I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow.

Th' heaven o're my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur; yet I am not mad:
I am acquainted with sad misery,

As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar;
Necessity makes me suffer constantly,

And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?
Cari. Like to your picture in the gallery,

A deal of life in show, but none in practice;

Or rather like some reverend monument

Whose ruins are even pitied.

Dutch. Very proper;

And fortune seems only to have her eye
To behold my tragedy. How now,
What noise is that?

Serv. I am come to tell you

sight,

Your brother hath intended you some sport.
A great physician, when the pope was sick
Of a deep melancholly, presented him

With several sorts of mad-men, which wild object
(Being full of change and sport) forc'd him to laugh,
And so th' imposthume broke: the self-same cure
The duke intends on you.

Dutch. Let them come in.

[here the dance, consisting of eight mad-men, with music answerable thereunto; after which, Bosola (like an old man) enters.

Dutch. Is he mad too?

Serv. Pray question him: I'll leave you.

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.

Dutch. Hah! my tomb?

Thou speak'st, as if I lay upon my death-bed,

Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.

Dutch. Thou art mad sure, dost know me?

Bos. Yes.

Dutch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best, but a salvatory of green mummy: what's this flesh? a little curded milk, fantastical puff-paste: our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible: since ours is to preserve earth-worms: didst thou never see a lark in a cage? such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking

glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.

Dutch. Am not I thy Dutchess?

Bos. Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs) twenty years sooner, than on a merry milk-maid's. Thou sleep'st worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up his lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant, that breeds it's teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out as if thou wert the more unquiet bed-fellow.

Dutch. I am Dutchess of Malfy still.

Bos. That makes thy sleep so broken:

'Glories, like glow worms, afar off, shine bright,
But look'd too near, have neither heat or light.'
Dutch. Thou art very plain.

Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living.

I am a tomb-maker.

Dutch. And thou com'st to make my tomb?

Bos. Yes.

Dutch. Let me be a little merry:

Of what stuff wilt thou make it?

Bos. Nay, resolve me first, of what fashio

Dutch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our death-bed?
Do we affect fashion in the grave?

Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs,
Do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray

Up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks,
As if they died of the tooth-ache; they are not carv'd
With their eyes fix'd upon the stars; but, as their

Minds were wholly bent upon the world,

The self-same way they seem to turn their faces.

Dutch. Let me know fully therefore the effect

Of this thy dismal preparation,

This talk, fit for a charnel?

Bos. Now, I shall :

Here is a present from your princely brothers.

And may it arrive welcome, for it brings
Last benefit, last sorrow.

Dutch. Let me see it,

I have so much obedience in my blood,

[a coffin, cords, and a bell.

I wish it in their veins, to do them good.
Bos. This is your last presence-chamber.
Cari. O, my sweet lady!

Dutch. Peace! it affrights not me.

Bos. I am the common bell-man

That usually is sent to condemn'd persons

The night before they suffer.

Dutch. Even now thou said'st

Thou wast a tomb-maker?

Bos. 'Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification. Listen.
Harke! now every thing is still:

The screetch-owl, and the whistler shrill,
Call upon our dame, aloud,

And bid her quickly don her shroud:
Much you had of land and rent,
Your length in clay 's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind,
Here your perfect peace is sign'd,

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth weeping:
Their life a general mist of error,

Their death a hideous storm of terror,
Strew your hair with powders sweet:
Don clean linen, bathe your feet,

And (the foul fiend more to check)

A crucifix let bless your neck,

"Tis now full tide 'tween night and day,
End your groan, and come away.

Cari. Hence villains, tyrants, murderers

alas!

What will you do with my lady? Call for help.

Dutch. To whom? to our next neighbours? they are mad

folks.

Farewell, Cariola.

In my last will I have not much to give,

A many hungry guests have fed on me ;

Thine will be a poor reversion.

Cari. I will die with her.

Dutch. I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy

Some sirup for his cold, and let the girl

Say her prayers, ere she sleep. Now what you please;
What death?

Bos. Strangling; here are your executioners.
Dutch. I forgive them :

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o'th' lungs,
Would do as much as they do.

Bos. Does not death fright you?

Dutch. Who would be afraid on't,

Knowing to meet such excellent company