The Tragedy of the Dutchesse of Malfy/Act II, scene v
SCENA V.
Cardinall, and Ferdinand, with a letter.
Ferd.
I have this night dig'd up a man-drake.
Car.
Say you?
Ferd.
And I am growne mad with't.
Car.
What's the progedy?
Ferd.
Read there, a sister dampn'd, she's loose i'th' hilts;
Growne a notorious Strumpet.
Car.
Speake lower.
Ferd.
Lower?
Rogues do not whisper't now, but seeke to publish't,
(As servants do the bounty of their Lords)
Aloud; and with a covetuous searching eye,
To marke who note them: Oh confusion sease her,
She hath had most cunning baudes to serve her turne,
And more secure conveyances for lust,
Then Townes of garrison, for Service.
Card.
Is't possible?
Can this be certaine?
Ferd.
Rubarbe, oh, for rubarbe
To purge this choller, here's the cursed day
To prompt my memory, and here'it shall sticke
Till of her bleeding heart, I make a spunge
To wipe it out.
Card.
Why doe you make your selfe
So wild a Tempest?
Ferd.
Would I could be one,
That I might tosse her pallace 'bout her eares,
Roote up her goodly forrests, blast her meades,
And lay her generall territory as wast,
As she hath done her honors.
Card.
Shall our blood?
(The royall blood of Arragon, and Castile)
Be thus attaincted?
Ferd.
Apply desperate physicke,
We must not now use Balsamum, but fire,
The smarting cupping-glasse, for that's the meane
To purge infected blood, (such blood as hers:)
There is a kind of pitty in mine eie,
I'll give it to my hand-kercher; and now 'tis here,
I'll bequeath this to her Bastard.
Card.
What to do?
Ferd.
Why, to make soft lint for his mother wounds,
When I have hewed her to peeces.
Card.
Curs'd creature,
Unequall nature, to place womens hearts
So farre upon the left-side.
Ferd.
Foolish men,
That ere will trust their honour in a Barke,
Made of so slight, weake-bull-rush, as is woman,
Apt every minnit to sinke it?
Car.
Thus
Ignorance, when it hath purchas'd honour,
It cannot weild it.
Ferd.
Me thinkes I see her laughing,
Excellent Hyenna, talke to me somewhat, quickly,
Or my imagination will carry me
To see her, in the shamefull act of sinne.
Card.
With whom?
Ferd.
Happily, with some strong thigh'd Bargeman;
Or one th'wood-yard, that can quoit the sledge,
Or tosse the barre, or else some lovely Squire
That carries coles up, to her privy lodgings.
Card.
You flie beyond your reason.
Ferd.
Goe to (Mistris.)
'Tis not your whores milke, that shall quench my wild-fire,
But your whores blood.
Card.
How idlely shewes this rage?
Which carries you, as men convai'd by witches, through the ayre,
On violent whirle-windes, this intemperate noyce,
Fitly resembles deafe-mens shrill discourse,
Who talke aloud, thinking all other men
To have their imperfection.
Ferd.
Have not you,
My palsey?
Card.
Yes, I can be angry
Without this rupture, there is not in nature
A thing, that makes man so deform'd, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger: chide your selfe,
You have divers men, who never yet exprest
Their strong desire of rest, but by unrest,
By vexing of themselves: Come, put your selfe
In tune.
Ferd.
So, I will onely study to seeme
The thing I am not: I could kill her now,
In you, or in my selfe, for I do thinke
It is some sinne in us, Heaven doth revenge
By her.
Card.
Are you starke mad?
Ferd.
I would have their bodies
Burn't in a coale-pit, with the ventage stop'd,
That their curs'd smoake might not ascend to Heaven:
Or dippe the sheetes they lie in, in pitch or sulphure,
Wrap them in't, and then light them like a match:
Or else to boile their Bastard to a cullisse,
And give't his leacherous father, to renew
The sinne of his backe.
Card.
I'll leave you.
Ferd.
Nay, I have done,
I am confident, had I bin damn'd in hell,
And should have heard of this, it would have put me
Into a cold sweat: In, in, i'll go sleepe,
Till I know who leapes my sister, i'll not stirre:
That knowne, i'll finde Scorpions to string my whips,
And fix her in a generall ecclipse. Exeunt.