The Duchess of Malfi Act 1 Scene 1
John Webster
Enter ANTONIO and DELIO

DELIO
You are welcome to your country, dear Antonio;
You have been long in France, and you return
A very formal Frenchman in your habit:
How do you like the French court?

ANTONIO
I admire it:
In seeking to reduce both state and people
To a fix’d order, their judicious king
Begins at home; quits first his royal palace
Of flattering sycophants, of dissolute
And infamous persons,—which he sweetly terms
His master’s master-piece, the work of heaven;
Considering duly that a prince’s court
Is like a common fountain, whence should flow
Pure silver drops in general, but if ’t chance
Some curs’d example poison ’t near the head,
Death and diseases through the whole land spread.
And what is ’t makes this blessed government
But a most provident council, who dare freely
Inform him the corruption of the times?
Though some o’ the court hold it presumption
To instruct princes what they ought to do,
It is a noble duty to inform them
What they ought to foresee. Here comes Bosola,
The only court-gall’ yet I observe his railing
Is not for simple love of piety:
Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants;
Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud,
Bloody, or envious, as any man,
If he had means to be so.—Here’s the cardinal.
Enter CARDINAL and BOSOLA

BOSOLA
I do haunt you still.

CARDINAL
So.

BOSOLA
I have done you better service than to be slighted thus. Miserable age, where only the reward of doing well is the doing of it!

CARDINAL
You enforce your merit too much.

BOSOLA
I fell into the galleys in your service: where, for two years together, I wore two towels instead of a shirt, with a knot on the shoulder, after the fashion of a Roman mantle. Slighted thus! I will thrive some way. Black-birds fatten best in hard weather; why not I in these dog-days?

CARDINAL
Would you could become honest!

BOSOLA
With all your divinity do but direct me the way to it. I have known many travel far for it, and yet return as arrant knaves as they went forth, because they carried themselves always along with them.

Exit CARDINAL.

Are you gone? Some fellows, they say, are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil, and make him worse.
ANTONIO
He hath denied thee some suit?

BOSOLA
He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing-pools; they are rich and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them. Could I be one of their flattering panders, I would hang on their ears like a horseleech, till I were full, and then drop off. I pray, leave me. Who would rely upon these miserable dependencies, in expectation to be advanc’d to-morrow? What creature ever fed worse than hoping Tantalus? Nor ever died any man more fearfully than he that hoped for a pardon. There are rewards for hawks and dogs when they have done us service; but for a soldier that hazards his limbs in a battle, nothing but a kind of geometry is his last supportation.

DELIO
Geometry?

BOSOLA
Ay, to hang in a fair pair of slings, take his latter swing in the world upon an honourable pair of crutches, from hospital to hospital. Fare ye well, sir: and yet do not you scorn us; for places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man’s head lies at that man’s foot, and so lower and lower.

Exit.

DELIO
I knew this fellow seven years in the galleys
For a notorious murder; and ’twas thought
The cardinal suborn’d it: he was releas’d
By the French general, Gaston de Foix,
When he recover’d Naples.

ANTONIO
’Tis great pity
He should be thus neglected: I have heard
He ’s very valiant. This foul melancholy
Will poison all his goodness; for, I ’ll tell you,
If too immoderate sleep be truly said
To be an inward rust unto the soul,
If then doth follow want of action
Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,
Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.
Enter SILVIO, CASTRUCCIO, JULIA, RODERIGO and GRISOLAN

DELIO
The presence ’gins to fill: you promis’d me
To make me the partaker of the natures
Of some of your great courtiers.

ANTONIO
The lord cardinal’s
And other strangers’ that are now in court?
I shall.—Here comes the great Calabrian duke.

Enter FERDINAND and Attendants

FERDINAND
Who took the ring oftenest?

SILVIO
Antonio Bologna, my lord.

FERDINAND
Our sister duchess’ great-master of her household? Give him the jewel.—When shall we leave this sportive action, and fall to action indeed?

CASTRUCCIO
Methinks, my lord, you should not desire to go to war in person.

FERDINAND
Now for some gravity.—Why, my lord?

CASTRUCCIO
It is fitting a soldier arise to be a prince, but not necessary a prince descend to be a captain.

FERDINAND
No?

CASTRUCCIO
No, my lord; he were far better do it by a deputy.

FERDINAND
Why should he not as well sleep or eat by a deputy? This might take idle, offensive, and base office from him, whereas the other deprives him of honour.

CASTRUCCIO
Believe my experience, that realm is never long in quiet where the ruler is a soldier.

FERDINAND
Thou toldest me thy wife could not endure fighting.

CASTRUCCIO
True, my lord.

FERDINAND
And of a jest she broke of a captain she met full of wounds: I have forgot it.

CASTRUCCIO
She told him, my lord, he was a pitiful fellow, to lie, like the children of Israel, all in tents.

FERDINAND
Why, there’s a wit were able to undo all the chirurgeons o’ the city; for although gallants should quarrel, and had drawn their weapons, and were ready to go to it, yet her persuasions would make them put up.

CASTRUCCIO
That she would, my lord.—How do you like my Spanish gennet?

RODERIGO
He is all fire.

FERDINAND
I am of Pliny’s opinion, I think he was begot by the wind; he runs as if he were ballass’d with quicksilver.

SILVIO
True, my lord, he reels from the tilt often.

RODERIGO and GRISOLAN
Ha, ha, ha!

FERDINAND
Why do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers should be my touch-wood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.

CASTRUCCIO
True, my lord: I myself have heard a very good jest, and have scorn’d to seem to have so silly a wit as to understand it.

FERDINAND
But I can laugh at your fool, my lord.

CASTRUCCIO
He cannot speak, you know, but he makes faces; my lady cannot abide him.

FERDINAND
No?

CASTRUCCIO
Nor endure to be in merry company; for she says too much laughing, and too much company, fills her too full of the wrinkle.

FERDINAND
I would, then, have a mathematical instrument made for her face, that she might not laugh out of compass.—I shall shortly visit you at Milan, Lord Silvio.

SILVIO
Your grace shall arrive most welcome.

FERDINAND
You are a good horseman, Antonio; you have excellent riders in France: what do you think of good horsemanship?

ANTONIO
Nobly, my lord: as out of the Grecian horse issued many famous princes, so out of brave horsemanship arise the first sparks of growing resolution, that raise the mind to noble action.

FERDINAND
You have bespoke it worthily.

SILVIO
Your brother, the lord cardinal, and sister duchess.

Enter CARDINAL, with DUCHESS, and CARIOLA

CARDINAL
Are the galleys come about?

GRISOLAN
They are, my lord.

FERDINAND
Here ’s the Lord Silvio is come to take his leave.

DELIO
Now, sir, your promise: what ’s that cardinal?
I mean his temper? They say he ’s a brave fellow,
Will play his five thousand crowns at tennis, dance,
Court ladies, and one that hath fought single combats.

ANTONIO
Some such flashes superficially hang on him for form; but observe his inward character: he is a melancholy churchman. The spring in his face is nothing but the engend’ring of toads; where he is jealous of any man, he lays worse plots for them than ever was impos’d on Hercules, for he strews in his way flatterers, panders, intelligencers, atheists, and a thousand such political monsters. He should have been Pope; but instead of coming to it by the primitive decency of the church, he did bestow bribes so largely and so impudently as if he would have carried it away without heaven’s knowledge. Some good he hath done——

DELIO
You have given too much of him. What ’s his brother?

ANTONIO
The duke there? A most perverse and turbulent nature.
What appears in him mirth is merely outside;
If he laught heartily, it is to laugh
All honesty out of fashion.

DELIO
Twins?

ANTONIO
In quality.
He speaks with others’ tongues, and hears men’s suits
With others’ ears; will seem to sleep o’ the bench
Only to entrap offenders in their answers;
Dooms men to death by information;
Rewards by hearsay.

DELIO
Then the law to him
Is like a foul, black cobweb to a spider,—
He makes it his dwelling and a prison
To entangle those shall feed him.

ANTONIO
Most true:
He never pays debts unless they be shrewd turns,
And those he will confess that he doth owe.
Last, for this brother there, the cardinal,
They that do flatter him most say oracles
Hang at his lips; and verily I believe them,
For the devil speaks in them.
But for their sister, the right noble duchess,
You never fix’d your eye on three fair medals
Cast in one figure, of so different temper.
For her discourse, it is so full of rapture,
You only will begin then to be sorry
When she doth end her speech, and wish, in wonder,
She held it less vain-glory to talk much,
Than your penance to hear her. Whilst she speaks,
She throws upon a man so sweet a look
That it were able to raise one to a galliard
That lay in a dead palsy, and to dote
On that sweet countenance; but in that look
There speaketh so divine a continence
As cuts off all lascivious and vain hope.
Her days are practis’d in such noble virtue,
That sure her nights, nay, more, her very sleeps,
Are more in heaven than other ladies’ shrifts.
Let all sweet ladies break their flatt’ring glasses,
And dress themselves in her.

DELIO
Fie, Antonio,
You play the wire-drawer with her commendations.

ANTONIO
I ’ll case the picture up: only thus much;
All her particular worth grows to this sum,—
She stains the time past, lights the time to come.

CARIOLA
You must attend my lady in the gallery,
Some half an hour hence.

ANTONIO
I shall.

Exeunt ANTONIO and DELIO.

FERDINAND
Sister, I have a suit to you.

DUCHESS
To me, sir?

FERDINAND
A gentleman here, Daniel de Bosola,
One that was in the galleys——

DUCHESS
Yes, I know him.

FERDINAND
A worthy fellow he is: pray, let me entreat for
The provisorship of your horse.

DUCHESS
Your knowledge of him
Commends him and prefers him.

FERDINAND
Call him hither.

Exit Attendant.

We are now upon parting. Good Lord Silvio,
Do us commend to all our noble friends
At the leaguer.

SILVIO
Sir, I shall.

DUCHESS
You are for Milan?

SILVIO
I am.

DUCHESS
Bring the caroches. —We ’ll bring you down
To the haven.

Exeunt DUCHESS, SILVIO, CASTRUCCIO, RODERIGO, GRISOLAN, CARIOLA, JULIA and Attendants.

CARDINAL
Be sure you entertain that Bosola
For your intelligence. I would not be seen in ’t;
And therefore many times I have slighted him
When he did court our furtherance, as this morning.

FERDINAND
Antonio, the great-master of her household,
Had been far fitter.

CARDINAL
You are deceiv’d in him.
His nature is too honest for such business.—
He comes: I ’ll leave you.

Exit. Re-enter BOSOLA

BOSOLA
I was lur’d to you.

FERDINAND
My brother, here, the cardinal, could never
Abide you.

BOSOLA
Never since he was in my debt.

FERDINAND
May be some oblique character in your face
Made him suspect you.

BOSOLA
Doth he study physiognomy?
There ’s no more credit to be given to the face
Than to a sick man’s urine, which some call
The physician’s whore, because she cozens him.
He did suspect me wrongfully.

FERDINAND
For that
You must give great men leave to take their times.
Distrust doth cause us seldom be deceiv’d.
You see the oft shaking of the cedar-tree
Fastens it more at root.

BOSOLA
Yet take heed;
For to suspect a friend unworthily
Instructs him the next way to suspect you,
And prompts him to deceive you.

FERDINAND
There ’s gold.

BOSOLA
So:
What follows?

Aside.

Never rain’d such showers at these
Without thunderbolts i’ the tail of them.—Whose throat must I cut?

FERDINAND
Your inclination to shed blood rides post
Before my occasion to use you. I give you that
To live i’ the court here, and observe the duchess;
To note all the particulars of her behaviour,
What suitors do solicit her for marriage,
And whom she best affects. She ’s a young widow:
I would not have her marry again.

BOSOLA
No, sir?

FERDINAND
Do not you ask the reason; but be satisfied.
I say I would not.

BOSOLA
It seems you would create me
One of your familiars.

FERDINAND
Familiar! What ’s that?

BOSOLA
Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh,—
An intelligencer.

FERDINAND
Such a kind of thriving thing
I would wish thee; and ere long thou mayst arrive
At a higher place by ’t.

BOSOLA
Take your devils,
Which hell calls angels! These curs’d gifts would make
You a corrupter, me an impudent traitor;
And should I take these, they’d take me to hell.

FERDINAND
Sir, I ’ll take nothing from you that I have given.
There is a place that I procur’d for you
This morning, the provisorship o’ the horse;
Have you heard on ’t?

BOSOLA
No.

FERDINAND
’Tis yours: is ’t not worth thanks?

BOSOLA
I would have you curse yourself now, that your bounty
(Which makes men truly noble) e’er should make me
A villain. O, that to avoid ingratitude
For the good deed you have done me, I must do
All the ill man can invent! Thus the devil
Candies all sins o’er; and what heaven terms vile,
That names he complimental.

FERDINAND
Be yourself;
Keep your old garb of melancholy; ’twill express
You envy those that stand above your reach,
Yet strive not to come near ’em. This will gain
Access to private lodgings, where yourself
May, like a politic dormouse——

BOSOLA
As I have seen some
Feed in a lord’s dish, half asleep, not seeming
To listen to any talk; and yet these rogues
Have cut his throat in a dream. What ’s my place?
The provisorship o’ the horse? Say, then, my corruption
Grew out of horse-dung: I am your creature.

FERDINAND
Away!

Exit.

BOSOLA
Let good men, for good deeds, covet good fame,
Since place and riches oft are bribes of shame.
Sometimes the devil doth preach.

Exit.
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 1613, titled "The Duchess of Malfi Act 1 Scene 1", by artist "John Webster".