And precious gift.
DUCHESS
It is not gifts I’d have
My brother send me. The noblest boon within
His power to grant is friendship to my friends.
BOSOLA
Bring on the gift.
DUCHESS
To Cariola.
Methinks I hardly know my brother now
Yet once he loved me well.
The servants bring on a huge carved chest. They are preceded by a
flute-player playing on his instrument.
BOSOLA
Here is the key.
CARIOLA
’Tis a costly gift.
DUCHESS
Set it in my bedchamber.
BOSOLA
There’s more within.
DUCHESS
Must I open it?
BOSOLA
Aye.
She slowly goes to it, unlocks the doors and flings them open. The bodies of Antonio and her child fall out. Cariola screams. Duchess stands frozen with horror.
Your brother does present you this sad spectacle
That now you know directly they are dead
Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve
For that which can not be recovered.
The Duchess faints. Flutist suddenly perceives what has happened and stops abruptly. Bosola raises duchess.
Remember you are a Christian.
Leave this vain sorrow.
Things being at the worst begin to mend,
The bee when he has shot his sting into your hand
May then play with your eyelid.
The Duchess faints again and is carried off by her women.
CARIOLA
Good comfortable fellow,
Persuade a wretch that’s broke upon the wheel
To have all his bones new set!
She follows the Duchess.
FERDINAND
From the gallery.
She is lost! I can not save her.
BOSOLA
Why do you do this? Is it not too cruel?
She hath suffered much.
FERDINAND
Coming down.
Base varlet, there’s too much pity in thy pleading!
BOSOLA
Sir, I have served you well. I have rather sought
To appear true than honest. I swear to you
She hath had eyes for no one but her husband.
Faith, end here. Furnish her with beads and prayer book
And let her save her soul.
FERDINAND
Damn her, that body of hers,
While that my blood ran pure in it, was worth more
Than that thing thou wouldst comfort called a soul.
I see her sin sits deeper than I thought.
To this vile appetite for her own steward
She now adds shameful tears and mourns his death
And in her lecherous grief she naked stands,
The widow of a sweaty stableboy.
To cure such maladies the surgeon’s knife
Must cut until it pricks the patient’s life.
Scene 3
A room in Ferdinand’s castle. On stage, Delio, a physician, Ferdinand’s Negro page.
PHYSICIAN
Is the duke of a melancholy or choleric humour?
PAGE
He oft hath had these violent fits of late.
DELIO
On the morrow of the cardinal’s strange
And sudden death his gentlemen found him
All on a cold sweat and altered much in face
And language.
PAGE
Since when he hath grown worse and worse
And yet, at times, he seems himself again.
PHYSICIAN
What other symptoms
Doth his indisposition shew?
DELIO
One met the Duke ’bout midnight in a lane
Behind St. Mark’s church with the leg of a man
Upon his shoulder and he howled fearfully,
Said he was a wolf, only the difference
Was a wolf’s skin was hairy on the outside,
His on the inside, bade them take their swords
Rip up his and try.
PAGE
Straight you were sent for.
PHYSICIAN
’Tis a very pestilent disease, good sir.
They call it lycanthropia.
DELIO
What’s that?
PHYSICIAN
In those that are possessed with it there o’erflows
Such melancholy humour they imagine
Themselves to be transformed into wolves,
Steal forth into churchyards in the dead of night
DELIO
Can you cure it?
PHYSICIAN
Let me hear more. I must sound the depths
Of his distraction.
PAGE
Once I did ask him why he loved solitariness. And he replied that eagles commonly fly alone. They are daws, crows and starlings that flock together. And on a sudden he started most fearfully and cried ‘What follows me?’ And then he flung himself upon the gound and said he would throttle his shadow.
PHYSICIAN
’Tis most grave.
PAGE
Straightway he sprung up violently and stared about him and cried out, ‘Rogues, knaves, bawds! Oh the world is sick. I think only the cold tomb can cure it. Blood’s the potion for this disease. When I go to hell I mean to carry a bribe. Good gifts make way for the worst persons’. And then he drew his sword, howling most horribly, ‘Hence, hence! There’s nothing left of you but tongue and belly, flattery and lechery!’ And all must flee before him.
PHYSICIAN
This is a sickness past all curing.
DELIO
And what of the book?
PAGE
The Lord Ferdinand did enquire concerning
A certain apothecary, a poor
Quack-salving knave whom ’tis whispered
Poisoned his mistress with a book.
DELIO
I like it not. I do fear for the Duchess.
Nature is contrary in these fits. ’Tis known
That madmen mischief those they love.
I’ll to the Count Malatesta. ’Tis time
My lady was married. Oh in her widowhood
She’s weaker than a bullrush and I fear
This raging wind will bend her till she breaks.
Scene 4
A room in the Duchess’ palace.
On stage Duchess and Cariola.
CARIOLA
Be of good cheer, my lady! There is a great tumult in the city. Methinks the noble Count Malatesta comes hither to pay you court. Pray let me set this pillow beneath your head; ’twill raise you so that you may feel the sea breeze on your face. They say it is a restorative.
DUCHESS
If they would bind me to that lifeless trunk
And let me freeze to death!
CARIOLA
Come, you must live.
DUCHESS
This is a prison.
CARIOLA
Yes, but you shall live.
To shake this durance off.
DUCHESS
Thou art a fool.
CARIOLA
What think you of, Madam?
DUCHESS
Of nothing. Sing me somewhat. Do you remember
That song of men unburied?
CARIOLA
Starts to sing
Call for the robin red breast and the wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
DUCHESS
Nay, do not sing. Repeat the words to me.
CARIOLA
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field mouse and the mole
To rear him hillocks that
shall keep him warm.
And, when gay tombs are robbed, sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence that’s foe to men
For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.
DUCHESS
Let holy church receive him duly
Since he paid the church tithes truly.
Pause.
Dost thou think we shall know one another
In the other world?
CARIOLA
Yes, out of question.
DUCHESS
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.
I am full of daggers and yet I am not mad.
I am acquainted with sad misery
As the tanned galley slave is with his oar;
Necessity makes me suffer constantly
And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now?
CARIOLA
Like to your picture in the gallery,
A deal of life in show but none in practice.
DUCHESS
In my last will I have not much to give
As many hungry guests have fed upon me,
Thine will be a poor reversion, Cariola.
What noise is that?
Four waiting women enter and begin to attire the Duchess in her robes of state. Meanwhile a priest enters and reads a Latin proclamation lifting the excommunication and restoring her estates. Bosola enters with a book.
What means this? Pray Heaven
It is the end.
WOMAN
’Tis by order of the Duke, your brother.
BOSOLA
As bells begin to peal.
At the instigation of the Duke, your brother,
The Pope hath revoked your excommunication
And restored you your estates.
CARIOLA
You are Duchess
Of Malfi once more! See, ’tis the end of all
Your sorrow.
DUCHESS
What says the Cardinal?
BOSOLA
Corpses do not speak.
DUCHESS
Aye, but what says the Cardinal?
BOSOLA
His Holiness, the Lord Cardinal, Prince
Of Ancona, is dead.
DUCHESS
Dead? What did you say?
BOSOLA
Lord Ferdinand would not forgive his publishing
Of your misfortunes.
DUCHESS
My brother? Slain by my brother?
BOSOLA
Executed.
DUCHESS
And I? He’ll slay me, too.
BOSOLA
Who speaks of that? Surely your brother
Would have you live, my lady.
DUCHESS
Then say to him:
I long to bleed;
It is some mercy when men kill with speed.
BOSOLA
Come, be of comfort. The Duke hath done this
On your account and you must live.
DUCHESS
That is the greatest torture souls feel
In hell; that they must live and can not die.
Come, wish me long life and I would thou wert hanged
For the horrible curse that thou hast given me.
I do feel that I shall shortly grow
One of the miracles of pity yet a thing
So wretched as can not pity itself.
Why do I waste these words upon you?
I account this world a tedious theatre
For I do play a part in’t against my will.
Bosola, is my brother mad?
BOSOLA
Only in what concerns you. He thinks of naught
Save your welfare and desires of you but one thing,
That you shall swear upon this prayer book
Never to marry again. Here is the book
And you must kiss it.
DUCHESS
Methinks I do begin
To know somewhat I never knew before.
O my poor brother! Give me the book!
If that will cure him of his fearful rage,
I’ll swear it gladly
Takes book.
I swear I’ll never marry.
May this put his mind at rest.
Kisses book.
BOSOLA
By this he doth make sure you shall not break your oath.
He’ll visit you anon.
Exits with waiting women.
CARIOLA
Beloved lady you should rest.
DUCHESS
How?
My mind is full of shadows. There are fearful
Questions, half forgot and never answered
Which do concern my brother, Ferdinand.
CARIOLA
My lady, you are pale. Think not upon your brother.
’Tis clear he hates you.
DUCHESS
I think you are deceived. I would you were not.
Cariola, there are sins with deeper roots
Than hate and there are wishes that shall be nameless—
You do not understand, for this I envy thee.
CARIOLA
Nay, my lady, such thoughts are bred of sickness. When you
are sound again they’ll fly out of the window.
DUCHESS
I grow sicker, Cariola. I think I must die shortly.
CARIOLA
’Tis a denial of God to speak so.
DUCHESS
My legs grow numb. ’Tis not pain I feel yet my foot seems to
be sleeping.
CARIOLA
How strange you look! Surely somewhat you have eaten sits
ill upon your stomach. I will chafe your legs.
Suddenly.
The book you kissed! ’Twas the book! Villains, poisoners,
murderers! Help! My lady is stricken. Cry out for help!
DUCHESS
To whom?
Waiting women rush on.
CARIOLA
Heat water! Fetch some cordial!
The Duke hath done this! Fetch water, wine!
My lady is poisoned. Quickly, seek a doctor!
DUCHESS
There is none for me. My sickness is mortal.
I know his secret now. I do perceive the cause
Of this enforcing of my chastity,
This spying, this present in the chest,
And this distracted slaughter of his brother
Who bared my woes in public! All this fury,
This cruelty and this despair, even the poison,
To punish me ’cause I had shared my bed.
CARIOLA
Pray drink this cordial.
DUCHESS
To what end?
Nay, give it to me for I must live until
My brother comes that I may speak to him
And tell him what I know. I do feel such pity
That all is washed away, the ruin he hath wrought,
I am so weary I would rest.
CARIOLA
No, my lady.
From these slumbrous poisons no one wakes again.
DUCHESS
Why then I must not sleep. Help me, Cariola.
Let’s walk and never let me rest. Thy promise!
She is helped up and begins to walk up and down supported by Cariola. The women weep.
Let someone watch to see when the Duke be come.
Make haste. My time is short.
Some go to the window to watch.
Do not weep so loud.
I am not deaf yet and this noise disturbs me.
To Cariola:
I pray thou givest my little boy
Some syrup for his cold and let the girl
Say her prayers ere she sleep. But I must walk
And when I falter, d
o thou urge me on. Cry loudly
In my ear: do not stay.—I grow giddy.
CARIOLA
Lean on me, my lady.
The Duchess staggers.
DUCHESS
Now all the coldness of this icy world
Creeps in about my heart. My brother is too slow.
For once this lingering pain is o’er.
Oh let me die for I can wait no more.
She dies. Women wail. Ferdinand enters with his train accompanied by Bosola.
FERDINAND
Is she dead?
CARIOLA
Weeping.
She is what you’d have her.
FERDINAND
Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle. She died young.
CARIOLA
I think not so. Her infelicity
Seemed to have years too many.
FERDINAND
She and I were twins. She was born some minutes
After me and died some minutes sooner.
Let me see her face again.
To Bosola.
Why didst thou not pity her
Or, bold in a good cause, oppose thyself
Between her innocence and my revenge!
I bade thee, when I was distracted of my wits,
Go kill my dearest friend and thou hast done it.
For let me but examine well the cause.
What was the meanness of her match to me?
Only, I must confess, I had a hope,
Had she continued widow, to have gained
An infinite mass of treasure by her death.
This hath an evil sound yet not so evil
As another reason I’ll not speak of.
We’ll say the cause was my ungoverned passions,
My cruelty and spite. Only I fear
It is not true. Oh my sister!
He kneels by the body.
Return fair soul from darkness and lead mine
Out of this sensible hell. She’s warm! She breathes!
Upon thy pale lips I will melt my heart!
BOSOLA
Nay, she is gone. Indeed we can not be suffered
To do good when we have a mind to it!
FERDINAND
Where is the book?
Bosola gives it to him.
Is this the spot?
He kisses it.
I am weary. Pray fetch me a chair, Bosola.
He seats himself and stares straight before him.
I have come a long way to sit here
And from this spot I’ll never stir while I do live.
Scene 5
The courtyard of the Duchess’ castle.
Enter Bosola.
BOSOLA
We are like dead walls or only vaulted graves
That ruined yield no echoes. Oh this gloomy world,
In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live?
I stand like one hath ta’en a sweet and golden dream,
I am angry with myself now that I wake.
What would I do were this to do again?
O penitence, let me truly taste thy cup.
Hark, here comes the noble Count Malatesta
That would have wooed our Duchess and arrives