TO HIS FRIEND MR. JOHN WEBSTER, UPON HIS

I never saw thy Duchess till the day
That she was lively bodied in thy play:
Howe'er she answered her low-rated love
Her brothers' anger did so fatal prove,
Yet my opinion is, she might speak more,
But never in her life so well before.

WIL. ROWLEY.

66

TO THE READER OF THE AUTHOR, AND HIS DUCHESS

OF MALFI."

Crown him a poet, whom nor Rome nor Greece
Transcend in all their's for a masterpiece;

In which, whiles words and matter change, and men
Act one another, he, from whose clear pen

They all took life, to memory hath lent

A lasting fame to raise his monument.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

FERDINAND, Duke of Calabria.

The CARDINAL, his Brother.

ANTONIO BOLOGNA, Steward of the household to the DUCHESS.

DELIO, his Friend.

DANIEL DE BOSOLA, Gentleman of the horse to the DUCHESS.

CASTRUCCIO.

MARQUIS OF PESCARA.

COUNT MALATESTI.

RODERIGO.

SILVIO.

GRISOLAN.

Doctor.

Several Madmen, Pilgrims, Executioners, Officers, Attendants, &c.

Duchess of Malfi. Sister of Cardinal + Ferdinand

CARIOLA, her Woman.

JULIA, Castruccio's Wife, and the Cardinal's Mistress. Old Lady, Ladies and Children.

SCENE MALFI, ROME, and MILAN.

SCENE I.-The Presence-chamber in the DUCHESS' Palace at Malfi.

Enter ANTONIO and DELIO.

ELIO. You are welcome to your country, dear Antonio;

You have been long in France, and

you return

A formal Frenchman in your

very

habit:

How do you like the French court? Ant. I admire it:

In seeking to reduce both state and people
To a fixed 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 cursed example poison't near the head,
Death and diseases through the whole land spread.

And what is't makes this blessèd

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 the Cardinal and BOSOLA.

Bos. I do haunt you still.

Card. So.

Bos. 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!

Card. You enforce your merit too much.

Bos. 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 blackbirds fatten best in hard weather; why not I in these dog-days?

Card. Would you could become honest!

Bos. 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.

Ant. He hath denied thee some suit?

Bos. He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing-pools; they are rich and o'er-laden 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 dependancies, in expectation to be advanced tomorrow? 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!

Bos. 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 suborned it: he was released

By the French general, Gaston de Foix,
When he recovered Naples.

Ant. '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,

It then doth follow want of action

Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing, Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.