Act 3 — Scene I.[2711]
Reading edition
Scene I.[2711]
Enter Pietro, Mendoza, Equato, and Bilioso.
Pietro. ’T is grown to youth of day: how shall we waste this light? My heart’s more heavy than a tyrant’s crown. Shall we go hunt? Prepare for field. Exit Equato. Men. Would ye could be merry! Pietro. Would God I could! Mendoza, bid ’em haste. 5 Exit Mendoza. I would fain shift, place; O vain relief! Sad souls may well change place, but not change grief: As deer, being struck, fly thorough many soils,[2712] Yet still the shaft sticks fast, so—— Bil. A good old simile, my honest lord.10 Pietro. I am not much unlike to some sick man That long desired hurtful drink; at last Swills in and drinks his last, ending at once Both life and thirst. O, would I ne’er had known My own dishonour! Good God, that men should desire15 To search out that, which, being found, kills all Their joy of life! to taste the tree of knowledge, And then be driven from out paradise!—— Canst give me some comfort? Bil. My lord, I have some books which20 have been dedicated to my honour, and I ne’er read ’em, and yet they had very fine names, Physic for Fortune, Lozenges of Sanctified Sincerity; very pretty works of curates, scriveners, and schoolmasters. Marry, I remember one25 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca—— Pietro. Out upon him! he writ of temperance and fortitude, yet lived like a voluptuous epicure, and died like an effeminate coward.—— Haste thee to Florence:30 Here, take our letters; see ’em seal’d; away! Report in private to the honour’d duke His daughter’s forc’d disgrace; tell him at length We know too much: due compliments[2713] advance: There’s naught that’s safe and sweet but ignorance. 35 Exit.
[Enter[2714] Bianca.
Bil. Madam, I am going ambassador for Florence; ’t will be great charges to me.
Bian. No matter, my lord, you have the lease of two manors come out next Christmas; you may lay your tenants on the greater rack40 for it: and when you come home again, I’ll teach you how you shall get two hundred pounds a-year by your teeth.
Bil. How, madam?
Bian. Cut off so much from house-keeping:45 that which is saved by the teeth, you know, is got by the teeth.
Bil. ’Fore God, and so I may; I am in wondrous credit, lady.
Bian. See the use of flattery: I did ever50 counsel you to flatter greatness, and you have profited well: any man that will do so shall be sure to be like your Scotch barnacle,[2715] now a block, instantly a worm, and presently a great goose: this it is to rot and putrefy in the bosom of greatness.55
Bil. Thou art ever my politician. O, how happy is that old lord that hath a politician to his young lady! I’ll have fifty gentlemen shall attend upon me: marry, the most of them60 shall be farmer’s sons, because they shall bear their own charges: and they shall go apparelled thus,—in sea-water-green suits, ash-colour cloaks, watchet stockings, and popinjay-green feathers: will not the colours do excellent?65
Bian. Out upon ’t! they’ll look like citizens riding to their friends at Whitsuntide; their apparel just so many several parishes.
Bil. I’ll have it so; and Passarello, my fool, shall go along with me; marry, he shall be in velvet.71
Bian. A fool in velvet!
Bil. Ay, ’t is common for your fool to wear satin; I’ll have mine in velvet.
Bian. What will you wear, then, my lord?75
Bil. Velvet too; marry, it shall be embroidered, because I’ll differ from the fool somewhat. I am horribly troubled with the gout: nothing grieves me, but that my doctor hath forbidden me wine, and you know your ambassador80 must drink. Didst thou ask thy doctor what was good for the gout?
Bian. Yes; he said, ease, wine, and women, were good for it.
Bil. Nay, thou hast such a wit! What was good to cure it, said he?86
Bian. Why, the rack. All your empirics could never do the like cure upon the gout the rack did in England, or your Scotch boot.[2716] The French harlequin will instruct you.90
Bil. Surely, I do wonder how thou, having for the most part of thy lifetime been a country body, shouldst have so good a wit.
Bian. Who, I? Why, I have been a courtier thrice two months.95
Bil. So have I this twenty year, and yet there was a gentleman-usher called me coxcomb t’ other day, and to my face too: was ’t not a backbiting rascal? I would I were better travelled, that I might have been better acquainted with the fashions of several countrymen;101 but my secretary, I think, he hath sufficiently instructed me.
Bian. How, my lord?
Bil. “Marry, my good lord,” quoth he,105 “your lordship shall ever find amongst a hundred Frenchmen forty hot-shots; amongst a hundred Spaniards, three-score braggarts; amongst a hundred Dutchmen, four-score drunkards; amongst an hundred Englishmen, four-score110 and ten madmen; and amongst an hundred Welshmen”——
Bian. What, my lord?
Bil. “Four-score and nineteen gentlemen.”[2717]
Bian. But since you go about a sad embassy. I would have you go in black, my lord.116
Bil. Why, dost think I cannot mourn, unless I wear my hat in cypress,[2718] like an alderman’s heir? That’s vile, very old, in faith.119
Bian. I’ll learn of you shortly: O, we should have a fine gallant of you, should not I instruct you! How will you bear yourself when you come into the Duke of Florence’ court?
Bil. Proud enough, and ’t will do well enough. As I walk up and down the chamber, I’ll125 spit frowns about me, have a strong perfume in my jerkin, let my beard grow to make me look terrible, salute no man beneath the fourth button; and ’t will do excellent.
Bian. But there is a very beautiful lady130 there; how will you entertain her?
Bil. I’ll tell you that, when the lady hath entertained me: but to satisfy thee, here comes the fool.
Enter Passarello.
Fool, thou shalt stand for the fair lady.135
Pass. Your fool will stand for your lady most willingly and most uprightly.
Bil. I’ll salute her in Latin.
Pass. O, your fool can understand no Latin.
Bil. Ay. but your lady can.140
Pass. Why, then, if your lady take down your fool, your fool will stand no longer for your lady.
Bil. A pestilent fool! ’fore God, I think the world be turned upside down too.145
Pass. O, no, sir; for then your lady and all the ladies in the palace should go with their heels upward, and that were a strange sight, you know.149
Bil. There be many will repine at my preferment.
Pass. O, ay, like the envy of an elder sister, that hath her younger made a lady before her.
Bil. The duke is wondrous discontented.
Pass. Ay, and more melancholic than a155 usurer having all his money out at the death of a prince.
Bil. Didst thou see Madam Floria to-day?
Pass. Yes, I found her repairing her face today; the red upon the white showed as if160 her cheeks should have been served in for two dishes of barberries in stewed broth, and the flesh to them a woodcock.
Bil. A bitter fool![2719] Come, madam, this night thou shalt enjoy me freely, and tomorrow165 for Florence.
Pass. What a natural fool is he that would be a pair of bodies[2720] to a woman’s petticoat, to be trussed and pointed to them! Well, I’ll dog my lord; and the word is proper: for when I170 fawn upon him, he feeds me; when I snap him by the fingers, he spits in my mouth. If a dog’s death were not strangling, I had rather be one than a serving-man; for the corruption of coin is either the generation of a usurer or a lousy175 beggar.
Exeunt Bianca and Passarello.]