Part 1 / Act 1 — ACT I. SCENE I.

A Street.

Enter a funeral, a coronet lying on the hearse, scutcheons and garlands hanging on the sides, attended by Gasparo Trebazzi, Duke of Milan, Castruchio, Sinezi, Pioratto, Fluello, and others: Hippolito meeting them, and Matheo labouring to hold him back.

Duke. Behold, yon comet shews his head again!

Twice hath he thus at cross-turns thrown on us

Prodigious^[2] looks; twice hath he troubled

The waters of our eyes: see, he’s turn’d wild:—

Go on, in God’s name.

Cas. Sin., &c. } On afore there, ho!

Duke. Kinsmen and friends, take from your manly sides

Your weapons, to keep back the desperate boy

From doing violence to the innocent dead.

Hip. I prithee, dear Matheo—--

Mat. Come, you’re mad!

Hip. I do arrest thee, murderer! Set down,

Villains, set down that sorrow, ’tis all mine!

6Duke. I do beseech you all, for my blood’s sake,

Send hence your milder spirits, and let wrath

Join in confederacy with your weapons’ points;

If he proceed to vex us, let your swords

Seek out his bowels; funeral grief loathes words.

Cas. Sin., &c. } Set on.

Hip. Set down the body!

Mat. O my lord,

You’re wrong! I’ th’ open street? you see she’s dead.

Hip. I know she is not dead.

Duke. Frantic young man,

Wilt thou believe these gentlemen?—Pray, speak—

Thou dost abuse my child, and mock’st the tears

That here are shed for her: if to behold

Those roses wither’d that set out her cheeks;

That pair of stars that gave her body light

Darken’d and dim for ever; all those rivers

That fed her veins with warm and crimson streams

Frozen and dried up; if these be signs of death,

Then is she dead. Thou unreligious youth,

Art not asham’d to empty all these eyes

Of funeral tears, a debt due to the dead,

As mirth is to the living? sham’st thou not

To have them stare on thee? Hark, thou art curs’d

Even to thy face, by those that scarce can speak!

Hip. My lord——

Duke. What wouldst thou have? is she not dead?

Hip. O, you ha’ kill’d her by your cruelty!

Duke. Admit I had, thou kill’st her now again,

And art more savage than a barbarous Moor.

Hip. Let me but kiss her pale and bloodless lip.

Duke. O fie, fie, fie!

Hip. Or if not touch her, let me look on her.

7Mat. As you regard your honour——

Hip. Honour? smoke!

Mat. Or if you lov’d her living, spare her now.

Duke. Ay, well done, sir; you play the gentleman—

Steal hence;—’tis nobly done;—away;—I’ll join

My force to yours, to stop this violent torrent^[3]—

Pass on.

[Exeunt with hearse, all except the Duke,

Hippolito, and Matheo.

Hip. Matheo, thou dost wound me more.

Mat. I give you physic, noble friend, not wounds.

Duke. O, well said, well done, a true gentleman!

Alack, I know the sea of lovers’ rage

Comes rushing with so strong a tide, it beats

And bears down all respects of life, of honour,

Of friends, of foes! Forget her, gallant youth.

Hip. Forget her?

Duke. Nay, nay, be but patient;

For why death’s hand hath sued a strict divorce

’Twixt her and thee: what’s beauty but a corse?

What but fair sand-dust are earth’s purest forms?

Queens’ bodies are but trunks to put in worms.

Mat. Speak no more sentences, my good lord, but slip hence; you see they are but fits; I’ll rule him, I warrant ye. Ay, so, tread gingerly; your grace is here somewhat too long already. [Exit Duke.]—’Sblood, the jest were now, if, having ta’en some knocks o’ th’ pate already, he should get loose again, and, like a mad ox, toss my new black cloaks into the kennel. I must humour his lordship. [Aside.]—My lord Hippolito, is it in your stomach to go to dinner?

Hip. Where is the body?

8Mat. The body, as the duke spake very wisely, is gone to be wormed.

Hip. I cannot rest; I’ll meet it at next turn: I’ll see how my love looks.

[Matheo holds Hippolito back.

Mat. How your love looks? worse than a scarecrow. Wrestle not with me; the great fellow gives the fall, for a ducat.

Hip. I shall forget myself.

Mat. Pray, do so; leave yourself behind yourself, and go whither you will. ’Sfoot, do you long to have base rogues, that maintain a Saint Anthony’s fire in their noses by nothing but twopenny ale, make ballads of you? If the duke had but so much metal in him as is in a cobbler’s awl, he would ha’ been a vexed thing; he and his train had blown you up, but that their powder has taken the wet of cowards: you’ll bleed three pottles of Aligant,^[4] by this light, if you follow ’em; and then we shall have a hole made in a wrong place, to have surgeons roll thee up, like a baby, in swaddling clouts.

Hip. What day is to-day, Matheo?

Mat. Yea, marry, this is an easy question: why, to-day is—let me see—Thursday.

Hip. O, Thursday.

Mat. Here’s a coil for a dead commodity! ’sfoot, women when they are alive are but dead commodities, for you shall have one woman lie upon many men’s hands.

Hip. She died on Monday then!

Mat. And that’s the most villanous day of all the week to die in: and she was well and eat a mess of water-gruel on Monday morning.

9Hip. Ay? it cannot be

Such a bright taper should burn out so soon.

Mat. O yes, my lord. So soon? why, I ha’ known them that at dinner have been as well, and had so much health that they were glad to pledge it, yet before three a’clock have been found dead drunk.

Hip. On Thursday buried, and on Monday died!

Quick haste, byrlady;^[5] sure her winding-sheet

Was laid out ’fore her body; and the worms,

That now must feast with her, were even bespoke,

And solemnly invited, like strange guests.

Mat. Strange feeders they are indeed, my lord, and like your jester, or young courtier, will enter upon any man’s trencher without bidding.

Hip. Curs’d be that day for ever that robb’d her

Of breath and me of bliss! henceforth let it stand

Within the wizard’s book, the calendar,

Mark’d with a marginal finger,^[6] to be chosen

By thieves, by villains, and black murderers,

As the best day for them to labour in.

If henceforth this adulterous, bawdy world

Be got with child with treason, sacrilege,

Atheism, rapes, treacherous friendship, perjury,

Slander, the beggar’s sin, lies, sin of fools,

Or any other damn’d impieties,

On Monday let ’em be deliverèd.

I swear to thee, Matheo, by my soul,

Hereafter weekly on that day I’ll glue

Mine eyelids down, because they shall not gaze

On any female cheek; and being lock’d up

In my close chamber, there I’ll meditate

10On nothing but my Infelice’s end,

Or on a dead man’s scull draw out mine own.

Mat. You’ll do all these good works now every Monday, because it is so bad; but I hope upon Tuesday morning I shall take you with a wench.

Hip. If ever, whilst frail blood through my veins run,

On woman’s beams I throw affection,

Save her that’s dead; or that I loosely fly

To th’ shore of any other wafting eye,

Let me not prosper, heaven! I will be true

Even to her dust and ashes: could her tomb

Stand, whilst I liv’d, so long that it might rot,

That should fall down, but she be ne’er forgot.

Mat. If you have this strange monster, honesty, in your belly, why, so, jig-makers^[7] and chroniclers shall pick something out of you; but and^[8] I smell not you and a bawdyhouse out within these ten days, let my nose be as big as an English bag-pudding. I’ll follow your lordship, though it be to the place afore named.

[Exeunt.