Part 2 / Act 4 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
A Chamber in the Colonel’s House.
The Colonel discovered lying on a couch, several of his friends watching him: as the Surgeon is going out, the Colonel’s Sister enters.[795]
Col.’s Sist. O my most worthy brother, thy hard fate ’twas!—
Come hither, honest surgeon, and deal faithfully
With a distressed virgin: what hope is there?
514Surg. Hope? chilis[796] was ’scap’d miraculously, lady.
Col.’s Sist. What’s that, sir?
Surg. Cava vena: I care but little for his wound i’ th’ œsophag,[797] not thus much, trust me; but when they come to diaphragma once, the small intestines, or the spinal medul, or i’ th’ roots of the emunctories of the noble parts, then straight I fear a syncope;[798] the flanks retiring towards the back, the urine bloody, the excrements purulent, and the dolour pricking or pungent.
Col.’s Sist. Alas, I’m ne’er the better for this answer!
Surg. Now I must tell you his principal dolour lies i’ th’ region of the liver, and there’s both inflammation and tumefaction[799] feared; marry, I made him a quadra[n]gular plumation, where I used sanguis draconis, by my faith, with powders incarnative, which I tempered with oil of hypericon, and other liquors mundificative.
Col.’s Sist. Pox a’ your mundies figatives! I would they were all fired!
Surg. But I purpose, lady, to make another experiment at next dressing with a sarcotic[800] medicament made of iris of Florence; thus, mastic, calaphena, opoponax,[801] sarcocolla[802]——
Col.’s Sist. Sacro-halter! what comfort is i’ this 515to a poor gentlewoman? pray tell me in plain terms what you think of him.
Surg. Marry, in plain terms I know not what to say to him: the wound, I can assure you, inclines to paralism, and I find his body cacochymic: being then in fear of fever and inflammation, I nourish him altogether with viands refrigerative, and give for potion the juice of savicola dissolved with water cerefolium: I could do no more, lady, if his best ginglymus[803] were dissevered. [Exit.
Col.’s Sist. What thankless pains does the tongue often take
To make the whole man most ridiculous!
I come to him for comfort, and he tires me
Worse than my sorrow: what a precious good
May be deliver’d sweetly in few words!
And what a mount of nothing has he cast forth!
Alas, his strength decays! [Aside.]—How cheer you, sir,
My honour’d brother?
Col. In soul never better;
I feel an excellent health there, such a stoutness
My invisible enemies fly[804] me; seeing me arm’d
With penitence and forgiveness, they fall backward,
Whether through admiration, not imagining
There were such armoury in a soldier’s soul
As pardon and repentance, or through power
Of ghostly valour. But I have been lord
Of a more happy conquest in nine hours now
Than in nine years before.—O kind lieutenants,
This is the only war we should provide for!
Where he that forgives largest, and sighs strongest,
Is a tried soldier, a true man indeed,
And wins the best field, makes his own heart bleed.
Read the last part of that will, sir.
516First Fr. of Col. [reads][805] I also require at the hands of my most beloved sister, whom I make full executrix, the disposure of my body in burial at Saint Martin’s i’ th’ Field; and to cause to be distributed to the poor of the same parish forty mark,[806] and to the hospital of maimed soldiers a hundred: lastly, I give and bequeath to my kind, dear, and virtuous sister the full possession of my present estate in riches, whether it be in lands, leases, money, goods, plate, jewels, or what kind soever, upon this condition following, that she forthwith tender both herself and all these infeoffments to that noble captain, my late enemy, captain Ager.
Col.’s Sist. How, sir?
Col. Read it again, sir; let her hear it plain.
Col.’s Sist. Pray, spare your pains, sir; ’tis too plain already.—
Good sir, how do you? is your memory perfect?
This will makes question of you: I bestow’d
So much grief and compassion a’ your wound,
I never look’d into your senses’ epilepsy:
The sickness and infirmity of your judgment
Is to be doubted now more than your body’s.
Why, is your love no dearer to me, sir,
Than to dispose me so upon the man
517Whose fury is your body’s present torment,
The author of your danger? one I hate
Beyond the bounds of malice. Do you not feel
His wrath upon you? I beseech you, sir,
Alter that cruel article!
Col. Cruel, sister?—
Forgive me, natural love, I must offend thee,
Speaking to this woman.—Am I content,
Having much kindred, yet to give thee all,
Because in thee I’d raise my means to goodness,
And canst thou prove so thankless to my bounty,
To grudge my soul her peace? is my intent
To leave her rich, whose only desire is
To send me poorer into the next world
Than ever usurer went, or politic statist?
Is it so burdensome for thee to love
Where I forgive? O, wretched is the man
That builds the last hopes of his saving comforts
Upon a woman’s charity! he’s most miserable:
If it were possible, her obstinate will
Will pull him down in his midway to heaven.
I’ve wrong’d that worthy man past recompense,
And in my anger robb’d him of fair fame;
And thou the fairest restitution art
My life could yield him: if I knew a fairer,
I’d set thee by and thy unwilling goodness,
And never make my sacred peace of thee;
But there’s the cruelty of a fate debarr’d,
Thou art the last, and all, and thou art hard!
Col.’s Sist. Let your griev’d heart hold better thoughts of me;
I will not prove so, sir; but since you enforce it
With such a strength of passion, I’ll perform
What by your will you have enjoin’d me to,
Though the world never shew me joy again.
Col. O, this may be fair cunning for the time,
518To put me off, knowing I hold not long;
And when I look to have my joys accomplish’d,
I shall find no such things; that were vild[807] cozenage,
And not to be repented.
Col.’s Sist. By all the blessedness
Truth and a good life looks for, I will do’t, sir!
Col. Comforts reward you for’t whene’er you grieve!
I know if you dare swear, I may believe.
[Exit Colonel’s Sister. Scene closes.