Duch. Let me know fully therefore the effect

Of this thy dismal preparation,

This talk fit for a charnel!

Bos. Now I shall.

A coffin, cords, and a bell produced.

Here is a present from your princely brothers;
And may it arrive welcome, for it brings
Last benefit, last sorrow.

Duch. Let me see it!

I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good. Bos. This is your last presence-chamber. Car. O my sweet lady!

Duch. Peace! it affrights not me.

Bos. I am the common bellman,

That usually is sent to condemn'd persons

The night before they suffer.

Duch. Even now thou saidst,

Thou wast a tomb-maker.

Bos. 'Twas to bring you

By degrees to mortification. Listen!

He sings a dirge.

Car. Hence, villains! tyrants! murderers! alas!

What will you do with my lady? Call for help!

Duch. To whom? to our next neighbours? They are mad folks. Farewell, Cariola !

I pray thee look thou givest my little boy

Some syrup for his cold; and let the girl

Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now what you please;
What death?

Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners.

Duch. I forgive them.

The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough of the lungs,

Would do as much as they do.

Bos. Doth not death fright you?

Duch. Who would be afraid on't,

Knowing to meet such excellent company
In the other world?

Bos. Yet methinks,

The manner of your death should much afflict you;
This cord should terrify you.

Duch. Not a whit.

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smother'd

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls ?

I know, death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits: and 'tis found

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways; anyway (for heaven's sake)
So I were out of your whispering! Tell my brothers,
That I perceive, death (now I'm well awake)

Best gift is they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman's fault;
I'd not be tedious to you.

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down heaven upon me!

Yet stay! heaven-gates are not so highly arch'd
As princes' palaces; they that enter there

Must go upon their knees. Come, violent death!
Serve for mandragora to make me sleep.

Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,

They then may feed in quiet!

They strangle her kneeling. FERDINAND enters.

Ferd. Is she dead?

Bos. She is what you would have her.

Fix your eye here!

Ferd. Constantly!

Bos. Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.
The element of water moistens the earth,

But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

Ferd. Cover her face! mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

Bos. I think not so: her infelicity

Seem'd to have years too many.

Ferd. She and I were twins :

And should I die this instant, I had lived

Her time to a minute.

THE DEVIL'S LAW-CASE.

CONTARINO and ERCOLE, in love with the same Lady, must needs fight for her possession.

Con. Sir! my love to you has proclaim'd you one
Whose word was still led by a noble thought,
And that thought follow'd by as fair a deed :
Deceive not that opinion! we were students
At Padua together, and have long

To the world's eye shown like friends.
Was it hearty on your part to me?

Erc. Unfeigned.

Con. You are false

To the good thought I held of you; and now,
Join the worst part of man to you, your malice,
To uphold that falsehood. Sacred innocence
Is fled your bosom. Signior! I must tell you;
To draw the picture of unkindness truly,
Is to express two that have dearly loved,
And fallen at variance. 'Tis a wonder to me,
Knowing my interest in the fair Jolenta,
That you should love her.

Erc. Compare her beauty and my youth together,
And you will find the fair effects of love
No miracle at all.

Con. Yes! it will prove

Prodigious to you: I must stay your voyage. Erc. Your warrant must be mighty.

Con. 'T has a seal

From heaven to do it, since you'd ravish from me

What's there entitled mine; and yet I vow,
By the essential front of spotless virtue,
I have compassion of both our youths :
To approve which, I have not taken the way
Like an Italian, to cut your throat

By practice that had given you now for dead
And never frown'd upon you.

You must fight with me.

Erc. I will, sir!

Con. And instantly.

Erc. I will haste before you.

Point whither!

Con. Why, you speak nobly; and, for this fair dealing, Were the rich jewel which we vary for

A thing to be divided, by my life,

I would be well content to give you half :
But since 'tis vain to think we can be friends,
'Tis needful one of us be taken away

From being the other's enemy.

Erc. Yet, methinks,

This looks not like a quarrel.

Con. Not a quarrel!

Erc. You have not apparel'd your fury well;
It goes too plain, like a scholar.

Con. It is an ornament

Makes it more terrible; and you shall find it
A weighty injury, and attended on

By discreet valour; because I do not strike you,
Or give you the lie (such foul preparatives
Would show like the stale injury of wine),
I reserve my rage to sit on my sword's point;
Which a great quantity of your best blood
Can't satisfy.

Erc. You promise well to yourself.

Shall's have no seconds?

Con. None, for fear of prevention.

Erc. The length of our weapons

Con. We'll fit them by the way:

So whether our time calls us to live or die,
Let us do both like noble gentlemen,

And true Italians.

Erc. For that, let me embrace you.

Con. Methinks, being an Italian, I trust you
To come somewhat too near me :

But your jealousy gave that embrace, to try
If I were arm'd-did it not?

Erc. No, believe me!

I take your heart to be sufficient proof
Without a privy coat: and, for my part,
A taffeta is all the shirt of mail

I am arm'd with.

Con. You deal equally.

THOMAS MIDDLETON.

1570 ?-1627.

WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN.

LIVIA pretends great regard for a poor WIDOW, seeking to become acquainted with her daughter-in-law, toward whom the DUKE has evil designs.

Liv. Widow! come, come, I have great quarrel to you.

'Faith, I must chide you that you must be sent for;

You make yourself so strange, never come at us ;

And yet so near a neighbour, and unkind.

Troth, you're to blame; you can not be more welcome
To any house in Florence, that I'll tell you.

Wid. My thanks must needs acknowledge so much, madam!
Liv. How can you be so strange then? I sit here

Sometimes whole days together without company,
When business draws this gentleman from home,
And should be happy in society

Which I so well affect as that of yours.