The Duchess of Malfi

CARDINAL.  You enforce your merit too much.
BOSOLA. 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. Black-birds fatten best in hard weather;
why not I in these dog-days?
CARDINAL.  Would you could become honest!
BOSOLA. 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.
ANTONIO.  He hath denied thee some suit?
BOSOLA. He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked
over standing-pools; they are rich and o'erladen 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 dependencies, in expectation
to be advanc'd to-morrow? 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?
BOSOLA. 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 suborn'd it:  he was releas'd
By the French general, Gaston de Foix,
When he recover'd Naples.
ANTONIO.                  '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,
If then doth follow want of action
Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,
Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.

SCENE II[3 - The same.]

ANTONIO, DELIO, [Enter SILVIO, CASTRUCCIO, JULIA, RODERIGO and GRISOLAN]

DELIO.  The presence 'gins to fill:  you promis'd me
To make me the partaker of the natures
Of some of your great courtiers.
ANTONIO.                          The lord cardinal's
And other strangers' that are now in court?
I shall. – Here comes the great Calabrian duke.

[Enter FERDINAND and Attendants]

FERDINAND.  Who took the ring oftenest?[4 - The reference is to the knightly sport of riding at the ring.]
SILVIO.  Antonio Bologna, my lord.
FERDINAND. Our sister duchess' great-master of her household?
Give him the jewel. – When shall we leave this sportive action,
and fall to action indeed?
CASTRUCCIO. Methinks, my lord, you should not desire to go to war
in person.
FERDINAND.  Now for some gravity. – Why, my lord?
CASTRUCCIO. It is fitting a soldier arise to be a prince, but not
necessary a prince descend to be a captain.
FERDINAND.  No?
CASTRUCCIO.  No, my lord; he were far better do it by a deputy.
FERDINAND. Why should he not as well sleep or eat by a deputy?
This might take idle, offensive, and base office from him, whereas
the other deprives him of honour.
CASTRUCCIO. Believe my experience, that realm is never long in quiet
where the ruler is a soldier.
FERDINAND.  Thou toldest me thy wife could not endure fighting.
CASTRUCCIO.  True, my lord.
FERDINAND. And of a jest she broke of[5 - At the expense of.] a captain she met full of
wounds: I have forgot it.
CASTRUCCIO. She told him, my lord, he was a pitiful fellow, to lie,
like the children of Ismael, all in tents.[6 - Rolls of lint used to dress wounds.]
FERDINAND. Why, there's a wit were able to undo all the
chirurgeons[7 - Surgeons.] o' the city; for although gallants should quarrel,
and had drawn their weapons, and were ready to go to it, yet her
persuasions would make them put up.
CASTRUCCIO. That she would, my lord. – How do you like my Spanish
gennet?[8 - A small horse.]
RODERIGO.  He is all fire.
FERDINAND. I am of Pliny's opinion, I think he was begot
by the wind; he runs as if he were ballass'd[9 - Ballasted.] with quicksilver.
SILVIO. True, my lord, he reels from the tilt often.
RODERIGO, GRISOLAN.  Ha, ha, ha!
FERDINAND. Why do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers
should be my touch-wood, take fire when I give fire; that is,
laugh when I laugh, were the subject never so witty.
CASTRUCCIO. True, my lord: I myself have heard a very good jest,