The Duchess of Malfi

DUCHESS.  O, that it were possible we might
But hold some two days' conference with the dead!
]From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure,
I never shall know here.  I 'll tell thee a miracle:
I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow:
Th' heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.
I am acquainted with sad misery
As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar;
Necessity makes me suffer constantly,
And custom makes it easy.
Who do I look like now?
CARIOLA.  Like to your picture in the gallery,
A deal of life in show, but none in practice;
Or rather like some reverend monument
Whose ruins are even pitied.
DUCHESS.                      Very proper;
And Fortune seems only to have her eye-sight
To behold my tragedy. – How now!
What noise is that?

[Enter Servant]

SERVANT.             I am come to tell you
Your brother hath intended you some sport.
A great physician, when the Pope was sick
Of a deep melancholy, presented him
With several sorts[106 - Bands.] of madmen, which wild object
Being full of change and sport, forc'd him to laugh,
And so the imposthume[107 - Boil.] broke:  the self-same cure
The duke intends on you.
DUCHESS.                  Let them come in.
SERVANT.  There 's a mad lawyer; and a secular priest;
A doctor that hath forfeited his wits
By jealousy; an astrologian
That in his works said such a day o' the month
Should be the day of doom, and, failing of 't,
Ran mad; an English tailor craz'd i' the brain
With the study of new fashions; a gentleman-usher
Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind
The number of his lady's salutations
Or 'How do you,' she employ'd him in each morning;
A farmer, too, an excellent knave in grain,[108 - Punning on the two senses of "dye" and "corn."]
Mad 'cause he was hind'red transportation:[109 - From exporting his grain.]
And let one broker that 's mad loose to these,
You'd think the devil were among them.
DUCHESS.  Sit, Cariola. – Let them loose when you please,
For I am chain'd to endure all your tyranny.

[Enter Madman]

Here by a Madman this song is sung to a dismal kind of music
O, let us howl some heavy note,
Some deadly dogged howl,
Sounding as from the threatening throat
Of beasts and fatal fowl!
As ravens, screech-owls, bulls, and bears,
We 'll bell, and bawl our parts,
Till irksome noise have cloy'd your ears
And corrosiv'd your hearts.
At last, whenas our choir wants breath,
Our bodies being blest,
We 'll sing, like swans, to welcome death,
And die in love and rest.
FIRST MADMAN. Doom's-day not come yet! I 'll draw it nearer by
a perspective,[110 - Optical glass.] or make a glass that shall set all the world
on fire upon an instant. I cannot sleep; my pillow is stuffed
with a litter of porcupines.
SECOND MADMAN. Hell is a mere glass-house, where the devils
are continually blowing up women's souls on hollow irons,
and the fire never goes out.
FIRST MADMAN.  I have skill in heraldry.
SECOND MADMAN.  Hast?
FIRST MADMAN. You do give for your crest a woodcock's head
with the brains picked out on 't; you are a very ancient gentleman.
THIRD MADMAN. Greek is turned Turk: we are only to be saved by
the Helvetian translation.[111 - The Geneva Bible.]
FIRST MADMAN.  Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you.
SECOND MADMAN. O, rather lay a corrosive: the law will eat
to the bone.
THIRD MADMAN. He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damn'd.
FOURTH MADMAN. If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should
make all the women here call me mad doctor.
FIRST MADMAN.  What 's he? a rope-maker?
SECOND MADMAN. No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows
the tombs, will have his hand in a wench's placket.[112 - Petticoat.]
THIRD MADMAN. Woe to the caroche[113 - Coach.] that brought home my wife
from the masque at three o'clock in the morning! It had a large
feather-bed in it.
FOURTH MADMAN. I have pared the devil's nails forty times, roasted
them in raven's eggs, and cured agues with them.
THIRD MADMAN. Get me three hundred milch-bats, to make possets[114 - A warm drink containing milk, wine, etc.] to procure sleep.
FOURTH MADMAN. All the college may throw their caps at me:
I have made a soap-boiler costive; it was my masterpiece.
Here the dance, consisting of Eight Madmen, with music
answerable thereunto; after which, BOSOLA, like an old man,
enters.
DUCHESS.  Is he mad too?
SERVANT.                  Pray, question him.  I 'll leave you.