The Duchess of Malfi

forth the common hospital
All the mad-folk, and place them near her lodging;
There let them practise together, sing and dance,
And act their gambols to the full o’ th’ moon:
If she can sleep the better for it, let her.
Your work is almost ended. Bosola

Must I see her again?

Ferdinand

Yes.

Bosola

Never.

Ferdinand

You must.

Bosola

Never in mine own shape;
That’s forfeited by my intelligence91
And this last cruel lie: when you send me next,
The business shall be comfort.

Ferdinand

Very likely;
Thy pity is nothing of kin to thee, Antonio
Lurks about Milan: thou shalt shortly thither,
To feed a fire as great as my revenge,
Which nev’r will slack till it hath spent his fuel:
Intemperate agues make physicians cruel.

Exeunt.

Scene II

Another room in the lodging of the Duchess.

	Enter Duchess and Cariola.
Duchess	What hideous noise was that?
Cariola	’Tis the wild consort92 Of madmen, lady, which your tyrant brother Hath plac’d about your lodging. This tyranny, I think, was never practis’d till this hour.
Duchess	Indeed, I thank him. Nothing but noise and folly Can keep me in my right wits; whereas reason And silence make me stark mad. Sit down; Discourse to me some dismal tragedy.
Cariola	O, ’twill increase your melancholy!
Duchess	Thou art deceiv’d: To hear of greater grief would lessen mine. This is a prison?
Cariola	Yes, but you shall live To shake this durance off.
Duchess	Thou art a fool: The robin-red-breast and the nightingale Never live long in cages.
Cariola	Pray, dry your eyes. What think you of, madam?
Duchess	Of nothing; When I muse thus, I sleep.
Cariola	Like a madman, with your eyes open?
Duchess	Dost thou think we shall know one another In th’ other world?
Cariola	Yes, out of question.
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 eyesight 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 sorts93 of madmen, which wild object Being full of change and sport, forc’d him to laugh, And so the imposthume94 broke: the selfsame 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,95 Mad ’cause he was hind’red transportation:96 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 Madmen.
	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,97 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 glasshouse, 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.98
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.99
Third Madman	Woe to the caroche100 that brought home my wife from the masque at three o’clock in the morning! It had a large featherbed 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 possets101 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, Bosala, like an old man, enters.
Duchess	Is he