The White Devil Part 18

Savoy Amba.s.s. You must have comfort.

Flam. Your comfortable words are like honey: they relish well in your mouth that 's whole, but in mine that 's wounded, they go down as if the sting of the bee were in them. Oh, they have wrought their purpose cunningly, as if they would not seem to do it of malice! In this a politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a canon; wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you.

Enter French Amba.s.sador

Fr. Amba.s.s. The proofs are evident.

Flam. Proof! 'twas corruption. O gold, what a G.o.d art thou! and O man, what a devil art thou to be tempted by that cursed mineral! Your diversivolent lawyer, mark him! knaves turn informers, as maggots turn to flies, you may catch gudgeons with either. A cardinal! I would he would hear me: there 's nothing so holy but money will corrupt and putrify it, like victual under the line. [Enter English Amba.s.sador.]

You are happy in England, my lord; here they sell justice with those weights they press men to death with. O horrible salary!

Eng. Amba.s.s. Fie, fie, Flamineo.

Flam. Bells ne'er ring well, till they are at their full pitch; and I hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well, till he come to the scaffold. If they were racked now to know the confederacy: but your n.o.blemen are privileged from the rack; and well may, for a little thing would pull some of them a-pieces afore they came to their arraignment. Religion, oh, how it is commeddled with policy! The first blood shed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew!

Marc. Oh, there are too many!

Flam. You are deceived; there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.

Marc. How?

Flam. I 'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a live by begging: be thou one of them practise the art of Wolner in England, to swallow all 's given thee: and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit.

I 'll go hear the screech-owl. [Exit.

Lodo. This was Brachiano's pander; and 'tis strange That in such open, and apparent guilt Of his adulterous sister, he dare utter So scandalous a pa.s.sion. I must wind him.

Re-enter Flamineo.

Flam. How dares this banish'd count return to Rome, His pardon not yet purchas'd! I have heard The deceased d.u.c.h.ess gave him pension, And that he came along from Padua I' th' train of the young prince. There 's somewhat in 't: Physicians, that cure poisons, still do work With counter-poisons.

Marc. Mark this strange encounter.

Flam. The G.o.d of melancholy turn thy gall to poison, And let the stigmatic wrinkles in thy face, Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide, One still overtake another.

Lodo. I do thank thee, And I do wish ingeniously for thy sake, The dog-days all year long.

Flam. How croaks the raven?

Is our good d.u.c.h.ess dead?

Lodo. Dead.

Flam. O fate!

Misfortune comes like the coroner's business Huddle upon huddle.

Lodo. Shalt thou and I join housekeeping?

Flam. Yes, content: Let 's be unsociably sociable.

Lodo. Sit some three days together, and discourse?

Flam. Only with making faces; Lie in our clothes.

Lodo. With f.a.ggots for our pillows.

Flam. And be lousy.

Lodo. In taffeta linings, that 's genteel melancholy; Sleep all day.

Flam. Yes; and, like your melancholic hare, Feed after midnight. [Enter Antonelli and Gasparo.

We are observed: see how yon couple grieve.

Lodo. What a strange creature is a laughing fool!

As if man were created to no use But only to show his teeth.

Flam. I 'll tell thee what, It would do well instead of looking-gla.s.ses, To set one's face each morning by a saucer Of a witch's congeal'd blood.

Lodo. Precious rogue!

We'll never part.