tremely; and he loved, he said, to see her angry, as lovers oftentimes will tease their mistresses for the sake of being reconciled again. They retired accordingly; and the Duchess, left alone, intent upon her toilet, and thinking they were still behind her, continued to talk on in a sportive mood. She asked if the colour of her hair was not beginning to change; and said, when she waxed grey, they would have all the Court powdering their hair with orris, to be like her."You have cause to love me," she continued, thinking she was addressing her husband. "I entered you into my heart before you would vouchsafe to call for the keys. We shall one day have my brother take you napmake you keep your own bed." She kept bantering on in this way, and finding that no one answered her, asked, "Have you lost your tongue?" and at the same instant turning round, perceived her brother Ferdinand close to her, with a poniard in his hand. She did not scream, or even start. She merely said, ""Tis welcome! Whether I am doomed to live or die, I can do both like a prince." Ferdinand would have returned at once to Cala-¡ bria; but the affairs he was engaged in at Rome, and some wars he was subsequently involved in, kept him so long away from his Court, that before he came back his sister had had two children more, a son and a daughter. The news had, unfortunately, got rumoured abroad, and the common people were not nice in the terms they lavished upon the Duchess. The graver heads of the State observed that Antonio grew to infinite wealth, none knew how, and all supposed the Duchess would amend it if she could; for, said they, great princes, though they grudge their officers should have such large and unconfined means to get wealth under them, will not complain, lest they should there-ping:-methinks his presence now in Court should by make them odious to the people. But any other obligation of love or marriage between the Duchess and him they never dreamt of. Ferdinand seemed to take no notice of these rumours; and, to Antonio's mind, he bore himself right dangerously-he was so quiet, seeming to sleep the tempest out, as dormice do in winter. His sister, however, seemed bent upon bringing the matter at once to an issue, and told Ferdinand she wished to have a private conference with him about a scandalous report that was spread touching her honour. But Ferdinand told her he wished to be ever deaf to it: that it was mere Court calumny, a pestilent air which the palaces of princes were seldom purged of. Yet, even if it were true, he added, his love would strongly excuse, extenuate, nay, deny faults, were they apparent in her. And he bade her go and be safe in her innocency. This seeming trust in her gave great comfort to the Duchess, if not to her husband, who was present, and heard it. But the trust was indeed but seeming. The Duke had consulted with Bosola, and learnt from him all the details it was in his power to communicate. Bosola declared he thought there was some sorcery used on the Duchess, to make her dote on some desertless fellow, whom she shamed to acknowledge. But Ferdinand ridiculed the idea that there could be power in potions, or in charms, to make man love whether he would or no: they were mere gulleries, invented by cheating mountebanks to abuse mankind: herbs or charms could not force the will: some trials had been made in the foolish practice, but the ingredients were lenitive poisons, such as were of force to make the patients mad; and straight the witch swore, by equivocation, they were in love. The witchcraft, he added, lies in her rank blood. He was determined that night to force confession from her; and for that purpose he had made Bosola get for him a false key into her bedchamber. That very evening Antonio was with his wife and her maid Cariola, in her room, when she was at her toilet preparing for rest, and it was his intention to stay there all night, which was at first opposed, though more in playfulness than in earnest, by the Duchess. They were chatting and laughing merrily together, when her husband proposed to Cariola that they should steal forth the room, and let her talk to herself. He said he had divers times served her the like, when she had chafed ex-| “Die, then, and quickly," said the Duke, placing the poniard in her hand. And he began to upbraid her in most bitter terms for her misconduct. She prayed him to hear her; but in vain, till the flood of his rage was somewhat abated. Again she prayed him to hear her, and briefly told him she was married-haply not to his liking; but for that, she said, alas! his shears came untimely to clip the bird's wings that was already flown. She asked him if he would see her husband. "Yes," he answered, "if I could change eyes with a basilisk." The Duchess said, as she thought, that surely he came thither by her husband's confederacy. But Ferdinand broke out again into angry reproaches. "Whatever thou art that hast enjoyed my sister," he exclaimed, "for I am sure thou hearest me, for thine own sake let me not know thee. I came hither prepared to work thy discovery; yet I am now persuaded it would beget such violent effects as would damn us both. I would not for ten millions I had beheld thee; therefore, use all means I never may have knowledge of thy name. Enjoy thy lust still, and a wretched life on that condition! And for thee, degraded woman!" he continued, addressing his sister, "if thou wish thy paramour may grow old in thy embracements, I would have thee build such a room for him as our anchorites inhabit to holier use Let not the sun shine on him till he is dead! Let only dogs and monkeys converse with him, and such dumb things to whom nature denies a voice to sound Do not keep a paraquito, lest she learn it. If thou love him, cut out thine own tongue, lest it bewray him!" his name. "Why might not I marry?" said the Duchess; "I have not gone about in this to create any new world or custom." "Thou art undone," answered her brother; "and thou hast taken that massy sheet of lead that hid thy husband's bones, and folded it about my heart." "Mine bleeds for it." "Thine! Thy heart! What should I name it, unless a hollow bullet filled with unquenchable wildfire ?" "You are in this too strict," said she; "and were you not my princely brother, I would say, too wilful. My reputation is safe." "And hereupon," continued the Duchess, "my brother's bills at Naples are protested against. Call up our officers!" Bosola left her for that purpose; and the Duchess, calling in her husband, addre:sed him in hurried words as follows: "The place you must fly to is Ancona-hire a house there: I'll send after you my treasure and my jewels. Our safety runs upon wheels. Short syllables must stand for periods. I must now accuse you of a feigned crime;-what Tasso calls a noble lie, because it must shield our honours. Hark! they are coming!" Antonio at once fell into his wife's drift; and upon their being joined by Bosola and the officers of the household, he said aloud, "Will your Grace "Dost thou know what reputation is?" asked Ferdinand. "I'll tell thee to small purpose, since the instruction comes now too late. Upon a time, Reputation, Love and Death would travel over the world; and it was concluded they should part, and take three different ways. Death told them they should find him in great battles, or cities plagued with plagues. Love gave them. counsel to inquire for him amongst unambitious shepherds, where dowries were not talked of; and sometimes amongst quiet kindred, that had nothing | hear me?" left by their dead parents. Stay,' quoth Reputation; do not forsake me; for it is my nature, if once I part from any man I meet, I am never found again. And so for you: you have shook hands with Reputation, and made him invisible. So fare you well: I will never see you more." His sister said imploringly to him, "Why should only I, of all the princes in the world, be cased up, like a holy relic? I have youth and a little beauty!" "So you have some virgins that are witches;" answered her brother. And then again repeating "I will never see thee more," he left her. -66 66 "I have got well by you!" said the Duchess, feigning to speak angrily to him; "you have yielded me a million of loss. I am like to inherit the people's curses for your stewardship. You had the trick in audit-time to be sick, till I had signed your quietus; and that cured you without the aid of a doctor. Gentlemen," she continued, addressing the officers, "I would have this man be an example to you all, so you shall hold my favour. I pray, let him; for he has done that, alas! you would not think of, and, because I intend to be rid of him, I mean not to publish." Then turning to Antonio, she bade him use his fortune elsewhere. The Duchess was immediately joined by Antonio and Cariola, who came from their hiding- Antonio answered that he was strongly armed place. She asked him if he saw that apparition. to brook his overthrow. As men commonly bear Yes," he answered; "we are betrayed! How with a hard year, said he, he would not blame the came he hither?" And suspecting Cariola of cause of it, but would think the necessity of his treachery, he turned towards her a pistol with malevolent star procured this, and not her humour. which he was armed. She declared her innocence."Oh the inconstant and rotten ground of serThe Duchess said, "That gallery gave him en-vice!" he exclaimed. "You may see I am even like him that in a winter's night takes a long slumber over a dying fire, a-loath to part from it, and yet parts at last as cold as when he first sat down." trance." While they were debating this matter, and what was meant by the Duke's having left his poniard with her, they heard a knocking at the door of her apartments. Cariola hastened to see who it was. The poor Duchess said she felt as if a mine beneath her feet were ready to be blown up. Cariola returning, informed them it was Bosola. The Duchess told him she should confiscate all that he had towards the satisfying of his accounts. He answered, he was all hers, and it was very fit all his should be so. "So, sir, you have your pass," quoth she. "You may see, gentlemen," said Antonio, "what it is to serve a prince, body and soul." And with a deep reverence to the Duchess, he departed. As soon as he was gone, the Duchess inquired of her officers what were their opinions of Antonio. And they began at once, as a matter of course, to vie with each other who should speak the most ill of him now that he was disgraced. One said, he thought her Grace would find him a Jew: another wished she had been his officer, for her own sake; she would have had more money: a third declared that Antonio would stop his ears with wool, and to those who came to him for money say he was thick of hearing: a fourth cried how scurvy proud he would look, when the treasury was full. The Duchess dismissed these sycophants, but detained Bosola, and asked him what he thought of them. He, suspecting there was something behind, answered that they were rogues, who, in | that he had obtained all the information he reAntonio's prosperity, but to have waited on his quired, determined to convey it without delay to fortune, could have wished his dirty stirrup rivetted the Duke and his brother at Rome; though, in his through their noses, and have followed after his own heart, he could not choose but despise himmule, like a bear in a ring. And then, after self for so undertaking the base quality of intelli-speaking in further contempt of them, and in some gencer. praise of Antonio, he sighed, "Alas, poor gen tleman!" Bosola, nevertheless, posted haste to Rome, where he found Duke Ferdinand and his brother, "Poor" cried the Duchess, "he hath amply the Cardinal, busy in warlike preparations; the filled his coffers." Emperor having joined the latter, who had en"Sure he was too honest," replied Bosola.joyed great fame as a soldier before he obtained And then he proposed to show his mistress what a most invaluable jewel she had in a wanton humour thrown away. "He was an excellent courtier, and most faithful; a soldier, that thought it as beastly to know his own value too little, as devilish to acknowledge it too much. Both his virtue and form deserved a far better fortune." "But he was basely descended," said the Duchess, who, pleased as she was to hear her husband so praised, was curious to learn whether Bosola did not share in what she had learned to deem the vulgar prejudices about birth. “Will you make yourself a mercenary herald," he asked, “rather to examine men's pedigrees than their virtues ?" And he continued to speak so eloquently in Antonio's praise that at length the Duchess, caught in the snare, exclaimed, "Oh, you render me excellent music!" "Say you so?" eagerly inquired Bosola. This good one that you speak of," said she, *is my husband." Bosola had now learnt what he wanted-indeed, what he more than suspected; but he affected surprise that that ambitious age could have so much goodness in it, as to prefer a man merely for worth, without the shadows of wealth and painted honours. He doubted, he said, if it were possible. The Duchess told him she had had three children by Antonio. Bosola broke out into an extravagant eulogy of her discernment, and of her husband's worth. She said that as she tasted comfort in his friendly speech, so would she find concealment. Bosola assured her that he would wear the secret of his prince in the inside of his heart. "You shall take charge of all my coin and jewels," said the Duchess," and follow him, for he retires himself to Ancona, whither, within a few days, I mean to follow thee." "Let me think," said the crafty Bosola. "I would wish your Grace to feign a pilgrimage to our Lady of Loretto, scarce seven leagues from Ancona; so may you depart your country with more honour, and your flight will seem a princely progress, retaining your usual train about you." The Duchess thanked him, and told him that his direction should lead her by the hand. Cariola, who had been present at their interview, suggested that, in her opinion, her mistress were better progress to the baths at Lucca, or go visit the spa in Germany; for she did not like such jesting with religion as that feigned pilgrimage. The Duchess called her a superstitious fool, and bade her prepare instantly for their departure; and then dismissed Bosola, who, now his reverend garment, in commission with the Marquess of Pescara and the famous Launoy, who had taken the French king prisoner at the Battle of Pavia. Bosola communicated his tidings, which incensed the two brothers to the highest degree. The Cardinal professed to be excessively scandalised that the Duchess, in pretending to go to Loretto, should make religion her riding-hood to keep her from the sun and tempest; and he resolved that he would instantly solicit the State of Ancona to have the Duchess and Antonio banished. He was himself bound for Loretto, for the purpose of being installed as a knight, and it was probable he might there fall in with them. The Duke de sired Bosola to write to the Duke of Malfi, his young nephew, his sister's son by her first husband, and acquaint him with his mother's honesty. He was especially wroth at this marriage with Antonio, whom he called in his anger a slave that only smelled of ink and counters, and never in his life looked like a gentleman but in the audit-time; and telling his brother he could not be at his ceremony, he bade him farewell, and having ordered a hundred and fifty of his horse to be drawn' out, he prepared his own measures in secret. The Cardinal, as he had expected, did meet with his sister, with her husband and her children, at Loretto; and, after the ceremony of his instalment had been performed with great magnificence at the shrine, where he delivered up his cross, hat, robes, and ring, and was invested with sword, helmet, shield, and spurs, Antonio, the Duchess and her children were publicly banished from the State of Ancona; the Cardinal having so managed matters that the Pope, at his instigation, and upon the pretext of her loose conduct, had seized into the protection of the Church the dukedom, which she held as dowager. The poor Duchess and her family, accompanied by her husband and Cariola, and a few servants who yet were faithful to her and vowed to take her fortune, wandered forth from the State of Ancona, hardly knowing whither she should direct her steps. She could not help complaining of her hard fortune, and she said to her husband that the birds that live in the field, on the wild benefit of nature, lived happier than they; for the birds might choose their mates, and carol their sweet pleasures to the spring. They were overtaken on the road by Bosola, who brought a letter to the Duchess from the Lord Ferdinand, her brother, with a message of all love and safety. The letter ran thus "Send Antonio to me; I want his head in a business. I stand engaged for your husband for several debts at Naples: let not that trouble him. I had rather have his heart than his money." The Duchess saw at once the politic equivocations conveyed in this letter-pit-falls strewed over with roses, as she termed them; but, said she, the devil was not cunning enough to circumvent them in riddles. Bosola said she surely would not reject the noble and free league of amity and love which he presented them. But the Duchess answered, their league was like that of some politic kings, only to make themselves of strength and power to be their after ruin; and she desired him to tell them so. "And what from you?" asked Bosola, addressing Antonio. "Thus tell him," he answered; "I will not come. My brothers have dispersed blood-hounds abroad, which till I hear are muzzled, no truce that hangs upon the will of our enemies is safe, though hatched with never such politic skill. I will not come at them." "This proclaims your breeding," tauntingly replied Bosola. "Every small thing draws a base. mind to fear, as the adamant draws iron. Fare you well, sir; you shall shortly hear from us." Scarcely had he gone, when Cariola called her mistress's attention to a troop of armed men making towards them; and, in truth, Bosola, with a guard, wearing vizards, came up to them. "Oh, they are very welcome!" said the Duchess, whose true woman's heart was brave as it was tender. Then, addressing the leader of the party, whom she did not recognise, she said, “I am your adventure, am I not?" And being told she was, she asked to what prison she was to go. The disguised Bosola told her to none, but to her palace; and that her brothers meant her safety and pity. "Pity!" exclaimed the Duchess. "With such a pity men preserve pheasants and quails alive, when they are not fat enough to be eaten." "These are your children?" he asked. "Yes." No; but I intend, since they were born accursed, that curses shall be their first language." "Fie, madam!" said he; "forget this base, low fellow." "Were I a man," cried she, beside herself with wrath, "I'd beat that counterfeit face into thy other! Then recovering her dignity, she said As soon as he was departed, the Duchess, sus- calmly, "Say that he was born mean; man is most pecting some ambush, conjured her husband, by all happy when his own actions are arguments and her love, to take their eldest son and fly towards examples of his virtue. But come-whither you Milan. "Let us not venture all this poor remain-please." And thus surrendering herself to her fate, der," she exclaimed, " in one unlucky bottom." "You counsel safely," answered her husband. "Best of my life! farewell, since we must part. Heaven hath a hand in it, but no otherwise than as some curious artist takes in sunder a clock or watch, when it is out of frame, to bring it in better order." "I know not which is best," said she, "to see you dead or part with you. Farewell, boy; thou art happy that hast not understanding to know thy misery, for all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow. In the eternal Church, sir," again speaking to her husband, "I do hope we shall not part thus." "Oh, be of comfort!" exclaimed Antonio. "Make patience a noble fortitude, and do not think how unkindly we are used." "Must I account it praise to suffer tyranny ?" she cried. "And yet, O Heaven, thy heavy hand is in it! I have seen my little boy oft scourge his top, and compared myself to it. Nought made me ever go right but Heaven's scourge-stick." "Do not weep. Heaven fashioned us of nothing, and we strive to bring ourselves to nothing. Farewell, Cariola, and thy sweet armful." Then, addressing his wife, he added, "If I do never see thee again, be a good mother to your little ones, and save them from the tiger. Fare you well." "Let me look on you once more," said the Duchess, "for that speech came from a dying father. Your kiss is colder than I have seen an holy anchorite give to a dead man's skull.” she suffered herself and her children to be conducted without resistance to Calabria. The Duchess was indeed but too correct in her notion that she was to be taken to a prison; for, once immured in the palace, her cruel brother, Ferdinand, racked his imagination to invent every possible addition to her misery. Yet, as Bosola himself, who was his tool in this wickedness, reported to him, she bore herself in her imprisonment nobly. He described her as being sad, as one long used to it, and that she seemed rather to welcome the end of misery than shun it; a behaviour so noble, he said, as gave a majesty to adversity. He said, the shape of loveliness was to be discerned more perfect in her tears than in her smiles; that she would muse for hours together, and her silence, he thought, expressed more than if she spoke. Ferdinand cursed her, in the bitterness of his heart; and, determined to push matters to the extreme, for he was weary of the strange disdain, as he called it, with which she strove against her fate, sent Bosola with a message, that he would come to visit her, but that, by reason of his having rashly made a solemn vow never to see her more, he would come in the night, and prayed her that neither torch nor taper might shine in her chamber. He would kiss her hand and reconcile himself but, for his vow, he dared not see her. This treacherous message was conveyed to the Duchess, who expressed her readiness to do her brother's pleasure. She received him, therefore, in My heart is turned to a heavy lump of lead-utter darkness-so dark was the room, indeed, that with which I sound my danger," he added, with one of those sad jests in which sorrow often delights to mask itself. And once again embracing her he bade her farewell, and taking his son in his arms departed. they could not see one another. At first, he commenced upbraiding her, speaking of her children as cubs, and telling her it would have been well for her if she could have lived thus in darkness always, for, indeed, she was too much in the light before; but he checked himself, and said he came to pardon her and to seek his peace with her. "Here is a hand," he added, "to which you have vowed much love; the ring upon it you gave." The Duchess took the proffered hand, and affectionately kissed it. Ferdinand told her he would leave the ring with her for a love-token, and the hand as sure as the ring; and she need not doubt but she should have the heart too. When she needed a friend, she should send to him that owned it, and she should see whether he could aid her. These words sounded strange and awful in her ear; and still grasping the hand in hers, she remarked, “You are very cold: I fear you are not well after your travel." And as she spoke, it seemed to her as if the cold hand she held were suddenly left unsustained in hers; and, in wild alarm, she screamed aloud for lights; and she heard her brother's voice receding in the darkness, like an echo, calling out, "Let her have lights nough!" and the lights instantly were brought; and, to her unspeakable horror, she found that he had left a dead man's hand in hers! At the same moment, a curtain was drawn from before a recess, where she beheld the bodies of Antonio and his children lying as if dead. Bosola pointed these out to the horror-stricken lady, and told her that was the piece from whence the hand was taken; that her brother presented her that sad spectacle that, now she knew directly they were dead, she might hereafter wisely cease to grieve for that which could not be recovered. The Duchess, as soon as she a little recovered from the sickening shock this sight had given her, exclaimed there was not between heaven and earth one wish she stayed for after that. But she said there was an excellent tyranny, which she would account mercy; if they would bind her to that lifeless trunk and let her freeze to death. Bosola attempted to console her, or pretended to do so, and told her she must live and be comforted; but she answered that he might as well persuade a wretch that was broke upon the wheel to have all his bones new set, and entreat him live to be executed again. "Who must despatch me?" she cried. “I account this world a tedious theatre, for I play a part in it against my will." "Now, by my life, I pity you!" said Bosola. "Thou art a fool, then," she answered, "to waste thy pity on a thing so wretched as cannot pity itself." And by degrees growing well-nigh frantic, she uttered terrible curses on her wicked tyrant brothers, for all sense of tenderness was now killed in her heart. Bosola, who had been the agent of Ferdinand to carry out this devilish phantasy, and also knew that the bodies she had seen were but figures formed in wax by Vincentio Lauriola, a curious master in that quality, could not well conceive what horrible design the Duke had in view. All he could learn from him was, that he wished to bring her to despair. He begged him to end there, and go no further in his cruelty; but he was inexorable. The shame and dishonour, as he foolishly thought, which she had brought upon his family by her marriage with Antonio, could be atoned for only by the most horrible torments. And horrible indeed were those to which his diseased brain gave birth, and such as surely never before or after was mortal woman subjected to. He caused all the mad-folk to be removed forth from the common hospital and placed near her lodging, that, by their hideous songs and dances, shouts and howlings, they might prevent her from sleeping. The poor thing bore all their tyranny with a secret bravery of heart, and, talking with Cariola about it, would say she thanked her brother; for nothing but noise and folly could keep her in her right wits, whereas reason and silence made her stark mad. And seemingly in the hope to make her quite so, Ferdinand next had these madmen let loose in her very chamber, causing her to be told by a servant that this was intended as a cure for her melancholy. She bore all this, and witnessed all their horrid antics, with patience and courage; and when they were at length driven back to their cells, Bosola, disguised like an old man, remained behind, and told her he was a tomb-maker, and had come to make her tomb. She did not quail, though, in sooth, she was somewhat startled at this announcement; and thinking that he was one of the troop of madmen, she asked him if he knew who she was. "Thou art a box of worm-seed," said he, in bitter sarcasm; "at best but a salvatory of green mummy. Our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible, since ours are to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage?" he continued: "such is the soul in the body. This world is like her little turf of grass; and the heaven over our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison." She asked him whether she was not his Duchess. He answered her that she was some great woman, sure; for Riot began to sit upon her forehead, clad in grey hairs, twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid's. She told him he was very plain; and he replied his trade was to flatter the dead, not the living: he was a tomb-maker. "And thou comest to make my tomb?" she asked. "Yes," was his answer. And the Duchess, in her wretchednes, said she would be a little merry; and asked him of what stuff he would make it. "Nay, resolve me first," he asked in his turn, "of what fashion ?" "Why," said she, "do we grow fantastical in our death-bed? Do we affect fashion in the grave ?" "Most ambitiously," he answered. "Princes' images on their tombs do not now lie as they were wont-seeming to pray up to Heaven; but, with their hands under their cheeks, as if they died of the toothache. They are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces." "Let me know fully the effect of this dismal preparation," said the Duchess-"this talk, fit for a charnel." |