English drama -- 17th century; Retribution -- Drama; Siblings -- Drama; Tragedies (Drama)
CARDINAL. Shall I die like a leveret,
Without any resistance?--Help, help, help!
I am slain!
[Enter FERDINAND]
FERDINAND. Th' alarum! Give me a fresh horse;
Rally the vaunt-guard, or the day is lost,
Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms
Shake my sword over you; will you yield?
CARDINAL. Help me; I am your brother!
FERDINAND. The devil!
My brother fight upon the adverse party!
He wounds the CARDINAL, and, in the scuffle, gives BOSOLA
his death-wound.
There flies your ransom.
CARDINAL. O justice!
I suffer now for what hath former bin:
Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.
FERDINAND. Now you 're brave fellows. Caesar's fortune was harder
than Pompey's; Caesar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the
feet of disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain 's nothing;
pain many times is taken away with the apprehension of greater,
as the tooth-ache with the sight of a barber that comes to pull
it out. There 's philosophy for you.
BOSOLA. Now my revenge is perfect.--Sink, thou main cause
Kills FERDINAND.
Of my undoing!--The last part of my life
Hath done me best service.
FERDINAND. Give me some wet hay; I am broken-winded.
I do account this world but a dog-kennel:
I will vault credit and affect high pleasures
Beyond death.
BOSOLA. He seems to come to himself,
Now he 's so near the bottom.
FERDINAND. My sister, O my sister! there 's the cause on 't.
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.
[Dies.]
CARDINAL. Thou hast thy payment too.
BOSOLA. Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth;
'Tis ready to part from me. I do glory
That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid
Begun upon a large and ample base,
Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing.
[Enter, below, PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and GRISOLAN]
PESCARA. How now, my lord!
MALATESTI. O sad disaster!
RODERIGO. How comes this?
BOSOLA. Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murdered
By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio
Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia
Poison'd by this man; and lastly for myself,
That was an actor in the main of all
Much 'gainst mine own good nature, yet i' the end
Neglected.
PESCARA. How now, my lord!
CARDINAL. Look to my brother:
He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling
Here i' th' rushes. And now, I pray, let me
Be laid by and never thought of.
[Dies.]
PESCARA. How fatally, it seems, he did withstand
His own rescue!
MALATESTI. Thou wretched thing of blood,
How came Antonio by his death?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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