_Mal._ A cuckold: to be made a thing that's hoodwinked with kindness, whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a coxcomb with egregious horns pinned to a lord's back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it: pistols and poniards! pistols and poniards! 143 _Pietro._ Death and damnation! _Mal._ Lightning and thunder! _Pietro._ Vengeance and torture! _Mal._ Catso![373] _Pietro._ O, revenge! _Mal._[374] Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs A lady far inferior to the most, In fair proportion both of limb and soul; To take her from austerer check of parents, To make her his by most devoutful rites, 150 Make her commandress of a better essence Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man; To hug her with as rais'd an appetite As usurers do their delv'd-up treasury (Thinking none tells it but his private self); To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss, Distilling panting ardour to her heart; True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood, To give her height of hymeneal sweets,---- _Pietro._ O God! 160 _Mal._ Whilst she lisps, and gives him some court-_quelquechose_,[375] Made only to provoke, not satiate: And yet even then the thaw of her delight Flows from lewd heat of apprehension, Only from strange imagination's rankness, That forms the adulterer's presence in her soul, And makes her think she clips the foul knave's loins. _Pietro._ Affliction to my blood's root! _Mal._ Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this; Adultery is often the mother of incest. 170 _Pietro._ Incest! _Mal._ Yes, incest: mark:--Mendoza of his wife begets perchance a daughter: Mendoza dies; his son marries this daughter: say you? nay, 'tis frequent, not only probable, but no question often acted, whilst ignorance, fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed. _Pietro._ Hideous imagination! _Mal._ Adultery? why, next to the sin of simony, 'tis the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation. 180 _Pietro._ Next to simony! _Mal._ Ay, next to simony, in which our men in next age shall not sin. _Pietro._ Not sin! why? _Mal._ Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery, O dulness! should show[376] exemplary punishment, that intemperate bloods may freeze but to think it. I would damn him and all his generation: my own hands should do it; ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance: --anything. 191 _Pietro._ Anything, anything, Malevole: thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds. Farewell; remember I forget thee not; farewell. [_Exit_ PIETRO.