_Bos._ Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the Heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. _Duch._ Am not I thy duchess? _Bos._ Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid's. Thou sleepest worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. _Duch._ I am Duchess of Malfi still. _Bos._ That makes thy sleeps so broken: Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. _Duch._ Thou art very plain. _Bos._ My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living; I am a tomb-maker. _Duch._ And thou comest to make my tomb? _Bos._ Yes. _Duch._ Let me be a little merry:--of what stuff wilt thou make it? _Bos._ Nay, resolve me first, of what fashion? _Duch._ Why do we grow fantastical in our death-bed? do we affect fashion in the grave? _Bos._ Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not 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. _Duch._ Let me know fully therefore the effect Of this thy dismal preparation, This talk fit for a charnel. _Bos._ Now I shall:-- _Enter_ Executioners, _with a coffin, cords, and a bell._ Here is a present from your princely brothers; And may it arrive welcome, for it brings Last benefit, last sorrow. _Duch._ Let me see it: I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good. _Bos._ This is your last presence-chamber. _Cari._ O my sweet lady! _Duch._ Peace; it affrights not me. _Bos._ I am the common bellman, That usually is sent to condemned persons The night before they suffer. _Duch._ Even now thou said'st Thou wast a tomb-maker.