English drama -- 17th century; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Bos._ And wherefore should you lay fair marble colours
Upon your rotten purposes to me?
Unless you imitate some that do plot great treasons,
And when they have done, go hide themselves i' the graves
Of those were actors in't?
_Card._ No more; there is
A fortune attends thee.
_Bos._ Shall I go sue to Fortune any longer?
'Tis the fool's pilgrimage.
_Card._ I have honours in store for thee.
_Bos._ There are many ways that conduct to seeming honour;
And some of them very dirty ones.
_Card._ Throw to the devil
Thy melancholy. The fire burns well;
What need we keep a stirring of't, and make
A greater smother? Thou wilt kill Antonio?
_Bos._ Yes.
_Card._ Take up that body.
_Bos._ I think I shall
Shortly grow the common bier for churchyards.
_Card._ I will allow thee some dozen of attendants
To aid thee in the murder.
_Bos._ O, by no means. Physicians that apply horse-leeches to any rank
swelling use to cut off their tails, that the blood may run through
them the faster: let me have no train when I go to shed blood, lest it
make me have a greater when I ride to the gallows.
_Card._ Come to me after midnight, to help to remove
That body to her own lodging: I'll give out
She died o' the plague; 'twill breed the less inquiry
After her death.
_Bos._ Where's Castruccio her husband?
_Card._ He's rode to Naples, to take possession
Of Antonio's citadel.
_Bos._ Believe me, you have done a very happy turn.
_Card._ Fail not to come: there is the master-key
Of our lodgings; and by that you may conceive
What trust I plant in you.
_Bos._ You shall find me ready. [_Exit_ Cardinal.
O poor Antonio, though nothing be so needful
To thy estate as pity, yet I find
Nothing so dangerous; I must look to my footing:
In such slippery ice-pavements men had need
To be frost-nailed well, they may break their necks else;
The precedent's here afore me. How this man
Bears up in blood! seems fearless! Why, 'tis well:
Security some men call the suburbs of hell,
Only a dead wall between. Well, good Antonio,
I'll seek thee out; and all my care shall be
To put thee into safety from the reach
Of these most cruel biters that have got
Some of thy blood already. It may be,
I'll join with thee in a most just revenge:
The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes
With the sword of justice. Still methinks the duchess
Haunts me: there, there!--'Tis nothing but my melancholy.
O Penitence, let me truly taste thy cup,
That throws men down only to raise them up! [_Exit._
SCENE III.--_A Fortification at Milan._
_Enter_ ANTONIO _and_ DELIO.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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