English drama -- 17th century; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Fran. de Med._ Was this your circle of pure unicorn's horn
You said should charm your lord? now, horns upon thee,
For jealousy deserves them! Keep your vow
And take your chamber.
_Isab._ No, sir, I'll presently to Padua;
I will not stay a minute.
_Mont._ O good madam!
_Brach._ 'Twere best to let her have her humour:
Some half day's journey will bring down her stomach,
And then she'll turn in post.
_Fran. de Med._ To see her come
To my lord cardinal for a dispensation
Of her rash vow, will beget excellent laughter.
_Isab._ Unkindness, do thy office; poor heart, break:
Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.
[_Exit._
_Re-enter_ MARCELLO _with_ CAMILLO.
_Mar._ Camillo's come, my lord.
_Fran. de Med._ Where's the commission?
_Mar._ 'Tis here.
_Fran. de Med._ Give me the signet. [FRANCISCO DE MEDICIS, MONTICELSO,
CAMILLO, _and_ MARCELLO _retire to the back of the stage._
_Flam._ My lord, do you mark their whispering? I will compound a
medicine, out of their two heads, stronger than garlic, deadlier than
stibium:[38] the cantharides, which are scarce seen to stick upon the
flesh when they work to the heart, shall not do it with more silence or
invisible cunning.
_Brach._ About the murder?
_Flam._ They are sending him to Naples, but I'll send him to Candy.
_Enter_ Doctor.
Here's another property too.
_Brach._ O, the doctor!
_Flam._ A poor quack-salving knave, my lord; one that should have
been lashed for's lechery, but that he confessed a judgment, had an
execution laid upon him, and so put the whip to a _non plus_.
_Doc._ And was cozened, my lord, by an arranter knave than myself, and
made pay all the colourable execution.
_Flam._ He will shoot pills into a man's guts shall make them have more
ventages than a cornet or a lamprey; he will poison a kiss; and was
once minded, for his master-piece, because Ireland breeds no poison, to
have prepared a deadly vapour in a Spaniard's fart, that should have
poisoned all Dublin.
_Brach._ O, Saint Anthony's fire.
_Doc._ Your secretary is merry, my lord.
_Flam._ O thou cursed antipathy to nature!--Look, his eye's bloodshed,
like a needle a surgeon stitcheth a wound with.--Let me embrace thee,
toad, and love thee, O thou abominable loathsome[39] gargarism, that
will fetch up lungs, lights, heart, and liver, by scruples!
_Brach._ No more.--I must employ thee, honest doctor:
You must to Padua, and by the way,
Use some of your skill for us.
_Doc._ Sir, I shall.
_Brach._ But, for Camillo?
_Flam._ He dies this night, by such a politic strain,
Men shall suppose him by's own engine slain.
But for your duchess' death--
_Doc._ I'll make her sure.
_Brach._ Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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