_Flam._ The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison, And let the stigmatic[59] wrinkles in thy face, Like to the boisterous waves in a rough tide, One still overtake another. _Lod._ I do thank thee, And I do wish ingeniously[60] for thy sake The dog-days all year long. _Flam._ How croaks the raven? Is our good duchess dead? _Lod._ Dead. _Flam._ O fate! Misfortune comes, like the coroner's business, Huddle upon huddle. _Lod._ Shalt thou and I join house-keeping? _Flam._ Yes, content: Let's be unsociably sociable. _Lod._ Sit some three days together, and discourse. _Flam._ Only with making faces: lie in our clothes. _Lod._ With faggots for our pillows. _Flam._ And be lousy. _Lod._ In taffata linings; that's genteel melancholy: Sleep all day. _Flam._ Yes; and, like your melancholic hare, Feed after midnight.-- We are observed: see how yon couple grieve! _Lod._ What a strange creature is a laughing fool! As if man were created to no use But only to show his teeth. _Flam._ I'll tell thee what,-- It would do well, instead of looking-glasses, To set one's face each morning by a saucer Of a witch's congealèd blood. _Lod._ Precious gue![61] We'll never part. _Flam._ Never, till the beggary of courtiers, The discontent of churchmen, want of soldiers, And all the creatures that hang manacled, Worse than strappadoed, on the lowest felly Of Fortune's wheel, be taught, in our two lives, To scorn that world which life of means deprives. _Enter_ ANTONELLI _and_ GASPARO. _Anto._ My lord, I bring good news. The Pope, on's death-bed, At the earnest suit of the Great Duke of Florence, Hath signed your pardon, and restored unto you-- _Lod._ I thank you for your news.--Look up again, Flamineo; see my pardon. _Flam._ Why do you laugh? There was no such condition in our covenant. _Lod._ Why! _Flam._ You shall not seem a happier man than I: You know our vow, sir; if you will be merry, Do it i' the like posture as if some great man Sate while his enemy were executed; Though it be very lechery unto thee, Do't with a crabbèd politician's face. _Lod._ Your sister is a damnable whore. _Flam._ Ha! _Lod._ Look you, I spake that laughing. _Flam._ Dost ever think to speak again? _Lod._ Do you hear? Wilt sell me forty ounces of her blood To water a mandrake? _Flam._ Poor lord, you did vow To live a lousy creature. _Lod._ Yes. _Flam._ Like one That had for ever forfeited the daylight By being in debt. _Lod._ Ha, ha! _Flam._ I do not greatly wonder you do break; Your lordship learned't long since. But I'll tell you,-- _Lod._ What? _Flam._ And't shall stick by you,-- _Lod._ I long for it. _Flam._ This laughter scurvily becomes your face: If you will not be melancholy, be angry. [_Strikes him._ See, now I laugh too. _Mar._ You are to blame: I'll force you hence.