The Duchess of Malfi (Longman Literature)

Excerpt: ...tails, and all the country About them goes to wrack for 't. SILVIO. What 's that Bosola? DELIO. I knew him in Padua,-a fantastical scholar, like such who study to know how many knots was in Hercules' club, of what colour Achilles' beard was, or whether Hector were not troubled with the tooth-ache. He hath studied himself half blear-eyed to know the true symmetry of Caesar's nose by a shoeing-horn; and this he did to gain the name of a speculative man. PESCARA. Mark Prince Ferdinand: A very salamander lives in 's eye, To mock the eager violence of fire. SILVIO. That cardinal hath made more bad faces with his oppression than ever Michael Angelo made good ones. He lifts up 's nose, like a foul porpoise before a storm. PESCARA. The Lord Ferdinand laughs. DELIO. Like a deadly cannon That lightens ere it smokes. PESCARA. These are your true pangs of death, The pangs of life, that struggle with great statesmen. DELIO. In such a deformed silence witches whisper their charms. CARDINAL. Doth she make religion her riding-hood To keep her from the sun and tempest? FERDINAND. That, that damns her. Methinks her fault and beauty, Blended together, show like leprosy, The whiter, the fouler. I make it a question Whether her beggarly brats were ever christ'ned. CARDINAL. I will instantly solicit the state of Ancona To have them banish'd. FERDINAND. You are for Loretto: I shall not be at your ceremony; fare you well.- Write to the Duke of Malfi, my young nephew She had by her first husband, and acquaint him With 's mother's honesty. BOSOLA. I will. FERDINAND. Antonio! A slave that only smell'd of ink and counters, And never in 's life look'd like a gentleman, But in the audit-time.-Go, go presently, Draw me out an hundred and fifty of our horse, And meet me at the foot-bridge.      Exeunt. Scene IV Enter Two Pilgrims to the Shrine of our Lady of Loretto FIRST PILGRIM. I have not seen a goodlier shrine than this; Yet I have visited many. SECOND PILGRIM. The...