The White Devil

Excerpt

ACT I

SCENE I

Enter Count Lodovico, Antonelli, and Gasparo

Lodo. Banish'd!

Ant. It griev'd me much to hear the sentence.

Lodo. Ha, ha, O Democritus, thy gods
  That govern the whole world! courtly reward
  And punishment. Fortune 's a right whore:
  If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
  That she may take away all at one swoop.
  This 'tis to have great enemies! God 'quite them.
  Your wolf no longer seems to be a wolf
  Than when she 's hungry.

Gas. You term those enemies,
  Are men of princely rank.

Lodo. Oh, I pray for them:
  The violent thunder is adored by those
  Are pasht in pieces by it.

Ant. Come, my lord,
  You are justly doom'd; look but a little back
  Into your former life: you have in three years
  Ruin'd the noblest earldom.

Gas. Your followers
  Have swallowed you, like mummia, and being sick
  With such unnatural and horrid physic,
  Vomit you up i' th' kennel.

Ant. All the damnable degrees
  Of drinking have you stagger'd through. One citizen,
  Is lord of two fair manors, call'd you master,
  Only for caviare.

Gas. Those noblemen
  Which were invited to your prodigal feasts,
  (Wherein the phnix scarce could 'scape your throats)
  Laugh at your misery, as fore-deeming you
  An idle meteor, which drawn forth, the earth
  Would be soon lost i' the air.

Ant. Jest upon you,
  And say you were begotten in an earthquake,
  You have ruin'd such fair lordships.

Lodo. Very good.
  This well goes with two buckets: I must tend
  The pouring out of either.

Gas. Worse than these.
  You have acted certain murders here in Rome,
  Bloody and full of horror.

Lodo. 'Las, they were flea-bitings:
  Why took they not my head then?

Gas. O, my lord!
  The law doth sometimes mediate, thinks it good
  Not ever to steep violent sins in blood:
  This gentle penance may both end your crimes,
  And in the example better these bad times.

Lodo. So; but I wonder then some great men 'scape
  This banishment: there 's Paulo Giordano Ursini,
  The Duke of Brachiano, now lives in Rome,
  And by close panderism seeks to prostitute
  The honour of Vittoria Corombona:
  Vittoria, she that might have got my pardon
  For one kiss to the duke.

Ant. Have a full man within you:
  We see that trees bear no such pleasant fruit
  There where they grew first, as where they are new set.
  Perfumes, the more they are chaf'd, the more they render
  Their pleasing scents, and so affliction
  Expresseth virtue fully, whether true,
  Or else adulterate.

Lodo. Leave your painted comforts;
  I 'll make Italian cut-works in their guts
  If ever I return.

Gas. Oh, sir.

Lodo. I am patient.
  I have seen some ready to be executed,
  Give pleasant looks, and money, and grown familiar
  With the knave hangman; so do I; I thank them,
  And would account them nobly merciful,
  Would they dispatch me quickly.

Ant. Fare you well;
  We shall find time, I doubt not, to repeal
  Your banishment....