Classic Poem

bosola:I am come to make thy tomb.
duchess:Hah, my tomb?
Thou speak'st, as if I lay upon my death bed,
Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick?
bosola:Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.
duchess:Thou art not mad, sure. Dost know me?
bosola:Yes.
duchess:Who am I?
bosola:Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a little salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, phantastical puff-paste: our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible--since ours is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.
duchess:Am not I--thy duchess?
bosola:Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid's. Thou sleep'st worse than if a mouse should be forc'd to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou were the more unquiet bedfellow.
duchess:I am the Duchess of Malfi still.
bosola:That makes thy sleep so broken:
"Glories (like glow-worms) afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near, have neither heat nor light.'
duchess:Thou art very plain.
bosola:My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living--I am a tomb-maker.
duchess:And thou com'st to make my tomb?
bosola:Yes.
duchess:Let me be a little merry--
Of what stuff wilt thou make it?
bosola:Nay, resolve me first, of what fashion?
duchess:Why, do we grow phantastical in our death-bed?
Do we affect fashion in the grave?
bosola:Most ambitiously: Princes' images on their tombs
Do not lie, as they were wont, seeming to pray
Up to heaven; but with their hands under their cheeks,
(As if they died of the toothache)--they are not carved
With their eyes fix'd upon the stars; but as
Their minds were wholly bent upon the world,
The selfsame way they seem to turn their faces.
duchess:Let me know fully therefore the effect
Of this thy dismal preparation,
This talk, fit for a charnel?
bosola:Now, I shall--
(Enter Executioners, with a coffin, cord, and a bell)
Here is a present from your princely brothers,
And may it arrive welcome, for it brings
Last benefit, last sorrow.
duchess:Let me see it--
I have so much obedience in my blood,
I wish it in their veins, to do them good.
bosola:This is your last presence chamber.
cariola:O my sweet lady!
duchess:Peace, it affrights not me.
bosola:I am the common bell-man,
That usually is sent to condemn'd persons
The night before they suffer.
duchess:Even now thou said'st,
Thou wast a tomb-maker?
bosola:'Twas to bring you
By degrees to mortification: Listen.
Hark, now every thing is still--
The sritch-owl and the whistler shrill
Call upon our Dame, aloud,
And bid her quickly don her shroud:
Much you had of land and rent,
Your length in clay's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind,
Here your perfect peace is sign'd--
Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth, weeping:
Their life a general mist of error,
Their death, a hideous storm of terror--
Strew your hair, with powders sweet:
Don clean linen, bath your feet,
And (the foul fiend more to check)
A crucifix let bless your neck.
'Tis now full tide, 'tween night, and day,
End your groan, and come away.
cariola:Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers: alas!
What will you do with my lady? Call for help.
duchess:To whom, to our next neighbours? they are mad folks.
bosola:Remove that noise.
duchess:Farewell, Cariola.
In my last will I have not much to give--
A many hungry guests have fed upon me.
Thine will be a poor reversion.
cariola:I will die with her.
duchess:I pray thee, look thou giv'st my little boy
Some syrup, for his cold, and let the girl
Say her prayers, ere she sleep. Now what you please,
What death?
bosola:Strangling, here are your executioners.
duchess:I forgive them:
The apoplexy, cathar, or cough o' th' lungs,
Would do as much as they do.
bosola:Doth not death fright you?
duchess:Who would be afraid on't?
Knowing to meet such excellent company
In th'other world.
bosola:Yet, me thinks,
The manner of your death should much afflict you,
This cord should terrify you?
duchess:Not a whit--
What would it pleasure me, to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smothered
With cassia? or to be shot to death, with pearls?
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits: and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges
You may open them both ways: any way (for heaven sake),
So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers
That I perceive death (now I am well awake)
Best gift is they can give, or I can take--
I would fain put off my last woman's fault,
I'd not be tedious to you.
executioner:We are ready.
duchess:Dispose my breath how please you, but my body
Bestow upon my women, will you?
executioner:Yes.
duchess:Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down heaven upon me:
Yet stay, heaven-gates are not so highly arch'd
As princes' palaces--they that enter there
Must go upon their knees: Come, violent death,
Serve for mandragora, to make me sleep;
Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet . . .
(They strangle her)