Page:The Tragedy of the Duchesse of Malfy (1623).pdf/71

 3. Get me three hundred milch bats, to make possets, To procure sleepe.

4. All the Colledge may throw their caps at me, I have made a Soape-boyler costive, it was my master-peece:Here the Daunce consisting of 8''. Mad-men, with musicke answerable thereunto,'' after which, Bosola (like an old man) enters.

Duch. Is he mad to?

Ser. 'Pray question him: I'll leave you.

Bos. I am come to make thy tombe.

Duch. Hah, my tombe? Thou speak'st, as if I lay upon my death bed, Gasping for breath: do'st thou perceive me sicke?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sicknesse is insensible.

Duch. Thou art not mad sure, do'st know me?

Bos. Yes.

Duch. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of worme-seede at best, but a salvatory Of greene mummey: what's this flesh? a little cruded milke, Phantasticall puffe-paste: our bodies are weaker then those Paper prisons boyes use to keepe flies in: more contemptible: Since ours is to preserve earth-wormes: didst thou ever see A Larke in a cage? such is the soule in the body: this world Is like her little turfe of grasse, and the Heaven ore our heades, Like her looking glasse, onely gives us a miserable knowledge Of the small compasse of our prison.

Duch. Am not I, thy Duchesse?

Bos. Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy Fore-head (clad in gray haires) twenty yeares sooner, then on a Merry milkemaydes. Thou sleep'st worse, then if a mouse Should be forc'd to take up her lodging in a cats eare: A little infant, that breedes it's teeth, should it lie with thee, would Crie out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bed-fellow.

Duch. I am Duchesse of Malfy still.

Bos. That makes thy sleepes so broken: "Glories (like glowe-wormes) a farre off, shine bright, But look'd to neere, have neither heate, nor light.

Duch. Thou art very plaine.

Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living I am a tombe-maker.