me in my right wits; whereas reason And silence make me stark mad. Sit down; Discourse to me some dismal tragedy. CARIOLA. O, 'twill increase your melancholy! DUCHESS. Thou art deceiv'd: To hear of greater grief would lessen mine. This is a prison? CARIOLA. Yes, but you shall live To shake this durance off. DUCHESS. Thou art a fool: The robin-red-breast and the nightingale Never live long in cages. CARIOLA. Pray, dry your eyes. What think you of, madam? DUCHESS. Of nothing; When I muse thus, I sleep. CARIOLA. Like a madman, with your eyes open? DUCHESS. Dost thou think we shall know one another In th' other world? CARIOLA. Yes, out of question. DUCHESS. O, that it were possible we might But hold some two days' conference with the dead! ]From them I should learn somewhat, I am sure, I never shall know here. I 'll tell thee a miracle: I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow: Th' heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass, The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad. I am acquainted with sad misery As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar; Necessity makes me suffer constantly, And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now? CARIOLA. Like to your picture in the gallery, A deal of life in show, but none in practice; Or rather like some reverend monument Whose ruins are even pitied. DUCHESS. Very proper; And Fortune seems only to have her eye-sight To behold my tragedy.—How now! What noise is that? [Enter Servant] SERVANT. I am come to tell you Your brother hath intended you some sport. A great physician, when the Pope was sick Of a deep melancholy, presented him With several sorts[106] of madmen, which wild object Being full of change and sport, forc'd him to laugh, And so the imposthume[107] broke: the self-same cure The duke intends on you. DUCHESS. Let them come in. SERVANT. There 's a mad lawyer; and a secular priest; A doctor that hath forfeited his wits By jealousy; an astrologian That in his works said such a day o' the month Should be the day of doom, and, failing of 't, Ran mad; an English tailor craz'd i' the brain With the study of new fashions; a gentleman-usher Quite beside himself with care to keep in mind The number of his lady's salutations Or 'How do you,' she employ'd him in each morning; A farmer, too, an excellent knave in grain,[108] Mad 'cause he was hind'red transportation:[109] And let one broker that 's mad loose to these, You'd think the devil were among them. DUCHESS. Sit, Cariola.—Let them loose
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