The Duchess of Malfi
when you please, For I am chain'd to endure all your tyranny.         [Enter Madman]         Here by a Madman this song is sung to a dismal kind of music O, let us howl some heavy note, Some deadly dogged howl, Sounding as from the threatening throat Of beasts and fatal fowl! As ravens, screech-owls, bulls, and bears, We 'll bell, and bawl our parts, Till irksome noise have cloy'd your ears And corrosiv'd your hearts. At last, whenas our choir wants breath, Our bodies being blest, We 'll sing, like swans, to welcome death, And die in love and rest. FIRST MADMAN. Doom's-day not come yet! I 'll draw it nearer by a perspective,[110] or make a glass that shall set all the world on fire upon an instant. I cannot sleep; my pillow is stuffed with a litter of porcupines. SECOND MADMAN. Hell is a mere glass-house, where the devils are continually blowing up women's souls on hollow irons, and the fire never goes out. FIRST MADMAN. I have skill in heraldry. SECOND MADMAN. Hast? FIRST MADMAN. You do give for your crest a woodcock's head with the brains picked out on 't; you are a very ancient gentleman. THIRD MADMAN. Greek is turned Turk:  we are only to be saved by the Helvetian translation.[111]    FIRST MADMAN. Come on, sir, I will lay the law to you. SECOND MADMAN. O, rather lay a corrosive:  the law will eat to the bone. THIRD MADMAN. He that drinks but to satisfy nature is damn'd. FOURTH MADMAN. If I had my glass here, I would show a sight should make all the women here call me mad doctor. FIRST MADMAN. What 's he? a rope-maker? SECOND MADMAN. No, no, no, a snuffling knave that, while he shows the tombs, will have his hand in a wench's placket.[112]    THIRD MADMAN. Woe to the caroche[113] that brought home my wife from the masque at three o'clock in the morning! It had a large feather-bed in it. FOURTH MADMAN. I have pared the devil's nails forty times, roasted them in raven's eggs, and cured agues with them. THIRD MADMAN. Get me three hundred milch-bats, to make possets[114]   to procure sleep. FOURTH MADMAN. All the college may throw their caps at me:   I have made a soap-boiler costive; it was my masterpiece. Here the dance, consisting of Eight Madmen, with music answerable thereunto; after which, BOSOLA, like an old man, enters. DUCHESS. Is he mad too? SERVANT. Pray, question him. I 'll leave you.        [Exeunt Servant and Madmen.]    BOSOLA. I am come to make thy tomb. DUCHESS. Ha! 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 
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