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 salvatory[115] of green mummy.[116] What 's this flesh? a little crudded[117] milk, fantastical 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 milk-maid's. Thou sleepest worse than if a mouse should be forced 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 wert the more unquiet bedfellow. DUCHESS. I am Duchess of Malfi still. BOSOLA. That makes thy sleep so broken: Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But, look'd to 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 comest 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 fantastical on our deathbed? 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 tooth-ache. 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, cords, 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 bellman That usually is sent
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