David Bruce: John Ford's LOVE'S SACRIFICE: A Retelling (Free PDF)

 John Ford's LOVE'S SACRIFICE: A Retelling (Free PDF)

John Ford’s 

Love’s Sacrifice: 

A Retelling

 

David Bruce

 

DEDICATED TO MOM AND DAD

 

Copyright 2019 by Bruce D. Bruce

 

Educate Yourself

Read Like A Wolf Eats

Feel Free to Give This Book to Anyone Free of Charge

Be Excellent to Each Other

Do you know a language other than English? If you do, I give you permission to translate this book, copyright your translation, publish or self-publish it, and keep all the royalties for yourself. (Do give me credit, of course, for the original retelling.)

I would like to see my retellings of classic literature used in schools. Teachers need not actually teach my retellings. Teachers are welcome to give students copies of my eBooks as background material. For example, if they are teaching Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, teachers are welcome to give students copies of my Virgil’s Aeneid:A Retelling in Prose and tell students, “Here’s another ancient epic you may want to read in your spare time.”

Books Then, Books Now, Books Forever

 

According to Charles Lamb, “Ford was of the first order of poets. He sought for sublimity, not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cast of Characters                                                           1

Chapter 1                                                                          3

Chapter 2                                                                        33

Chapter 3                                                                        75   

Chapter 4                                                                      105

Chapter 5                                                                      129

Notes                                                                             156

Appendix A: About the Author                                  165

Appendix B: Some Books by David Bruce                166

 

 

CAST OF CHARACTERS

MALE CHARACTERS:

Philippo Caraffa, Duke of Pavia.

Roderico D’Avolos, Secretary to the Duke. 

Fernando, Best friend of the Duke, and nephew of Petruchio.

Ferentes, a wanton Courtier.

Roseilli, a young Nobleman. He is related to Petruchio and Fernando.

Paulo Baglione, Abbot of Monaco, and uncle of the Duchess Bianca. 

Petruchio, Counselor of State, and uncle of Fernando. A Counselor of State is an advisor.

Nibrassa, Counselor of State.

Mauruccio, an old Buffoon. 

Giacopo, Servant to Mauruccio.

FEMALE CHARACTERS:

Bianca, the Duchess of Pavia.

Fiormonda, the Duke’s Sister. Recently widowed. She is a Marquess.

Colona, Daughter of Petruchio, and lady-in-waiting to the Duchess Bianca.

Julia, Daughter of Nibrassa, and lady-in-waiting to Fiormonda.

Morona, a Widow. She is 46 years old.

MINOR CHARACTERS:

Courtiers, Officers, Two Friars, Attendants, etc. 

SCENE:

Pavia, in Lombardy, Italy. 

NOTES:

In this culture, a man of higher rank would use words such as “thee,” “thy,” “thine,” and “thou” to refer to a servant. However, two close friends or a husband and wife could properly use “thee,” “thy,” “thine,” and “thou” to refer to each other.

The word “Sirrah” is a term usually used to address a man of lower social rank than the speaker. This was socially acceptable, but sometimes the speaker would use the word as an insult when speaking to a man whom he did not usually call “Sirrah.”

The name “Bianca” means “White.”

 

CHAPTER 1

— 1.1 —

Roseilli, who was a young nobleman, and Roderico D’Avolos, who was secretary to the Duke of Pavia, talked together in a room in the Palace. Roderico D’Avolos had just told Roseilli that the Duke of Pavia was sending him into exile. Roseilli was a member of the House of Lesui — that is, he was a member of the Lesui family.

“Must I depart from the court?” Roseilli asked.

“Such was the Duke’s command,” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

“You’re secretary to the state and him. You are great in his counsels, wise, and, I think, honest,” Roseilli said.

“Great in his counsels” meant “trusted by him.” Secretaries knew their employer’s secrets.

Roseilli continued, “Have you, in turning over old records, read about even one name descended of the House of Lesui who has been remiss in his loyalty? Has even one member of the House of Lesui been a traitor?”

“Never, my lord,” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

“Why, then, should I now, now when glorious peace triumphs in mutual interchange of pleasures, be wiped off, as if I were a useless moth — a parasite — from courtly ease?” Roseilli asked. “And to where must I go?”

“You have the whole world open before you,” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

“Why, then it is likely I’m banished!”

“That is not so,” Roderico D’Avolos replied. “My order is only to command you to go away from the court, within five hours to depart after notice is given to you, and not to live within thirty miles of the court, until it is thought appropriate and proper by his excellence the Duke to call you back. Now that I have warned you, my lord, it will be at your peril if you disobey. I shall inform the Duke of your discontent.”

Roderico D’Avolos exited.

“Do, crafty schemer, do,” Roseilli said to himself. “I scent the plot behind this disgrace. It is Fiormonda, she, the Duke’s sister, that haughty widow, whose commanding check and rebuff ruins my love.”

He had been wooing Fiormonda, but she had rebuffed him.

He continued, “Like foolish beasts, thus they find danger who prey too near the lions’ den.”

The foolish beasts were possibly Fiormonda and Roderico D’Avolos, who were finding a “danger” that did not exist: Roseilli was not a danger — he was in love. Or possibly they did find real danger — if Roseilli was wooing Fiormonda not out of love but as a way of increasing his social status.

Or, possibly, Roseilli himself was like a foolish beast. He had been trying to woo Fiormonda — she was either his “prey” or his prey.

Fernando and Petruchio entered the scene. Fernando was the Duke’s best friend, and Petruchio — Fernando’s uncle — was one of the Duke’s Counselors of State, or advisors.

“My noble lord, Roseilli!” Fernando said. 

“Sir, the joy I should have welcomed you with is wrapped up and hidden in clouds of my disgrace,” Roseilli said. “Yet, honored sir, howsoever the frowns of great ones cast me down, my service and duty shall pay tribute in my lowness to your rising virtues that are winning you favor at court.”

“Sir, I know you are so well acquainted with your own virtues that you need not flatter mine,” Fernando said. “Trust me, my lord, I’ll be a suitor for you.”

By “suitor,” he meant “petitioner.” He was going to try to get the Duke to not exile Roseilli.

“And I’ll second my nephew’s suit with importunity,” Petruchio said. “I will eagerly back him up.”

“You are, my Lord Fernando, recently returned from travels,” Roseilli said. “Please advise me. Since the voice of most supreme authority commands my absence from the court, I am determined to spend some time in learning languages abroad. Perhaps the change of air may change in me remembrance of my wrongs at home — perhaps I will forget these wrongs. Good sir, inform me. Let’s say I intend to live in Spain. What benefit of knowledge might I learn and treasure in my mind?”

“In truth, sir, I’ll freely tell you what I have found the truth to be,” Fernando said. “In Spain you waste experience and knowledge; it is a climate too hot to nourish scholarship and the arts. The nation is proud, and in their pride the Spanish citizens are unsociable. The court is more inclined to glorify itself than to do a strange foreigner kindness and honor. If you intend to engage in transportation of merchandise like a merchant, it is a place that might greatly increase your profits, but as for me, I soon took a surfeit of it — I grew tired of it.” 

“What about France?” Roseilli asked.

“I praise and love France more than I do Spain,” Fernando said. “You are, my lord, yourself much famed for horsemanship, and in France you shall have many opportunities to prove your skill. The French are surpassingly courtly, ripe of wit, and kind, but they are also extreme dissemblers, deceivers, and hypocrites. You shall have a Frenchman ducking — that is, bowing — lower than your knee, but at the same instant mocking even your shoelaces. To give the country its due, it is a paradise on Earth; and if you can ignore or dispraise your own skills and personal characteristics, while praising in others that wherein you yourself excel, you shall be much beloved there.”

Roseilli said, “Yet I thought I heard you and the Duchess, two nights ago, talking about an island thereabouts, called — let me think — it was —”

“England?” Fernando asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” Roseilli said. “Please, sir, you have been there. I thought I heard you praise it.”

“I’ll tell you what I found there: men as neat and refined and as courtly as the French, but in disposition quite opposite,” Fernando said. “Suppose that you, my lord, could be more excellent on horseback than you in fact are, if there — as there are many — were an Englishman who excelled you in your art as much as you do others, yet the English in their modesty will think their own is nothing compared with you, a foreigner. In their clothing they are not more foppish, fantastic, and extravagant than they are uncertain and fickle. They frequently wear clothing that is fashionable in countries other than their own. In short, no nation but itself can disparage their fair abundance of good things, manhood, and beauty.”

“My lord, you have much eased me,” Roseilli said. “I have made up my mind about where to travel.” 

“And to where are you bent?” Fernando asked.

“My lord, I am bent for travel,” Roseilli replied. “I will make haste for England.”

“No, my lord, you must not,” Fernando said. “I have still some private conversation to impart to you for your good; at night I’ll meet you at my Lord Petruchio’s house. Until then stay hidden.”

“Does my kinsman dare to trust me?” Roseilli asked. 

Roseilli was supposed to leave Pavia quickly. If he were caught in the vicinity after his deadline to leave, he would be in serious trouble, as would anyone who helped him stay in the vicinity. Anyone who helped shelter Roseilli in Pavia had to have confidence that Roseilli would be discreet.

“Dare I, my lord!” Petruchio — who was one of Roseilli’s kinsmen — said. “Yes, unless your crime were greater than a bold woman’s spleen and malice.”

Roseilli believed that Fiormonda was a bold woman whose spleen and malice had gotten him removed from the court. So, apparently, did Petruchio.

“The Duke’s near at hand,” Roseilli said, “and I must go away from here. My service and duty to your lordships.”

He exited.

“Now, nephew, as I told you, since the Duke has held the reins of state in his own hand, he is much altered from the man he was before, as if he were transformed in his mind,” Petruchio said.

He hesitated and then continued, “Now, many flatter the Duke in his pleasures, among whom is foolish Ferentes, who is a man whose pride takes pride in nothing more than to delight his lust. And Ferentes — with grief I speak it — has, I fear, too much besotted my unhappy daughter, my poor Colona. For kindred’s sake, as you are noble and as you honor virtue, I ask you to persuade her to love and respect herself. A word from you may win her more than my entreaties or frowns.” 

Colona — Petruchio’s daughter — loved Ferentes, a lecherous courtier. Petruchio, therefore, wanted Fernando to talk to Colona and attempt to convince her to show respect for herself and so stop loving Ferentes.

“Uncle, I’ll do my best,” Fernando said. “In the meantime, please tell me, whose mediation brought about the marriage between the Duke and Duchess — who was the agent?” 

The Duke and Duchess had married just recently.

“The agents were his roving eye and her enchanting face, the only dower nature had ordained to advance her to her bride-bed,” Petruchio answered. “She was the daughter of a gentleman of Milan — no better — who was promoted to serve in the Duke of Milan’s court.”

Her father was a gentleman — he was of good birth but not especially high-ranking.

Petruchio continued, “In Milan she was greatly famed for her beauty. While she was passing recently from thence to Monaco to visit her uncle, Paul Baglione — the Abbot there — Lady Fortune, who is the Queen to such blind matches, presented her to the Duke’s eye, during her journey, as he was pursuing the deer while hunting. In short, my lord, he saw her, loved her, wooed her, won her, and married her. No counsel could prevent him from marrying her.”

“She is beautiful,” Fernando, who had seen her, said.

“She is,” Petruchio said, “and, to speak truthfully, I think she is truly noble in her disposition.”

“If, when I should choose, beauty and virtue were the dowry proposed, I should not care about parentage,” Fernando said. “Beauty and virtue are more important than a high-ranking birth.”

“The Duke is coming!” Petruchio said, looking around. 

“Let’s break off our talk,” Fernando said.

He thought, Good angel of my soul, if you ever protect my truth and righteousness, do so now!

He was in love with a woman and did not want to reveal who she was: the new Duchess. 

The Duke, Bianca (the new Duchess), Fiormonda (the Duke’s newly widowed sister), Nibrassa (a Counselor of State, or advisor), Ferentes (the lecherous courtier), Julia (Nibrassa’s daughter), and Roderico D’Avolos walked over to Ferentes and Petruchio.

“Come, my Bianca, revel in my arms,” the Duke of Pavia said, “while I, wrapped in my admiration, view lilies and roses growing in thy cheeks. 

“Fernando! Oh, thou are my best friend and are half myself! No joy could make my pleasure full without thy presence. I am a monarch of felicity and happiness. I am proud in a pair of jewels, rich and beautiful: I have a perfect friend and a wife above compare.”

“Sir, if a man so low in rank may hope, by virtue of loyal duty and devoted zeal, to hold a mutuality in friendship with one so mighty as the Duke of Pavia, my uttermost ambition is to climb to those merits that may give me the title of your servant,” Fernando said.

“The title of partner in my Dukedom, and partner in my heart, as freely as the privilege of blood has made them — my Dukedom and my heart — mine,” the Duke replied. “Philippo and Fernando shall be the same — without distinction made between us.”

Philippo was the Duke’s first name. His full name was Philippo Caraffa.

The Duke introduced his new wife to his best friend, “Look, Bianca, on this good man; in all respects to him be as to me: only the name of husband, and reverent observance of our bed, shall differentiate us in personal, individual bodies, but otherwise in soul we are all one.”

He was saying that he (Philippo) and Fernando shall be the same — with the exception that only Philippo shall be Bianca’s husband and share her bed.

“I shall regard the bosom-partner of my lord in the best of love,” Bianca said. 

Fiormonda whispered, “Ferentes.”

He whispered back, “Madam?”

She whispered, “You are one who loves courtliness and courtly etiquette. Fernando has some skillful modulation of words. It would be no lost labor to stuff your table-books with his words — the man speaks wisely!” 

Table-books were notebooks in which people could record such things as witticisms they had heard. Some people — such as Ferentes, perhaps — recorded assignations in them.

Ferentes whispered back, “I’m glad your highness is so pleasant and droll and filled with dry humor.”

The Duke of Pavia said out loud to Fiormonda, “Sister.”

She replied, “My lord and brother.”

“You are too silent,” the Duke of Pavia said. “Quicken and enliven your sad remembrance: Although the loss of your dead husband deserves more than careless neglect, yet it is a sin against the state of princes to exceed a mean in mourning for the dead.”

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle advocated following a mean between extremes. Too much of something was usually bad, as was too little of something. The path of virtue lay in finding the mean between extremes. (An exception is adultery. You can never commit the right amount of adultery. Even once is an excess.)

The Duke felt that his sister was excessively mourning the death of her husband and so he was advising her to move past the death of her husband and begin living her life again.

“Should formality and etiquette, my lord, prevail above affection?” Fiormonda replied. “No, it cannot. You have yourself here a truly noble Duchess — she is virtuous at least — and should your grace now pay — which Heaven forbid! — the debt you owe to nature by dying, I dare presume she’d not so soon forget a prince who thus advanced and promoted her to a much higher social class.”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Her speech is bitter and shrewd.

He recognized that the speech was not sympathetic. The speech said that rather than Bianca mourn the Duke’s death, when it should happen, because she loved him, she would mourn him because he had raised her social status to that of a Duchess.

In addition, Fiormonda had said that Bianca was “truly noble” but had qualified that by saying “she is virtuous at least” because Bianca’s birth was not in a truly noble family. She was the daughter of only a gentleman.

Fiormonda then asked Bianca, “Madam, could you soon forget a prince who thus advanced and promoted you to a much higher social class?”

“Sister-in-law, I should too much betray my weakness to give an opinion on a passion I never felt nor feared,” Bianca replied.

That passion — that strong emotion — is ingratitude.

“That is a modest answer,” Nibrassa said. 

“If credit may be given to a face, my lord, I’ll undertake on her behalf that her words are trusty heralds to her mind,” Fernando said.

Fiormonda whispered to Roderico D’Avolos, “That was exceedingly good; the man will ‘undertake’! Observe his language, D’Avolos.”

By “undertake,” Fernando meant “affirm.” Fiormonda, however, was deliberately misunderstanding him to mean “take” in the sense of “to have sex with.” He would under-take Bianca — “take” her with her under him.

Fiormonda perhaps enjoyed deliberately misunderstanding words and endowing them with a bawdy meaning they were not intended to have. Or she may have been irritated by Fernando’s defense of Bianca: He was saying that Bianca’s words ought to be believed.

Roderico D’Avolos whispered back, “Lady, I do. It is a smooth and flattering praise.”

“Friend, in thy judgment I find proof of thy love, and I love thee better for thy judging of my love,” the Duke of Pavia said. “Although my gray-headed senate in the laws of strict opinion and severe formal discussion would tie and restrict the limits of our free affections — like superstitious Jews — to match with none but in a tribe of princes like ourselves —”

The senate had wanted the Duke to marry someone of his own social status and wealth. Instead, he had married “down” — he had married a woman who was not a member of a wealthy princely family.

The Duke continued, “— such gross-nurtured slaves force their wretched souls to crouch and bow down to profit. Indeed, for trashy money and possessions and wealth they dote on some crooked or misshapen form, hugging wise nature’s lame deformity and begetting creatures as ugly as themselves. But why should princes do so, princes who command the storehouse of the earth’s hidden minerals?”

He then said to his newly wedded wife, “No, my Bianca, thou are to me as dear as if thy dowry had been Europe’s riches. In thine eyes lies more than Europe’s riches are worth. 

“Let us go on. They shall be strangers to my heart who envy thee and are malicious toward thee and thy fortunes.”

He then said, “Come, Fernando, my but divided self; what we have done we are only debtor to Heaven for. Let’s go!”

Fiormonda whispered to Roderico D’Avolos, “Now take thy opportunity at this time, or never, D’Avolos. Prevail, and I will raise thee high in grace.”

Roderico D’Avolos whispered back, “Madam, I will omit no craftiness or cunning that is needed to carry out my task.”

Fiormonda had given Roderico D’Avolos a task to accomplish, bribing him by promising him higher status at court. Roderico D’Avolos served the Duke of Pavia as secretary, but he was also secretly working for Fiormonda.

Everyone exited except Roderico D’Avolos, who called Fernando back: “My honored Lord Fernando!”

“Are you calling me, sir?” Fernando asked.

“Let me beseech your lordship to excuse me, in the nobleness of your wisdom, if I exceed good manners,” RodericoD’Avolos said. “I am one, my lord, who in the admiration of your perfect virtues do so truly honor and reverence your merit that there is not a living creature who shall more faithfully strive to do you service in all offices of duty and vows of due respect.”

“Good sir, you bind me to you,” Fernando politely replied. “Is this all?”

“I ask earnestly that you listen a little longer,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “My good lord, what I have to speak concerns your reputation and best fortune and prosperity.”

“What’s that!” Fernando said. “My reputation! Lay aside superfluous, unnecessary ceremonious formalities, and speak plainly. What is it you have to tell me?” 

“I do consider myself the blessedest man alive, that I shall be the first who gives your lordship news of your perpetual comfort and happiness.”

“What do you mean?” Fernando asked.

“If singular beauty, inimitable virtues, honor, youth, and absolute goodness be a fortune, all those are at once offered to your particular choice,” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

“Without delays, tell me how?” Fernando asked. “In what way?”

“The great and gracious Lady Fiormonda loves you, infinitely loves you. But, my lord, as you have ever received favorably a servant to your pleasures, let it not be revealed that I gave you notice of this. Don’t tell anyone I told you this.”

“Surely, you are strangely out of tune, sir.”

Fernando wondered if Roderico D’Avolos was speaking the truth.

“Please just speak to her. Just be courtly-ceremonious with her, and use just once the language of affection. If I misreport anything besides what I know is true, let me never have a place in your good opinion.”

The word “misreport” could mean 1) “give a false or misleading account,” or 2) “slander.” Possibly, RodericoD’Avolos wanted Fernando to think that he had said, “If I misreport anything and say anything besides what I know is true, let me never have a place in your good opinion.”

He continued, “Oh, these women, my lord, are as brittle mettle as your glass is, as smooth, as slippery.”

The word “mettle” meant 1) character, and 2) substance.

Glass was regarded as brittle, and women were regarded as fickle.

“Slippery” meant 1) changeable, and 2) licentious.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “Their very first substance was quicksands. Let them look never so demurely, one fillip chokes them — one fillip takes away their breath.”

According to legend, the Phoenicians discovered how to make glass by building a fire on sand and setting their cooking pots on natron, which is used in glass-making. Natron is hydrated sodium carbonate.

A “fillip” is either 1) a blow, or 2) a trifle.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “My lord, she loves you — I know it. But I beseech your lordship not to reveal that I told you this; I would not for the world she should know that you know it by me.”

“I understand you, and to thank your care I will endeavor to repay it, and I vow that she never shall have report of your news by me or by my means,” Fernando said. “And, worthy sir, let me alike enjoin you not to speak a word saying that I know about her love. And as for me, my word shall be your surety that I’ll not as much as give her cause to think I ever heard it.”

Fernando seemed to have little interest in returning Fiormonda’s love. For Roderico D’Avolos’ part in Fiormonda’s plotto be successful, Fernando had to acknowledge and return Fiormonda’s love. Therefore, Roderico D’Avolos contradicted what he had just said about not letting Fiormonda know what he had said.

Roderico D’Avolos said, “Nay, my lord, whatsoever I relate to you, you may talk with her about her love, if you please; for, rather than that silence should hinder you one step in making your way to such a fortune, I will expose myself to any rebuke for your sake, my good lord.”

“You shall not indeed, sir,” Fernando said. “I am still your friend, and I will prove to continue to be so. For the present I am forced to attend the Duke. May good hours befall you! I must leave you.”

He exited.

“Gone already?” Roderico D’Avolos said to himself. “By God’s foot, I have marred everything! This is worse and worse; he’s as cold as hemlock.” 

Socrates drank hemlock. As the poison killed him, his body grew cold, starting with his feet and moving upward. The story of his death is related in Plato’s Phaedo.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “If her highness knows how I have gone to work, she’ll thank me scurvily: a pox on all dull, stupid brains! I took the wholly contrary course. There is a mystery in this slight carelessness of his; I must sift it, and I will find what it is. My God, I have fooled myself out of my wit! I have acted so foolishly that I can’t think straight! Well, I’ll choose some fitter opportunity to inveigle him, and until then I’ll flatter her by saying that he is a man overjoyed with the report.” 

— 1.2 —

In another room in the palace, Ferentes and Colona talked. Colona — Petruchio’s daughter — loved Ferentes, a lecherous courtier.

“Madam, by this light I vow that I am your loving servant,” Ferentes said. “I am only yours, especially yours.”

The word “servant” can mean, as it does here, “lover.” The verb “serve” can mean “render sexual service.”

He continued, “Time, like a turncoat — a reversible coat, and so metaphorically someone who reverses principles — may order and disorder the outward fashions of our bodies, but shall never enforce a change on the constancy of my mind. Sweet Colona, fair Colona, young and sprightful lady, do not let me in the best of my youth languish in my earnest affections.”

“Why should you seek, my lord, to purchase glory by the disgraceful seduction of a defenseless, vulnerable maiden?” Colona asked.

“I confess, too,” Ferentes replied, “that I am in every way so unworthy of the first-fruits of thy embraces, so far beneath the riches of thy merit, that it can be no honor to thy reputation to rank me in the number of thy devotees.”

He was telling the truth.

He continued, “Yet prove me to see how true, how firm I will stand to thy pleasures, to thy command; and, as time shall serve, be ever thine.”

The verb “prove” can mean 1) “put to the test,” or 2) “try sexually.” The words “how firm I will stand” have a sexual meaning. One meaning of “to stand” is “to have an erection.”

He continued, “Now, please, dear Colona —”

She interrupted, “Well, well, my lord, I have no heart of flint. Or if I had, you know how to wear it down and overcome it by the use of cunning words, but —”

Ferentes interrupted, “— but what? Lovely Colona, do not pity and regret thy own gentleness — thy own temperament that makes thee respond positively to me. Shall I? Speak, tell me whether I shall. Say but yes, and our wishes are fulfilled.”

“How shall I say yes, when my fears say no?” Colona asked.

“You will not fail to meet me in two hours, sweet?” Ferentes asked. 

“No — yes, yes, I would have said,” Colona said. “How my tongue trips!”

“I take that promise and that double ‘yes’ as an assurance of thy faith. In the grove, good sweet, remember; in any case alone — do you hear, love? — bring with you not so much as your Duchess’ little dog — you’ll not forget? — two hours from now — think on it, and don’t miss our assignation. Until then —”

“Oh, if you should prove false, and love another!” Colona said.

“If I do, then defy and reject me!” Ferentes said. “I’ll be all thine, and a servant only to thee, only to thee.”

Colona exited.

Ferentes said to himself, “Very surpassingly good! Three chaste women in our courts here in Italy are enough to discredit a whole nation of that sex. He who is not a cuckold or a bastard is an extraordinarily happy man, for a chaste wife, or a mother who never stepped and slept awry, are wonders, wonders in Italy.”

To Ferentes, three chaste women in the court were enough to destroy the reputation of an Italy filled with licentious women, and he was doing his best to ensure that there were not three chaste women in the court. He would do that by seducing them.

He continued, “By God’s life! I have got the knack of it, and I am every day more active and busy in my trade of seduction: It is a sweet sin, this moral lapse of mortality — this mortal sin — and I have tasted enough for one passion of my senses.” 

The one passion of his senses was erotic rapture.

For a sin to be mortal, it must be intrinsically evil and the person who commits the sin must know that it is intrinsically evil.

Ferentes looked up and said, “Here comes more work for me.”

Julia, the daughter of Nibrassa, entered the room. She served as a lady-in-waiting to Fiormonda. She looked sad.

Ferentes asked, “And how does my own Julia? Mew upon this sadness — bah! What’s the reason you are melancholy? Whither away, wench? Where are you going?”

In this society, the word “wench” could be a term of affection.

“It is well,” Julia said, sarcastically. “There was a time when your smooth tongue would not have mocked my griefs, and had I been more protective of my honor and chastity, you would have still been as lowly as you were.”

Julia had helped to advance Ferentes at court.

“Lowly!” Ferentes said, deliberately misinterpreting what she had said. “Why, I am sure I cannot be much more lowly than I am to thee; thou bring me on my bare knees, wench, twice in every four-and-twenty hours, besides half-bouts instead of bevers. “

“Bevers” are “midday snacks.” According to what Ferentes had said, Julia was taking him away from midday snacks in order to have quickies with him in addition to twice-daily longer bouts of lovemaking. If “bevers” was used metaphorically, then he and Julia were engaging in heavy petting instead of light kissing occasionally during the day. 

He then asked, “What must we next do, sweetheart?”

One meaning of “to do” is “to have sex.”

“Break vows on your side,” Julia said. “I expect nothing else. But every day look when some newer choice may violate your honor and my trust. Every day look for a new woman to seduce.”

“Indeed, in truth! What do you mean by that, I ask? I hope I neglect no opportunity to serve your nunquam satis. I hope I have done nothing to be called in question for.” 

“Nunquam satis” is Latin for “never enough.” Ferentes was using it to refer to Julia’s sexual appetite.

He continued, “Go, thou are as fretting as an old grogram.”

“Grogram” is a coarse material. A garment made of it would chafe delicate skin.

He continued, “I vow by this hand of mine that I love thee for it; it becomes thee so prettily to be angry. Well, if thou should die, then farewell to all love with me forever! Go. I’ll meet thee soon in thy lady’s back-lobby, I will, wench; look for me.”

“But shall I be assured that you will be mine?” Julia asked.

“I am all thine,” Ferentes said. “I will reserve my best ability, my heart, my honor only to thee, only to thee. Have mercy on me — leave! I hear company coming on. Remember, soon I am all thine, I will live perpetually only for thee. Leave!” 

Julia exited. 

Ferentes said to himself, “By God’s foot! I wonder about what time of the year I was begotten; surely it was when the Moon was in conjunction with the Sun, and all the other planets were drunk at a celebratory morris-dance.”

Two heavenly bodies moving in the same sign of the zodiac were said to be in conjunction; Ferentes was joking that being born during the conjunction of the Sun (regarded as male) and Moon (regarded as female) had made him seek the sexual conjunction of male human and female human.

He continued, “I am haunted by my lovers above patience; my mind is not as infinite to do as my opportunities for seduction are offered of doing — I am overwhelmed with opportunities to be doing.”

“Doing” meant “having sex.”

He continued, “Chastity! I am a eunuch if I think there is any such thing; or if there is, it is among us men, for I never yet have found it in a woman who was thoroughly tempted. I have a wickedly hard task coming on, but let it pass. 

“Who is coming now? My lord, the Duke’s friend! I will strive to be intimate friends with him.”

Fernando entered the room.

Ferentes greeted him: “My noble Lord Fernando!”

“My Lord Ferentes, I would exchange some words of consequence with you, but since I am, at this time, busied in more serious thoughts, I’ll pick some fitter opportunity,” Fernando said. 

“I will await your pleasure, my lord,” Ferentes said. “Good day to your lordship.” 

He exited.

Fernando said to himself, “I am a traitor to friendship. To where shall I run — I who, lost to reason, cannot control the flood of the unruly faction in my blood? The Duchess! Oh, the Duchess! In her smiles all my joys are epitomized. Death to my thoughts!”

He was criticizing himself because he was in love with the Duchess Bianca, his best friend’s wife.

He looked up, saw Fiormonda, and said, “My other plague comes to me.” 

Fiormonda and Julia, one of her ladies-in-waiting, entered the room.

Earlier, Roderico D’Avolos had said that he would lie to Fiormonda and say that Fernando had reacted very joyfully when D’Avolos had told him that Fiormonda loved him. Most likely, he had had time to tell her that and so she now believed that Fernando loved her.

“My Lord Fernando, what, so busy meditating!” Fiormonda said. “You are a kind companion to yourself, you who love to be alone so.”

“Madam, no,” Fernando said. “I rather chose this leisure to admire the glories of this little world, this court where like so many stars, beauty and greatness shine on separate thrones in their own proper orbs. This is sweet matter for my meditation.”

“So, so, sir!” Fiormonda replied.

She then ordered, “Leave us, Julia.”

As a lady-in-waiting to Fiormonda, Julia followed orders and exited.

“Your own experience, by travel and ready, quick observation, instructs you how to place the use of speech — you are a smooth talker,” Fiormonda said. “But since you are at leisure, let’s sit together, please. We’ll pass the time a little in conversation. What have you seen abroad?”

“No wonders, lady, like these I see at home.”

“At home! Such as?”

“I beg your pardon, if my tongue, the voice of truth, reports that which is warranted by sight.”

“What sight?” Fiormonda asked. 

“Look in your mirror, and you shall see a miracle.”

“What miracle?”

“Your beauty, so far above all beauties else abroad as you are in your own superlative — you surpass yourself,” Fernando said.

In other words, you are more beautiful than you are beautiful. Or perhaps, you are more “beautiful” than you are “beautiful.” This could be either a sincere compliment or a sarcastic “compliment.”

“Bah! Bah!” Fiormonda said. “Your wit has too much edge — it is too sharp.”

“I wish that my wit, or anything that I could rightly demand as mine, were but of value to express how much I serve in love the sister of my prince!” Fernando said. 

“This love is for your prince’s sake, then, not for mine?” 

“It is for the part of you in him, and especially much for the part of him in you,” Fernando said. “I must acknowledge and confess, madam, I observe in your affections a thing to me most strange, which makes me so much honor you the more.”

“Please tell me what it is.”

“Gladly, lady. I see how opposite to youth and custom you set before you, in the ledger of your remembrance, the proper and fit griefs of a most loyal lady for the loss of so renowned a prince as was your lord.”

He was referring to her late husband.

“Now, my good lord, say no more about him,” Fiormonda said. 

“About him! I know it is a useless task in me to attempt to set him forth in his deserved praise. You better can record it; for you know how much more he exceeded other men in the most heroic virtues of worth, so much more was your loss in losing him. Praise of him! His praise would be a field too large, too spacious, for so mean an orator as I to roam in. I am not a good enough orator to praise him as much as he deserves.”

“Sir, enough,” Fiormonda said. “It is true he well deserved your labor. On his deathbed he gave this ring to me and bade me never to part with it but to the man I loved as dearly as I loved him. Yet since you know which way and how to blaze forth and celebrate his worth so rightly and so justly, in return for your deserving acts wear this for him and me.”

She held out the ring to him.

“Madam!” Fernando said.

“It’s yours, “ Fiormonda said.

“I thought you said he charged you not to give it except to a man you loved as dearly as you loved him.”

“That is true. I said so.”

“Oh, then, far be it that my unhallowed hand with any rude intrusion should annul a testament and wish ordained by the dead!” Fernando said.

“Why, man, that testament is disannulled and cancelled quite by us who live,” Fiormonda said. “Look here at me — my blood is not yet congealed. For better evidence, be yourself the judge; experience is no danger.”

A proverb of the time stated, “Experience is sometimes dangerous.”

She continued, “Cold are my sighs; but feel my lips — they are warm.”

The word “cold” can mean “gloomy.”

She kissed him.

“What does the virtuous Marquess mean?” Fernando asked. 

As a Marquess, Fiormonda ranked just lower than a Duchess.

“I mean with a kiss to renew the oath to thee — an oath that while he lived was his.”

With a kiss, she had transferred to Fernando the promise she had made to her husband — to love him.

She then asked, “Have thou yet power to love?”

“To love!”

“To meet sweetness of language in discourse as sweet?”

“Madam, it would be dullness past the ignorance of common blockheads not to understand to where this favor tends,” Fernando said, “and it is a fortune so much above my fate that I could wish no greater happiness on Earth, but know that long ago I vowed to live a single — unmarried and celibate — life.”

Most likely, that was true. He loved Bianca, and if he could not have her, he would remain unmarried and celibate.

“What was it you said?” Fiormonda asked.

“I said I made a vow —” 

He stopped talking because Bianca, Petruchio, Colona, and Roderico D’Avolos entered the room.

Fernando thought, Blessed deliverance! I am saved!

Fiormonda thought, Am I prevented from declaring my love to him? Damn this interruption! 

“My Lord Fernando, we are well met,” Bianca said. “I have a request to make to you.”

“It is my duty, madam, to be commanded,” he replied.

“Since my lord the Duke is now disposed to mirth, the time serves well for advocating that he would be pleased to take the Lord Roseilli to his grace,” Bianca said. “He is a noble gentleman; I dare pledge my reputation that he is loyal to the state.”

She then said to Fiormonda, “And, sister-in-law, he is one who always strove, I thought, by special service and obsequious care, to win respect from you. It would be an act of gracious favor if you pleased to join with us in being suitors to the Duke for his return to court.” 

“To court!” Fiormonda said.

She began to pun on “to court” as meaning “to woo.” Roseilli had recently courted Fiormonda, but she had rejected him.

Fiormonda said to Bianca, “Indeed, you have some cause to speak; Roseilli undertook, most champion-like, in honor of your picture, to win the prize while tilting on horseback in a tournament — by the Virgin Mary, he did. There’s not a groom of the equerry — the royal stables — that could have matched the jolly riding-man. Please, get him back. I do not need his service, madam, I.”

“Jolly” can mean 1) “cheerful,” 2) “gallant,” or 3) “arrogant and excessively overconfident.”

“Not need it, sister-in-law?” Bianca said. “Why, I hope you think there is no necessity in me to propose that he return to the court — that is, no necessity more than respect of honor.”

In other words, Bianca simply felt that inviting Roseilli, who had earlier been banished from the court, to return to the court — with the Duke’s good wishes — was the right thing to do. 

“Honor! Bah!” Fiormonda said. “Honor is talked of more than is known by some.” 

“Sister-in-law, I don’t understand these words.”

Fernando thought, Swell not, unruly thoughts! 

He needed to warn himself to be careful when speaking to Bianca, whom he secretly loved. He did not want to reveal his love publicly.

He said to Bianca, “Madam, your proposal proceeds from the true touch of genuine goodness. It is a plea wherein my tongue and kneeling knee shall jointly strive to beg his highness for Roseilli’s return to the court. Your judgment rightly speaks about him; there is not in any court of Christendom a man for quality or trust more absolute and perfect.”

Fiormonda thought, What! Is that what is going on!

She had begun to suspect that Fernando loved Bianca.

Petruchio said to Bianca, “I shall forever bless your highness for your gracious kind esteem of Roseilli, my disheartened kinsman, and to add encouragement to what you undertake, I dare affirm that it is no important fault that has caused the Duke’s dislike of him.”

“I trust so, too,” Bianca said.

Roderico D’Avolos said, “Let your highness, and you all, my lords, take my advice on how to petition his excellency on Roseilli’s behalf; there is more danger in that man than is fit to be publicly reported. I could wish things were otherwise for his own sake, but I’ll assure you that you will exceedingly alter his excellency’s cheerful disposition he now is in, if you but mention the name of Roseilli to his ear. I know because I am so much acquainted with the process of his reactions.”

As would soon become apparent, he was sometimes lying and sometimes telling half-truths. 

“If that is true, I am the sorrier, sir,” Bianca said. “I’m loath to move my lord to feel offence, yet I’ll risk chiding my lord and husband.”

Fernando thought, Oh, if I had India’s gold, I’d give it all to exchange one private word, one minute’s speech, with this heart-wounding beauty — Bianca!

The Duke, Ferentes, and Nibrassa entered the room.

Laughing, the Duke said, “Please, no more, Ferentes; by the faith I owe to honor, thou have made me laugh myself out of my melancholy.

“Fernando, if thou had heard told the story of the ridiculous humor of Mauruccio’s dotage, how in the winter of his age he has become a lover, thou would swear that a funny morris-dance were only a tragedy compared to that.

“Well, we will see the ‘youth.’ 

“What council are you holding now, sirs?” 

“We, my lord, were talking about the horsemanship in France, which, as your friend Fernando reports, he thinks exceeds all other nations,” Bianca said.

“What! Why, haven’t we as gallant riders here in Italy?” the Duke asked.

“None that I know of,” Fernando replied.

“Pish, your affection for France misleads you,” the Duke said. “I dare wager a thousand ducats that not a man in France can outride Roseilli.”

Fiormonda thought, I shall requite this wrong.

The “wrong” was the support that Roseilli was getting.

“I said as much, my lord,” Bianca said. 

“I have not seen him riding since my coming back,” Fernando said. 

“Where is he?” the Duke asked. 

Using the majestic plural, he added, “How is it we don’t see him here?” 

Petruchio thought, What’s this? What’s this?

He was confused because he thought that the Duke himself had sent Roseilli away. Now he was learning that that was not the case.

“I hear he was commanded to leave the court,” Fernando said.

So he was. Roderico D’Avolos had delivered the message, but as would soon become apparent, he had misrepresented the message, making the punishment much harsher than the Duke had ordered.

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Oh, damn this villainous occasion!

Roderico D’Avolos was a plotter. He had intended to keep Roseilli away from the court for as long as he could.

The Duke said, “True, but we meant a day or two at most should be his furthest time of absence from the court. Not yet returned? Where’s D’Avolos?”

Roderico D’Avolos stepped forward and said, “My lord?” 

“You know our mind,” the Duke said. “How comes it thus to pass we miss Roseilli?”

“My lord, in a sudden discontent I hear he departed towards the city of Benevento in southern Italy, determining, as I am given to understand, to travel to Seville, intending to visit his cousin, Don Pedro de Toledo, in the Spanish court.” 

He was either mistaken or lying. Roseilli was still in hiding in Pavia.

“The Spanish court!” the Duke said. “Now by the blessed bones of good Saint Francis, let there be sent express post-messengers on horseback to call him back, or I will post — put — thy head beneath my foot. Bah, you! You know my mind. Look that you get him back! The Spanish court! And without our permission!”

Petruchio thought, Here’s fine juggling! 

This kind of juggling is trickery. Petruchio now knew that someone had been plotting against his kinsman Roseilli.

“Good sir, be not so angry,” Bianca said. 

“Bah, bah, Bianca, it is such a gross indignity. I’d rather have lost seven years’ revenue! The Spanish court!”

Fiormonda was feeling strong emotion — she did not want Roseilli to return, and she had not gotten the response she wanted from Fernando. Suddenly, her nose began to bleed.

Seeing the nosebleed, the Duke said, “Look! What ails our sister?”

“All of a sudden, I started bleeding,” Fiormonda said. “It is an ominous sign. I pray to Heaven it turn to good!”

She then said, “I beg your highness’ leave,” and exited.

The Duke said, “Look after her. Come, Fernando. Come, Bianca. Let’s strive to pass over this angry heat.”

He then said to Roderico D’Avolos, “Sirrah, see that you don’t waste time. Recall Roseilli quickly.” 

A man of high rank would use “Sirrah” to refer to a man of lower rank. Here the Duke was using the word to show his anger.

The Duke added, “How we who rule the administration of a region by delegating our authority may be abused by flattering officious agents!”

The Duke of Pavia knew that Roderico D’Avolos had messed up, perhaps intentionally — and he was angry about it. 

He then ordered again, “But look well after our sister.” 

Everyone except Petruchio and Fernando exited.

Petruchio asked, “Nephew, will it please you to see your friend Roseilli tonight?”

“Yes, uncle, yes,” Fernando replied.

Petruchio exited.

Alone, Fernando said, “Thus bodies walk unsouled! My eyes but follow my heart entombed in yonder goodly shrine.” 

Bianca had his heart, and his eyes had followed Bianca as she walked away.

He added, “Life without her is only death’s subtle snares, and I am only a coffin to my cares.” 

 

CHAPTER 2

— 2.1 —

In a room in Mauruccio’s house, Mauruccio was looking in a mirror and trimming his beard. Giacopo, his servant, was brushing him. Mauruccio was an old man who was in love.

“Beard, be confined to neatness so that no hair may bristle up to prick my mistress’ lip, more rude than the bristles of a porcupine,” Mauruccio said. “Giacopo!” 

“My lord?”

“Am I all sweet behind?” 

Readers may be forgiven for thinking that Mauruccio was asking if his bottom smelled sweet, aka pleasant, but this is what he meant: Does my clothing look good from behind?

Deliberately misunderstanding what Mauruccio had said, Giacopo replied, “I don’t have the nose of a poultry seller, but your apparel sits about you most debonairly.”

Poultry sellers could tell how recently poultry had been slaughtered by smelling their carcasses.

“But, Giacopo, with what grace do my words proceed out of my mouth? Have I a countenance that will inspire romantic passion? Is there harmony in my voice? Can thou perceive, as it were, a handsomeness of shape in my very breath as it is formed into syllables, Giacopo?” 

The Duke, Bianca, Fiormonda, Fernando, some courtiers, and some attendants entered a balcony and spied unseen on Mauruccio and Giacopo. 

“Yes, indeed, sir, I do feel a savor as pleasant as” — he thought, a glister-pipe — “calamus, or civet.”

A glister-pipe was used for administering enemas. 

Calamus was a pleasant-smelling plant, and civet was a musky perfume.

“Observe him, and be silent,” the Duke said.

“Hold thou the mirror, Giacopo, and closely observe with what exceeding comeliness I could court the Lady Marquess Fiormonda, if push comes to shove,” Mauruccio said.

The idiom “when push comes to shove” means “when it’s urgently time for action.”

“Sister, you are the target of his love,” the Duke said to his sister, Fiormonda.

She replied, “He is a subject fit to be the stale of laughter — the object of ridicule!”

One meaning of a “stale” is a “lover whose devotion is laughed at by rivals.”

“That’s your music,” Bianca said. In other words, Fiormonda enjoyed hearing others laughed at.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Mauruccio practiced his courtly manners: “Thus I reverse my pace, and thus stalking in courtly gait, I advance one, two, and three. Good! I kiss my hand, make my congee, aka formal bow, settle my countenance and personal bearing, and thus begin. 

“Hold up the mirror higher, Giacopo.”

“This high, sir?” Giacopo said, raising the mirror.

“That’s good; now closely observe me,” Mauruccio said.

He then recited a poem of his own creation, strongly stressing some syllables:

“Most excellent Marquéss, most fair la-dý,

“Let not old age or hairs that are sil-vér 

“Disparage my desire; for it may be 

“I am than other green youth nimble-ér. 

“Since I am your gracé’s servánt so true,

“Great lady, then, love me for my vir-túe.”

Pleased with his love poem, he said, “Oh, Giacopo, Petrarch was a dunce, Dante a jig-maker, Sanazzar a goose and simpleton, and Ariosto a puckfist compared to me!” 

These men are all Italian poets. Petrarch wrote love sonnets, Dante wrote The Divine Comedy, Jacopo Sannazaro wrote the humanist classic Arcadia, and Ludovico Ariosto wrote the romance epic Orlando Furioso.

The term “puckfist” means “empty boaster” and perhaps comes from the puffball fungus.

Mauruccio then said, “I tell thee, Giacopo, I am rapt with poetic fury and inspiration, and I have been for these six nights together drunk with the pure liquor of Helicon.” 

Mount Helicon is the mountain that is the home of the Nine Muses, including Erato, Muse of love poetry.

“I think no less, sir,” Giacopo said, “for you look as wild, and talk as idly, as if you had not slept these nine years.”

“What do you think of this speech, sister?” the Duke asked.

“Sir, I think in princes’ courts no one, whatever their age or greatness, but must tolerate the fool,” Fiormonda replied. “In me it would be folly to scorn what people of greater social status than I have been tolerating.”

Princes do tolerate a Fool: a professional jester. They don’t always tolerate a fool. Mauruccio was a fool.

Bianca began, “Oh, but you are too general —” 

Fiormonda interrupted and completed Bianca’s sentence, “— a fool! I thank your highness: The wit of many women who have thought themselves much better was actually much worse.”

A proverb of the time stated, “It is better to be a fool than a knave.”

“You constantly mistake and misinterpret what I say,” Bianca said. 

“Silence!” the Duke ordered. “Watch the rest of what is happening below.”

“God-a’mercy, brains!” Mauruccio said. “Giacopo, I have it.”

“God-a’mercy” literally means “God of mercy” or “May God have mercy” and figuratively means “Thanks.”

“Have what, my lord?” Giacopo asked.

“An idea, Giacopo, and a fine one — get down on thy knees, Giacopo, and worship my wit. Give me both thy ears. This is my idea: I will have my picture depicted most composituously on a square canvas of some two foot long, from the crown of the head to the waist downward, no further.”

By “composituously,” he meant “with good composition,” or “harmoniously.”

“Then you’ll look like a dwarf, sir, being cut off by the middle,” Giacopo said.

“Don’t speak, but instead wonder at the idea that follows,” Mauruccio said. “In my bosom, on my left side, I will have a leaf of blood-red crimson velvet — as if it were part of my upper garment — open; which being opened, Giacopo — now pay attention! — I will have a clear and most transparent crystal mirror in the form of a heart. Singular-admirable!”

A “leaf” is 1) a “petal,” or 2) a “flap.”

He continued, “When I have fashioned this, I will, as some excellent outlandish piece of workmanship, bestow it on the most fair and illustrious Lady Fiormonda.” 

By “outlandish,” he probably meant “seemingly foreign.” Readers may have a different definition in mind.

“But now, sir, tell me your idea,” Giacopo said.

“Stupidity and ignorance, prate no more! Blockhead, don’t thou understand yet? Why, she will use the crystal mirror in the painting instead of a looking-glass, and so she shall no oftener powder her hair, paint her cheeks with cosmetics, cleanse her teeth, or conform the hairs of her eyebrows, but having occasion to use this glass — which for the rareness and richness of it she will hourly do — but she shall as often gaze on my picture, remember me, and behold the excellence of her excellency’s beauty in the prospective and mirror, as it were, in my heart.”

The word “prospective” at this time could mean “perspective,” as in a painting. In addition, a prospective glass was a mirror in which one could see distant events and things. By looking in the heart-shaped mirror, Fiormonda could see what was in Mauruccio’s heart.

“Aye, indeed, sir, this is something,” Giacopo said.

Everyone in the balcony above except Fiormonda laughed.

Fiormonda exited.

Bianca said, “My sister-in-law has gone in anger.”

“Who’s that who’s laughing?” Mauruccio said. “Search with thine eyes, Giacopo.”

Mauruccio’s eyes were bad.

“Oh, my lord, my lord, you have gotten an everlasting fame!” Giacopo said. “The Duke’s grace, and the Duchess’ grace, and my Lord Fernando’s grace, with all the rabble of courtiers, have heard every word. Look where they stand! Now you shall be made a count for your wit, and I will be made a lord for my counsel.”

Mauruccio would be made a count for his wit or more likely be made to account for his lack of wit.

“Beshrew the chance!” the Duke said. “Curse our bad luck! We have been spotted.”

Mauruccio said, “Pity — oh, my wisdom! I must speak to them.”

He then said, “Oh, most great Duke, and most renowned Duchess! Excuse my apprehension, which is not much.”

He had failed to apprehend the Duke’s and the others’ presence. Readers may be excused for thinking of a different kind of apprehension, which Mauruccio had not much of.

Mauruccio then said, “It is love, my lord — that’s all the hurt you see. Angelica herself does plead for me.” 

Angelica is a character in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and in Robert Greene’s play adaptation The History of Orlando Furioso. 

In the play’s first scene, Orlando and four other princes vie for Angelica’s hand in marriage. The four other princes speak and end their speeches with “I love, my Lord. Let that suffice for me.” Orlando, speaking last, says, “I love, my Lord. Angelica herself shall speak [plead] for me.” She then chooses him to be her husband. Unfortunately, Angelicaelopes with a Moor and causes Orlando to go mad. 

“We pardon you, most wise and learned lord,” the Duke said. “And, so that we may all glorify your wit, we entreat your wisdom’s company today to grace our table with your grave discourse. What says your mighty eloquence to our invitation to a meal?”

The Duke was gently mocking Mauruccio, although Mauruccio could not tell that.

“Giacopo, help me,” Mauruccio said. “His grace has disconcerted me, and I don’t know what to answer in the proper form.”

“My God, tell him you’ll come,” Giacopo said.

“Yes, I will come, my lord the Duke, I will,” Mauruccio said. 

“We take your word, and we wish your honor health,” the Duke said.

He then said to his companions, “Let’s go, then!”

He added, “Come, Bianca, we have found a remedy for melancholy — mirth and ease.”

The Duke exited, followed by all but Bianca and Fernando.

“I’ll see the jolly lover and his mirror take leave of one another,” Bianca said.

Mauruccio asked, “Are they gone?”

“Oh, my lord,” Giacopo said. “I now smell news. I think I know what will happen.”

“What news, Giacopo?”

“The Duke has a liking towards you and wants to show favor to you, and so you shall be able to arrange a marriage with his sister the widow quickly.”

“She is mine, Giacopo!” Mauruccio said. “She is mine! Bring forward the mirror, Giacopo, so that I may practice, as I pass, how to walk with a portly grace like a Marquis, to which degree I am now a-climbing. Thus do we march to honor’s haven of bliss, to ride in triumph through Persepolis.” 

He was quoting part of a line from Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Part I, Act II, Scene 5: “And ride in triumph through Persepolis.”

Giacopo exited, walking backward with the mirror, followed by Mauruccio practicing walking with a courtly grace like a Marquis and bowing.

When they had exited, Bianca said, “Now, as I live, here’s laughter worthy our presence! I would not lose such an entertaining fool.” 

She started to exit, but Fernando said, “Madam —”

“Are you talking to me, my lord?” Bianca asked. 

“Please just hear the story of a castaway in love,” Fernando said. “And, oh, let not the passage of a jest make slight and insignificant a more serious subject, who has located all his happiness in your diviner eyes!”

Bianca began, “My lord, the time —” 

“The time!” Fernando interrupted. “Yet hear me speak, for I must speak or burst. I have a soul so anchored down with cares in seas of woe that passion and the vows I owe to you have changed me into a lean walking skeleton. Sweet princess of my life —”

Bianca interrupted, “Stop, or I shall —”

Fernando interrupted, “Yet, as you honor virtue, do not freeze my hopes to more discomfort and grief than as yet my fears suggest; no beauty so adorns the composition of a noble mind as pity — pity adorns a noble mind more than physical beauty does. Hear me out.”

“No more!” Bianca said. “I refrain from telling you what you are, and I must confess I almost hate my judgment because it once thought that goodness dwelt in you. Remember now, this is the third time your treacherous tongue has pleaded treason to my ear and reputation. Yet, because of the friendship between my lord and you, I have not voiced your follies. But if you dare to speak to me about love a fourth time, you shall rue your lust. There is no better advice than this: Learn and love yourself — learn to look after your own best interest.”

She exited.

“Gone!” Fernando, now alone, said. “Oh, my sorrows! How I am undone and ruined! Not speak again? No, no, in her chaste breast virtue and resolution have taken from her all female weakness. I have pleaded and pleaded, knelt, wept, and begged, but tears and vows and words move her no more than summer winds move a rock. 

“I must resolve to check this rage of blood and restrain my violent passion and my desire: She is all icy to my fires, yet even that ice inflames in me desires.” 

Fire symbolizes sexual passion, while ice symbolizes chastity.

— 2.2 —

Petruchio and Roseilli talked together in a room in Petruchio’s house. 

Roseilli asked, “Is it possible that the Duke should be so moved to anger against Roderico D’Avolos, his secretary?”

“It is true,” Petruchio said. “You have no enemy at court but her — Fiormonda — for whom you pine so much in love, so then master your emotions. I am sorry that you hug and cherish so the cause of your downfall.”

He then asked, “What do you say to the project I proposed?”

“I entertain it with a greater joy than shame can restrain,” Roseilli replied. 

Fernando entered the room.

“You’ve come at as good a time as I could wish,” Petruchio said. “My cousin is resolved to go along with our plan.”

“Prepare yourself without delay, and meet us at court soon, some half-hour from now, and may Cupid, the god of love, bless your joy!” Fernando said. 

Roseilli began, “If ever a man was bound and indebted to a friend —” 

“No more,” Fernando said. “Leave! The height of Love’s violent passion is yet unknown —” 

Petruchio and Roseilli exited.

Alone, Fernando finished his sentence: “— in his case — but ah, me! Too well I feel my own!” 

He then said, “So, now I am alone; now let me think. 

“Bianca is the Duchess; let’s acknowledge that, but a creature sewed-up in a disguise of painted cloth might also be titled a Duchess: That’s but a name. 

“She’s married, too; she is. And therefore she might better recognize true love. 

“She’s young and beautiful; why, madam, that’s the bait that invites me more to hope.” 

He had listed reasons that he thought to be positive that Bianca might return his love, but now he listed reasons that he thought to be why he ought not pursue her.

“She’s the Duke’s wife. Who doesn’t know this? She’s bosomed to — intimate with — my friend the Duke. 

“There, there, I am quite lost: She will not be won. Still worse and worse: She abhors to hear me speak.

“Eternal evil and harm! I must urge my love-suit no more, for, were I not be-lepered and on fire in my soul, here were enough evidence that she will never accept me to quench the flames of hell. 

“What then? Bah! If I must not speak, I’ll write. Come, then, sad secretary to my complaints and lamentations, plead thou my faith, for words are turned to sighs. What says this paper?”

The secretary to his complaints and lamentations was his letter. Secretaries and letters know secrets.

He took out a love letter he had already written, and he read it.

Roderico D’Avolos entered the room, carrying two portraits. 

He saw Fernando and thought this:

Now is the time. He’s alone? And reading a letter? Good. What’s going on! Striking his breast! What, in the name of intrigue, should this mean? Tearing his hair! He feels passion; by all the hopes of my life, he feels plain passion! Now I perceive it. If this is not a fit of some violent affection — some violent love — I am an ass in understanding. Why, it is plain — plainer and plainer — that he feels love in the extremest. 

Oh, I wish I knew the party with whom he is in love, now! The greatness of his spirits and his self-regard is too proudly cherished by him, for him to be caught with some ordinary stuff, and if he is in love with my Lady Fiormonda, I am strangely and surprisingly mistaken. 

“To stuff” means “to fill tightly,” and it sometimes refers to sex. In English, many words can be verbed and often can be nouned; “stuff” can refer to a thing that is stuffed. In this culture, “thing” can refer to the genitals, either male or female, although a vagina is sometimes called “nothing,” or “no thing.”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Well, now I have a fit occasion soon to understand whom he loves. I have here newly painted two portraits, which are to be sent as a present to the Abbot of Monaco, the Duchess’ uncle. One portrait is of the Duchess herself, and one portrait is of my Lady Fiormonda. I’ll observe which of these may, perhaps, betray Fernando and tell me whom he loves — he turns around.

Roderico D’Avolos said out loud, “My noble lord!” 

“You’re welcome, sir,” Fernando said. “I thank you.”

“Thank me, my lord! For what, my lord?”

“Who’s there?” Fernando said. “I beg your pardon, D’Avolos, I mistook you for another person; please, excuse me.”

Seeing that Roderico D’Avolos was carrying something, he asked, “What is it you are carrying there?”

“No secret, my lord, but something that may be imparted to you,” he replied. “I am carrying a couple of portraits, my good lord. Would it please you to see them?”

“I don’t care much for portraits, but whose are they?” Fernando asked.

“The one is of my lord’s sister, Fiormonda; the other is of the Duchess Bianca.”

“Oh, D’Avolos! The Duchess’ portrait?”

“Yes, my lord,” Roderico D’Avolos said, and then he thought, Indeed, the word startled him. Remember that.

“You told me, Master Secretary, once, that you owed me love.”

“I owe you service, my honored lord, howsoever you please to term it.”

“It would be rudeness to be suitor for a sight,” Fernando said. “Yet trust me, sir. I’ll be all secret.” 

Fernando was asking to see the portraits, but indirectly: If you show me the portraits, I won’t tell anyone.

“I beseech your lordship — they are, as I am, constantly at your service,” Roderico D’Avolos said.

He showed him Fiormonda’s portrait.

“This, my lord, is the widowed Marquess’ portrait just as it now newly came from the painter’s, with the oil still freshly applied. It is a sweet portrait; and, in my judgment, art has not been a niggard in striving to equal the life. Michelangelo himself need not blush if he were to say that the workmanship is his own.”

“It is a very pretty picture,” Fernando agreed, “but, kind signior, who owns it?”

“My Lord, it is the Duke’s, who intends to send it with all speed as a present to Paul Baglione, the Duchess’ uncle, so that he may see the riches of two such lustrous beauties as shine in the court of Pavia.”

“Please, sir, the other?”

Fernando wanted to see the other portrait.

Roderico D’Avolos showed him the other portrait and said, “This, my lord, is of the Duchess Bianca. It is a wondrously sweet picture, if you observe well with what singular excellence the artsman has striven to set forth each limb in exquisitest proportion and harmony, not missing a hair.”

“A hair!” Fernando said.

“She cannot more seemingly, or, if it may be lawful to use the word, she cannot more really — that is, with more reality — behold her own well-proportioned and symmetrical form in her mirror than in taking an attentive view of this counterfeit — this likeness, this portrait.”

Words such as “really” and “real” were sometimes used to describe the presence — the real presence — of Christ in the consecrated elements of the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, and so Roderico D’Avolos was hesitant to use the word “really” to describe a portrait. 

Matthew 26:26 states, “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body” (King James Bible).

Some theologians believe in a literal interpretation of Jesus’ words, while other theologians believe in a figurative interpretation of Jesus’ words. If Roderico D’Avolos was a Christian, he believed in a literal interpretation of Jesus’ words.

“When I first saw it, I truly was almost of a mind that this was her very lip,” Roderico D’Avolos continued.

“Lip!” Fernando said.

Roderico D’Avolos thought, How constantly he dwells upon this portrait!

He said out loud, “Indeed, I’ll assure your lordship there is no defect of skill in this portrait.”

He thought, His eye is fixed on the portrait as if it were incorporated there — it’s as if his eye were united with the portrait.

Roderico D’Avolos then said out loud, “Were not the party herself alive to witness that there is a woman composed of flesh and blood as naturally enriched with such harmony of admirable beauty as is here artificially counterfeited, a very attentive eye might repute it as an imaginary rapture or rapturous fantasy of some transported conceit or swept-away conceptualization that the artist wishes to paint, although it is an impossible ideal. The portrait seems to depict an impossibly beautiful woman, but we know that such beauty is possible because we know that Bianca exists. The very first gaze at this portrait has sufficient force almost to persuade a substantial true love in a settled heart. This portrait is so realistic that a man could fall in love with it at first sight.”

“Love! Heart!” Fernando said.

Roderico D’Avolos began, “My honored lord —” 

“Oh, Heavens!” Fernando said.

Roderico D’Avolos thought, My suspicion is confirmed — he loves the Duchess Bianca.

Roderico D’Avolos finished, “— what ails your lordship?”

“You need not praise the portrait, sir; it itself is praise,” Fernando said.

He thought, How close I came to forgetting myself and revealing my love for Bianca!

He said out loud, “I thank you. It is such a picture as might well become the shrine of some famed Venus; I am dazzledfrom looking at it. Please, sir, convey it away from here.”

Roderico D’Avolos said, “I am entirely your servant.”

He thought, Blessed, blessed discovery!

He said out loud, “Does it please you to command me to do something?”

“No, gentle sir,” Fernando said.

He thought, I’m lost beyond my senses.

He said out loud, “Listen, sir. Good sir, where dwells the portrait-maker?” 

“By the castle’s farther drawbridge, near Galiazzo’s statue; his name is Alphonso Trinultio,” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

Perhaps the statue was of Gian Galeazzo Visconti (1351-1402), a political leader who in 1396 was made Count of Pavia. He founded the Carthusian monastery in Pavia. Or the statue could have been of his father, Galeazzo II Visconti, who built Visconti Castle in Pavia.

Roderico D’Avolos thought, I am happy above all fate!

“You say enough,” Fernando said. “I give my thanks to you!”

Roderico D’Avolos exited.

Alone, Fernando said to himself, “If that portrait were only valued as high as my lordship — my rank and title — it would be valued too cheaply. I fear I spoke or I did I know not what. All sense of providence was in my eye.”

“Providence” could mean 1) “prudence” or 2) “fate.” Looking at the portrait, he had lost his sense of prudence. In addition, he felt fated by her beauty to love her.

Ferentes, Mauruccio, and Giacopo entered the room, but they did not immediately see Fernando.

Ferentes thought about Mauruccio, Youth in threescore years and ten!

He was referring to the aged Mauruccio, who was behaving like a foolish young man in love although he was seventy years old. (Later Mauruccio would say, “I have lived threescore years” — that is, he would say that he was sixty years old.)

Ferentes said out loud, “Trust me, my Lord Mauruccio, you are now younger in the judgment of those who compare your former age with your latter by seven-and-twenty years than you were three years ago. I swear by all my fidelity, truth, and loyalty that it is a miracle!”

Ferentes was not known for fidelity, truth, and loyalty.

He continued, “The ladies marvel at you.”

“Let them marvel,” Mauruccio said. “I am wise and I am courtly.”

He was not courtly. Or wise.

“The ladies, my lord, call him the green broom of the court — he sweeps all before him —” Giacopo said.

A proverb stated, “A new broom sweeps clean.”

Someone who is green is inexperienced and naïve.

Giacopo continued, “— and they swear he has a stabbing wit.” 

“Stabbing” can mean “incisive,” but it also can refer to sex.

He thought, His stabbing wit is a very glister to laughter.

A glister is an enema.

“Indeed, I know I can tickle them at my pleasure,” Mauruccio said. “I am stiff and strong, Ferentes.”

Giacopo thought, A radish-root is a spear of steel in comparison of I know what. 

He doubted that a certain part of old Mauruccio’s body was stiff and strong.

“The Marquess does love you,” Ferentes said.

“She does love me,” Mauruccio said.

“And she begins to do you infinite grace,” Ferentes said. 

“Infinite grace,” Mauruccio said.

Fernando thought, I’ll take advantage of this time and opportunity.

He stepped forward and said out loud, “Good hour, my lords, to both of you!” 

“Right princely Fernando, the best of the Fernandos,” Mauruccio said. “By the pith of generation, you are the man I am looking for. His highness has sent me to find you out. He has determined to weather his own proper individual person for two days’ space in my Lord Nibrassa’s forest to hunt the deer, the buck, the roe, and eke the barren doe.”

Mauruccio was attempting to make his language courtly, and so he was using fancy words such as the archaic “eke” instead of simple words such as “also.” The “pith of generation” is the “vigor of procreation.” “To weather” means “to be out in the weather.”

“Is his highness preparing to hunt?” Fernando asked. 

Mauruccio had said that his highness would hunt, but Fernando had either been overwhelmed by the mass of fancy language or was indirectly making the point that Mauruccio ought to use simpler language.

Two problems with fancy language are that it can be difficult to use correctly and it can be difficult to understand.

Mauruccio now answered the question, but he continued to use fancy language: “Yes, my lord, and he has decided to lie forth for the abbreviating the prolixity of some superfluous transmigration of the Sun’s double cadence to the western horizon, my most perspicuous good lord.”

“To lie forth” meant “to lodge away from his home.” 

“Prolixity” perhaps meant “tediously lengthy.” “Transmigration” perhaps meant “movement.” “Cadence” perhaps meant “falling.” “Perspicuous” perhaps meant “distinguished.”

In plainer words, the Duke would be absent until the Sun had approached the western horizon twice — he would be absent while hunting for two days.

Fernando now directly asked Mauruccio to speak using simple language: “Oh, sir, let me beseech you to speak in your own mother tongue.”

He thought, Two days’ absence, well.

Since the Duke would be absent for two days, Fernando would have an opportunity to speak again to Bianca.

Fernando said out loud, “My Lord Mauruccio, I have a favor to ask you —” 

Mauruccio replied, “My Lord Fernando, I have a favor to ask you.”

“I request that you will accept a favor from me: a very choice token of my love. Will you grant me the favor I request and accept my favor?”

“Will you grant mine?” 

“What is it?” Fernando said.

“Only to know what the suit is you please to present to me,” Mauruccio said.

“Why, it is, my lord, a fool,” Fernando said.

“A fool!”

“As great a fool as your lordship is … hopeful to see in any time of your life,” Fernando said.

Giacopo advised Mauruccio, “Now, my good lord, don’t part with the fool on any terms.”

“Please, my lord, does the fool have any natural gifts?” Mauruccio asked. 

“Very excellent ones,” Fernando replied. “You shall not hear him speak one wise word in a month’s conversation. He is surpassingly temperate of diet; for example, if you keep him away from food for four-and-twenty hours, then he will fast a whole day and a night altogether. Unless you urge him to swear, there seldom comes an oath from his mouth.”

As would soon be learned, the “fool” could barely speak.

Fernando continued, “And as regards a fool, my lord, to tell you the plain truth, if he had only half as much wit as you, my lord, he would be in short time three-quarters as arrant wise as your lordship.”

“Arrant” means “complete,” but the word is commonly used in phrases such as “arrant knave.”

“Giacopo, these are very excellent elements in a creature of little understanding,” Mauruccio said. “Oh, I long to see him!”

“He is a very harmless idiot — and, just as you could wish, look where he comes,” Fernando said.

Petruchio entered the room, accompanied by Roseilli, who was dressed in disguise like a fool. He was dressed in a long white smock like a natural fool — someone with a very low IQ. He was not dressed like a professional Fool, aka Jester, who often had a very high IQ, indeed.

“Nephew, here is the thing you sent for,” Petruchio said.

He then said to the disguised Roseilli, “Come hither, fool; come, it is a good fool.”

He was talking to the disguised Roseilli as if he were a pet.

“Here, my lord,” Fernando said. “I freely give you the fool; please treat him well for my sake.” 

Another meaning of “I freely give you the fool” is “I freely call you a fool.”

Mauruccio replied, “I take the fool most thankfully at your hands, my lord.”

Another meaning of “I take the fool most thankfully at your hands” is “I thank you for calling me a fool.”

He then said to the disguised Roseilli, “Do you have any good qualities, my pretty fool? Will you dwell with me?” 

Imitating a person with a very low IQ, the disguised Roseilli stuttered, “A-, a-, a-, a-, aye.”

“I never beheld a more natural idiotic creature in my life,” Ferentes said.

“Uncle, the Duke, I hear, prepares to hunt,” Fernando said. “Let’s go in and wait.”

He then said, “Farewell, Mauruccio.”

Fernando and Petruchio exited.

“Beast that I am, I did not ask about the fool’s name!” Mauruccio said. “It doesn’t matter. ‘Fool’ is a good enough title to call the greatest lord in the court by, if he is no wiser than this fool.”

“Oh, my lord, what a completely excellent pretty creature it is!” Giacopo said.

He then said to the disguised Roseilli, “Come, honey, honey, honey, come!”

He was talking to the disguised Roseilli as if he were a pet.

“You are beholden to my Lord Fernando for this gift,” Ferentes said. 

“True,” Mauruccio said. “Oh, I wish that he could just speak methodically and intelligently!”

He asked, “Can you speak, fool?”

The disguised Roseilli answered, “Can speak; de e e e —” 

“It is a present for an emperor,” Ferentes said. “What an excellent instrument this would be to acquire a suit or a monopoly from the Duke’s ear!”

“I have it!” Mauruccio said. “I have a great idea — I am wise and fortunate.”

He then said, “Giacopo, I will put aside all my other ideas, and instead of my picture, I will offer the Lady Marquess this mortal man of weak brain.” 

“My lord, you have most splendidly taken thought, for so shall she no oftener see the fool but she shall remember you better than by a thousand looking-glasses,” Giacopo said. 

“She will most graciously accept this gift,” Ferentes said. 

“I may tell you, Ferentes,” Mauruccio said, “there’s not a great woman among forty but knows how to make sport with a fool.”

“To make sport” means 1) “to mock,” or 2) “to be entertained by,” or 3) “to have sex with.”

Mauruccio asked the disguised Roseilli, “Do you know how old thou are, sirrah?”

 The disguised Roseilli replied, “Dud — a clap cheek for nown sake, gaffer; hee e e e e.”

“Dud” meant “worthless.” “Clap cheek” meant “pat cheek.” “Nown” meant “own.” “Gaffer” was a title used by rural people to address old men. Roseilli had disguised his voice and was speaking with a rural accent.

Ferentes said, “Alas, you must ask him no questions, but pat him on the cheek; I understand his language: your fool is the tender-heartedest creature who is.”

Fiormonda and Roderico D’Avolos entered the room, talking quietly and privately together. The others could not overhear them.

“No more,” Fiormonda said. “Thou have in this revelation of Fernando’s love for Bianca exceeded all my favors, D’Avolos. Is it Mistress Madam Duchess! Is it she whom he loves! Excellent revenge!”

Roderico D’Avolos began, “But if your grace had seen the infinite appetite of lust in the piercing adultery of his eye, you would —”

“Either change Fernando and make him love me, or ruin him,” Fiormonda said. “He is a prompt deceiver! Is here the bond of his religious vow?” 

Fernando had told Fiormonda that he had taken a vow to live a single life — a life as a single man. Fiormonda then had promptly learned that he was in love with the Duchess Bianca.

Fiormonda added, “And that, ‘now when the Duke is rid abroad, my gentleman will stay behind, is sick’ — or something like that?”

The Duke was out riding and hunting, and by being away from the palace, he was gotten rid of.

Fernando had excused himself from accompanying the Duke on his hunting trip by claiming the illness either of himself or of his gentleman attendant.

“The excuse he made was ‘not altogether in health,’” Roderico D’Avolos replied.

Seeing them, Mauruccio said, “This is a very fitting opportunity! Her grace comes just in the nick; let me think.”

“Nick” can mean 1) the nick of time, aka at the right time, or 2) a vulva.

“Lose no time, my lord,” Ferentes advised. “Take action quickly.”

“To her, sir,” Giacopo said.

“To her” can mean metaphorically “to attack” or figuratively “to woo.”

Mauruccio recited a poem he had written:

“Vouchsafe to stay thy foot, most Cynthian hue, 

“And from a creature ever vowed thy servant 

“Accept this gift, most rare, most fine, most new; 

“The earnest-penny of a love so fervent.” 

“Vouchsafe to stay thy foot” means “agree to stop here for a while.”

A “Cynthian hue” is silvery, since Cynthia is the goddess of the Moon. Cynthia in her earthly form is Diana, who is a virgin goddess and so perhaps not the goddess who ought to be mentioned in a love poem.

Mauruccio probably wanted the word-combination “earnest-penny” to mean “small token” but “earnest” is a down payment that confirms a contract. It was as if he were attempting to buy Fiormonda — cheap.

“What does the jolly youth mean?” Fiormonda asked, referring to the elderly Mauruccio. 

“Nothing, sweet princess,” he replied, “but only to present your grace with this sweet-faced fool. I hope it will please you to accept him to make you merry. I’ll assure your grace that he is a very wholesome fool.”

“A fool!” Fiormonda said. “You might as well have given yourself to me. From where is he?” 

“He was now, very just now, given to me out of special favor by the Lord Fernando, madam,” Mauruccio replied.

“By him?” Fiormonda said. “Well, I accept him. Thank you for it. And, in requital, take that toothpicker. It is yours.”

She gave him a toothpicker: a reusable toothpick.

To Fiormonda, a reusable toothpick was adequate recompense for the gift of a human being.

“A toothpicker!” Mauruccio said. “I kiss your bounty.”

He thought a moment and then asked, “No quibble now?” 

A quibble is a double meaning or joke. Mauruccio was wondering if the gift of a toothpick was meant to be a comment on the size of his penis.

He then said, “And, madam, 

“If I grow sick, to make my spirits quicker, 

“I will revive them with this sweet toothpicker.”

The word “quicker” meant “more alive.”

“Make use of it as you wish,” Fiormonda said.

She then ordered, “Here, D’Avolos, take in the fool.”

Roderico D’Avolos said to the disguised Roseilli, “Come, sweetheart, will you come along with me?”

“U u umh, — u u mh, — wonnot, wonnot — u u umh,” the disguised Roseilli said.

“Will you go with me, chick?” Fiormonda asked. 

A “chick” is a child.

The disguised Roseilli answered, “Will go, te e e — go will go —”

“Come, D’Avolos, observe tonight; it is late,” Fiormonda said quietly so that others could not overhear. “Either I will win my choice — Fernando — or I will curse my fate.” 

Fiormonda, the disguised Roseilli, and D’Avolos exited. 

“This was wisely done, now,” Ferentes said to Mauruccio. “By God’s foot, you purchase a favor from a creature, my lord, whom the greatest king of the earth would be proud of.”

The “creature” was a creature of God: Fiormonda. Or, perhaps, using another meaning of “creature,” it was an animal: Fiormonda.

“Giacopo!” Mauruccio said. 

“My lord?” Giacopo replied.

“Come behind me, Giacopo: I am big with ideas” — he meant that he was pregnant with poetic ideas — “and I must be delivered of poetry in the eternal commendation of this gracious toothpicker.”

Most readers are not likely to think that a reusable toothpick is worthy of eternal commendation.

Mauruccio continued, “But, first, I believe that it is a most healthy policy to make a slight supper, for meat’s the food that must preserve our lives, and now’s the time when mortals whet and sharpen their knives — on thresholds, shoe-soles, cart-wheels, and et cetera. 

“Let’s go, Giacopo!” 

— 2.3 —

Bianca, Fiormonda, Colona, Julia, Fernando, and Roderico D’Avolos entered a room in the palace. Colona placed on a table the lights — candles — she was carrying, and then she set a chessboard down on a table.

“It is still just early night and too soon to sleep,” Bianca said. “Sister-in-law, shall we have a mate at chess?”

By “a mate at chess,” she meant “a game of chess.” This is a game that ends in checkmate.

“A mate!” Fiormonda said. “No, madam, you are grown too hard for me; my Lord Fernando is a fitter match.”

Fiormonda meant that Fernando was a fitter match for Bianca. “Match” can mean 1) “person to play against,” or 2) “mate.”

“He’s a well-practiced gamester,” Bianca said. “Well, I don’t care how cunning he is.”

A gamester is 1) a gambler, or 2) a promiscuous person.

“To pass an hour, I’ll try your skill, my lord,” Bianca said to Fernando. 

She then asked, “Pass here the chessboard.”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Are you so apt to try his skill, Madam Duchess? Very good!

“I shall betray too much my ignorance in striving against your highness,” Fernando said. “It is a game I always lose because I fail to see the right move.”

“Well, well, I don’t fear you,” Bianca said. “Let’s go to it.”

“You need not, madam,” Fiormonda said.

She was ironic: She knew Fernando loved Bianca, and so Bianca ought to fear him because he could attempt to persuade her to cheat on her husband. In addition, “Let’s go to it” had a bawdy sense in addition to the meaning “Let’s play [a game of chess].” She was hoping that if Fernando and Bianca did go to it in a bawdy sense, she could use that fact to destroy Fernando.

Roderico D’Avolos whispered to Fiormonda, “Indeed, she need not fear; how gladly will she go to it! I’ll bet a rook to a Queen she raises a pawn to a knight’s place. By our lady the Virgin Mary, if all is truly noted, she will raise him to a Duke’s place; and I don’t mean in a game of chess, I can tell you.” 

Fernando did not rank as high as a Duke. According to Roderico D’Avolos, the Duchess Bianca would heave — that is, raise — a pawn’s penis to a Duke’s place — that is, between her legs. D’Avolos was willing to bet a rook against a Queen that that would happen. Another meaning of “a rook” is “a cheater” or “a swindler.”

Fernando and Bianca started to play.

Fiormonda said, “Madam, I must entreat you to excuse me. I feel the state of my body is not in a good condition to judge the strife.”

The “strife” was 1) the game of chess, and 2) the love battle between Fernando and Bianca that was going to occur if they were left alone.

“Lights for our sister-in-law, sirs!” Bianca said. “Get her some candles!”

She then said to Fiormonda, “Good rest to you. I’ll just finish my game and follow. After this game is over, I’ll go to bed.”

Fiormonda whispered to Roderico D’Avolos, “Let them have time enough, and as much as thou can, be near to hear their courtship, D’Avolos.” 

Roderico D’Avolos whispered to Fiormonda, “Madam, I shall observe them with all cunning secrecy.”

“Colona, wait on our sister-in-law and escort her to her bedchamber,” Bianca said.

Colona, one of Bianca’s ladies-in-waiting, replied, “I shall, madam.”

Fiormonda exited, followed by Colona, Julia, and Roderico D’Avolos. 

“Play,” Bianca said to Fernando.

They were alone.

“I must not lose the advantage of the game,” Fernando said. “Madam, your Queen is lost.” 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is the Queen of Heaven. If Bianca were to commit adultery with Fernando, she would lose the Queen of Heaven.

“My clergy, help me!” Bianca said.

She meant that her game needed help from her bishops. Readers may wonder later whether her life needs help from members of the clergy.

“My Queen!” Bianca complained. “And I get nothing for it but a pawn? Why, then, the game’s lost, too. But play on.”

“What, madam?” Fernando said. 

He was distracted and often looked about Bianca’s apartment. Despite taking her Queen, he was finding it hard to concentrate on the game.

“You must necessarily play well because you are so studious,” Bianca said.

He seemed studious because he wasn’t talking and was taking a long time to make a move. 

Long pause. 

“Bah!” Bianca said. “You study past patience. You hesitate much too long. What do you dream about? Here is delaying that would weary out a statue!”

She then said, “Be so good, now, as to play.”

Fernando said, “Forgive me; let my knees forever stick” — he knelt — “nailed to the ground, as earthy and heavy as my fears before I arise to depart so cursed in my unchecked anguish as the violent emotion of flames of love that is beyond all utterance of words devour me, lightened by your sacred eyes.”

By “lightened,” he meant that her eyes had kindled “the violent emotion of flames of love that is beyond all utterance of words” in him. “Lightened,” however, also meant “enlightened” — if Bianca’s eyes flashed with anger that finally got through to him, he could depart enlightened.

“What does the man mean?” Bianca asked.

“To lay before your feet in lowest vassalage the bleeding lovesick heart that sighs the offer of a love-suit disdained. Great lady, pity me, my youth, my wounds — and do not think that I have chosen this time from desire’s swiftest measure to unclasp the Book of Lust.”

“Measure” meant 1) a “measure of music” or 2) a “dance.” He meant that he was not speaking about love because of a brief, quick infatuation that he hoped would lead to a brief, quick bout of adultery. He would go on to say that he wanted something that was purer than lust.

Fernando continued, “If purity of love, uncorrupted by lust, has a place in the quest for virtue and a residence in virtue’s breast, then look here at me. Bent lower in my heart than on my knee, I beg compassion to a love as chaste as the gentleness of desire can intimate.” 

Roderico D’Avolos stealthily crept into the apartment; he was unseen and unheard. He was also jeering at Fernando and Bianca and doing his best to see and listen to them.

He thought, They are at it already! Admirable haste!

He was able to see them well but not hear them well.

“Am I again betrayed?” Bianca said. “Bad man!”

“Keep in, bright angel, that severer breath and use it to cool that heat of cruelty which controls the temple of your too stony breast,” Fernando said. “You cannot advance and urge even one reason to rebuke my trembling plea that I have not — with many nights’ expense — examined. But, oh, madam, still I find that no medicine is strong enough to cure a tortured mind except freedom from the torture it sustains.”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Not kissing yet? Still on your knees? Oh, for a plump bed and clean sheets to comfort the aching of his shins! We shall see them embrace soon and lisp kisses while exchanging childish terms of endearment. Here’s ceremony — formal courting — with a vengeance!

“Rise up,” Bianca said. “We command you, rise!”

She had begun to use the majestic plural “we” when speaking of herself.

Fernando rose to his feet.

Bianca said, “Look at our face. What do you see there that may persuade you to have a hope of the lawless love that is adultery?”

She now switched from the respectful “you” to the contemptuous, in this case, “thee,” “thy,” and “thou” when referring to Fernando. 

She said, “Know, most unworthy man, so much we hate the baseness of thy lust, as, if there were none of thy sex living except thee, we had much rather prostitute our blood to some poisonous serpent than allow thy bestial, wanton dalliance. Could thou dare to speak again, when we forbade it? No, wretched thing, take this for thy answer: If thou henceforth open thy leprous mouth to tempt our ear again, we shall not only inform our lord of thy leprous disease in friendship, but shall revenge thy boldness with the forfeit of thy life. Think about what I say.”

One meaning of “leprous” is “impure.”

Roderico D’Avolos, still unable to hear much of what Bianca was saying, but having seen Fernando rise to his feet, thought, Now, now, now the game has started! Your gray jennet with the white face is curried, truly. May it please your lordship to leap up into the saddle, indeed.

A jennet is a small Spanish horse. To “curry” a horse is to rub it down and comb it.

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Poor Duke, how does thy head ache now!

The Duke’s head would ache because, according to Roderico D’Avolos, it would be growing the horns of a cuckold. Because D’Avolos could see well but not hear well what Fernando and Bianca were saying, he was misinterpreting their actions. Because he had expected that they would engage in adultery, that is what he thought was soon to occur. Possibly, however, he could both see and hear them well enough, and he was deliberately and completely misrepresenting what he saw and heard simply because he was evil.

“Wait,” Fernando said. “Don’t go away from here in anger, blessed woman! You’ve schooled — enlightened and chastised — me. Listen to me: Though the flood of infinite desires swell to a tide too high so soon to ebb, yet, by this hand” — he kissed her hand — “this glorious, gracious hand of yours —”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Yes, indeed, the match is made; clasp hands and go to it, ho!

Fernando continued, “— I swear that henceforth I never will so much as in word, in letter, or in syllable presume to make a repetition of my griefs. Goodnight to you! If, when I am dead, you tear open this coffin of my heart, there shall you read with confidently expectant eyes, what now my tongue expresses, Bianca’s name carved out in bloody lines. Forever, lady, now good night!”

“Good night!” Bianca said. “Rest in your goodness.”

She saw goodness in him.

She called for candles: “Lights there!”

Some attendants entered with candles.

Bianca said again, “Sir, good night!”

Roderico D’Avolos saw them go out the door together.

Outside the door, Bianca and Fernando exited in different directions, each accompanied by attendants carrying candles.

Roderico D’Avolos said to himself, “So, via! Go to it!”

He thought that with the Duke gone, they would go to the same bedroom. 

He continued, “To be a cuckold — I swear by mercy and providence! — is as natural to a married man as to eat, sleep, or wear a nightcap. Lovers! — I will rather trust my arm in the throat of a lion, my moneybag with a prostitute, my neck with the chancy toss of a single die, or my religion in a synagogue of Jews, than my wife with a friend. In what do princes exceed the poorest peasant who ever was yoked to a sixpenny harlot but that the horns of the one are mounted some two inches higher by a choppine — a high heel — than the other? Oh, Actaeon! The goodliest-headed beast — the beast with the finest horns! — of the forest among wild animals is a stag; and the goodliest beast among tame fools in a group of people is a cuckold.”

Actaeon was an ancient Greek hunter who saw the goddess Artemis — her Roman name is Diana — bathing naked in a stream while he was hunting deer. Artemis is a militant virgin. Not pleased that Actaeon had seen her naked, she turned him into a horned stag with a still-human mind and his own dogs chased him down and killed him. Because of the horns on Actaeon’s head, he was later associated with cuckoldry and given the name of cuckold. Cuckolds have unfaithful wives, and depictions of cuckolds show them with horns on their head.

While with Fernando, Bianca had been strongly defending her honor, and so she resembled Artemis although Roderico D’Avolos did not know that.

Fiormonda returned and said, “Speak, D’Avolos. How thrives your spying?”

“Beyond the anticipation of fate, madam,” Roderico D’Avolos answered.

What he thought he saw was what he thought was fated, but it is not what had actually occurred. He thought that he had seen Bianca and Fernando make an assignation, but he had really seen Bianca reject Fernando. 

Roderico D’Avolos said, “I saw him kneel, make pitiful faces, kiss hands and forefingers, rise — and by this time he is up, up, madam.” 

According to Roderico D’Avolos Fernando’s penis has risen and soon Bianca would cause him to have a rise in status at the court.

He continued, “Doubtless the youth aims to be Duke, for he has gotten into the Duke’s seat an hour ago.”

“Is it true?” Fiormonda asked. 

“Oracle, oracle!” Roderico D’Avolos answered.

He was either saying that he was an oracle who told the truth, or he was invoking the help of an oracle to help him tell the truth. Oracles, however, were often ambiguous and misleading. For example, Croesus, King of Lydia, wanted to attack Persia, but first he went to the Oracle of Delphi and asked the Oracle what would happen if he attacked the mighty Kingdom of Persia. The Oracle replied, “A mighty Kingdom will fall.” Lydia attacked Persia, and a mighty Kingdom did fall: the mighty Kingdom of Lydia.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “Siege was laid, discussion of terms admitted, a truce offered, and the fort entered; there’s no interruption — the Duke is not here to interrupt them. The Duke will return from his hunting trip and be at home tomorrow, gentle animal!” 

The Duke is a “gentle animal” because he is well born and now has the horns of a cuckold. Or, perhaps “gentle animal” was direct address and referred to Fiormonda. An animal does not have the knowledge of good and evil that a human being ought to have. In this culture, the word “gentle” can mean “well born.”

“What do you intend to do?” Roderico D’Avolos asked her.

“To stir up tragedies as black as they will be brave, and send the lecher panting to his grave,” Fiormonda replied.

The word “brave” meant “excellent.”

— 2.4 —

Bianca appeared in a bedchamber in the palace. Her hair was loose, and she was in the robe she wore at night. She drew a bed curtain; Fernando was in bed, sleeping. This was his bedchamber. She set down the candle she was holding. 

“Resolve what to do, and then do it, and it is done,” Bianca said to herself. “What! Are those eyes, which recently were so flooded in tears, now able so easily to take rest? Oh, happy man! How sweetly sleep has sealed up his sorrows here! But I will call him. 

“What, my lord, my lord, my Lord Fernando!”

“Who calls me?” Fernando asked, waking up. 

Bianca asked, “Sleeping or waking?”

She could have been asking Fernando whether he was asleep or awake, or she may have been asking whether she — and her sense of morality — was asleep or awake.

“Ha!” Fernando said. “Who is it?”

“It is I,” Bianca said. “Have you forgotten my voice? Or is your ear useful only to confirm what your eye sees?”

“Madam! The Duchess!” Fernando said.

“She, it is she,” Bianca said. “Sit up, sit up and wonder while my sorrows swell and well up in tears. The nights are short, and I have much to say.”

“Is it possible that it is you?”

“It is possible,” Bianca said, and then she asked, “Why do you think I have come?”

“Why! To crown my joys, and make me master of my best desires.”

“It is true, you guess rightly,” Bianca said. “Sit up and listen. With shame and passion now I must confess that since first my eyes beheld you, in my heart you have been the sole king. If there can be violence in love, then I have felt that tyranny. Be witness to my soul that I fear the justice for this folly — my visit to your bedroom! Fernando, in few words, let me say that however my tongue did often chide thy love, each word thou spoke was music to my ears; never has a poor, poor wretched woman lived who loved like me, so truly, so unfeignedly.”

She was using the words “thou,” “thee,” and “thy” when speaking to Fernando, but this time they were used affectionately and intimately.

“Oh, madam!” Fernando said. 

“To witness that what I speak is truth, look here!” Bianca said. “Thus singly — alone and wearing a single night garment — I dare to come to thy bed, and I do confess my weakness: If thou should tempt my bosom to enjoy thy pleasures, I will yield.” 

“This is perpetual happiness!” Fernando said.

He was wrong. Perpetual happiness is enjoyed in Paradise, and unrepentant adulterers do not end up in Heaven. Anyone who is preparing to enjoy adultery is by definition an unrepentant sinner.

“Now hear me out,” Bianca said. “When first Caraffa, Pavia’s Duke and my lord and husband, saw me, he loved me; and without receiving any dowry he took me to his bed and bosom. Not moved by counsel or removed by greatness, he advanced and promoted me to the titles I possess.” 

The Duke of Pavia’s name was Philippo Caraffa. He had ignored the advice of his counselors not to marry Bianca, and he had ignored the great difference in his and her social statuses when he married her. If he had wished, he could have chosen to remove himself from her presence.

Bianca continued, “To requite my husband the Duke, between my soul and Heaven I vowed to live as and be a constant, loyal, chaste wife. I have done so, nor was there in the world a man created who could have broken that truth — that solemn vow — for all the glories of the earth but thou, but thou, Fernando! Do you believe I love thee now?”

“Beyond imagination.”

“True, I do, I do love you beyond imagination,” Bianca said. “If no pledge and no sign of love can prove that what I speak is true except the loss of my best joys, then here, here, Fernando, be satisfied and ruin me.”

In Paradise, saved souls enjoy the best joys.

“What do you mean?” Fernando asked.

“I mean to give my body up to thy embraces, a pleasure that I never wished to thrive in before this fatal minute,” Bianca said. “Pay close attention to me now. If thou do despoil me of this robe of shame, here I vow by my best comforts again, to thee, to Heaven, to the world, and to time, that before the morning shall christen anew the day, I’ll kill myself!”

Humankind’s best comforts are hopes of eternal life in Paradise. 

Alarmed, Fernando said, “What, madam, what!” 

“I will do what I said I would do,” Bianca replied. “Do what thou will. It is thy choice. What choice do you make?”

“Bah!” Fernando said. “Did you come here to test me? Tell me, first, will you just grant me a kiss?”

“Yes, take it,” Bianca said. “Take that, or whatever thy heart can wish. I am all thine.”

Fernando kissed her. 

“Oh, me!” he said. “Come, come. How many women, I ask you, who were ever heard or read of, are there who granted love and then did as you protest you will?”

He was saying that he did not believe that she would kill herself if they had sex.

“Fernando, don’t jest at my misery,” Bianca said. “I kneel.”

She knelt.

She added, “By this disheveled hair, these wretched tears, by all that’s good, if what I speak, my heart vows not eternally, then think, my lord, that I never turned down a man who asked to sleep with me. Think that I am a common and most cunning whore, and let my sins be written on my grave and my name rest in reproof! Let my reputation after my death always be shameful!”

She stood up and said, “Do whatever you wish.”

“I must believe you — yet I imagine that soon, after you have departed from me, you will say I was a good, easy-spirited man, cold and without passion — indeed, you will laugh at my simplicity and folly. Tell me, will you do that? Will you laugh at me after you leave?”

“No, by the faith I owe my bridal vows!” Bianca answered. “But I will always regard thee much, much dearer far than all my joys on Earth, I swear by this chaste kiss.”

She kissed him.

“You have prevailed,” Fernando said, “and Heaven forbid that I should by a wanton lust profane this sacred temple that is your body! It is enough for me that you’ll please to call me servant.” 

A servant can be 1) a devotee, and/or 2) a lover. This time, Fernando meant that he wanted to be called a devotee only.

“Nay, be thine,” Bianca said.

She may have meant 1) Fernando, be thine — be your own servant, aka devotee, and do what you ought to do, or 2) I’ll be thine — your devotee.

She did not mean 1) Fernando, be thine — be your own servant, aka lover, and do what you want to do to me, or 2) I’ll be thine — your lover.

“Command my power, my ability, my bosom,” Bianca said, “and I’ll write this love within the tablets of my heart.” 

2 Corinthians 3:3 states, “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (King James Version).

“Tables” meant “tablets.”

“Enough,” Fernando said. “I’ll master and control my passion, and triumph in being conquered; adding to it this: In you, as my love began, it shall end.”

His love for her had begun without consummation, and it would end without consummation.

“The latter I newly vow,” Bianca said, meaning that she vowed to remain chaste. “But day is coming. What now we leave unfinished of satisfaction, each hour shall bring to perfect completion.”

They were leaving without physical satisfaction, but by remaining chaste, they would find perfect happiness in Paradise. 

She then said, “Sweet, let us part.”

“This kiss” — Fernando kissed her — “my best life, have a good rest!” 

He was calling Bianca his best life.

“All my good rest to thee! Remember this, and know that I speak thy words that you spoke previously to me: ‘When I am dead, rip up my heart, and read with constant eyes, what now my tongue defines, Fernando’s name carved out in bloody lines.’ 

“Once more, good rest, sweet!”

“I am your most faithful servant!”

CHAPTER 3

— 3.1 —

Furious, Nibrassa stood in a room in the palace with Julia, his weeping daughter. 

“Get away from me, strumpet, infamous whore, leprosy of my blood!” Nibrassa said. “Take thy lamentations to ballad-singers and verse-rhymers; they’ll jig-out and sing thy wretchedness and abominations to new tunes. As for me, I renounce thee: Thou are no daughter of mine. I disclaim the legitimacy of thy birth, and I curse the hour of thy birth.”

“Please, sir, please listen to me,” Julia said.

“With child!” Nibrassa said. “Pregnant! Shame to my grave! Oh, whore, wretched beyond utterance or reformation, what would thou say to me?”

“Sir, by the honor of my mother’s tomb, Ferentes has vowed to marry me: He has pledged his faith. If vows have any force, I am his wife.”

“His faith! Why, thou fool, thou wickedly credulous fool, can thou imagine that lechery is observant of religion? No, no; it is with a frequent lecher as usual to forswear and break a vow as to swear and make a vow. Their piety is in making idolatry a thing to worship. What they feel in their hearts and what their tongues say are as different as thou — thou whore! — and a virgin.”

“You are too violent in your emotions,” Julia said. “His keeping his vow to marry me will prove his constancy and fidelity to me, and so excuse my fault.”

“Shameless woman!” Nibrassa said. “This belief will damn thee. How will thy Lady Marquess — Bianca — justly reprove me for offering to her service a monster of so lewd and impudent a life! Look to it; if thy smooth devil — Ferentes — leave thee to thy infamy, I will never pity thy mortal pangs of childbirth, never lodge thee under my roof, never acknowledge thee as my child — may mercy be my witness!” 

Petruchio entered the room. He was leading Colona, his daughter. 

“Don’t hide thy folly with an unwise excuse,” Petruchio said. “Thou are ruined, Colona; no entreaties, no warning, no persuasion, could put off the habit of thy dotage on that man of much deceit: Ferentes. I wish that thine eyes had seen me in my grave before I had known the stain of this thine honor!”

“My good lord,” Colona said, “take back your incredulity. My fault proceeds from a lawful contract of wedlock: He has sealed his oath to mine to be my husband.”

“Husband!” Nibrassa said. “Hey-day! Is it really so? Well, then, we have partners in affliction. If my jolly gallant’s long clapper has struck on both sides, then all is well.”

Ferentes’ “long clapper” had made both young women pregnant and had possibly given them a case of the clap: gonorrhea.

Nibrassa said, “Petruchio, thou are not wise enough to be a paritor.” 

A paritor summons delinquents, including some who are prostitutes, to appear in an ecclesiastical court.

He continued, “Come hither, man, come hither; speak softly; is thy daughter with child? Is she pregnant?”

“With child, Nibrassa!” Petruchio said.

“Bah!” Nibrassa said. “Do not trick me off and trifle with me; I overheard your gabbling and chattering. Listen in thine ear as I say that my daughter is with child, too.”

“Alas, my lord, by whom?” Petruchio asked.

“Innocent!” Nibrassa said. “Must you be naïve! By whom? What an idle, foolish question is that! One cock — literally, in one sense of the word — has trod both our hens: Ferentes, Ferentes. Who else? How do thou take it? I think that thou are wondrously patient. Why, I am mad, stark mad.”

“How do you like this, Colona?” Petruchio said. “It is too true. Didn’t this man profess to be your husband?”

“Woe to me!” Colona said. “To me he did profess that.”

“What else, what else, Petruchio?” Nibrassa said.

He then said to Julia, “And, madam, my quondam — former — daughter, I expect that he has passed some huge words of matrimony to you, too.”

“Alas!” Julia said. “To me he did.”

“And to how many more the great incubus of hell knows best,” Nibrassa said.

An incubus is a male spirit that appears to and has sex with women at night.

Nibrassa then said, “Petruchio, give me your hand; I hold my own daughter in this arm — and you hold your daughter, Colona, in this arm.”

He then said, “There, there, sit down together.” 

Julia and Colona sat down.

Nibrassa added, “Never rise, if you hope to inherit our blessings, until you have plotted some brave and worthy revenge; think about how to achieve this revenge, and you shall lack no seconds to further it because we shall be your seconds and supporters; you two be secret one to another.

“Come, Petruchio, we’ll let them alone. The wenches will dwell upon this purpose, and for the process we’ll give them courage.” 

He expected that eventually their daughters would come up with a plot to get revenge against Ferentes — a plot that the fathers would help them to carry out.

“You counsel wisely,” Petruchio said to Nibrassa. “I approve your plan.”

He then said to the young women, “Think on your shames, and who it was who brought them on you.”

“Aye, aye, aye, leave them alone,” Nibrassa said.

He then said to the young women, “To work, wenches, to work! Think about how to get revenge!”

Nibrassa and Petruchio exited.

“We are quite ruined,” Colona said.

“True, Colona,” Julia said. “We are betrayed to infamy, and we are deceived and mocked by an unfaithful villain. What shall we do? I am pregnant.”

Colona sighed and said, “And so am I. But what shall we do now?”

“This,” Julia said. “With cunning words we will first test his love; he knows I am pregnant.”

“And he knows I am, too,” Colona said. “I told him about it during our last meeting in the lobby, and, indeed, the false deceiver laughed at me.”

“Now, by the stars, he did the same thing to me, and he said it was well that I was so happily dealt with.”

“Those are the very words he said to me,” Colona said. “They fretted and vexed me to the heart. I’ll be revenged against him.” 

“Silence!” Julia said. “There’s a noise, I think. Someone is coming. Let’s rise; we’ll take a time to talk about this.”

They rose and walked aside to a place where they would not be seen.

Ferentes and Morona, a 46-year-old widow, entered the room. Morona was very upset.

“Will you get ahold of yourself?” Ferentes said. “Death of my delights, have you lost all sense of shame? Would it be best for you to roar and shout about the court that I have been your woman’s-barber and trimmed you, kind Morona?”

To “trim” someone, in addition to the barbershop meaning, meant 1) to put something in good working order, or 2) to cheat someone. It also meant to beat someone.

Ferentes regarded women as sexual objects only. By having sex with Morona, he thought that he was putting a part of her body in good working order. Also, he was cheating her out of the good relationship she thought she was getting, and as she would point out, he was cheating her out of her good name.

“Defiance to thy kindness!” Morona said. “Thou have robbed me of my good name! Thou promised to love none but me, me, only me; thou swore like an unconscionable villain to marry me the twelfth day of the month two months ago; thou did make my bed thine own, my house thine own, my all and everything thine own. I will exclaim to the world about thee, and villain, I will beg justice from the Duke himself! I will!”

“Yet again?” Ferentes said. “Well, if you are in that mood, shut up your stall in the front of the shop. I’ll be your journeyman — your hired man — no longer.”

The “stall in the front of the shop” is the front hole — vagina — in a female prostitute’s body. Ferentes was saying that if Morona were going to be angry at him, he would no longer do “work” in that hole.

Ferentes continued, “Why, wise Madam Dryfist, could your moldy brain be so addled as to imagine I would marry a stale, worn-out widow at six-and-forty?” 

A Madam Dryfist is a woman who lacks sexuality and fertility: Think of a dry vagina. This society regarded a wet palm as a sign of a lecherous person. Ferentes was accusing Morona of lacking sexuality and fertility because of her age — although he had been having sex with her and, as she will soon say, she is pregnant.

Ferentes continued, “Bah! Aren’t there varieties enough of age thirteen?”

Ferentes today would be considered a pederast.

He added, “Come, stop your clap-dish —” 

Literally, a clap-dish was an alms-dish with a lid. Lepers and other contagious beggars clapped the dish and lid together to let people know that they were coming to beg and to warn them about their — the beggars’ — leprosy. Figuratively, a clap-dish was a chattering, nonsense-speaking mouth.

He continued, “— or I’ll purchase a carting for you.”

Prostitutes were drawn on a cart through a city or town; this exposed them to public ridicule. Sometimes they were whipped as they walked, bound, behind the cart.

He continued, “I swear by this light that I have toiled more with this tough carrion hen than with ten quails scarcely grown into their first feathers.” 

“Quails” are prostitutes or easily seduced women — in Ferentes’ case, they could be easily seduced thirteen-year-old girls.

Morona said, “Oh, treason to all honesty or religion! Speak, thou perjured, damnable, ungracious defiler of women. Tell me, who shall raise as a father my child which thou have begotten?”

“Why, thee, countrywoman,” Ferentes replied. “Thou have a larger purse to pay for the nursing. But if you must have the world know how you, who are reputed to be a grave, matron-like, motherly madam, kicked up your heels — ha! ha! — like a jennet whose mark is newly come into her mouth, then do, do!”

“Do!” meant “Do tell everyone!” But “do” also meant “to have sex.”

He was saying that she had behaved like a much-younger woman. A woman with light heels can dance nimbly or raise her heels in the air in the missionary position. A jennet is a small Spanish horse, and a mark is a wearing-down of a horse’s teeth that reveals how old the horse is. The mark does not appear in the incisor teeth of a very young horse; it appears only as the teeth wear down. As the horse ages, more of the mark appears. In old horses, the mark disappears because of the wearing away of the crown of the tooth.

He continued, “The worst that can be said of me is that I was ill advised to dig for gold in a coal-pit.”

He was wrong: Much worse things can be said about Ferentes.

He then asked, “Are you answered?”

“Answered!” Morona said. 

Julia said to Colona, “Let’s go to them.”

They came forward, and Julia said to Ferentes, using terms of endearment, “Love, how is it with you, chick? Hmm?”

In this context, “chick” was a term of endearment, like “sweet.”

Colona said, “My dear Ferentes, my betrothed lord!”

Ferentes thought, sarcastically, Excellent! Oh, for three Barbary stone-horses to top three Flanders mares!

A stone-horse is an uncastrated horse — stones are testicles. Flanders mares are figuratively lascivious women, in an insulting sense.

Ferentes said out loud, “Why, how are you now, wenches! What do you mean by this?”

“Damnation upon me!” Morona said. “Here’s more of his whores.”

“Love, you must go with me,” Julia said to Ferentes. 

“Good love, let’s walk together,” Colona said to Ferentes. 

Ferentes thought, I must rid my hands of them, or they’ll ride on my shoulders.

The word “ride” also has a sexual sense.

He said out loud, “By your leave, ladies; here is no one but is of common counsel one with another; in short, there are three of you pregnant, you tell me, by me. All of you I cannot satisfy, nor, indeed, do handsomely by any of you.”

Who would do handsomely? Ferentes, or one of the women? And what does “do handsomely by” mean in this context? Does it mean “treat well,” or does it mean “gain much”?

He continued, “You all hope I should marry you, but because that is impossible to be done, I am content to marry none of you. As for your looking big in the matter, keep your own counsels — I’ll not betray you!” 

“Looking big” meant 1) looking big-bellied (that is, pregnant), and/or 2) looking swelled with anger.

He added, “But as for marriage — may Heaven bless you, and bless me from you!” 

The word “bless” meant “protect.” He wanted Heaven to protect him from the three women he had made pregnant.

He concluded, “This is my resolution.”

“What, not marry me!” Colona said.

“Not marry me!” Julia said.

“Not marry me!” Morona said.

“I will not marry you, or you, or you,” Ferentes said, pointing to each of the three women in turn.

He then said, “I’ll give you my reasons.

“You, Colona, had a pretty skill in your flirtation, but your fault was that you were too quickly won. 

“You, Madam Morona, could have pleased me well enough some three- or four-and-thirty years ago, but you are too old.”

Morona was 46 years old, and so 33 or 34 years ago, she would have been 12 or 13. Ferentes liked them young.

He continued, “You, Julia, were young enough, but your fault is that you have a scurvy, ugly face.

“Now, since everyone knows her individual defect, you may thank me that I ever granted you the honor of my bed once in your lives. 

“If you want swaddling clothes for your babies, all I’ll promise is to rip up an old shirt or two. 

“So, wishing a speedy deliverance to all your burdens, aka babies, I commend you to your patience — I recommend that you be calm and patient.”

He exited.

“Excellent!” Morona said sarcastically.

“Notable!” Julia said.

“Unmatched villain!” Colona said without sarcasm. 

Julia said to Morona, “Madam, although we are strangers, yet we understand that your wrongs equal ours. To get revenge for these wrongs, please join with us, and we’ll redeem our loss of honor by a brave exploit.”

“I embrace your proposal, ladies, with gladness,” Morona said, “and I will strive by any action to stand together with you in any danger.”

“Come, gentlewomen, let’s band together, then,” Colona said. “We are now thrice happy maidens who never trusted men!”

By banding together, they had regained some of the happiness they had had before they trusted Ferentes. 

Maidens are unmarried women.

— 3.2 —

The Duke, Bianca (walking arm in arm with Fernando), Fiormonda, Petruchio, Nibrassa, Ferentes, and Roderico D’Avolos walked into the stateroom in the palace. 

“Roseilli will not come, then!” the Duke of Pavia said. “He will not! Well, his pride shall ruin him. 

“Our letters tell us that the Duchess’ uncle — Paulo Baglione, the Abbot of Monaco — will be here tomorrow. 

“Tomorrow, D’Avolos.”

“Tomorrow night, my lord,” Roderico D’Avolos said, “but he will not stay more than one day here, for his Holiness the Pope has commanded him to be at Rome the tenth of this month. The conclave of cardinals has resolved not to sit until Paulo Baglione has come.”

The Duke said to Bianca, “Your uncle, sweetheart, at his next return must be saluted as a cardinal for we expect him to be promoted.”

He then said, “Ferentes, it is your responsibility to think about some theatrical device to entertain the abbot with delight.” 

A device can be 1) a theatrical presentation, or 2) a plot or trick.

Fernando said, “My lord, in honor to the court of Pavia I’ll join with you. 

“Ferentes, not long ago I saw in Brussels, at my being there, the Duke of Brabant welcome the Archbishop of Mentz with a splendid entertainment, despite short notice, performed by knights and ladies of his court, in nature of an antic.” 

Antics are theatrical performances in which performers wear grotesque masks and costumes.

He continued, “I thought that it — because I had never before seen women-antics, aka female performers — was for the newness strange, and much commended.”

In Pavia, women did not perform on stage. Males performed female roles.

“Now, my good Lord Fernando,” Bianca said, “further this in any way you can; it cannot but please my uncle.”

Fiormonda thought, If she entreats Fernando, it is ten to one the man is won beforehand. Fernando will do anything that Bianca asks him to do.

The Duke said to Fernando, “Friend, thou honor me. But can it be so speedily performed?”

“I’ll undertake it, if the ladies agree to perform as themselves — as ladies,” Fernando replied. “And we must have a fool, or such a one as can with skill well act like a fool.” 

“I shall provide you with what you need,” Fiormonda said. “I have a natural idiot.”

“That is best of all, madam,” Fernando said. “Then nothing is lacking. You must be one of the performers, Ferentes.”

“With my best service and dexterity, my lord,” Ferentes replied. 

Petruchio whispered, “This falls out happily, Nibrassa.”

He whispered back, “We could not wish it better. Heaven is an unbribed justice.”

Heaven is always just: It cannot be bribed. Indeed, Simony — the selling or buying of church offices or spiritual benefits — is a sin. If Simony is discovered to have played a role in the election of a modern-day Pope, that election is null and void.

The alert reader will notice that Petruchio and Nibrassa are both happy that Ferentes will play a part in the antic.

“We’ll meet our uncle-in-law with the solemn grace of religiously zealous ceremonial attendance, as is fitting for the church,” the Duke said. “See to it that all the choir will be ready, D’Avolos.”

“I have already made your highness’ pleasure known to them,” Roderico D’Avolos said. 

“Your lip, my lord!” Bianca said to Fernando.

“Madam?” he replied.

“Perhaps your teeth have bled. Wipe the blood away with my handkerchief. Give it to me. I’ll do it myself.”

In this society and in this age, dental care was often lacking. Bleeding gums were common.

Wiping his mouth, she whispered to Fernando, “Tell me, shall I steal a kiss? Believe me, my lord, I long for a kiss.”

“Not for the world,” Fernando whispered to her.

Fiormonda said to herself, “Manifest and plainly evident impudence!”

Roderico D’Avolos said quietly, but loud enough to be heard, “Curse my heart, but that’s not so good.”

“Hmm, what it is that thou don’t like, D’Avolos?” the Duke asked. 

“Nothing, my lord,” Roderico D’Avolos replied. “I was just hammering out and devising an idea of my own, which cannot, I find, in so short a time, thrive as a day’s practice.”

His excuse was that he was thinking of an idea for entertaining Bianca’s uncle, but his idea would have required more time than was available to practice and to be put in practice.

“Well put off, secretary,” Fiormonda whispered to Roderico D’Avolos. “That was a good way to evade the Duke’s question.”

“We are too serious,” the Duke said. “I think that the life of mirth should always be fed where we are: We should lead a mirthful life. Where’s Mauruccio?”

Ferentes answered, “If it please your highness, he’s recently grown so affectionately close to my Lady Marquess’ fool that I presume he is confident there are few wise men worthy of his society who are not as innocently harmless as that creature. It is almost impossible to separate them, and it is a question which of the two is the wiser man.”

“I wish that he were here!” the Duke said. “I have a kind of dullness and sluggishness and gloominess that hangs on me since my hunting, so that I feel as if it were a disposition to be sick. My head is always aching.”

“A cursedly ominous sign,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “I don’t like that either.”

The growing of a cuckold’s horns supposedly caused the cuckold’s head to ache.

“Again!” the Duke said. “What is it you don’t like?”

“I beg your highness to excuse me,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “I am so busy with this frivolous project and can bring it to no proper form that it almost confounds my capacity — it’s almost beyond my intellectual capacity.”

“My lord, you were best to try a game of cards,” Bianca said. “I and your friend Fernando, to pass away the time, will play against your highness and your sister.”

“The game’s too tedious,” the Duke said.

“It is a silly game,” Fiormonda said. “Your knave will heave the Queen out or your King. Besides, it is all based on luck.”

The “knave” would be Fernando. “Heave” can mean “swell” and, in thieves’ cant, “rob.” The Knave/Fernando would make the Queen/Duchess swell with pregnancy and rob the King/Duke of his Queen’s/Duchess’ chastity. 

Mauruccio, Roseilli disguised as a natural fool, and Giacopo entered the stateroom.

“Bless thee, most excellent Duke!” Mauruccio said. “I here present thee as worthy and learned a gentleman as ever I — and yet I have lived threescore years — conversed with. Take it from me, I have tested him, and he is worthy to be a privy-counselor to the greatest Turk in Christendom; he has a most apparent and deep understanding. He is slow of speech, but he speaks to the purpose.”

He said to the disguised Roseilli, “Come forward, sir, and appear before his highness in your own proper elements.”

“In your own proper elements” meant “in your own true self” — something that the disguised Roseilli was not going to do.

“Will — tye — to da new toate sure la now,” the disguised Roseilli said.

“He is a very senseless gentleman,” Giacopo said, “and, may it please your highness, one who has a great deal of little wit, as they say.” 

“Oh, sir, had you heard him, as I did, deliver whole histories in the Tangay tongue, you would swear there were not such a linguist who lived and spoke again,” Mauruccio said.

A tan-gay tongue is a tan brightly colored tongue; such a tongue — and such a language — does not exist.

He added, “And if I could just perfectly understand his language, I would be confident in less than two hours to distinguish the meaning of bird, beast, or fish as naturally as I myself speak Italian, my lord. Well, he has splendid qualities!”

The reader may now laugh, realizing that the words “as naturally as I myself speak Italian” were spoken on stage in John Ford’s time by a British actor who was, of course, speaking English.

“Now, please, question him, Mauruccio,” the Duke said. 

“I will, my lord,” Mauruccio said.

He then said to the disguised Roseilli, “Tell me, rare scholar, which, in thy opinion, causes the strongest breath: garlic or onion.”

“Answer him, brother-fool,” Giacopo said. “Do, do. Speak thy mind, chuck, do.”

“Chuck” was another term of endearment; in this case, it was applied to a person Mauruccio considered a close friend.

“Have bid seen all da fine knack, and de, e, naghtye tat-tle of da kna-ve, dad la have so,” the disguised Roseilli said. 

Possibly, he was saying, “I have seen all the fine tricks and [heard] the malicious talk of the knave, indeed I have.” If so, he was trying to give a warning to Fernando.

“We don’t understand him,” the Duke said.

“His answer is admirable, I say, Duke,” Mauruccio said. “Pay attention, oh, Duke, pay attention!

“What did I ask him, Giacopo?”

“What caused the strongest breath, garlic or onions, I take it, sir.”

“Right, right, by Mount Helicon! And his answer is that a knave has a stronger breath than any of them. This is wisdom — or I am an ass — in the highest; this is a direct figure — an unambiguous aphorism.

“Write it down, Giacopo.”

“How happy is that idiot whose ambition is only to eat and sleep, and shun the rod — that is, avoid punishment!” the Duke said. “Men who have more of wit, and use it illy, are fools in proof — they have proven that they are fools by using their intelligence in an ill way.”

“True, my lord, there’s many who think themselves most wise who are most fools,” Bianca said. 

“Bitter, biting comments, if all were known, but —” Roderico D’Avolos said quietly, but loud enough to be heard.

“But what?” the Duke said. “Speak out — a plague on your muttering and grumbling! I heard you, sir. What is it?”

“Nothing, I say, to your highness pertinent or anything important,” Roderico D’Avolos said.

Readers may be forgiven for reading the sentence in this way: “Nothing I say to your highness [is] pertinent or anything important.”

“Well, sir, remember,” the Duke replied.

He then said, “Friend Fernando, you promised to study how to put on a good show for our uncle-in-law. 

“I am not well in my mental temperament.

“Come, Bianca. 

“Ferentes, attend our friend. You will be working with Fernando.” 

Everyone exited except Fernando, the disguised Roseilli, Ferentes, and Mauruccio. 

“Ferentes, take Mauruccio in with you,” Fernando said. “He must be one of the performers.”

“Come, my lord, I shall need your help,” Ferentes said. 

“I’ll stay behind a moment with the fool, and follow you two soon,” Fernando said.

“Yes, please do, my lord,” Mauruccio said.

Ferentes and Mauruccio exited.

“How thrive your hopes now, kinsman?” Fernando asked Roseilli. 

“Are we safe?” Roseilli said. “Can we talk safely? Are we alone? Then let me cast myself beneath thy foot, my true, virtuous lord. Know, then, sir, her proud heart — I speak of Fiormonda — is fixed only on you in such extremes of violence and passion that, I fear, either she’ll enjoy you, or she’ll destroy you.” 

Because Fiormonda believed that the disguised Roseilli was a natural idiot who could barely speak, she had spoken about her feelings in his hearing.

“On me, kinsman?” Fernando replied. “By all the joys I wish to taste, she is as far beneath my thought as I in soul am above her malice.”

“I observed just now a kind of dangerous design in a disjointed and incoherent phrase from D’Avolos,” Roseilli said. 

He was referring to the quiet words that Roderico D’Avolos had said loud enough for the Duke to overhear.

He continued, “I don’t know his intent, but this I know: He has an active brain and he is an agent who knows all my lady’s — Fiormonda’s — secrets, and, my lord, you should pray to Heaven there has not anything befallen within the knowledge of his subtle skill and cunning to do you evil! If he finds a way to do evil to you, he will.”

“Bah!” Fernando said. “Should he or hell confront me in the course of my fate, I’d crush them into atoms.”

“I do admit you could,” Roseilli said. “In the meantime, my lord, be nearest to yourself.”

The proverb “Be nearest to yourself” meant “Be most concerned to look after yourself” and “Keep your secrets secret.”

He added, “You shall be soon informed of whatever I can learn. Here is all we fools can catch the wise in — to unknot, by privilege of coxcombs, what they plot.” 

A proverb stated, “Fools set stools for wise men to stumble at.”

“Coxcombs” are fools’ hats. People tended to speak unguardedly in front of jesters and fools.

Because Roseilli seemed to be a natural fool, both Fiormonda and Rodrigo D’Avolos spoke freely about their feelings and plots in front of him.

— 3.3 —

The Duke of Pavia and Roderico D’Avolos spoke together in another room in the palace. 

“Thou are a traitor,” the Duke said. “Don’t think that the gloss of sly evasion by your cunning jests and fabrications of your political schemer’s brain, shall put me off with a trick — I’ll know it, I vow I will.”

Roderico D’Avolos had mishandled the Duke’s instructions for exiling Roseilli, and so the Duke had reason to be suspicious of him.

The Duke continued, “Didn’t I note your dark, obscure, broken-off ends of half-spoken words? Your ‘wells, if all were known’? Your short ‘I don’t like that’? Your biting comments and ‘but’s? Yes, sir, I did; such broken language argues more matter — more meaning — than your subtlety and trickery shall hide. Tell me, what is it? By honor itself I’ll know.” 

“What would you know, my lord?” Roderico D’Avolos said. “I confess I owe my life and service to you, as you are my prince; the one you have, the other you may take from me at your pleasure. If you want to have me killed, you can. Should I make up matter — ‘information’ — to feed your distrust, or suggest likelihoods without clear evidence? What would you have me say? I know nothing.”

“Thou lie, dissembler!” the Duke said. “On thy brow I read crazed horrors expressed in thy looks. On thy allegiance, D’Avolos, as ever thou hope to live in favor with us, tell me what, judging by the faltering of thy speech, thy knowledge can reveal. By the faith we bear to sacred justice, we swear, whether the information is good or it is evil, thy reward shall be our special thanks and love without boundaries. Speak, on thy duty; we, thy prince, command it.”

“Oh, my disaster!” Roderico D’Avolos said. “My lord, I am so enthralled by those powerful repetitions of love and duty that I cannot conceal what I know of your dishonor. I cannot — it is as if I have been influenced by a magic charm.”

“Dishonor!” the Duke said. “Then my soul is divided in two with fear; I half predict my misery. Speak on. Speak it at once, for I am great with grief.”

“I trust your highness will pardon me; yet I will not deliver a syllable that shall be less innocent than truth itself.”

“By all our wish of joys, we pardon thee,” the Duke said.

“Get away from me, cowardly servility!” Roderico D’Avolos said.

This gave the appearance of him trying to get the courage to tell the Duke “truth” that would displease him.

He then said to the Duke, “My service is noble, and my loyalty is an armor of brass; in short, my lord, and in plain language, you are a cuckold.”

“Keep in the word — a ‘cuckold!’” the Duke said. 

Now that he had heard the word, the Duke wanted Roderico D’Avolos to keep it inside, unspoken.

“Fernando is your rival, he has stolen your Duchess’ heart, he has murdered friendship, he has put a cuckold’s horns on your head, and he laughs at your horns,” Roderico D’Avolos said.

“My heart is split!”

“Take courage, be a prince in resoluteness,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “I knew it would nettle and vex you in the fiery-hot temper of your nature.”

This society believed that humans were composed of four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. The Duke seemed grief-stricken rather than angry, and by mentioning fire, Roderico D’Avolos was trying to manipulate the Duke into becoming angry and seeking revenge.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “I was loath to have given the first report of this more than ridiculous moral blemish to all patience or moderation, but, oh, my lord, what would not a subject do to prove his loyalty to his sovereign? Yet, good sir, take it as quietly as you can. I must say that it is a foul fault, but what man is he under the Sun who is free from the path of his destiny? Maybe she will in time amend the errors of her youth, or it would a great happiness in you, if you could not believe that she is unchaste — that’s the surest path, my lord, in my poor counsel.”

“The icy current of my frozen blood is kindled up in agonies as hot as flames of burning sulphur and brimstone,” the Duke replied. “Oh, my fate! A cuckold! Had my Dukedom’s whole inheritance been torn apart, my honors leveled in the dust, as long as she, that wicked woman, might have slept chaste in my bosom, it would have been all sport and amusement. And he, that villain, that viper to my heart — that he should be the man! Death above utterance!”

In this society, vipers were known for ingratitude. According to the Roman naturalist Pliny, vipers were born by eating their way out of their mother. One of Aesop’s fables was about a man who found a frozen viper. Taking pity on it, he held it against his chest. When the viper had warmed up, it bit the man.

“Take heed that you prove this is true,” the Duke said.

Roderico D’Avolos began, “My lord —” 

“If you don’t prove that this is true, I’ll tear thee joint by joint,” the Duke said. “Phew! I think that this should not be … Bianca! Why, I took her from lower than a bondage — a slavery! … Hell of hells! … See that you make it good. See that you prove that this is true.”

“As for that, I wish that it were as good as I would make it!” Roderico D’Avolos said. “I can, if you will control your mental agitations, simply bring you to where you shall see it, no more.”

“See it!” 

“Yes, see it, if that is sufficient proof. I, for my part, will slack no service that may testify to my sincerity.”

“Enough,” the Duke said. 

Fernando entered the room.

The Duke asked, “What is your news, Fernando?” 

“Sir, the Abbot of Monaco is now at the point of arrival; all your servants await your presence.”

“We will give him a welcome as shall befit our love and his eminence. Come, my own best Fernando, my dear friend.”

The Duke exited with Fernando.

“Excellent!” Roderico D’Avolos said to himself.

Referring to the horns of a cuckold, he joked, “Now for a horned Moon.” 

A horned Moon is a crescent Moon.

Music started playing.

He said, “But I hear the preparation for the welcome of this great abbot. Let him come and go — that matters nothing to this. While he rides abroad in hopes to purchase a purple hat, our Duke shall as earnestly heat the pericranion of his noddle with a yellow hood at home.”

Roderico D’Avolos was accusing Bianca’s uncle of Simony: the buying of a church office. In particular, he was accusing Bianca’s uncle of buying a purple hat — actually, the red hat of a Cardinal. In this society, the color purple was defined as including various shades of red.

Roderico D’Avolos was in a good mood, and so he was playfully using funny-sounding words. “Pericranion” meant “brain,” and “noddle” meant “head.” 

“Hoods” were sometimes associated with fools. In some cases, the fool would wear a hood to which he was not entitled. A passage in Robert Greene’s play The Scottish History of James the Fourth states, “For the greatest clerks are not the wisest, and a fool may dance in a hood as well as a wise man in a bare frock.” In this case, the fool is wearing the hood of a wise man such as an academic, ecclesiastic, or civil official, and the wise man is wearing a smock-frock, the clothing of a poor person or a natural fool. The Duke of Pavia was supposed to act like a wise man, but now he was acting like a natural fool.

The color yellow was associated with jaundice and sickness.

The Duke would heat his head with anger that arose from his foolishly believing Roderico D’Avolos’ words.

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “I hear them coming.” 

Music sounded. 

Some servants, carrying torches, entered the room. 

The Duke, followed by Fernando, Bianca, Fiormonda, Petruchio, and Nibrassa entered the room at one side.

Two friars, the Abbot of Monaco, and some attendants entered the room at the other side. 

The Duke and the Abbot met and greeted each other.

Bianca and the rest greeted the Abbot of Monaco, and they were greeted in return. 

They formed themselves in ranks and walked through the room as the choir sang. 

They were going to eat a meal together.

“On to your victuals,” Roderico D’Avolos said to himself. “Some of you, I know, feed upon wormwood.”

Wormwood is a bitter-tasting plant.

The Duke was now feeding upon bitterness. Petruchio and Nibrassa were bitter because Ferentes had made their daughters pregnant.

Roderico D’Avolos followed the others.

— 3.4 —

Holding napkins since they had just come from supper, Petruchio and Nibrassa met in an apartment in the palace. 

Petruchio called, “The Duke’s about to rise from the table. Are you ready?”

“We are all ready,” Colona replied from outside the apartment. 

“Then, Petruchio, arm thyself with courage and resolution,” Nibrassa said, “and do not shrink from being supported by thy own virtue. Your virtue will tell you that this is the right thing to do.”

“I am resolved to do this,” Petruchio said. 

He called, “Fresh lights! I hear them coming.”

Some attendants entered the apartment, carrying candles.

The Duke, the Abbot of Monaco, Bianca, Fiormonda, Fernando, and Roderico D’Avolos entered the apartment.

“Right reverend uncle-in-law,” the Duke said, “although our minds are deficient in giving as good a welcome as our hearts would wish, yet we will strive to show how much we feel joy in your presence with a courtly comic performance. 

“May it please you to sit.”

“Great Duke, your worthy honors to me shall always have a place in my best thanks,” the Abbot of Monaco replied. “Since you through your treatment of me so much respect the church, I’ll promise you this — at my next return his holiness shall grant you an indulgence both large and general.”

The indulgence would lessen or remove the punishment in the next life for sins committed in this life.

The Duke said, “Our humble duty to you! 

“Seat yourselves, my lords. 

“Now let the maskers enter.” 

All of the performers in the antic entertainment wore masks.

Ferentes, Roseilli, and Mauruccio entered at different doors; they danced for a short time. 

Colona, Julia, and Morona, who were wearing odd antic costumes, entered and danced. 

The male maskers gazed at them, and the women invited them to dance. They danced various measures of music together.

Then the women surrounded Ferentes. 

Mauruccio and Roseilli, having been shaken off by the women, stood at different ends of the stage watching the dance. 

The women joined hands and danced around Ferentes with several complimenting offers of courtship, and then they suddenly fell upon him and stabbed him. 

He fell, and the women ran out through different doors. 

The music ceased.

Ferentes screamed, “Take off my costume! I am slain in jest — as if it were a joke! A pox upon your foreign feminine antics!”

In this society, performers were male. Fernando had gotten the idea of using female performers after seeing some female performers in Brussels.

Ferentes said, “Pull off my mask! I shall bleed to death before I have time to feel where I am hurt. 

“Duke, I am slain. 

“Off with my mask! For Heaven’s sake, take off my mask!” 

“Slain!” the Duke said. “Take his mask off.”

Someone unmasked Ferentes. 

The Duke said, “We are betrayed. Seize on them! Two are yonder.”

The two were Mauruccio and Roseilli, still in disguise as a natural fool. 

The Duke then said, “Bear up, Ferentes.”

He ordered some attendants, “Follow the rest.”

He then said, “This is manifest and blatant treachery!”

The Abbot of Monaco said, “Holy Saint Bennet, what a sight is this!” 

Julia, Colona, and Morona returned. They were not wearing masks, and each was carrying a child in her arms. 

“Be not amazed, great princes, but grant us your audience and listen to us,” Julia said. “We are the ones who have done this deed. Look here at the pledges — the children — of this false man’s lust. We were betrayed in our innocence. He swore and pledged his truth and fidelity to marry each of us. He abused and deceived us all. We were unable to revenge our public shames except by his public fall, which thus we have contrived and brought about, nor do we blush to call the glory of this murder ours. We did it, and we’ll justify the deed, for when in sad complaints we claimed his vows, his answer was reproach.

“Villain, is it true?”

Colona said, “I was ‘too quickly won,’ you slave!”

Morona said, “I was ‘too old,’ you dog!”

Julia said, “I — and I never shall forget the wrong — I was ‘not pretty enough.’ Not pretty enough for thee, thou monster! Let me cut his gall! Not pretty enough! Oh, scorn! Not pretty enough!”

She stabbed him. 

In this culture, the phrase “break his gall” — which is close to “cut his gall” — means “break his spirit.”

Ferentes moaned with pain.

“Stop, you monstrous women!” the Duke said. “Do not add murder to lust. Your lives shall pay the penalty for this offense.”

“A pox upon all codpiece extravagancy — all sexual immorality!” Ferentes said. “I am peppered, done for, finished.”

He moaned and then said, “Duke, forgive me! 

“Had I rid any tame beasts rather than Barbary wild colts, I had not been thus jerked out of the saddle.”

His riding was a sexual riding.

Ferentes continued, “My crime was in my lust, and the loss of my life has atoned for it. Vengeance on all wild whores, I say! Oh, it is true. Farewell, generation of hackneys! Oh!” 

“Hackneys” was a slang word for prostitutes.

He died.

“He is dead,” the Duke said. “To prison with those monstrous strumpets!”

“Wait,” Petruchio said. “I’ll answer for my daughter. I’ll assume responsibility for her.”

“And I for mine,” Nibrassa said.

He whispered, “Oh, well done, girls!”

“And I will answer for yonder gentlewoman, sir,” Fernando said. 

By assuming responsibility for the women, these men were asking for the women to undergo house arrest rather than prison. The men would assume responsibility for the women not running away to escape any punishment.

“My good lord, I am an innocent in the business,” Mauruccio said.

“To prison with him!” the Duke said. “Take Mauruccio to prison! And carry Ferentes’ body away from here.”

“Here’s fatal sad presages,” the Abbot of Monaco said, “but it is just that he who has lived in lust dies by murder.”

 

 

CHAPTER 4

— 4.1 —

The Duke, Fiormonda, and Roderico D’Avolos talked together in an apartment in the palace. Fiormonda and Roderico D’Avolos were criticizing the Duke for not taking revenge against Bianca for her “adultery.”

“Are thou Caraffa?” Fiormonda asked the Duke, her brother. “Is there in thy veins one drop of blood that issued from the loins of Pavia’s ancient Dukes? Or do thou sit on the chair of state of great Lorenzo, our glorious father, and cannot blush to be so far beneath the spirit of heroic ancestors? Can thou possess a base, ignoble, slavish shame, which men far, far below the high, lofty region of thy social status not more abhor than study how to revenge? You call yourself an Italian! I could burst with rage to think I have a brother so made a fool of in patiently enduring a harlot’s lust.”

Roderico D’Avolos said, “She is one, my lord, who does so palpably, so blatantly make her adulteries a trophy to be displayed, while the poting-stick to her insatiable and more than goatish abomination jeers at and flouts your sleepy, and more than sleepy, complacency.” 

A poting-stick was used to set the plaits of items of clothing such as ruffs after they were starched or was used to stir clothing as it boiled. The word “poting” meant “poking,” “crimping,” or “kicking.” A poting-stick can be said to resemble a stiff penis, and a stiff penis can be said to “poke.”

This culture regarded goats as lecherous animals.

In league with Fiormonda, Roderico D’Avolos was taunting the Duke for not getting revenge against his wife: Bianca. Because Fiormonda would protect Roderico D’Avolos, he could be very direct in his criticism.

“What is she but the sallow, sickly yellow-colored brat of some landless bankrupt?” Fiormonda said. “She has been taught to catch the easy fancies of young prodigal roisterers in snares of her stew-instructed art.” 

People in this culture called brothels “stews.” A “stew-instructed art” is an art that was learned in a brothel.

She continued, “Here’s your ‘most virtuous’ Duchess! Here’s your ‘rare paragon of virtue’!”

“She is more base in the infiniteness of her lustfulness than depravity can infect,” Roderico D’Avolos said, “and she has been base enough to embrace and seduce your friend Fernando, too! 

“Oh, insufferable! He is a ‘friend’! How of all men are you most unfortunate! You pour out your soul into the bosom of such a creature that regards it as a religion to make your own trust a key to open the passage to your own wife’s womb, to be drunk in the private acts of your bed!

“Think upon that, sir.” 

Despite greatly criticizing the Duke, Roderico D’Avolos called him by the respectful words “you” and “sir” because the Duke much outranked him.

“Be gentle in your tortures, out of pity,” the Duke said. “For pity’s sake, I beg it.”

“Be a prince!” Fiormonda said. “It would have been better, Duke, if thou had been born a peasant. Now boys will sing thy scandal in the streets, sing ballads about thy infamy, get money by making plays and shows about thee, and invent some strangely disguised man-beast that may because of its horns resemble thee, and call it Pavia’s Duke.”

“Endless immortal plague!” the Duke complained.

“There’s the mischief, sir,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “In the meantime you shall be sure to have a bastard — of whom you did not so much as beget a little toe, a left ear, or half the far side of an upper lip — inherit both your throne and name. This would kill the soul of complete patience itself.”

“Stop!” the Duke said. “The ashen paleness of my cheek is now colored scarlet in ruddy flakes of wrath; it is like a dormant fire that has been stirred. And like some bearded meteor — like some comet with a tail — it shall suck up, with swiftest terror, all those dusky mists that overcloud compassion in our breast.”

People in this society thought that meteors and comets were formed by vapor sucked up from the earth.

The Duke’s anger, hot as a fire, would suck up and concentrate the dusky malevolent forces in his chest that overruled any compassion he might have felt. These dusky malevolent forces would then be directed toward getting revenge.

The Duke said, “You’ve roused a sleeping lion, whom no art and no fawning flattery shall reclaim, but blood.” 

“Reclaim” meant 1) “subdue,” and/or 2) “call back from a mistaken course of action.”

He continued, “And sister and Roderico, thou two from whom I take the surfeit of my bane, from here on do not any more so eagerly endeavor to whet my dullness and make me eager for revenge.”

Alert readers will note that this is the first time we have heard the Duke call Roderico D’Avolos by his first name.

The “surfeit of my bane” meant 1) the “excess of my woe,” and/or 2) the “excessive dose of my poison.”

The Duke continued, “You shall see me, Caraffa, equal his — my — birth and act like a Duke, and be matchless in revenge.”

“Why, now I hear you speak in majesty,” Fiormonda said. 

While criticizing the Duke, Fiormonda had been calling him “thou,” but now she used the respectful “you.”

“And it becomes my lord most princely,” Roderico D’Avolos said.

“Does it?” the Duke said. “Come hither, sister. Thou are near to me in nature, and as near to me in love. I love thee, yes — by yonder bright sky, I love thee dearly. But pay attention to me now: If any private grudge or female spleen, malice or envy, or such woman’s frailty, have spurred thee on to set my soul on fire without clear and certain proof of their adultery, then I vow, and vow again, by all our princely blood, that if thou had a double soul, or if the lives of fathers, mothers, children, or the hearts of all our tribe were in thine, I would rip open and expose with these fingernails that womb of bloody mischief where such a cursed plot as this was hatched. 

“But, D’Avolos, as for thee — well, I’ll say no more; let’s get to work. 

“To create a still stronger impression of my wife’s infidelity in my brain, you must produce an example to my eye both ready at hand and obvious … nay, you shall … or — ”

“Or what?” Fiormonda said. “You will be mad? Be rather wise. Think about Ferentes first, and think by whom the harmless youth was slaughtered. Had he lived, he would have told you tales. Fernando feared it and to prevent him from telling you about his affair — indeed, under the show of rare device — he most neatly cut him off.”

The “show of rare device” was 1) a show with the rare appearance of woman performers, and 2) a show with splendid and cunning trickery that ended with the death of Ferentes.

Fiormonda was falsely blaming Fernando for planning Ferentes’ death in order to keep Ferentes from telling the Duke about his “affair” with Bianca.

“Do you have eyes yet, Duke?” Fiormonda asked.

“This is shrewdly urged — it is piercing,” the Duke said. 

The word “shrewdly” meant 1) maliciously, or 2) sharply.

“You shall not trouble yourself to arrange your looking on a sight that shall split your soul,” Fiormonda said. “I’ll undertake to do it myself. I will present you approximately two days from now with evidence of the affair of Bianca and Fernando. The delay is necessary because, tonight, you are in court.”

She wanted her brother to think this: With the Duke present in the court, Bianca and Fernando would be forced to avoid committing adultery and so evidence of their adultery would be impossible to get.

“That’s right,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “Would you desire, my lord, to see them exchange kisses, sucking one another’s lips, indeed, begetting an heir to the Dukedom, or practicing more than the very act of adultery itself? Give them but a little opportunity by a feigned absence —” 

He wanted the Duke to pretend to be away from the court for a little while. That would give Bianca and Fernando an opportunity to engage in their “affair.”

Roderico D’Avolos continued, “— and you shall find them — I blush to speak doing what. I am mad when I think about it; you are most shamefully, most sinfully, most scornfully cornuted — that is, horned as a cuckold.” 

“Do you make fun of me?” the Duke said. “As I am your prince, there’s some who shall roar with pain for this! Why, who am I to be thought or made so vile a thing?

“Stay, Madam Marquess.

“Ho, Roderico, you stay, too, sir.

“Bear witness that if ever I neglect for one day, one hour, one minute to wear out my busy skull with laboring at creating a plot or planning a trick, until I have found a death more horrid than the bull of Phalaris or all the fabling poets’ dreaming whips —”

Phalaris was a cruel ruler of the city Agrigentum in Sicily. He commissioned Perillus to construct a hollow bull of metal to be used as an instrument of torture. The victim would be placed inside the bull, and then the bull would be heated. As the victim roasted, the victim screamed. Phalaris ordered that the bull be constructed in such a way that the screams of the victims would sound like the bellowing of a bull.

The mythological avenging spirits known as the Furies sometimes carried whips.

The Duke continued, “— if ever I take rest, or force a smile that is not borrowed from a royal vengeance, before I know how and in which way to satisfy my fury and the wrong done to me —”

He said, “Kneel down.” 

All three knelt. Fiormonda and Roderico D’Avolos were to be witnesses to the Duke’s vow of revenge.

The Duke continued, “— then let me die more wretched than despair, reproach, contempt, laughter at my expense, and poverty itself can make me!

“Let’s rise on all sides, friends.”

They all stood up together.

“Now all’s agreed,” the Duke said. “If the Moon is favorable, some who are safe shall bleed.”

Some phases of the Moon were regarded as favorable for medicinal blood-letting — but the blood-letting he had in mind was not medicinal.

Bianca, Fernando, and Morona entered the room. 

Bianca said, “My lord the Duke —”

“Bianca!” the Duke said. “How is it with you? How is it with you, Bianca? 

“What, Fernando! 

“Come, shall we shake hands, sirs?”

In this society, “sir” could be used to refer to a woman as well as a man.

The three shook hands.

The Duke said, “Indeed, this is kindly done. Here are three as one. Welcome, dear wife and sweet friend!”

Roderico D’Avolos whispered to Fiormonda, “I do not like this now; it shows scurvily to me.”

He was worried because the Duke seemed to be treating Bianca and Fernando kindly.

Bianca said to the Duke, “My lord, we have a request; your friend and I —”

The Duke thought, She puts my friend before herself — ‘your friend and I’ — most kindly still. 

She continued, “— must join —” 

She meant “enjoin” — that is, urge the Duke to answer positively to a request.

“What! ‘Must’!” the Duke said. 

He associated the word “join” with the phrase “join together,” which reminded him of sex. Of course, Bianca and Fernando were joining together in enjoining — entreating — the Duke for a favor.

“My lord —” Bianca said.

“Must join, you say,” the Duke interrupted.

She continued, “— that you will please to set Mauruccio at liberty. This gentlewoman — Morona — here has, by agreement made between the two of them, obtained him for her husband. My good lord, let me entreat you — I dare pledge my honor that he’s innocent of any willful fault.”

“Your honor, madam!” the Duke said, angry at the reference to something he thought she lacked. “Now I say ‘bah’ to you — to engage your honor for so slight a cause! Honor’s a precious jewel, I can tell you. Indeed, it is, Bianca. Bah!”

Despite his hidden anger, he gave everyone the impression that he was mildly reproving Bianca because no urging was needed for him to free Mauruccio — why, of course he would free him.

“D’Avolos, bring Mauruccio here to us.” 

“I shall, my lord,” Roderico D’Avolos said.

He exited to carry out this order.

“I humbly thank your grace,” Morona said. 

“And, royal sir,” Ferentes said, “since Julia and Colona, the chief actors in Ferentes’ tragic end, were through their ladies’ mediation freed by your gracious pardon, I, out of pity, took pity on and attended to this widow’s friendless misery for whose reprieve I shall, in my humblest duty to you, be ever thankful.” 

Julia served Fiormonda, and Colona served Bianca. Both Fiormonda and Bianca had asked for and received mercy from the Duke for Julia and Colona. Now Fernando was asking for mercy for Morona. Fernando and Bianca were also both asking for mercy for Mauruccio.

Roderico D’Avolos returned, accompanied by Mauruccio, who was wearing rags, and Giacopo, who was weeping. 

Mauruccio said to Giacopo, “Come, my learned counsel, do not loudly weep. If I must hang, why, then, lament therefore. You may both rejoice, and, no doubt, be great to serve your prince the Duke, when I am turned into worms’-food. I fear my lands and all I have has been begged.” 

He was afraid that because he was in prison, a court of law had given his possessions into the custody of someone else. “To beg a person” meant to petition the Court of Wards for the custody of a person, with the result that the person would become a ward whose assets were controlled by another person.

He continued, “Else, woe is me, why should I be so ragged?” 

“Come on, sir,” Roderico D’Avolos said to Mauruccio, “the Duke is waiting for you.” 

Mauruccio was still able to rhyme:

“Oh, how my stomach does begin to puke, 

“When I do hear that single word, the Duke!” 

“You, sir, look on that woman,” the Duke said to Mauruccio. “Are you pleased, if we remit your body from the jail, to take her for your wife?”

“On that condition, prince, I will, with all my heart,” Mauruccio said.

Morona said, “Yes, I assure your grace that he is content to marry me.”

“Why, foolish man, have thou so soon forgotten the public shame of her abused womb, her being mother to a bastard’s birth?” the Duke said. “Or can thou but imagine she will be true to thy bed who to herself was false?”

He was criticizing Mauruccio much as Fiormonda and Roderico D’Avolos had criticized him. 

“Phew, sir, do not stand upon that,” Giacopo said to Mauruccio. “That’s a matter of nothing, you know.”

The word “stand” can mean “have an erection.” “Nothing” is “no thing.” A “thing” is a penis, and “no thing” is a vagina.

Giacopo continued, “Ignore Morona’s faults, sir.”

Mauruccio said to the Duke, “Nay, if it shall please your good grace, if it comes to that, I don’t care about adultery. As good men as I have lain in foul sheets, I am sure; the linen has not been much the worse for the wearing a little. I will have her with all my heart.” 

“And you shall,” the Duke said.

He ordered, “Fernando, thou shall have the grace to join their hands; put them together, friend.” 

Bianca said to Fernando, “Yes, do, my lord. You bring the bridegroom hither; I’ll give the bride myself.”

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Here’s evidence to cause jealousy as good as drink to the dropsy; she will share any disgrace with him. I could not wish it better.

He regarded the giving away of the groom and the bride by Fernando and Bianca as being additional “evidence” of their “adultery”; however, he also thought that the “evidence” was not needed because the Duke was already jealous. It was like giving liquid to someone who was already suffering from dropsy — an illness that caused one’s body to retain liquid and swell up.

“So be it,” the Duke said. “Well, do it.”

Fernando said, “Here, Mauruccio; give me your hand.”

Fernando and Bianca joined the hands of Mauruccio and Morona.

Fernando then said, “Live long as a happy couple!” 

“It is enough,” the Duke said. 

This ceremony was enough for Morona and Mauruccio to be legally engaged, although such betrothal ceremonies were usually followed by a church marriage. The help of Fernando and Bianca as they assisted in the ceremony were also enough “evidence” to cause the Duke to feel additional jealousy.

The Duke added, “Now know our pleasure henceforth. It is our will that if ever thou, Mauruccio, or thy wife, Morona, should be seen within a dozen miles of the court, we will recall our mercy. No begging or entreaty shall get thee an additional minute of thy life. We’ll allow no servile slavery of lust to breathe near us. Now get out, and get yourselves away from the court. 

“Bianca, come with me.”

The Duke thought, Oh, my cleft soul!

The Duke and Bianca exited. 

“What’s that?” Mauruccio said. “I must come no more near the court?”

“Oh, pitiful!” Giacopo said. “Not come near the court, sir!” 

“Not by a dozen miles, indeed, sir,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “Your only course, I can advise you, is to journey to Naples, and set up a house of carnality. There are very fair and well-frequented suburbs that are a good location for a brothel, and you need not fear the contagion of any pestilent disease, for the worst is very proper, fitting, and suitable to the place.”

“It is a strange sentence,” Fernando said. 

“It is, and sudden, too,” Fiormonda said, “and not without some mystery.” 

The sentence of exile on pain of death was harsh, but the Duke was harsh in his condemnation of Morona’s sexual immorality and in his condemnation of what he thought was Mauruccio’s weakness in his good treatment of her because he — the Duke — feared that his wife, Bianca, had been sexually immoral.

“Will you go, sir?” Roderico D’Avolos asked Mauruccio.

“Not near the court!” Mauruccio said.

“What does it matter, sweetheart?” Morona said. “Fear nothing, love; you shall have a new change of apparel, good diet, wholesome attention, and we will live like pigeons — like lovebirds — my lord.”

“Will thou forsake me, Giacopo?” Mauruccio asked.

“I forsake you!” Giacopo said. “No, not as long as I have a whole ear on my head, come what will come.”

Some criminals were punished by having their ears cropped. Such punishment was unlikely for Giacopo, who was not a criminal — but Mauruccio was being punished for a murder he had had nothing to do with.

“Mauruccio, you did once proffer true love to me, but since you are more thriftier sped — more successfully married — here, take this gold for old affection’s sake,” Fiormonda said. “Spend it for my sake.”

Fiormonda gave money to Mauruccio.

“Madam, you act nobly,” Fernando said.

He got some money out and added, “And that’s for me, Mauruccio.”

Fernando gave money to Mauruccio.

“Will you go, sir?” Roderico D’Avolos asked Mauruccio.

“Yes, I will go,” he replied.

He then said, “And I humbly thank your lordship and ladyship. 

“Pavia, sweet Pavia, farewell! 

“Come, wife.

“Come, Giacopo. 

“Now is the time that we away must lag [go away slowly], 

“And march in pomp with baggage and with bag. 

“Oh, poor Mauruccio! What have thou misdone, 

“To end thy life when life was new begun?”

His life at the court was ending, but his life as a newly married man was beginning. 

He continued, “Adieu to all; for lords and ladies see 

“My woeful plight and squires of low degree!” 

Squires are attendants.

“Leave, leave, sirs!” Roderico D’Avolos said.

Everyone except Fiormonda and Fernando exited.

Fiormonda said, “My Lord Fernando —” 

“Madam?”

“Did you notice my brother’s odd mental disturbances? You were accustomed to be his bosom buddy and know his plans and secrets. I am sure that you know the reason for his mental disturbances.” 

“Not I, truly,” Fernando replied.

“Is it possible that you don’t know? What would you say, my lord, if he, out of some melancholy spleen, provoked by some thanks-grubbing parasite, should now prove to be jealous? I seriously think this may be the truth.” 

“What, madam! Jealous?”

“Yes,” Fiormonda said, “for just observe, a prince whose eye is chooser to his heart is seldom steady in the arenas of love, unless the party he loves matches his rank in equal portion or in friends.”

In other words, an upper-class man who marries a woman because of her looks will seldom be faithful to her unless she is his equal in social status as shown by her dowry and his equal in friends and supporters.

“I never yet, out of rumor or else by authoritative discussion, have observed the nature of irrational jealousy, if not in him,” Fiormonda said. “If the Duke is not now jealous, then I don’t know what jealousy is. Yet I swear on my conscience now that he has no reason to be jealous.”

“Reason, madam!” Fernando said. “By this light, I’ll pledge my soul against a useless rush that he has no reason to be jealous.”

Rushes were used to cover floors.

Fernando was so sure that the Duke had no reason to be jealous that he would bet his most valuable possession — his soul — against something completely worthless. Fernando was completely sure that Bianca had not committed adultery.

“I never thought her less,” Fiormonda said.

This may sound as if Fiormonda never thought Bianca to be less than completely faithful, but Fiormonda was saying that she never thought Bianca to be less than a rush — less than completely worthless.

Fiormonda continued, “Yet, trust me, sir. No merit can be greater than your praise, at which I strangely wonder, how a man vowed, as you told me, to a single life, should so much deify the saints from whom you have disclaimed devotion — renounced love.”

“Madam, it is true,” Fernando said. “From them I have renounced love, but from their virtues never. I have never renounced the virtues of the saints.”

Fernando had told Fiormonda that he had vowed to live life as a single man, but many religious saints advocate marriage and children. Despite being single, Fernando — and the saints — could and did praise marriage and ethical sex.

Possibly, the “saints” they were talking about were women. Fiormonda was pretending to be surprised that Fernando, having said that he had vowed to live life as a single man, would so strenuously support Bianca. Fernando was replying that although he vowed to live life as a single man, he nevertheless recognized the virtues of chaste women.

Chaste women are those women who do not engage in immoral sex.

“You are too wise, Fernando,” Fiormonda said. 

He was too wise to admit some things to her, and so she now spoke plainly: “To be plain, you are in love. No, don’t recoil, man, you are in love. Bianca is the target of your love. Why do you blush? She is, I know she is.”

“The target of my aim!” he said.

“Yes, yours,” Fiormonda said. “I trust I talk no news, no gossip. You know that what I say is true. Fernando, know that thou are running to thy ruin, if in time thou do not wisely shun that Circe’s enchantment.”

Circe was an enchantress who appeared in Homer’s Odyssey. She turned his men into swine until he forced her to turn them back into men. He stayed with her and slept with her for a year before resuming his journey home to the island of Ithaca and his wife, Penelope.

Fiormonda continued, “Unkindest man! I have too long concealed my hidden flames, when constantly in silent signs I courted thee for love, without consideration for youth or state — our ages and social ranks — and yet thou are unkind to me because you do not return my love. Fernando, leave that sorceress, if not for love of me, for pity of thyself.”

“Injurious woman, I defy thy lust,” Fernando said. “Your subtle prying and searching shall not creep into the secrets of an unsoiled and innocent heart. You are my prince’s sister, or else your malice would have ranted itself to death. But as for me — let all my fate witness what I say — I detest your fury or affection. I can’t care about either your anger toward me or your love for me. Judge the rest for yourself — think of what else I could say.”

He exited.

“What, gone!” Fiormonda said. “Well, go on thy way. I see that the more I humble my firm love, the more he shuns both it and me. He has made that so plain! Since it is too late to hope that he will love me, then change, peevish passion, to contempt! Whatever rages in my blood I feel, fool, he shall know I was not born to kneel.” 

— 4.2 —

Roderico D’Avolos and Julia talked together in another room in the palace. 

“Julia, my own, speak softly,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “Have thou learned anything from this pale widgeon?” 

A “widgeon” is a simpleton.

He had wanted Julia to learn from Colona what Bianca’s plans were and then tell him.

“Speak quietly,” he continued. “What does she say?”

“Ha, more than all,” Julia said. “There’s not an hour shall pass but I learn more information. She swears that ‘whole nights’ — but you know my mind. I hope you’ll give me the gown you promised me.”

Julia had begun to tell D’Avolos what he wanted to know, but first she wanted assurance that she would get the gown he had promised her. 

“Honest Julia, be at peace,” Roderico D’Avolos said. “Thou are a woman who is worth a kingdom. Let me never be believed now, but I think it will be my destiny to be thy husband at last. What though thou have a child — or perhaps two?”

“Never but one, I swear,” Julia said.

“Well, one. Is that such a matter? I like thee the better for it! It shows that thou have a good tenantable and fertile womb, worth twenty of your barren, dry, bloodless devourers of youth.”

Roderico D’Avolos was capable of vivid language. Julia’s womb was “tenantable and fertile” — she was capable of bearing many children.

He continued, “But come, I will talk with thee more privately. The Duke has a journey in hand, and he will not be long absent.”

Looking up, he said, “See, he has come already. Let’s slip away quietly.”

They exited as the Duke and Bianca entered the room. 

The Duke said, “Troubled? Yes, I have cause to be troubled. 

“Oh, Bianca! Here was my fate engraven in thy brow. I look at this smooth, fair, polished portrait of yours — in thy cheeks, Nature summed up thy dowry: beauty. Your dowry was not wealth. Neither the miser’s god nor royalty of blood advanced thee to my bed — but love, and my hope of virtue that might equal those sweet looks did advance thee. If, then, thou should betray my trust, thy faith, to the pollution of a base desire, then thou would be a wretched woman.”

“Are you saying this out of love, or out of fear, my lord?” Bianca asked.

“Both, both,” the Duke answered.

He continued, “Bianca, know that the nightly languish of my dull, listless unrest has stamped a strong opinion on me. For, I dreamed — pay close attention to what I say — that as I in glorious pomp was sitting on my throne, while I had hemmed my best-beloved Bianca in my arms, she grabbed my red velvet cap of state, and cast it down beneath her foot and kicked it in the dust. While I — oh, it was a dream too full of ominous fate! — was stooping down to reach it, Fernando, like a traitor to his vows, clapped on my head, to my disgrace, a coronet of horns. 

“But, by the honor of anointed kings, even if both of you were hidden in a burning rock of brimstone, guarded by ministers of flaming hell, I have a sword here” — he touched it — “that I would use to make my way through fire, through darkness, death, and hell, and all, to hew your lust-engendered flesh to shreds, pound you to a mortar-like paste, cut your throats, and mince your flesh to tiny pieces. Yes, I will — don’t draw back, startled — yes, I will.”

“May God have mercy and protect me!” Bianca said. “Will you murder me?” 

“Yes,” the Duke said.

But then he immediately said, “Oh, I beg you for your pardon and mercy! How the rage caused by my own dreamt-of wrongs made me forget all sense of patient endurance! Don’t blame me, Bianca. One such another dream would quite distract reason and humanity itself — yet tell me wasn’t it an ominous vision?”

“It was, my lord,” Bianca said, “yet it was only a vision. For if such a guilt would hang on my honor, there would be no blame in you if you stabbed me to the heart.”

“The heart!” the Duke said. “Nay, strumpet, I would stab you to the soul; and I would tear your soul off from life in order to damn it in immortal death.”

“Oh!” Bianca said. “What do you mean, sir?”

“I am mad — insane,” the Duke said.

He then said, “Forgive me, good Bianca; I think that I am still dreaming and dreaming anew. Now, please, criticize and scold me. Sickness and these divisions in my mind so distract my senses that I regard things that are merely possible as if they were really real. To remove these distractions from my mind, I mean to hasten straight to the town of Lucca in Tuscany, where, perhaps, absence from the court and bathing in those healthful springs may soon heal me.

“In the meantime, dear sweetheart, pity my troubled heart; my griefs are extremely distressing. Yet, sweetheart, when I am gone, think about my dream. 

“Who waits without, ho!” 

Petruchio, Nibrassa, Fiormonda, Roderico D’Avolos, Roseilli (still disguised as a natural fool), and Fernando entered the room.

The Duke asked, “Is everything ready to journey to Lucca?”

“All is ready for your highness,” Petruchio answered.

The Duke said to Fernando, “Friend, wait; take here from me this jewel.”

He put Bianca’s arm on Fernando’s arm.

He continued, “She is in your care until my return from Lucca, honest Fernando.

“Wife, respect my friend.

“Let’s go.

“But listen to me, wife, think about my dream.”

Everyone except Roseilli and Petruchio exited.

“Kinsman, one word with you,” Petruchio said. “Doesn’t this cloud acquaint you with strange novelties? That is, isn’t this cloud over the Duke strange and novel to you?

“The Duke is recently much distempered in his mind. What he means by journeying now to Lucca is to me a riddle. Can you clear away my confusion? Do you know what is happening?” 

“Oh, sir, my fears exceed my knowledge,” Roseilli said, “yet I notice no less than you infer and mention. All is not well — I wish that all were well! Whosoever shall thrive, I shall be sure never to rise to satisfy my desires.” 

He meant that he wanted to marry Fiormonda, which would make him rise socially, but he had no realistic hope of doing that. He also possibly meant that he would not have a chance to have an erection to satisfy his desire for her. Also, possibly, he meant that in disguise as a natural fool, he had been learning things about Fiormonda that made him no longer want to marry her.

He continued, “But, kinsman, I shall tell you more soon. In the meantime, please send my Lord Fernando to me. I want very much to speak with him.”

Petruchio looked up and said, “Look, he himself is coming here. I’ll leave you both together.”

Petruchio exited as Fernando entered the room.

Fernando said, “The Duke is on horseback and headed for Lucca. How are you now, kinsman? How do you prosper in love?”

He knew — or believed — that Roseilli wanted to marry Fiormonda.

“I fare as well as I always expected: badly,” Roseilli replied.

He added, “My lord, you are in the process of being ruined.”

“Ruined!” Fernando said. “In what way?”

“Your life lost,” Roseilli said. “I fear that your life is bought and sold; I’ll tell you how. Recently in my lady’s chamber as I by chance lay slumbering on a mat on the floor, in came the Lady Marquess, and with her Julia and Roderico D’Avolos.

“Not suspecting me because of my disguise as a natural fool, they sat down and Roderico D’Avolos said, ‘Madam, we have discovered now the nest of shame.’ 

“In short, my lord — for you already know as much as they reported — there was told the circumstance of all your private love and meeting with the Duchess. At last, false, treacherous D’Avolos concluded with an oath: ‘We’ll make,’ he said, ‘his heartstrings crack for this.’” 

When the strings that this society believed supported the heart are broken, the person dies.

“Was he speaking of me?” Fernando asked. 

He had not suspected that they were plotting against him. Also, he and Bianca had not committed adultery.

“Yes, they were speaking of you,” Roseilli said. “‘Yes,’ said the Marquess, ‘if the Duke were not a timid baby, he would seek swift vengeance; for he knew it long ago.’”

“Let him know it,” Fernando said, referring to Bianca’s love for him. “Yet I vow that she is as loyal and faithful to her wedding vows as is the Sun in Heaven, but suppose for the sake of argument that she were not loyal and faithful to her wedding vows, and the Duke knew for a fact that she were not.”

He touched his sword and said, “This sword lifted up, and guided by this arm of mine, shall guard her from an armed troop of fiends and all the earth beside.”

The word “earth” meant “humanity.”

Genesis 11:1 states, “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech” (King James Version).

Roseilli said, “You are too over-confident, and that can lead to your destruction.”

Fernando said, “Damn him! He shall feel — but quiet! Who is coming here?”

Colona entered the room and said to Fernando, “My lord, the Duchess craves a word with you.”

“Where is she?”

“In her chamber.”

Roseilli, in character as a natural fool, said, “Here, have a sugar plum for thee —”

“Come, fool, I’ll give thee sugar plums enough,” Colona said. “Come, fool.” 

Fernando thought, Let slaves in mind be servile to their fears. Our heart is high enstarred in brighter spheres.

He was saying his heart was a star embedded in one of the higher spheres of the Ptolemaic view of the universe. In the Ptolemaic view, the Earth was at the center of the universe, and the Sun, planets, and stars were embedded in various spheres that orbited the Earth. In mythology, heroes sometimes became stars.

Fernando and Colona exited.

“I see Fernando lost already,” Roseilli said to himself. “Unless everything goes right, we shall know too late that no toil can evade the violence of fate.”

A proverb stated, “It is impossible to avoid fate.”

The disguised Roseilli followed Fernando and Colona.

 

CHAPTER 5

— 5.1 —

Bianca and Fernando were in the Duchess’ bedchamber in the palace. Dressed in her sleeping attire, Bianca leaned on a cushion at a table, holding Fernando by the hand. 

Unseen, Fiormonda entered a balcony and spied on them. 

Fiormonda said to herself, “Now fly, Revenge, and wound the lower earth, so that I, as if I were embedded in a sphere above, may thwart like a malignant planet the race of love despised, and triumph over the graves of those who scorn the humble captivity of my heart!”

“Why shouldn’t thou be mine?” Bianca said to Fernando. “Why should the laws — the hard-as-iron laws of the marriage ceremony — bar mutual embraces? What’s a vow? A vow! Can there be sin in unity? 

“If I could as well dispense with conscience as renounce the highest of my titles — the poor title of Duchess — I would rather exchange my life with any waiting-woman in the land, if doing that would purchase one night’s rest with thee, Fernando, than be Duke Caraffa’s spouse for a thousand years.”

Often, women of the lower classes had more freedom than women of the upper classes. A woman of the lower classes could choose to love a man of the lower classes. A woman marrying into the upper classes had many fewer men from whom to choose. At the highest levels, a woman — or man — might have to marry someone for political reasons.

“Treason to wedlock!” Fiormonda said to herself. “This would make you sweat.”

In halting language at first, Fernando said, “Lady of all … as before … what I am … to survive you … or I will see you first either widowed or buried.” 

Fernando was determined not to have Bianca commit adultery, and so they would have to wait for her marriage to the Duke to end. That marriage would end with either her death or the Duke’s death. If she were to be widowed, then of course they could and would wed.

Fernando continued, “But if you die first and are buried, then by all the comfort I can wish to taste and by your fair eyes, I swear that the sepulcher that holds your coffin shall encoffin me alive. If you should die first, I vow to be buried alive in your coffin. I sign it with this seal.”

He kissed her.

In this society, oaths were sealed by kissing the book: the Bible.

“Ignoble strumpet!” Fiormonda said to herself.

“You shall not swear,” Bianca said. “Take away that oath again, or thus I will enforce it.”

She kissed him.

“Use that force, and make me a perjured vow-breaker,” Fernando said, “for while your lips are made the book that must be sworn on, it is a sport to swear an oath with a kiss, and it is glory to forswear an oath with a kiss.”

“Here’s fast and loose!” Fiormonda said quietly. 

The idiom “to play fast and loose” means to live carelessly and immorally. The idiom comes from a game in which a conman and a sucker would make a bet and the conman would cheat the sucker.

She added quietly, “I bet a ducat now the game’s started!” 

A ducat is a gold coin. Fiormonda was willing to bet gold that the Duke would be cheated on.

While Bianca and Fernando were kissing, the Duke and Roderico D’Avolos, with their swords drawn, appeared at the door, followed by Petruchio, Nibrassa, and a few guards. Bianca and Fernando, who were paying close attention to each other, did not see or hear them.

Colona, who was loyal to Bianca, shouted from outside the room, “Help, help! Madam, you are betrayed, madam. Help, help!” 

She was far away, and Bianca and Fernando did not hear her cries. 

Roderico D’Avolos said quietly to the Duke, “Is there confidence in belief, now, sir? Do you believe your own eyes? Do you see? Do you see, sir? Can you behold it without lightning to cast light on this scene? Can you behold it without your anger flaring up like lightning?”

Colona shouted, louder, “Help, madam, help!” 

“What is that noise?” Fernando said. “I heard someone cry out.” 

The Duke stepped forward and said, “Ha, did you? Do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” Fernando said. “Thou are Pavia’s Duke, dressed like an executioner.”

He was referring to the Duke’s drawn sword.

He continued, “Look! I am unarmed, yet I do not fear thee, although the coward fear of what I could have done has made thee steal the advantage of this time. Because you feared what I would do to you if I were armed, you picked a time when you knew I would be unarmed.

“Yet, Duke, I dare thee to do thy worst, for murder sits upon thy cheeks. Go to it, man! Murder me!”

“I am too angry in my rage to scourge thee unprovided,” the Duke replied.

He meant that Fernando’s words at his — the Duke’s — being a coward who came to him with a drawn sword when Fernando was unprovided with a sword made him so angry that he would not kill Fernando while Fernando was unarmed.

The word “unprovided” also meant “without making provisions for one’s immortal soul.” Even traitors were given an opportunity to repent and confess their sins before suffering capital punishment. Not giving the guilty person a chance to repent was a sin. 

And so the Duke’s words may also have meant this: I am so angry that if I were to punish you now I would do things that would endanger your — and my — immortal soul. Such things would include killing you without giving you a chance to repent.

“Take him away from here!” the Duke ordered. “Away with him!”

Some guards seized Fernando.

“Get your hands off me!” Fernando shouted.

“You must go, sir,” Roderico D’Avolos said. 

“Duke, do not shame thy manhood to lay hands on that most innocent lady: Bianca,” Fernando said.

“Yet again he speaks!” the Duke said, and then he ordered, “Confine him to his chamber.”

Roderico D’Avolos and the guards exited with Fernando in their custody.

The Duke ordered, “All of you, leave us. None stay, not one. Shut the doors.”

Petruchio and Nibrassa exited and closed the doors behind them.

“Now show thyself my brother, brave Caraffa,” Fiormonda said quietly to herself. She remained on the balcony, unseen.

For the Duke to prove to her that he was her brother, he would have to severely punish — even kill — Bianca.

“Woman, stand before me,” the Duke said.

Bianca stood in front of him.

“Wretched whore,” the Duke said, “what can thou hope for?”

“Death,” Bianca said. “I wish no less than death. You told me you had dreamt, and, gentle Duke, unless you are mistaken, you’ve now awakened.”

“Strumpet, I am now awake,” the Duke said, “and in my hand I hold up the edge of my sword that must uncut thy twist of life.” 

The twist of life is the thread of life that is spun, measured, and cut by the three Fates. When the thread of life is cut, the person whose thread it is dies.

In this society, “un-” was sometimes an intensifying adjectival prefix. (Think of “in-” and “inflammable.”) Now this use of the prefix “un-” is obsolete. “Uncut” meant “definitely cut” — if the prefix “un-” were used in this sense.

But perhaps the Duke was threatening to not kill Bianca and instead to let her live out her life in grief. Bianca had told him that she welcomed death. In that case, “uncut” meant “not cut.”

The Duke asked her, “Don’t thou shake?”

He meant “shake out of fear.”

“Shake for what?” Bianca replied. “To see a weak, faint, trembling arm advance a leaden blade?” 

“Leaden” meant “heavy.” Bianca was insulting the Duke by saying that the sword was too heavy for him to use effectively. A leaden blade was also not a good blade; good swords were made of steel.

“Alas, good man!” she continued. “Put up your sword, sheathe it; thine eyes are much likelier to weep than thine arms are to strike. Please tell me what you would like to do now?” 

“What!” the Duke said. “Shameless harlot, I would rip up the cradle of thy cursed womb in which the mixture — the semen created by your and his mixing — of that traitor’s lust swells like a tumor for the birth of a bastard. 

“Yet come, and if thou think thou can deserve one mite of mercy, before the boundless spleen of justly consuming wrath floods and drowns my reason, then tell me, bad woman, tell me what could move thy heart to crave the variety of youth.”

The Duke was an older man, older than Fernando.

“I’ll tell you,” Bianca said, “if you must have your question answered: I held Fernando to be much the more complete and better-looking man.”

“Shameless, intolerable whore!” the Duke said.

“What is bothering you?” Bianca said. “Can you imagine, sir, that the title of ‘Duke’ could make a crooked leg, a scrambling way of walking, a merely tolerable face, a withered hand, a pale and bloodless lip, or such an untrimmed beard as yours, fit for a lady’s pleasure?”

Bianca had mentioned the Duke’s “crooked leg.” Earlier, Fernando had compared Bianca to Venus, goddess of beauty. Venus’ husband was Vulcan, who had a crooked leg. Venus had an affair with Mars, god of war, and when Vulcan learned that he had been cuckolded, he trapped the adulterers while they were in bed.

Bianca answered her own question: “No.”

She then said, “I wonder that you could think it were possible, when I had but once looked on your Fernando, that I could ever love you again. Fat chance!

“Now, by my life, I thought that long ago you had known it and had been glad you had a friend that your wife did think so well of.”

“Oh, my stars!” the Duke said. “Here’s impudence above all history. Why, thou detested reprobate in virtue, do thou dare, without a blush, before my eyes to speak such immodest language?”

“Dare! Yes, indeed — you see that I dare. I know what you want to say now. You would like to tell me how exceedingly much I am beholden to you, who deigned to raise me from a simple gentlewoman’s place to the honor of your bed. It is true that you did that. But why did you do that? It was only because you thought I had a spark of beauty more than you had seen. 

“To answer your question, my reasoning is the same as yours: The self-same desire that led you on to marry me led me to love your friend. Oh, he’s a gallant man! If my eyes have ever yet beheld a miracle composed of flesh and blood, Fernando has my vote. I must confess, my lord, that for a prince you are handsome enough, and … and no more. But to compare yourself with him! Trust me, you are too much in fault. 

“Shall I give you some information? Listen to what I say in your ear: You should thank Heaven that he — Fernando — was so slow as not to wrong your sheets, for as I live the ‘fault’ was his, not mine.”

Although Fernando and Bianca loved each other and had kissed, they had not had sex. Bianca was willing to have sex with him, but she had not because he was so slow to agree to it — and had not yet agreed to it. She regarded that as a ‘fault’ because she was so eager to have sex with him.

“Take this, take all,” Fiormonda said quietly to herself about the Duke. “If you can suffer this, then you can suffer anything.”

“Excellent, excellent!” the Duke said sarcastically. “The pangs of death are music to this. 

“Forgive me, my good genius — my guardian angel — I had thought I married a woman, but I find she is a devil, worser than the worst in hell. 

“Well, well, since we are in so far, then come, say on: Speak more things. I have paid close attention to every syllable you have spoken: You say the ‘fault’ for you two not having sex was his, not yours.”

Of course, he believed that she was lying.

The Duke then said, “Why, virtuous mistress, can you imagine that you have so much ability to lie that you may persuade me that you and your secret lover did not a little traffic in my rights as your husband? Do you think that you can convince me that you and Fernando did not have sex?”

Bianca said, “Look, what I said, it is true; for, know it now — I must confess I missed no means, no time, to win him to my bosom, but so much, so holily, with such religious devotion, he obeyed the laws of friendship and out of friendship for you rejected my offers to have sex with him, so that my suit was held to be, in comparison, only a jest. Nor did I more often urge the violence of my affection, but as often he urged the sacred vows of faith between friend and friend: Yet be assured, my lord, that if ever language of cunning servile flatteries, entreaties, or what is in me could procure his love, I would not blush to speak it.”

 Bianca’s “what is in me” includes a vagina.

“One more woman such as thou are, miserable creature, would sink with the weight of guilt the whole sex of women,” the Duke said, “yet confess what witchcraft the wretch used to charm thee out of the once spotless temple of thy mind? For without witchcraft, it could never be done.” 

“Phew!” Bianca said in disgust. “If you be in these tunes, sir, I’ll leave off speaking and perhaps even leave. You know the best and worst and all.” 

“Nay, then thou tempt me to thy ruin,” the Duke said. “Come, black angel, fair devil, in thy prayers reckon up the full number of all thy innate, born-in-the-blood follies. There in thy prayers, weep tears of blood for the one sin that is above the rest: adultery! Adultery, Bianca! Adultery is such a sin and such a guilt that, were the sluices of thine eyes let up, tears cannot wash it off.”

Sluices are the gates of a dam; raise them and water pours out of the dam.

The Duke continued, “It is not the tide of trivial wantonness from youth to youth, but instead thy abusing of thy lawful bed, thy husband’s bed; his in whose breast thou sleep, his who did prize thee more than all the trashy wealth that hoarding worldlings make an idol of. When thou shall find the catalogue of thy recorded misdeeds, there shall be written in large letters thy bastarding the children of a prince. Now turn thine eyes to thy hovering soul, and do not hope for life; if angels were to sing a requiem by my coffin only if I would dispense with my revenge on thee, it would be all in vain: Even if not killing you would ensure eternal Paradise for me, I would not give up my revenge. Prepare to die!”

Bianca opened the front of the clothing over her chest and said, “I do, and to the point of thy sharp sword with open breast I’ll run halfway thus naked. Do not shrink away, Caraffa. This does not daunt me, but in the last act of thy revenge, this is all that I ask to be granted at my last gasp: Spare thy noble friend. Life to me without him would be a death.”

“Not this,” the Duke said. “I’ll have none of this. It is not so fitting … why should I kill her? She may live and change, or —” 

He threw down his sword.

From the balcony, Fiormonda shouted, “Do thou stop? Faint coward, do thou wish to disgrace all thy glorious ancestors? Is this thy courage?”

“Ha! Do you say so, too?” the Duke replied. 

He then said, “Give me thy hand, Bianca.”

“Here,” she said, giving him her hand.

“Farewell,” the Duke said. “Thus go dwell in everlasting sleep!”

He drew his dagger and stabbed her.

“Here’s blood in exchange for lust, and sacrifice in exchange for wrong,” he said. 

“It is bravely done,” Bianca said sarcastically. “Thou have struck home at once. Live to repent too late. Commend my love to thy true friend, my love to him who owns it: I give my tragedy to thee; my heart to — to — Fernando.”

Bianca moaned and died.

“Sister, she’s dead,” the Duke said.

“Then, while thy rage is warm, pursue the causer of her trespass,” Fiormonda said.

“Good,” the Duke said. “I’ll waste no time while I am hot in blood.” 

“Hot in blood” meant 1) feeling strong passion, 2) feeling hot because Bianca’s hot blood was on his hands, and 3) having a taste for blood. Hunting dogs were given a taste of blood to encourage them to hunt. Such dogs were said to be “in blood.”

The Duke picked up his sword and exited.

“Here’s royal vengeance!” Fiormonda said. “This suits the state of his disgrace and my unbounded hate.” 

— 5.2 —

Fernando, Nibrassa, and Petruchio talked together in Fernando’s apartment in the palace. 

“May we believe your words, my lord?” Petruchio said to Fernando. “Speak and answer us, on your honor.”

“Let me die accursed if ever, through the progress of my life, I did as much as reap the benefit of any favor from her except a kiss,” Fernando said. “A better woman never blessed the earth.”

“Curse my heart, young lord, but I believe thee,” Nibrassa said. “Alas, kind lady, I would bet a lordship against a dozen clothes-laces that the jealous madman will in his fury offer her some violence.”

“If that is true,” Petruchio said to Fernando, “it would be better for you to keep a guard around you to defend you than for you to be guarded by guards on the Duke’s payroll who will allow the Duke to get his revenge; the Duke is extremely angry.” 

“Passion of my body, my lord, if he would come in his odd fits to you, in the situation — unweaponed — you are, he might cut your throat before you could provide yourself with a weapon of defense,” Nibrassa said to Fernando. “Rather than it shall be so, wait, take my sword in your hand. It is not one of the sprucest swords, but it is a tough fox that will not fail his master, come what will come.” 

In this society, “fox” was a name for a particular type of sword.

“Take it,” Nibrassa said. “I’ll be responsible for it, I will.”

He gave Fernando his sword.

He added, “In the meantime Petruchio and I will go back to the Duchess’ lodging.” 

“This is well thought out,” Petruchio said. “And, despite all the Duke’s rage, rescue the virtuous lady.”

“Look after yourself, my lord!” Nibrassa said. “The Duke is coming.”

The Duke, carrying a sword in one hand and a bloody dagger in the other, entered the room. 

He said, “Stand, and behold thy executioner, thou vainglorious traitor! I will keep no formal procedure of ceremonious law to try thy guilt. Look here, thy guilt is written on my dagger’s point, the bloody evidence of thy untruth, wherein thy conscience and the wrathful rod of Heaven’s scourge for lust at once condemn the verdict of thy flagrant villainies that loudly cry for redress. 

“I see thou are armed. Prepare to fight. I crave no odds — no advantage — greater than is the justice of my cause. Fight, or I’ll kill thee.”

“Duke, I don’t fear thee,” Fernando said. “But first I ask thee, as thou are a prince, to tell me how thou have treated thy Duchess.”

“How!” the Duke said. “To add affliction to thy trembling ghost, look on my dagger’s crimson dye, and judge for yourself how I have treated her.”

“Not dead?” Fernando asked. 

“Not dead!” the Duke said. “She is dead, yes, by my honor’s truth. Why, fool, do thou think I’ll hug and cherish my injuries? No, traitor! I’ll mix your souls together in your deaths, as you did both your bodies in her life. 

“Have at thee! Let’s fight!”

“Stop,” Fernando said. “I yield my weapon up.”

He dropped his sword.

He then opened the front of his shirt and said, “Here, here’s my chest. As thou are a Duke, as thou honor goodness, if the chaste Bianca has been murdered, then murder me.”

“Faint-hearted coward, are thou so poor in spirit!” the Duke said. “Rise and fight, or by the glories of my house and name, I’ll kill thee basely.”

“Do but hear me say something first,” Fernando said. “Unfortunate Caraffa, thou have butchered an innocent, a wife as free from lust as any terms of artful speech can deify.”

“Pish, this is an old, stale dissimulation,” the Duke said. “You are lying. I’ll hear no more.”

“If ever I unshrined the altar of her purity, or tasted more of her love than what without restraint or blame a brother from a sister might,” Fernando said, “then put me on the rack and tear me to tiny pieces. I must confess I have too much abused thee. I did exceed in lawless courtship; it is too true, I did. But, by the honor that I owe to goodness, of any actual lewdness I am free.”

Fernando had kissed Bianca, but they had not had sex.

“That is false,” the Duke said, but he added, believing that Bianca had also spoken falsely, “As much in death in support of thee she spoke.”

“By yonder starry roof, by the sky, it is true,” Fernando said. “Oh, Duke! If thou could create another world like this, another like to that, and more, or more, thou would still be most wretched because of this: All the wealth of all those worlds could not redeem the loss of such a spotless, sinless wife. Glorious Bianca, reign in the triumph of thy martyrdom. Earth was unworthy of thee!”

“Now, on our lives, we both believe him,” Nibrassa and Petruchio said.

“Fernando, do thou dare to swear upon my sword to affirm that thy words are true?”

“I do dare,” Fernando said. “Look here.”

He kissed the sword.

The sword’s blade, guard, and hilt formed a cross and so was a suitable object for a Christian to swear on.

He continued, “It is not the fear of death that prompts my tongue, for I wish to die; and thou shall know, poor miserable Duke, that since she is dead, I’ll consider all life a hell.”

“Bianca chaste!” the Duke said. 

“As chaste as virtue itself is good,” Fernando said.

“Chaste, chaste, and killed by me!” the Duke said, convinced. “To her I offer up as a sacrifice this remnant of my —”

He attempted to stab himself and cut short his remnant of life, but Fernando prevented him. 

“Stop!” Fernando said. “Be gentler to thyself.”

“Alas, my lord,” Petruchio said. “Is this a wise man’s manner of conduct?”

“To where now shall I run from the day to a place where no man, nor eye, nor eye of Heaven may see a dog as hateful as I am?” the Duke said. “Bianca chaste! If the fury of some hellish rage had not blinded all reason’s sight, I must have seen her innocence in her fearlessness to die. I beg your leave —” 

He knelt, held up his hands in the position for making vows, and after briefly speaking quietly — no living person present heard him — rose.

He had made private vows.

“It is done,” he said. 

He then said to Fernando, “Come, friend, now for her love, her love that praised thee in the pangs of death, I’ll hold thee dear.”

He added, “Lords, don’t worry about me. I am too wise to die yet.”

He then said, “Oh, Bianca!”

Roderico D’Avolos entered the room.

He said to the Duke, “The Lord Abbot of Monaco, sir, in his return from Rome, lodged last night late in the city, very privately; and hearing the report of your journey, intends only to visit your Duchess tomorrow.”

The Lord Abbot of Monaco had heard the official — but false — report that the Duke had left on a journey to heal his troubled mind.

The Duke replied to Roderico D’Avolos, “Slave, torture me no more!”

He then said to the others about Roderico D’Avolos, “Look closely at him, my lords! If you would choose a devil in the shape of man, an arch-arch-devil, there stands one.”

Roderico D’Avolos had made the Duke a jealous man — jealous enough to murder his chaste wife.

The Duke then said, “We’ll meet our uncle.

“Order immediately, Petruchio, that our Duchess be coffined. It is our will that she at once be interred, with all the speed and privacy you can manage, in the collegiate-church among Caraffa’s — my family’s — ancient tombs.”

A collegiate-church is a church that is self-governed by non-monastic priests.

The Duke continued, “Some three days from now, we’ll hold her funeral.”

He said about Roderico D’Avolos, “Damned villain! Bloody villain!” 

He then moaned, “Oh, Bianca!”

Finally, he said this:

“No counsel from our cruel wills can win us. 

“But ills once done, we bear our guilt within us.” 

Everyone except Roderico D’Avolos exited.

He said after the others, “Good b’wi’ye!”

The phrase meant “May good be with all of you.”

He then repeated what the Duke had called him, “Arch-arch-devil!”

He then said, sarcastically, “Why, and this is how I am paid for my efforts. Here’s my bounty for good service! Curse my heart, but it is a very princely reward. Now I must say my prayers to thank God that I have lived to so ripe an age to have my head stricken off. 

“I cannot tell; I don’t know. It may be the case that my Lady Fiormonda will stand up on my behalf to the Duke, but that’s just a single, feeble hope.

“A disgraced courtier oftener finds enemies to sink him when he is falling than friends to relieve him.” 

A proverb stated, “In time of prosperity, friends will be plenty; in time of adversity, not one in twenty.”

He continued, “I must resolve to stand up to the danger and risk of all blows now. Come whatever may come, I will not die like a coward — and the world shall know it.” 

— 5.3 —

In another apartment in the palace, Roseilli took off part of his disguise in front of Fiormonda. He took off enough for her to know who he was.

“Don’t be dumbstruck, madam,” Roseilli said. “Here you see the man whom your disdain has metamorphosed. Thus long has my identity been clouded in this disguise, led on by love; and in that love, despair.”

How had her disdain for his love metamorphosed him? Had it caused him to assume the disguise of a natural fool? Or, after he had assumed that disguise, had her disdain for his love changed his love for her to something different from love? Or was the disdain he was referring to her disdain for Bianca and Bernardo? Had that disdain changed his love for her to something different from love?

He continued, “If neither the sight of our distracted court nor pity of my bondage cannot amend the greatness of your scorn, yet let me know my final judgment from you. How will you treat my love for you?”

“This is a strange miracle!” Fiormonda said. “Roseilli, I must honor thee. Thy constancy and righteousness, like a crystal-clear mirror and paragon, presents my errors to my reason. Noble lord, you who better deserves a better fate, forgive me. If my heart can entertain another thought of love, it shall be thine.”

“Blessed, forever blessed be the words!” Roseilli said. “In death you have revived me and brought me back to life.”

Roderico D’Avolos entered the room, saw Roseilli, and thought, Whom have we here? Roseilli, the supposed fool? It is he. So then, brazen face, help me!

Roderico D’Avolos realized that when Roseilli was disguised as a natural fool, he must have heard him plotting. Now D’Avolos was calling on his ability as a dissembler to keep himself out of trouble.

He began, “My honorable lord—”

“Stay away, bloodthirsty man!” Roseilli interrupted. “Don’t come near me.” 

Roderico D’Avolos said to Fiormonda, “Madam, I trust my service —” 

She interrupted, “Fellow, learn a new way to live: The way to thrift in grace for thee is a repentant shrift. If you want to live in grace, you need to confess and repent your sins.”

“Ill has thy life been, worse will be thy end,” Roseilli said. “Men fleshed in and inured to blood seldom know to amend.”

A servant entered.

The servant said to Fiormonda, “His highness commends his love to you, and awaits your presence; he is ready to pass to the church, only staying for my Lord Abbot of Monaco to join him.” 

Next the servant said, “In addition, his pleasure is that you, D’Avolos, do not attend this solemnity in the role of secretary, but you may be there as a private citizen.” 

The servant then said to Fiormonda, “Does it please you to go?” 

Everyone except Roderico D’Avolos exited.

“As a private citizen!” he said. “What can I do? This way they must come; and here I will stand, to fall among them in the rear.” 

A solemn strain of soft music began.

A procession was walking to the churchyard where Bianca would be entombed.

Some attendants carrying torches walked at the head of the procession.

Next came two Friars.

Then came the mourning Duke.

After him came the Abbot of Monaco, Fiormonda, Colona, Julia, Roseilli, Petruchio, Nibrassa, and a few guards.

Fernando was not in the procession.

Roderico D’Avolos joined the procession at the rear. 

When the procession reached the tomb, they all knelt. 

The Duke went to the tomb, and placed his hand on it. 

The music ceased.

“May peace and sweet rest sleep here!” the Duke said. “Let not the touch of this my impious hand profane the shrine of fairest purity, which hovers yet about those blessed bones entombed within. 

“If in the bosom of this sacred tomb, Bianca, thy disturbed ghost wanders about because it is not at rest, then look! I offer up the sacrifice of bleeding tears, tears of anguish shed from a faithful spring, pouring the offerings of a mourning heart to thee, offended spirit! I confess I am Caraffa. I am he, that wretched man, that butcher, who, in my enraged passion, slaughtered the living body of innocence and beauty. 

“Now I come to pay tribute to those wounds that I dug up, and reconcile the wrongs that my fury wrought and my contrition mourns. So chaste, so dear a wife has no man but I enjoyed, yet in the bloom and pride of all her years I untimely took her life. 

“Enough! Set open the tomb so that I may take my last farewell and bury my griefs with her.” 

The tomb was opened. Fernando, wearing a shroud, was inside, with only his face uncovered. He rose and said, “Stop! Who are thou who rudely presses into the confines of graves that ought to be left alone? Has death no privilege? Has death no immunity? Have thou, Caraffa, come to practice a kidnapping upon the dead?

“Inhuman tyrant! Whatever thou intend, know that this place is appointed for my inheritance. Here lies the monument of all my hopes.

“If eager lust had entrunked my conquered soul, I would not bury living joys in death — if eager lust was being satisfied in my soul that has been conquered by love, I would not now be burying living joys in this tomb.”

The word “entrunked” meant “entered my trunk” — that is, “entered my heart, aka my soul.”

If the Duke had died first, and Fernando and Bianca had married, then this tragedy would not have occurred.

Fernando continued, “Go, revel in thy palace, and be proud as you boast about thy notorious murders; let thy flattering, low-bowing parasites make thy act famous. Thou shall not come here.”

“Fernando, man of darkness, never until now, in the presence of these dread-inspiring sights, did I abhor thy friendship,” the Duke replied. “Thou have robbed my resolution of a glorious fame.”

The Duke called Fernando a “man of darkness” because 1) Fernando was literally in the darkness of a tomb, 2) Fernando was a man of death because he was ready to die in Bianca’s tomb, and 3) the Duke possibly regarded Fernando as a man of evil because he “robbed my resolution of a glorious fame.”

The Duke continued, “Come out of Bianca’s tomb, or by the thunder of my rage, I swear thou will die a death more fearful than the scourge of death can whip thee with.”

“The scourge of death!” Fernando said. “Poor Duke! Why, death is the target I shoot at. It is not threats — despite thy power, or the spite of hell — that shall tear away that honor from me. Let life-hugging — life-loving — slaves, whose hands are stained with blood and sin from butcheries like thine shake their souls with terror and be loath to die! 

“Look! I am already clothed in robes that are suitable for the grave.

“I pity thy defiance.” 

The Duke ordered, “Guards, lay hands on him and drag him out.”

“Yes, let them,” Fernando said. “Here’s my shield.”

A shield provides protection; Fernando held up something that would protect him from being dragged alive out of Bianca’s tomb.

He said, “Here’s a toast to victory!”

As the guards went to seize him, he drank a phial of quick-acting poison.

He said, “Now do thy worst.

“Farewell, Duke! For once and for all I have ran ahead of and outstripped thy plots. Not all the cunning, ingenious antidotes of the medical art can grant me another twelve minutes of my life. The poison works! It works already! Splendidly! Splendidly! Now, now I feel it tear each individual joint. Oh, royal poison! Trustworthy friend! Split, split both heart and gall asunder, you excellent bane and poison!”

In this society, gall was believed to be the source of bitterness. 

Fernando continued, “Roseilli, love my memory. 

“Well searched out, swift, nimble venom! Torture every vein of mine. 

“I am coming to you, Bianca.

“Cruel torment, feast, feast on, do.

“Duke, farewell. 

“Thus I ­… hot flames! … conclude my love — and seal it in my bosom!”

He died.

“This is a very desperate end to his life!” the Abbot of Monaco said. 

The death was both violent, and the Abbot regarded it as despairing — in the Christian sense of being without hope of Paradise. Suicide is a major sin in Catholicism, but some people may regard love-suicide as an ennobling act.

“No one move!” the Duke said. “Whoever steps a foot steps to his utter ruin.

“And are thou gone, Fernando? Are thou gone? 

“Thou were an unmatched friend; rest in thy fame.

“Sister, this is my testament: When I have finished my last days, lodge me, my wife, and this unequalled friend all in one tomb. 

“Now to my vows.” 

He meant the vows he had quietly made when he knelt after learning that his wife had not committed adultery and after he had been prevented from committing suicide.

He continued, “Never henceforth let any sorrowful tongue mention Bianca’s and Caraffa’s name, unless they let each letter in that tragic sound beget a sigh, and every sigh a tear. Children unborn, and widows whose lean cheeks are furrowed by age, shall weep whole nights, repeating just the story of our fates. While telling the end, closing up their tale, they must conclude with how, out of love for Bianca, Caraffa, in revenge of wrongs to her, thus on her altar sacrificed his life.”

He stabbed himself with the dagger that he had used to stab Bianca.

This was the fulfillment of his “resolution of a glorious fame.”

The Abbot of Monaco shouted, “Stop the Duke’s hand! Keep him from killing himself!” 

“Save my brother!” Fiormonda shouted. “Save him!”

“Do!” the Duke said sarcastically. “Try to save me!

“I was too willing to strike home to be thwarted. 

“Fools, why, could you dream I would outlive my outrageous act?

“Sprightly flood of blood, run out in rivers! 

“Oh, I wish that these thick streams could collect, acquire strength, and make a standing pool, so that jealous husbands here might bathe in blood!”

Some people in this society believed that blood could have redemptive power. Perhaps the Duke was wishing that if husbands bathed in his blood, they would be cured of jealousy.

In Matthew 26:28 Jesus states, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (King James Version).

The Duke continued, “So! I grow sweetly empty; may all the pipes of life unvessel my life — may all my veins and all my arteries empty out of my body my blood and life. 

“Now heavens, wipe out the writing of my sin in the Book of Life!”

Revelation 20:12 states, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works” (King James Version).

The Duke said, “Bianca, thus I creep to thee … to thee … to thee, Bi … an … ca.” 

He died.

“He’s already dead, madam,” Roseilli said to Fiormonda. 

Roderico D’Avolos thought, Here’s more than I could have hoped for! Here’s labor saved! I could bless the Destinies — the three Fates.

By “labor saved,” perhaps he meant that he didn’t have to kill the Duke himself, or perhaps he meant that he didn’t have to suffer any punishment for his ill deeds.

“I wish that I had never seen this!” the Abbot of Monaco said.

Fiormonda said, “Since this is how things have befallen, my Lord Roseilli, in the true requital of your continued love, I here possess you of the Dukedom, and with it of me, in the presence of this holy abbot.” 

The Abbot of Monaco held Roseilli’s hand and said to Fiormonda, “Then, lady, from my hand take your husband.”

He joined their hands together and said, “May you two long enjoy each to each other’s comfort and content!”

They were now legally married, and Roseilli was now legally ruler of Pavia.

All present cried, “Long live Roseilli!”

Using the majestic plural, Roseilli said, “First, we give thanks to Heaven. Next, lady, we give thanks to your love. Lastly, my lords, we give thanks to all. And we pray that our entrance into this position of prince may give fair hopes of our being worthy of our place.”

Then he said, “Our first work shall be justice. 

“D’Avolos, stand forth.”

Roderico D’Avolos began, “My gracious lord —”

Roseilli interrupted, “No, graceless villain! I am no lord of thine.”

He then ordered, “Guards, take him hence. Convey him to the prison’s top. In chains hang him alive.

“Whoever gives a bit of bread to feed him dies.”

He said to Roderico D’Avolos, “Speak not a word against this judgment, I will be deaf to mercy.”

He ordered the guards, “Bear him hence!”

Unrepentant, Roderico D’Avolos said sarcastically, “Mercy, new Duke.” 

In this situation and context, “mercy” meant “thanks.”

He added, “Here’s my comfort. I can take comfort in knowing that I make but one in the number of the tragedy of princes.”

The guards took him away.

Roseilli then said to Fiormonda, “Madam, a second responsibility is to perform your brother’s testament regarding his final wishes; we’ll build a tomb to those unhappy lovers, which shall tell the story of their fatal loves to all posterity. 

“And now, then, as for you: From this time forth, I here dismiss the mutual comforts of our marriage-bed.”

Their marriage would not be consummated.

He continued, “Learn to live a new kind of life. My vows shall stand unmoved. And since your life has been so very intemperate, resolve in a timely fashion to make your peace with Heaven.”

He was giving her the same advice that she had given to Roderico D’Avolos.

“Oh, me!” Fiormonda said. “Is this your love for me?”

“It is your desert,” Roseilli said. “It is what you deserve. No persuasion shall remove sentence of punishment.”

“This sentence is fitting,” the Abbot of Monaco said to Fiormonda. “Purge moral weakness with repentance.”

“I embrace this sentence,” Fiormonda said. “Happy too late, since lust has made me foul, from this time forth I’ll dress my bride-bed in my soul. My bride-bed shall be spiritual.”

“Does it please you to walk, Lord Abbot?” Roseilli asked the Abbot of Monaco. 

“Yes, set on,” the Abbot of Monaco replied. “No age has heard, and no historical chronicle can say, that ever here befell a sadder day.” 

NOTES

In this section, I quote lines from the play. The source is this:

Ford, John. Love’s Sacrifice. Ed. A. T. Moore. Manchester University Press, 2003.

— 1.1 —

In Act 1, Scene 1, Roderico D’Avolos says to Fernando:

If I misreport aught besides my knowledge, let me never have place in your good opinion. (1.1.230-231)

1) A note in The Annotated Popular Edition of LOVE’S SACRIFICE by John Ford (1633) states:

338: if I...knowledge = “if I am telling you anything (aught) which is outside of what I know to be true”. 

Source: The Annotated Popular Edition of LOVE’S SACRIFICE by John Ford (1633). <http://elizabethandrama.org/the-playwrights/john-ford/loves-sacrifice-by-john-ford/>.

The Elizabethan Drama website is copyrighted by Peter Lukacs.

2) I translate the passage in this book in this way:

If I misreport anything besides what I know is true, let me never have a place in your good opinion.

Certainly, Roderico D’Avolos is a dissembler, but here he may be telling the truth. “Misreport” can mean slander, and later he will slander Bianca, whom he probably knows to be true. Here in Act 1, scene 1, however, he is telling the truth about Fiormonda: She does love Fernando.

“Misreport” has these meanings according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

1) “To report (an event, action, statement, etc.) incorrectly; to give a false or inaccurate account of.”

2) “To give a false or inaccurate report.”

3) “To speak ill of; to slander.”

— 3.1 —

In Act 3, Scene 1, Ferentes says this to Morona:

Nay, if you’ll needs have the world know how you, reputed a grave, matron-like, motherly madam, kicked up your heels like a jennet whose mark is new come into her mouth, e’en do, do.” (3.1.111-114)

This information comes from the Encyclopaedia Britannica article of “Horse” in the section titled “Dentition”:

The incisors of each jaw are placed in close contact, forming a semicircle. The crowns are broad, somewhat awl-shaped, and of nearly equal size. They have all the great peculiarity, not found in the teeth of any other mammal, and only in the Equidae of comparatively recent geological periods, of an involution of the external surface of the tooth […], by which what should properly be the apex is carried deeply into the interior of the crown, forming a fossa or pit, the bottom of which becomes partially filled up with crusta petrosa or cementum. As the tooth wears, the surface, besides the external enamel layer as in an ordinary simple tooth, shows in addition a second inner ring of the same hard substance surrounding the pit, which of course adds greatly to the efficiency of the tooth as an organ for biting tough, fibrous substances. This pit, generally filled in the living animal with particles of food, is conspicuous from its dark colour, and constitutes the “mark” by which the age of the horse is judged, as in consequence of its only extending to a certain depth in the crown it becomes obliterated as the crown wears away, and then the tooth assumes the character of that of an ordinary incisor, consisting only of a core of dentine, surrounded by the external enamel layer. It is not quite so deep in the lower as in the upper teeth. 

[Bold added.]

Source:

The encyclopaedia britannica; a dictionary of arts, sciences, and general literature

by Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 1823-1887

Publication date 1878-89

Topics Encyclopedias and dictionaries

Publisher New York, C. Scribner’s sons

Collection cdl; americana

Digitizing sponsor MSN

Contributor University of California Libraries

Language English

Volume 12

https://archive.org/details/encyclopediabrit12newyrich/page/n8

— 3.2 —

In Act 3, Scene 2, Bianca says to Fernando, “Perhaps your teeth have bled,” (3.2.45)

John Ford’s Love’s Sacrifice was published in 1633, a time when bleeding gums would have been common.

The following anecdote about Michelangelo (1475-1564) appears on the online Lapham’s Quarterly website:

Lorenzo de’ Medici once observed a young sculptor complete the head of an old and wrinkled faun whose mouth he had rendered open. While astonished at the craftsmanship, Lorenzo pointed out that old men never have all their teeth. Once the great patron of the arts had left, the artist knocked out one of the teeth; when Lorenzo returned and saw the statue again, he was so taken with the new version that he decided to adopt the artist, whose name was Michelangelo.

[Bold is in the original online anecdote.]

Source: <https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/contributors/michelangelo>

Date Accessed: 15 February 2019

— 3.3 —

In Act 3, Scene 3, the Duke says this about Fernando:

And he, that villain, viper to my heart, (3.3.64)

Here is some information about vipers:

1) Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 10, 82): In mating, the male viper puts his head in the female’s mouth, and she in her ecstacy bites it off. The female bears the eggs inside her until they hatch; she then gives birth to one of them a day. Since she may bear up to twenty young, the ones not yet born become impatient and burst out of her sides, killing her.

Source: “Viper.” The Medieval Bestiary. Accessed 21 February 2019. <http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast267.htm>. This site is owned and maintained by David Badke in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Here is a translation of Pliny:

The male viper thrusts its head into the mouth of the female, which gnaws it in the transports of its passion. This, too, is the only one among the terrestrial animals that lays eggs within its body—of one colour, and soft, like those of fishes. On the third day it hatches its young in the uterus, and then excludes them, one every day, and generally twenty in number; the last ones become so impatient of their confinement, that they force a passage through the sides of their parent, and so kill her. 

Source: Pliny the Elder. The Natural History. Trans. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

The passage is located on the Perseus website:

<https://tinyurl.com/yxqvkoza>.

Here is an online Latin edition of Pliny’s Natural History:

<http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/home.html>.

2) This is one of Aesop’s Fables: 

21. The Farmer and the Snake (Perry 176)

ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. ‘Oh,’ cried the Farmer with his last breath, ‘I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.’ 

The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.

Source: George Fyler Townsend’s translation, first published in 1867.

Found on this website: Aesopica: Aesop’s Fables in English, Latin & Greek. Accessed 21 February 2019. <http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/townsend/21.htm>.

— 3.4 —

In Act 3, Scene 4, Roderico D’Avolos says, “Let him come and go, that matters nothing to this. Whiles he rides abroad in hope to purchase a purple hat, our duke shall as earnestly heat the pericranion of his noddle with a yellow hood at home.” (3.4.85-88)

1) Proverbial phrases listed in M.P. Tilley include these: 

• “A hood for this fool.”

• “The hood makes not the monk.” (Tilley C409)

2) A passage in Robert Greene’s play The Scottish History of James the Fourth states, “For the greatest clerks are not the wisest, and a fool may dance in a hood as well as a wise man in a bare frock.”

Source: Robert Greene, The Scottish History of James the Fourth. The Revels Plays. Editor: Norman Sanders. Act 3, Scene 2, lines 63-65.

3) The below information comes from the Wikipedia entry on “Haxey Hood”:

Haxey and Westwoodside lie in an area of North Lincolnshire known as the Isle of Axholme. The official story is that in the 14th century, Lady de Mowbray, wife of an Isle landowner, John De Mowbray, was out riding towardsWestwoodside on the hill that separates it from Haxey. As she went over the hill her silk riding hood was blown away by the wind. Thirteen farm workers in the field rushed to help and chased the hood all over the field. It was finally caught by one of the farm workers, but being too shy to hand it back to the lady, he gave it to one of the others to hand back to her. She thanked the farm worker who had returned the hood and said that he had acted like a Lord, whereas the worker who had actually caught the hood was a Fool. So amused was she by this act of chivalry and the resulting chase, that she donated 13 acres (53,000 m²) of land on condition that the chase for the hood would be re-enacted each year. This re-enactment over the centuries has become known as “The Haxey Hood”.

Source: “Haxy Hood.” Wikipedia. 

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haxey_Hood>.

Accessed 16 February 2019.

— 4.1 —

In Act 4, Scene 1, the Duke of Pavia says this:

Or all the fabling poets, dreaming whips; (4.1.104)

The reference is apparently to the Furies.

1) In Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Orestes says that Apollo’s oracle told him this:

[…] Apollo’s great oracle

surely will defend me. Its orders were

that I should undertake this danger. (line 270) 

It cried out in prophecy, foretelling

many winters of calamity would chill

my hot heart, if I did not take revenge

on those who killed my father. It ordered me

to murder them the way they murdered him,

insisting they could not pay the penalty (line 340) 

with their possessions. The oracle declared,

“If not, you’ll pay the debt with your own life,

a life of troubles.” It spoke a revelation,

making known to men the wrath of blood guilt—

from underneath the earth, infectious plagues,

leprous sores which gnaw the flesh, fangs chewing (line 280)

living tissue, festering white rot in the sores.

It mentioned other miseries as well—

attacks by vengeful Furies, stemming

from a slaughtered father’s blood, dark bolts (line 350) 

from gods below, aroused by murdered kinsmen

calling for revenge, frenzied night fits.

Such terrors plague the man—he sees them all

so clearly, eyeballs rolling in the dark.

Then he’s chased in exile from the city,

his body scourged by bronze-tipped whips. 

[Bold added.]

Source: Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers. Translator: Robert Johnson. 

<http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/aeschylus/libationbearershtml.html>.

2) Don Nardo writes, “Artists and writers usually depicted the Furies as flying creatures, sometimes carrying whips and torches with which to punish their victims.”

Source: Don Nardo, The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. Greenhaven Press, 2002. P. 130.

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX A: ABOUT THE AUTHOR

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a cry rang out, and on a hot summer night in 1954, Josephine, wife of Carl Bruce, gave birth to a boy — me. Unfortunately, this young married couple allowed Reuben Saturday, Josephine’s brother, to name their first-born. Reuben, aka “The Joker,” decided that Bruce was a nice name, so he decided to name me Bruce Bruce. I have gone by my middle name — David — ever since.

Being named Bruce David Bruce hasn’t been all bad. Bank tellers remember me very quickly, so I don’t often have to show an ID. It can be fun in charades, also. When I was a counselor as a teenager at Camp Echoing Hills in Warsaw, Ohio, a fellow counselor gave the signs for “sounds like” and “two words,” then she pointed to a bruise on her leg twice. Bruise Bruise? Oh yeah, Bruce Bruce is the answer!

Uncle Reuben, by the way, gave me a haircut when I was in kindergarten. He cut my hair short and shaved a small bald spot on the back of my head. My mother wouldn’t let me go to school until the bald spot grew out again.

Of all my brothers and sisters (six in all), I am the only transplant to Athens, Ohio. I was born in Newark, Ohio, and have lived all around Southeastern Ohio. However, I moved to Athens to go to Ohio University and have never left. 

At Ohio U, I never could make up my mind whether to major in English or Philosophy, so I got a bachelor’s degree with a double major in both areas, then I added a Master of Arts degree in English and a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy. Yes, I have my MAMA degree.

Currently, and for a long time to come (I eat fruits and veggies), I am spending my retirement writing books such as Nadia Comaneci: Perfect 10, The Funniest People in Dance, Homer’s Iliad: A Retelling in Prose, and William Shakespeare’s Othello: A Retelling in Prose.

By the way, my sister Brenda Kennedy writes romances such as A New Beginning and Shattered Dreams. 

John Ford's LOVE'S SACRIFICE: A Retelling (Free PDF)

SOME BOOKS BY DAVID BRUCE

(Lots of FREE PDFs)

RETELLINGS OF A CLASSIC WORK OF LITERATURE

Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/731768

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEHJnB1_5RpznJDgrdO9Fzkz0R5nqF6n/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s The Arraignment, or Poetaster: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1144681

https://anecdotesandmusic.wordpress.com/2022/05/02/david-bruce-ben-jonsons-the-arraignment-or-poetaster-a-retelling-free-pdf/

Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/759774

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SIoalHNdD99q9jKmXO3kVvh8ydxB4to8/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s The Case is Altered: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1112743

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WHn6mnGPDbZlTus6A644w0TCg_QoNDE4/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s Catiline’s Conspiracy: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1098400

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uQOLh10ExHMrx9z-P-5qUxaHc2CQTD0x/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s The Devil is an Ass: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/953165

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17vGtkBruVyQ09aeFtVStum9NCixZtfN1/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s Epicene: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1073045

Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humor: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1104946

Ben Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humor: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1121591

Ben Jonson’s The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia’s Revels: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1129496

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-fdVc1npRztXd35ghACIA5SMMo060w8b/view?usp=sharing

Ben Jonson’s The New Inn: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1081049

Ben Jonson’s The Staple of News: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1088627

Ben Jonson’s Volpone, or the Fox: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/745087

Christopher Marlowe’s Complete Plays: Retellings

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/911460

Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/871108

Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: Retellings of the 1604 A-Text and of the 1616 B-Text

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/824058

Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/904128

Christopher Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/880308

Christopher Marlowe’s The Rich Jew of Malta: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/909794

Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Parts 1 and 2: Retellings

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/890081

Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/238180

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16MC3INNAzLtjT4TqGtUmxBKYmp6Lnc5k/view?usp=sharing

Dante’s Inferno: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/89244

Dante’s Purgatory: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210951

Dante’s Paradise: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/238110

The Famous Victories of Henry V: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/781086

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yj-AAS0oRbapdSeAw33gg6k2il78N7Yu/view?usp=sharing

From the Iliad to the Odyssey: A Retelling in Prose of Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/287203

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hRMimR9VchgFI7q5nBKmE6udiotCzq7c/view?usp=sharing

George Peele’s The Arraignment of Paris: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/942964

George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar: A Retelling 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1006013

George’s Peele’s David and Bathsheba, and the Tragedy of Absalom: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/993326

George’s Peele’s Edward I: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1061540

George Peele’s The Old Wives’ Tale: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/918341

George-A-Greene, The Pinner of Wakefield: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1108197

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18MYbD9wENgFqSMC_s-PijXsorVQguFWx/view?usp=sharing

The History of King Leir: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/800724

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MdkCVAtxuWZrgkCNMwrJ2uDLNDwjnFBk/view?usp=sharing

Homer’s Iliad: A Retelling in Prose

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/264676

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tiAjtd5a6Qil0FHIss2UpCEacizaij3/view?usp=sharing

Homer’s Odyssey: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87553

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rn5b3A6TFJngdZ_DC0daL9jZBToiSy-P/view?usp=sharing

Jason and the Argonauts: A Retelling in Prose of Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/337653  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11fFWYrzu_YBK_Zb8aYQkYDvj5tDjSYPw/view?usp=sharing

The Jests of George Peele: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1064210

John Ford: Eight Plays Translated into Modern English

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/989979

John Ford’s The Broken Heart: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/792090

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PVkKm5BxBYE8uUY9IzcjdEQZ5ipGmxlm/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s The Fancies, Chaste and Noble: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/989291

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19JQQmLv_b3Oy3N3yhRpQM0b5ymAFh_zy/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s The Lady’s Trial: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/985699

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16F0PoPepXJJAX2RBn2lVK1Apvp6gwO9g/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s The Lover’s Melancholy: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/946285

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DTu7EkdqS8PEuljstF4KMnW9d3S5CiXc/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s Love’s Sacrifice: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/925020

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aE9jUQfe3e4acoJ63kIaqY57Mi9hrJja/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s Perkin Warbeck: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/937190

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14GOL5rPf6lcYb-e7ml9_BDzcFufbPjo1/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s The Queen: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/930049

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14GOL5rPf6lcYb-e7ml9_BDzcFufbPjo1/view?usp=sharing

John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/771031

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V9aUtdKeYWY6DRoVimK-Vq6J8a6DL9JN/view?usp=sharing

John Webster’s The White Devil: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1000808

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19zCtHbfGVamswILTd8MUDWC1pabCUEs8/view?usp=sharing

King Edward III: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/814530

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_gqk9Es--Qvi8EjqY_4OztVsCiVJcQ0j/view?usp=sharing

The Merry Devil of Edmonton: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/957047

Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/915455

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bX1a4cbdne38rgJ2sy4A4_8SIQ_ljnCW/view?usp=sharing

The Taming of a Shrew: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1052341

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10FsrQNk4Z1TAbiW_5VCD303VnEZqR6tP/view?usp=sharing

Tarlton’s Jests: A Retelling

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/772884

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QcGqnBsSPsRdPwctADo6DytHqZSyDMkG/view?usp=sharing

The Trojan War and Its Aftermath: Four Ancient Epic Poems

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/486330

Virgil’s Aeneid: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/277646

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yl8jYM0EJwB99WnoNlZRQEIms6UJIpFW/view?usp=sharing

William Shakespeare’s 5 Late Romances: Retellings in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/724666

William Shakespeare’s 10 Histories: Retellings in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/776868

William Shakespeare’s 11 Tragedies: Retellings in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/776890

William Shakespeare’s 12 Comedies: Retellings in Prose

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/715562

William Shakespeare’s 38 Plays: Retellings in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/777062

William Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, aka Henry IV, Part 1: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/396839

William Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV, aka Henry IV, Part 2: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/502075

William Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI, aka Henry VI, Part 1: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/675826

William Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI, aka Henry VI, Part 2: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/687115

William Shakespeare’s 3 Henry VI, aka Henry VI, Part 3: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/694202

William Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/660279

William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/561440

William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/411180

William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/474177

William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/651995

William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/607757

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/521558

William Shakespeare’s Henry V: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/494583

William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/702433

William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/417297

William Shakespeare’s King John: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/667943

William Shakespeare’s King Lear: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/549148

William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/640495

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/371976

William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/530136

William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/485384

William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/510046

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/389517

William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/432053

William Shakespeare’s Othello: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/469501

William Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/588726

William Shakespeare’s Richard II: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/633694

William Shakespeare’s Richard III: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/598141

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/385811

William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/424622

William Shakespeare’s The Tempest: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/437521

William Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/626171

William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/569421

William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/617533

William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/404123

William Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/575743

William Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/712849

William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale: A Retelling in Prose 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/539561

OTHER FICTION

Candide’s Two Girlfriends (Adult)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/247531

The Erotic Adventures of Candide (Adult)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/249299

Honey Badger Goes to Hell — and Heaven

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/306009

I Want to Die — Or Fight Back

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/83479  

“School Legend: A Short Story”

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1123252

“Why I Support Same-Sex Civil Marriage”

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/34568

CHILDREN’S BIOGRAPHY

Nadia Comaneci: Perfect Ten

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/96982

PERSONAL FINANCE

How to Manage Your Money: A Guide for the Non-Rich

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/469305

ANECDOTE COLLECTIONS

250 Anecdotes About Opera

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/310277

250 Anecdotes About Religion

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106782

250 Anecdotes About Religion: Volume 2

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106861

250 Music Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/427367

Be a Work of Art: 250 Anecdotes and Stories

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/105419

Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/156495

The Coolest People in Art: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/97814

The Coolest People in the Arts: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/159914

The Coolest People in Books: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98030

The Coolest People in Comedy: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98364

Create, Then Take a Break: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254240

Don’t Fear the Reaper: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98212

The Funniest People in Art: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99002

The Funniest People in Books: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99313

The Funniest People in Books, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/105652

The Funniest People in Books, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/105939

The Funniest People in Comedy: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99159

The Funniest People in Dance: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/98588

The Funniest People in Families: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108542

The Funniest People in Families, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108809

The Funniest People in Families, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108821

The Funniest People in Families, Volume 4: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108830

The Funniest People in Families, Volume 5: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108841

The Funniest People in Families, Volume 6: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108857

The Funniest People in Movies: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/34647

The Funniest People in Music: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100442

The Funniest People in Music, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100473

The Funniest People in Music, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100544

The Funniest People in Neighborhoods: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106442

The Funniest People in Relationships: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108060

The Funniest People in Sports: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107239

The Funniest People in Sports, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107576

The Funniest People in Television and Radio: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106234

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/104257

The Funniest People Who Live Life: 250 Anecdotes 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107847

The Funniest People Who Live Life, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108564

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds, Volume 1: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/34822

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35011

Maximum Cool: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/97550

The Most Interesting People in Movies: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108582

The Most Interesting People in Politics and History: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108392

The Most Interesting People in Politics and History, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108398

The Most Interesting People in Politics and History, Volume 3: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108422

The Most Interesting People in Religion: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107097

The Most Interesting People in Sports: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/107857

The Most Interesting People Who Live Life: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108598

The Most Interesting People Who Live Life, Volume 2: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/108801

Reality is Fabulous: 250 Anecdotes and Stories

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/209963

Resist Psychic Death: 250 Anecdotes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/97267

Seize the Day: 250 Anecdotes and Stories

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/96869

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE MASSES

Philosophy for the Masses: Ethics

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/374071

Philosophy for the Masses: Metaphysics and More

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/374629

Philosophy for the Masses: Religion

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376026

DISCUSSION GUIDE SERIES

Dante’s Inferno: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/342391

Dante’s Paradise: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/345337

Dante’s Purgatory: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/344723

Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/340944

Homer’s Iliad: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/364356

Homer’s Odyssey: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/360552

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/352848

Jerry Spinelli’s Maniac Magee: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/339978

Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/340610

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/352048

Lloyd Alexander’s The Black Cauldron: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/339002

Lloyd Alexander’s The Book of Three: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/339120

Lloyd Alexander’s The Castle of Llyr: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/338589

Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/339720

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/350434

Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/348104

Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/351719

Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/349030

Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/339564

Nicholas Sparks’ A Walk to Remember: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/356224

Virgil, “The Fall of Troy”: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/356868

Virgil’s Aeneid: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/358529

Voltaire’s Candide: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/346971

William Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/355953

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/354870

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/355465

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/354231

William Sleator’s Oddballs: A Discussion Guide

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353345

***

GOOD DEEDS SERIES (PLURAL)

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qQ-aJ4kjGQti20c3G2CPm1zile51Yd-5/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h1ZaZEixmzjGLHI5_57AwTFuQ02g8lL3/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12iOTDEzHV6P576LGAijcPQgpt1ogax0R/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z0-CAMz-4ulX29CAIHNU16Z912eNqt-v/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 5

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y7DlPdu-eZwA23gEHPT2YWMT0W5r8eu7/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 6

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zHZv2iTHQnbVY0n_LihTWXKOvUr4_hyr/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

The Kindest People Who Do Good Deeds: Volume 7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FSCTtviio4xrX7e07-OuAgYpxmWlIPuk/view?usp=sharing

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com/4

***

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 1

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GfiQMNnQ4G0CHGt1AZQQIPODV596k30j/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OHcETsSaWbIhFPIZWeW0laO6mdHVbcph/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XZCFlAWhtXPnf35OGlUoh991i05D0Bs0/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cj8yIDLmFFG6dGzLpoVE3RrQ3-LhKV0d/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 5

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LxqLrwm898Chg3mnRY2NiGZA4FkFdOXR/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 6

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PmAxX5C-viQF0GfIpsM7mTtsyQ9lfm8J/view?usp=sharing

You’ve Got to Be Kind: Volume 7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bq_SmSf4rsWdtqA7p0kN9tJ5ip3gqEht/view?usp=sharing

***

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 1)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FqbObI95XKwIr1QWn0lBFDSNsIENTR9B/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 2)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QWF5bRarJBauD7Qdb-_99K9UuQBL_fZ7/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 3)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gUUA4ms-CX7BvVlOaNmpYswPN-eBfKIa/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 4)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BXLhqmY1qOEaF4u5IMRpSCm7H6jy2mj_/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 5)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Pks6XXM4T-r_r4cBBSmUIlP0jARS8i-0/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 6)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ohXsEp79jwf8OdlIXI7I3nPIotjX5wWb/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 7)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_orz__RY0T3A-kpa7fpbS8koDwp0I91p/view?usp=sharing

***

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 1)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13X4KOLTIvPVwSBo1ijX0aJABB8wbgZyT/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 2)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wbRuc4G0EdFeM4UVWk6LwbxDKkF19T2s/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 3)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ksyO9KnAJ6yGpK5CNMY12Ry9HTQ9vxm1/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 4)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NuAM7qAb_XLRGHxUTMLrm2PhOfjU7Fk8/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 5)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T5HB-AwL4S61aj4lLK3K5Q0ulgQbarR7/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 6)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYx6MyYI9YY_RKCv3nUZnENwv0jIxfRn/view?usp=sharing

The Kindest People: Heroes and Good Samaritans (Volume 7)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I8aphNRXnok_slWALv8s8TjJ344sZVml/view?usp=sharing

***

COMPOSITION PROJECTS

Composition Project: Writing an Autobiographical Essay

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1138445

Composition Project: Writing a Hero-of-Human-Rights Essay

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/481598

Composition Project: Writing a Problem-Solving Letter

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1138745

TEACHING

How to Teach the Autobiographical Essay Composition Project in 9 Classes

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487660

***

IT’S A WONDERFUL WORLD SERIES (Stories and Anecdotes and Opinions)

It’s a Wonderful World: Volumes 1-7

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog429065578.wordpress.com/690

***

THE RELATIONSHIP BOOKS SERIES

The Relationship Books (Volume 1-8)

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog429065578.wordpress.com/674

BE KIND AND BE USEFUL SERIES (Stories and Anecdotes and Opinions)

Be Kind and Be Useful: Volumes 1-4)

https://wordpress.com/page/davidbruceblog429065578.wordpress.com/686

***

BRUCE’S MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS SERIES

Bruce’s Music Recommendations: Volumes 1-8

https://anecdotesandmusic.wordpress.com/2022/04/26/bruces-music-recommendations-free-pdfs/

***

davidbruceblog #1

http://davidbruceblog.wordpress.com/

davidbruceblog #2

https://davidbrucemusic.wordpress.com

davidbruceblog #3

https://cosplayvideos.wordpress.com

davidbruceblog #4

https://davidbruceblog4.wordpress.com

David Bruce Books: Free PDFs

davidbrucebooks: EDUCATE YOURSELF

https://davidbruceblog429065578.wordpress.com

Anecdotes, Arts, Books, and Music

https://anecdotesandmusic.wordpress.com

George Peele: English Dramatist

https://georgepeeleenglishdramatist.wordpress.com

David Bruce’s Books at Blogspot

https://davidbrucebooks.blogspot.com

David Bruce’s Books at WIX

https://bruceb22.wixsite.com/website/blog

David Bruce’s Books at Smashwords

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bruceb

David Bruce’s Books at Apple Books

https://itunes.apple.com/ie/artist/david-bruce/id81470634

David Bruce’s Books at Kobo 

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=david%20bruce&fcsearchfield=Author

David Bruce’s Books at Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22David%20Bruce%22;jsessionid=D4DEC0519518F94804E91EDDBB9A431F.prodny_store02-atgap06?Ntk=P_key_Contributor_List&Ns=P_Sales_Rank&Ntx=mode+matchall