text:
How to meditate

Meditation is profound rest.

In practise this means establishing an inner silence and a relaxed state within oneself. The purpose of this article is to clearly explain how this inner silence and relaxed state is achieved without invoking any particular religious or philosophical discipline.

In teaching, one person attempts to pass on an understanding to others. In what follows, I assume the reader has no prior knowledge of meditation. So everything is expressed in simple statements (to the best of my ability). However, my remarks are also directed to the experienced practitioner who perhaps might already have a good grasp of the many different approaches to meditation.

The purpose of each small section is to 'clip the wave-tops' of the many facets of meditation. I am attempting to alert the reader to the various aspects which need to be addressed and to show how they weave into the major theme.

For those who would like to see this as a video presentation (edited for brevity) this is the YouTube link:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86wn_j9WDEg

The essence of these few pages is this:-

When a person accepts and integrates their emotional experience, their mind is naturally quiet.

There are 3 core aspects to Meditation.

 * Ethics
 * Emotions
 * Generosity

Emotions
The central path to successful meditation practice is through understanding one's emotions. Every thought begins as an experience. Each experience creates feelings and emotions within us. From these feelings, thoughts will arise. This is natural and desirable. However, it is a problem if thinking becomes disordered, obsessive or out of control. A highly distressing, emotionally charged experience can often take some time to 'get over'. It is undesirable that endless troubled thinking be the result of a traumatic event.

The most common reason a person begins practising meditation is to 'relax'. The qualities of the person's motive determine how deeply they pursue meditation. If relaxation is your goal, then once you achieve a suitable degree of comfort, that is where your effort is also likely to relax. The most far reaching motive is curiosity.

Ethics
Ethics plays an essential role in meditation. Assume for a moment that you are neither 'enlightened' nor 'perfect'. Assume also that you are driven by unresolved emotional conflicts, various insecurities, and lashings of youthful hormones. How reliably noble are your decisions and actions? To impose upon oneself the highest conceivable ethical code is a protection against regret. Like everything else, one's understanding of what is ethical will evolve and mature over time.

How does one become an ethical person? The answer is one chooses to be so.

When we are young it is normal to follow the examples set for us by our parents and peers. If our parents are selfish and lacking in courtesy we also act selfishly. As we mature and grow in our capacity for self awareness we become more able to think for ourselves. Meditation greatly aids the process of developing self awareness. Hopefully, we reach that point where we no longer act purely based on the influence of others but instead become self directing.

As a self aware individual, one can choose to develop one's capacity for ethical behaviour; not for some reward but for its own sake.

Generosity
Generosity is also indispensable. There is a great deal of self confrontation involved in meditation. One's vanity is the greatest of obstacles. If you want to highlight your subtly expressed prejudice, selfishness and other conceits, then practise generosity. Meditation enjoys pride of place in several religions and philosophies for good reason; in its highest aspect it is about self transcendence.

How to begin
Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a meditation technique. The direct path of meditating is to establish a mental silence and maintain that state for some duration of time. However, this usually is impossible in the beginning. To acquire the necessary skills a technique is usually offered. There are any number of techniques, but they do vary in their value and application.

We can all relate to the phrase 'talking to oneself'. We are perhaps less aware that we are engaged in a non stop reverie. Seldom are we called upon to focus intently. The first attempt to meditate usually highlights the fact that our mind is 'going' all the time. This first experience is enough to put some people 'off' altogether; not only is the mind chattering incessantly, but also it cannot be made to stop. This is the stream of consciousness. A meditation technique is about gaining some initial control of it.

Some control is gained by enforcing restrictions on the range of topics one might contemplate. So, typically, a meditation technique will require one to pay attention to some detail of experience.

Techniques vary in degrees of difficulty. A person who is very easily distracted might start with chanting, as an example. In ancient India, the 'Guru' might have asked the student to endlessly repeat the name of some revered deity. If the student is deeply distressed, or otherwise completely unable to 'concentrate', chanting some God's name, to which the individual has an emotional attachment, might be the only way to get them started. But once the person starts to succeed with this it will be necessary to graduate them on, to subtler tasks. The general progression will be towards more abstract and less conceptual objects to focus on. The essence of techniques is to alert the meditator to the fact they are deeply fascinated by their own stream of consciousness. The initial sign of progress is the person has become more aware of their stream of consciousness and is less habitually drawn into it.

Before plunging into a sea of options and a mass of detail about techniques, it is important to examine the definition of meditation. Without a concise and well understood definition how is it possible to gauge one's progress or be confident one's effort has merit?

Three questions stand out. Is 'profound rest' the only definition? Is that a valid definition? Is such a thing even possible [i.e. inner silence]?

There is an array of definitions, each with its proponents. Several religions apply the label meditation to some of their practices. The general sense is the 'surrender' [obedience] to God [or Gods]. The aim is to enjoy greater affinity with God. Then there are philosophical systems which employ meditation. In the context of an analysis of life, the guiding principle is to identify the facts of life and to harmonize oneself with them and thereby to enjoy happiness and fulfillment, or, find one's place in the World and live a life of meaning, or,  escape distress. There are egocentric conceptions in which people seek to exert their will over the World, the belief being entertained that by performing some set of rituals, personal powers can be obtained and one can enjoy an exulted life. These are competing ideas and also they are mutually exclusive.

I might defend 'profound rest' as the superior definition by claiming it as a common and essential component in all of the above examples. But this is a weak tactic. Not only will it fail to convince, it enters into the centuries old [and still unresolved] debates of comparative philosophy/religion. Much better to argue the point from the internal logic ingrained in the idea.

The key to it is motive. If your aim is to relax, then, clearly rest is what you want. Inner silence? Surely you are plagued by anxiety, ceaseless worry, tension and distress. Profound rest is the promise of reprieve. On the other hand, raw curiosity might drive you. You are determined to understand yourself. If your attention is irrevocably fixated on the passing parade of thoughts and images in the mind, which after all are only the final results of a deep and largely unconscious process, it will be difficult in the extreme to progress. A multitude of causes could produce a cascade of thoughts. Establishing an inner silence is a way to tackle the task.

So, inner silence, is such a thing possible? Thoughts and mental images have causes. They do not spring from nowhere, there are reasons and contexts. Introspection, reveals and confirms, that all thought is accompanied by emotion. Even when we engage in abstract thinking, a close examination will still uncover some emotional driver for beginning that particular train of thought in the first place. The assertion I make here is emotion [and feelings] is, in fact, the underlying cause of thought. We experience, this experience is felt and we go on to think about it. All very natural, no problem here, and certainly a process you would not want to dispense with. But there is another way to integrate experience. We are now entering the field of meditation.

Periodically focusing attention on one's internal emotional [feeling] state is to train oneself in non-conceptual awareness. Thoughts and images are conceptions formed in the mind, it is the 'stuff' of thinking. By such a process we can freely associate, compare, measure and form an internal model of the World. But, useful as it is, it has limitations. All concepts can only be understood and rendered useful in terms of other concepts. Learning and understanding is built upon realization. [We experience a series of 'aha' moments] Realization is non-conceptual. We form concepts based upon our realizations. In suspending the usual stream of consciousness [the habitual reverie] observation is less conditioned by prior experience. The prospects for new insights and realizations are maximized. Yes, inner silence is possible. The path to it is via the emotions.

Techniques
What I want to discuss is how a meditation technique 'works'.

There are several diverse techniques which all claim to be meditation. A technique is not meditation. It is a tool and just as different tools serve different functions each technique produces a different result. A further complication is most techniques are embedded in some religious or philosophical context which means there are assumptions and agendas that impose upon and bias the interpretation of any results which come from the practise of those techniques.

As a generalization a technique is an attempt to make something happen. It is this aspect of things which creates many unnecessary problems. The range of things invented which claim to be a meditation technique is as wide as the human imagination. Visualization, chanting, rhythmic movement, sensory deprivation, exposure to extreme heat or extreme cold, lucid dreaming, adopting a variety of physical stress positions, self flagellation, listening to sound frequencies, vocalizing different sound frequencies, autosuggestion and so on.

The attraction of these techniques is they each manufacture a result or an experience which can be intense in character. The simple fact of the matter is all that is happening is the person has engaged in distorting the normal functioning of their senses. Extreme practices produce extreme results. To the extent that they might qualify as meditation it is no more than exploring the limits of one's cognitive functioning.

Among the variety of techniques there are some which can lead to the accidental discovery of genuine meditation.

The most widely adopted techniques tend to be of the sensory deprivation category. Typical of such techniques is the person will sit for lengthy periods in a quiet darkened room and attempt to control their attention span by focusing on a single task. This task can be visual, purely conceptual or tactile. The common feature is a narrowing of the range of consciously experienced sense stimuli. This approach has the effect of sublimating much of the usual consciously experienced mental activity and results in mimicking the condition of the mind when it is untroubled by habitual concerns. It is valuable for the person to discover that such states of mind exist but all too frequently they do not progress beyond this point. Instead the usual outcome is people strive to repeat the experiences by ever more arduous application of the meditation technique.

The agreeable experiences of an untroubled mind come about when the disturbances have been sublimated. A person transitions from practising a technique to actually meditating when they turn their efforts to bringing the causes of those disturbances to conscious awareness and investigating them. This leads to comprehension; a possible resolution and eradication of such disturbances. Endlessly practising the meditation technique mostly serves to keep those disturbances sublimated and hidden from view. Once a person understands that serene conditions of mind are possible and available to them the technique has done its job and it should be abandoned.

Meditation is a very simple thing. When all the fluff and nonsense is stripped away, all that is required is a person makes themselves comfortable, maintains mental alertness and simply relaxes. A beginner can remain that way for only a relatively short time before they start to feel agitated. It is that agitation which is the value of the practice, it is the subliminal internal state coming into conscious awareness. Simply finding the way to relax further leads one to a deeper self awareness and eventually a greater self understanding. That is meditation in a nutshell.

This article tackles the essential problem of meditation... how to bring the mind to silence. To attain a state of rest one has to resolve all inner conflicts within one's self. It might seem that would be the final goal of meditation but in fact this is the beginning of meditation. I offer the definition of meditation as profound rest... it is what comes of abiding in that state of rest that is the benefit of the practice.

I am adamant that the key to the practice is to recognize how one's feelings and emotions are at the heart of the matter.

Progress
Progress will mean different things to different people. There is a great deal of hurt and pain in this World. Some of us live in a peaceful place and there is always food on our plate. For others life is harsh. Everybody's life is different, everybody's mind is different and, for those who take up meditation, everybody's practice is different.

Meditation is profound rest and that rest is won by reconciling one's emotional conflicts and accepting. Everyone finds it a difficult task and it takes years. Some people have suffered dreadful trauma, for them it is arduous but patience, practise and time will bring the result.

One progresses in ethics and generosity as well. We are a social creature. Our well-being is adversely impacted in times of social upheaval. We all want peace in the World, but it seems always to elude us. There is a straightforward path to peace. We negotiate a lasting peace when we can trust the other and we come to trust the other when we have confidence in their ethical standards. You can know this intellectually and that gives rise to a sentimental sort of ethics, a rule-book, legalistic approach. As you progress in meditation practice one comes to recognize, with ever greater force, how emotional betrayal damages well-being. It gets into your bones that you do not want to perpetrate these crimes. This is ethics based upon realization and it is much sterner and reliable stuff. Similarly with generosity. Within yourself you see deeper into the connection between your emotional state and your actions. You learn to accept and forgive yourself and you are able to bless others with the same courtesy.

Practical matters
How much practise should you do? I would answer this question with another question. How often should you hug your kids? My answer here is, when you need to and when you want to.

What about sitting position? There is no such thing as a magical sitting position. The requirement is to be suitably comfortable. A practical difficulty is maintaining a consistent level of alertness. Sitting in the middle of the room, with your legs tucked up under you in some fashion and no back support has its advantages. But, it is worth remembering that meditation basically comes to us from the East, where sitting on the floor is the most natural thing in the World. If the cultural gift had gone the other way, from West to East, there would be a brisk trade in meditation chairs.

What about joining a group? That is your judgement call. It is like going to a party. Some parties seem to start well, but by 3 am we are talking to the cops. Other parties go on for days and we all stay friends. Inevitably though, there is always the appropriate time to leave.

It is common to fall asleep while trying to meditate.

Exercise is a good idea. Believe it or not, meditation can be physically demanding. It takes energy and effort. You do not get much from your practice when you are sick.

What about a teacher? If you have a truly open mind, everybody is your teacher. The great teacher is life.

Extremes
For those of you who are familiar with the literature of meditation, you will be aware that littered throughout are reports of exotic experiences. There is 2500 years worth of accumulated writings which are about meditation or related topics. Pick any century and pick any culture, you will find some example. Prior to that was the oral history and it is anybody's guess how far back that might go. The lure of the exotic attracts some people and that is their reason to practise. Consequently, they exert themselves to their limits.

Well, here is the problem. We do have limits. Push yourself past those limits and normal internal functioning will be stressed and distorted. You will get some vivid experiences alright. But, how useful are they? Think about the near death experience as an example. I think it is reasonable to assume dying is accompanied by internal stress of great magnitude. If the person is pulled back from the brink, should we be surprised that they report very unusual things, once they revive? Philosophically, the problem is this; are these experiences reliable indications of a another facet of life, normally beyond the reach of the senses, or are they mind created events [hallucination]? You might have an opinion, but, it is no easy matter to be certain either way.

In the course of a long life of practise, perhaps you will have strange and inexplicable moments. If so, you will be faced with the same dilemma. Was that real or did I just hallucinate? Think about this. When we sleep, we dream. While we are dreaming, the strong tendency is to be fully absorbed and to experience the dream as real. Our mind, somehow, creates an entire reality. When we wake, we immediately know the difference. The mind seems to have no trouble at all in creating the bizarre. Better that such an event, if it occurs, happens in the context where stress plays no part. Certainly, you will be left with things to consider.

Something needs to be said about the psychology of meditation practice when it comes to experiencing a variety of trance states and the like. Upon experiencing something unusual the strong tendency is for the person to become self impressed. As an example, one might experience seeing a bright light as the result of an intense period of practise. The problem arises when a meaning is attached to the experience. Depending upon the context, one might imagine it is an experience of the divine if it occurred while praying or enlightenment if experienced while meditating. This is only one example, there are several unusual states. The common mistake is the same, people frequently believe something "special" has happened. Certainly such things are interesting but the hazard is they can feed one's ego and compound one's delusions.

Compassion
Nobody realistically expects young children to be acutely aware of the needs of others. Day to day experience demonstrates, adults vary in their willingness and ability to see things from another's point of view. In formal meditation practice, a lot of our reverie is largely 'thinking' about ourselves. If you confirm that particular discovery within yourself, it is a good bet, that is what you are doing most of the time.

Philosophical musings
It seems a simple activity; sitting still. You might come upon this scene. An elderly person, perhaps dressed as a monk, in a traditional setting. Maybe they started just last week and there they sit, a lifetime of experience and event swirling within. On the other hand, perhaps they have been practising for many, many years. Long ago, they made peace with themself and they made peace with the World. Now they are examining the nature of consciousness itself; attempting to meaningfully answer the question, "what am I?". No, just by looking it is impossible to tell; all you see is somebody sitting still. The casual observer might view the scene, think it quaint and walk on; content with the opinion, you have seen one person meditating, you have seen them all.

The thing of importance I should explain is how I treat meditation in the context of 'spiritual growth'. To my mind, if such a term does have any meaning, it is along the lines of one's ability to appreciate life. A nice way to illustrate my meaning is cute baby animals. Almost everyone finds delight in the wide eyed, open expressions of young animals. People treasure happy baby photos. That innocence stays with some people, in their demeanor, for all of their life and it is a true richness. Spiritual growth, in my opinion, is an ever increasing capacity to appreciate life.

Expectations
The hardest thing to perceive is that which is not there.

Meditation is a deeply philosophical undertaking. There are countless exotic tales of mystics who have experienced wondrous things by their practise of meditation. So, naturally enough, people can approach the topic hoping to gain 'something' from it.

It is the things within oneself which are lacking which are the most difficult to perceive. We more easily see the shortcomings of others. It is great and valuable to recognize one's own shortcomings. To comprehend one's own fear, to notice how one's perception is coloured by culture and peer prejudice, to consciously understand how one has been molded by experience and environment; this is the stuff of true 'self transcendence'.

But more than this, to see that which you do not possess; this is truly wondrous. Simple human emotional warmth, selfless love, contentment and peace of mind are all things one might unconsciously acquire if one lived in a World where one was surrounded and immersed in such things. It would be these things which influence us and shape our minds. But for most of us these are the things which are 'not there' and so are the most difficult to perceive. If one does perceive such things one can embody those traits and make them one's own.

Results
It is a reasonable question to ask ... how can a person become aware of their own emotions and then integrate them? Also ... what does that even mean?

If a person is suffering emotional pain that will also be accompanied by physical tension. The simple event of physical relaxation will bring about the gradual conscious arising of the emotional experience, to which the person is otherwise numb. This, necessarily, means that suppressed and possibly highly traumatic emotions will vividly come to the surface. A willingness to be accepting and to allow this process to unfold, to its completion, is an attribute one has to cultivate. Once the emotions have been consciously experienced the related symptoms of tension will gradually subside.

The best explanation I can think of, to describe integration ... that is when the events and the associated emotions no longer remain uppermost, or hidden, in one's daily life. An event can be said to be fully integrated when the only time one thinks about it is when one is reminded of it and the remembrance of it is not a cause for refreshing the distress.

Meditation is actually quite a natural process. It relies upon automatic corrective mechanisms which seem inbuilt into the psyche.

The ultimate result which comes from regular practise of meditation, over the course of the years, is one abides with a mind which is unencumbered, resilient, flexible and open. A person comes into full possession of their innate faculties.

To conclude ... Meditation is profound rest.

= A suggested way to proceed =

Meditation in 7 words:-

Close your eyes, relax and stay awake.

Close your eyes.... this internalizes your attention,

relax... this mimics the natural state,

and stay awake... maintaining mental alertness (the essential ingredient).

Most people already have settled upon their preferred approach and l in no way wish to interfere. However, l offer this for your consideration. There are many different ideas about meditation. In my opinion, the most useful aim is to bring the subconscious into conscious awareness. This l contend is the path to genuine self understanding.

I further think that finding the most natural way to proceed is much to be preferred. Are complicated philosophies and arduous practices really necessary... I think not. As we go through life we gradually better understand ourselves, each other and the World in general. It is an entirely natural process. The more meditation, as a deliberate activity, conforms to a natural way the more reliable and sane the results will be.

title: How to meditate


text: User talk:Mommy Of Four0927

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User talk:Mommy Of Four0927


text: User:Mommy Of Four0927

title: User:Mommy Of Four0927


text:
User talk:Marcus Zerbini

 Hello Marcus Zerbini, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --HappyCamper 04:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Your comment
Hi - just a note about the comment you left - I moved it to the Colloquium, here: Colloquium, because you seemed to have accidentally dropped it on the end of a discussion about Global Bans. The Colloquium is a noticeboard for questions, comments or suggestions about Wikiversity, which seemed like a better place to get some responses. Hope I didn't confuse you at all. Begoon  -  talk 12:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Marcus Zerbini


text:
Grub composting

Grub composting uses black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) to convert food waste or manure, into compost and grubs. Please read the section on Composting with BSFL for an overview. This resource page is created for documenting research into how to design grub bins for use as mesophilic composters, thermophilic composters/sanitizers, composting toilets, or decontamination composters (for removing toxic elemets).

Research questions and goals are as follows:
 * How efficient is a bin design at harvesting the BSFL prepupae?
 * How well do bin designs regulate moisture for the type of waste being processed?
 * Use inexpensive/common/reused containers or materials to build grub bins.
 * Can a bin be designed that will efficiently harvest the BSFL prepupae and allow redworms to further process the compost (and provide another type of animal feed)?
 * How to design bins that will allow constant harvesting of the finished compost without starting over.
 * How to utilize sunlight to increase composting rate, sanitation, or drying.

BSFL bin designs
"Grub Composters", "BSFL bins", and "larveros" are all generic terms for noncommercial bins for growing, protecting, and harvesting hermetia illucens, its compost, or the liquid compost "tea".

BSFL bins with trough collector
This can be as simple as a typical compost bin with a trough (gutter) built around it to trap the larvae (but if the entire unit is not covered, rodents or other predators may feed on the larvae before they are harvested).

Commercial BSFL bins with harvest ramps

 * The unregistered trademark claims in this section, are questionable.

Dr. Paul Olivier patented many techniques for growing and harvesting black soldier fly larvae. A patent in 2002, describes a cylindrical bin that utilizes elliptical ramps. In 2007 ESR International, LLC, was formed to market and manufacture this device, branding it the BioPod™. It marketed this BioPod™ in the USA, Australia and the EU and subsequently developed the ProtaPod™ and BioPod™ Plus. The newer BioPod™ Plus is manufactured in the USA by Prota Culture, LLC.

Prota Culture now calls the original BioPod™, the BioPod™ Classic, and the new rectangular design, the BioPod™ Plus.

Other BSFL bins with elliptical ramps
BSFL bins have been constructed with elliptical ramps using concrete inside a trashcan.

A mold has been made for making "biopods" from hypertufa. These weigh about 40lbs, with no bottom (drains into the soil).

BSFL bins using walls as ramps
Other designs make a ramp by angling one side of the container outward, or, for greater harvest efficiency, two opposing sides are used as ramps to form a trapezoid. (The design in these photos is not secure against rodents.)

Making BSFL bins using tilted containers
A BSFL composter can be made from common containers by tilting them and directing the prepupae to drop into a collection container. The simplest of designs costs about five USD and takes about five minutes to make; a pail hanging at an angle with a hole on the low side of the lid and a deep cup hanging under the hole to catch the migrating prepupae.

Moisture and drainage
Prota Culture contends that the BioPod Plus has a better drainage system and that inexperienced users often get too much liquid due to overfeeding or drain screens clogging. Too much moisture results in death of the grubs, foul odors, and colonization of pest species such as housefly maggots.

Myiasis?
(Removed from Wikipedia.) "Although extremely rare, the larvae could potentially cause intestinal myiasis or pseudomyiasis in humans. See this case in Costa Rica There have been a handful of cases worldwide of black soldier fly larvae causing intestinal myiasis and it would most likely be the result of people scavenging food from refuse containers."

title: Grub composting


text: Category:Composting

title: Category:Composting


text:
User:Begoon/UTCLiveClock.js

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title: User:Begoon/UTCLiveClock.js


text:
User:Begoon/exlinks.js

// ********************************************************************** // **           Open External links in new tab/window                 ** // ********************************************************************** $( function {	var $alinks = mw.util.$content.find( 'a' );	$alinks.each( function { var $tablink = $( this ); if ( $tablink.hasClass( 'external' ) && $tablink.attr( 'href' ).indexOf( mw.config.get( 'wgServer' ) ) !== 0 ) { $tablink.attr( 'target', '_blank' ); }	}); });

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User:Begoon/CodeEditor.js

/** * MediaWiki:Gadget-codeeditor.js * Stub to load Extension:CodeEditor and Ace syntax-highlighting editor as a gadget. * * Requires enhanced editing toolbar (WikiEditor extension); integrates with toolbar. * * Gadget stub CC-BY-SA 2 * (c) 2011 Brion Vibber  * * Extension:CodeEditor JS bits are GPLv2 -- http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CodeEditor * * Syntax highlighting, auto-indenting code editor widget for on-wiki JS and CSS pages. * Uses embedded Ajax.org Cloud9 Editor: http://ace.ajax.org/ * MPL/LGPL/GPL */ (function($) {   // @fixme need an SSL alternative    mw.config.set('wgCodeEditorAssetsPath', '//toolserver.org/~brion/extensions');    var moduleBase = mw.config.get('wgCodeEditorAssetsPath') + '/CodeEditor/modules',        $box = $('#wpTextbox1'),        matches = /\.(js|css)$/.exec(mw.config.get('wgTitle'));    if ($box.length && matches && (wgNamespaceNumber === 2 /* User: */ || wgNamespaceNumber === 8 /* MediaWiki: */)) {        $(function { var modules = [ moduleBase + '/ace/ace.js', moduleBase + '/ace/mode-javascript.js', moduleBase + '/ace/mode-css.js', moduleBase + '/jquery.codeEditor.js', moduleBase + '/ext.codeEditor.js' ];           var i = 0; // @fixme loading serially is kinda lame, but it works for now var ping = function { if ( i < modules.length ) { var url = modules[i]; $.getScript(url, function {                       i++;                        ping;                    }); }           };            ping; });   } })(jQuery);

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Collaborative play writing/The Countess of Challand/Act 1

Act 1. Scene 1. Mansino's palace

Enter Mansino and Baizzo

Mansino. We are forever fortunate in it.

Baizzo. True, friend, and should, as some say, offer thanks To heaven for the prize of such a life.

Mansino. I never think of that.

Baizzo. Yet to be rich, is, as some say, to recline In paradise without the pangs of death.

Mansino. Let pincers tear me if I do not thank My father for his birth and industry, For thereby am I great.

Baizzo. Such thanks we owe to heaven's influence.

Mansino. In yielding me so dear a parent for My happiest nurture.

Baizzo. I would rather hear you acknowledge another kind of power.

Mansino. Which one?

Baizzo. You mock me. I mean the only one, whom face to brow we are sure to meet hereafter in the anger of fire.

Mansino. Let us rehearse my answer to that call.

Baizzo. To please you, and perhaps convert you, I will attempt that, though somewhat fearfully in the most secret places.

Mansino. Say that I die: who stands accusing me?

Baizzo. I do, a might who always was and is.

Mansino. Am I alive, though dead?

Baizzo. Alive, yet dead, because exiled from here.

Mansino. Supreme and potent entity, am I Never to be invited in your house?

Baizzo. Never, but sent off rotting evermore.

Mansino. Then I am tricked.

Baizzo. How, tricked?

Mansino. You never showed your face to me before.

Baizzo. You had my holy scriptures to read from.

Mansino. How could I tell all those were truthful, lord?

Baizzo. You should have guessed they were.

Mansino. Am I to be forever punished just Because my reasonings were incorrect?

Baizzo. You hazarded eternal joys of life For transitory ones, and therefore will Your soul be sent away where it deserves To lie, where no joy is, where none will be.

Mansino. Your strictures should have been more evident.

Baizzo. Do you discuss? Was it not all-sufficient That I once bled for you from brow and hands?

Mansino. I never asked for that.

Baizzo. I gave all, you sat by, and nothing gave. Go then a second time, but not to live, To die alive, in pains, eternally.

Mansino. Ho, ho! Do you believe I will, Baizzo?

Baizzo. Quite dead to all forms of religion!

Mansino. And wishing men and women of my mind, The better to become sufficient.

Baizzo. Ho, as you are?

Mansino. I'll so far sing my praises. Of what worth Is our religion? Man's life being brief And variable, how may one expect One text directing all? Not I, and so Pronounce me damned, a kind of charity You show, the well-spring of religion.

Baizzo. What is your faith, then?

Mansino. Myself, my sole self.

Baizzo. Then you are fortunate, for most seem lost, Despite wealth, loving wife and child without One answer to his origin and end.

Mansino. The fearful, ill, or foolish.

Baizzo. Our only quarrel.

Mansino. Forget that to end all. There is one friend I will more gladly recognize today.

Baizzo. A friend to be encountered in a bed.

Mansino. Ha! Ha! Not elsewhere.

Baizzo. Man natural in very wretchedness!

Mansino. All the more wretched in my pleasures, ha!

Baizzo. Each bite of pleasure like a viper's tooth When we expire!

Mansino. Puh! I scorn threats, defiances, all things Our wooden eunuch priests defend us from.

Baizzo. Here reason stands as mute as dead men's stones, A face of marble as your proof of life.

Exit Baizzo and enter Bianca

Mansino. A friend most tedious, if religious.- My love?

Bianca. Yours on the sabbath at the very least.

Mansino. A kind of maddening in my delights.

Bianca. Why? Would you have me each day of your life? That would in no way be existence on This earth, but like another paradise.

Mansino. Here is religion. (kissing her

Bianca. My lips?

Mansino. Far more of you if altogether mine.

Bianca. Our lusts, I hourly fear, will let us bite No morsel of salvation at the end.

Mansino. As we desire to think it does, we may.

Bianca. Never so clear or cleanly. Where love lies Reigns death and madness.

Mansino. To those unknown to love, I will aver. How pitiable are those who never do!

Bianca. The question lies unanswered whether lamps Of study without love should be the aim In all, or love's more painful ecstasies.

Mansino. I'll wish to study that another day.

Bianca. We are too damned for that already, sweet.

Mansino. How, damned at twenty?

Bianca. Never too young to die.

Mansino. Speak no philosophy, except love's own, By Ovid well explained.

Bianca. Those speaking of that, as our fathers say, Are irrevocably and irretrievably Damned on the post of shame they merit well.

Mansino. Where is this father? Spike him through the heart. Whoever speaks ill of our love deserves No pity from his surgeon. Older ones Know love by hearsay or by memories. Therefore, away from them! They cannot find As we can never heed but what we own Inside, and therefore listen to that voice, And let them babble of salvation.

Bianca. Religiously reflected on, my love!

Mansino. He knows religion who to his own self Is a religion.

Bianca. Your constancy's religion.

Mansino. The element in which I wade or swim.

Bianca. While others thirst while floating on love's sea.

Mansino. The truer water when unswallowed there.

Bianca. It is our measuring-stick: as it fares, So we decline or thrive. Say that a girl Swears she will possess her love and asks the youth, Perhaps too credulous, to bind himself In honorable terms entirely, Say that the youth believes his happiness: What follows? Death and torment, when the girl Retracts, for then the youth declines and pines. You know the end. And so this constancy's Our life. Will that same girl die happily? It may not be. She plays with other men, Who, after taking grossest pleasures, mock And scorn her. What can follow? Misery, Regret's companion, gabbles next to her, And so fares life beneath inconstant stars.

Mansino. Here quips love's scholar, but yet why so glib A coyness? When will I be fortunate?

Bianca. You have already taken what you like.

Mansino. Are we not rooted on the same pear-tree?

Bianca. True, though not yet in honorable terms.

Mansino. You are out of the world, for women now Insist no more on marriage than erewhile Your grandmothers removed their shirt without The binding contract signed by either part.

Bianca. I scorn that novelty.

Mansino. Why? When you play without considering Some tedious duty, foolish children's wiles-

Bianca. My aim and pleasure.

Mansino. When you might lie securely, know pride Of liberty as only bedfellow?

Bianca. I have learned to detest him.

Mansino. Will we be steadfast to each other, then, Add to each other's sense of pleasure still?

Bianca. As surely as we advance one foot Each minute to the grave.

Mansino. Then say we are unhappy in our mirth.

Bianca. Oh, no!

Mansino. Unless I play the sigher for a woman's foot.

Bianca. No need.

Mansino. Then I may hope?

Bianca. Much more than hope.

Exeunt Bianca and Mansino, kissing, enter Clara and Noce-Moscata

Noce-Moscata. Where is the master limping with the lady's help?

Clara. To bed.

Noce-Moscata. At noon, mother?

Clara. They are resting.

Noce-Moscata. Should he ask me, I would not follow him.

Clara. I hope you will not.

Noce-Moscata. No farther than brute-neighbors you know about, sent home abashed and shamed, like Pharaoh's pikers repulsed from my red sea.

Clara. Yet girls submit with joy to men at last.

Noce-Moscata. I never will, remaining as I am.

Clara. Not likely.

Noce-Moscata. Their shaggier faces next to mine? Oh, no!

Clara. Should our lord's friend return as often as others did, you'll see her swell, as I'll be sworn you will.

Noce-Moscata. What ghostly prognostication is this?

Clara. At fifteen I was big and full with you.

Noce-Moscata. At fifteen I stay as light as I can.

Clara. Your father vows otherwise. I think he already views a suitor for your lifetime enjoyment, no poorer a swain than Giacomo.

Noce-Moscata. Let father sleep with Giacomo: I'm for the fields, to kiss goat-beards, not men's.

Clara. I swore to see you thick before next Pentecost.

Noce-Moscata. I will, should Gabriel return to earth.

Clara. If not Giacomo then Giacobo.

Noce-Moscata. Neither Moco nor Boco: I'll shake and press bedsheets with my father first, or braid my neck before you knot my bridal braid.

Clara. Many say so.

Noce-Moscata. But I'll do so.

Clara. A promise like peas on tin vessels after shaking.

Noce-Moscata. Louder.

Clara. What will you do?

Noce-Moscata. Cut off any extended part I see.

Clara. You cannot.

Noce-Moscata. With this, my wee pen-knife, as ballads say, as a complement to theirs, I do.

Clara. Have you done so?

Noce-Moscata. By the Virgin, not to little Gilberto near the well? He got shorter, thanks to this.

Clara. The one who bled to death last year?

Noce-Moscata. The one who vanished in his blood, he, he!

Clara. You cannot mean- I cannot think-

Noce-Moscata. I mean and do, more sharply than the next.

Clara. The countess comes, before whom we must not be found tattling.

Noce-Moscata. Why is her face so red?

Clara. Out, lest I send you reeling backward to

Your sharpest needle!

Noce-Moscata. Much better mine than men's!

Exeunt Clara and Noce-Moscata, re-enter Baizzo and Bianca

Baizzo. No doubt the amorous one spoken of!

Bianca. A worthy fellow here, unless a face Belies itself.

Baizzo. A wench who eyes.

Bianca. Do I just so?

Baizzo. A countess, too, I hear.

Bianca. To you and yours, the countess of Challand.

Baizzo. Mansino's love, I think.

Bianca. As countess know me henceforth, with your hand Annexed to mine and elsewhere.

Baizzo. Quick, and yet quicker!

Bianca. I will not be my own detractor here.

Baizzo. Free?

Bianca. As free a woman as a man may be.

Baizzo. With blood as free, to settle on your face In most becoming blushes.

Bianca. Because I have been satisfied this day, But not so fully well as to refuse More water from the bucket.

Baizzo. I like this boldness.

Bianca. In women of pure honor, I admit It is quite well.

Baizzo. You have heard from my friend of Baizzo's name.

Bianca. My friend's friend.

Baizzo. Where lies Mansino?

Bianca. Gone to survey his fields.

Baizzo. While he does so, we may look over ours.

Bianca. To be acquainted.

Baizzo. Very much so, because you are beautiful.

Bianca. Much freer than fair.

Baizzo. Both agreable.

Bianca. I like your doctrine, Baizzo.

Baizzo. It is the justest opinion held by that most venerable of philosophers, whose name I have forgotten, that a man, suborning himelf to the dictates of love, may, in some form, feeling love of beauty grow within, though a shrub, long to climb at last on the celestial tree.

Bianca. I have often read Plato say so.

Baizzo. First as youths, wretches in turd sweating next to the tree, then, after climbing it, men hopping down or rising upwards towards pavements of sanctity. I am on the lowest branch of a tree whose trunk must be sawn off either by love or death.

Bianca. I may become your sawer, to drop here, Within these arms.

Baizzo. Then shall we go?

Bianca. To any place desired, my bed perhaps.-

But hold. My steward!

Enter Riccardatto

Riccardatto, I recognize in you a man of honor.

Riccardatto. If but to please you.

Bianca. Baizzo, behold a man as bound to me As my own childhood.

Riccardatto. I only wish it were much closer still.

Bianca. Do you desire to be more deeply mine?

Riccardatto. This from my mistress?

Bianca. To please me, look at Baizzo, please him first.

Riccardatto. I hope I will.

Bianca. Linked.

Baizzo. Just so.

Bianca. You know my freedom.

Riccardatto. Beyond man's expectation when he dreams.

Bianca. Then know yourselves much better.

Baizzo. A promise, on my part.

Riccardatto. Or mine.

Bianca. Both in the way to earn a woman's praise.

Riccardatto. I will prepare your coming.

Exit Riccardatto

Bianca. Be well assured: a villain you will like.

Baizzo. Already I am almost his.- This way?

Exeunt Bianca and Baizzo

Act 1. Scene 2. Agostino's house

Enter Clara and Noce-Moscata, holding a shirt

Clara. Have you mended your father's shirt yet?

Noce-Moscata. No.

Clara. Do not spoil his best, fresher even than the Sunday one.

Noce-Moscata. I hate the smell of it.

Clara. You need not smell the shirt to wash it clean.

Noce-Moscata. I hate the thing. Foh!

Clara. Did you scrub it first?

Noce-Moscata. I did, but yet the shirt is father still.

Clara. Is he out of bed yet?

Noce-Moscata. Let him snore or doze, because I fear that when he wakes he may find himself diseased.

Clara. How do you know that?

Noce-Moscata. Have you noticed how terribly he scratches himself each night?

Clara. No.

Noce-Moscata. We may discover more by morning light.

Clara. I'll churn that load of butter first.

Noce-Moscata. We'll see him hopping next. So. (hopping and scratching

Clara. Are you mad?

Noce-Moscata. No, no, but he will be, I promise that.

Clara. Will this skipping end?

Noce-Moscata. Whenever he will.

Clara. What a daughter is this!

Noce-Moscata. I assure you, a man likely skipping to his hurt.

(Cries within

Clara. What, Agostino? Is it he?

Noce-Moscata. I think so.

Clara. Not Agostino?

Noce-Moscata. Ha, has it started yet?

Clara. What, are you harmed?

Enter Agostino

Agostino. O! O! O! O!

Clara. What is the matter?

Agostino. I am terribly afflicted, wife, no one knowing the extent of it.

Clara. How? Where?

Agostino. O! O! O! O!

Clara. What ails you, Agostino?

Agostino. O! O! O! O! O! O! O! O! I can barely speak because of the itching.

Clara. Itching, did you say?

Agostino. (hopping and scratching I'm surely bewitched.

Clara. No!

Agostino. I swear I am.

Clara. What should we do? Call the physician?

Agostino. Do, while I weep and rave. O! O! O! O!

Clara. Go fetch the doctor, Noce-Moscata.

Noce-Moscata. What should I ask of him?

Clara. Request him urgently to come at once.

Exit Noce-Moscata

Agostino. O! O! Should I not die? Should I not drop And flail about, then with some potion die?

Clara. Do not, husband.

Agostino. For your sake I will not. O! O! O! I'll rake the skin off entirely with nails or teeth.

Clara. Where?

Agostino. Here.

Clara. There?

Agostino. And there. Lower. O, my buttock-hole's aflame, so are more secret under-parts.

Clara. A great to-do, maybe to my shame! I shrewdly suspect you have played me false, husband.

Agostino. No, no, no. A more foolish notion than ever heard of yet!

Clara. Are these no venereal signs?

Agostino. No, no, no. The doctor will swear to that and more.

Clara. Then how came this to be, so suddenly,

To our confusion?

Agostino. Expert opinions must here answer us.

Clara. To bed, then!

Agostino. Out of these breeches to find some relief.

Clara. Try that.

Agostino. Or slice each buttock off.

Clara. So desperate?

Agostino. If you do not, I swear I will attempt To do something to my parts you will wish Had been quite left alone.

Clara. More hastily to bed!

Exeunt Agostino and Clara

Act 1. Scene 3. Bianca's palace

Enter Bianca and Baizzo

Bianca. Your friend most pleasantly tricked, I can swear!

Baizzo. Mansino is your friend, too.

Bianca. Does he not serve me as I do with you?

Baizzo. With whom?

Bianca. Perhaps his steward's wife.- Not Clara yet?

Baizzo. Those near his comfort he will never play On, I suspect.

Bianca. Nor with the steward's daughter?

Baizzo. Never as yet. I often speak with her,

Who asked me yesterday for itching powder.

Bianca. Why?

Baizzo. A maiden's trick no doubt.

Bianca. Where will you go, after so lovingly

Beguiling your best friend?

Baizzo. To church.

Bianca. Your constant pleasure in hypocrisy?

Baizzo. To be forgiven.

Bianca. Here wanders Riccardatto. Make yourself

Known, see whether he will serve you.

Baizzo. He knows Mansino?

Bianca. But little. Keep Mansino absolute

In blank unknowingness.

Baizzo. The safest officer to guard us well.

Exit Bianca and enter Riccardatto

Riccardatto. Should I serve you more closely, my lord?

Baizzo. As your mistress directs, Riccardatto.

Riccardatto. I will, then.

Baizzo. You know Mansino?

Riccardatto. Just as another who comes in, goes out, By mere chance passing by.

Baizzo. Do not reveal one word on what you see Your mistress do with me.

Riccardatto. I vow I never will.

Baizzo. An oath to be rewarded with some gold, More richly when assured it is just so Than our Franciscan monks at prayer-time.

Exeunt Baizzo and Riccardatto


text:
Collaborative play writing/The Countess of Challand/Act 2

Act 2. Scene 1. Mansino's palace

Enter Mansino, Agostino, and Pompina

Mansino. Ha? Flouting me thus? Rake her towards me.

Agostino. Have you observed the countess in her bed? Who says so but a Riccardatto full To spilling of the lust he bears for her?

Mansino. With pincers, howling, drag her hairless back.

Pompina. No doubt accused unjustly by her friends, Unjustly because jealous of your prize.

Mansino. Will I obtain my will or hear more tunes Of diffidence and woe I do not hear?

Pompina. As you desire, my lord.

Exeunt Mansino and Agostino, enter Bianca

Bianca. Pompina, I trust you are very well.

Pompina. Madam, we know each other. Should I feign gladness on sight of you?

Bianca. Have you cause to do so?

Pompina. The most dangerous one.

Bianca. Why?

Pompina. Because of your open and- dare I say- perilous mocking of my lord.

Bianca. How?

Pompina. In the worst way a woman can.

Bianca. Have I done so?

Pompina. By the world's general mouth you have, because of which I'll henceforth tremble for your days all my days.

Bianca. Fear?

Pompina. In deepest anguish of the heart I do.

Bianca. How does my lover fare?

Pompina. Because of your straying, exceedingly ill. I beseech you to believe me, for you wend tottering with closed eyes down winding paths beside cliffs of destruction.

Bianca. More riddles?

Pompina. He suspects your falling off.

Bianca. What of that?

Pompina. Should he discover you in that other fellow's- I dare not think of it.

Bianca. Discovered?

Pompina. But not as yet possessed with your love's name.

Bianca. So young, he may withstand the loss, I hope.

Pompina. Here's one arriving I would rather not encounter, but must for your sake, as a kind of spectacle for your edification. Hide behind curtains to learn something of your fate.

Bianca. Well, for his sake, I can but follow this.

Exit Bianca and enter Michela

Pompina. Ah, sister, hide yourself from tempests here.

Michela. I see no cloud above.

Pompina. Prepare for those below.

Michela. Who storms?

Pompina. Let flashing Jupiter disclose his ire.

Re-enter Mansino

Mansino. I, thundering, come for you, mistress.

Michela. Do lords stare in so ghastly a way at a mere grocer's daughter?

Mansino. Where is my chine of beef?- You know I take such meat on Tuesday.

Michela. I forgot, my lord.

Mansino. You sent fish on Tuesday, beef on Friday.

Michela. I know I did.

Mansino. Let heaven strike me if I mean you well.

You know it, mistress?

Pompina. Why do I tremble for mere bee-swarms that

Buzz and disperse?

Mansino. You know and do not know.

Michela. Is that a jest?

Mansino. I will do mischief here. You know, or should, My never-to-be gainsaid habits here.

Pompina. Why should you trouble yourself for so little, sir?

Mansino. I have a mind to it for once. Away, Pompina! I speak to Michela's mind, Intending more than merely debate.

Michela. Would it please my lord to consider the confusion of the hour?

Mansino. I consider myself ignored. Count Mansino as the grosser grocer's daughter's jest?- Answer.

Michela. I do not know what.

Mansino. Yet speak.

Michela. I would do you pleasure in most matters, my lord.

Mansino. Yet fish was sent on Tuesday.

Michela. The flesh was tender.

Mansino. I'll tender you, maiden. Here's my thought: discovering newer methods to promote understanding more soundly in the way of service.

Pompina. Why trouble with her, sir?

Mansino. Away, painted piper, she readily knows her doom.

Michela. Ha?

Mansino. Is rank or worth no part of your conception?

Michela. Both are.

Mansino. Is it in man's nature to be laughed at or scorned?

Michela. O, no.

Mansino. I cannot brook to be so. Here is my dagger on that (taking out a dagger

Pompina. O, sir-

Mansino. Swear that I am not scorned.

Michela. On this?

Mansino. On this.

Michela. I swear by this dagger.

Mansino. (stabbing her to death Good.

Pompina. Ah, no, you have not killed her.

Mansino. I do not know that. If so, to my horror let it be said, I am the wretchedest not yet dead. I cannot speak.

Exit Mansino

Pompina. Alas, poor and miserable! Is this meant for others, too?

Re-enter Bianca

Bianca. Those still alive are most lamented for.

Pompina. You see your own mischance inscribed on her?

Bianca. I do.

Pompina. What should we do with the body?

Enter Riccardatto

Bianca. Here comes my crownless savior of some kind.

Riccardatto. Ha, resting?

Pompina. Dead.

Bianca. Killed by my love, Mansino.

Pompina. Terror among us, for no reason! Impatience and there an end!

Riccardatto. The count is much to blame and would be so More harshly were he as his subjects are.

Bianca. Play the man in this business, Riccardatto.

Riccardatto. When have I failed the moment I was asked?

Bianca. Call for no officer, remove the corpse And carry it far from this palace, to A field, to bury it from sight at once. Leave at her father's house this consolation.

(giving a purse

Riccardatto. A work of direst peril! What if I Am seen? Some may accuse your servant of A murder in this work.

Bianca. Do you prevaricate? The sight offends.

Riccardatto. Hold, I am well again.

Exit Riccardatto, carrying away the corpse

Pompina. Do you smell danger now?

Bianca. More help, more help! See there the man who can Supply that, all by love for only love!

Enter Baizzo

Baizzo. Is our friend home?

Bianca. No friend of ours, Baizzo.

Baizzo. Why not?

Bianca. Let me not speak of that. The man's too bad.

Baizzo. Why do you say so?

Bianca. Warn us beforehand should your master come,

Pompina, or else I lose life and all.

Pompina. Without once failing.

Exit Pompina

Bianca. Am I your happiness?

Baizzo. Have not our bodies' pleasures proven that?

Bianca. Should I be worth your pains, I may then hope To draw some tear for my mischance today.

Baizzo. Who harms you?

Bianca. Who but a friend?

Baizzo. Mansino?

Bianca. Speeches must be briefer to be heeded; otherwise, we may not live out the day.

Baizzo. How can this be, your visage being clear, Your form as lively-

Bianca. The sickness I may die from has a name: Mansino, worse than any in a doctor's book.

Baizzo. Why?

Bianca. Hear: we have flouted him.

Baizzo. Why? Does he know of us?

Bianca. He knows I roam, his love of yesterday, His traitress of today, and all because Your visage is a second April to My own and growing.

Baizzo. What should I do?

Bianca. Kill him.

Baizzo. My friend?

Bianca. Mansino will no doubt desire my death.

Baizzo. I lose myself where men may never hope To find me as I am.

Bianca. To hold your joyance nearer, you must do That, sweet: do it for honor or for love. My life's a bauble on Mansino's shirt, Which he throws down or loosens carelessly, Rid of in baskets with no further thought, Unless you dare uncopulate our bond From his regard. I ask no more than death To this Mansino, life for us, or else Prepare to lose what you once thought was won, My love and desolation.

Baizzo. Assure yourself of my faith's loyalty.

Exit Baizzo and re-enter Riccardatto

Riccardatto. I have prepared her on the waggon-top.

Bianca. In saving more than one you gain but one Reward, but yet the precious one, the one Dreamed on, my Riccardatto, ripe for us. I am the countess of Challand again.

Riccardatto. Who makes you lose yourself?

Bianca. Servilio.

Riccardatto. I know him.

Bianca. I wish you would not.

Riccardatto. Then he is gone.

Bianca. I wish no man may ever in his life

Know that man's face again.

Riccardatto. Then he is buried.

Bianca. You hit exactly the blank of my thoughts.

Exeunt Bianca and Riccardatto

Act 2. Scene 2. Bianca's palace

Enter Baizzo and Servilio

Servilio. Have you not spoken to Mansino yet?

Baizzo. No.

Servilio. I care little enough for that, having my own troubles.

Baizzo. Which?

Servilio. I know I am most strangely followed here.

Baizzo. By whom?

Servilio. The household stares at me, even the house.

Baizzo. With reason, it appears.

Enter Riccardatto

Riccardatto. Lay hands on that villain, by the countess' orders.

Servilio. So soon esteemed a traitor?

Baizzo. No struggling. Think of death.

Riccardatto. That would be best.

Servilio. I wish I had shaved, for my beard, I fear,

Is likely to be plucked against my wish.

Enter Bianca

Bianca. You see your end near, villain.

Servilio. Ha! How have I displeased you, mistress?

Bianca. A villain questions! Bind him strictly, sirs. The slave this morning tempted me in bed.

Riccardatto. He has beheld too many in the world Who wish to do the same.

Servilio. Yet you declined.

Bianca. And thereby I lose all my faith in him.

Baizzo. A menial horrible to contemplate!

Servilio. The wringing comes. Why should I pine because I longed for woman's bed but once in thought?

Riccardatto. This way along.

Baizzo. I hold him nearer.

(Riccardatto and Baizzo pull at Servilio's beard

Servilio. Ha, speak of me as one who once knew life. O! O! O! O! O! O!

Bianca. His untuned crochets rising please my ear.

Baizzo. Harmonious in the plucking of each string.

Servilio. A strumming like the service of the dead!

Bianca. Think of the limb that almost strayed, then say Whether the tuning is worth what you sought.

Servilio. O! O! O! O!

Baizzo. And yet some pity would be seemlier here.

Riccardatto. That would but spoil the dish we offer to Offended chastity.

Servilio. Kill me instead.

Bianca. Never such favors for the man of lust!

Baizzo. The tears drop plentifully from his beard, Like icicles in spring-time melting down From a thatched roof.

Riccardatto. Expected when pulled roughly so. Or like Transparent olives when we shake the trees.

Servilio. O! O! O! O!

Bianca. After the face, make haste below for low

Indignities I hesitate to name.

Riccardatto. No doubt a lady's sense of shame forbids Her servant to make bold a second time, So that executors must dull the edge Of any further fancy of that kind.

Bianca. Aim rather for the bony part. Let him Not bleed to death, but sit in pain just so, A groaning palsied grandfather of lust, Remembering how once unseemly he Reached for the hem, the bones recovering As limply to his surgeon he weeps hard.

Servilio. I thought I lived, illusion of the dead.- O! O! Do not remove me so beyond The measure roughly, sirs.

Baizzo. We understand. A lady's shame forbids To name that part she was offended with. We will aim lower, to fill on each side A sack of random bones, no leg at all.

Servilio. No part of me will yet forget this day.

Baizzo. He faints.

Riccardatto. Should we revive the culprit for worse pains?

Bianca. Tomorrow on his second course of woe.

Baizzo. Both of us married to your pleasures here.

Exeunt Bianca, Baizzo, and Riccardatto, the latter two carrying away Servilio

Act 2. Scene 3. Agostino's house

Enter Clara and Noce-Moscata

Clara. Your suitor hastes apace.

Noce-Moscata. I will not glance at him.

Clara. Your father much desires you do and more.

Noce-Moscata. Why? To be married?

Clara. Quickly and well.

Noce-Moscata. I will not do it.

Clara. No?

Noce-Moscata. I refuse even to advance one toe on the large circular road leading towards that narrow path.

Clara. "She will see him and like him," declares your father, "or else we will heave her out of the house, whether in summer or winter, day or night, to workhouse or brothel, I care little, so long as this no-daughter becomes invisible."

Noce-Moscata. Huh! I accept no man's hand held in mine,

Or any other part, seen or unseen.

Clara. We will soon know who reigns or challenges.

Exit Clara

Noce-Moscata. A toad, I wager.

Re-enter Clara with Decio

Clara. Here stands our Decio, your intended love.

Noce-Moscata. Huh!

Clara. Make much of this gentleman, daughter.

Noce-Moscata. With what?

Exit Clara

Decio. Good morrow, fairest one.

Noce-Moscata. Ho, fairest slave, I want no part of man.

Decio. And yet your father-

Noce-Moscata. Let graves swallow fathers and spit out their bones to make us dice.

Decio. I was led to believe-

Noce-Moscata. Believe nothing except that I loathe your presence on this earth.

Decio. I am disliked before once opening My mouth, it seems.

Noce-Moscata. Much truer than you guess.

Decio. Your virtue wilts before another man's Sun, I assume.

Noce-Moscata. Believe no such matter of me. You are hated for your own face, not because I like another's.

Decio. Is it possible I have unwittingly offended you, though to my knowledge without ever having met you even once before?

Noce-Moscata. Your eyelids mock me, as do both ear-lobes, To be elaborated on if you Remain before my eyes another day.

Decio. I do.

Noce-Moscata. And so we are agreed.

Decio. Most perfectly: one face against the other.

Noce-Moscata. Thieves in monkey-nakedness, casual violators, whoremaster villains!

You ogle. Do you not already long To touch and kiss?

Decio. Uninterruptedly.

Noce-Moscata. Your oar is broken: swim back home ashore.

Decio. So beautiful yet cursed?

Noce-Moscata. You dangle on frayed ropes: ask help below.

Decio. I will next wrestle with a crocodile.

Noce-Moscata. You dream of licking my thighs, do you not? I may be weak enough to tremble at

Such thoughts as that, and therefore I decline To smell you even nearer if I can.

Decio. Should I not advance? Is it not expected from any untouched by amorrhea, as you appear to be?

Noce-Moscata. You would delight to see me naked, no?

Decio. For most parts of the body, not the tongue.

Noce-Moscata. You court us to abuse, like rubies kept With dust in cellar chests, out when you wish, Down when you wish, your wife, half-slave, half-whore.

Decio. Only your fears malign us needlessly.

Noce-Moscata. Like sops to feed and nurse man's treachery!

Decio. I would not think so.

Noce-Moscata. Winkers among each other, plotters against our againsts, forswearers to our detriment.

Exit Decio and enter Agostino

Agostino. So, daughter, I am glad to see you well.

Noce-Moscata. Ho, am I even seen before I wed?

Agostino. Your mother finds our choicest suitor ripe, The eggplant on Aostan patches that You are invited to mix with your cheese. How zealous-dextrously that youth pursues His hope your mother made me understand. Not I for secrets maidens care to keep Close to the heart, not I for eavesdropping! The boy's experience ripens homemade stews, Which bodes well, not like Nero's, and yourself No humor like Poppea's, bathing hair And limb in tubs of ass-milk to stay fine, Should Cassius Dio be believed for once. The ceremony finds you Tuesday noon, Or else perhaps next Thursday. To make sure, Just a few uncles and aunts got my note. No need of our disbursing to the town At large, since onions and some pepper flakes Should spice as well as banquets! And so off To wedded life, delight of fools and wits Alike! And what a life it is, sometimes Our pageantry of glee, sometimes too worse, But maidens need not meditate on that As yet, but think instead of jollities.

Noce-Moscata. And so I should if once invited to.

What of Giacomo?

Agostino. Forever nullified for lack of funds.

Noce-Moscata. What of Giacobo?

Agostino. A waster with no money.

Noce-Moscata. Thus Decio stays.

Agostino. Your mother will divulge what to watch for This day, that night, and what a day it is, And what a night! The senses stir on that.

Noce-Moscata. Not mine this day, nor yet tomorrow morn.

Agostino. Although I feel a twinge of melancholy Imagining the body pressed down flat By a mere stranger's, but yet what of this? Your mother left her father, so will soon Your daughter. No inn keeps the coach of time: We ride, none knowing where, but yet to quit The father and the mother is a change Most hope for, offering few thanks for it.

Noce-Moscata. I cannot thank for what I will not keep.

Agostino. You will not keep him? How, after my care And preparations? Do you ponder on Agreements with his father sealed in wax, Your mother half the wooer for your love? Have I no daughter? All this not meant for You and the nation's happiness? I find I am egregiously wronged here, or else I hear of dream-amazements no one once Spoke of to me, or kept the secret of.

Noce-Moscata. As I am now, so I intend to stay.

Agostino. What do such daughters mean? A daughter? No, I have none. She is buried, or should be. What have you done? Made two such families Impossible to chime together, not To be set right if I should try again.

Noce-Moscata. I could cry on it, or else lightly laugh.

Agostino. Out of my sight!

Noce-Moscata. Consider me alone: how will I live?

Agostino. Live? Study on how virgins die instead.

Noce-Moscata. Ha, should it please you to consider-

Agostino. I will consider this: I am no more A father, having been annulled of that Most heavy charge by you, and none but you. What is authority? Is it to be Responded to whenever one may please To listen? Go. Make pillows of the stones On common byways.

Noce-Moscata. Alone, I may not live out till next week.

Agostino. Why should you live?

Noce-Moscata. Or else like whores do, which to me becomes A maiden worse than sickness well received.

Agostino. I'll whistle till you leave.

Exeunt Agostino and Noce-Moscata


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text:
Collaborative play writing/The Countess of Challand/Act 3

Act 3. Scene 1. Mansino's palace

Enter Pompina and Alicia

Alicia. I do not find that cheer of countenance On you we were once wont to see each day.

Pompina. I grant you, no.

Alicia. A burden I may lighten?

Pompina. Unlikely if you try another year.

Alicia. We missed you at the banquet. Where were you?

Pompina. Sea-dreaming without sail or cable.

Alicia. To make me fear for you at last. I saw You ambling in the dust along the way Of cemetery roads.

Pompina. There I find comfort.

Alicia. While sitting on the stones that warm us when We think of those below.

Pompina. Bones all of yesterday in boxes, or Dug out involuntarily, dispersed Where cypresses cast down beneath their leaves The darkness I most wish. A man arrived Late, at the ninth hour, digging. I thought he Looked cheering, where the flashing birds and clouds Bestreaked the panting grass, as then it seemed, With a becoming coolness. All the stones Of dinless death looked still and beautiful.

Alicia. You gazing out as sadly as the stones.

Pompina. I am composed of sadness. That away, I fall. I sang aloud while sunbeams raged And a jay deftly dropped on monuments I fondly gazed on. It then shook its head At my head, rapt by my perusal of Its face, as if inviting me to sink Where others are, where some most hope to be. The grave-stone, on which I was leaning square In fondest meditation, chilled me then, Until it seemed my heart must freeze and stop, Lay quieter, still in that darker place, Which made me pant, as if some lover grazed My hips invitingly.

Alicia. Our master bids me come to fetch you back.

Pompina. I own no master but what I saw there.

Alicia. I must not understand you for my peace.- The master's worried countess hurrying!

Exit Alicia and enter Bianca

Bianca. Is my Mansino here?

Pompina. No, madam, he is dead to me at last.

Bianca. So soon!

Pompina. Not dead indeed.

Bianca. Then never say that word of him again.

Pompina. The prettiest I heard yet.

Bianca. I may believe such things tomorrow noon.

Pompina. He is well.

Bianca. Because he is, I am not. Fetch him here.

Pompina. Indeed, you look not well.

Bianca. The snapping of each twig is cannon-shot. Feel my sides, look inside each pupil, say Whether it is no carp's, and sickening

Pompina. True, true.

Bianca. Such feelings rarely borne with any hope Of life hereafter!

Pompina. I cannot graft your branch of life to mine, So withered as it is. What keeps you from Your rest by day or night?

Bianca. What else? A man, Pompina.

Pompina. A plague I have escaped from merrily.

Bianca. Mansino does not love me anymore.

Pompina. Why do you think so?

Bianca. Not serviceable to my wishes as That lover showed but yesterday in bed.

Pompina. There it begins.

Bianca. One morning without love is like a week Without once washing face or tasting meat.

Pompina. Should one decide to love.

Bianca. Eternity of hell when we are left Without love for one day!

Pompina. Mansino once loved you: agreed, what then?

Bianca. The count of Baizzo, too.

Pompina. The count of Baizzo!

Bianca. Mansino's worthiest, most religious friend!

Pompina. I often gaze at him.

Bianca. Ah, ah, more than I have done recently.

Pompina. Do you sink, madam?

Bianca. Not so low as I wish.

Pompina. Almost as low as dust inside a grave?

Bianca. That.

Pompina. Should I reveal some cheerful entertainments My master has indulged in since you left?

Bianca. I am block-deaf to anything but grief, Which like a sinner's crucifix I kiss, To understand no object of this world.

Pompina. I can reveal a garden-full of herbs And deadly violets to disperse such thoughts.

Bianca. Show me your master first.

Pompina. I may prevail yet to down others' hopes.

Exit Pompina and enter Baizzo

Baizzo. What was at first my pool of joy is turned Into the viper drinking out of it.

Bianca. Ha! Do you speak to me?

Baizzo. Mansino-

Bianca. I know him now as your particular friend, More than I ever hope to lie with you.

Baizzo. I cannot be the end of him and hope To thrive in love or life.

Bianca. I have been told Mansino is not dead.

Baizzo. True.

Bianca. Why?

Baizzo. A friend-

Bianca. Your friend is my foe, worse than even this A deadly one, so that to let such friends Survive is to condemn your closer friend, Whom you pretend to love with many words, To infamy and death, because you know I have been promised to his utmost rage.

Baizzo. I will not let you lie exposed to him.

Bianca. Destroy Mansino, or else he kills me.

Baizzo. To flee the country with you by my side!

Bianca. So that I may enjoy the airs of love, The breath of cowards?

Baizzo. What should I do?

Bianca. Despair to press this bosom on your own.

Baizzo. To say more would make lovers desperate In disbelief or sadness.

Exit Baizzo and enter Mansino

Bianca. I once considered love the source of all Life's torments, but yet seeing comeliness Dressed in the shape of man, my knowledge fails. Ah, stupor! What had I to do with men? I should for greater safety have recourse To lions, quiet in their boneless den. My spring of misery so bitter to Unwary palates as we sip in it!

Mansino. I see someone before me I once thought I knew or even loved a little while.

Bianca. Despair of me at once: contempt is mine, Scorn and belittling: press down very hard, Not in love's frenzies, but with tools of rage, Heed little of my sufferings to come, But rather your dishonor caused by me.

Mansino. Beast in fine clothes! O, rotten loveliness!

Bianca. Continue, batter all points home with blows, Drop me away from sight in having hurt A man so rare, a loved one so despised.

Mansino. Had you one reason to complain of me?

Bianca. O, no, a perfect lover.

Mansino. I'll raise my voice to belfry-daws, not you, Insatiate countess, wider than your grave. Moles eat worms, which eat us: prepare to mix With both or either.

Bianca. I should not speak-

Mansino. (striking her No?

Bianca. Except condemn myself worse than you can, But yet I have been foully cheated, too.

Mansino. Because your soul is bad, you think all men And women worse than rebels ever were.

Bianca. Someone has made a mockery of love To my despite. Moreover, you know him.

Mansino. Who?

Bianca. I'll so far risk to be my executioner. I in some manner played with him, let lust Indulge on moieties of all my charms.

Mansino. Do I live to hear this?

Bianca. It therefore followed that, beholding your Friend's purpose, I became incensed: he laughed, Revealing he wished to befriend me with Or without all my wishes. I scorned him.

Mansino. But yet an evil strumpet scorned me first.

Bianca. Let blows with curses be my punishment, Not lost of love. At last the man took me.

Mansino. Hah?

Bianca. Dragged me, beshreaded, shamefully to bed.

Mansino. I know the way.

Bianca. I do not wonder that your patience blinks Till seeking arms against a friend's misdeed. For my part, I abandon sex awhile,

Unless it be to lie in company Of street-kept curs, far gentler than your friend.

Mansino. I am your bull. I will forgive you thus: Not murder you immediately. I have Heard of an engine, strange, awash in tears, That has much wrought on man, political And deadly, sparing no limb for a cause I will henceforth receive as mine or die.

Bianca. My shame applauds you.

Mansino. Look here: blood on the hedges of your gown.

Bianca. Too true.

Mansino. Your own?

Bianca. Spilled by your friend, for which my face will burn Whenever I see naked men upright.

Mansino. I will know mankind only in his pains, Not joy at any time.

Bianca. Then know his name.

Mansino. My ears will swallow it.

Bianca. Count Baizzo.

Mansino. You are mistaken.

Bianca. Oh, no. The man who raped me is called so.

Mansino. My thoughts are quite unfit for company.

Exit Bianca and enter Agostino

I'll have him bleed each morning. Let him speak Whatever he will, I refuse to hold.

Agostino. You speak perhaps of friends turned into foes.

Mansino. I do, a man you know about: Baizzo.

Agostino. I know worse traitors in my family.

Mansino. The worst way! Treachery: see how you will Be guerdoned. I'll be at you night and day, Tie not-to-be-loosened knots around your purse Of lust, force you to act out pleasures, then Wring you for them. Salute next morning as Your last delight on earth, first to be put To flames and pincers, rarely to be thought On without pained amazement for whole days.

Agostino. Ho, is this wise, my lord?

Mansino. I think so. He will wish himself out of The world, yet, by unhappiness' choice, I lose past question in revenge a friend And gain- what? a loose strumpet. Dearest friends: So were you called before you lost all-worth After all-lust!

Agostino. Forgive him if you wish forgiveness yours.

Mansino. Should I? A sore that rankles on my eyes Which must be rid of? Yet I have a friend. Is it that way with me? I will forgive. I have no other friend, not one who will Avenge himself with me for any cause Of mine with sword or word. Were I lodged thick In blocks of ice beneath the devil's horn, I would forgive. I know no other friend, So solitary-foolish has my life Wrought on me unawares. Forgotten, love! Strange, desolate, I walk among the crags Of wasting paths and gorges: will I not Bend downward to that rill, the difference Between a dying life and living death?

Agostino. I think one does much good in pardoning.

Mansino. Though lizards spawn a thousand eggs in it, I will lay broken lips on that stream's course. Forgiving, I possess a friend, not sport. I may possess a woman at will. So, What worth has she that I should sacrifice My peace for her? For coins a woman's mine, And for another all my neighbor-friends'. Ha, comfort is their care, security Their hope and love, but danger they abhor, While danger is my very element.

Agostino. What need of torment for a wobbly shelf? Wrench out each nail and screw from rotting boards.

Mansino. I'll keep my friend, although he nicks my love With rapier-points. Let thoughts of love end here: I will expire at least more manfully.

Exeunt Mansino and Agostino

Act 3. Scene 2. A brothel

Enter Voga and Noce-Moscata

Voga. What, do you lurch and faint?

Noce-Moscata. Much worse than when I tumbled in my muck.

Voga. In back-streets all night naked and alone?

Noce-Moscata. Yes.

Voga. You arrive home.

Noce-Moscata. Where?

Voga. To a house that revives.

Noce-Moscata. O, I am famished.

Voga. Here you will eat and thrive.

Noce-Moscata. What will I do for it?

Voga. Very little. Love men.

Noce-Moscata. Am I inside a brothel?

Voga. A finer one than what your mood implies.

Noce-Moscata. All those forever lewd and infamous!

Voga. Because we give men pleasure?

Noce-Moscata. I have no wish to please men or myself.

Voga. O then, you cannot stay with us one hour.

Noce-Moscata. Will I eat before working?

Voga. Do they like us scrawny? You will be allowed to chew on more than what you have a stomach to.

Noce-Moscata. Lead on.

Voga. Within there! Find someone to serve you the best of the month.

Exit Noce-Moscata and enter Torbido

Torbido. A new face! I like that.

Voga. Timorous, I fear, but some like them just so.

Torbido. A virgin perhaps?

Voga. Likely so, to our profit.

Torbido. Indeed, money is the theme of this place as of most. If we make money, then the work is well, no matter how it is done. "People judge according to the end," remarked Boethius, so that, defending his position, I speculate that the only end of an enterprise is money.

Voga. One can tell you have studied long.

Torbido. At Padua, I discovered my vocation as a brothel-master, thanks to which you and I thrive, as near splendor as the modest learn to expect.

Voga. Granted. If not for this hostel, I would have failed to become the woman I am, covered with more than linen, as any may scrutinize.

Torbido. Necessarily. Nahum heard that God reveals our parts to the world: so you did, so you receive rewards, thereby have you won, your source of luck and fame.

Voga. Retrieved from dirt to glitter in some sort.

Torbido. From jellies of turd even.

Voga. Up mounting to the hill of prosperity, from where I gaze wondering at the less fortunate below.

Torbido. Highly deserved among the brach or breach of troops of women, because you have been a main whore in our time.

Voga. Now, more exquisitely, a purveyor of whores.

Torbido. Many declare your authority as supreme, including myself on most conscious days.

Voga. Because whoredom is the fashion now.

Torbido. It is, to the point we must compete for the least scrap among them, I mean legs, faces, the most cherished demeanor. What do you think of the newer one? Does she promise to do more than she ought or can?

Voga. I cannot tell as yet.

Torbido. Like Esther, let her make much of virginity.

Voga. The most and best.

Torbido. Hold, one of our luckiest birds entering, I see, or wishing to!

Enter Vago

Voga. By my stays and rings, Master Vago!

Vago. I have been called so.

Torbido. Is that not your name, vaunting sir?

Vago. Some have said so without fear to be scorned.

Voga. In any case, a man of fashion, who enters knowing we resolutely abide by fashion.

Vago. You may interpret so, to which, for my part, I have no further objection.

Torbido. What is your hope today, hah? A pink-faced, pink-buttocked one? A youngish crack? Sturdy?

Voga. All those and more, if any such remain.

Torbido. Millions!- no, not millions, but some of choice, lauded by many of our priests, worth a million of them elsewhere, some rarely chosen, however, since man is gross, rarely recognizing the diamond even amid mounds of rubbish.

Vago. Then I agree with you.

Voga. Were I younger, sir, I would be tempted to try your body for my own satisfaction.

Vago. Were I older, madam, so would I, if allowed to say so without being accused of any sort of pretension.

Torbido. But she is very taken now with work Of a more elevated kind.

Vago. None higher than where pricks point highest. Otherwise, how would Mistress Voga be acknowledged inside the parish if not outside as quintessently precious to the most inclined?

Voga. You flatter me, but I cannot blush, despite having tried once.

Torbido. Almost all women of her generation are afflicted so, their daughters even worse, so that the man of today can no longer be called Pygmalion but his statue, stonily astonished only with looking at their countenance.

Vago. Indeed, I am constantly surprised at the fact that women look on my face now.

Torbido. Instead of their own paps, as once they did.

Vago. Or at ants scurrying over their shoe-tops.

Torbido. Modesty, ashamed, has flown forever from the world. In my days of youth, not so long ago, whores were decent. We kept demure babblers who knew the grace of arm and leg. Rarely would any give man the lip, sneer, cheat, or otherwise lose inherent rectitude or female wholesomeness. Look at our browless brawlers now! Their forheadless boldness injures me. But I forget myself. I mean to sell such charms, do I not?

Vago. You regret the old time as a matter of course.

Torbido. Yes, I regret that, for it has made my brothel-house coarser and more unbecoming somehow.

Vago. Nevertheless, I stand upright and transfixed while you talk, Torbido.

Torbido. What is your wish?

Vago. What do you mean? I'm in a brothel, am I not?

Torbido. And therefore you have choice of plenty, sir.

Vago. Should I walk in and then decide at will?

Torbido. Serenely, as men of your kind wish.

Vago. I am not used to being hurried to My favorite positions without proof Of favoring the meritable.

Torbido. Peep out your main head ere the other one At what lies deep within.

Voga. I much expect it.

Re-enter Noce-Moscata, eating

Vago. My dream!

Noce-Moscata. My nightmare!

Torbido. Can she be trusted for man's thrusting now?

Voga. We will observe that very carefully.

Vago. Your hand, fine mistress?

Noce-Moscata. No.

Voga. Look at other men besides your father. You have heard before of such creatures as men, I presume?

Noce-Moscata. Yes.

Voga. Look fixedly at such and by them rise.

Noce-Moscata. Should I not wait for them to lift high first?

Vago. We require help.

Voga. Study their functions, their ins and outs, before quitting.

Noce-Moscata. I do not want to.

Voga. You are inside a whore-house, are you not?

Noce-Moscata. I am.

Voga. Then to succeed you should please to the core.

Torbido. Are you a virgin?

Noce-Moscata. Yes.

Voga. I will determine the truth of that.

Torbido. News that should lighten pockets, sir.

Vago. Expected, as I breathe.

Torbido. Do you study me, novelty? This night you coddle fortune.

Noce-Moscata. I wish I could without once coddling him.

Voga. Begin by kissing him immodestly.

Vago. (kissing Noce-Moscata I'll close with her.

Noce-Moscata. (farting Too near by any measure!

Torbido. What horrible form of accosting is This now? Hah, hah? Have I seen such before?

Vago. You are aware of dangers I incur? What if my nose were nearer?

Torbido. Assure me of your charge, my Voga. Is She capable at least of mimicking A woman's pleasure?

Vago. Do you cast doubt on my ability To shoot desires in women?

Torbido. No, who can stand before such flames of love, Who can abide their fierceness and renown? The rock of chastity is broken down To split asunder as the sparks rush in.

Voga. We all expect that.

Torbido. Come, enter in our rooms, prepared so that All men and women rest, as pleased with love As their own self.

Exeunt Torbido, Voga, Vago, and Noce-Moscata

Act 3. Scene 3. Agostino's house

Enter Agostino and Clara

Agostino. Gone?

Clara. Gone, gone. Did you not urge that course?

Agostino. Well satisfied.

Clara. Not I.

Agostino. O, such do well enough.

Clara. Such?

Agostino. I mean the headstrong. Do I not bear pains Enough as steward of Mansino's will, Whose house depends on Argus-vigilance? Weep when you anger me, not when we lose Forever such a daughter as she proved To be, shame to our age, in our grass gorse.

Exeunt Agostino and Clara