Matchiavel of the Day

COMMENTATOR:    Good evening, and you join us live at the National Theatre just as the final act of Thomas Kydder’s little-known Jacobean revenge tragedy, The Discontent, is about to start. The Duke of Mufti and his evil servant Bolsova are currently leading the Duke’s brother Diego and their sister Scrota by two poisonings to one strangulation, and the scene is set for a really thrilling climax.

And here comes the Duke to deliver the opening monologue of act five, scene one, of Thomas Kydder’s The Discontent.

            (enter DUKE)

DUKE:            I, the Duke of Mufti, will this day my brother bait

            And beat his bells to bloating. My sister will I slit

            From crown to corn, and feed the scraps t’th’carrion crows.

COMM:          A fine opening, with three gory images and a touch of alliteration towards the end there.

DUKE:            But halt, here comes my lieutenant.

            (enter BOLSOVA)

            How now, worthless Bolsova, how grows our plot?

BOLSOVA:    As a cabbage patch, my lord, ridden with ye blight

            And wormy like ye droppings of an mole.

COMM:          Brilliant opening from Bolsova! Two similes, a salutation, and a pun on the word ‘plot’, all in only his first two lines.

DUKE:            Good, good, worthless Bolsova. Now hie I homeward

            To fetch my steel. This night must thee and me away

            Full silent and slippery like dung down a drain.

            (exit DUKE)

COMM:          Rather weak exit line from the Duke there. Perhaps he would have been better advised to go for the rhyme.

BOLSOVA:    Man is but a bag of offal.

His guts are nought but snot.

COMM:          But a truly disgusting unrhymed couplet from Bolsova to snatch a point at the end of that speech there. What can Diego do in the face of such blisteringly good imagery?

            (enter DIEGO)

DIEGO:          Ah, thou bleeding pustule, thou clot,

            Hast thou seen my brother?

COMM:          A brilliant return from Diego! Two metaphors and a direct question!

BOLSOVA:    Aye, man, he is about thus tall

            With ye face of an swine-hoglet.

COMM:          Bolsova’s cracked a joke, a deliberate misunderstanding, and Diego doesn’t like it.

DIEGO:          Stow thy stinking jests in a gunny-sack, strop,

            And let the cows pat upon it where they wilt.

            Was my brother here?

BOLSOVA:    Sayst thou to me what thy wouldst to him

            Were he but here, scum. I am thy brother’s lieutenant, aye,

            And right tenant, too, to his deeds as to his doings.

COMM:          Bolsova isn’t missing a trick tonight. Yet another dazzling play on the word ‘lieutenant’.

DIEGO:          Nay then, thou snivelling pillock, I will out withal.

            Our fair sister, the duchess Scrota, is with child.

            Know thee aught of it, jopp?

BOLSOVA:    I know aught of all, yet nought of owt,

                        And all goes thence to thee and back again.

COMM:          And Diego’s got him with a load of gibberish! Always thinking on his feet, this boy.

DIEGO:          She said that thou didst lie with her, flap.

BOLSOVA:    Lie with her, block? An ’twere a goodly lie

            Were not ye truth, like to an dimpled golf ball,

Embedded in ye sand trap that lies beyond yon green.

COMM:          A superb extended simile from Bolsova. Such an all-rounder this boy.

DIEGO:          I know not of what thou pratest,

            O loathsome jackal with beetle’s ears.

            Thou ravest even as doth she.

COMM:          Diego on the offensive now, and few players are more offensive than Diego when he’s on form.

BOLSOVA:    Had I but known her for a raver yet,

            I would not have stayed my stem so long.

COMM :         Bolsova seeking refuge now in scatological illogicality, but I don’t think Diego’s going to fall for it.

DIEGO:          Then ’tis true, thou dung-spawn. My bowels

            Do blow with bluster at thy duplicity.

BOLSOVA:    Go blow thy bowels elsewhere, Diego.

            They move not me.

DIEGO:          Jelly-faced loon! Take thy steel!

COMM:          And the first direct challenge of the act coming from Diego.

BOLSOVA:    Out, pratful scutch, lest I do fill thy bum

            With boot-leather.

COMM:          Fine return.

DIEGO:          I will see thee hanged.

BOLSOVA:    Nay then, I would knee thy nuts for thee. (knees DIEGO in the groin)

COMM:          Oh and he really struck that ball beautifully there.

DIEGO:          Ow! Thou hast mine gender-pouch enbruisèd

            As ’twere some double goiter where the puss doth pound.

BOLSOVA:    Thou spit-egg, thou, with clobbered crutch.

            And so, blackballed, I leave thee. (exit)

COMM:          Brilliant pun from Bolsova.

DIEGO:          Thou hast not dealt thy last with me. (exit)

COMM:          And Diego snatching a point at the last there, turning Bolsova’s exit line into a rhyming couplet. And I’m joined now by Professor James Tisfus, Jonsonian reader in 17th Century Drama at Kellogg’s College, Cambridge. A thrilling match, Jimmy?

JIMMY:          Yeah, but this is 17th century drama, Dave, you know, the match is never over till one side has lost, and I’m sure the good guys will have got something up their sleeves to pull out of the fire in their own inevitable manner.

COMM:          But Scrota will really have to put in a good monologue to keep her side in the running at the start of scene two, Jimmy?

JIMMY:          Oh, wivvout a doubt, Dave, but she’s a seasoned pro, got lots of guts, and I expect we’ll be seeing quite a few of them spilt before the hundred and ninety minutes is up.

COMM:          Thank you, Jimmy. And here comes Scrota now to open scene two.

            (enter SCROTA, limping, carrying a small trug of fruits)

SCROTA:       Life is just a bowl of cherries

            Where the grimp-eyed vermin do chomp the fruit

            Like lovers at the breasts of their brides.

COMM:          Oh, and a very disappointing start from Scrota there, the cherries analogy wasn’t even original. I wonder if Bolsova’s going to take advantage of that slip?

            (enter BOLSOVA)

BOLSOVA:    Ah, Scrota, thou wrinkled little sac.

            How goes thy world withal?

SCROTA:       With all my phlegm I do hockle on’t.

BOLSOVA:    Why so, sweet twerp?

SCROTA:       I curse the day I was unto this blighted orb

            Dischargèd. With gammy leg and grotty back

            I creep the earth o’er like some unpunctured prune,

            With breath to neither stand nor fall.

BOLSOVA:    If thou wouldst fall, sob-sister,

            Let me help thee to’t. (hooks her leg away. She falls)

COMM:          Like greased lightning, that right peg.

SCROTA:       I am bruisèd.

BOLSOVA:    Thou’rt a fallen woman, cunch.

SCROTA:       Twice fallen, Bolsova, and by thy vile villainy

            Both times brought down.

COMM:          Bolsova thought he’d won a point there with his ‘fallen woman’ line, but Scrota’s neat appropriation of the reversal puts her in the lead.

BOLSOVA:    Eat gravel, hot-head, whilst I

            Partake me of thy peaches. (he eats a peach from her trug)

COMM:          And Bolsova obviously tiring now, he’s seeking to keep his strength up with a snack.

SCROTA:       Why, thou posturing putty-head,

            Had I but gob in these gums I would drown thee

            In thy footsteps and kindle thy kecks to dry the deluge.

COMM:          Brilliant groundwork from Scrota there.

BOLSOVA:    But thou art arid as a cat litter that stands beside a kennel.

Cease thy gabbling, o curdy concubine, and – (chokes)

Ah me – what is this?

COMM:          Oh, and he’s swallowed the stone!

SCROTA:       ’Tis the piss of a stoat, good master Bolsova,

            That I did squeeze thereon last night. Better thy cursèd progeny

            Hath no father than thou, o petty plasterer.

COMM:          No, she’s got him with a poisoned peach!

JIMMY:          This girl is dynamite with fruit bowl and a bottle of cyanide, Dave.

BOLSOVA:    What, saucy harlot? Hast thou my life betrimmed

            As ’twere ye gusset parts of an new-born Jew?

            Take this for thy pains, o patchy scoutch. (stabs her)

SCROTA:       I am tilth. (dies)

COMM:          And he’s killed her! No one poisons Bolsova and gets away with it! Jimmy?

            (the stabbing is replayed in slow motion)

JIMMY:          Well, lovely move by Bolsova, this. He brings the arm back, has a quick look up, sees Scrota is wide open and wallop, it’s in the back of the neck before you can say knife. Magic.

            (back live)      

COMM:          So what will Diego do now, alone against the Duke and a dying but still plucky Bolsova?

            (enter DIEGO)

DIEGO:          What, hangdog? Hast thou slain my sister?

BOLSOVA:    She did this gory game begin by garlanding

            Her grapefruit with green and gruesome grime.

COMM:          And the poison beginning to take effect, Bolsova having to slip in ‘grapefruit’ there to get the alliteration.

JIMMY:          I’d’ve gone wiv gooseberry meself.

DIEGO:          Then diest thou also, horny homunculus. (stabs BOLSOVA)

BOLSOVA:    I die, and you have killed me. (falls dramatically)

COMM:          Clearly a dive from Bolsova there.

BOLSOVA:    O, scummy scrabbler. Thou hast mine intestines severed

            As ’twere an string of onions, and all ye meaty morsels

            That once therein did lie now burst their bowels

            And flood the floor of these my choicest chambers.

Bleurch! (dies)

COMM:          What a dying speech. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bolsova play better on his last legs. Now can the Duke claw one back in the final minutes?

            (enter DUKE)

DUKE:            Brother, what art thou about?

DIEGO:          I am about twelve hands high,

            O black and churlish womb-twin.

COMM:          Diego picking up Bolsova’s joke from the last scene and playing it back to the Duke with a vicious twist.

            (DIEGO and the DUKE circle each other, daggers drawn)

DIEGO:          Thou hast mine sister and me full sorely tried,

            And now must thou see the benighted batswings of death

            Pound above thy pate.

COMM:          Superb poetry from Diego.

DUKE:            Nay then, thou hast thy senses in an cubbyhole forgot.

            I must dispatch thee hence lest thou harm me more. (stabs him)

DIEGO:          O, thou pox-bellied scab. This for thee an’ all. (stabs him)

DUKE:            Ow! Jerk!

COMM:          And the Duke obviously shaken there, he wasn’t expecting the counter-jab and all he can manage is a miserable oath that isn’t even grammatical.

DIEGO:          I am dead, snuffed, extinguishèd, like a candle

            That is blown out by the blast of an exploding bum boil. (dies)

COMM:          And there goes Diego with some sparkling last words.

DUKE:            O what paltry pastries have I wrought from this dough of life?

COMM:          And the Duke gathering himself now for his closing speech. This is his last chance to save the match, so he’ll really have to pull out all the stops.

DUKE:            ’Tis now night in this dark and direful place,

            And nought onstage is left a-breath.

COMM:          Good opening.

DUKE:            The gods methinks will boil my bladder

            For being so bloody a bulk, and gird my grisly ghost

            With grey-bound garments.

COMM:          Fine hyperbole.

DUKE:            I must for the nonce hie me t’th’hot gates of hell,

And force my face t’ord the everlasting fire.

A hose, a hose, my dukedom for a hose. (dies)

COMM:          Oh, and he’s thrown it all away in the final phrase with a blatant piece of plagiarism! So the match ends in a draw, Jimmy?

JIMMY:          Always does, Dave.

COMM:          That’s all from the National Theatre tonight. Join us next week for Hamlet.