The Duchess of Malfi

Of simple virtue, which was never made

To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag

You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom:

I hope 'twill multiply love there. You do tremble:

Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh,

To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident:

What is 't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;

'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster

Kneels at my husband's tomb. Awake, awake, man!

I do here put off all vain ceremony,

And only do appear to you a young widow

That claims you for her husband, and, like a widow,

I use but half a blush in 't.

Now she pays it.

The misery of us that are born great!

We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us;

And as a tyrant doubles with his words,

And fearfully equivocates, so we

Are forc'd to express our violent passions

In riddles and in dreams, and leave the path

wink'd and chose a husband.—Cariola,

To thy known secrecy I have given up

More than my life,—my fame.