Double Falsehood
Act I, Scene 1
The province of Andalusia in Spain. A royal palace.
Title page of the 1728 quarto edition of Double Falshood
Lewis Theobald, 1728
- Enter Roderick and the Duke.
Roderick
1 - 2- My gracious father, this unwonted strain
- Visits my heart with sadness.
Duke
3 - 9- Why, my son?
- Making my death familiar to my tongue
- Digs not my grave one jot before the date.
- I’ve worn the garland of my honors long,
- And would not leave it wither’d to thy brow,
- But flourishing and green; worthy the man,
- Who, with my Dukedoms, heirs my better glories.
Roderick
10- This praise, which is my pride, spreads me with blushes.
Duke
11 - 20- Think not, that I can flatter thee, my Roderick;
- Or let the scale of love o’er-poise my judgment.
- Like a fair glass of retrospection, thou
- Reflect’st the virtues of my early youth;
- Making my old blood mend its pace with transport:
- While fond Henriquez, thy irregular brother,
- Sets the large credit of his name at stake,
- A truant to my wishes, and his birth.
- His taints of wildness hurt our nicer honor,
- And call for swift reclaim.
Roderick
21 - 24- I trust, my brother
- Will, by the vantage of his cooler wisdom,
- E’er-while redeem the hot escapes of youth,
- And court opinion with a golden conduct.
Duke
25 - 33- Be thou a prophet in that kind suggestion!
- But I, by fears weighing his unweigh’d course,
- Interpret for the future from the past.
- And strange misgivings, why he hath of late
- By importunity, and strain’d petition,
- Wrested our leave of absence from the court,
- Awake suspicion. Thou art inward with him;
- And, haply, from the bosom’d trust can’st shape
- Some formal cause to qualify my doubts.
Roderick
34 - 44- Why he hath press’d this absence, sir, I know not;
- But have his letters of a modern date,
- Wherein by Julio, good Camillo’s son,
- (Who, as he says, shall follow hard upon;
- And whom I with the growing hour expect)
- He doth solicit the return of gold
- To purchase certain horse, that like him well.
- This Julio he encounter’d first in France,
- And lovingly commends him to my favor;
- Wishing, I would detain him some few days,
- To know the value of his well-placed trust.
Duke
45 - 50- O, do it, Roderick; and assay to mould him
- An honest spy upon thy brother’s riots.
- Make us acquainted when the youth arrives;
- We’ll see this Julio, and he shall from us
- Receive the secret loan his friend requires.
- Bring him to court.
- Exeunt.