Nallenio
The Tragedy of Nallenio
ACT I
Scene I. [Merewether. The Library]
Nallenio: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love playing cards with thee! And when I love thee not,Chaos is come again
Bowmanio: My noble friend-
Nallenio: What doth thou say, Bowmanio
Bowmanio: Did James J’Jio, when you first played cards with my lady, know of your love?
Nallenio: He did from first to last. Why doth thou ask?
Bowmanio: But for satisfaction of my thought, No further harm.
Nallenio: Why of thy thought, Bowmanio?
Bowmanio: I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
Nallenio: O, yes, and served as a messenger for us very oft.
Bowmanio: Indeed?
Nallenio: Indeed? Ay, indeed! Discern’st thou aught in that? Is he not honest?
Bowmanio: Honest my friend?
Nallenio: Honest? Ay, honest.
Bowmanio: My friend, for aught I know.
Nallenio: What dost thou think?
Bowmanio: Think my friend?
Nallenio: Think my friend? By heaven, thou echoest me, As if there was some monster in thy thought too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something. Show me thy thought.
Bowmanio: For James J’Jio I dare be sworn, I think that he is honest.
Nallenio: I think so to.
Nallenio: Honest Bowmanio, Hast thou knowledge of who hast been pilfering my playing cards
Bowmanio: By mine word my lord I hath not.
Nallenio: Lieutenant J’Jio claims that you hast stolen the nine of diamonds I loved so dearly. ‘Twas a gift from my mother, who on her deathbed bade me never to lose it or give it away for it is bestow’d with powerful magics.
Bowmanio: Then J’Jio is liar of most contemptible breed
I do not wish to speak against him
But his actions have forced my hand
Of what I say next you must take great heed.
Yesterday I overheard Domdemona and J’Jio speaking in a low voice. She
claimed that diamonds were her favourite suit and then..
Nallenio: What Bowmanio. Speak.
Bowmanio: And then…
Nallenio: Bowmanio! Abate my bated breath.
Bowmanio: There was laughing.
Nallenio: Those cheating scumbags… How should I kill them honest Bowmanio?
Bowmanio: Patience my lord, your mind may change
Nallenio: Never Bowmanio. Within three days let me hear thee say that J’Jio is not alive
Bowmanio: My friend is dead. ‘Tis done at your request. But let Domdemona live.
Nallenio: Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her! Damn her!
Come, go with me apart. I will withdraw
To furnish me with some swift means of death for the fair devil.
Now art thou my Comrade.
Bowmanio: I am your own forever.
ACT I
Scene II. [Merewether. A hall]
Nallenio: How do you Domdemona?
Domdemona: Well, my good lord.
Nallenio: Give me thy hand. This hand is moist, my lady.
Domdemona: It hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
Nallenio: A liberal hand! The hearts of old gave hands, but our new heraldry is hands not hearts.
Domdemona: I cannot speak of this. Come now your promise!
Nallenio: What promise?
Domdemona: I have sent to bid J’Jio come speak with you.
Nallenio: I have an urge to practice mine deck rigging. Lend me thy cards.
Domdemona: Here, my lord.
Nallenio: Those which I gave you.
Domdemona: I have not them about me.
Nallenio: Not?
Domdemona: No, indeed, my lord
Nallenio: That’s a fault.
Those cards
Did an Egyptian to my mother give.
She was a witch, and could almost read
The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it
‘Twould make her desirable, and subdue my father
Entirely to her love; but if she lost it
Or made a gift of it, my fathers eye
Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me,
And bid me, when my fate should have my wived,
To give it her. I did so; and take heed on’t;
Make it a darling like your precious eye.
To lose it or give it away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.
Domdemona: Is’t possible?
Nallenio: ‘Tis true.
Domdemona: Indeed? It’s true?
Nallenio: Most veritable. Therefore look to’t well.
Domdemona: Then would to God that I had never seen’t!
Nallenio: Ha! Wherefore?
Domdemona: Why do you speak so rash?
Nallenio: Is’t lost? Is’t gone? Speak, is it out of the way?
Domdemona: Heaven bless us!
Nallenio: Say you?
Domdemona: It is not lost. But what an if it were?
Nallenio: How?
Domdemona: I say it is not lost.
Nallenio: Fetch it. Let me see it.
Domdemona: Why, so I can; but I will not now. This is a trick to put me from my suit: Pray you let J’Jio be received again.
Nallenio: Fetch me the cards! My mind misgives.
Domdemona: Come, Come! You’ll never meet a more sufficient man.
Nallenio: The Cards!
Domdemona: A man that all his time hath founded his good fortunes on your love, shared dangers with you
Nallenio: The cards!
Domdemona: I’faith, you are to blame.
Nallenio: Away.
ACT I
Scene III. [Merewether. The Library]
Lyndela: Three threes.
Bowmanio: Three fours.
[Substantial pause]
Gregsanio: Hey, J’Jio’s whore! Play a card.
Frenchesca: Uh. Um. Hmm.
Frenchesca: Two sevens.
Gregsanio: It’s triples you moron.
Frenchesca: Uh. Um. Hmm. Parseyarse
Gregsanio: Did you just say to “Pass the arse”.
Frenchesca: No. I said Parseyarse.
Bowmanio: [sarcastically] Well that’s much better.
Gregsanio: Three eights.
J’Jio: Three tens. I’m out.
Gregsanio: Oh how the fuck can you possibly be out! You’ve only played three cards!
J’Jio: Well I doth have no more cards, do I.
Gregsanio: [Draws knife] On your feet you whoring bastard!
J’Jio: [Slips cards to Bowmanio] Calm yourself friend, I do protest my innocence.
Bowmanio: [Whispers to Gregsanio] Stay your hand Gregsanio, This is too public a place. I’ll meet thee at lunch.
[Exit Gregsanio]
Lyndela: Pass
Bowmanio: Three kings
ACT II
Scene I. [Merewether. The Quad]
Enter Bowmanio and Gregsanio
Bowmanio: Here stand behind this corner; straight will he come. Wear thy good knife bare, and put it home. Quick, quick fear nothing; I’ll be at thy elbow. It makes us, or it destroys us, think on that, And fix most firm thy resolution
Gregsanio: Stay close to me; I might stuff up.
Bowmanio: Here, at thy hand. Be bold, and take thy stand.
[Moves to one side]
Gregsanio: I don’t really want to do this, but Bowmanio tells me to. Its only one guy dead. And he is a total cockbite. Attack!!
Bowmanio: I have rubbed this young gning almost to the sense, and yet he grows angry.
Now whether he kill J’Jio or J’Jio him, or each do kill the other, Every way makes my gain. Live Gregsanio, He calls me to a restitution large Of money and jewels that I stole from him As gifts to Domdemona. It must not be. If J’Jio do remain, He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly; and besides, Nallenio May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril No, he must die. But so, I hear him coming.
Enter J’Jio
Gregsanio: It’s him. Dickhead, You’re dead!
[Thrusts at J’Jio]
J’Jio: That thrust had been mine enemy indeed But that my three pairs of pants is thicker than thou know’st.
I will impale thee on a sharp stick
[Impales Gregsanio on a stick]
Gregsanio: Oh dear, I seem to have been disembowelled
J’Jio: I am maimed forever. Help, ho! Murder! Murder!
Enter Nallenio [To one side]
Nallenio: The voice of J’Jio. Bowmanio keeps his word.
Gregsanio: I’m such a gning.
J’Jio: O help, ho! An ambulance!
Nallenio: ‘Tis he. O brave Bowmanio, honest and just, That hast such a noble sense of thy friend’s wrong!
And now, I shall away and end this business forever.
J’Jio: What’s up with this, why is nobody walking past? Murder! Murder!
Lamberto: ‘Tis some mischance. The voice is very direful.
J’Jio: O, Help!
Boothio: Hark!
Gregsanio: O stupid gning.
Boothio: Two or three groan. ‘Tis heavy night These may be counterfeits. Let’s think’t unsafe
To come into the cry without more help.
Gregsanio: Nobody’s coming. Well then. I guess I’ll might just bleed to death!
Boothio: Hark!
Enter Bowmanio
Bowmanio: Who’s there? Whose noise is it that cries murder?
Boothio: We do not know.
Bowmanio: Did you not hear a cry?
J’Jio: Here, Here! For heaven’s sake, help me!
Bowmanio: What’s the matter? What are you here that cry so grievously?
J’Jio: Bowmanio? O, I am hurt, undone by villains. Give me some help.
Bowmanio: O me, Comrade! What villains have done this?
J’Jio: I think that one of them is hereabout and cannot make away.
Bowmanio: O treacherous villains!
Gregsanio: Help!
J’Jio: That’s one of them.
Bowmanio: O murderous slave. O Villain!
[Stabs Gregsanio]
Gregsanio: O damned Bowmanio! Fuck you, you inhuman dog!
Enter Frenchesca
Frenchesca: What is the matter, ho? Who is’t that cried?
Bowmanio: Who isn’t it that cried.
Frenchesca: O my dear J’Jio! My sweet J’Jio! O J’Jio, J’Jio, J’Jio!
Bowmanio: O notable strumpet! – J’Jio, may you suspect who they should be that have thus mangled you?
J’Jio: No.
Lamberto: I am sorry to find you thus. I have been to seek you.
Bowmanio: Go fetch a stretcher, to bear him easily hence.
Frenchesca: Alas, he faints! O J’Jio, J’Jio, J’Jio!
Bowmanio: Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash To be a party in all this injury.
Patience a while good J’Jio. Come, come.
Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?
Alas, my friend and my dear countryman
Gregsanio? No. Yes, sure. Yes, ‘tis Gregsanio!
Lamberto: What, of the other side of the quad?
Bowmanio: Even he, sir. Did you know him?
Lamberto: Know him? Ay.
Bowmanio: Signior Lamberto? I cry your gentle pardon. These bloody incidents must excuse my manners that so neglected you.
Lamberto: I am glad to see you.
Bowmanio: How do you J’Jio? O, a stretcher, a stretcher.
[J’Jio is carried off]
Enter Lyndela
Lyndela: Alas, what is the matter? What is the matter, husband?
Bowmanio: J’Jio hath here been set on in the dark By Gregsanio and fellows that are scaped.
He’s almost slain, and Gregsanio quite dead
Lyndela: Alas, good gentleman! Alas, good J’Jio!
Bowmanio: This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Lyndela, Go know of J’Jio where he ate his lunch
Frenchesca: He ate lunch with my group.
Bowmanio: O, did he so? I command you go with me.
Kind gentlemen, let’s go see poor J’Jio bandaged
Come, Frenchesca, you must tell another tale.
Lyndela, run you to the library
And tell Nallenio and Domdemona what hath happened.
[Exit all but Bowmanio]
Bowmanio: This is the lunchtime that either makes me or fordoes me quite. [Exit]
ACT III
Scene I. [Merewether. The Library]
Enter Nallenio and Domdemona sitting in chair
Nallenio: It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars.
It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
For that bitch cheats on me at cards!
Domdemona: Who’s there? Nallenio?
Nallenio: Ay, Domdemona.
Domdemona: Talk you of killing?
Nallenio: Ay, I do.
Domdemona: Then heaven have mercy on me!
Nallenio: Amen, with all my heart.
Domdemona: If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
Nallenio: Peace and be still.
Domdemona: I will so. What’s the matter?
Nallenio: Those cards which I so loved and gave thee, thou gav’st to J’Jio.
Domdemona: He found it then. I never gave it him. Send for him hither. Let him confess a truth.
Nallenio: He hath confessed.
Domdemona: What my lord?
Nallenio: That he hath cheated with you.
Domdemona: He will not say so.
Nallenio: No, his mouth is stopped. Honest Bowmanio hath ta’en order for’t.
Domdemona: Alas, he is betrayed, and I undone!
Nallenio: Down, strumpet!
Domdemona: Kill me tomorrow, let me live today!
Nallenio: Being done there is no pause.
Domdemona: But while I say one prayer!
Nallenio: It is too late!
Smothers her.
Enter Lyndela
Lyndela: My good lord, yonder foul murders done.
Nallenio: What? Now?
Lyndela: J’Jio hath killed Gregsanio.
Nallenio: Gregsanio killed? And J’Jio killed?
Lyndela: No J’Jio is not killed.
Nallenio: Not J’Jio killed? Then murders out of tune and sweet revenge grows harsh.
Domdemona: O, falsely, falsely murdered!
Lyndela: O, who hath done this deed?
Domdemona: Nobody. I myself. Farewell.
Nallenio: Why, how should she be murdered?
Lyndela: Alas, who knows?
Nallenio: You heard her say herself, it was not I.
Lyndela: She said so. I must needs report the truth.
Nallenio: She’s a liar gone to burning hell. ‘Twas I that killed her.
Lyndela: O, the more angel she and you the blacker devil!
Nallenio: She was as false as water.
Lyndela: How? How was she false?
Nallenio: She cheated me at cards! And worse, she let J’Jio steal the cards I loved so dearly.
Lyndela: J’Jio did not steal the cards. It was Bowmanio who hath stole your cards.
Nallenio: Perhaps then we should keep this murder secret and go to the library as usual. Then may we find if you speak the truth.
ACT III
Scene II. [Merewether. The Library]
Nallenio, Lyndela, Bowmanio, J’Jio, Boothio, Lamberto and Frenchesca all sitting playing cards
Boothio: So… How about Gregsanio going insane and trying to gut old J’Jio?
Lamberto: That sure is an unusual turn of events.
All but Nallenio and Frenchesca swapping cards secretly
Lyndela: I start right? Two threes.
J’Jio: Two fours. I’m out.
Nallenio: Look that’s it! You’ve played two bloody cards! You and Domdemona were cheating on me weren’t you?
Bowmanio: Weren’t you? Is there something you want to tell us Nallenio?
Frenchesca: Maybe he killed her.
Nallenio: Shut up, strumpet!
Lyndela: Bowmanio told Nallenio that Domdemona was false!
Bowmanio: I did.
Lyndela: You told a lie! An odious damned lie!
Bowmanio: Go to, charm you tongue.
Lyndela: I will not charm my tongue! Domdemona lies murdered in K4!
Bowmanio: What? Are you mad?
Nallenio: ‘Tis pitiful; but yet Bowmanio knows
That she with J’Jio hath the act of shame
A thousand time committed. J’Jio confessed it;
She allowed him steal my cards, an antique token
My father gave my Mother
Bowmanio: To Lyndela Be wise get you home.
Lyndela: I will not.
Bowmanio draw a knife and threatens Lyndela
Boothio: Fie! Your knife upon a woman?
Lyndela: I did steal the cards, and give to Bowmanio. For often with a solemn earnestness he begged of me to steal it.
Bowmanio: Villainous whore!
Lyndela: She give it J’Jio? No, alas, I give it Bowmanio.
Bowmanio: Filth, thou liest!
Lyndela: By heaven I do not.
Nallenio: Are there no stones in heaven but what serves for the thunder?
Nallenio charges Bowmanio, but is disarmed by Boothio. Bowmanio cuts Lyndela’s throat unnoticed then slips the knife in Frenchesca’s pocket.
Boothio: Who hath killed Lyndela?
Bowmanio: We should all draw our knives and see whose is bloody.
Boothio: Thou hath murdered my friend, Frenchesca.
Boothio throws Frenchesca into bookshelf. She falls unconscious
Nallenio: And I hath falsely murdered.
Stabs himself
Enter Gregsanio with big knife
Gregsanio: You’re dead J’Jio!
Swings knife. J’Jio dodges but cards fall out his sleeves. Gregsanio falls. Lands with knife in Frenchesca, killing her. Bowmanio stabs Gregsanio in the confusion.
Nallenio: See I told thee he was a cheater.
Dies
Lamberto: O, bloody period.
Boothio: Myself will straight to Mrs Hall this heavy act with heavy heart relate.
Exit Boothio and Lamberto
J’Jio: We are truly the masters of lies and intrigue.
Bowmanio: That we are, J’Jio, that we are.
Fin
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