Kitabı oku: «Charles Di Tocca: A Tragedy», sayfa 2

Yazı tipi:

Hæmon: Well – well?

Bardas: No more. When I had struck him down,
He swore it was unswerving all and truth.
Hasting to warn I found Helena ta'en
And sought you here.

Hæmon (grasping his brows): Ah!

Bardas: Helena who is
All purity!

Hæmon: Ah sister, child! – Have I
With strength been father and with tenderness
A mother been to her unfolding years
But to see now unchastest cruelty
Pluck her white bloom to ease his idle sense
One fragrant hour? – If it be so, no flowers
Should blossom; only weeds whose withering
Can hurt no heart!

Bardas: These tears should seal fierce oaths
Against him!

Hæmon: And they shall! until God wrecks
Him in the tempest raised of his outrage!

Bardas: Then may I be the rock on which he breaks!
But hear; who comes? (Revellers are heard approaching.)
We must aside until
This mirth is past. (They conceal themselves.)

Enter revellers dressed as bacchanals and bacchantes, dancing and singing

Bacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo!
The vine! a fig for the rest!
With locks green-crowned and lips red-warm —
The vine! the vine's the best!
He loved maids, O-o-ay! hei-yo!
The vine! a maiden's breast!
He pressed the grape, and kissed the maid! —
The cuckoo builds no nest!

(All go dancing, except Lydia and Phaon, who clasps and kisses her passionately)

Lydia (breaking from him): Do you think kisses are so cheap? You must know mine fill my purse! A pretty gallant from Naples, with laces and silks and jewels gave me this ring last year for but one. And another lover from Venice gave me this (a bracelet) – but he looked so sad when he gave it. Ah, his eyes! I'd not have cared if he had given me naught.

Phaon: Here, here, then! (Offers jewel.)

Lydia (putting it aside): They say the ladies in Venice ride with their lovers through the streets all night in boats: and the very moon shines more passionately there. Is it true?

Phaon: Yes, yes. But kiss me, Lydia! Take this jewel – my last. Be mine to-night, no other's! We'll prate of Venice another time.

Lydia: Another time we'll prate of kisses. I'll not have the jewel.

Phaon: Not have it! Now you're turning nun! a soft and virgin, silly nun! With a gray gown to hide these shoulders that – shall I whisper it?

Lydia: Devil! they're not! A nice lover called them round and fair last night. And I've been sick! And – I – cruel! cruel! cruel! (Revellers are heard returning.) There, they're coming.

Phaon: Never mind, my girl. But you mustn't scorn a man's blood when it's afire.

Re-enter Revellers singing

Bacchus, hey! was a god, hei-yo! etc.

(After which all go, except Zoe and Basil.

Zoe: O! O! O! but 'tis brave! Wine, Basil! Wine, my knight, my Bacchus! Ho! ho! my god! you wheeze like a cross-bow. Is it years, my wooer, years? – Ah! (She sighs.)

Basil: Sighs – sighs! Now look for showers.

Zoe: Basil – you were my first lover – except the duke Charles. Ah, did you see how that Helena looked when they gave her the duke's command? I was like that once. (Hæmon starts forward.)

Basil: Fiends, nymphs and saints! it's come! tears in your eyes! Zoe, stop it. Would you have mine leak and drive me to a monastery for shelter!

Zoe (sings sadly and absently):
She lay by the river, dead,
A broken reed in her hand
A nymph whom an idle god had wed
And led from her maidenland.

Basil: O, had I been born a heathen!

Zoe: He told me, Basil, I should live, a great lady, at his castle. And they should kiss my hand and courtesy to me. He meant but jest – I feared. – I feared! But – I loved him!

Basil: Now, my damsel – !

Zoe (sings):
The god was the great god Jove,
Two notes would the bent reed blow,
The one was sorrow, the other love
Enwove with a woman's woe.

Basil: Songs and snakes! Give me instead a Dominican's funeral! I'd as lief crawl bare-kneed to Rome and mouth the Pope's heel. O blessed Turks with their remorseless harems! – Zoe!

Zoe (sings):
She lay by the river dead;
And he at feasting forgot.
The gods, shall they be disquieted
By dread of a mortal's lot?

(She wipes her eyes, trembles, looks at him and laughs hysterically.)

Bacchus! my Bacchus! with wet eyes! Up, up, lad! there's many a cup for us yet!

(They go, she leading and singing.

He loved maids, O-o-ay! hei-yo!
The vine! a maiden's breast! etc.

(Hæmon and Bardas look at each other, then start after them terribly moved.)

Curtain

ACT TWO

Scene.—An audience hall in the castle of Charles di Tocca; the next afternoon. The dark stained walls have been festooned with vines and flowers. On the left is the ducal throne. On the right sunlight through high-set windows. In the rear heavily draped doors. Enter Charles, who looks around and smiles with subtle content, then summons a servant.

Enter servant

Charles: The princess Fulvia.

Servant: She comes, sir, now.

(Goes.

Enter Fulvia

Fulvia: My lord, flowers and vines upon these walls
That seem always in dismal memory
And mist of grief? What means it?

Charles: That sprung up,
A greedy multitude upon the fields,
Citron and olive were left hungry, so
I quelled them!

Fulvia: Magic ever dwells in flowers
To waft me back to childhood. (Taking some.)
Poor pluckt buds
If they could speak like children torn from the breast.

Charles: You're full of sighs and pity then?

Fulvia: Yes, and —
Of doubt.

Charles: What so divides you?

Fulvia: Helena —
This Greek – I do not understand.

Charles: Nor guess?
You have not seen nor spoken to her?

Fulvia: No.

Charles: We'll have her. (Motions servant.)
Go. Say that we wait her here,
The lady Helena. (Servant goes.
She's frighted – thinks
'Tmay be her father found too deep a rest
Within our care: yet has a hope that holds
The tears still from her lids. I've smiled on her,
Smiled, Fulvia, and she – Why do you cloud?

Fulvia: I would this were undone.

Charles: Undone? Undone?
You would it were – ?

Enter Helena

Ah, Greek! Our Fulvia,
Who is as heart and health about our doors,
Has speech for you. And polities
Untended groan for me. (He goes.

Fulvia (looking sadly at her): Girl – child —

Helena: Why do
You call me so with struggle on your breast?

Fulvia: You're very fair.

Helena: And was so free I thought
The world brimmed up with my full happiness.

Fulvia: But find it is a sieve to all but grief?

Helena: Is it then grief? I have not any tears,
Yet seem girt by an emptiness that aches,
Surrounds and whispers, what I dare not think
Or, shapened, see.

Fulvia: It stains too as a shroud
The morrow's face?

Helena: You look at me – I think
You look at me, as if – ?

Fulvia: No child.

Helena: Why am
I in this place? You fear for me?

Fulvia: Fear?

Helena: Yes!
A dumb dread trembles from you sufferingly.

Fulvia: It is not fear. Or – no! – has vanished quite,
Ashamed of its too naked idleness.

Helena (shuddering): He cannot, will not! – Yet you feared!

Fulvia: Be calm:
Beauty is better so.

Helena: Ah, you are cold!
See a great shadow reach and wrap at me,
Yet lend no light! By gentleness I pray you,
What said he?

Fulvia: Child —

Helena: Child! – Ah, a moment's dread
Brings age on us! – If not by gentleness,
Then by that love that women bear to men,
By happiness too fleeting to tread earth,
I pray you tell the fear your heart so hides!

Fulvia: You are the guest of Charles di Tocca.

Helena: Guest?
Ah, guests are bidden, not commanded. – Where,
Where can Antonio be gone. All day
No token, quieting!

Fulvia: Antonio, girl?
Antonio? – Is it true?

Re-enter Charles

Charles: So eager? – Truth
Has brewed more tears than lies. But, Fulvia,
Why doth it mated with Antonio's name
Wring thus your troubled hands?

Fulvia: My lord —

Charles: You falter?
No matter – now. (To Helena.) But you, my fair one, put
More merriment upon your lips and lids,
And this (giving pearls) upon the lustre of your throat.
Hither our guests come soon. Be with us then,
And at your beauty's best. Now; trembling so? —
Yet is the lily lovelier in the wind!

(He looks after, musingly, as she goes.

Fulvia: My lord —

Charles: True, Fulvia – as titles go.

Fulvia: My lord —

Charles: Twice – but I'm not two lords.

Fulvia: To-night
I think you are. But quench your jests.

Charles: In tears?
And groans? Where borrow them?

Fulvia (turning away): So let it be.

Charles: Why do you say so be it and sigh as
Nought could again be well?

Fulvia: O —

Charles: Now you frown?

Fulvia: The hope you nurse, then, if it prove a pang
Of serpent bitterness —

Charles: Prove pang? I then
But for an "if" must pluck it from me?

Fulvia: So
I must believe.

Charles: Pluck it from me! Will you —
Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh
The quiet in me to a maelstrom! This
Is mine, this joy; and still is mine, though I
To keep it must bring on me bitterness
And bleeding and – I rage!

Fulvia: Then shall I cease,
And say no more? No, you are on a flood
Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror.
And she – this girl! It has been long since you
Gave license rein upon your will, and spur.
Do not so now.

Charles: License?

Fulvia: She is all morn
And dream and dew: make her not dark!

Charles: You think – !

Fulvia: Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on terror!

Charles: On terror! (Laughing.)

Fulvia: You've laughed nobler.

Charles: Fulvia,
Friend of my unrepaying years, dream you
I who in empire youth too soon forgot,
Who on my brow surprise the wafted dew,
The presages of age and death, shake not?

Fulvia: I knew not, but have waited oft such words.

Charles: Ah what! this hope, this leaping in me, this
White dawn across my turbulence and night,
From license? – Hear me. I have sudden found
A door to let in heaven on my heart.
Had I not laughed to see your dread upon it
Write "license," perilous had been my frown.

Fulvia: You will – ?

Charles: Yes – yes! About her brow shall curl
The coronet! Her wishes shall be sceptres
Waving a swift fulfilment to her feet!
Her pity shall leave ready graves unfilled,
Her anger open earth for all who offend!
She shall —

Fulvia: Ah cease, infatuate man! Will you
Build kingdoms on the wind, and empires on
A girl's ungiven heart?

Charles (slowly): Unto such love
As mine all things are given.

Fulvia: All things but love.

Charles: Stood she not as in pleading? Yes – and to
Her cheeks came hurried roses from her heart.
And her large eyes, did they not drift to mine
Caressing? – yet as if in them they found
The likeness of some visitant dear dream.

Fulvia: The likeness of some dream?

Charles: Question no more.
She is set in the centre of my need
As youth and fiercest passion could not set her.
Supernally as May she has burst on
My barren age. Pain, envious decay,
And doubt that mystery wounds us with, and wrong,
Flee from the gleam and whisper of her name.

Fulvia: And if your coronet and heat avail
Not with her as might charm of equal years
And beauty?

Charles: Then – why then – why there may slip
An avalanche of raging and despair
Out of me! Hope of her once taken, all
The thwarted thunders of my want would rush
Into the void with lightnings for revenge!

Enter Antonio

Antonio: Sir, I'm returned.

Charles: With lightnings that shall – (Sees him.) You?
Antonio? My eyes had other thought.
Open your news – but mind 'tis not of failure.

Antonio: We seized the murderous robbers in their cove
And o'er the cliff, as our just law commands,
To death flung them.

Charles: So with all traitors be it.

Antonio: So should it.

Charles: Well, 'twas swift. In you there is
More than your mother's gentleness.

Antonio: Else were
My name di Tocca, sir, and not myself.

Charles: You have my love. – But as you came met you
The cardinal?

Antonio: So close he should by this
Be at our gates.

Charles: He'll miss no welcome, and —
Perhaps – we shall – (Smiles on them.) Give me that cross you wear,
My Fulvia. It may —

Antonio: Sir, this is good!
We earnestly beseech of you to hear
The Pope's embassador with yielding.

Charles: Ah? —
But you, boy, draw out of this solitude
And musing moodiness. You should think but
On silly sighs and kisses, rhymes and trysts!
Must I yet teach your coldness youth?
(A trumpet, and sound of opening gates.)
Draw out!

Antonio: I have to-day desired some words of this.

Enter Cecco

Charles: Well, who – ?

Cecco: The Cardinal, your grace.

Charles: Then go,
And bid our guests. Bring too Diogenes,
Our most amusing raveller of all
Philosophies. Say that the duke, his brother,
Humbly desires it! (Cecco goes.

Fulvia: And Helena?
Charles (to Antonio): Why do
You start, sir? – Fulvia, we must look to
This callow god our son. Yet, had our court
Two eyes of loveliness to drown his heart,
I'd think on oath 'twere done.

(Goes to the throne.)

Fulvia (low to Antonio): Listen. No word
Of Helena!

Charles: Now! is it secrets?

Fulvia: Sir,
He scorns to spill a drop of confidence
On my too thirsty questions.

Charles: Does he so
Tightly seal up his spirits?

Fulvia: Put the rogue
To prison on stale bread, my lord: I half
Believe he's full of treasons.

Charles (laughing): Do you hear!
Because you are the son and scout our foes
Justice is not impossible upon you!

The guests enter, among them Hæmon and Bardas, following the Cardinal Julian and his suite, and last Helena, whom Fulvia leads aside

Cardinal: Peace, worthy duke!

Charles: And more, lord Cardinal,
We would to-day enlarge our worthiness
With you and with great Rome.

Cardinal: Firmly I crave
It may be so.

Charles: Here unto all our guests
We then do disavow our heresies —
For faith's as air, as ease to life – and seek
At your absolving lips release from our
Rough disobedience. Nor shall we shun
The lash and needed weight of penitence.

(A murmur of approval.)

Julian: These words, great lord, fall wise and soothing well.
Who so confesses, plants beneath his foot
A step to scale all impotence and wrong.
Our royal Pope's conditions shall be told,
Pledge them consenting seal and you shall be
Briefly and fully free. (Motions his secretary.)

Secretary (opens and reads): "Whereas the duke
Di Tocca has offended – "

Cardinal: Pass the offence.
Be it oblivion's. On, the penalty.

Secretary: "Therefore the duke di Tocca humbling himself
Must pay into our vaults two hundred ducats – "

Charles: It shall be three.

Secretary: "And send a hundred men
Armed 'gainst the foes that threaten Italy."

Charles: See to it, yes, Antonio, ere a dawn.

Secretary: "He must also yield up the princess Fulvia
Who's fled her father's house and rightful marriage."

Fulvia (to Julian): You told me not of this – no word, my lord!

Cardinal: My silence as my speech is not my own.

Charles: We'll more of it – a measure more.
Read on.

Secretary: "And for the better amity and weal
Of Italy and Christ's most Holy Church,
He is enjoined to wed with Beatrice
Of Florence. If his wilful boldness grants
Obedience, his sins shall melt to rest
Under the calm of full forgiveness. He – "

Charles: A mild, a courteous, O a modest Pope!
I must tear from my happiness a friend
Who fled a father's searing cruelty,
And cast her back in the flames! And I must bind
My crippled years that fare toward the grave
In the cold clasp of an unloving hand!
No! No!
Then, sir, and Cardinal, 'tis not enough!
I pray you swift again to Rome and plead
Most suppliantly that I for penance may
Swear my true son is shame-begot, or lend
My kin to drink clean of its fouling damp
Some pestilent prison! And 'tis impious too
That any still should trust my love. Beseech
His Holiness' command for death upon them!

Cardinal: This is your answer?

Charles (rises): A mite! a mite of it!
The rest is I will wed where I will wed
Though every hill of earth raise up its pope
To bellow at me thunderous damnation!
I will – I will – (Falls back convulsed.)

Fulvia (hastening to him): Charles, ah! Wine for him, wine! (It is brought.)

Antonio: Lord Cardinal, spare yourself more and go.
You shall learn if a change may loose this strain.

(The Cardinal goes with his suite amid timid reverence.)

Charles (struggling): I will – this frenzy – off my throat – ! I – (Recovering.) Ah,
Thou, Fulvia? 'Twas as a fiend swung on me.
And shame! fear oozes out upon my brow,
And I – . (Rises and calms himself.) Forgive, friends, this so sudden wrench
Upon your pleasure. One too quick made saint,
Stands feebly: but at once wilt I atone.
Where is Diogenes – where is he? His
Tangled fantastic wisdom shall divert us.