Kitabı oku: «Charles Di Tocca: A Tragedy», sayfa 3

Enter Agabus gazing anxiously and wildly before him

 
Who's this?
 
 
Agabus (hoarsely): Where went he – the Shadow? – whither?
Charles: Who's this broke from his grave upon us?
 
 
Agabus (searching still): Where?
I followed him – he sped and there was cold!
Behind him blows a horror!
(Stops in fascinated awe before Helena.)
Ah, on her head!
His touch! his earthless finger! – and she rots
To dust! to dust!
 
 
Antonio: Ill monk! are there no men
That you must wring a woman so with fear?
 
 
Agabus: Ha, men? Christ save all men but lovers! all! (Crosses himself.)
 
 
Charles: Antonio, how speaks he?
 
 
Antonio: Sir, most mad
With the pestilence of evil prophecy.
(To guards.) Forth with him!
 
 
Charles: Stay.
 
 
Antonio: Let him not, for he will
Beguile you to some ravening belief.
Agabus (going up to Charles, staring at him in suppressed excitement): A lover! a lover! and he loves in vain!
Wilt go? There is a cave – (taking his hand), we'll curse her – come!
 
 
Charles: Out! out! (Throws him from the dais.)
 
 
Agabus: Christ save all men but – (Seeking vacantly.) Ah, the Shadow!
Has no one seen him? none? – the Shadow? none?
 

(Goes dazed. Guests whisper, awed.

 
Charles: He is obsessed – vile utterly!
 
 
A Guest: O duke,
I pray, good-night.
 
 
Another: And I, my lord.
 
 
Another: And I —
 
 
Another: And —
 
 
Charles: Friends, you shall not – no. This pall will pass,
My hospitality is up, you shall not!
 
 
Another: Pardon, O duke, we —
 
 
Charles: Though some grudging wind
Blows us away from mirth, 'tis still in view,
We've lute and dance that yet shall bring us in.
 
 
1st Lady: O, dance!
 
 
Charles: Cecco, our Circes from the Nile.
 

(Cecco goes.

 
2d Lady: The Nile! Ah, Cleopatra's Nile?
 
 
Charles: Her own;
And sinuous as Nile water is their grace.
 

Enter two Egyptian girls, who dance, then go

 
Guests (applauding): Bravely! – O, brave!
 
 
Charles: Do they not whirl it lithe?
With limbs like swallow wings upon the blue?
 
 
1st Lady: 'Twas witchery!
 
 
3d Lady: Such eyes! such hair!
 
 
2d Lady: And thus,
Did Cleopatra thus steal Antony?
Wrap him about with motion that would seize
His senses to an ecstasy? O, oh,
To dance so!
 
 
Charles: And so steal an Antony?
We'll frame a law on thieving of men's heart's!
 
 
2d Lady: Then, vainly! 'tis a theft men like the most.
Charles: When in its stead the thief has left her own —
But shall we woo no boon of mirth save dance?
A lute! a lute! (One is gone for.) Some new lay, Hæmon, come!
And every word must dip its syllables
In Pindar's spring to trip so lightly forth.
 
 
Hæmon: I have no lay.
 
 
Charles: The lute! (It is offered Hæmon.)
Sing us of love
That builds a Paradise of kisses, thinks
The Infinite bound up in an embrace.
Whose sighs seem to it hurricanes of pain,
Whose tears as seas of molten misery.
 
 
Hæmon: I have none – cannot.
 
 
Charles: Now will you fright off
Again our timid cheer?
 
 
Hæmon: While she, my sister – !
(The lute is offered again.)
I cannot, will not!
 
 
Charles: Will not? will not? Look!
I had an honor pluckt to laurel it,
A wreath of noble worth, a thing to tell —
 
 
Hæmon: Honor upon dishonor sits not well.
 
 
Charles (not hearing): Heat me not with denial. Is new bliss
Raised from the dead in me but to fall back
As stone ere it has breathed? Have I so frequent
Drained you? Be slow to tempt me – In me moves
Peril that has a passion to leap forth!
 
 
Hæmon: Antonio, speak! Where's innocence and where
Begins deceit?
 
 
Fulvia (to Hæmon aside): Ask it not, or you step
On waiting hazard and calamity.
 
 
Charles: New fret? and new confusion? In the blind
Power and passing of this night is there
Conspiracy? – plot of some here? or of
That One whose necromancy wields the world?
I care not! – I care not! We must have mirth!
Have mirth! though it be laughter at damned souls.
 
 
Hæmon: And I must wake it? I with laugh and lay,
Doting upon dishonor?
 
 
Charles: What means he?
 
 
Hæmon: Give me again my sister from these walls,
Since might is yours, strip from me wealth and life
And more, and all – but let her not, no, no,
Meet here the touch and leprosy of shame!
 
 
Charles (laughing): Said I not, said I, friends, we should have mirth?
You shall laugh with me laughter bright as wine.
 
 
Antonio: But, sir, this is not good for laughter! Sir!
 
 
Hæmon (to Antonio): Ah, put the lamb on – bleat mock sympathy!
 
 
Charles (still laughing): Fulvia, O, he foots it in the tracks
Of your own fear! and wanders to delusion!
 
 
Hæmon: Will you laugh at me, fiend!
 
 
Charles: Boy!
 
 
Hæmon: Had I but
Omnipotence a moment and could dash
Annihilation on you and your race!
 

(Throws his glove in Antonio's face.)

 
Helena: Hæmon!
 
 
Fulvia (restraining her): No, Helena.
 
 
Charles: Omnipotence?
And could Omnipotence make such a fool?
There must be two Gods in the world to do it.
 
 
Hæmon: She shall not – !
 

(Attempts to kill Helena.)

 
Antonio (preventing): Fury! – Ah! what would you do?
 
 
Charles: Such things can be? A sister, yet he strikes? (Hæmon is seized.)
 
 
Helena: O let me speak with him, sir, let me speak!
 
 
Charles: Not now, girl, no, not now – lest in his breath
Be venom for thee! (To soldiers.) Shut him from our gates
Till he repent this fever.
(Hæmon goes quietly out.)
(To guests who are suspicious and undetermined.) If you stare so
Will the skies stop! Have I not arm in arm
Friended this youth and meant him honor still?
Leave me. I had a thing to tell; but it
Must wait more seasonable festivity.
(To Paula.) See to thy mistress, child. Antonio, stay.
 

(All go but Antonio and Charles, who leaves his chair slowly and with dejection.)

 
Antonio: Father —
 
 
Charles (unheeding): Did I not humble me?
 
 
Antonio: Father – ?
 
 
Charles: Or ask more than a brevity of joy
To bud on my life's withering close?
 
 
Antonio: But, sir – !
 
 
Charles: If it bud not – !
 
 
Antonio: What thought impels and wrings
These angers from your eyes?
 
 
Charles (slowly, gazing at him): You're like your mother.
 
 
Antonio: In trouble for your peace, more than in feature.
 
 
Charles: Peace – peace? Antonio, a dream has come:
To stir – to wake – to learn it is a dream —
I must not, will not look on such abyss.
You love me, boy?
 
 
Antonio: Sir, well: you cannot doubt it.
 
 
Charles: There has been darkness in me – and it seems
Such night as would put out a heaven of hope,
Quench an eternity of flaming joy!
I have sunk down under the world and hit
On nethermost despair: flown blind across
An infinite unrest!
 
 
Antonio: Forget it, now.
 
 
Charles: Had I drunk Lethe's all 'twould not have stilled
The crying of my desolation's want.
Within me tenderness to iron turned,
Gladness to worm and gloom. – But 'tis o'erpast.
A rift, a smile, a breath has come – blown me
From torture to an ecstasy.
 
 
Antonio: To – ?
 
 
Charles: Ecstasy!
Such as surrounds Hyperion on his sun,
Or Pleiads sweeping seven-fold the night.
 
 
Antonio: And you – this breath – ?
 
 
Charles: Is – you are pale!
And press your lips from trembling!
 
 
Antonio: No – yes – well —
This ecstasy?
 
 
Charles: Is love! is love that – How?
You feign! distress and groaning tear in you!
 
 
Antonio: No. She you love —
 
 
Charles: O, Eve new-burst on Eden,
All pure with the prime beauty of God's breath,
Was not so!
 
 
Antonio: She is Helena? – the Greek?
 
 
Charles: She – Still you do not ail? – Yes, Helena,
Who – But you are not well and cannot share
This ravishment! – I will not ask it – now.
This ravishment! – Ah, she has stayed the tread
And stilled the whispering of death: has called
Echoes of youth from me! and all I feared…
I think – you are not well. Shall we go in?
 

Curtain

ACT THREE

Scene. – The gardens of the castle. Paths meet under a large lime in the centre, where seats are placed. The wall of the garden crosses the rear, and has a postern. It is night of the same day, and behind a convent on a near hill the moon is rising. A nightingale sings.

Enter Giulia, Cecco, and Naldo

 
Giulia: That bird! Always so noisy, always vain
Of gushing. Sing, and sing, sing, sing, it must!
As if nobody else would speak or sleep.
 
 
Cecco: Let the bird be, my jaunty. 'Tis no lie
The shrew and nightingale were never friends.
 
 
Giulia: No more were shrew and serpent.
 
 
Cecco: Well what would
You scratch from me?
 
 
Giulia: If there is anything
To be got from you, then it must be scratched.
 
 
Cecco: Yet shrews do not scratch serpents.
 
 
Giulia: If they're caught
Where they can neither coil nor strike?
 
 
Cecco: Well, I
Begin to coil.
 
 
Giulia: And I'll begin to scotch
You ere 'tis done. – Give me the postern key.
 
 
Cecco: Your lady's voice – but you are not your lady.
 
 
Giulia: And were I you not long would be your lord's.
Give me the key.
 
 
Cecco: I coil – I coil! will soon
Be ready for a strike, my tender shrew.
 
 
Giulia: Does the duke know you've hidden from his ear
Antonio's passion? does he? – ah? – and shall
I tell him? ah?
 
 
Cecco: You heard then —
 
 
Giulia: He likes well
What's kept so thriftily.
 
 
Cecco (scowling): You want the key
To let in Boro to chuck your baby face
And moon with you! He's been discharged – take care.
 
 
Giulia: The duke might learn, too, you're not clear between
His ducats and your own.
 
 
Cecco: There then (gives key), but —
 
 
Giulia (as he goes): Oh?
And shrews do not scratch serpents? You may spy,
But others are not witless, I can tell you!
 

(Cecco goes.

 
Now, Naldo (gives him key and writing), do not lose the writing. But
Should you, he must not come till two. For 'tis
At twelve the Greek will meet Antonio.
 

(Naldo goes, through the postern: Giulia to the castle.

Enter Helena and Paula from another part of the gardens

 
Helena: At twelve, said he, at twelve, beside the arbor?
 
 
Paula: Yes, mistress.
 
 
Helena: I were patient if the moon
Would slip less sadly up. She is so pale —
With longing for Endymion her lover.
 
 
Paula: Has she a lover? Oh, how strange. Is it
So sweet to love, my lady? I have heard
Men die and women for it weep themselves
Into the grave – yet gladly.
 
 
Helena: Sweet? Ah, yes,
To terror! for the edge of fate cares not
How quick it severs.
 
 
Paula: On my simple hills
They told of one who slew herself on her
Dead lover's breast. Would you do so?
Would you, my lady?
 
 
Helena: There's no twain in love.
My heart is in my lord Antonio's
To beat, Paula, or cease with it.
 
 
Paula: But died
He far away?
 
 
Helena: Far sunders flesh not souls.
Across all lands the hush of death on him
Would sound to me; and, did he live, denial,
Though every voice and silence spoke it, could
Not reach my rest! – But he is near.
 
 
Paula: O no,
Not yet, my lady.
 
 
Helena: Then some weariness
Has pluckt the minutes' wings and they have crept.
 
 
Paula: But 'tis not twelve, else would we hear the band
Of holy Basil from their convent peace
Dreamily chant.
 
 
Helena: Nay, hearts may hear beyond
The hark of ears! Listen! to me his step
Thrills thro' the earth.
 

(Antonio approaches and enters the postern.)

 
'Tis he! Go Paula, go:
But sleep not.
 

(Paula hastens out.)

 
(Going to him.) My Antonio, I breathe,
Now no betiding fell athwart thy path
To stay thee from me!
 
 
Antonio: Stronger than all betiding
This hour has reached and drawn me yearning to thee! (Takes her in his arms.)
 
 
Helena: And may all hours!
 
 
Antonio: All! tho' we two will still
Be more than destiny – which cannot grasp
Beyond the grave.
 
 
Helena: 'Tis sadly put, my lord.
 
 
Antonio: Ah, sadly, loathly; but, my Helena —
 
 
Helena: I would not sink from it, the simple sun —
Fade to a tomb! What dirging hast thou heard
To mind thee of it?
 
 
Antonio: Love is a bliss too bright
To rest on earth. With it God should give us
Ever to soar above mortality.
But you must know – !
 
 
Helena: Not yet, tell me not yet!
Dimly I see the burden in your eyes,
But dare not take it yet into my own.
Let us a little look upon the moon,
Forgetting. (They seat themselves.)
 
 
Antonio (musingly): These hands – this hair – (Caressing them.)
 
 
Helena: Like a farewell
Your touch falls on them.
 
 
Antonio (moved): To a father yield them?
 
 
Helena: Antonio?
 
 
Antonio (still caressing): No, no! It cannot be!
 
 
Helena: This dread – and shrinking – let me have it! – speak!
You mean – look on me! – mean, your father? —
 
 
Antonio: Ah!
It must not! must not!
 
 
Helena: Do you mean – he – No!
Let him not touch me even in thy thought,
To me come nearer than a father may!
 
 
Antonio: He's swept by the sweet contagion of you, wrapt
In a fierce spell by your effulgent youth.
 
 
Helena: Say, say it not! To him I but smiled up —
But smiled!
 
 
Antonio: He knew not that such smiles could dawn
In a bare world. And now is flame; would take
Your tenderness into his arms and hear
Seized to him the warm music of your heart.
O, I could be for him – he is my father —
Prometheus stormed and gnawed on Caucasus,
Tantalus ever near the slipping wave,
Or torn and tossed to burning martyrdom —
But not – not this!
 
 
Helena: Then, flight! In it we may
Find haven and new nurture for our bliss.
 
 
Antonio: Snap from his hunger this one hope, so he
Must starve? Push him who has but learned there's light
Back into yawning blindness? Ah, not flight!
 
 
Helena: I know he is your father, and my days
Have been all fatherless, tho' I have made
Me child to every wind that had caress
And to each lonely tree of the deep wood —
Oft envious of those who touch gray hairs,
Or spend desire on filial grief and pang.
And most have you a softness in him kept,
Been to him more than empire's tyranny —
But baffled none can measure him nor trust!
 
 
Antonio: Yet must we wait.
 
 
Helena: When waiting shall but goad
The speed of peril?
 
 
Antonio: Still: and strain to win
Him from this brink. – If vainly, then birth, pity,
And memory shall fall from me! – all, all,
But fierceness for thy peace!
 
 
Helena: My Antony!
 
 
Antonio: And fierceness without falter!
 
 
Helena: I am thine,
Thine more than immortality is God's!
Hear, does the nightingale not tell it thee?
The stars do they not tremble it, the moon
Murmur it argently into thine eyes?
 
 
Antonio: Ah, sorceress! You need but breathe to put
Abysm from us; but build words to float us
On infinite ecstasy. (Kisses her.)
 
 
Helena: How, how thy kisses
Sing in me!
 
 
Antonio: From my heart they do but send
Echoes born of thy beauty mid its strings!
 
 
Helena: Then would I lean forever at thy lips,
Lose no reverberance, no ring, no waft,
Hear nothing everlastingly but them!
 

(A mournful chant is borne from the Convent. They slowly unclasp, awed.)

 
Antonio: Weary with vigil does it swell and sink,
Moaning the dead.
 
 
Helena: Ah, no! There are no dead
To-night in all the world. Could God see them
Lie cold and wondrous still, while we are rich
In warmth and throb!
 
 
Antonio: Yet, hear. The funeral tread
Of the old sea sighs in each strain, and breaks.
 
 
Helena: As I were drowned and heard it over me,
It cometh – cometh!
 

(Her head droops back on his arm. A pause.)

 
Antonio (touching her face): Cold! cold! – your lips – your brow!
And you are pale as with a prophecy!
 
 
Helena: Oh – oh!
 
 
Antonio: Your spirit is not in you but
Afar and suffering!
 
 
Helena: A vision sweeps me.
 
 
Antonio: Awake from it!
 
 
Helena (recovering): A waste of waves that beat
Upon a cliff – and beat! Yet thou and I
Had place in it.
 
 
Antonio: Come to yon arbour, come.
The moon has looked too long on the sad earth,
And can reflect but sorrow.
 
 
Helena: Ah, I fear!
 

(They go clinging passionately together.

Enter Charles and Cecco

 
Charles: And yet it is a little thing to sleep —
Just to lie down and sleep. A child may do it.
 
 
Cecco: If my lord would, here's sleep for him wrapped in
A quiet powder.
 
 
Charles: Sleep is ever mate
Of peace and should go with it. I have slept
In the wild arms of battle when the winds
Of souls departing fearfully shook by,
And on the breast of dizzy danger cradled
Softly been lulled. Potions should be for them
Who wrestle and are thrown by misery.
 
 
Cecco: And is my lord at peace?
 
 
Charles: Strangely. – Yet seem
For sleep too coldly calm.
 
 
Cecco: So were you, sir —
I keep your words lest you may need of them —
On the same night young Hæmon's father went
The secret way to death.
 
 
Charles: Of that! – of that? —
 
 
Cecco: Pardon, I but —
 
 
Charles: Smirker! – Yet, was it so?
That night indeed?
 
 
Cecco: Sir, surely.
 
 
Charles: And the moon's
'Scutcheon hung stainless up the purple east?
 
 
Cecco: Half, sir; even as now.
 
 
Charles (as to himself): Since that hour's close
To this I have not stood in so much calm.
Still was he not in every vein of him,
And breath, a traitor? A Greek who – I'll not say it,
Since she is Greek I must forget the word
Sounds the diapason of perfidy.
 
 
Cecco: My lord thinks of the gentle Helena?
 
 
Charles: And if I do?
 
 
Cecco: Why, sir —
 
 
Charles: Well?
 
 
Cecco: Nothing: but —
 
 
Charles: Subtle! your nothing harboreth some theft