University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

The House of Marsio. Enter Marsio.
Marsio.
Where I had purposed to court, beg, and bribe—
To out-scheme Machiavelli, and so tug
Against the disadvantages of birth and rank,
That, by sheer strength and resolute force of will,
I hoped to barely conquer—they at once
Thrust the fair prize in my astonished arms,
Blow all my crafty net-works to the wind,
And half undo me with sheer wonderment.
They say she loves me.—Hum! I'll think of that:
It looks suspicious.—Nonsense, Marsio!
Hold up thy head! Did they not, upon 'Change,
Marvel at thy advancement? Ah! did not
That sneering beggar, Volio, who can boast
Some half-score drops of gentle blood—
Who never condescended—bless his stars!—
To speak with thee;—did not that ragged wretch—
Ha! ha! I watched him from behind a pillar,
Close, very close, as 't was rehearsed to him—
Did not even he turn blue with choking envy?
Swore 't was a lying scandal; but no less
Bowed his majestic forehead to his belt
When next we met? Lord bless us! and he spoke,
So sweetly spoke, in such a winning whisper,
Of the “dear Marquis,” of the “dear Marchioness;
Hoped the fair lady of my heart was well;
When would my marriage be?” And then he took
So grave and formal a farewell of me!—
The devil claw him!
(Enter Pietro Rogo.)
How now, Master Rogo?

Rogo.
So! How now, Master Marsio? Men have said
Your grand betrothal has upset your brains:—
By heaven! I think so. “Master Rogo,” sooth!
Why, yesterday 't was “Good friend Pietro;”
And “Kinsman Pietro;” and “Pietro,
I have a secret for you!” Out upon you!
I thought to hear some folly, but your style
Out-fools conceit!

Mar.
I prithee be not rude;
Nor so presume on former fellowship—

Rogo.
Where are your wits?

Mar.
Cease your blunt manner, sir!

Rogo.
What?

Mar.
Cease, I say!

Rogo.
The world is full of marvels;
I myself can dream some stretch of wonder,
And they say poets, and such-like madmen, can,
By some shrewd knack, make that appear as truth
Which really is not; but roll all the poets,
All my wild dreams, all the earth's prodigies,
In one huge mass, and Marsio makes them tame.

Mar.
Good Master Rogo—

Rogo.
Pietro is my name.
No man shall master me.

Mar.
Pietro, then;
Since yesterday, as you observe, a change
Has come across me. Yesterday we met
As Marsio, the merchant, and his friend:
To-day I represent the last great branch
Of the Tiburzzi; and as such expect
That due observance of my rank and person
Which it is but my duty to demand,
And is as much your duty to bestow.

Rogo.
You thrice-dyed fool! With the Tiburzzi's daughter,
Did you receive the blood of all the race?
Their gentle culture, their refined politeness,
Which wins, but never asks, a man's respect?
I tell you, Marsio, you have climbed a tower,
To make your shameless folly further seen.
Come, come, be ruled.

Mar.
Begone, sir! Leave my house!
I wear a sword.

Rogo.
A lucky thought, my lord,—
My bold Tiburzzi! By the devil's beard,
I'll try your lordship's hand at noble arts!
When we get through with this, we'll run a tilt.
Draw!

Mar.
Will you leave me?

Rogo.
Draw, my noble sir,
Or I will thresh your noble lordship's shins
With a good Milan blade. The devil take me,
If I endure your airs! I'll make a hole
To let discretion in you. Draw, you oaf!
[They fight. Rogo drives Marsio round the stage.]
Your lordship gives, gives to this vulgar man?—
That 's charitable!
[Marsio is disarmed.]
Now, sir, were it not
For the huge sin of surfeiting the devil,
With such a lump of folly, I would let
Your windy soul out of some ugly gash.—
Nay, you 're not off yet. Promise me to be
My old, dear friend, Marsio of yesterday,
Or I will send that semblance of my friend,
Into whose body you have falsely crept,
To sup black Pluto!—Swear! or, on my life,
Your shrift is short!

Mar.
Come, come, friend Pietro.

Rogo.
You are improving. Swear it!

Mar.
Well, I swear.

Rogo.
Never to be a lord to me?

Mar.
No, never.

Rogo.
Ever to listen to my wholesome counsel,
Though it be rugged as the road to heaven;
And to receive it, if your candid judgment
Can bring no cause against it?

Mar.
Yes, and yes.
Take your cursed rapier from my throat!

Rogo.
'T was blessed
To your salvation, most ungrateful man.
Go up, old Milan: when you are sunned again,
May you be umpire in as good a cause!
Now of this marriage; is the rumor true?

Mar.
Ay; have you aught to say?

Rogo.
Against the fact,
Nothing.—Though, in this easy-jogging land,
Marriage seems quite superfluous to me:—
And the same cause which makes a single state
Endurable, should scare us from a wedding.
Well, let that go. You are a wealthy man,
And must have lineal heirs—either your own,
Or seeming so—undoubtedly, your wife's—
To squander your slow millions in a day.

Mar.
Are the sour sneers of an old sapless miser
What you call counsel?

Rogo.
Patience, patience, friend.
Who is the maid?

Mar.
Had my heart rhetoric,
'T would answer in fit phrases.

Rogo.
Bless my soul!
He 's metamorphosed to a first-class lover!
You have a tongue, perchance?

Mar.
The fair Costanza—
Costanza di Tiburzzi is the name—

Rogo.
They doused her with at baptism. Fair, you say?

Mar.
Fair as—as—

Rogo.
What?

Mar.
As any thing you choose.
Her charms outsoar my fancy; fly your own:
Come, Pietro.

Rogo.
Ecstatic driveller! Fair?
I like not fair. The ugly ones are best:
They bear the patent of their chastity
In their brown skins, in their green, filmy eyes,
Their clawish hands, their broad, earth-flattening feet,
Their crooked ankles and their camel backs.
Without temptation, there can be no sin;
But where the fruit is jolly, and hangs out
As a ripe challenge to all passers by,
Heaven only knows who tastes, who handles it,
And who goes harmless past!

Mar.
Pietro Rogo,
Is there one subject under the mad moon
Too weak to found an argument upon?
I'll venture, with your talents, you can prove,
Against all comers, that incontinence
Is but a wide benevolence; that murder—
Under the million given circumstances
With which your nimble wit shall hedge it in—
Is a humane achievement; theft, an instinct;
Cheating, a thrifty thoughtfulness of self;
And so forth, on through all the deadly sins.
Poh! poh! what stuff you talk!

Rogo.
Back to our subject.
Costanza di Tiburzzi should be daughter
To an old dwindled noble of that name:
Is it not so?

Mar.
It is.

Rogo.
They want your wealth.

Mar.
And they shall have it! Our long-shadowed name
Shall blaze, with a new light, through Italy.

Rogo.
O, ho! “our name!” My sword crawls in its scabbard.
Friend, you have not one generous aim in this;
Your own huge pride awakes this forward zeal:
But you'll learn wisdom through humility.

Mar.
How, raven, how?

Rogo.
A hundred little things
Shall make you gnaw your fingers to the quick.
You'll haply blunder at the first grand feast:
At which Lord So-and-so will titter, titter;
And Lady Somebody will simper, simper;
And sly Count Nobody, a noted wit,
Will wink and wink; while some bluff honest duke
Howls out his laughter. Then our father wriggles,
And stares straight through a six-foot granite wall;
Our mother blushes, and talks violently
About the price of spaniels to her neighbors;
Our bride hangs down her head—perchance a tear,
Like a full dew-drop, gathers on her cheek,
And drowns out its carnations.

Mar.
I will hire
The world's opinion till my manners mend.
Life is but one long lesson.

Rogo.
Ah! I fear
Your lesson will be paid for in rude coin.
Now hear me, Marsio; if you are horn-mad,
Wed some fresh country girl, some honest thing,
Too big a fool to be a lady sinner—
Too proud of you to think you aught but perfect—
Too ignorant to know your faults of breeding—
One every way inferior to yourself—
And I will chime in with your marriage-bell.

Mar.
You waste your wisdom, Pietro; I'll wed
No other than Costanza.

[Pulti sings within.]
Rogo.
Hark! here comes
Our merry gossip, Pulti. Let us ask
A fool's advice. Babies and naturals
Speak, sometimes, by a kind of inspiration.

Mar.
You will not condescend?—

Rogo.
'Sblood! he 's a man!
I have no princely notions, like your own,
To pull me from my fellows.

(Enter Pulti, singing.)
Pulti.
The devil wriggled,
The devil squealed,
The devil gave a shout;
But Saint Dunstan he
Held on stoutly,
And put the fiend to rout.

Mar.
Stop your din!
That villain has one long, unending song
About a certain devil, who has seen
More sad adventures than the Golden Legend
Recounts of all its saints.

Pul.
Hem, hem, hem, hem!

Mar.
What do you hem at?

Pul.
I have seen in churches,
When the dull preacher would not hem himself,
The congregation would hem for him.

Rogo.
True.
What thinks your wisdom of your master's marriage?

Pul.
Lord! sir, I seldom think; it spoils my talking.
I scorn your thoughts; the stealthy, spectral things
Smell of the church-yard, and of heaven and hell—
And bygone happiness, and present pain—
And barren futures filled with new-made graves—
And baby-hopes nipped in our nursing arms—
Of all that 's dreary, and of naught that 's bright.
They are huge stoppers for a flowing mouth,
That still by strangling.

Rogo.
Have you naught to say?

Pul.
I'll race my tongue with any man's. I say,
My master will be wiser than he 's rich.

Rogo.
A goodly store of wisdom, that! How, boy?

Pul.
When he has gathered in his bursting brains
All the fantastic humors of a woman,
He'll have more thoughts than ducats.

Rogo.
Marsio, mark:
The knave 's a prophet. What is wedlock like?

Pul.
Much like sin's journey after happiness.
We start upon it with a merry heart,
Proceed upon it with a sober one,
And end—

Rogo.
Ah! yes; where end we?

Pul.
Not at all:
We stumble in our graves.

Rogo.
A gloomy thought.

Pul.
'T is not a thought. I lit upon the fact
By seeing, and not thinking. For your thinkers
Go stumbling headlong in with all the rest,
Thinking of all save death.

Rogo.
Sage doctor Pulti,
You shall teach me your doctrines.

Pul.
I will, sir,
In one short rule.—Keep your eyes ever open.

Mar.
Have you not done? For Pulti will reply
Till doomsday break. 'T is not his wonted mood;
He 's oftener gay than sad.

Pul.
'T is a sad thought—
Note, signore Rogo, thinking makes one sad—
To weigh two losses with a single gain.

Rogo.
Your wit outshoots me.

Pul.
With a feeble shaft.
I, by this marrying, must lose a master;
My poor, poor master—who may comfort him?—
Must lose a servant!—Such a servant, sir!—
So sober—when you keep his wine away;
So sweetly tempered—when you do not cross him;
So grave and seemly—when there 's naught to laugh at;
So frugal—when you give him naught to spend;
So every way perfection—where you grow not
The carnal apple to assail his Adam.
I have lived on these conditions, many a day,
The best of slaves.

Rogo.
But where 's your single gain?

Pul.
Nay, 't is but half a one: master and man
Share it between them.—'T is an untried mistress—
A vast, dim, shadowy, uncertain fear,
That may be saint or devil.

Mar.
Pulti!—dog!
Saddle my horses!

Pul.
For the beggar's ride.

Mar.
Dare you presume so far upon my kindness,
You coarse-grained knave?

Pul.
Not I; I never trespass
On such unstable ground.

Rogo.
Where do you ride?

Mar.
Where should a lover ride?

Rogo.
O, pause at once.
All things cry out against this unmeet match:
Blood, rank, and breeding, fortune, friends, and tastes,
In rigid opposition stand between.
You cannot mould these opposites to one;
Force them together, and earth's primal chaos
Were harmony to their eternal jar.

Mar.
You could not move me, had you Tully's tongue;
Prop heaven with virgin gold, you could not buy me;
Summon the damned, with all their terrors on,
You could not daunt me!—To the horses, Pulti!

Pul.
[Sings.]

Mar.
You know this cudgel, sirrah?

Pul.
Thank you; we 've often met before. His name
Is oak; his mother was an acorn. See,
I know the family from end to end.
You need not introduce us, signore.

[Exit.]
Mar.
Rogo,
The aims of my existence have been few,
Yet, in the service of the thing I sought,
I have offered up my health, my life, my soul.
He must be rash, or confident, who stands
Between a zealot and his single mark.—
My horses, Pulti!—I have set my heart
Upon this marriage; let heaven frown or smile,
Till I am blasted into nothingness,
I will pursue it as if heaven were not!—
My horses, knave!

Pulti.
(Without.)
Here, sir. Ho! Lucifer.

Rogo.
I'll try to cross you for your own advantage,
If honest means may prosper.

Mar.
Well, push on!
Choose your own weapons, fight as you think fit;
But, Pietro Rogo, when we are at the tug—
When the blood boils, and timid conscience flies—
When what opposes, with a friendly front,
Is not distinguished from an enemy—
Then call for mercy to the prayer-stunned saints,
And hope an age of miracles may come,
But not to Marsio!—My horses wait.

[Exeunt.]