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ACT III.
SCENE I.
Orontio's Garden.Enter Rosalie and Blanche.
Ros.
Nay, we should trust ourselves. We two are strong
In one another. In thine eyes I look,
And fortify me with thy innocence.
Blan.
'Tis thou, dear cos, that givest strength to me.
Alone, I should not dare to stir in this.
To maidens the forbidden fruit is freedom:
So says our father.
Ros.
Not for worlds, dear Blanche,
Would I gainsay so wise and good a father;
But yet, I feel rebellious motions in me.
The taste of liberty we had in Naples
Feeds a new appetite, born of itself.
Scanted in food to this, I can not live.
Freedom seems now the parent that begat me,
So strong and fresh is the dear life it brings.—
What art thou thinking of so soberly?
Blan.
I'm thinking of the chains that freedom forges.
Ros.
And wondering, how that little heart of thine
Doth furnish metal for the links thereof.
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But ever of a subtler property.
At first, of grossest iron, wherewithal
To bind the raw and rugged; then of steel,
By subtler art wrought to a keen compactness;
Of silver next, worn as an ornament,
That 'neath its burnished folds hides rings of force;
And then of kneaded gold, whose yellow sheen
And ponderous magnificence lure hearts
Into contentment with their servitude;
And later higher still, of precious stones,
Diamond and ruby intermeshed with gold.
And when that life beats richer, fuller, better,
Then ornament and might are interfused,
Man wearing rule as Earth her atmosphere,
The circumambient watchman of her wealth,
Beauty and use being one; until at last,
Great freedom grows so skilful strong, her bonds
All spring self-woven from the core of joy,
And life, purged by abundant action, is
A free enchainment, a chained liberty,
Like the linked multitude of peopling stars,
As beautiful, as vast, as pure as they.
Blan.
Good Heaven! Cousin, where learnt you all this?
Ros.
From the great teacher, Love. Am I not apt?
Blan.
I wish we'd given them meeting within doors.
Ros.
This hall of nature is most apposite
To such an interview. The boundless vault
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Should be the witnesses of the large hopes
And sacramental vows of this encounter.
Blan.
You still forget they are unknown to us.
Ros.
Dear Blanche, I shall begin to think thou lov'st not,
Thou art so skeptical. Love is religious;
It nourisheth a generous faith. Unknown!
Their names and place and outward circumstance,
The accidental furnishments of men,
We know not. But the temper of their souls,
Their hearts' clean manly quality, we know;
And if there be, as we have credit for,
A sifting virtue in a woman's instinct,
To point, like the divining rod, to where
There is a spring of truth and courtesy,
I will forego my use of polished judgment,
And henceforth grossly follow corporal sense,
If both of them are not true gentlemen.
Blan.
Oh! they are that. I'll trust my honor to them
Further than I had thought to trust a man.
Ros.
I knew thee, hypocrite, that seemed to chide,
While inly thou didst thank me for my boldness.—
They come. They shall at once unmask them quite.
Enter Tancred and Roger.
What will you augur of Sicilian dames,
When maidens thus profane their modesty,
And pluck the angry beard of white-haired Custom.
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Tanc.
Custom is sickly, and had better cast
His hoary slough, or kill himself outright,
When he would clog the gait of innocence.
Ros.
Customs are often tenderly defensive;
And there is one which bids, that gentlemen,
To ladies who have trusted them so far
Beyond the sanction of its ordinances,
Come forth out of the darkness of disguise
Into the light of chivalrous openness,
Declaring who and whence and what they are.
Enter from behind, King and Orontio.
Tanc.
Heavier on us, the sinners, than on you,
The sinned against, weighs this unwilled concealment.
King.
Does such concealment fit a royal prince?
The son I can forgive.—And you, Sir Count;
Warnings I've had, the which I heeded not,
So honest was my faith in you. But now
Your acts reprove your friends, reward your foes.
Rog.
The warnings which your Majesty has had
Were juster than your present accusation;
Yet were they slanders.
Tanc.
Sire, on me let fall
Whatever stroke of blame you will to strike:
Tancred, not Roger, is the guilty one,
If guilt can be, unfelt by th' actors of it.
Ros.
Prince Tancred!
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Count Roger!
Oron.
You know them not?
Ros.
We know them and we know them not.
Oron.
What's this?
King.
Speak, and undo the tangled noose wherein,
Like frighted hares, you all stand wildly snared.
Ros.
Your Majesty, in Naples, where we were,
To sport a month in easeful solitude,
Two courtly cavaliers did we encounter,
Sauntering like us on that sweet-tempered shore.
Bearing and speech announced them gentlemen,
As their large conversation did attest
They were, what they avowed themselves to be,
Scholars in quest of art and knowledge; only
They swore, they learnt more in an hour's talk
With our wise selves, than in a year with sages.
'Twas but a week since there we left them both,
When yesterevening, through the unlifted vizors
Of mailed knights, again their voices smote us.
Oron.
And where learned you so young the time-cropped knowledge
To know, who is a gentleman, who not?
Ros.
Near Naples, honored father; and th' attestors
Of our discernment are before you now.
Oron.
Well, well: but what do you unguarded here?
Ros.
Besides the guardianship of these your walls,
We have, sir, that of our own modesty.
King.
Beshrew me, but your daughter is well-tongued.
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I would she might be like to yours in speech.
Oron.
My liege, offence is parent of her wit.
Women find always words to mend their faults.
Get in: the hot look of the saucy sun
Will not so quickly stain a maiden's cheek
As will the world's bold eyes her modesty.
Women, like pictures, are best seen indoors.
Ros.
There to be looked at, never listened to.
I'm glad I'm not a man.
King.
Your reason, fair one?
Ros.
I would not have a picture for my mate.
[Exeunt Rosalie and Blanche.
King.
A witty wench, with will to match her beauty.—
For you, Count Roger, you have leave to travel
For three months longer. 'Tis our further wish,
To-morrow find you not in Sicily.
Tanc.
I pray you, sire, put like command on me.
The exile of my friend, for fault of mine,
Sends me to worse than lonely banishment.
My conscience will make Syracuse a prison.
King.
The penalty will weigh then heaviest where
There is most fault. My son must stay at home:
The state doth need his aidance. 'Tis full time
Prince Tancred had put hand to that rough helm
Whose mastering motions he shall one day master.
[Exeunt King and Orontio.
Tanc.
This is unkind and cruel of the King.
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Nay, for a king I think 'tis clemency.
Judge not the King, lest you prejudge yourself;
An error hasty youth is prone to. Then,
Kings of all mortals are most fallible.
Temptation, which inferior men assaults
In single files, at parted intervals,
Beleaguers them with unremitting squadrons;
Or hourly sooths them like a fawning courtier.
Their very elevation tempts them act.
Like children, throwing porcelain from a window,
Then shouting gleeful at their smashing power,
Their trifles gain a fairy potency,
Gathering their weight from distance of descent.
Tanc.
Roger, is this a time to moralize?
You are banished, banished.
Rog.
Ay, I am, so far
As royal words can banish me. But, Tancred,
On earth there is a king kinglier than kings,
With sway more regal than imperial will,
The one sole sovereign of the active world.
Thought is the topmost potentate 'mong men.
Of this unconquerable conqueror
The realm is obstacle, the sceptre triumph.
Like the hurricane, invisible he comes,
But with a might mightier than air or light,
Whose subtlest spirit he grasps for his wise use,
Making all elements his instruments.
Tracking the purposes of God's deep will,
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To weave the cables of humanity.
With his calm strength steadying the eye of truth,
The golden scales of justice he shall balance,
Teach Charity to multiply herself,
And rusted Faith cleanse of impurity.
Hearkening the whispers of remotest law,
This flat firm earth he shall unseat and launch it
A whirling globe into the vast of space.
And when from Nature's fields he shall have housed
Heaped harvests of fine knowledge—potent man
Self-circled with beneficence—he shall
Unload the world of its wide misery.
Tanc.
Thy mounting words wound while they profit me,
Proclaiming through their wisdom my great loss,
My ears condemned to fast so long a Lent.
Rog.
Faith is a common virtue, but being blind,
Believers fall in ditches. Canst not think
My wits can ward this petty banishment?
Tanc.
Dear friend, thou know'st how easy 'tis for me
To trust in thee, yielding my thought to thine.
So do I now; and yet, my best wits flag,
Contriving how thou canst escape this exile.
Rog.
Dear Tancred, his staid courtiers tell the King
I am thy evil counsellor. Their plaint
I will rebuke, by giving thee this counsel:
Think not so well of kings, so ill of man.
When thou art king—
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Thou shalt be the king's king,
Through thy imperial sovereignty of thought.
Rog.
When thou art king, thou wilt forget Prince Tancred.
Tanc.
If thee I do forget or cease to love,
May my heart canker—
Rog.
Nay, nay; not so solemn.—
Now, touching this light banishment, thou know'st,
That in the cozening cozened world we live in,
Rogue Seem does half the work of honest Be.
I'll make him work for us; I'll seem to go—
Tanc.
And stay?
Rog.
Not only in security,
But so that from my shelter I can fling,
Faster and sharper than if unconstrained,
Weapons of edge against the enemy.
'Tis a device will win thy gladdest plaudits.
But 'tis not mine.
Tanc.
Not thine!
Rog.
Within thy breast
Dost thou not nurse, at this especial hour,
A quickner of invention, apter, craftier,
Than all ambitions or all motions else
Could ever breed?—'Tis Blanche's thought—as all
That now I have are hers, howe'er I call them—
Which kindles in my brain with light so strong,
It gives me sudden art to baffle kings.
Let's haste to act the highborn stratagem.
When I unfold it, thou shalt make me vain
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That where there is a will there is a way.
SCENE II.
Apartment of Princess Matilda, in the Palace.Bernardo alone.
Bern.
The footsteps of the great tread out rich odors,
Which they who have the gift can scent afar,
Infallible as harriers on the trail.
For me, I've sped the course with huntsman's haste.
Still freshly on my cheek my memory feels
The strong breath of repentant peasant knaves;
And now the haughty gates of palaces
Obsequious wheel their hinges to embrace me.—
The air is here with double perfume laden;
But while I revel in the fragrancy,
The scented peace I'll break, using the princess
To subjugate the woman, and the woman
To curb the princess. 'Tis a game of skill,
Where one side plays in light, the other in darkness.
So be it ever, that we may ever win.
And so it should be; for, the good of light—
Chief good of goods—would lie unfelt, unhatched,
Were there no darkness to illuminate.
And so it shall be by the might of craft;
The priestly head, like Ætna's at the dawn,
Blazing for aye in solitary light.
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Matil.
Good father, I in haste have sent for you.
'Tis scarce an hour, the King was here, to urge
My instant marriage with his son, Prince Tancred.
Bern.
Prince Tancred is not now in Syracuse?
Matil.
The King expects him daily.
Bern.
This is sudden:
And has some sudden cause. Was the King earnest?
Matil.
Most earnest, even to anger.
Bern.
Ha! your highness
Rejected then—
Matil.
I only craved delay.
This crossed the King; surprised as well as vexed him.
He left me, saying, he would send you to me.
I fear I have done wrong. Now help me, father.
Your lesson 'twas that propped my falling courage,
And stayed me 'gainst the King's warm urgency.
Bern.
Princess, howe'er it seem, even to yourself,
I stand not hostile 'twixt the King and you.
The King is my liege lord; and my allegiance
Is paid as fully and as willingly
As by the readiest subject of the realm.
My holy office is to join, not sever:
I am a necessary link 'twixt you
And God; and that fine chain that we three make,
Can not be broken without loss to each,
Chiefly to you. On me, Heaven hath imposed
An awful trust—the keeping of your soul.
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Its safety is imperiled by this marriage.
The prince is tainted with the worst of crimes.
Matil.
In Heaven's name, what crime?
Bern.
With heresy.
Matil.
With heresy! so young: it is not so.
What proof have you? so modest, gentle, learned.
Bern.
Learning—except our sacred time-crowned lore—
Is but the Devil's trap to catch weak souls:
It turns men insolent and skeptical.
Matil.
And that Prince Tancred is not, can not be.
Bern.
You know the reputation of his friend,
Count Roger—
Matil.
Oh! I hate him.
Bern.
And with cause.
All Sicily should hate the infidel,
The irreverent, audacious questioner,
From whose unchecked espial naught is safe.
A libertine in thought, who would subject
To his bold sensuous gaze and unclean handling
All holiest secrets of the sky and earth.
An atheist so shameless, he would cite
Even Rome's divine authority to trial,
Deny the Pope or motion of the Sun.
Matil.
Is he so wicked?
Bern.
Poisoned to the core.
Matil.
The prince, good father, can not be so foul.
Bern.
Naught is so ductile as the growing mind.
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Open beside it in its liquid glow,
It takes its solid form. The prince's thought
Is Roger's thought engraft on Tancred's stem,
Whence it will draw sap for its bitterness.
As easily you may the flame untwist
That crackles on the hearth, and to each fagot
Its individual share therein allot,
As separate Prince Tancred's thought from Roger's;
So subtly are their thinkings interchanged.
Matil.
Father, to-morrow send the abbess to me.
[Exit Matilda.
Bernardo
alone.
If our affections be our direst foes—
As the Church teacheth, that doth never err—
No Paladin did ever with his blade
Do more protective duty to a princess
Than with few words I to Matilda now.
Passion to quench and overmaster, is,
To make life strong and pure.—Ha! is it so?
To crush is not to kill. The affections live,
Wounded but deathless, and their dripping blood
Begets upon the wronged despoiléd heart
Feelings that churn their venom as they crouch
Within the caverns of the memory.
Re-enter Matilda.
Matil.
Father, the King is quick and peremptory;
And royal purposes long entertained,
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Bern.
Your purposes are not less royal.
Matil.
For a woman
'Tis hard to stem the anger of a man.
And he a King.
Bern.
When the King rages, meet him
As princess: when the father urges, meet him
As woman, whose affections must be wooed,
Not bargained for. The King—I know his nature—
Has not a regal stubbornness of will.
Wilfully blind he is, like other fathers,
And sees not Tancred's sinfulness.
Matil.
Oh! father,
He's so unthinking, he may still be saved.
Bern.
Only through providential chastisement.
Would that he were unthinking. 'Tis his fault
To think too much—the worst fault he can have.
Princess, this Roger;—I have that to tell you,
Will make the frighted blood to flee your cheek
And gallop to its inward citadel.
It is a secret spied by spiritual vision—
The privilege of consecrated priests,
Who, through this heaven-imparted insight, wage
Safe war against demoniac practices.
Thy piety, so purged by sacrifice,
Is of a quality to bear the trust.
Torture thy spotless heart with this damned knowledge:—
Roger of Susa is the Devil's legate,
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To sap the prince and undo Sicily.
Matil.
Father, fail not to send the abbess to me.
[Exit Matilda.
Bernardo
alone.
Strong maladies demand strong remedies.
This dose will either kill or cure.—The Devil
Should have a brazen monument at Rome
High as St. Peter's. What were priests without him?—
Oh! the divinity there is in power,
That all things it can shape to instruments,
Sharpening invention to its brightest edge.
To govern, is to dance on life's top wave,
Erect in light, above the darkened crowd.
For us, who vow ourselves to mystic rites,
And thus do suicide on our dearest part,
Murdering sweet love, paternity and home,
Power is our single joy. But ah! 't is worth
The ail it costs, the dedicated priest
So high it lifts on pinnacles unapproachable,
Whence common men look prostrate and abased.
Power is the Almighty's attribute—and ours.
[Exit.
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