University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

The House of Marsio. Marsio and Pietro Rogo
Marsio.
Juranio—Count Juranio—who is he?

Rogo.
The people's darling, the nobility's
Envy and general pattern, the good Duke's
Prime favorite and most familiar friend.
You will encounter no one, high or low,
Who speaks not well of him.

Mar.
Rich?

Rogo.
Marvellously;
He beggars you.

Mar.
Hum! Handsome?

Rogo.
Love-sick girls,
In dreams, bedeck the object of their thoughts
With no such beauty as our mere calm sense
Must render him perforce.

Mar.
Pietro Rogo,
I am not handsome.

Rogo.
Ho! ho!—Why no, no!
[Laughing.]
Neither outside nor in.

Mar.
I do not see
The justice of it, Pietro. Why chance
Crowds this man's clay into Apollo's mould,
Yet scrapes the fair, plump flesh from my lank fingers,
From my gaunt, bony arms, from my crook'd legs—
Scoops out my narrow chest—from every part,
Where usage orders, steals my buxom matter,
To pile it in one lump upon my back;
Making me hideous with the very stuff
She uses to create a paragon.
Why this should be, I say, amazes me,
And gravels reason. Well, to kick at fate
Is but a laming trick. My reptile form,
At least, contains the reptile's cunning. Now,
There is some justice there. Perhaps your Count,
For all his beauty, lacks the use of it.
Has this fair shape a mind?

Rogo.
We'll see anon.
The people give him out as full perfection.
What said your lady-love?

Mar.
Ah! there 's the doubt;
I cannot fathom her.

Rogo.
Nor ever will.
When you believe you touch the lowest depths
Of women's hearts, there 's something still beneath,
You wot not of.

Mar.
Tush! Pietro: I tell you
I hold my friend Tiburzzi in a leash,
To come and go as I may whistle him.

Rogo.
How bears he that?

Mar.
He struggled for a while;
But when I hinted what a time they pass
Who tug their lives out at a galley's oar,
Neither for gain nor pleasure; how to row
Even a shallop, without any aim,
Would be a sad thing; and described a hulk
As something bulkier than Costanza's shoe;
When, to all this, I hinted doubtful fears
Of his dear daughter's fate, if he were gone,
He grew a rival for the meekest dove.

Rogo.
You are a villain, Marsio.

Mar.
I know it:
I'm what is called a villain by a world
That sees its huge face in my little glass.
'T is false! I am no villain. I am one
Who must achieve what my heart prompts me to,
Or be no more forever. I'm as well
As any man who works his purposes,
Despite his fears.

Rogo.
For all your interview,
You still are doubtful. Why not give her up?
I would far rather wed a Magdalen
Than a suspected woman. Doubts and fears
Make up full half the substance of our ills.

Mar.
I'll solve my doubts before the wedding day.
If she prove true, I gain a trusty wife;
If she do not—why, even as I said,
Tiburzzi rows a galley. I will have
My wife or my revenge. Gods! Pietro,
The girl looks chaste.

Rogo.
Looks chaste!—O, save us!—looks!
Yet that might cozen one. I often gaze
Upon a piece of ruined womanhood
With strange, blind feelings—a blank wonderment
That one so fair, so chaste, to outward show,
Must by the cautious intellect be held
As mere corruption. There 's a fearful jar
Betwixt the heart and brain upon this theme.

Mar.
I have an ordeal for her. It may be
That Count Juranio knelt and prayed to her,
As sinners do to the shut ear of heaven,
With bootless zeal.

Rogo.
Yes; even that might be.

Mar.
You are lenient to-day.

Rogo.
Low-spirited,
Dyspeptic.

Mar.
Ah! Here is my little plan.
Tiburzzi dare refuse me nothing: I
Will bring together the enamored Count
And his fair idol;—yea, I will cast in
His friend, fierce signore Salvatore. Thus
His Countship shall have scope, unbounded room;
Tempted by love on one side, on the other
Urged up by valor. I will throw Costanza
And the sweet Count, ablaze 'twixt love and wrath,
Into incessant contact, while I watch
The play my puppets make.—Ha, Pietro?

Rogo.
Blast your dark plots! But reason splits on you;
You'll have your way.

Mar.
That will I. Come with me.
I'll take you to Tiburzzi's house. Perchance
He'll hold me better for my company.—
Ha, Pietro?

Rogo.
Ha, Marsio! Sneer, sneer!
I will not go.

Mar.
You fear Tiburzzi?

Rogo.
No!
Curse your Tiburzzi! Would you take me there,
As a set off to your own awkwardness?

Mar.
Ho! ho! well thought!

[Laughing.]
Rogo.
I'll meet you in the Park.
Let me have notice when this pretty plot,
Against your own repose, is toward.

Mar.
Yes.

Rogo.
You'll rue your plotting. Crime has its degrees;
Wade in its shallows, and you drown at last.

Mar.
Lord, Pietro! what a good man you are!

[Laughing.]
Rogo.
I'll have the laugh upon you shortly, sir,
If I know aught of woman.

Mar.
That would be
A bitter laugh for old Tiburzzi. No;
It must end well. Costanza will prove true;
My test will school her virtue, not destroy it;
And Count Juranio—

Rogo.
Well, well, what of him?
I partly love the boy, men speak so fairly.

Mar.
Why, so do I. But he must feel his trespass;
Know what it is to woo a man's betrothed.
That were a moral lesson, fitly taught
For his soul's health. But lightly, Pietro—
I will but check him with a father's hand—
Quite lightly, Pietro. Ha, ha! poor boy,
[Laughing.]
He will not need correction more than once.
Come, come, to business! Love has played wild tricks
With my neglected balances, of late.

[Exeunt.]