University of Virginia Library

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.

Enter Princess Matilda.
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.
Princess, your conscience busies me more than my own.
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.
'Tis shaped by what is nearest: from the moulds,
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,
Are not as light renounced as children's toys.

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,
Commissioned from black Hell, with special office
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.