University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

THE ENCAMPMENT AND TENT OF THE ARCHBISHOP UNDER THE WALLS. Consul and Archbishop.
Archbishop.
I do presume from your habiliments
You are the consul of this petty state.

Consul.
I am.

Archbishop.
You may be seated. Once again . .
Will you surrender unconditionally?

Consul.
Nor unconditionally nor conditionally.

Archbishop.
I sent for you to point where lies your duty.

Consul.
It lies where I have left it, in the town.

Archbishop.
You doubt my clemency.

Consul.
Say rather ‘honour.’

Archbishop.
Doubt you a soldier's honour?

Consul.
Not a soldier's.
But when the soldier and the priest unite,
Well may I doubt it. Goats are harmless brutes;
Dragons may be avoided; but when goat
And dragon form one creature, we abhor
The flames and coilings of the fell chimæra.

Archbishop.
And therefore you refused a conference
Unless I pitch my tent beneath your walls,
Within an arrow's shot, distributing
Ten archers on each side; ten mine, ten yours?

Consul.
No doctor of divinity in Paris
Is cleverer at divining. Thus it stands.

Archbishop.
Ill brook I such affronts.

Consul.
Ill brook, perhaps,
Florence and Pisa their ambassadors
Invited to a conference on peace,
And cast in prison.

Archbishop.
Thus we teach the proud
Their duty.

Consul.
Let the lame man teach the lame
To walk, the blind man teach the blind to see.

Archbishop.
Insolent! Unbecoming of my station
Were it to argue with a churl so rude.
Rise: look before you thro' the tent: what see you?

Consul.
I see huge masses of green corn upheaved
Within a belt of palisades.

Archbishop.
What else?

Consul.
Sheep, oxen, horses, trampling them.

Archbishop.
No more?

Consul.
Other huge masses farther off are smoking,
Because their juices quench the faggot-fire.

Archbishop.
And whence come these?

Consul.
From yonder houseless fields,
Of crops, and even of boundaries, bereft.

Archbishop.
Whose were they?

Consul.
Whose? The church's, past a doubt:
It never takes what is not freely given.

Archbishop.
Proud rebels! you have brought upon your heads
This signal vengeance from offended Cæsar.

Consul.
And must ten thousand starve because one man
Is wounded in that part which better men
Cut from them, as ill-sorted with our nature?
If Satan could have dropt it, he were saved.

Archbishop.
What meanest thou? What cast they from them?

Consul.
Pride.
It clings round little breasts and masters them,
It drops from loftier, spurn'd and trodden down.
Is this, my lord archbishop, this your Eden?
Is this the sacrifice of grateful herbs
Ye offer to your Gods? And will the next
Be more acceptable? Burnt-offerings raised
In your high places, and fossed round with blood!

Archbishop.
Blasphemer! I am here no priest; I come
Avenger of insulted majesty.
But, if thou mindest Holy Writ, mind this,
The plainest thing, and worthiest of remembrance: . .
Render to Cæsar what is Cæsar's, man!

Consul.
God will do that for us. Nought owe we Cæsar
But what he sent us when he sent you hither,
To cut our rising wheat, our bleeding vines,
To burn our olives for your wild carousals . .

Archbishop.
The only wood that will burn green: it blazes
Most beautifully, and no smell from it.
But you Anconites have poor olive grounds,
We shall want more by Sunday.

Consul.
May the curse
Of God be on you!

Archbishop.
We are not so impious:
It is on you: it were a sin to wish it.

Consul.
Prince and archbishop! there are woes that fall
Far short of curses, though sore chastisements;
Prosperities there are that hit the mark,
And the clear-sighted see God's anger there.

Archbishop.
Are we constrain'd to drag and vex the sea
And harrow up the barren rocks below
For noisome weeds? Are household animals
Struck off the knee to furnish our repast?

Consul.
Better endure than cause men this endurance.

Archbishop.
Clearly ye think so: we think otherwise.
'Tis better to chastise than be chastised,
To be the judge than be the criminal.

Consul.
How oft, when crimes are high enough to strike
The front of Heaven, are those two characters
Blended in one!

Archbishop.
I am not to be school'd
By insolence and audacity.

Consul.
We are,
It seems: but fortitude and trust in God
Will triumph yet. Our conference is closed.