University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

An Apartment in the Palace.
Duchess and Cicilia.
DUCHESS.
My spirit is more perplexed to day—the day
I looked for rest.

CICILIA.
It is but seldom thus.

DUCHESS.
Why no—for that, thank Heaven! our blood runs freely,
Nor frozen nor fired; but now I grieve to seem
Unkind, or worse—unjust: Arezzi flies me;
And thou too, child, though wiser, nobler, better,
Of more enduring nature—

CICILIA.
What!—your Grace
Will not distrust my love?

DUCHESS.
Come hither then.
Dost thou not love Arezzi too?

CICILIA.
Your highness
Hath ever seemed content that I should do so.

DUCHESS.
I have, indeed, till now.

CICILIA.
Nor hear I yet,
Why I should not.

DUCHESS.
My altered will, Cicilia.

CICILIA.
That shall command my duties; yet forgive
If what grows mightier than mine own will, prove
Almost too strong for yours.

DUCHESS.
Till late, you say,
I seemed consenting to his love?

CICILIA.
I thought so.

DUCHESS.
And so I did—I nursed its growth—and since
Have ever passed it smiling. Now our will
Turns back, not to rebuke, but bid it end:
Can this seem just?

CICILIA.
Why not? it were indeed
A starved and sickly faith, which lives no more
Than while it feeds on blessings—what I know
Is manifest good; I will believe the same
Of that which I know not.

DUCHESS.
Bless thee! Cicilia—
Thus ever swiftest in the race of goodness;
I follow, shamed, far off! but God forbid,
To bruise a heart like thine, or wrong with scruples
Its truth and singleness! Come near me, child—
I can trust too—thou knowest I love Arezzi?

CICILIA.
Not less than you love me.

DUCHESS.
I love him better.

CICILIA.
Even this I will not envy him, and yet
I thought not so before.

DUCHESS.
Ye both were mine,
By unpresuming wisdom thou, a spirit
Princely yet meek, and far too just for pride.
Yet he, though froward, and less in grace than thou art,
Is more mine own by nature.

CICILIA.
How so?

DUCHESS.
He is
Nearer in blood by much.

CICILIA.
In nature—

DUCHESS.
That—
No matter what we call it—instinct, yearning,
Which all-preserving Nature showers abroad
O'er mothers' hearts, to make their sorrows dear,
And waken tenderness through pain—dost blush?

CICILIA.
I knew not that I did—Arezzi's mother!

DUCHESS.
I give the key to wonder, but beware
Lest some injurious and ambiguous thought
Should enter too. My honor keeps its place
As high as suits the daughter of a king,
Don Carlos' sister—ha?

CICILIA.
Your Grace mistakes me.
The Count Arezzi yours?

DUCHESS.
My son, Cicilia—
Prince Andria's son—thy kinsman. This has been
The unquiet growth of more than twenty years—
Look! how amazement tends to ecstacy—
Dost hear me speak?

CICILIA.
Pray—pray—

DUCHESS.
I who abhor
The reptile traversings of dubious souls,
Have stooped to this. It could not be through shame,
For Andria was the image by whose gold
The noblest swore, and o'er whose laurell'd head
Was honor superscribed—his sovereign's friend,
The people's idol. Women when they loved,
Would feign some likeness 'twixt their choice and him,
And men grew proud to think it such—he was
What now Arezzi might be.

CICILIA.
Why not love him?

DUCHESS.
Because he was a subject—and my brother
Had scorned to call him his. Through this, our marriage
Was hidden unhonor'd and half blessed.

CICILIA.
The Count Arezzi—
That Count Arezzi, then, whose name he bears,
Is but a dream!

DUCHESS.
There was a Count Arezzi,
Young, wealthy, well allied—but rash and hated,
Prince Andria's kinsman. Threatened and pursued,
He fled with one he loved, to Florence, Pisa,
Abode in Rome, and sailed, at last, toward Spain,
But perished in his flight. The time accorded;
Andria was next in blood: their mystery lent
Our child a name, which justly we might give him,
As ours and his—it placed him in our sight,
His father's ward.

CICILIA.
How many thoughts come home
Till now forgot, which find their place unfilled,
Like martlets to their last year's nest in spring,
Disused, and yet familiar.

DUCHESS.
This love between you
Grew on unblamed and blameless. We descried
In him its present usefulness, to charm
Impure suggestions from the spirit of youth,
And turn its fires to profit: we believed
A future good to both: but Fortune thwarts us,
Another sovereign rules, the duke loves too.

CICILIA.
As children do—no more than I love him.

DUCHESS.
It matters not if thought so young may die
Ere fancy change to passion. Youthful dreams
Are mighty while they last. We must not say
“Arezzi loved the first, give place”—our strength
Is Ferdinand's pleasure; and beside all this,
Naples looks kindly on the boy—it shows
Truly, though ignorantly, a parent's fondness,
While we of Spain grow alien. There are around us
Who might awake ill-fears. Arezzi stands,
With you, too near the throne.

CICILIA.
Your Grace shall guide me;
But still remember this—you have not found,
In twenty years, that Time can conquer Faith,
Or Wisdom Nature—judge my heart by your's.

DUCHESS.
I do, and find it pure where mine is not.
Why—bless thee, child—that which is told may show
How much I trust thee, and the time to come
Shall prove my love. If either had been less,
I could have kept my secret still.

CICILIA.
Your Grace
Shall not repent its loss.

DUCHESS.
Things changed from good
May change again from evil. Prince Andria waits
A message to us both from Spain; with that
We learn the worst—but—till it come—Cicilia,
Promise that prayers and sighs shall not prevail
Above the faith between us.

CICILIA.
I promise.

DUCHESS.
Lock what you hear from all, and, most, Arezzi.
Be wise and secret, child, till then.

CICILIA.
I will.

[Exeunt.