University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—Palace of Fazio.
Bianca.
Not all the night, not all the long, long night,
Not come to me! not send to me! not think on me!
Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost,
I wander up and down these long arcades.
Oh, in our old poor narrow home, if haply
He linger'd late abroad, domestic things
Close and familiar crowded all around me;
The ticking of the clock, the flapping motion
Of the green lattice, the grey curtains' folds,
The hangings of the bed myself had wrought,
Yea e'en his black and iron crucibles,
Were to me as my friends. But here, oh here,
Where all is coldly, comfortlessly costly,
All strange, all new in uncouth gorgeousness,
Lofty and long, a wider space for misery—
E'en my own footsteps on these marble floors
Are unaccustom'd, unfamiliar sounds.—
Oh, I am here so wearily miserable,
That I should welcome my apostate Fazio,
Though he were hot from Aldabella's arms.
Her arms!—her viper coil!—I had forsworn
That thought; lest he should come, and find me mad,
And so go back again, and I not know it.
Oh that I were a child to play with toys,
Fix my whole soul upon a cup and ball—
Oh any pitiful poor subterfuge,
A moment to distract my busy spirit
From its dark dalliance with that cursed image!
I have tried all: all vainly—Now, but now
I went in to my children. The first sounds
They murmur'd in their evil-dreaming sleep
Was a faint mimicry of the name of father.
I could not kiss them, my lips were so hot.
The very household slaves are leagued against me,
And do beset me with their wicked floutings,
“Comes my lord home to night?”—and when I say,
“I know not,” their coarse pity makes my heartstrings
Throb with the agony.— (Enter Piero.)
—Well, what of my lord?
Nay, tell it with thy lips, not with thy visage.
Thou raven, croak it out if it be evil:
If it be good, I'll fall and worship thee;
'Tis the office and the ministry of gods
To speak good tidings to distracted spirits.

Piero.
Last night my lord did feast—

Bianca.
Speak it at once—
Where? where?—I'll wring it from thy lips.—Where? where?

Piero.
Lady, at the Marchesa Aldabella's.

Bianca.
Thou liest, false slave: 'twas at the Ducal Palace,
'Twas at the arsenal with the officers,
'Twas with the old rich senator—him—him—him—
The man with a brief name; 'twas gaming, dicing,
Riotously drinking.—Oh it was not there;
'Twas any where but there—or if it was,
Why like a sly and creeping adder sting me
With thy black tidings?—Nay, nay: good my friend;
Here's money for those harsh intemperate words.—
But he's not there: 'twas some one of the gallants,
With dress and stature like my Fazio.
Thou wert mistaken:—no, no; 'twas not Fazio.

Piero.
It grieves me much; but, lady, 'tis my fear
Thou'lt find it but too true.

Bianca.
Hence! hence!—Avaunt,
With thy cold courteous face! Thou seest I'm wretched:
Doth it content thee?—Gaze—gaze—gaze!—perchance
Ye would behold the bare and bleeding heart,
With all its throbs, its agonies.—Oh Fazio!
Oh Fazio! Are her arms more fond than mine?
Her bosom softer?—Fazio, my lord Fazio!
Before the face of man mine own, mine only;
Before the face of Heaven Bianca's Fazio,
Not Aldabella's.—Ah, that I should live
To question it!—Now henceforth all our joys,
Our delicate endearments, all are poison'd.
Aye! if he speak my name with his fond voice,
It will be with the same tone that to her
He murmur'd her's:—it will be, or 'twill seem so.
If he embrace me, 'twill be with those arms
In which he folded her: and if he kiss me,
He'll pause, and think which of the two is sweeter.

Piero.
Nay, good my lady, give not entertainment
To such sick fancies: think on lighter matters.
I heard strange news abroad: the Duke's in council,
Debating on the death of old Bartolo,
The grey lean usurer. He's been long abroad,
And died, they think.

Bianca.
Well, sir, and what of that?
And have I not the privilege of sorrow,
Without a menial's staring eye upon me?
Who sent thee thus to charter my free thoughts,
And tell them where to shrink, and where to pause?
Officious slave, away!— (Exit.)
—Ha, what saidst thou?
Bartolo's death! and the Duke in his council!—
I'll rend him from her, though she wind around him,
Like the vine round the elm. I'll pluck him off,
Though the life crack at parting.—No, no pause;
For if there is, I shall be tame and timorous:
That milk-faced mercy will come whimpering to me,
And I shall sit and meekly, miserably
Weep o'er my wrongs.—Ha! that her soul were fond
And fervent as mine own! I would give worlds
To see her as he's rent from out her arms.
Oh, but she's cold; she cannot, will not feel.
It is but half revenge: her whole of sorrow
Will be a drop to my consummate agony.—
Yet do I linger—yet, when I might dash
At least two minutes of their unchaste raptures.—
Away, away: oh had I wings to fly to it!