University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

Scene I.

A Room in the House of the First Ambassador.
First Ambassador; to him enter Second Ambassador and Second Minister.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
What news? Disaster on disaster still?

SECOND AMBASSADOR.
Naught else; and when one hopes the worst is come,
Swift falls a new superlative of ill.
His last campaign outtrumps all he has led.
Our Kings and Queens before this Ace of Swords
Are sorry deuces. But for highest stakes
He plays, and always wins. Satan must be
His viewless partner.

FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Is the battle lost
That late did hang so throbbing in the air?

SECOND AMBASSADOR.
That and another, still more bloody baleful;
And long ere this he holds the Capital.

SECOND MINISTER.
His legions wipe old boundaries from the maps,
He pressing them as they were bloody sponges,
And all our territories a scribbled slate.
His marches are surprises, his siege a raid.
He portions crowns as they were premium-toys.
His movements are the dates of history.

Enter a courier in haste, who delivers a package to the First Ambassador; then exit.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Now we shall crack the latest secret's nut.
'T is better than official, this dispatch,
A private missive from a friend whose ear
Is confidential with the trustiest tongues.
“A sudden solid peace I sure announce.
[Reads.
The battle-tragedy, whereof we had,
But a week since, the bloody final act,
Ends like a comedy, with marriage-bells.
Judge of their straits. The friendship of the fiend
The Emperor pays for with his daughter's hand.
This maddened scourge, who tracks the whirlwind's pace,
Who makes short days do the whole work of weeks,
Who never waits for man or moon or season,
Will have on th' instant his Imperial bride.
Take comfort: he who on the battle-field
Never misjudges, in the cabinet
Loses his vision. One great blunder was
His cold divorce: this marriage is a greater.
His weak foundations he would hereby brace:
He loosens them. He knows not how to walk:
He ever runs. He started at full speed,
And now he dares not stop. Time he outstrips;
And as he can no more retrace his steps,—
And would not if he could,—he spends his breath.
It needs no seer to tell where next will fall
His stroke. I know, and so do you. Farewell.”
The courser's virtue of celerity,
Taught us by Brangonar, with eagle's rate
I now must act. Swiftness, like charity,
Covers a host of sins; not all of his.
The higher tools, here in his Capital,
Are tactile more and more to others' touch.
That instinct of the older rats is marvelous.

SECOND MINISTER.
That we, whose wishes father such a hope,
Turn doubtful incidents to expectations,
This is our desperate part. But that to them,
Who 're launched with him in his taut-tackled ship,
There come just now fears or uncertain thoughts,
Now when with sunlit sail he drives right on,
His foeless banner flaunting in the gale,—
This passes my belief.

FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Besides the cold,
And the hard skeptical,—who have no faith
In aught that 's new, though palpable and bare
It work effects before the very sense,—
Some faithful heads there are, so even poised
They sway not to the tremors of the time,
But calmly read the living history,
Which we so noisily are making here,
As if it lay long silent in the books;
And read so shrewdly, they precalculate
Chief consequences whilst their causes rage.
Moreover, changes oft are felt ere seen:
Men snuff, they know not whence, big revolutions.
When great catastrophes draw on, and ere
Their portents gloom above th' horizon's verge,
The circumambient air is sometimes shook
As with th' inaudible wail of painéd spirits.

SECOND AMBASSADOR.
Before a week be flown, swift Brangonar,
Wafted by fabled griffins, will alight
Upon his palace-steps, to spur his laggards;
For such to him his nimblest servants are.
We all have business 'gainst his coming, Count;
And so I take my leave.

SECOND MINISTER.
Adieu.

FIRST AMBASSADOR.
Adieu, adieu.

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

Headquarters of Brangonar, in a Palace near the Capital of the Donibian Empire.
Brangonar. On one side, Borini, at a desk; Lusky on the other.
BRANGONAR.

Lusky, write to the Chief of Engineers that the bridge at Toro be built at once. 'T is a want of two fertile provinces. The road between Amstel and Werpen moves too lazily: say it must be finished in four months from to-day.—Borini, prepare an order for one million pieces extra, to be paid the Head of Marine Construction for hastening the harbor of Burgo. This great work lags behind our needs. Prepare another of two hundred thousand pieces for the Director of Arts, and tell him that when I return to the Capital I wish to find that this sum has been already in great part well expended. Say nothing of the time of my coming. Because canals are for slow transportation, they need not therefore be slow in digging. The great one in the South must be hurried. Write this, Lusky, to the Superintendent. The Master of Ecclesiastical Architecture is as backward with the new cathedral as if he were building his own tomb. Send him, Borini, a sharp note to spur his tardiness. Despatch

these orders by the courier to-night, and send Melno to me.

[Exeunt Borini and Lusky.
The Church has one supreme and single head,—
The truest type of robust sovereignty,—
A central might, stupendous, paramount,
From whence, as from a towering sole Mount Blanc,
To all the plains flow streams of government.
What men most need is sinewy governing:
The densest multitudes are weak, unled.
Without strong men no peoples ere were strong:
They are the grounded natural Majesties,
By genius sanctified to highest place,
To whom men friendly bow a thankful head,
Feeling the heart replenished from their throb.
They lift the many into history:
They bind the ages into sequence wise,
Illuming with their thought the dim traditions.
Order doth flow from law, and law from might.
Order is welfare, and disorder wreck.
Disorder did I find and order founded;
And 't is my mission to outspread its rule
To the gross bounds of civilization's reach.
I am a fountain of authority.
These Kinglings, whom I topple, are the shams
That fade and perish in a quickening breath.
A cry is heard outside, “Stop him! stop him!” and in rushes an assassin with a long pointed knife in his hand. Before he gets near to Brangonar he is seized by a captain and a soldier, who disarm him. Brangonar looks intently into his face.
The dagger you have wrested from his hand
Gleams in his eye. Who, what art thou, who dar'st
Single attempt a deed to shake the world?
Or art confederate with greater ones?
Hast not a hireling's look.

ASSASSIN.
No hireling I.

BRANGONAR.
What was thy aim?

ASSASSIN.
To slay thee.

BRANGONAR.
Wherefore? How
Have I wronged thee?

ASSASSIN.
Me and the groaning world
Of men who would be free.

BRANGONAR.
Before I came
Were you then free?

ASSASSIN.
Not free, we were less far
From freedom than since these gross brutal wars
You love so much you wage them ceaselessly.
When mind and genius and a despot's will
Meet in one man, all men within his reach
Must be his slaves. Such monster's appetite
Daily allays itself on human rights.
All wills must flow to swell the flood of his,
All pulses beat to fire the throb of his.

BRANGONAR.
Thou hast a will would be more bloated yet.
Who made thee judge of me?

ASSASSIN.
Myself: my manhood.

BRANGONAR.
Dost not repent thy crime?

ASSASSIN.
'T was not committed.
Do you repent the hundred thousand deaths
You 've given, and every one a bloody stab?

BRANGONAR.
Worst villainy hath subtleties to veil
Its hideousness from the self-cheated self.

ASSASSIN.
I am no villain. Never was I false,
Nor ever wrought to lose a fellow-man;
Nor robbed my neighbors to provide my house;
Nor slept upon a fraudful thought, and waked
To act it—

BRANGONAR.
Take him hence to execution:
It is a dangerous egotist. Away!
[Exeunt, with assassin.
Captain, if he repent him, spare his life.

Enter an attendant.
ATTENDANT.
Two Chamberlains, your Majesty, ask audience.

BRANGONAR.
Admit them.
[Exit attendant.
I grow weary of inaction.
I must be on my westward route to-night.

Enter two Chamberlains.
FIRST CHAMBERLAIN.
Your Majesty, our Kingly masters crave
An audience of you, Sire, to-morrow noon,
Ere they depart.

BRANGONAR.
Say to their Majesties,
I shall be glad to give them audience here.
[Exeunt Chamberlains.
And gladder be to miss their tedious talk;
For nothing more just now have they to give.
These Kings are bores; unwitting formalists.
No projects, schemes, desires, to breed large hopes,—
Such as should fortify a kingly breast,—
Stir in these spent hereditary brains.
Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
Borini, has he gone?

LUSKY.
Aye, Sire.

BRANGONAR.
Have all things ready for our start at ten.

[Exeunt severally.

Scene III.

A Public Square in the Capital.
LOVÉRO,
alone.
His bulk doth shadow half the thoughtful world.
We draw our breath from a perpetual chill,
An Arctic winter of uphoarded shade.
The many gaze in shallow wonderment
And palsied admiration; for to most,
These gross effects, these havoc-howling marches,
These plunder-snuffing swoops, this blasting glare,
Are signs of proudest power,—because they set
The senses in a blaze, and captivate
The coarser aspirations of the heart.
A seed, love-born within the spirit's core,
A germ impregnate with constructive thought,
Is silent freighted with a surer might,
With richer consequence, with livelier weal,
To hoping, panting, sad humanity,—
Easing the pathway for hereafter's tread,—
Than the piled glories of a selfish soldier,
Pompous with the resounding blazoned blare
Of hundred tear-dewed victories. The soul
Will not be satisfied, will ceaseless claim
Assuréd dues. Where will this end? for end
It must; and sooner than th' unthinking think.
His very halfness swells his present size;
But th' infant Future will be soon adult,
Distressful clamoring for its deep arrears.

Enter Riordo and Carlan.
RIORDO.
This man, Lovéro, is now grown so big,
Mortals can hardly see him at one look.

CARLAN.
Had he been pricked when he began to swell
He had not filled this fearful stature's mould.

LOVÉRO.
None had the strength to check him,—save himself;
And he, weak man, could not so use his strength.

[Cannon at a distance.
RIORDO.
I hate the braggart bellow of these guns.
Each boom 's the welding of another link
In our poor country's chain.

CARLAN.
These are to tell
The thirsty crowd that, had they but the wine,
They might drink welcome to their Empress new.
Besides her fresh Imperial Altitude,
A half a score of Kings infest the town,
And Queens, all brothers, sisters of his Blackness.
Our Palaces have not the rooms to house
This outswol'n spawn of bastard yesterday,
This mildew on the Nation's trunk,
Slimed from the reeky rankness of the time.

RIORDO.
Lovéro, pardon me, that to your face
I utter speech that sounds like purposed praise;
But you are honored as no other is.
And therefore I would have, at your first leisure,
Some conference with you.

LOVÉRO.
Name the day.

RIORDO.
To-morrow.

[Exeunt Riordo and Carlan.
LOVÉRO.
The wish to rule events is blasphemy;
And blasphemy is ever impotence.
He who would rule must feel that he is ruled.
Above us aye is law, God's law of right.
Whose will to this denies obedience deep
Is slave of a small self; and on that will
He thinks so strong, he slides to an abyss:
A King, he rules not, though he seem to rule.
This is the curse of Brangonar: his will
Is one-eyed; thence, a will but half empowered.—
We ripen, slowly, slowly; but we ripen.

[Exit.

Scene IV.

A Street in the same.
Enter on one side several citizens; on the other, Curio.
CURIO
(to First Citizen).

Do you know why there are more cardinal sins than deadly virtues?

FIRST CITIZEN.

You mean deadly sins and cardinal virtues, friend Curio.

CURIO.

No matter: Cardinals are the chief of sinners, and to be virtuous in these days is deadly. A man can't live unless he can lie and steal.—But what was I talking about?—Oh, the Kings, the Kings! The town is so full of Kings, the Sun is bashful about shining, lest he be outshone. These be such great times, I should n't wonder to see the Sun put out. He has been making our eyes blink and our skins sweat long enough. Down with him, say I; let 's have a Sol of a new pattern. The new Kings—there are ten of them, counting the she ones. No, that was n't the number;

and yet he counted them on all his fingers, the baker did.—Ah, yes, yes; the baker lost two of his fingers by a cannon-ball; so he counted but eight. Eight Kings with crowns on, all brothers and sisters of our Emperor!

FIRST CITIZEN.

Have you seen any of them, Curio?

CURIO.

No; but I saw the hind wheels of the carriage of one of them as he turned a corner; and my eyes have seen clearer ever since.

FIRST CITIZEN.

But, Curio, you 've seen the new Empress.

CURIO.

What do you take me for? I know my place; I should n't dare look at her. Besides, I never yet saw the old Empress,—I beg her pardon, the first Empress. First come, first served.

SECOND CITIZEN.

Curio, go early to-morrow to the Palace, and you'll see this family of Kings. The Emperor has convoked them all to a grand session, and you can get sight of them as they go in. I have bribed one of the lackeys

inside to let me wear his livery, that I may see the grandest sight ever seen in our City,—the Emperor and his brothers and sisters in robes and crowned, and the new Empress, all together.

[Exeunt citizens.
CURIO.

Sights, sights! See, see! always gazing, staring; as if a man could fill his belly through his eyes. If I pass a jeweller's shop I always shut mine when I'm hungry.—Here comes the stuff Kings are made of. Royal Arms should have a dead leg and a dead arm for supporters, with a death's-head for crest.

Enter a number of mutilated soldiers, with legs and arms off, on crutches, with bandaged heads. They hobble across the stage.

Ha! my brave fellows; going to see your children?

FIRST SOLDIER.

Do you mock us?

CURIO.

I mock! I live in a glass house myself. I call Kings your children; for, but for such as you, there were no Kings.

SECOND SOLDIER.

I would they thought so.

CURIO.

And they will when they get wisdom.

SECOND SOLDIER.

When will that be?

CURIO.

When boys shall learn without teachers, and women shall break their looking-glasses.

SECOND SOLDIER.

Good-by, friend. It is pension day, and a short road is a long way to us.

CURIO.

Were I one of your children you should have carriages.

[Exeunt soldiers.

Here comes a man I like to meet: he always throws into my poor heart something that makes it feel warmer.

Enter Lovéro.
LOVÉRO.

Good-morrow, Curio: how do you this many a day?

CURIO.

As well, Sir, as a man can do who has nothing to do.

LOVÉRO.

You speak there more wisdom than will come from the mouth of any King to-day.

CURIO.

Kings' mouths, like the mouth of a cracked bottle, take in more than they give out. Tell me, Sir, when are the people to have enough to eat?

LOVÉRO.

When every man shall get out of him all the work there is in him, and no man shall rob his neighbor.

CURIO.

Then I shall starve; for I can't work, I can't work, try as much as I will (sadly).

LOVÉRO.

Not more is asked than is given, good Curio. You do your best, and harm no one; you shall not want.

CURIO.

Shall I not, shall I not? Then I'll be merry the rest of my life. Now let 's go see the Kings and the new Empress.

[Exeunt.

Scene V.

A Room of State in the Palace, with throne, and two or three degrees of steps about the throne.
Enter, in regal robes and crowned, in procession, headed by the Emperor Brangonar and the new Empress, three brothers of the Emperor, one brother-in-law, two sisters, and two sisters-in-law; Chamberlains following. The procession passes round the stage, music playing a grand slow march; then the Emperor and Empress take their seats on the throne, the eight other crowned royalties taking theirs on either side, on the graduated steps.
BRANGONAR.
Powers, Dominations, Royalties, of sway
Replete with present puissance, not infirm
With impositions from th' exacting past,
Your Kingly sceptres can be tightly held
Only by close engrafture to their stem,
And due allegiance from yourselves to me,
Your necessary head, your liege elect,
By achievements sure in council and in field
Your Leader, through the princely law of might.
For ye by envies, fears, ambitions stern
Are circumvested, and by deadly hate,
Planted in baffled breasts by the rank sting
Of flying power, through dotage forfeited.
This ambient enmity you can disarm,
If you are wise and wary, and will be
Symmetrical to an adjusted whole.
Daily you root ye deeper in the hearts
Of your new peoples, whilst th' unborrowed force,
That set you on these swift-subjected thrones,
Grows hourly greater: and when the vast schemes,
That lie already accomplished in my brain,
Shall burst in act, so broad will be that force,
We to the world may bid defiance full.
To be itself, power must be a unity.
Its foremost agents are high deputies,
Supreme dispensers of the loftiest trust,
Enthroned executors of sovereign right.
Strength, life itself, are hung on order's rule,
And order issues from a central will.
Brothers and sisters royal, great comates
In the vast wielding of th' Imperial realm,
Prime regal feudatories in the reign
Of a new dynasty, with brotherly
And with monarchic greetings I salute you.—
The banquet now awaits us. Go ye in:
I follow presently.
[The Emperor rises; then all rise and file out to the sound of a livelier music, led by the Empress.
Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
Lusky,
Is Sesto not yet come?
Enter Sesto, in great haste.
Ha! here he is.
I read bad tidings in your face: what is 't?

SESTO.
Manessa, Sire, is routed.

BRANGONAR.
Routed? Routed?

SESTO.
I left him, Sire, in swift, confused retreat.

BRANGONAR.
At Arbo surely he can make a stand.

SESTO.
'T was this side Arbo that I parted from him.

Enter in haste, Alardo.
BRANGONAR.
What means this tell-tale pallor in your cheeks?

ALARDO.
I am ashamed to speak the news I bring.
Sire, your fleet, joined with that of Barca—

BRANGONAR.
Well!

ALARDO.
Is shattered, Sire, hardly a ship escaped.

BRANGONAR.
Why, man, call back the color to your face.
Knew I not how to meet disaster's shock,
I had been long since crushed. This is bad news;
But in a month I'll make it be forgotten.
Keep secret, both of you, to-day these tidings.
[Exeunt Alardo and Sesto.
If aught could baffle my proportioned plans,
It were these Islanders. Where'er can float
A ship there gleams their flag. The pathful sea,
The globe-enclasping ocean is their own.—
This is a blow—but I can break its force.

[Exit.