University of Virginia Library

LIKE UNTO LIKE.

A COMEDY, IN THREE ACTS.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

• Roberto, a wealthy Citizen of Florence.
• Ernesto, his Friend.
• Fernando, a Duke.
• Ignazio, an Abbé.
• Alonzo, an Artist.
• Filippo, a Gentleman of Padua.
• Ottavio, a Florentine.
• Berto, Steward to Roberto.
• Cecilia, Daughter of Roberto.
• Leonora, Widowed Daughter-in-Law of Roberto.
• Duchess, Mother of Fernando.
• Ladies, Gentlemen, and Attendants.

Scene—Florence, in 1502.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A Room in Roberto's House.
Enter Roberto.
Rob.
A dukedom for my daughter, and myself
Gonfalonier of Florence:—this bedwarfs
The very giants of ambition's dream.
Enter Berto.
Ha! Berto, comes my friend?

Berto.
On the instant, signor.

Rob.
Now will I make Ernesto's critic frown
Unwrinkle to a smooth applausive smile.
Berto!—Berto, with all thy wilful ways,
Thou'rt true as apt, and lov'st my house and me.
Now tell me;—for thy greedy eyes devour
What 't is not meant that stranger looks should feed on—
Tell me, if 'mong the burnished cavaliers,
Who make my old walls laugh with their young talk,
There's one whose absence Cecil quickest marks,
Whose voice to her is singly musical,
Whose brow her eye becrowns with lingering looks.
Thou understandst;—

Berto.
Signor, not one, not one.
Florence, rich as she is in men, is yet
Too poor, too poor.

Rob.
And Leonora. Seldom
Doth now grief's shadow rest upon her cheek;
And then so briefly, that 'tis scarcely seen.
My poor son is more dead to her than me.

Berto.
Grief feeds on want: its crib is emptiness.
A child's loss leaves a void, wherein for ever
Grief thrusts his pallid fingers for his food.
A husband gone, there too's a void; but that,
Hope to the young soon fills with bearded visions,
Looking at which the blushing mourner's eyes
Forget, or with a new warmth dry, their tears.
Young widows, signor—

Rob.
'Tis well. Here comes Ernesto.
Enter Ernesto.
[Exit Berto.
I know, Ernesto, that a friend's success
Can pour no selfish wormwood in your cup.
Be glad then with me at my pregnant prospects.

Ern.
A false friend or an enemy might be that.
Prospects are sirens, heard through knavish mists,
Singing us ofttimes from a founded safety
To shoreless wastes;—a disembodied voice,
Grudging the bodied sounds of present joy.

Rob.
Art thou already past the age of hope?

Ern.
Ay; and now starve upon its promises.
But, tell me, what new feather tickles you?

Rob.
The Duke Fernando asks me for my daughter.

Ern.
Ha! Cecilia, Cecilia! Fernando!
Cold, proud, self-loving. He a husband for—
Oh! can you, can you, but in fleetest thought,
In twinkling fancy, hold such too conjoined?
Roberto, pardon me; your child you love,
Love as a parent only loves: the woman,
Who is your child, you see not on her height.

Rob.
Nay, I would lift her to the jewelled height,
Endowed for her pre-excellence. Than she
Who will sit easier on a ducal seat?

Ern.
No seat is easy when the heart doth ache.
But, dear Roberto, your old friend of Padua;
The bond with him has been a two-fold joy,
A memory and a hope;—

Rob.
By him dissolved.
His boy, he says, shall mate himself. He'll send him
To Florence; and no tidings thence, more ripe
To gladden him, than that my child and his
By mutual preference have resealed our contract.

Ern.
Blest in his father is that son, and back
Rebounds the blessing from his heart; for I,
Knowing this pledge, by deputy have watched
His unsoiled growth. His parts are firmed by truth;
And so far as the unwrit book of manhood
Can in the preface of frank youth be read,
His life is dedicate to worthiness.
When comes he?

Rob.
I know not, and when he comes
Shall welcome him as my friend's son; no more.

Ern.
But should he ratify his father's pledge.

Rob.
His father has revoked that ancient pledge.
I'm free to bind my child in other ties.

Ern.
You will not force or thwart her dispositions.

Rob.
So passive and obedient is her nature,
Her duties forge her will. Her joys run fullest
In channels scooped by other's predilections.

Ern.
The affections live on self-selected food:
Free choice is parcel of their very life;
That balked, they fester.

Rob.
In this town, Ernesto,
There are how many thousands married pairs.
Is there in every pair some special fitness,
Whereby, from each distinct duality,
Is born a happiness not else potential?
Or, can we not believe, that most or all
Of the components of these many pairs,
Coupled to others, had still reaped a good
Equal to what they now have compassed?
Outward conditions oftenest rule in matching.
The laborer mates him with his like; the trader
A trader's daughter weds; wealth marries wealth;
The courtier seeks his bride among the great.
Interest, ambition, accident, caprice,
Control or guide affection's bent; and thus,
Chance more than choice picks out the wedded mate.

Ern.
Thus is deep Nature's order contravened,
And th' inward true thralled to the outward false.

Enter Berto with a Letter.
Berto.
Signor, a letter from the Duke Fernando.

Rob.
[After hastily reading the letter.]
Ernesto, pardon me, but I must leave you.

[Exit.
Ern.
Berto, I know you may be trusted; know you
As much of me?

Berto.
Signor, you honor me.

Ern.
Nay, nay.
Berto, you love your mistress.

Berto.
Her own father
Loves her not more.

Ern.
Perhaps he loves her less.

Berto.
What mean you, signor?

Ern.
Duke Fernando, love you him?

Berto.
As I love wolves.

Ern.
This wolf would rob your roost.
He seeks to wed Cecilia.

Berto.
He! Cecilia!

Ern.
Fernando and Cecilia.

Berto.
Know you this?

Ern.
To make it known Roberto summoned me.

Berto.
For counsel?

Ern.
Nay, I fear he is past counsel;
With mien so confident did he impart it;
As 'twere an act his thought and will had signed.

Berto.

Signor Ernesto, you know me for a cheery frank buffoon, bred in this house, and borne with for my faithfulness. Signor, but for the Lady Cecilia, I had been a sour villain. Believe me, sir, by the power of goodness am I transformed into an honest happy knave.

Ern.
Good Berto, thou deserv'dst thy precious fortune.
Thou feel'st this sunshine. For herself, she's one,
Who, from her eye, tongue, hand, drops goodness; and,
Like May, breathing on frosted violets,
Melts where she comes cold evil in her path.
But this Fernando, this examinate duke,
He will not be transmutable by goodness.
Rather he'll quench warm Cecil's generous life,
Killing with coldness her pure heats; like winds
That angry strike the trembling blossoms down,
And then whip out of them their sweetened breath.
Hard is't to say, good Berto, but 'tis true;
This daughter needs protection 'gainst her father.

Berto.
Signor, my master's thoughts and hopes and dreams
Are now but titles, rank and eminence.

Ern.
And he, forgetful of his own hot youth,
Would deal with this dear child's unblown affections,
As though, instead of being life's sacred marrow,
They were counters to score ambition's game.
Berto, we'll countermine ambition's craft.
Let us about it. We have both some means.
Art we will dash with boldness. Such a marriage
Were sacrilege. Our cause is holy.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Alonzo's Studio.
Alonzo,
alone.
With every breath the fertile air is sweeter,
Each fragrant hour with sunnier beauty flushed.
If at its base life is so glad and great,
What will it be upon its boundless top?
Like wildered traveller on white Alpine crest,
I shall lack faculty: I lack it now.
My senses reel under their perfumed load;
And glittering visions throng, faster and grander
Than my slow hand can seize. Too weak am I
For my strong inwardness. A very God
In plastic swiftness I should be, to body
The blazing forms that sprout upon my brain,
Peopling the silent temples of the mind
With gorgeousness. But I shape only shadows.
Courage and Faith: these be my arms and armor.
Imagined beauty breeds upon the soul;
What though the offspring wear no present feature,
Warm Time shall ripen into sinewy life
The boldest thoughts' most choice imaginations,
Therewith to build the great hereafter. Glorious,
Divine 'twill be, one tiniest stone to bring
To the majestic pile. [Knocking at the door.]

Who's there? come in.
Enter Filippo.
Filippo!

Fil.
Dear Alonzo!—Oh! I see
Thou art thyself; thou art but changed, to be
Still more thyself.

Alon.
And thou: these four short years
Have only sported with thy youth.

Fil.
And I
With them. I shame to tell thee, dear Alonzo,
I am as light as aye, and learn no wisdom.

Alon.
Nay; to the true, Wisdom comes of herself,
And takes delight in coming; while the false,
With all their might, can't win her confidence.
Ere thou art gray, graybeards shall be thy pupils.
But what, save my good angel, brings thee hither?

Fil.
Florence brings me to Florence. I am one
Of the great flock that hither bleating runs,
To be, here in this beauteous pen of learning,
Fleeced of our ignorance. Then thou art here;
And thy good angel ever has been mine.
Lastly—I've come to seek a wife.

Alon.
A wife!

Fil.
About a score of years ago, my father—
With that farsightedness that fathers have—
From Padua spied one in a cradle here.

Alon.
Infant betrothment signed by parents.

Fil.
Ay;
On one condition, that on either part
The contract might at will be abrogated.
And so it is; unless myself rebind it,
The lady and her father both consenting.
Now hear my scheme. That I be not prejudged
For good or ill, and be more free to judge,
I will be seen unknown, and see unpledged.
Therefore, in Florence I am not Filippo
Of Padua, but Valerio a Venetian.
Knowest thou the rich Roberto?

Alon.
Roberto!

Fil.
'Tis he who was to be my father-in-law.

Alon.
What thou hast partly forfeited! the flower
Of Tuscany.

Fil.
So fair?

Alon.
In drawing her
My hopeless pencil seizes grace ideal;
And shall my image near her perfectness,
I shall be bold to cope unseen Madonnas.

Fil.
Show me this painted image.

Alon.
'Tis not here,
And barely touched. Twice only have I seen her.
At noon she sits again. This suits thy plot.
First thou shalt see Da Vinci's great cartoon,
And then the masterpiece of Nature. Come.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Room in Roberto's House.
Enter Ernesto and Berto.
Ern.

My suspicion, Berto, has been quickly translated into knowledge. A villanous plot. Cecilia is the price Roberto pays Fernando for making him gonfalonier.

Berto.

Roberto gonfalonier!

Ern.

Ay; the plotters are at work; Fernando's minions and Roberto's ducats already trot hand in hand through the by-ways of Florence.

Berto.

Signor, think you the Signor Roberto fit for this high office?

Ern.

Thou rogue; thou shouldst have been an abbé, thou art so seeming innocent.

Berto.

I prophesy an eclipse. We shall have the Medici back.

Ern.

And deserve them. When a people persists in choosing wrongly, it jeopards the right to choose. But Roberto is not yet chosen. Fernando, 'tis true has power, noble though he be; for rank that has long been rooted, will, when cut down, throw up suckers. Yet by none is he beloved, and by all honest men, hated. Florentines, as strong as he, would

like to thwart him. If we can baffle Fernando's influence on the election, we defeat the marriage; and if we can defeat the marriage, we prevent the election. Our twofold aims double our chance of success.—I have, moreover, good tidings from my sentinel in Padua. Filippo, of whom I have told you, is on his way hither in disguise. He is a friend of the painter Alonzo, and is to pass for a Venetian. Alonzo comes for another sitting presently. I will return to sift from him what I can.

[Exeunt.
Enter Cecilia and Leonora.
Cec.
Dear Leonora, canst thou not to day
Lend me a heartful of thy cheerfulness?

Leon.
Lend thee or give my heart's whole joy I will,
And yawn a week in empty mirthlessness,
So thou wilt smile as thou didst yesterday.
Thou art unwonted sad: what hast thou, sister?

Cec.
Words from my father, they have made me sad;
Which should not be, and never was before.

Leon.
Sweet sis, fathers were made to balk their daughters,
And better them by balking. 'Tis their duty:
Thine is, to let thyself be balked and bettered,
Learning with pretty proneness thy first lesson
In virtue. Would there were some other way.

Cec.
My father has no thought but for my good.

[Sighing.
Leon.
A most rare good, that makes thee sigh to speak of.
A good, methinks, one might be selfish with,
Giving a friend the larger lump thereof.
Come, I'll be prodigal, halving it with thee.
Oh! Cecil, is't a husband?

Cec.
Thy fast tongue
Has overta'en the truth.

Leon.
Thou dost not jest?

Cec.
Would that I did.

Leon.
Wouldst be a child for ever?
For what hast thou been suckled, schooled, arrayed?
Since first thy lashes parted to the sun,
No beam has spurred thy growth, but daily graved
More deeply on thy pulse the one word, wife.
Therein is locked thy destiny, thyself.

Cec.
Good Leonora, are husbands all alike?

Leon.
Ah, there's the knot that ravels up the skein.

Cec.
Thinkst thou life could wind smoothly with Fernando?

Leon.
The duke? Is he thy suitor? thou a duchess?
Tall, handsome, noble, and thy father's choice—

Cec.
Dear sister, be not bribed by rank and looks,
The man, Fernando, what of him?

Leon.
His height
And title are the best of him. And yet,
In the dry dearth of men, these go for much.

Cec.
Oh! can I wed and love a proud cold man?

Leon,
To-day thou couldst not; but a week or month
Works headlong transformations. Love delights
In contraries; and were the cold to wed
Only the cold, frost would usurp the world,
And men soon turn to icicles.

Enter Berto.
Berto.
Signor Ernesto

Enter Ernesto.
Ern.
I've come, Cecilia, to befriend your picture,
Abetting with my tongue Alonzo's pencil.
To wordy war I challenge Leonora;
That we, by wisdom, and by wit of speech,
May so your fancy ravish, that your soul,
Charmed to your face, the painter, thence enkindled,
Shall fire the frigid canvass.

Berto.
Signor Alonzo.

Enter Alonzo and Filippo.
Alon.
Signora, I have used the privilege,
So hospitably given, and bring my friend,
Signor Valerio, who, fresh come from Venice,
Will, if so please you, rend the sitting's tedium
With latest martial news, or recent feats
Of great Giorgione and the greater Titian,
Champions of Art so nobly confident,
They throw the gauntlet down to Tuscany.

Cec.
Signor, welcome to Florence, and our house.
Of gorgeous Venice we shall gladly hear.

Fil.
Lady, I shall be grateful if you'll listen
To partial speech of Venice; yet to-day,
So lively is my mind with Florence self,
All distant images seem colorless.

Ern.
A Florentine bids you be welcome, sir,
To his fair city and to all it holds
That may or profit or divert you.

Fil.
Signor,
The high renown of Florence, I perceive,
Finds echo in its townsmen's courtesy.

Alon.
Noble Ernesto, there's no other man
I more delight to thank than you. Believe me,
My friend is worthy, sir, of your best will.

Ern.
His face, Alonzo, is your warrant's seal.
[Aside to Berto.]
The rogue tho' comes with fib upon his lips.

Alon.
[To Cecilia.]
Signora, will you sit.

[Cecilia takes her seat; Alonzo adjusts his easel; the others sit; and then the curtain drops.]

ACT II.

SCENE I.

A Room in Roberto's House.
Roberto, alone.
Rob.
The virtue of a girl is modesty,
Which were in men pale cowardice. To know
One's fitness for high places; then, to prove
The knowledge by bold deed, is, to fulfil
Nature's robust decree. Faint-hearted fools,
None others, snub their opportunities.
Fortune bears malice: she forgives not those,
But whips with hate, who slight her coy advances.
This will not I; but through her sudden love
Wed me to greatness and its lofty joys.
The top place 'mong the haughty few I'll win;
The many's shout shall peal for my proud ear;
Where'er I move shall glare the signs of homage—
The deferential pause of passers-by,
The lifted bonnet and obedient bow;
My every word with wisdom shall be freighted
By yielded wills and bribed imaginations:
The chair of state, the seat of dignity,
There will I sit, circled with regal light,
The focus high of a hushed crowd submissive,
Agape to kiss the fiat of authority.
Enter Berto.
How now, Berto, what hast thou learnt?

Berto.

Signor, when a man goes into the street, and that in a city so learned as Florence, if when he comes home he can tell what he has learnt, he is too wise for the fellows, and is company fit only for himself.

Rob.

Berto, thou art no licensed jester; take not his liberties so often. No more foolery. Whom hast thou seen? what didst thou hear about the election?

Berto.

I saw Bartolomeo, the vintner; I saw Adolpho, the wool-dealer; I saw Biagio, the glovier; I saw Lattanzio, the shoemaker; I saw Nicolini, the armeror; I saw—

Rob.

All good men; how will they vote?

Berto.

Every man of them against your honor. Of all I spoke with I found but one citizen for you.

Rob.

Who was he?

Berto.

Floriano, the half-starved baker.

Rob.

I know Floriano; he's shrewd though poor. Berto, in choice of official men, the honest poor are cleaner in their preferences, higher in their judgments, than the prosperous burghers. The partialities of fat citizens are apt to be poisoned by self-seeking.

Berto.

Judge, signor, of Floriano's judgment: when I

told him of the duke, he swore, he'd rather live on his own crusts than vote for a friend of Fernando.

Rob.

Knave, thou consortest but with knaves. These rascals are all bought by Soderini.

Berto.

It may be. Have you heard, signor, the good news about the duke?

Rob.

Ha! no: what is it?

Berto.

They say, that digging a well—the duke is one of the thirstiest of mortals—digging a well in his garden— your honor knows this garden, near the Roman gate, close upon the studio of—

Rob.

Ay, ay; the news, the good news.

Berto.

The diggers had got but little below the surface, when they struck upon a gold vein. The duke being fond of old things, to make good the old adage—“easy come, easy go,”—throws the gold among the voters by handfuls, as though there were no more virtue in it than in holy water.

Rob.
[Half to himself.]

Saucy varlet.

Enter an Attendant.
Atten.

The Abbé Ignazio.

Berto.
[Aside.]

Now for sweet words from bitter breast. Good-by to truth where abbés are welcome. This reverend tongue is a sponge to wipe out good and drop malice. Here's one of the tigers that set the mob on the brave Savonarola. Rather than not hate him I'd forego my prayers.

Enter the Abbé.
Rob.
Signor, I'm proud to have you cross my threshold.

Ign.
For me, Signor Roberto, proud am I
That such occasions bring me. From our friend,
The duke, I come, the bearer—who is this?

Rob.
Only my major-domo. Speak your mind.

Ign.
I come the happy bearer of good tidings.
Your cause—the cause of all true Florentines—
I am no wordy flatterer, signor,—
Your cause, linked to the best men's hopes and wants,
Wears the fresh look of healthy expectation,
Your many friends make many friends, and these
Breeding so fast, each day counts new recruits.

Rob.
Berto, thou hear'st; thy bakers, gloviers, vintners,—

Berto.
Are not among the new recruits.

Ign.
They are not.
We need them not: of less account are these
Than in the old rude times, ere men were sifted
By the great Medici. Thanks to their rule,
The common herd, in losing half their power,
Have lost some of their insolence, and are,
Like hungry beasts, tamer to those that feed them.

Berto.
[Aside.]
There he means every word that he says

Ign.
Fear not for our success. The duke is hoarse
With speaking for you, and the holy church
Is on your side. Pope Borgia, our strong chief,
Who ne'er forsook his friends—

Berto.
[Aside.]
No: he never had any but priests.

Ign.
Has sent a legate
To personate his will in this election.
Events to be, show often with such bulk,
They tax the sense like present certainties.
Such, signor, is the lifting of yourself
To the great station of command in Florence.
There I behold you with so certain eyes,
That thus I in advance pay you my homage.

[Kisses Roberto's hand.
Rob.
Oh! reverend sir, you do me too much honor,
I'm dumb with diffidence. When I am great,
With acts I'll thank you then becomingly.

Ign.
Signor, I'm honored by your confidence.
'T is a proud day when I can help to bind
Such men together as the duke and you.
He burns to be saluted as your son.
To the Ladies Leonora and Cecilia
I'll do my service at the duke's to-night.
Signor, I take my leave.

[Exeunt severally.
Enter Ernesto, by the way Ignazio went out.
Ern.
Was it not Ignazio whom I met going out?

Berto.
Ay: dost thou smell carrion?

Ern.
What mean'st thou?

Berto.

The vulture has been feasting: the carcass is my poor master. Signor, the duke seeks to hasten the marriage, lest, by failure of the election, it be balked.

Ern.

Didst thou hear what passed?

Berto.

I was present. The abbé told Roberto one thing and me another.

Ern.

How was that?

Berto.

He told lies; the which my master took for truths, and I for what they were. To make brass seem gold and sour sweet, no alchymist like one of Rome's most trusted priests. Signor Ernesto, I have learned something; something I thought I knew. I only knew it by halves.

Ern.

What is that?

Berto.

The unmeasurable, the unfathomable, the unimaginable virtue—

Ern.

Of what in Heaven's name?

Berto.

Of impudence. All the lessons in the big book of our neighbor Machiavelli are covered by that one word.

Ern.

And your master's degree in this province of learning you have from Ignazio. Now for our plot. I must see Leonora. To Filippo I have divulged my knowledge of his secret; he rejoices to have us for allies. Berto, go ask Leonora to give me a few moments. [Exit Berto.]
Frankness will do more with her than art: she herself is truthful. But she's giddy; yet 't will be safest to make her a full confidence.

Re-Enter Berto.
Berto.

Signor, the lady Leonora awaits you.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Alonzo's Studio.
Alonzo: to him enter Filippo.
Fil.
Is no place clean of black iniquity?
Are men beasts all, with godlike front; within,
Rankness and dross; without, festooned and sleek?
Alonzo, let me look at thee. Art sure
Thou art not leopard visaged like a man.

Alon.
Hast thou been fobbed—thy pockets picked so soon?

Fil.
This sculptured grace, this painted nobleness;
This beauty's bloom, climbing the ponderous stone;
This gleaming art, that makes the sun shine warmer,—
Is all hypocrisy, all sensual play?

Alon.
Our air has turned him lunatic. What hast thou?

Fil.
I've heard a thing, the which, but that I'll stay
To baffle it, would make me run from Florence.
His single child Roberto sells for place.

Alon.
Thou'st mad, or thou hast talked with madmen.

Fil.
Hear
Ernesto speak—my tongue but mimics his.—
The Duke Fernando has engaged to stamp
Roberto gonfalonier; for the which minting
Roberto pays with his daughter. One hour hence
We shall be witnesses to the gross bargain.

Alon.
Too gross for thought; for act, impossible.
Can thing so fair be subject to abuse?
Such beauty hath a quality transcendant,
That should breed virtue in corruption's sty,
And swell the good to fruitfull'st excellence.

Fil.
And yet, but for my knightly oath—which here
I swear—to rescue, if such power be in me,
Cecilia from this hideous prisonment,—
Gay Leonora would draw half my worship.

Alon.
The highest beauty lives not in the visage,
But in the soul's palatial chambers, whence
To the open portal in the face it comes,
To look its blessing on humanity.

Fil.
So yesterday I felt it at thy side
In double measure from two windows large.
My bliss had there been whole, had my eye seized
The two in one. My senses were distraught;
And I lost either, grasping at the two.

Alon.
Like the wise quadruped thou hast heard speak of.

Fil.
Giber, I'll tell thee what 'twas like: so listen.
Couched in a boat far off on th' Adriatic,
I've seen the sun his cloud-wove treases lay
Upon th' Euganian hills, their nightly pillow;
Then from th' opposing shore the moon rise full;
And both, poised on th' horizon's polished rim,
Gaze grandly one upon the other, like
Confronted deities, that grew in grandeur
By sudden interfusing of their looks;
Whilst I, not to divide my trancing wonder,
But hold as one the two sublimities,
That filled all heaven, longed for a Janus-head.

Alon.
Bravo! And now thou'dst have a Janus-heart.

Fil.
Away now to this duke's. Tis time. Thou'lt squire me
In my knight-errantry.

Alon.
Unto the death.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Room in the House of Duke Fernando, lighted up for Company.
The Duke; the Duchess, his mother.
Duch.
Henceforth I sheath my woman's weapon, and
No more with speech assail your staunch resolves.
To bland civility I'll subjugate
My carriage, so that pride show not its wounds
In bleeding words or bruiséd looks. 'Tis late
For me to learn so hard a lesson

Duke.
Mother,
You let imagination smother you,
Steeping your senses in the rotting past.
Life draws its sap from the quick-panting present.
Who would live healthily must breathe new air,
Made daily by the sun and night-cooled earth.
Yield to the past, the past will govern you;
Embrace the present, and you rule the future.
To look behind is to be weak: the strong
Looks forward, hugging close the bounding now.
The commonwealth needs ever stout new men.
Such were the Medici.

Duch.
Baseborn and base.
Myself I once refused a Medici,
In wealth a Crœsus to your rich Roberto.

Duke.
Dear mother, grant me this. Let but your eyes,
When they behold Cecilia, be true inlets,
Fairly delivering what they have received,
You'll see a hundred coronets on her brow,
And swear great Charlemagne her ancestor.

Duch.
Beauty, my son, is common. Nature joys
To scatter outward gifts—

Duke.
And inward too;—
Here comes the abbé, my embassador.
Enter Ignazio.
I catch good tidings from his gait. What news?

Ign.
Both good and bad.

Duke.
We'll hear the bad then first.

Ign.
The people, with its old perversity,
Still strives to have a will. Your Florentines
Are stuffed with impious heresy, the leaven
Of the blaspheming monk, Savonarola.
They'd spite the Pope; and so, choose Soderini,
Who feeds their hairy ears with promises;
And these the braying multitude sucks in,
Thinking them provender to fatten on.
The upshot is, we shall be largely beaten.

Duke.
The higher guilds—

Ign.
Turn out the strongest 'gainst us
Of this no whisper to the sage Roberto.
My friend Ariosto's fancy is not more nimble
To conjure corporalities from shadows.
He sits already in the chair of state.
I warrant you his tongue is glib in forms
Of ceremonial speech, his mirror practised
In bows official.—Comfort you with this,
For loss of the election: you have 'scaped,
My lord, a madman for your father-in-law.
The simultaneous weights of two such honors
Had surely cracked a skull so thin. Let not
Cold rumors cool him; but to-morrow lock,
With hand and seal, the contract for your marriage.

Enter several Gentlemen and Ladies.
Duke.
Welcome, kind friends. Ladies, you do me honor.
Signor Ottavio, what's your quarrel with us?
Your cheek is tanned by other suns than ours.

Ott.
My lord, I have of late divorced myself
From Florence but to brace my love for her
Neath skies less motherly.

Enter Roberto, Cecilia and Leonora.
Duke.
Ladies, my heart
Is in my tongue when I say welcome. Mother,
The ladies Cecilia and Leonora.
Signor Roberto, Florence has no son
For whom my doors so smoothly turn as you.
Her citizens, I trust, will prove they know
Whom they should prize. What of the election?

Rob.
Rumors
Fly thick and blind as hailstones in the night.
'T is a rough time in Florence; but our cause,
My lord, bears itself bravely.

Enter Alonzo and Filippo.
Duke.
Gentlemen,
Welcome. Signor Valerio, were the truth
Full known, you miss the liquid roads of Venice,
And the hushed gondola's voluptuous carriage.

Fil.
My lord, strangers in Florence lose their memories.

Duke.
A better guide to Beauty's hiding-places
Our city knows not than your friend, Alonzo.
Have you seen Michael Angelo?

Alon.
We've seen him
Look grander than his present self.

Duke.
How mean you?

Alon.
Standing before Leonardo's last Cartoon;
The bulging veins of his big forehead flooded
With fiery inflow of new power. Beside him—
Like an old lion listening his cub's young roar—
Renowned Leonardo stood, serene, exalted
In Buonarotti's fresh unstained emotion.
There was a sight to gorge a Tuscan's pride.
Yet more we saw. Swift through the door, a youth—
His visage beaming expectation—strode
To the front. At first he piercing gazed, all eye;
And then, over his beardless womanly face—
Like inward swell upon a glassy sea—
A tremor passed, heaving his smooth large brow
And placid look to sudden strength; until
The heart's clear quivering deep ran o'er in tears.
He turned: eyes met and hands, and in one breath
Broke the long silence, “Angelo,” “Raphael.”
Then he beheld the bearded head sublime;
And as he gazed drew slightly back in awe;
And great Da Vinci sweetly looked on him.

Ott.
Aptly you speak, sir, for your quiet craft,
And deftly lift your chiefs. As Florentine,
I almost wish, with you I could upmount
To your o'ertopping pinnacle of pride.
But I have stood in Venice, when the Doge
From the stored East came clogged with Turkish spoil,
To beard the mighty King of western France;
And I have heard the boastful cannon boom,
As proud Genóa crowded to her quays
To welcome home great Doria from the seas;
I've seen the flaunting chivalry of Spain
Group round their lofty Isabel, when she
Gave thankful audience to that vast Italian—
The foremost sailor of the sea-girt earth—
Who gendered in his brain a Continent,
And laid it at his wondering Mistress' feet.
Here were the steadfast grandeurs of broad action,
That make the heart throb prophecies of fame.
For these o'ermastering doers, Florence has
But writers, poets, painters, indoor workers,
Soft cunning weavers of ideal webs.

Alon.
The precious webs, whereof are wrought the cradles
That rock the infancy of stoutest deeds.
Th' ideal is, high wants of highest men,
Whose happy natures nurse the pith, that lifts
From height to height climbing humanity.
High poetry is higher history,
A record written by an inward puissance.
No story has the race that lacks th' ideal,
Which has its incarnation in th' elect,
Whose thoughts, grown larger than their times, leap out
In acts and words that lash the sluggard times
To their great motion, making history
With daily doings. Acts and words are twins,
Mutual reverberants, inseparable
As sound from speech, or starlight from the night,
And wed to Beauty, last in endless lineage;
For beauty is the Cybele of the mind.
Unwed to Beauty, lives nor act nor word
In men's imaginative memory.
Beauty's high priests, the dedicated poets—
Whether with pen or pencil ministering—
Are the fine nerves of Peoples. Weak in these,
They are as barren as the drooping air
Scanted in currents of electric life.
Heroes are acted beauty, and true greatness
Draws from th' ideal its choice nourishment.
A winged unresting presence, Beauty sways
Above our daily work, singing us heavenward.
For fifteen hundred years a great Ideal,
Quickening the heart, transmutes humanity.
Fanning the nations with its lustral wings,
Such vaulting hopes it stirs, that men, upswung
By its creative potency, believe
Its holy author's life shall yet be lived;
And his words, more beautiful than ever else
Were spoken—“Love thy neighbor as thyself,”—
No more ideal, be men's daily act.

Cec.
For your high teaching, sir, I thank you.

Rob.
Cecilia,
You are too bold.

Cec.
Are honest thanks, sir, boldness?

[The scenes part behind, displaying a banquet. The Duke gives his arm to Cecilia, Roberto to the Duchess, &c., and as the company move toward the tables the Curtain drops.]

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A Room in Roberto's House.
Cecilia and Leonora.
Cec.
To dare my father's will;—'t is to disjoin
Myself in hostile halves, each spearing each.
To wed Fernando, that were worse than death.
Rather than that I'll weep away my days
In convent cell.

Leon.
Talk not of convents, sister;
It makes my heart stop beating. There's a way—

Cec.
What way?

Leon.
To wed thee with another.

Cec.
Ha!
What other?

Leon.
Him to whom thou wast betrothed.

Cec.
Oh! speak not of another. Thou but addst
A wrench unto the wheel whereon I'm racked.—
We have not eyes, that they be seared; nor ears,
That they be stopped. These finer inward senses—
To which all others are but servitors—
Wherefore should they—whose prime, like landscape seized
By the fresh giant, Morning, is aglow
With quivering light—wherefore should they be darkened,
Their sudden sweetness soured? This is not right.

Leon.
It is not right that thy dear heart be wounded,
That weeps such healing tears for others' woes.
Who could do violence to such as thou?
Thy father surely not: he loves thee, Cecil.
Ambitious is he, not unkind; and when
Of thy averseness to the duke he learns,
Warm love will melt ambition's icy plots.

Cec.
I will believe thee! 'Tis my meddling fancy—
Bribed by a coward heart—that coins these fears.

Leon.
Forget the duke: let's talk of something else.
Filippo—once betrothed to thee—is here;
And he has seen thee, and thou him.

Cec.
What meanst thou?

Leon.
Alonzo's friend Valeric, that is he;
Ah, he, methinks, it were not hard to love.

Cec.
Prove this; I give thee all my share in him.

Enter Berto.
Berto.
Ladies, the Signor comes; with him the duke.

Cec.
Leave me not, sister; Berto, stay thou, too.
My one poor heart, unpropped, will not have pulse
To feed my willing tongue with all its needs.

Enter Roberto and the Duke.
Duke.
Lady Cecilia, the rich happiness,
Wherewith your honored father would enrobe me,
I dare not vest me with, nor call my own,
Till you have stamped upon its folds your signet.

Cec.
More even than my father, this great contract
Concerns, my lord, you and myself. The bond,
You honor me by wishing me to sign,
Is holy; but 'tis from the heart that comes
Its holiness. Not consecrated thus,
It is a malediction on the life.
You take me for myself; but if myself
I give without my affections, I then give
Not even a portion of me, but a thing
Defiled and worthless.

Rob.
What strange words are these?
They smack of disobedience.

Cec.
Oh! my father,
Break not the gentle cords that hitherto
Have linked me to thee, and have kept me ever
As pendant on thy wish as on the oak
The shadow is that softly lies beneath it.
I will forego my woman's destiny,
And minister but to thee, so thou'll not bid me
Attaint my virgin purity and honor,
Giving a husband's sacred rights to one
Who is a stranger to my heart.

Rob.
My daughter,
This new self-confidence beseems thee not;
And thy distrust of me is a rank weed,
Choking with sudden growth thy better parts.
When was my rule untoward to thy good?
My judgment now is what it ever was,
The guardian of thy simpleness.

Duke.
Signor,
Modesty is the casket that inlocks
A maiden's virtues. This sweet coyness whets
My love with warranty of excellence,
Adding a quenchless lustre to your gift.
Dear lady, you so perfectly have taught me
Love's task, the pupil now feels strong to teach
His teacher. I will trust thy heart to learn,
And through this rosy shyness do espy
Its aptitude.

Cec.
You read me wrong, my lord.
As to the lesson which you prize so much,
If I have taught it you, the teaching was
Without my will or knowledge. Love's a lesson
Which only then is well taught when 'tis self-taught.
When comes my time to learn, I'll teach myself.

Duke.
Begin then now: thy time is come to-day.
For by thy father's will thou'rt mine. This hand—

Cec.
[Who, as he would seize her hand, draws it back.]
If so my father shall enjoin, this hand
I'll give thee—but, first severed from my wrist;
That so, no longer warmed by my heart's currents,
No part of me, bloodless and dead, I care not
Whether it be given to thee, or thrown to the dogs.

Duke.
Know you me, madam? I am Duke Fernando.

Cec.
And I, sir, am myself. Within a circle,
Drawn round me by my womanhood, I stand;
And who, with forceful grasp would drag me thence,
He is an ingrate to his mother's breast,
Disfranchised of a sister's duty, and,
Whatever name he bear, false to true manhood,
To whose right sense naught is more precious—nay,
Not morning light or nurturing bread—than is
A maiden's purity.

[Exit Cecilia followed by Leonora.
Duke.
Here in your presence, sir, am I insulted
With a spoilt girl's unchecked capriciousness.

Rob.
My lord, my lord, to-morrow this will pass—

Duke.
To-morrow, to-morrow;—I'll no to-morrows.
Nay, sir, you are not master of your own.

[Exit.
Rob.
My lord, my lord— [follows the Duke out.]


Berto
alone.

There's a woman for you. If Florence had a score such, it were too good for me to snore in. I should migrate to Rome. To think, that I live under the same roof with such a perfection. Why, she would sweeten a whole province; she would convert a monastery to innocence. Her one fault was, that she was all angel. But she isn't; so she's faultless. A woman that has not in her a spice of the devil, is not worth that. [Snapping his fingers.]

Re-enter Roberto.
Rob.

Berto, Berto, this is a sad business.

Berto.

So sad, it almost makes me laugh.

Rob.

But the duke will not be pacified. In the election he'll turn against me.

Berto.

No matter which way he turns, signor; he'll be like the pig in his wallow; nothing will turn with him but his own skin.

Rob.

He has great influence, Berto; he can carry with him hundreds of votes.

Berto.

Not five. That grinning abbé would make you believe, that a wave of the duke's hand will knock a man down quicker than my fist. If I could but make trial on his reverend skull.

Enter Ernesto.
Rob.
Ha! my dear friend, how overjoyed I am
To greet you. Give me counsel. Wilt thou think it—
Cecilia, who did never yet rebel,
Is of a sudden mutinous; refusing
To marry Duke Fernando, and in's face
Throwing such words, so hot with angry scorn,
That I stood mazed, as if I'd heard a lamb
Howl like a wolf.

Ern.
Cecilia—did she this?

Rob.
She who was ever so serene, her heart,
Methought, held no blood red enough for anger,
Startled the duke, us all, with speech defiant.

Ern.
The pure never revolt but 'gainst what's foul:
The anger of the good is truth in arms.
Thy meek child's wrath deplumes thy soaring thoughts.
Open thy heart to let her wisdom in.
My friend, the guiltless young are heavenly teachers;
And blest is he, whose years leave him so humble
And clean, he still can learn from their deep schooling.
Let us go in and talk this trouble through.

[Exeunt.
Berto
alone.

From a man with his heart in the right place, good counsel comes as easily as butter from thick cream. These two are bent now on getting Cecilia married. She is too good to be married, men are such knaves; but then, she is too good not to be married, for thereby her husband's son will be less of a knave than his father. Marriage is the way of this wicked man-peopled world. I wonder what sort of a Berto a married Berto would have been. I laugh to think how I should have plagued my wife; but I laugh louder to think, what a plaguing I have missed. Well, let who will get married; all comfort shall not be banished from the world, for I'll keep single.

[Exit.

SCENE II.

Alonzo's Studio.
Alonzo
alone, seated gazing at Cecilia's portrait; then starting up.
Shame on my fevered heart; 't is almost jealous.
A blessing to my life she still may be,
If I keep worthy. Out, base jealousy:
There's no glass here to catch thy demon glare.
Oh! how the sordid meddling self will thrust
An opake pettiness betwixt our manhood
And its broad ends impersonal, keeping us
In dead eclipse toward beauty's cloudless sun.
But what is beauty, if not in the life?
Can I, who have made vows to beauty, keep then
By cunning practices of eye and hand?
The eye but guides, the hand but holds, the brush:
It is the soul that paints: and never can
The base in soul reach high in spotless Art.
To know great beauty, we must live it, be it.
[Seats himself again before the portrait.]
This face divine has baffled me, because
I've been too selfish, too unlike the soul
That makes its splendor.
[Enter Filippo behind him, unperceived.]
Now, I'll paint it, now
That my large self hath triumphed o'er the small.
I'll love her as another's with a love
More holy still. But this Fernando—were she
Filippo's, then the two I'd love as one.

[Filippo advances and touches him on the shoulder He starts up.
Fil.
Ay, start up, like the guilty thing thou art.

Alon.
My dear Filippo;—

Fil.
Call me friend and force me
Peer in thy heart from 'hind thy back, to learn—
What makes me, too, the happiest of men—
Thy secret noble love for sweet Cecilia.
But now, I was a rag of wretchedness.
To thee I'd come for counsel; for Ernesto—
Whose single thought was, foiling of the duke—
Thinking Cecilia's heart and mine mere wax,
For his warm will to melt into one lump,
Had made me swear to be her suitor, me
Whose wax was melting by another fire.
Thou lov'st Cecilia—I love Leonora:
Fernando, I've just learned, has been dismissed.

Alon.
Filippo, dear Filippo, can I dare
To grasp at so much blessedness, an orphan—
Less than an orphan—a lone foundling—

Fil.
Ha!
Signor Bordoni, was he not thy father!

Alon.
He called me son, and made me be as son.
I loved him like a father; but he knew
No more than I myself who were my parents.
On a cold day, in Mantua's streets he found me,
A boy of twelve years old.

Fil.
How cam'st thou there!

Alon.
As briefly as I can I'll tell thee all
A child's green memory can bring so far.
One summer evening, playing at the door,
I was upsnatched, and, with my face quick muffled,
Thrown in a boat upon a woman's lap,
Who idly strove to hush my frantic cries.
Terror kept me awake, it seemed for hours.
At last, soft Sleep—vexed childhood's pillowing mother—
Hugged me to her kind breast and stilled my sobs.
I woke within a hut, lying on straw.
Oh! the sick anguish of that frightful morning.
I had been stolen by gypsies, vagrant singers.
How life held out against the hourly siege
Of the long battering grief, I can not tell.
That time's hot agony still wrings my heart.
From town to town we journeyed, sleeping out,
Or in lone barns. Oh! how I longed to rush
Into the gaping crowds and tell my story.
But over on me were the cruel eyes
Of the dark husband. By degrees life's strength,
Fast swelling, sloughed my pinching sorrow off.
And then, the woman loved me; and at last
I loved her too. She had a mother's heart,
And laid me in it. Years rolled on. We wandered
To distant lands. One day Teresa sickened;
From day to day was worse; and as she sank,
Closer and closer pressed me to her side:
Poured aching tears upon my head; and as
I knelt, and mixed my prayers with hers, grew calm,
And died then on my breast. I'd lost my mother:
The only one I ever knew. Three days
Thereafter, in the night, I left the man,
And fled toward Italy; and there, weeping
In Mantua's streets, my second father found me.

Fil.
Alonzo, Alonzo, wast thou not from home,
On a far journey with thy father?

Alon.
Ay—
I think it was—I think it was:—

Fil.
And thou
Wast five years old?

Alon.
About, about: why ask'st thou?

Fil.
Wast not in Venice thou wast stolen?

Alon.
Venice—
Venice—Filippo, hast thou any clue?

Fil.
I have, I have: but keep thou calm.—Alonzo,
The night I came to Florence, as I rode
By Fiesole, half-dreaming on my horse,
There seemed to float before my path a wreath
Of faces, smiling and swaying with joy.
And as I shook myself awake, they vanished—
To come again; and so they came and vanished,
Until I reached the gate. And now I read
This happy vision. Oh! if through my coming
Thou shalt embrace thy father, and he thee,
Rather than not have come, I would forego
Embracing Leonora. Now to Roberto's.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Room in Roberto's House.
Enter Roberto and Ernesto.
Rob.
Till now, I had not prized thy thoughtful friendship
At its great value, dear Ernesto. Would,
That of the balm thou'st poured on my fresh wounds,
Some drops I could distil for thy long pain.

Ern.
Oh! had I seen my boy cold in his shroud,
Then could my thoughts have followed him to Heaven;
And there my agony at last had rested.
But now—Oh! monstrous state—my anguish lives
Because he lives; and dire imaginations
My sorrow feed with ghastly food, and keep it
Bleeding as fresh as on the day I lost him.
There's not a tyranny that brutish man
Upon his brother wreaks, but I have wept
As his sad portion. Now, a slave I see him,
Spit on by Moslem master; now, a menial;
And now, a task-worn serf in frozen Moscow;
Now, buffeted by storms and despot skippers;
Now, naked, wrecked upon a savage shore;
Now, racked in cell of hellish inquisition.
In vain I cry—he's dead, he rests in peace—
My heart will not believe it; but for ever
Out from the night of cold uncertainty
His image glares, a living, weeping spectre.
Pardon me, friend; grief can not but be selfish,
'Tis twenty years to-day since mine first seized
My wiseless heart, and left me less than childless.
No more, no more: I'll drive my sorrow out
With thoughts of others' joy. Here come your daughters.

Rob.
Be you embassador for this new treaty.

Enter Cecilia and Leonora.
Ern.
My dear Cecilia, I am here as spokesman
For my young friend Filippo—

Cec.
Pardon me,
Signor Ernesto; art thou sure thy words
Know how to speak Filippo's mind to th' full?

Ern.
Thy doubt himself shall answer: here he is.
Enter Filippo and Alonzo.
Filippo, with my tongue I was about
To throw you at Cecilia's feet.

Fil.
Signor,
I'm proud you think me worthy such a place.
First let me say what I have come to say.
Signor Ernesto, 'tis now twenty years
Since you in Venice lost your child.

Ern.
Ay—ay:—

Alon.
Signor Ernesto!

Ern.
Oh! on every day
Of all those years, my boy has died to me.

Fil.
I have a friend, worthy to be thy son,
Who, twenty years ago, was stolen by gypsies
In Venice, on a summer evening.

Ern.
Ha!
Where—where?—His name—his name.

Fil.
So deep his name
Is buried 'neath the doubling folds of years,
His memory, unassisted, can not reach it.

Ern.
Oh! heaven—what yearnings seize my heart.

Alon.
The name—
The name—

Ern.
Signor Alonzo:—Ubaldo.

Alon.
Father, father—I am thy Baldino.

Ern.
O God! 'twas so I called him. Round his neck—

Alon.
A chain; here 'tis.

[Snatches the chain from his neck
Ern.
My boy, my boy—my lost one:
Is't so? I do not sleep—thy mother's brow—
On thy left arm thou hadst a mother's mark—

Alon.
'Tis here—a heart. [Unbaring his arm.]


Ern.
Oh! day of joy. Filippo,
To thee we owe this unmatched happiness.

Fil.
You owe it to a virtue there is in me;
Namely, that I, unworthy in myself,
Have the good gift to value worth in others.
This drew me to Alonzo; and my life's
Most fruitful work has been my love for him.
Nay, but I take what not belongs to me;
For 'tis a love—which I by chance discovered—
Deeper than mine for him, that has unlocked
This mortal treasury of joy. This love 'twas
That made him, in despair, relate his story.
The puissant one who, all unconsciously,
Winning a heart as noble as her own,
Has loosed this long-pent flood of happiness—
Making one love reveal another—and thus,
Is the dear causer of a general bliss;
This ministering mistress of Love's purest fonts,
Is, the Lady Cecilia.

Alon.
My bold secret
Which one hour since, I had locked within my breast,
As the sweet nourishment of solitude,
My friend hath truly told, Lady Cecilia;
Speaking for me the venturous words, which I,
Now new-baptized in joy, myself had spoken.

Cec.
Signor Alonzo, one hour since, these words
Had been as grateful to my ear as now;
And if this sudden sunshine makes them flow,
Its rays are hardly to your father's heart
More gladsome than to mine.

Ern.
Peerless Cecilia!

Cec.
Dear father, wilt thou give thy daughter to
Thy old friend's son?

Rob.
Had I a hundred daughters,
I'd give them all to dear Ernesto's sons.

Cec.
Alonzo, thou hast not thy father's leave.

Alon.
Oh! blessed day, that brings me such a duty,
Lapping me in a sweet dependence. Father—

Ern.
If aught could make thee dearer to my soul,
It were to have thee mated thus.

Alon.
Filippo,
My bliss is incomplete, unyoked to thine.
Lady Leonora, thou canst complete it. Let
My tongue woo for my friend, as his for me.
He loves thee; and of all the men I've known
He is the easiest to love.

Fil.
Have pity on me,
Lady. From far-off Padua I have come,
Battling my way 'gainst stout adversities.
Once I 'scaped drowning by the maddened Po:
Twice was I hand to hand with wolf-eyed bandits.
All this, to fetch a wife from lettered Florence.
Let me not thence depart with empty arms.

Leon.
Signor Filippo, there's my hand. And if
To-morrow I like you and you like me
As well as now—we'll talk this matter over.

Fil.
Without listeners.

Alon.
So gilded is this hour
By heaven's smile, our spirits are aglow
With strangest bliss. Through paths, wayward and ignorant
Have we been driven blindfold on our good
By highest Will; whose open secret guidance
Above our daily walk doth ceaseless flash
Benignant light, which we see not; and shall
Then only see, when our unwholesome wills,—
By thought and knowledge purged—shall hourly be
To the orbit of the will divine upswung;
A consummation whereof joys like this
Are golden tokens and sure prophecies.