Borgia A Period Play |
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| 4. | SCENE IV |
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 | Borgia |  |
SCENE IV
The Stanze, Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna's new apartments in the Vatican.The Lord Alexander VI. has penetrated into them and looks round.
ALEXANDER.
At last I have lodged him in the Vatican! But this is
pleasure! ... There is perfume in the rooms—the first
scent of jasmine? No, but his balls of perfume ranged
already in their order ....
Ah, ah, and the babe too!—Giovanni! ... So
I named him, so, to speak once more the name.
[The child reaches up to him.
Blue eyes! Come, come, no tears!
Angel, I cannot be your nurse, I cannot.
[He passes on, slipping a rosary into the child's lap.
How he inhabits
The air he breathes ... no need of clothing here,
Embellishments and laces—all is Cesare,
His lusts, his pride, his loneliness ....
[The Pope sits down and sighs twice or thrice heavily, drumming with his fingers on the table: then he catches sight of a design for Cesare's new scutcheon. He speaks in gasps.
Aut Cesar—fie! Aut nihil! He is Cesar;
Duke of Romagna first,
My bastard!—presently
King of all Italy. Am I, indeed, his father?
But if I am not, Roman Jupiter
Stole to my couch and got him such a son
As the whole earth acclaims. More beautiful
He is growing day by day. We interact;
We are together, or, if separate—
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What colloquy at nightfall .... And submissive,
He is submissive toward me as Lucrece.
What children these have been to me!
Enter Donna Fiammetta: she is a tall, perfectly fair young creature, of great dignity. She kneels.
Ah, Fiammetta, welcome!
Nay, 'tis your right, child .... Here I am intruder,
In the Lord Cesar's absence. Take my blessing.
FIAMMETTA.
[As she rises.]
Lord Cesare bade me this hour . . .
[The Child cries. Fiammetta, looking for consent to the Pope, lifts the little Prince in her arms.
ALEXANDER.
It is
The hour for worship. With discretion, child,
You soon will be the mistress of a king.
[Fiammetta winces.]
Madonna!
How like, how like! You are good. Why should you blush?
You are good and honest ... and a strength of heart
Is in you to bear princes. You will suckle
One day a playmate for this royal child,
Infans Romanus!
FIAMMETTA.
[Looking round in terror.]
The Lord Cesare
Bade me attend . . .
ALEXANDER.
Scared at the Vatican,
Seat of the gods, sweet child, and seat of Him
Whose first command is Multiply! These chambers
Are given to my son. But all these motley walls
We will have re-created—fading frescoes,
Of hands that moulder ... We will have your Cesar—
Nay, we will have yourself set on a throne,
Or rising 'mid the lilies ... not historic:
In history there is no art; and life
Is life and death, and never resurrection.
My fair Fiammetta, we will have you painted.
There is a prayer in your bright eyes—
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Lord Cesare . . .
And represented as King Solomon.
ALEXANDER.
[Patting her on the back.]
Assuredly ... while David rests with God.
[The Pope continues rubbing the frescoes with his hands.
All new—
I will make all things new.
Cesare enters hurriedly and is already some distance in the room, when he sees the Pope, Fiammetta and the Child. He stops dead, and remains immovable. Under his eyes Fiammetta puts the Child down and goes out. The Child watches the Pope and Cesare round-eyed, then creeps to the curtains and plays with the heavy tassels. The Pope stands, with wrinkled forehead, uneasy.
CESARE.
[With a wide smile.]
You know that Prince Alfonso has been killed?
ALEXANDER.
[Trembling.]
Killed?
The boy was up and dressed, and felt his feet
For the first time to-day .... Why do you stand there
So overwhelming in your aspect, lofty
As you had won a fortress? On my soul,
And by the Holy Fisherman I swear,
You frighten me .... And I regret the lad—
A pretty, flaunting flower of pomegranate
Jerked from the bough ....
[Cesare remains immovable, muttering oaths between his teeth.
But we must cloak this death.
[Laying his hand on Cesare.]
I will not listen; it is policy
In most things to be ignorant .... You, Cesare,
Must have the ordering of the funeral.
Poor lad! A restless creature, like a dog
That strays about your hearth, and may be here
To-morrow or be gone—Satan that wanders
The earth alone knows where ... But murdered!
I think I will not know; my ears refuse
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Among ourselves.
[The Pope turns away tottering.
CESARE.
We cannot:
For his physicians said he would not die,
But live, as pertinacious as a weed.
It cannot and it shall not be a secret
Why he was killed.
ALEXANDER.
[Turning sharply back on Cesare.]
By whom?
CESARE.
By me.
[Alexander covers his face. A strange sound, half-moan, half-sob, breaks from him. There is long silence; then the Pope looks at Cesare with a pale, aged face.
ALEXANDER.
The boy
Was young and fair; but scarcely crossed your path.
CESARE.
His stealthy arrow did; he let it whizz
Across the garden as I trod the grass.
Such little splits of wood may in a moment
End years of ripening fame. A month ago
The hurried marble thundered down on you,
To-day an arrow swept my hair. Say, Holiness,
Would you prefer to have that lad of Naples
Teasing your moments with his fears and murmurs
Or me shot dead, our dead dreams under me?
ALEXANDER.
My tawny Splendour, wherefore ask?
CESARE.
[Spreading his palms.]
Then wherefore?
ALEXANDER.
Cesare, the avowal!
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I killed in self-defence?
ALEXANDER.
Son, that you killed ....
Well, it is done!
Well, it is done!
CESARE.
And if your Holiness
Will deign to listen—do not let the tongue
Be running and returning like a wheel:
All gossip of my action,
If you refrain, will end within his grave.
Unless you speak there cannot be an echo.
ALEXANDER.
Ay, ay—die out—the gossip will die out;
Ay, ay, if you would have it so . . .
The vaults? For we must bury him in private.
CESARE.
[As he nods.]
Without bell-ringing and a storm of dirges.
ALEXANDER.
Lucrece!
Ah, she will weep her eyes out: rain, rain, rain,
Above this broken flower, this bridegroom.
CESARE.
Banish her.
ALEXANDER.
I could not bear to see a lifelessness
Of sorrow in the dear one.
CESARE.
Banish her.
Unless you banish her,
The Vatican nor any street in Rome
Will see me.
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She shall spend her tears at Nepi,
At Nepi—my own gift to her—no exile!
She shall retire where she is Governor,
Attended and in honour. La, sweet child!
The iris-sprinkled side-locks, amber sheaves,
A widow's! She, a dove of desert-waters,
A widow!
CESARE.
Let her keep
Her dule 'mid dead volcanoes!
[He catches up the child, tosses it, and tumbles it on a couch against a large piombo cat.
ALEXANDER.
[As if watching.] . . .
Figliuolo,
Luck is your Guardian Angel! Have you thought
Romagna needs protection against Venice,
Romagna that so soon will be your own?
The Estes of Ferrara ... could we mate
Lucrezia with the princely house! Ah, then, to northward
You were impregnable. The heir is named
Alfonso .... To a woman there is matter
Of comfort in a name. For poor Alfonso—
God rest his soul!—who now is lying dead,
Alfonso d'Este shall be sought for her.
CESARE.
[Abruptly leaving his game with the child and animal.
Has Lord Gianstefano Ferreri yet
Paid down the sum due for his Cardinalate?
I want the money.
ALEXANDER.
[In a murmur.]
Such a tiger-clutch
Upon our treasuries! Fio di putta,
Bastardo!...More, more, more,
As I made gold for Mommus!
CESARE.
Can I
Found you a power in your estates and cities
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I would pawn my Indian rubies
And ceremonial pearls than let my army
Starve for its hire. Ten thousand ducats—
ALEXANDER.
[Passing his hand across his brow.]
I am coining day and night and in my dreams:
I cannot .... I am bare
Of treasure, save these vestments that the Church
Casts on my poverty. I have no jewels,
No raiment, no reserve ....
But Cardinal Lopez
Is fading every day.
CESARE.
I cannot wait.
ALEXANDER.
Pish! You shall have the wages. But last evening
You plained you needed more artillery,
And Messer Leonardo would be idle
Among the forts unless I furnished you—
Fate will: for Lopez dies.
These busy Cardinals
Build each a piece of honeycomb in mass
Sufficient .... Why, Michele, Giambattista
Orsini, and Ferrari
Have sweet within their cells for all Romagna.
Ah, we shall need
More than the harvest of the Jubilee,
A tithe, a fresh Crusade .... What else?
CESARE.
[In a vibrating voice.]
The King of France
Sanctions my new campaign. I kissed his envoy,
Lifting my mask off—father.
ALEXANDER.
He grants you freedom, will molest no more?
My policy of months confirmed!
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And seldom
Has France been so outwitted. Now you are laughing?
I curse them, to the very lees of laughter,
These dung-hill French, that I must fight beside.
—Ah, now your eye is caught by the escutcheon,
Our challenge!
ALEXANDER.
[Shaking his head.]
Flagrant blazoning! Christ Jesus!
Yet if you are not Cesar—nihil, nihil!
Come with me to the treasury.
CESARE.
And silence,
Silence and secrecy about this death.
ALEXANDER.
[Making a step back, as if from a gulf.]
Cesare, but you sway me like your mother,
When she inhabited my will. Ah, God!
My Captain and my Gonfalonier
Suppling my nature like a mistress, fah!
Come with me .... Take the gold!
| Borgia | |