University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

—A room in Lodoro's house.
Bianca discovered musing beside a harp—Enter Maria.
Mar.
—Ah, me! the misery of a hopeless sorrow!
O youth! what is thy strength? O beauty! where
Is all thy glory, when an angry breath
Of fortune withers up both power and pride?
Go to! you are but fancies of the brain!
This eye, that yesterday so brilliant was!—
This cheek, that in a flower-like beauty blossomed!—
How meaningless, how faded, how decayed!
This heart, that bounded with a million hopes,
Countless and gay, as waves on summer seas,
Young as the morning, lovely as the spring—
To day is old and withered up with care!
Go to, I say! all things below deceive us!
And there is nothing under the vast skies,
Robed in whatever colours it may be,
But is a gross deception and a fraud!—
But ah! how is my poor unhappy lady?

Bianca, coming forward.
Bia.
—Julian, why regret our wicked union?
It is no crime, on earth to wed those hearts
That, from the earliest ages of creation,
Nature had married in the halls of heaven.
Nay, do not frown so! It is worse than hell,
When they who once adored, turn round with hate
Upon the idol of their former love!

Mar.
—Alas! my lady!

Bia.
Is it tender hearted
T' upbraid the lovely weakness that was once
The diadem of all your happiness?
O fy! for shame! out on ungrateful man!
To pluck the spring-flower of our beauty thus,
And fling it on the winter blasts, to perish!

Mar.
—My lady!

Bia.
Monstrous! monstrous wickedness!
There's no depravity so boundless, but
Within man's breast, capacious for all evil,
Hath lodgment!—Oh! the very beasts have more
Than he, of nature's bounteous gratitude!
Who shares your sorrows, doubles all your joys?—
Woman! whose sole reward is your contempt!—
I tell you, hell holds nought so vile as man!

Mar.
—Oh! have you no religion?

Bia.
Yes, religion
Once, with a rainbow sympathy, could bind
My aspirations to eternity.
Then I was innocent—I had not loved!
Since I have dared the crime of loving—Julian!
The Eden of thy eyes is all the heaven,
The hope, the happiness left with this heart!
Thou art my girl Maria?

Mar.
Ay, my lady.

Bia.
—I bade you once bring flowers—you told me then,
There grew a pansie, called heart's-ease—Go, now,
I do beseech you! cull me some of these!

Mar.
—How feels my lady? Better now?

Bia.-
Ay, faith!
The flowers—and I shall soon be well again!
We'll hold a merry marriage feast to night!
Are my lord's wedding garments all arranged?
Go, bid him hasten—or I sadly fear
His rival, Death, will kiss the bride to night.
How strange that a presentiment of death
At times should haunt us in the midst of life!

Enter Mother.
Mar.
—Here comes your lady mother.

Mo.
Girl! how feel you?

Bia.
—At midnight, in the marble vault, we meet!

Mo.
—Bianca, have you then forgot your mother?

Bia.
—Do we forget the cold amidst the snow?
The heat i' the tropics, or the tempest in
The storm and whirlwind? Do we ever, ever,
Ever forget those who have injured us?

Mo!
—Maria, I observe she still upbraids
Her father and myself, yet constantly
Is kind and amiable to you who serve her.
This speaks more of deception than insanity.

Mar.
—Indeed, my lady, I must boldly say
You do her feelings such a violence,
By thrusting in her ear your arguments
In favour of the Barbarigo's suit—
I marvel not, her anger still pursues you.

Mo.
—I am rebuked! We must be temperate,
And not o'erstrain the duty of our children,
Or we may snap affection's strongest chords.
I have withstood her love for Julian, who,
Is but, in circumstance, a very beggar.
Yet, if we lose our darling child, how more—
How ten times more than beggars we should be!
Come, and consult with me of this, Maria.
Where lodges Julian?

Mar.
On the Isle of Ledo,
And half as mad as my poor lady.

Mo.
Come!

Exeunt Mother and Maria.
Bia.
—Upon the Isle of Ledo—half as mad!
Ye stars, that rule, or seem to rule our destinies!
I grow so mad of hopeless grief, that any
Uunnatural thing I did would show more wisdom
Than perishing so miserably slow!
I've loved, and lived, and suffered—and what more
Hath life, that I should not exchange for death?—
Except that the worst evil of our life
May mend—with death the evil is eternal!
What kind of woman have I grown, to argue
These awful mysteries in such cold blood?
I, who once gloried in the noonday sunshine
Of every joy, now plunge i'the darkest night
Of misery and despair!—Such is the lesson,
Bitter and cruel, that we learn of life!
Julian! If I must die, it shall be where
This heart may perish worthily—within
Thy arms!—Ye adverse fortunes! now I dare ye,
And laugh your most malignant powers to scorn!

Exit.