 | Borgia |  |
SCENE I
The Vatican: a Loggia.Donna Lucrezia Borgia d'Aragon is seated between her Maids of Honour, Donna Angela Borgia and Donna Catilena de Valence, while her Maid Clarice pours wine on her long hair.
LUCREZIA.
My head aches.
CLARICE.
Soon her Excellence
Will feel relief.
ANGELA.
You look a wave-drenched siren
In those long folds of hair cloyed with the honey
By which the lees of the white wine cling close.
The sun is brilliant!
CATILENA.
And it was kindly done
To save us freckles by the grace of hats
Worn in the presence. Ah, sweet Pope,
Until his Holiness returns to-day
Venus is Sovereign of the Church, its princes
Her laughing hierophants, the Sacred College
Her Loves, her Doves, her Swallows, what you will,
All twittering of her till the air is crazy,
And every breeze a gossip.
100
Hush!
A pretty jest—
But when it thundered yesterday I sobbed,
And headache like a terror hung on me
All the night long .... I am a daughter
Guarding her father's house—the Universe:
I am no Pope, and, though the Cardinals
Laugh gallantly or slyly, though I laugh
At all the salt and spice of travesty,
Yet this obedience to my father's will
Has turned my prayers to stone.
Dear girls,
Here at the toilet let me be a woman,
Whose handmaid forehead the triregno's weight
Burthens to faintness.
Clarice, did you bruise
The celandine and greater cleaver's madder
The full time Messer Giambattista Porta
Ordains?
CLARICE.
Before you climbed up to the sun,
The roots were bruised and mixed with cummin-oil,
The boxwood slivers and the saffron, Donna.
LUCREZIA.
Then lay our compound on ....
The Envoy from Ferrara cannot enter,
Nor my two Cardinal Secretaries, until
You draw my hair out through the crownless hat,
And spread it like a halo on the brim.
[Clarice dyes her golden hair deeper.
ANGELA.
There is a whisper that the Duke was seen,
Masked, at dead midnight ....
LUCREZIA.
[Starting.]
He will keep his chamber;
He sleeps by day. I were ashamed
To play to him the Pope of Christendom;
I could not play it—I should flow no laughter.
101
For Messer Saracini and his news
Of when I shall be married.
Angela
How long, how long I wait!
A woman is a prisoner till a husband
Unlock her to her aim. When I am giddy
With dancing for my father, I recall
What Messer Saracini tells me often
Of the quiet, ordered court and the proud pomp
Of the old Este castle .... Don Alfonso,
So full of occupation with his cannon,
Artillery as brilliant as my brother's;
But he himself in careless trim, as sons
Of an old princely house may dare to be.
Clarice, my tresses wide as sun-rays!
[Her hair is spread over a frame.]
Bid
The Chamberlain bring Messer Saracini.
[Exit Clarice.
ANGELA.
A tent of yellow silk! I peep at you,
White, captive lady, Don Alfonso's bride.
LUCREZIA.
Hush, hush!
Enter Messer Saracini with Clarice.
SARACINI.
Most humble greeting!
Duke Ercole informs your Excellence
This week the wedding-train forsakes Ferrara.
[The Maids of Honour clap their hands.
[Lucrezia springs up, snatching the hat-brim from her hair, which streams round her in dripping gold, as she childishly dances in a giddy circle.
[She pauses breathless and laughing before Messer Saracini.
LUCREZIA.
Ah, you bring joy!
And joy is in my feet as in the lyre-strings
The golden music.
Messer Saracini,
102
Oh, caught in dancing as a mermaiden,
And carried to Ferrara! Shortly
His Holiness will enter Rome, and shortly
The bells will clamour joy above our heads
Till the air dances, and the sunshine dances!
Girls, I will send my jester
Dressed in my newest clothes—the gold-scaled petticoat,
And crimson sleeves—to dance out to the people
My joy, and cry up Viva la Duchessa,
Viva il Papa! Girls ....
[To Saracini.]
Oh, you are grave and full of wisdom's smiling
Behind the gravity!
Clarice, my hat!
Tent me again for the Ambassador.
[Clarice spreads her hair once more over the frame.
SARACINI.
Your future father, the Duke Ercole,
Sends me these pearls, his noble Duchess wore,
For Don Alfonso's bride—ancestral pearls,
Not lately sea-washed, held by sovereign fingers
While years made generations.
LUCREZIA.
[Lifting them.]
Golden pearls!
SARACINI.
Duke Ercole informs your Excellence
His health revives.
LUCREZIA.
By letter
Commend me to his Excellence your Duke;
Say, she who is his daughter in her heart
Rejoices for his welfare .... I can nurse ....
[To her Maids.]
Tell Messer Saracini—night and day,
Alone, without repose, I tended
His Holiness when injured by the falling
Of a wind-toppled tower.
To-night
Be present at my ball.
103
Most flattered thanks.
ANGELA.
And I will dance with you.
SARACINI.
Day dance as well,
And bring me to that hour, sweet promiser!
[Exit.
ANGELA.
Ha, ha!—the limed, old bird! Ha, ha!
Enter two Cardinals with despatches.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
A post, from Spain.
His Catholic Majesty writes threateningly
Of the French rape of Naples, Holy Father
Assisted through the Duke.
LUCREZIA.
My lord,
His Holiness returns this afternoon;
Await his wisdom.
[Holding out her hair.]
See, is this a Pope?
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Apollo!
LUCREZIA.
[Smiling.]
Leave him to his spokes.
I will report you diligent, my lords.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Your blessing, Holy Father!
[Laughing, she gives it.
So the beam
Of heaven bears down a dove.
[Kissing her finger-tips.
104
Your blessing!
Christ heal me!
[He lays his hand on his heart and goes out with Cardinal Segovia.
LUCREZIA.
Clarice, I am almost dozing!
This gold sun heaps me with such weight of gold.
Leave me and lay out the white satin robe—
No, for a warmth may rest upon my whiteness
A little space: I dance to-night in black,
With rubies of their violence grasping pearls,
With these ancestral drops of my old duchy.
Give me the verses on our Borgian Bull
That Porcius wrote—that little book. My eyes
Will rest on it half-closed and full of ease,
As sunny cats that stretch themselves to dream.
[They go out.
How strange!
I feel as I should never grow a woman
Save at Ferrara, miles away from Rome.
Alfonso does not love me—every day
Humiliates my humbler race, is fearful
I shall be found in nature sinister
And fatal .... But I am not so, and therefore
He cannot find that I am anything
But just his young Lucrece, he soon will love,
As creatures sent for gifts, if they are gentle,
Are cherished in reception .... Oh!
A masked figure glides in behind and she suddenly hears a voice.
VOICE.
Amanda!
LUCREZIA.
[To herself.]
Castelian! ... One, one voice ....
CESARE.
Amanda?
LUCREZIA.
You,
Cesare! You are come?
105
I cannot see:
Is there a smile behind these rays or no?
Is it dark weather, masks—or lip to lip?
LUCREZIA.
Your voice ... I lost my breath
To welcome you.
CESARE.
Then to black hell my mask!
[He throws it away and kneels.
O Excellency of Ferrara, have I
Come here too late? Do all the Cupids
Hold over this white, little face the saffron
Of Hymen's veil already? But I dare
A kiss beneath this gold, although Alfonso
Lose one sweet, nuptial joy . . .
Ah, the beretta
Must off in blaze of noon, if I would reach
Beneath your brim. [Holding her chin.]
Return my happiness!
[They kiss.
What strands of amber! O magnificence!
My blond is grey-ashamed to touch such yellow
Of crocus triumph. So it seems my sister
Will be a sovereign Duchess.
LUCREZIA.
Cesare,
This Este marriage—you would prosper it?
CESARE.
My fortress!
Behind your towers Venice can rage and curse ....
But there is joy beyond—we shall be neighbour-princes,
Romagna in your sight as you look out,
And you in reach if I should mount a horse.
Rome will be left, but not the Duke, your brother,
We cannot be divided .... Holiness!
[He laughs mockingly.
106
You must not, Cesare .... Had you been home
The Holy Father had not set me up ....
It burns me!
[She lifts her hands to her face.
CESARE.
Curse the folly!
To make a jest of you—our secret! You
To be a Pope, a Governor—my secret
Of the veiled hours, of the sealed lips!
Our father can be garrulous in action
As well as tongue. Forget, forget, love-goddess,
All but the whelming sea-deep and your pearls!
[He lifts the great Este necklace from her knee.
Cloud, cloud, be dumb, my moon—shine under cloud!
...Were letters sent from Spain?
LUCREZIA.
I would not read them.
CESARE.
We will receive them presently and answer.
LUCREZIA.
I marvel
To see you up and in the morning sun.
CESARE.
I waked—then heard you sat against the sun,
Fixed to one spot in glory.
LUCREZIA.
And the wars?
CESARE.
—Gained me Faënza, Castel-Bolognese,
Corneto, Piombino: for the French
I entered Capua ....
LUCREZIA.
And you were cruel there.
107
Transcendently. Naples is crushed to earth,
Is gone, stamped French in bloodshed.
That vendetta
I look on, round and perfect—Naples,
That once eclipsed my moon and shot its arrow
Athwart my omen, Naples
Hurled down as throne and kingdom!
LUCREZIA.
Cesare! My hand—
You grasp as if to break .... Your long, white hand!
CESARE.
It hurts? Lucrece, I rule at Pesaro.
LUCREZIA.
Well, dear, you need not look so venomous.
You rule—where is it that you do not rule?
[The cannon of Sant' Angelo boom and the bells ring. Lucrezia and Cesare lean over the parapet together; he gently pushes back the straw brim round her forehead and kisses her many times; then he quickly descends.
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