University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—Rome.—A Room in Pandolfo di Guido's House.
Enter Pandolfo, Montréal, and Citizens.
Mont.
I take it that I owe your gracious welcome
To this—that being men who breathe the air
Of the great world, not of dim scholars' cells,
Men of to-day, not men of yesterday,
This dreamer stales with you.

1st Cit.
His credit wanes

2nd Cit.
Our trade lies gasping like a wounded man.

Mont.
He is too weak to rule—there lies the fault.

Pand.
We loved the patriot in the Tribune—now
We hate, though with what sorrow in our hate,
The tyrant in the Senator. He rides,
Like furious troopers o'er a civil crowd,
Over our council, and makes war or peace,
Dooms death, and levies taxes, at his will.

Mont.
A taint of weakness! Like the bitter speck
In fruit o'er-ripe, these tricks of tyranny
In popular chiefs are preludes of decay.

Pand.
His temper is much altered for the worse,
With sudden gusts of anger, heats of scorn;
He'll laugh at trifles, and as soon will weep
In such immoderate fashion as makes dread
He may turn lunatic.

Mont.
Flaws of tired brains.
Ah! when such patriots (bowing to Pandolfo)
, for a final flight,
From where in happier times they made their nest,
Gather like swallows, winter nips indeed!

Pand.
With deep regret for our unhappy state,
Which, like a drowner with a rotten bough
Snapt in his hand, grasps eagerly once more
At one whose girt gives promise of more hold,
We are prepared to hear you.

Mont.
Fairly said.
So then, I trust, though, an unbidden guest,
I have passed your gates, ye are agreed to find me
No enemy to Rome?

Pand.
Our need desires
To find in you a friend.

Mont.
You know, I think, that to my enemies
I can be terrible; and—to be blunt,
In soldier's fashion—I might come to you
With threats of war, not overtures of peace.
Your dam against my power, Rienzi, gapes
A sluice to let me through, and ye yourselves
Make breaches in him; take me, then, at flood,
And find an opulent sea whose friendly waves
Roll riches on your coast. My hand alone
Can hold in leash the furious powers that waste you—
The Barons are tamed falcons on my wrist;
The Cardinal Legate, to the neck in plots
Ripe for Rienzi's marring, winks on me;
Rienzi's sold to me. In brief, you need
A Podestà, make me your Podestà
For but one year—give me of your free will
Less than I might, if covetous, take by force,
And I'll engage, upon my part, to guard
The freedom of your state.
[Bell of the Capitol tolls.
What means that bell?

1st Cit.
The death-bell: some poor devil dies to-night—
A robber, as I hear.

Mont.
A robber? Ha!
I will engage that for my year of power
My army shall not mulct you in the tax
Of one poor soldo. It can keep itself.

Cits.
Viva Fra Moreale!

Mont.
Think it o'er.
[Pand. and Cits converse apart.
(Aside.)
Now let me in, to bide my hatching-time,
And, like the cuckoo, these unfeathered fools
I'll shoulder from the nest. Still that curst bell!
I do not like the sound—it clanged before
On my outwitting. (Aloud.)
Come, good gentlemen,
Our treaty must be brief, our march to power
Sudden and sure, or we shall show like owls
Caught by the sun. (Knocking heard.)
What's this?

Pand.
Belated friends—some we have spoken with.

[Door is forced open.
Enter Rienzi, with Guards. He advances in silence. At his motion, the Guards seize Pandolfo and Montréal.
Rien.
(to Pand.).
Giotto paints Judas with a fox's face;
Thou hast a visage most austere and grave.
Thy forfeit head, with its white reverend hairs,
Would, with an aureole round it, from the wall
Shine in men's eyes a saint's. A face like thine
Makes trust mere dotage.

[Pand. sinks into a seat.
Mont.
Noble Senator,
What means this violent seizure of my person?

Rien.
O sir, it means the game is in my hands;
You have lost your stake.

Mont.
I do confess myself
Worsted, as ne'er before by mortal man;
But 'tis my pride to think a giant dwarfs me—
Your acts are winged thoughts. Name but my ransom,
It shall be paid.

Rien.
You heard that bell?

Mont.
I did;
What of the bell?

Rien.
It knelled a robber's death—
Think that it knelled your own.

Mont.
Talk you of death?

Rien.
Ay, death.

Mont.
Upon what charge? I owe you not
Allegiance

Rien.
No; but to the hangman's noose
You owe your neck; not for one single crime—
For merely tickling these small traitors here
To be your masked assassins of the State;
But for a life of rapine, whose each hour
Was a new crime.

Mont.
My life has been a soldier's,
My honour proud as yours.

Rien.
Honour lies dead,
When war becomes a trade, and patriot swords
The hireling's slaughter-tools. No, Montréal,
Your life has been a robber's; and your deeds
Mate you with panders, bravoes, prostitutes,
Slave-dealers, kidnappers—

Mont.
Enough of this—
Masks off, for God's sake! You have dipt your hand
Into my dish already, dip once more;
But prate not now of crime. I played for power,
Just as you do, and meant to mount on you,
As now you mount on me. You win my gains,
And profit so by what you call my crimes.
Let's be at one. I am your broken colt,
Now ride me, in your service, where you will:
Make me your Captain, and I'll make you all
Ambition dreams—a greater Charlemagne.

Rien.
Your devil's arrows are ill-aimed. You must
Prepare to die.

Mont.
To die? You are mad, you are mad!

Rien.
It was the hidden bias of our birth
That one of us should fall—the world's broad highway
Is not so wide we two can drive abreast.

Mont.
Let me drive after, then; but slay me not.
I—I alone, have power to do for you
What captive demons did for Solomon.
Destroy me, and your Rome upon your head
Comes crashing down.

Rien.
Nurse not your agony
Clutching at twigs; but make with heaven your peace.

Mont.
Shed you my blood, you make my brothers bloodhounds
To track you to your death—'twill be brief hunting.

Rien.
Your brothers are my prisoners.

Mont.
Saints in heaven,
We are all betrayed! O cursed hypocrite,
This is your gratitude! But your ill fame
Will sound abroad for this—it will be said
That you have murdered me to seize my treasure.
I succoured you in need, your empty name
Filled from my fulness, and for thanks get this.

Rien.
I have undermined your mines. Let fame report
My story as she may, you die to-night,
Though I should die to-morrow. With what face
Could I approach the awful judgment-seat,
Where glozing fame durst never look, and say
I left such bandits as thyself unhung?

Mont.
Unhung! I am a noble—Cavalier
Of the most holy Order of St. John.
Shall I be haltered like a dog?

Rien.
If so,
Thou hadst but thy deserts. Abashless block!
Has custom, then, so sealed thy conscience' eyes
Thou canst not see thyself? Art thou a noble?
A noble should act nobly. Shall men's sins
Be cloaked with titles that should make each fault
Look tenfold black amid their honour's blaze;
And crimes for which some hunger-tempted knave,
Who holds no trust, has ta'en no knighthood's vows,
Goes to the rack unpitied, be the jest
Of great folks' wanton hours? Out on such justice!
But, while I live, this shall not be in Rome.
By heaven! if I had seen some titled thief
Steal but a cherry from a poor man's tree,
And he had flashed his rank before mine eyes,
He had been pilloried for it. Away with them!

Mont.
Must I die then, and by your hangman's hand?
See! By this cross upon my breast, I warn you,
Dishonour not my Order.

Rien.
You have dragged
Your Order thro' foul mire; but for its sake,
And mine own Order's sake, your doom's the axe,
And not the halter.

Mont.
One last prayer. I ask
My brother's lives—they cannot harm you now.

Rien.
Their lives are spared—I swear it. Now begone!
And true repentance salve you at the block.

Mont.
To the most blessed Virgin, and St. John,
Whom I have ever loved with all my heart,
I do commend my soul. O Romans, Romans!
I die a valiant warrior, snared and slain!
For you I die, because your State is poor,
And I was rich. For you, proud Senator,
Whose haughty virtue frowns so stern upon
Our work-day smutches, look to your own soul;
For your death hour is near—your end may prove
Viler than mine.

Rien.
Take them away!
[Exeunt Pand. and Mont., guarded.
(To Cits.)
And now,
Ye poor small fry of treachery, get you gone—
I have my eye upon you. To your homes,
And see ye stir not, on your lives, abroad.
[Exeunt Cits. driven out by Guards.
The dying oft are prophets—it may be
My end is near. So my great work were done
I cared not when it came; but end more vilely
Than he? That's false; the manner of our death
Makes not its baseness, or the cross would be
Vile as the gibbet. But, till death, on, on!

[Exit