University of Virginia Library

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.