University of Virginia Library

SCENE IX.

Piazza of the Signoria.
[In the middle of the Piazza rises a pyramidal octangular scaffolding, filled with faggots, and containing fifteen tiers of shelves for the articles that are to be burnt, many of which are already placed there. The boys that have been collecting objects for the bonfire enter (left), and the young girls enter (right). Other people, among them Bettuccio, come upon the stage, bearing in their hands pictures, books, and some of them statues, and these they lay upon the pyramidal scaffolding. Frà Domenico and three other Monks of San Marco superintend the operation. Bonsi and Vespucci stand apart, and look on.]
FIRST PIAGNONE.
See! There's Bettuccio carrying his load.
He used to howl with the wolves.

SECOND PIAGNONE.
And now he bleats
Like any lamb that's ready to be shorn.
Savonarola has converted him.

THIRD PIAGNONE.
And many another. What have you got here?

BETTUCCIO.
Only some worthless verses and designs,
That in the heyday of my fatuous joy
I used to fancy precious.

FIRST PIAGNONE.
Are they your own?

BETTUCCIO.
Only our vices are our own, good friend,
And these, to cure; the rest belong to Heaven.
This is my contribution.

SECOND PIAGNONE.
Verily,
Our Frà Girolamo works miracles.
Never before did poet burn his verse
At bidding of another.

THIRD PIAGNONE.
Did you hear,
Bartolommeo Baccio gives to the flames
His drawings from the nude?

BETTUCCIO.
Yes, and what's more—
Lorenzo Credi swells the holocaust
With his lewd sketches.

BONSI.
I have heard it said,
When beasts go mad, they hasten to devour
Their litter, the most comely offspring first.
These Whimperers do the same. I would have given
A thousand crowns for some of Baccio's work.

VESPUCCI.
Heed not: the fair originals remain,
And are in every season reproduced
By love, who casts them in a gracious mould.
Thus Nature, never foiled in her designs,
And inly smiling at the sour excess
Of these ephemeral fanatics, will prompt
Some other artist to repair the loss.
Come, let us leave them.

BONSI.
Rather let us watch
Their austere antics.

[They stand aside, and look on, while men, women, boys, girls, and monks, join hands, and make a circle round the pyramid, which, as they begin to dance round it, is set fire to.]
FRÀ DOMENICO.
Now then to begin.
Who has the torch?

SECOND PIAGNONE.
'Tis here.

FRÀ DOMENICO.
Then in with it.
Hark how the faggots crackle! It has caught.
Who gives the air?

THIRD PIAGNONE.
Why, all of us must sing.
'Tis “Una donna d' amor fino.”

SEVERAL VOICES.
Oh!

FRÀ DOMENICO.
Nay, be not shocked; the air is innocent,
Weaned from the rhymes that suckled it. It was
A song of sin; but if we it baptize
With holy words, it straightway will become
A canticle of grace.

BONSI.
There he is right.
Have you observed it is the privilege
Of unexplicit harmony to foil
Art's meretricious purposes till joined
With an unworthy consort, and, divorced
From the light tie of language, to resume
Its abstract purity?

VESPUCCI.
I have noted it.
But I was rather thinking, give me leave,
That 'tis the common foible of mankind
Ever to sing new words to the old tune.
That changeth not. Hark! they are singing it now!

[The circle being complete, and their hands joined, the company dance round the burning Vanities, singing, as they do so, the following hymn.]

[Fresh people pour in; one of them bearing aloft on a pole the portrait of a Jew.]
FIRST PIAGNONE.
What may this be?

NEW COMER.
It is the effigy
Of a rich Hebrew who would fain have bought
For twenty thousand florins in a lump
These Vanities we burn.

SECOND NEW COMER.
So we thought
That we would burn him too, at least so far
As goes combustion in these clement days.

CROWD.
Evivva Cristo! Put him on the pile.


[The portrait of the Jew is hoisted up, and surmounts the burning pyramid of Vanities. Then the people dance and sing again.]
Who wants a medicine for his soul?
Here is the recipe! Bring the bowl.
Throw in five ounces of Hope, and six
Of unquestioning Faith; then duly mix.
Pour in a pound of Love, and three
Of the finest syrup of Charity.
Humility's quintessential oil
Put in the last, and leave to boil.
And this will make you perfectly mad;
Mad, mad, mad, mad;
For the love of Christ divinely mad!

[By this time the fire begins to burn low, all the Vanities being consumed. The dancers are out of breath, halt, and disjoin hands.]
FIRST PIAGNONE.
I' faith, how quickly have the flames devoured
Their wicked forage.

A MONK.
Leave them alone; they know
There is much virtue in a good hot fire.

BONSI.
Then there must be much virtue, friend, in Hell.
Is that sound doctrine? Better have a care
Lest you be burnt yourself.

FRÀ DOMENICO.
The virtuous flames
He meant are rather those of Purgatory.

VESPUCCI.
Then all the ashes of the things you have burnt
In time will go to Heaven? That's heresy,
Bad as the first.

FRÀ DOMENICO.
Your logic may be good,
But dialectics never saved a soul.

SECOND PIAGNONE.
What shall we do with the ashes?

THIRD PIAGNONE.
Wheel them on,
And drown them in the Arno.

VOICES.
Off we go!

[They trundle the pyramid off the stage, some pulling, some pushing, others pressing round it. Exeunt gradually (right).]
BONSI.
See how they press the blameless elements
Into their bitter service! Heaven forfend
We have not other burnings worse than this,
Which is the obverse side of levity.
None but our carnal Florence could invent
So strange a carnival.

VESPUCCI.
I sometimes think
It needs the froward fluctuating air,
Between the hills and valleys buffeted,
Of this fair city, to produce such shifts
Of keen emotion.

BONSI.
Think you this will pass?

VESPUCCI.
You know the Florentines. They ever were
The substance out of which, when stars consent,
You get your poets, painters, and such like,
Quick, lissom, volatile, the very wood
Wherefrom to make a crowd of Mercuries.
Look how they run! The herald of the Gods
Could skip no faster.

BONSI.
But this earnest monk,
Savonarola, seems to hold them fast,
And sets them at the point of seriousness.

VESPUCCI.
Unto that quarter never were they fixed.
If they affect it now, 'tis from the mood
That sets the west wind backing to the north
When April is with zephyrs surfeited
And looks behind for March, though May's afront,
And will be welcomed wantonly.

[Enter Grosso (left), precipitately.]
GROSSO.
Good sirs!
Can you direct me where our madcap saints
Are burning all the relics of the gods
Who were reputed to have died in Greece,
But in this age have come to life again,
The gods of beauty, joy, and spaciousness?
I thought 'twas here.

BONSI.
And so it was. But now
The bonfire of their bigotry is spent,
And Arno holds its ashes.

GROSSO.
Say not so!
O, you but mock me! There is time to save
What unto me is dearer than my life,
My past, my future!

VESPUCCI.
But he mocks you not.
Your dearest, then, is gone. What may it be?

GROSSO.
O, then the gods are dead who would not stretch
A helping hand to shield their effigies!
Gone! burnt to smoke! parched cinders in the dust,
That I let suck my life-blood! dreamed at night,
To do by day, the cunning of my hand
Following my bent as speech obeys the brain,
All shrivelled into ashes! O sirs! I,
Who never prated of myself before,
Am now so probed and pestered to the quick,
That the whole universe seems filled with Me,
And we are wronged together!

BONSI.
He doth bewail his labours late consumed
In the quick oven of that foolish fire.

VESPUCCI.
A touching sight! The children of their thought
Are dearer to these men than carnal sons,
Since that they get them and they bear them too.
Such generation and conception are
Lodged in the single organ of the brain.
A fantasy of nature, Genius is
A vigorous hermaphrodite that teems
By brooding on itself, nor ever needs
Marriage with other minds.

BONSI.
He seems distraught
Think you he meditates to take the road
Whither his fancies have preceded him?
Speak him a word of comfort.

VESPUCCI.
[Approaching to Grosso, who has seated himself on a marble bench, his face buried in his hands.]
Worthy friend,
Are you not too determined in despair?
How know you that your pretty things were thrust
Into those flames fanatical?

GROSSO.
[Starting up.]
How do I know it!
I have a wife, the halver of my bed,
My shadow, substance, flesh of very flesh,
Bone of my bone, a chain that gnaws into them,
A dead negation not to be denied,
A dearer self, that holds me, O so cheap!
That what there is of me that is not her,
She reckons just as nought! A wife! a wife!
A murderess throttling all my babes at once,
Because she neither bore nor suckled them!
All my unfinished studies! naked, yes!
Naked as is the sky, as is the spring,
As Eve before the fancied fall, as Heaven,
Radiant, unraimented! Gone! all of them gone,
And my poor meaning with them!

BONSI.
But, good friend!
Your cunning may this gaping loss replace.
As many maiden models walk the earth
As sleep within its bosom, and no boon
Welcomer than this their modesty could wish,
That you should lift their loveliness to Heaven,
And fix them into immortality.

GROSSO.
Can you rewind the ticking of the brain
That hath run down its hour? Why, look at me!
Alas! my hairs are straggling gossamer,
And, like the seeded dandelion, good
Only to tell the time by!

VESPUCCI.
You are hale
To common seeming, and might procreate still
A lusty brood of fancies.

GROSSO.
Out on you,
If you have been a sire and lost a son!
The dead are dearest, be who will alive.
Can you by filling cradles empty graves?
But I am father, mother, both at once.
You do not understand.

BONSI.
In sooth we do,
And therefore pity; but we still would cheer.

GROSSO.
And so do men at funerals! Fare you well.
I thank you. Have you sons? Then tell them this:
Never to wed at hey-day. Then the blood
Surges and drowns the judgment. For a face,
A ripple on the brow, a line, a nought,
A touch like any other, an embrace
In homely darkness scarce distinguishable,
To stamp a mortgage on your life, and be,
Like me, by folly finally foreclosed,—
Why, what is that? The Syrens call it love,
Ulysses, lunacy, and while they sing,
Lashes his melting body to the mast,
And sails beyond them.

[Exit (right).]
VESPUCCI.
How exceeding wise!
Think you this instance might assist our boys?

BONSI.
Nowise. Such wit is not vicarious.
Folly is wisdom's nurse, whom we drain dry
Before we are weaned; and other babes require
To suckle similarly. Brought up by hand,
Lads rarely prosper. See, across the square,
Apparently in haste, Valori comes.
On his sole will revolves the government,
Since in his cell, restrained by interdict,
Savonarola keeps.

[Valori enters (left).]
VESPUCCI.
What news, Valori?

VALORI.
That still this matter is not brought to term,
Which, littering yet the road, trips up the State!
The Five still live, since that each Body in turn
Shrinks from the stroke. The Eight their guilt affirm,
Remitting judgment to the Signory,
Which, shirking a decision, calls a Court,
Formed of the Eight, with Seven of the Ten,
And five Arroti.—These unanimously
Confirm the verdict, but once more invite
The Eight to pronounce sentence.

BONSI.
Do they shrink?

VALORI.
Yes; not from conscience, but from cowardice.

VESPUCCI.
Then why doth not the Signory pronounce?

VALORI.
'Tis not their office. That belongs the Eight,
As well you know.

BONSI.
Besides the Signory
Are hopelessly divided, four 'gainst five,
Michele Berti being Del Nero's kin,
And other three recalcitrant.

VALORI.
Wait a bit,
And see how I will spur these gibbing jades.
Be here anon, when they shall reasons give
To the assembled people why they spare
These traitors to the Commonwealth.

[Candida enters (left), unnoticed by Valori, but observed by the other two. She advances hesitatingly towards them.]
VESPUCCI.
Fair child!
Would you have aught of us?

[Valori turns, and perceives Candida.]
CANDIDA.
I fain would win
Signor Valori to my words awhile.

BONSI.
No difficulty there, I should surmise.
Have your occasion.

[Exeunt Vespucci and Bonsi (right).]
VALORI.
Speak! I am all ear
Since you have put a bit upon my tongue
You bade me not pursue you with my vows
And so I halt.

CANDIDA.
O sir, I do not think
I ever was so scant of courtesy.
Such words would not beseem me.

VALORI.
Like to bees
Your honey lodges very near the sting,
But 'tis the second penetrates.

CANDIDA.
Forgive
If one so lowly upon one so high
Inflicted never such a trivial wound.
But let us change our parts. 'Tis I who smart,
And want your sweetness.

VALORI.
What I have of that
Is yours irrevocably.

CANDIDA.
I meant not that.
I come to beg, to knock, to whine, to weep,
To gain myself a passage to your heart
Through every chink of pity that you have,
And melt you into granting me.

VALORI.
Little need.
My heart is open, and I stand within,
Trembling, to catch your importunity.
What is it you would have? Quick as you ask,
'Tis given!

CANDIDA.
Lorenzo Tornabuoni's life.

VALORI.
What! That! That—that—is an affair of State.
I thought you some petition would prefer,
Was private, personal?

CANDIDA.
What thing is not?
How will you any sure distinction make
Betwixt a public and a private woe?
What sword of execution is so fine
That it can roll rebellion in the dust,
Yet leave the rebel standing? or what edge
Of your discriminating justice cleave
The traitor's neck, yet spare a space for love,
Unterrified, to lock its loyal arms?
Hark! while your ostentatious bells clang out
That retribution hath been slaked with gore,
The tear-drops widowed innocence secretes
Upon some fireless hearthstone muffled fall.
Oh! have him respited!

VALORI.
He has no wife,
So will not leave a widow to bewail him.

CANDIDA.
And is a wife the only stay that can
Make life reluctant to be yoked with death?
Look! He is flush like you, noble like you;
Like you he wears full summer in his face;
Youth dances unexhausted in his blood;
Yet you, his peer, his fellow, ay, his twin
In conscious satisfaction, thrust him out
Into the dark and famine of the night,
Just as the very banquet is prepared,
And all life's lights are shining!

VALORI.
You forget,
If he is young, others there be are old.
If we spare him, we needs must spare them all;
And to spare all would, see, be not to spare
Those they had spared not, many more than they,
Had they not in their stratagems been foiled,
And which, being spared, they quickly would renew.

CANDIDA.
I never heard you argue, sir, before.
Why do you reason now? I'm a poor maid,
Unskilled in lunges of the tongue, and apt
Only to sue for favours. Look! I drop
All bootless weapons, and your mercy crave,
Mercy for him—for them, if he and they
In the same balance must be hung.

VALORI.
She pleads
As though she loved him! O, you ply me hard!
But is it honest strategy to mine
My conscience with explosions in my heart,
Burrowing through its soft substance that I may
Feel all my solid judgments blown to space?
I know I love in vain: but though you raise
Obstructions big as Apennine to block
My entrance to the valley of your heart,
My restless thoughts can find no rest but there,
The far-off home of fancy. Leave me that!
Whereof I should be widowed did I think
You trafficked with my tenderness to leave
The sword of justice rusting.

CANDIDA.
O, I came
Sir, to importune you, but not to bribe.
Who trifle with men's honesty wear gifts
Peeping from out their sleeve; and I wear none,
Nor know what they may be. I would corrupt
Your sternness with your gentleness, that's all.

VALORI.
That were to parley with my weaker self,
Which you yourself have strengthened. Save for you,
I never might have learnt how deep the debt
Men owe the native atmosphere they breathe.
Forbidden to protect you, I now guard
The Commonwealth of Florence, tougher task.
Do not you turn against me, who denied
My arms a daintier duty.

CANDIDA.
How aloof
From every touch of littleness he seems!
I needs must love him now if he should speak,
And not be quite so flinty. Then in vain
I have besought your footsteps, and must take
This pressure from your presence? Yet 'tis hard
That those who fain would longer live must die,
And those who willingly would die must live.
Farewell; and may your minutes never lack
The respite you refuse!

[She turns to go.]
VALORI.
“Would die,” she said.
What bodes such wish? She loves him then, 'tis plain!
Stay! You have broken down my final fence.
If it be that you love him, own that fault,
And I will stand betwixt him and the block,
Though every throat in Florence yelled for blood,
And every visage flashed a headsman's axe.

CANDIDA.
Women love all whom grief and death attaint.

VALORI.
Save those whose grief they cause. Why could not grief
Come to me from some other source than you?
It then had drawn your pity. When death comes,
May you be near!

CANDIDA.
I echo can that prayer,
Though may your death be far as his seems near.

VALORI.
His shall be far, and life more dead than death
Near me henceforth, so you do once aver
Your life is but a satellite to his.
I will not then extinguish it; it shall
Shine to forfend your darkness. But, farewell
To public honour as to private bliss.
Within his cloister, quarantined by Rome,
Savonarola scrupulously keeps,
And on my unpropped steadfastness the State
Must tower or totter; and this ponder well,
If Florence is to stand these men must fall.
Hold back my hand from drowning them, their guilt
Will float upon a sea of innocent blood,
Freedom be chased, the Medici return,
Savonarola straight surrendered be
To the unjust inquisitors of Rome!
And this through me! Yet, be it so! When I
Look through your tears, the stars of duty swim,
And resolution crumbles at my feet.
Let the world crack, so your heart does not break.
I will go hide me where the panther hides,
In jungles where fame comes not, nor reproach
Can christen fondness with a fouler name.
Confess you love him!

CANDIDA
(aside).
Why does this close word
Pursue my footsteps, double as I will?

VALORI.
Why do you hesitate? One breath from you
Will save him, but it must be uttered quick.

[People enter the Piazza. The doors of the Palazzo Pubblico are thrown open. The Signory, followed by the Otto di Balìa, the Dieci de Guerra, and their attendants, also the Twelve Buoni Uomini, the Sixteen Gonfalonieri of the Companies, and the Eighty, or Senate, come out, and prepare to take their places on the benches in the Loggia de' Lanzi. Candida is standing at the left corner of the stage, near the footlights. Valori goes nearer to her. At the same time, a scaffold is wheeled forward and stands between the Palazzo Pubblico and the Fountain in the Piazza. A veiled Headsman mounts, and stands immovable, a naked axe reposing on his shoulder.]
VALORI.
If from the scaffold I now pluck him back,
Will you his rescued sensitiveness take
To the warm refuge of encircling arms?
Speak! for the murderous seconds will not wait!
Either the earth or yours must be his bed.
Quick! quick! Pronounce!

CANDIDA.
Then he must die!

[Letizia enters (left).]
VALORI.
[To Letizia.
Fair maid,
See to this lady!

[Letizia leads Candida away. Exeunt (left).]