University of Virginia Library

ANDREA OF HUNGARY.

CHARACTERS.

• Andrea.
• Fra Rupert.
• Caraccioli.
• Caraffa.
• Boccaccio.
• Maximin, a Soldier.
• Klapwrath, Zinga, Psein, Hungarian Officers.
• Page,
• Garisendo, a Peasant.
• Giovanna, Queen.
• Sancia, Queen Dowager.
• Maria, Sister of Giovanna.
• Maria of Sicily, Half-sister.
• Fiammetta.
• Filippa, Foster-mother.
• Petronilla, a Peasant.

PROLOGUE.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

PALACE AT NAPLES. Andrea and Giovanna.
Andrea.
What say you now, Giovanna! shall we go
And conquer France? Heigho? I am sadly idle;
My mighty mind wants full activity.

Giovanna.
Andrea! be contented; stay at home;
Conquer? you've conquer'd me.

Andrea.
Ah rebel queen!
I doubt it: we have had war first, however,
And parleys, and all that.

Giovanna.
You might have more
Before you conquer the strong cities there.

Andrea.
England, they tell me, hath as much of France
As France hath. Some imagine that Provenza
Is half-and-half French land. How this may be
I can not tell; I am no theologian.
Giovanna . . in your ear . . I have a mind
To ride to Paris, and salute the king,
And pull him by the beard, and make him fight.

Giovanna.
Know that French beards have stiffer hairs than German,
And crackle into flame at the first touch.

Andrea.
'Sblood! like black cats! But only in the dark?

Giovanna.
By night or day, in city or in field.

Andrea.
I never knew it: let the Devil lug them
For me then! they are fitter for his fist.
Sure, of all idle days the marriage-day
Is idlest: even the common people run
About the streets, not knowing what to do,
As if they came from wedding too, poor souls!
This fancy set me upon conquering France.

Giovanna.
And one hour only after we are united?

SCENE II.

Maria enters.
Andrea.
Maria! where are you for? France or Naples?
She heard, she smiled . . Here's whispering . . This won't do . . [Going; but stops, pacified.

She may have secrets . . they all have . . I'll leave 'em.

Giovanna.
Unsisterly! unfriendly!

[Goes.
Maria.
Peace! Giovanna!

Giovanna.
That word has sign'd it. I have sworn to love him.

Maria.
Ah, what a vow!

Giovanna.
The harder to perform
The greater were the glory: I will earn it.

Maria.
How can we love . .

Giovanna
(interrupting).
Mainly, by hearing none
Decry the object; then, by cherishing
The good we see in it, and overlooking
What is less pleasant in the paths of life.
All have some virtue if we leave it them
In peace and quiet; all may lose some part
By sifting too minutely bad and good.
The tenderer and the timider of creatures
Often desert the brood that has been handled
And turn'd about, or indiscreetly lookt at.
The slightest touches, touching constantly,
Irritate and inflame.

Maria.
Giovanna mine!
These rhetoric-roses are supremely sweet,
But hold! the jar is full. I promise you
I will not steal up with a mind to snatch,
Or pry too closely where you bid me not . .
But for the nest you talk about . .

Giovanna.
For shame!
What nest?

Maria.
That nest your blushes gleam upon.
O! I will watch each twig, each feather there,
And, if my turning, tossing, hugging, does it,
Woe to Giovanna's little bird, say I.

Giovanna.
Seriously, my sweet sister!

Maria
(interrupting).
Seriously
Indeed! What briars ere we come to that!

Giovanna.
I am accustomed to Andrea's ways,
And see much good in him.

Maria.
I see it too.

Giovanna.
Fix upon that your eyes; they will grow brighter,
Maria, for each beauty they discover.

SCENE III.

ANOTHER ROOM IN THE PALACE. Andrea, Fra Rupert.
Andrea.
Well met again, Fra Rupert! Why not, though,
At church with us? By this humility
You lost the prettiest sight that ever was.

Fra Rupert.
I know what such sights are.

Andrea.
What?

Fra Rupert.
Vanity.

Andrea.
Exact the thing that everybody likes.

Fra Rupert.
You young and heedless!

Andrea.
We pass lightly over,
And run on merrily quite to the end;
The graver stumble, break their knees, and curse it:
Which are the wiser? Had you seen the church!
The finest lady ever drest for court
A week-day peasant to her! By to-morrow
There's not a leg of all the crowd in Naples
But will stand stiff and ache with this day's tiptoe;
There's not a throat will drop its paste-tape down
Without some soreness from such roaring cheers;
There's not a husband but whose ears will tingle
Under his consort's claw this blessed night
For sighing “What an angel is Giovanna!”

Fra Rupert.
Go, go! I can not hear such ribaldry.

Andrea.
Rather should you have heard, as there you might,
Quarrelsome blunder-headed drums, o'erpower'd
By pelting cymbals; then complaining flutes,
And boy-voiced fifes, lively and smart and shrill;
Then timbrels, where tall fingers trip, but trip
In the right place, and run along again;
Then blustering trumpets, wonder-wafting horns,
Evvivas from their folks, hurrahs from ours,
And songs that pour into both ears long life
And floods of glory and victory for ever.

Fra Rupert.
What signify these fooleries? In one word,
Andrea, art thou king?

Andrea.
I fancy so.
The people never give such hearty shouts
Saving for kings and blunders.

Fra Rupert.
Son! beware,
Lest while they make the one they make the other.

Andrea.
How must I guard against it?

Fra Rupert.
Twelve whole years
Constantly here together, all the time
Since we left Hungary, and not one day
But I have labour'd to instil into thee,
Andrea! how wise kings must feel and act.

Andrea.
But, father, who let you into the secret?

Fra Rupert.
I learnt it in the cloister.

Andrea.
Then no doubt
The secret is worth knowing; many are
(Or songs and fables equally are false)
Among those whisper'd there.

Fra Rupert.
Methinks, my son,
Such words are lighter than beseems crown'd heads,
As thine should be, and shall be, if thou wilt.

Andrea.
Ay, father, but it is not so as yet;
Else would it jingle to another crown,
With what a face beneath it! What a girl
Is our Giovanna!

Fra Rupert.
By the saints above!
I thought it was a queen, and not a girl.

Andrea.
There is enough in her for both at once.
A queen it shall be then the whole day long. [Fra Rupert, impatient.

Nay, not a word, good Frate! the whole day;
Ave-Maria ends it; does it not?
I am so glad, so gamesome, so light-hearted,
So fond, I (sure!) am long steps off the throne.

Fra Rupert.
And ever may'st be, if thou art remiss
In claiming it.

Andrea.
I can get anything
From my Giovanna. You would hardly guess
What she has given me. Look here!

Fra Rupert.
A book?

Andrea.
‘King Solomon.’

Fra Rupert.
His Song? To seculars?
I warrant she would teach it, and thou learn it.

Andra.
I'll learn it through, I'll learn it every verse.
Where does the Song begin? I see no rhymes.

Fra Rupert.
‘The Proverbs!’ Not so bad!

Andrea.
Are songs then proverbs?
And what is this hard word?

Fra Rupert.
‘Ecclesiastes.’

Andrea.
But look! you have not seen the best of it.
What pretty pictures! what broad rubies! what
Prodigious pearls! seas seem to roll within,
And azure skies, as ever bent above,
Push their pink clouds, half-shy, to mingle with 'em.

Fra Rupert.
I am not sure this book would do thee harm,
But better let me first examine it.

[He takes it.
Andrea.
You shall not have it; give it me again.

Fra Rupert.
Loose it, I say, Andrea!

Andrea.
I say no!

Fra Rupert.
To me?

Andrea.
Dost think I'd say it to Giovanna?
Beside, she gave it me: she has read in it
With her own eyes, has written Latin in it
With her own fingers, . . for who else could write
Distinctly such small letters? . . You yourself,
Who rarely have occasion for much Latin,
Might swear them to be Latin in ten minutes.
Another thing . . the selfsame perfume clings
About those pages as about her bosom.

Fra Rupert
(starts).
Abomination! Know all that!

Andrea.
Like matins.
Thence, tho' she turn'd quite round, I saw her take it
To give it me. Another thing . . the people
Bragg'd of my metal half an hour ago,
And I will show I have it, like the best.
Another thing . . forgettest thou, Fra Rupert,
I am a husband?

Fra Rupert.
Seven years old thou wert one.

Andrea.
Ha, but! ha, but! seven years upon seven years
Could not make me the man I am to-day.

Fra Rupert.
Nor seventy upon seven a tittle wiser.

Andrea.
Why did not you then make me while you could?
You taught me nothing, and would let none touch me,
No, not our king himself, the wisest man
In his dominions, nor more wise than willing.
Forsooth! you made a promise to my father
That nobody should filch my faith and morals,
No taint of learning eat skin-deep into me!
And good king Robert said, “If thus my brother
Must have it . . if such promise was exacted . .”

Fra Rupert.
All have more knowledge than they well employ.
Upbraidest thou thy teacher, guardian, father?

Andrea.
Fathers may be, alas! too distant from us,
Guardians may be too close . . but, teacher? teacher?

Fra Rupert.
Silence!

Andrea
(retreating).
He daunts me: yet, some day, cospetto!

Fra Rupert.
What mutterest thou?

Andrea
(to himself).
I will be brave, please God!

Fra Rupert
(suppressing rage).
Obstinate sinners are alone unpardon'd:
I may forgive thee after meet repentance,
But must confer with thee another time
On that refractory untoward spirit.

Andrea
(to himself).
He was then in the right (it seems) at last.

Fra Rupert.
I hear some footsteps coming hitherward.

SCENE IV.

Giovanna and Filippa.
Fra Rupert
(turns his back to them).
O those pestiferous women!

Andrea.
Ay, well spoken.
The most religious of religious men
Lifts up his arms and eyes, my sweet Giovanna,
Before your wond'rous charms.

[The Friar looks at him with rage and scorn.
Giovanna.
Simple Andrea!
Are they more wond'rous than they were before?
Or are they more apparent now the robes
Are laid aside, and all those gems that made
My hair stand back, chiefly that mischievous
Malignant ruby (some fierce dragon's eye
Turn'd into stone) which hurt your finger so
With its vile crooked pin, for touching me,
When you should have but lookt, and not quite that.

Fra Rupert.
(who had listened).
Come hither; didst thou hear her?

Andrea.
Every word;
And bear no rancour to her, though she scolds.

Fra Rupert.
She might have waited twenty years beyond
This day, before she thought of matrimony;
She talks so like a simpleton.

Andrea.
She does
Indeed: yet, father! it is very true:
The pin did prick me: she is no simpleton
As far as memory goes. [The Friar looks up, then walks about impatiently.

Now, won't you mind me?
She is but very young, scarce seventeen;
When she is two years older, just my age,
Then shall you see her! more like me perhaps.
She might have waited . . . you say well . . . and would
Willingly, I do think; but I am wiser,
And warmer. Our Hungarian blood (ay, Frate!)
Is not squeez'd out of March anemones.

Filippa.
Since, friar Rupert! here are met together
The lofty and the lowly, they and we,
If your austerity of life forbade
To mingle with the world's festivities,
Indulge, I pray you, in that luxury
Which suits all seasons, sets no day apart,
Excludes from its communion none, howe'er
Unworthy, but partakes of God indeed . .
Indulge in pardon.

Fra Rupert.
Does a seneschal's
Wife bend before me? Do the proud ones beg?

Filippa.
Too proud I may be: even the very humblest
May be too proud. I am, 'tis true, the widow
Of him you mention. Do I beg? I do.
Our queen commands me to remove ill-will.

Fra Rupert.
There are commands above the queen's.

Filippa.
There are,
O holy man! obey we both at once!

Giovanna
(calls Andrea).
Husband!

Fra Rupert.
And not our king? most noble lady!

Giovanna.
He, or I much mistake him, is my husband.

Andrea.
Mistake me! not a whit: I am, I am.

Giovanna.
If, O my husband! that dear name has power
On your heart as on mine, now when first spoken,
Let what is love between us shed its sweets
A little wider, tho' a little fainter;
Let all our friends this day, all yours, all mine,
Be one another's, and not this day only.
Persuade them.

Andrea.
Can I?

Giovanna.
You persuaded me.

Andrea.
Ay, but you did not hate me; and your head
Is neither grey nor tonsured; these are odds.
I never could imagine well how folks
Who disagree in other things, agree
To make each other angry. What a game!
To toss back burs until the skin is full
On either side! Which wins the stake, I wonder?

Fra Rupert
(bursting away).
I have no patience.

Andrea.
I have, now he's gone.
How long were you contriving this grand scheme
To drive away the friar? Do you think [Whispers to Giovanna.

He won't come after supper? Does he know
Our chamber?

Giovanna.
Hush! Andrea!

Andrea.
In good earnest
I fear him, and the fleas about his frock.
Let me go after him: he went in wrath:
He may do mischief, if he thinks it right,
As these religious people often do.

[Andrea goes.
Filippa.
Happy Andrea! only fleas and friars
Molest him: little he suspects the snares
About his paths; the bitter jealousies
Of Hungary; how pertinaciously
Mail'd hands grasp sceptres, how reluctantly
Loose them; how tempting are our milder clime
And gentler nation! He deserves our pity.

Giovanna.
O! more than pity. If our clime, our nation,
Bland, constant, kind, congenial with each other,
Were granted him, how much more was withheld!
Sterile the soil is not, but sadly waste.
What buoyant spirits and what pliant temper!
How patient of reproof! how he wipes off
All injuries before they harden on him,
And wonders at affronts, and doubts they can be!
Then, his wild quickness! O the churl that bent it
Into the earth, colourless, shapeless, thriftless,
Fruitless, for ever! Had he been my brother,
I should have wept all my life over him;
But, being my husband, one hypocrisy
I must put on, one only ever will I.
Others must think, by my observance of him,
I hold him prudent, penetrating, firm,
No less than virtuous: I must place myself
In my own house (now indeed his) below him.

Filippa.
I almost think you love him.

Giovanna.
He has few
Even small faults, which small minds spy the soonest;
He has, what those will never see nor heed,
Wit of bright feather, but of broken wing;
No stain of malice, none of spleen, about it.
For this, and more things nearer . . . for the worst
Of orphancy, the cruellest of frauds,
Stealth of his education while he played
Nor fancied he could want it; for our ties
Of kindred; for our childhood spent together;
For those dear faces that once smiled upon us
At the same hour, in the same balcony;
Even for the plants we rear'd in partnership,
Or spoil'd in quarrel, I do love Andrea.
But, from his counsellors! . . .

Filippa.
We shall elude
Their clumsy wiles perhaps. The youth, methinks,
Is tractable.

Giovanna.
May wise men guide him then!
It lies beyond my duty.

Filippa.
But the wise
Are not the men who guide the tractable.
The first bold hand that seizes, holds them fast;
And the best natures melt into the bad
'Mid dances and carousals.

Giovanna.
Let Andrea
Be sparing of them!

Filippa.
Evil there may be
Where evil men preside, but greatly worse
Is proud austerity than princely glee.

Giovanna.
Heaven guard us! I have entered on a course
Beleaguered with dense dangers: but that course
Was first ordained in earth, and now in heaven.
My father's spirit filled his father's breast,
And peace and union in our family
(They both foresaw) would be secured by ours.

Filippa.
She who forgets her parent will forego
All later duties: yes, when love has lost
The sound of its spring-head, it grows impure,
Tortuous, and spent at last in barren sand.
I owe these generous kings the bread I broke,
The letters I pickt up: no vile sea-weed
Had perisht more neglected, but for them.
They would heap affluence on me; they did heap it;
Next, honours: for these only I am ungrateful.

Giovanna
(smiling).
Ungrateful? thou? Filippa!

Filippa.
Most ungrateful.
With humble birth and humbler intellect
The puff-ball might have bounced along the plain
And blinded the beholder with its dust:
But intellect let down on humble birth
Writhes under titles, shrinks from every glance,
At every question turns one fibre fresh
For torture, and, unpullied and adrift,
Burns its dull heart away in smouldering scorn.

Giovanna.
Where no ethereal spirit fills the breast . .

Filippa.
. . Honours are joys great as such breast can hold.

Giovanna.
The happy then in courts are numberless;
We hear the contrary.

Filippa.
Never believe
This, nor another ill report of them.

Giovanna.
What?

Filippa.
That the great are not great to their valets;
'Tis but their valets who can find their greatness.

Giovanna.
I know that you have enemies.

Filippa.
Thank God!
I might have else forgotten what I am,
And what he gave me ere he placed me here.

Giovanna.
I never shall, Filippa!

Filippa.
Think of those
Who rais'd our souls above us, not of me.

Giovanna.
Oh! if my soul hath risen, if the throbs
Of gratitude now tell it me, if they
Who rais'd it must be thought of . . to my heart,
Filippa! for the heart alone can think.

Filippa.
I first received thee in these arms; these arms
Shall loose thee last of living things, Giovanna.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

IN THE PALACE. Giovanna, Fiammetta, Maria.
Maria.
And now, Fiammetta, tell me whence that name
Which tickles thee so.

Fiammetta.
Tell indeed! not I.

Maria
(to Giovanna).
Sister! you may command

Giovanna.
Command a sister?
Secrets are to be won, but not commanded.
I never heard the name before. . Fiammetta . .
Is that it?

Maria.
That is it.

Fiammetta.
For shame, Maria!
Never will I entrust you with a secret.

Maria.
I do believe you like this one too well
Ever to let another mingle with it.

Fiammetta
(to herself).
I do indeed, alas!

Giovanna.
Some gallant knight
Has carried off her scarf and bared her heart.
But to this change of name I must withhold
Assent, I like Maria so much better.

Fiammetta
(points to Maria).
There is Maria yet.

Giovanna.
But where twin-roses
Have grown so long together, to snap one
Might make the other droop.

Fiammetta.
Ha! now, Maria!
Maria! you are springed, my little quail!

Giovanna.
Fiammetta! if our father were here with us,
He would suspect some poet friend of his,
Dealer in flames and darts, their only trade,
Enchanted his Sicilian.

Maria.
Ho! ho! ho!
Proserpine never blusht such damask blushes
When she was caught.

Fiammetta.
I am quite cool.

Maria.
The clouds
May be quite cool when they are quite as red;
Girls' faces, I suspect, are somewhat less so.

[Fiammetta runs off.
Giovanna.
Maria! dear Maria! She is flown.
Is the poor girl in love then?

Maria.
Till this hour
I thought it but a fancy, such as all
We children have: we all choose one; but, sure,
To run out of the room at the mere shadow!

Giovanna.
What would you do?

Maria.
Wait till he came himself.

Giovanna.
And then?

Maria.
Think seriously of running off,
Until I were persuaded it was civil.

SCENE II.

Andrea.
What have ye done to little Sicily?
She ran so swiftly by me, and pusht back
My hand so smartly when I would have stopt her,
I think you must have vext her plaguily
Among you.

Maria.
She was vext, but not by us.

Andrea.
Yes, many girls are vext to-day. One bride
Sheds fifty thorns from each white rose she wears.
I did not think of that. (To Maria.)
You did, no doubt?

Maria.
I wear white roses too, as well as she:
Our queen's can have no thorns for us.

Andrea.
Not one?

Maria.
No, nor for any in this happy realm.

Andrea.
Ah now! this happy realm! Some people think
That I could make it happier.

Giovanna.
I rejoice
To hear it.

Andrea.
Are you glad, my little bride?

Giovanna.
Most glad. O never disappoint their hopes!
The people are so kind! they love us so!

Andrea.
They are a merry race: ay, very crickets,
Chirruping, leaping. What they eat, God knows;
Sunshine and cinders, may be: he has sent
Plenty of these, and they are satisfied.

Giovanna.
Should we be, if they are?

Andrea.
O then! a boon!
To make them happy all their lives.

Giovanna.
The boon
To make them happier Heaven alone can grant.
Hearken! If some oppressions were removed,
Beyond my strength to manage, it were done.

Andrea.
Nothing so easy. Not your strength indeed,
But mine, could push a buffalo away.
I have a little favour to request.

Giovanna.
Speak.

Andrea.
Give me then this kingdom, only this.
I do not covet mountains to the north,
Nor cities over cities farther west,
Casal or Monferrato or Saluzzo,
Asti or Coni, Ceva or Torino,
Where that great river runs which spouts from heaven,
Nor Aix nor Toulon, nor Marseille nor Nice
Nor Avignon, where our good pope sits percht;
I only want this tidy little kingdom,
To make it happy with this sword upon it.

Giovanna.
The people and their laws alone can give it.

Andrea.
Well, we can make the laws.

Giovanna.
And people too?

Andrea.
Giovanna! I do think that smile could make
A thousand peoples from the dullest clay,
And mould them to thy will.

Giovanna.
Pure poetry!

Andrea.
Don't say it! or they knock me on the head!
I ought to be contented: but they would
Insist upon it. I have askt: here ends
My duty: I don't want it for myself . .
And yet those cities lookt like strings of bird-eggs,
And tempted me above my strength. I only
Repent of learning all their names for nothing.
Let them hang where they are.

Giovanna.
Well said.

Andrea.
Who wants 'em?
I like these pictures better. What a store!
Songs, proverbs, and a word as hard as flint,
Enough for fifty friars to ruminate
Amid their cheese and cobnuts after dinner,
Read it me.

Giovanna.
Which?

[Andrea points.
Giovanna.
‘Ecclesiastes.’

Andrea.
Right!
As you pronounce it, scarce a word of ours
In Hungary is softer. What a tongue!
Round, juicy, sweet, and soluble, as cherries.
When Frate Rupert utter'd the same word,
It sounded just as if his beard and breast,
And all which there inhabit, had turn'd round
Into his throat, to rasp and riddle it.
I never shall forget Ecclesiastes!
Only two words I know are pleasanter.

Giovanna.
And which are they?

Andrea
(saluting her).
Giovanna and Carina.

Maria.
Unmanner'd prince!

Andrea.
Now the white rose sheds thorns.

SCENE III.

Sancia and Filippa.
Sancia
(smiling).
Step-mothers are not always quite at home
With their queen-daughters.

Giovanna.
Yet queen-mothers are.
Step-mother you have never been to me,
But kindest, fondest, tenderest, truest mother.

Maria.
Are we not all your children?

Sancia.
All. Where then
Is fled our lively Sicily?

Giovanna.
She is gone
To her own chamber.

Maria.
To read poetry.

Sancia.
Where poetry is only light or flattering
She might read some things worse, and many better.
I never loved the heroes of Romance,
And hope they glide not in among the leaves.

Maria.
And love you then their contraries?

Sancia.
Those better.
What clever speech, Maria, dost thou ponder?
I see we differ.

Maria.
Rather.

Sancia.
Why so grave?
Surely no spur is tangled in thy hem!

Maria.
No, my regrets were all for you. What pity
Andrea dropt upon our globe too late;
A puissant antipode to all such heroes!

Giovanna
(smiling).
Intolerable girl! sad jealous creature!

Sancia.
Where is he? I was seeking him.

Maria.
There now!

Sancia.
Or else I should not have return'd so soon
After our parting at the Benediction.

[Goes.
Maria.
Sister! I fear my little flippancy
Hurried Queen Sancia: why just now want sposo?

Giovanna.
She did not smile, as you do, when she went.
Fond as she is, her smiles are faint this morning.
A sorrowing thought, pure of all gloom, o'erspread
That saintly face.

Maria.
It did indeed.

Giovanna.
She loves
Us all, she loves our people too, most kindly.

Maria.
Seeing none other than Hungarian troops
At church about us, deeply did she sigh
And say “Ah! where are ours?”

Giovanna.
You pain me sadly.
Queens, O Maria! have two hearts for sorrow;
One sinks upon our Naples. Whensoever
I gaze ('tis often) on her bay, so bright
With sun-wove meshes, idle multitudes
Of little plashing waves; when air breathes o'er it
Mellow with sound and fragrance, of such purity
That the blue hills seem coming nearer, nearer,
As I look forth at them, and tossing down
Joyance for joyance to the plains below . .
To think what mannerless, unshorn, harsh-tongued
Barbarians from the Danube and the Drave
Infest them, I cast up my eyes to Heaven
Impatiently, despondently, and ask
Are such the guests for such festivities?
But shall they dare enthral my poor Andrea?
Send, send for him: I would not he were harm'd,
Much less degraded. O for ministers
To guide my counsels and protect my people!
I would call round me all the good and wise.

Sancia
(returning).
Daughter! no palace is too small to hold them.
The good love other places, love the fields,
And ripen the pale harvest with their prayers.
Solitude, solitude, so dread a curse
To princes, such a blight to sycophants,
Is their own home, their healthy thoughts grow in it.
The wise avoid all our anxieties:
The cunning, with the tickets of the wise,
Push for the banquet, seize each vacant chair,
Gorge, pat their spaniel, and fall fast asleep.

Giovanna.
Ah then what vigils are reserved for me!

Maria.
Hark! spears are grounded.

Giovanna.
Officer! who comes?

Officer.
Lady! the friar mounts the stairs; behind him
Those potent lords, Caraffa and Caraccioli.

Giovanna.
Your chair, Queen Sancia, stands unoccupied:
We must be seated to receive the lords.
Is it not so?

Sancia.
The queen must.

Giovanna.
One queen only?
The younger first? we can not thus reverse
The laws of nature for the whims of court.

[Sancia is seated.

SCENE IV.

Fra Rupert, Caraffa, and Caraccioli.
Giovanna.
Speak, gentlemen! You have much wronged yourselves,
And me a little, by such hesitation.
No day, methinks, no hour, is half so proper,
As when the crown is placed upon my brow,
To hear what are its duties.

Caraffa.
Gracious queen!
We come to represent . .

Fra Rupert
(behind).
Speak out . . wrongs . . rights . .
Religion.

Caraffa
(to him).
You distract me.

Fra Rupert
(to Caraccioli).
Speak then thou.
See how attentively, how timidly,
She waits for you, and blushes up your void!

Caraccioli.
'Tis therefore I want words.

Fra Rupert.
Hear mine then, boys! [Walks toward Giovanna.

Imprest with awe before such majesty,
The hopes of Naples, whom their fathers deem
On this occasion, this gay hour, from high
Nobility, from splendour of equipments,
Beauty of person, gracefulness of mien,
And whatsoever courts are courtly by,
Most fitted, and most likely to prevail
Against those ancient frauds and artifices
Which certain dark offenders weave about them . .
These unsophisticated youths, foredoom'd
Longest and most impatiently to suffer,
Lay humbly at the footstool of your throne
A list of grievances yet unredrest.

Giovanna.
Give it me, gentlemen, we will peruse it Together.

Fra Rupert.
They are more than scribe could pen.

Giovanna
(to Fra Rupert).
Are they of native or imported growth?
Your Reverence hath some practice in the sorting.
Permit me to fill up your pause, Fra Rupert!
On this occasion, this gay hour, methinks
To urge impatience and foredoom of suffering
Is quite untimely. High nobility
And splendour of equipment are the last
Of merits in Caraffas and Caracciolis [To them.

The delicacy that deferr'd the tender
Of your important service, I appreciate,
Venturing to augur but a brief delay.
Gentlemen! if your fathers bade you hither,
I grieve to owe them more than I owe you,
And trust, when next we see you, half the pleasure,
Half, if not all, may be your own free gift.

[She rises, they go.

SCENE V.

PALACE GARDEN. Fra Rupert, Caraffa, and Caraccioli.
Fra Rupert.
The losel!

Caraccioli.
Saints! what graciousness!

Caraffa.
Was ever
So sweet a girl? He is uglier than old Satan,
Andrea . . I abhor him worse than ever . . .
Curse on that Tartar, Turk, Bohemian,
Hungarian! I could now half-strangle him.

Fra Rupert.
We are dismist.

Caraffa.
My speech might have done wonders.

Fra Rupert.
Now, who (the mischief!) stops a dead man's blood?
Wonders! ay truly, wonders it had done!
Thou wert agape as money-box for mass,
And wantedst shaking more. What are our gains?

Caraffa.
A vision the strain'd eyes can not inclose,
Or bring again before them from the senses,
Which clasp it, hang upon it, nor will ever
Release it, following thro' eternity.

Caraccioli.
I can retain her image, hear her words,
Repeat, and tone them on each fibre here,
Distinctly still.

Caraffa.
Then hast thou neither heart
Nor brain, Caraccioli! No strife so hard
As to catch one slight sound, one faintest trace,
Of the high beauty that rules over us.
Who ever seized the harmony of heaven,
Or saw the confine that is nearest earth?

Fra Rupert.
I can bear youthful follies, but must check
The words that run thus wide and point at heaven.
We must warn laymen fairly off that ground.
Are ye both mad?

Caraffa.
One is; I swear to one:
I would not be the man that is not so
For empires girt with gold, worlds starr'd with women:
A trance is that man's life, a dream be mine!
Caraccioli's an ice-pit, covered o'er
With straw and chaff and double-door'd and thatcht,
And wall'd, the whole dark space, with earthen wall.
Why! Frate! all those groans of thine for heaven?
Art toucht?

Fra Rupert.
I have been praying fervently . .
Despairingly I fear to say . . 'twere rash,
Ungrateful, and ungodly.

Caraffa.
He has brought
The whole Maremma on me at one breath.
My cold fit now comes over me. But, Frate!
If we do feel, may we not say we do?

Fra Rupert.
To feel is harm; to say it, may be none,
Unless 'tis said with levity like thine.

Caraffa.
Ah faith! I wish 'twere levity! The pagan
That heaves up Etna, calls it very differently.
I think the dog is better off than I am;
He groans upon the bed where lies his torment;
I very far away from where lies mine.

Fra Rupert.
Art thou a Christian?

Caraffa.
Father! don't be serious.

Fra Rupert.
I must be.

Caraffa.
Have not I most cause?

Fra Rupert.
Yea truly.

Caraffa.
I am not over-given to complain,
But nettles will sting all . .

Fra Rupert.
. . who put their hands in.
Caraccioli! be warn'd by this our friend
What sufferings may arise from lawless love.
Thine passeth its due bounds; it doth, Caraccioli!
But thou canst conquer every wild desire;
A high emprize! what high emprize but suits
A true Caraccioli! We meet again . .
I have some warnings, some reproofs, for him.

[Caraccioli goes.

SCENE VI.

Fra Rupert, Caraffa.
Fra Rupert.
Where walls are living things, have ears, eyes, mouths,
Deemest thou, son Francesco! I alone
Heard those most violent words about Andrea?

Caraffa.
What words? I never thought about the man;
About his wife some little; true enough.
Some little? criminal it were to say it:
He who thinks little of such . . such perfection,
Has left his thoughts among the worms that creep
In charnel-houses, among brainless skulls,
Dry bones, without a speck of blood, a thread
Of fibre, ribs that never cased a heart.
The volumes of the doctors of the church
Could not contain a tithe of it: their clasps,
Strong enough to make chains for Saracens,
Their timbers to build argosies, would warp
And split, if my soul's fire were pent within.

Fra Rupert.
Remember, son Francesco! prince Andrea,
King rather (such the husband of a queen
Is virtually, and should be) king Andrea
Lives under my protection.

Caraffa.
Well, what then?

Fra Rupert.
What? Into mine own ear didst thou not breathe
Traitorous threats?

Caraffa.
I? Threats? About his queen?

Fra Rupert.
Filthy! most filthy!

Caraffa.
No, no: wandering thoughts
Fluttered in that direction; one thought, rather.
Doves have hot livers.

Fra Rupert.
Be adultery
Bad as it will, yet treason, son Francesco!
Treason is far more difficult to deal with.

Caraffa.
I do suspect it may be.

Fra Rupert.
Saidst thou not
Thou couldst half-strangle that Hungarian?

Caraffa.
Spake I so rashly?

Fra Rupert.
I am a Hungarian.

Caraffa.
Evident: but that noble mien would daunt
Moor, Usbeck, Abyssinian: and that strength!
A Switzer bear could not half-strangle it.

Fra Rupert.
'Twere martyrdom, 'twere martyrdom. The life
Of kings hath swords and scaffolds round about it;
A word might fling thee on them.

Caraffa.
Such a word
Must fall from holy lips, thenceforth unholy.

Fra Rupert.
Guided by me and courage, thou art safe.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

IN THE PALACE. Andrea and Filippa.
Andrea.
Many the stories you've repeated to me,
Lady Filippa! I have clean forgotten 'em;
But all the bloody giants every girl
Before our bed-time threw into my night-cap,
Lie safe and sound there still.

Filippa.
I quite believe
You've not the heart to drive them out, my prince.

Andrea.
Not I indeed. And then your sage advice!

Filippa.
Is all that too forgotten?

Andrea.
No, not all;
But, dear Filippa, now that I am married,
And sovran (one may say) or next door to it,
You must not give me any more advice . .
Not that I mind it; but to save appearances. [She bends: he goes, but returns suddenly.

Lady Filippa! lady seneschal!

Filippa.
My prince! command me.

Andrea.
Solve me one more question.
How happens it (while old men are so wise)
That any foolish thing, advice or story,
We call it an old woman's?

Filippa.
Prince Andrea!
I know not as for stories and advice;
I only know, when we are disappointed
In any thing, or teazed with it, we scoff
And call it an old man's.

Andrea.
Ah spiteful sex!

Filippa.
Here comes Maria: ask her no such questions.

Andrea.
I wish Fra Rupert heard your words.

Filippa.
To prove them?

Maria.
Give him a nosegay at the door.

Andrea.
He spurns
Such luxury.

Maria.
Since his arrival here,
Perfumes, they tell me, are more general
And tenfold dearer: everybody wears them
In self-defence: men take them with their daggers;
Laundresses sprinkle them on vilest linen,
Lest they be called uncleanly; round the churches
What once were clouds of incense, now are canopies
Of the same benzoin; kites could not fly thro';
The fainting penitents are prone to catch
At the priest's surplice as he passes by,
And cry, above their prayers to heaven for mercy,
Stop! stop! turn back! waft me a little yet.

Andrea.
The father is indeed more fox than civet,
And stinks out sins like sulphur and stale eggs. (To Maria.)

You will not run away with him?

Maria.
Tarantola!
Worse than most venomous tarantola,
He bites, and will not let us dance for it.

SCENE II.

IN THE GARDENS OF CAPO DI MONTE. Boccaccio and Fiammetta.
Fiammetta.
I do not know whether it be quite right
To listen, as I have, morn after morn
And evening after evening.

Boccaccio.
Are my sighs
Less welcome in the garden and the bower,
Than where loud organ bellow'd them away,
And chorister and waxlight ran between?

Fiammetta.
You sadly interrupted me at vespers:
Never do that again, sir! When I pray,
I like to pray with all my heart. Bold man!
Do you dare smile at me?

Boccaccio.
The bold man first
Was smiled at; was he not?

Fiammetta.
No, no such thing:
But if he was, it was because he sigh'd
At the hot weather he had brought with him.

Boccaccio.
At the cold weather he fear'd coming on
He sighed.

Fiammetta.
And did it come?

Boccaccio.
Too gracious lady!

Fiammetta.
Keep gracious lady for dull drawing-rooms;
Fiammetta is my name; I would know yours.

Boccaccio.
Giovanna.

Fiammetta.
That I know (aside).
I ought, alas!
Often with Acciaioli and Petrarca
I've seen you walking, but have never dared
To ask your name from them; your house's name
I mean of course; our own names stand for nothing.
You must be somebody of high estate.

Boccaccio.
I am not noble.

Fiammetta.
(shrinking back).
Oh! . . then! . .

Boccaccio.
I must go!
That is the sentence, is it not?

Fiammetta.
(runs and takes his hand).
Don't tell me
Thou art not noble: say thou art most noble:
Norman . . half-Norman . . quarter-Norman . . say it.

Boccaccio.
Say an untruth?

Fiammetta.
Only this one; my heart
Will faint without it. I will swear to think it
A truth, wilt thou but say it. 'Tis a truth:
Thy only falsehood thou hast told already,
Merely to try me. If thou art not noble . .
Noble thou art, and shalt be! [She sobs and pauses: he presses her hand to his bosom.

Who gainsays it?

Boccaccio.
A merchant's son, no better, is thy slave,
Fiammetta!

Fiammetta.
(smiling).
Now art thou disguised indeed.
Come, show me specimens of turquises,
Amethysts, emeralds, diamonds . . out with them.

Boccaccio.
A merchant's, and poor merchant's son am I;
Gems I have none to offer, but pure love
Proof to the touchstone, to the crucible.

Fiammetta.
What then or who is noble, and thou not?
I have heard whispers that myself am not so
Who am king Robert's daughter. We may laugh
At those who are, if thou and I are none.
Thou art my knight, Giovanni! There now; take [Giving him her scarf.

Thy patent of nobility, and wear it.

Boccaccio.
(kisses it).
What other but were cobweb after this?

Fiammetta.
Ha! kiss it! but take care you don't kiss me.

[Runs away.

SCENE III.

IN THE PALACE. Sancia and Filippa.
Sancia.
Even you, my dear Filippa, are alert
As any of the girls, and giddy too:
You have dropt something now you can not find.

Filippa.
I have been busy, looking here and there
To find Andrea.

Sancia.
Leave him with his bride,
Until they tire of saying tender things.

Filippa.
Untender things, I fear, are going on.
He has been truant to the friar Rupert
Of late, who threatens him with penances
For leaving some injunction unperform'd.
And more perhaps than penances are near:
For sundry captains, sundry nobles, meet
At friar Anselm's cell; thither had sped
Fra Rupert. In the garden of Saint Clara
Voices were heard, and threats; then whispers ran
Along the walls. They walkt out, one by one,
Soldiers with shuffling pace unsoldierly,
Friars with folded hands, invoking heaven,
And hotly calm as night ere burst Vesuvius.

Sancia.
Beyond the slight affronts all princes bear
From those who miss what others have obtain'd,
Andrea shall fear nothing: Heaven protects him.

Filippa.
Heaven, in its equal dispensation, gives
The pious palms, the prudent length of days.
We seek him not then with the same intent
Of warning?

Sancia.
With the same of warning; you,
Where the good angels guard; I, where the bad
Seduce him. Having reign'd, and having heard
That thither tend his wishes . .

Filippa.
Momentary.

Sancia.
But lawless wishes have returning wings
Of speed more than angelic. I would win
His private ear, lest courtiers take possession;
I would persuade him, with his lovely bride
To share all other troubles than the crown's.

SCENE IV.

IN THE PALACE. Andrea and Maria.
Andrea.
Are we then going up to Capo-Monte?
How long shall we remain there? all the night?

Maria.
Until the evening.

Andrea.
And where then?

Maria.
Aversa.

Andrea.
Ay, because there I askt her if she loved me:
Beside . . the strangest thing on earth . . young brides
Fly from the altar and roost anywhere
Rather than near it. What should frighten them?
But, if we go, why not set off directly?

Maria.
We stay because the people round the gates,
Who left too late their farms and villages
To see our queen and you, expect at noon
To follow the procession.

Andrea.
What procession?
Is there another marriage? O rare sport!

Maria.
(continuing).
From Castel-Nuovo far as Capo-Monte.

Andrea.
O glorious! But we really shall be let
Into the gardens and the groves?

Maria.
Why not?
Who should prevent us?

Andrea.
Into all? Among
The marble men and women who stand there,
And only stir by moonlight? I don't think
They stir at all: I am half-sure they don't.

Maria.
I have been always of the same opinion.

Andrea
(shakes his head).
Although he said it who says mass, I doubt it.

Maria.
Ah! but to doubt is not to be half-sure:
The worse end may stick fast, like broken tooth.

Andrea.
Now if you laugh, you make an unbeliever.
You girls are . .

Maria.
Pray what are we?

Andrea.
Cunninger.
Fra Rupert told me he would break their bones.

Maria.
Did he?

Andrea.
As bad. He'd tumble them down headlong,
If ever he once caught me looking up
Again at those who stood alert for swimming.

Maria.
When?

Andrea.
Four years back. To me they seem'd pure marble,
But Frate Rupert never could have spited
Mere marble so, although they lookt like women.
I scarcely would believe him when he said
They once were devils, but could do no harm
Now the salt water had been sprinkled on 'em,
Unless we look at them as worshippers.

Maria.
I am sure you did not.

Andrea.
No; upon my faith!

Maria.
We never stand about them; we walk on.

Andrea
(in a low voice).
What! when you are but one or two together?
I like their looks: the women are quite lovely,
And the men too (for devils) not amiss.
I wonder where they laid their plaguy scourges;
They must have had them, or were never worshipt.

Maria.
Did not the Frate tell you?

Andrea.
Ask the Frate!
He would have found them in a trice, and held
The scourges good enough, though not the devils.

Maria.
I think you mind him less than formerly.

Andrea.
I am a married man.

Maria.
But married men
Fear priests and friars more than single ones.

Andrea.
He is the holiest monk upon God's earth,
And hates you women most.

Maria.
Then the least holy.

Andrea.
Dost think it? If I thought him so, I'd fear
The beast no longer, broad as are his shoulders,
His breath . . pho! . . like a water-snake's, his fist
Heavy as those big books in chapter-houses,
And hairy as the comet; for they say
'Twas hairy; though I saw no hairs upon it.

Maria.
Whenever love comes upon thee, Andrea,
Art thou not kinder?

Andrea.
Kinder, but not holier.

Maria.
Is not thy heart more grateful?

Andrea.
As may happen;
A little thing would make it so.

Maria.
And, tell me,
Art thou not readier to give alms?

Andrea.
Tell me
How long, Maria, those bright eyes have seen
Into my thoughts? Fra Rupert knows not half one
Unless he question for an hour or better
And stamp and threaten, nor then more than half one.
I'll never fear him now: I'll tell him so.

Maria.
Be not too hasty: tell him no such thing.
But fear him not: fear rather those about him.

[Fra Rupert is prying.
Andrea.
Whom?

Maria.
His Hungarians.

Andrea.
They're my countrymen.

Maria.
Should they make all us dread them?

Andrea.
Me?

Maria.
Even you,
Under Fra Rupert, like the best, or worst.
Should they possess our kingdom?

Andrea.
My wife's kingdom?
No, by the Saints! they shall not touch her kingdom.

Fra Rupert
(crossing the farther part of the stage).
They shall not touch her kingdom . . and shalt thou?

Andrea.
I heard a voice.

Maria.
(laughing).
No doubt, no doubt, the Frate's.

Andrea.
I hear and feel him farther off than thou dost.

Maria.
Andrea! were thy ears as quick to hear
Thy friends as enemies.

Andrea.
Still would that eye
Glare over me, like the great open one
Above the throne at church, of gold and azure,
With neither brows nor lashes, but black clouds
Round it, and nought beside.

Maria.
The three eyes match,
May-be; but is there anything in church
So like his voice?

Andrea.
The organ bellows are,
Without the keys. That was not much unlike it . .
A little softer . . and not too soft, neither.

Maria.
I heard no voice whatever, not a sound.
Are you still half afraid?

Andrea.
No, if thou are not.

Maria.
Are you convinced?

Andrea.
I was not very soon.
Men weigh things longer than you women do.
Maria! take my word, I am quite sated
Of fearing, tho' (thank God!) the worst is past.

Maria.
I praise this manliness, this resolution.

Andrea.
Dost thou? Already am I grown more manly,
More resolute. O! had your praise come earlier,
And heartily as now, another man
In thought and action might have been Andrea!
But will you tell Giovanna what you think?

Maria.
I will indeed, and joyfully.

Andrea.
Her praise
Is better still: yours screws the spur on heel,
Hers scarfs the neck and lifts the lance to hand.
What's all this tinkling?

[Guitars in the next chamber; the door opens.
Maria
(smiling).
O! again Fra Rupert!
One of these voices surely must be his!
Which of them? can not you distinguish it?

Andrea
(calls out).
Who sings there?

Maria.
Do not stop them: let us hear.

Petronilla.
Ah! do not go! ah do not go
Among the silly and the idle!
A lover surely should not so
From her who loves him slip and sidle.

Garisendo.
The saltarella waits for me,
And I must go and I must play . .
Come! do not dance, but hear and see,
To-morrow we will love all day.

Andrea.
Now she is reasonable, he might spare her
A handful of his ribbons, or that net
Silver and blue there dangling down his nape.
Who is he? I don't know him.

Maria.
Garisendo.

Andrea.
And t'other?

Maria.
Petronilla.

Andrea.
Nor her neither.

Maria.
I and Giovanna know here every face.

Andrea.
And every name?

Maria.
Every one.

Andrea.
Clever creatures!

Maria.
By all those twitchings at the two guitars,
And tappings of fore-finger on the wrist,
They seem to be at fault.

Andrea.
No harm, no matter,
Zooks! they are up again; he first . . that's odd.

Maria.
Nay, but he only tells her what to sing.

Petronilla.
There is a lad upon the sea,
There is, O Mary! such a lad!
And all he thinks of, it is me.

Garisendo.
Why then, my jewel! he is mad.

Petronilla.
Mad! he is no more mad than you.

Garisendo.
Unless he stamps, and stares, and cries,
As certain pretty creatures do,
And stain their cheeks and spoil their eyes.

Petronilla.
I love, I love him with my whole . .

[Sobbing.
Garisendo.
Go on, go on: you mean to say
(I'd lay a wager) heart and soul,
And very well, no doubt, you may.

Petronilla.
No, I may not, you cruel man!
He never did what you have done,
Yet, say and do the worst you can,
I love, I love, but you alone.

Maria.
He has not much offended.

Andrea.
Who can tell?
I am quite sorry they have fallen out.
What almanack can calculate fine weather
In those strange fickle regions where God plants
A man and woman, and sticks love between!

Maria.
All the man's fault.

Andrea.
All hers: she went and teased him:
With my own eyes I saw it; so might you.

Maria.
You do not always look so melancholy
At music; yet what music can be gayer
Than this is?

Andrea.
Gayer, say you? Ay, the music.
But if folks quarrel so in joke, what will they
In earnest? If, before they're man and wife . .
Ah! Heaven be praised! there's time to break it off.
Look, look at them!

Maria.
She seems more reconciled.

Andrea.
Reconciled! I should say . .

Maria.
Pray, don't say anything.

Andrea.
Ready for . . By my troth! 'twas a salute.

Maria.
Now what things run into your head, Andrea!

Andrea.
It was as like as pea to pea, if not . .
However, let them know, another time
They must not sing about the house in that way.

Maria.
Why not?

Andrea.
Giovanna might not like it now.

Maria.
So! you would do then all she likes?

Andrea.
I would:
But if she ever hears that wicked song,
She might not do all I like. Sweet Maria!
Persuade them, when you see them, to forget it;
And, when you go to bed, turn on your pillow,
First drop it from one ear, then from the other,
And never pick it up again, God love you!

Maria.
I'll run to them directly with your wishes.

Andrea.
Stay: the last verse is clever: pick out that.

Maria.
And nothing more?

Andrea
(anxiously).
Don't overload your memory.

SCENE V.

FRA RUPERT'S CELL. Andrea and Fra Rupert.
Fra Rupert.
What! am I never to be left alone,
Andrea? Let me have my pleasures too,
Such as they are.

Andrea.
They're very much like mine.
Have we not prayed and scourged and wept together?

Fra Rupert.
Ah! were that now the case!

Andrea.
Well, father, well!
I would not stand between you and your duty:
But I thought, being prince . .

Fra Rupert
(sneering).
Thou, being prince,
Thoughtest! Thou verily not only toppest
Thyself, but most among thy fellows, lad!
And so, Andrea! being prince, thou thoughtest?

Andrea.
Good-bye, thou art as brave and blithe as ever. [Goes, but turns back.

I had one little thing upon my conscience.

Fra Rupert.
I am quite ready: let me know the whole:
Since yesterday? Nod? wink? to me?

Andrea
(to himself).
He chafes me.

Fra Rupert.
And throw thy head back thus?

Andrea.
My head's my own.

Fra Rupert.
Wonderful! be not over-sure of that. [Aside.

If thou art contrite, go!

Andrea.
I will not go;
I am not contrite.

Fra Rupert.
I am in a maze!

Andrea.
A scrape thou'rt in.

Fra Rupert.
A scrape! Who could betray me?

[To himself.
Andrea.
Thou'st lost thy lamb, old shepherd! no great pet.

Fra Rupert.
No, nor great loss: when lambs, tho', lose their shepherd
They find the shambles nearer than the fold.

Andrea.
Father! you said you must confer with me
Another time?

Fra Rupert.
I did so.

Andrea.
Why not now?

Fra Rupert.
I see not why: but soon Caraccioli,
And first Caraffa, must unbosom here.
Thou hast much power, Andrea! thou canst do
Anything now to glorify thy country.

Andrea.
Suppose I wish to swim to Ischia; could I?

Fra Rupert.
My boy! thou hast not wind enough for that.
Am I to be evaded, taunted, posed?
Or thinkest thou, Andrea, that because
A silly girl espouses thee . .

Andrea.
By Peter!
She who espouses me shall ne'er be call'd
A silly girl. I am a husband, Frate!
I am a boy no longer: I can cope
With women: and shall men then, even tho' friars,
Pretend to more? I will go back and call
The maidens: they shall pelt you from the palace
If ever you set foot within its walls.

Fra Rupert.
Should every stone from maiden hit my nose,
A grain of dust would hurt it tenfold more.

Andrea.
Know, they have tongues that yours could never meet.

Fra Rupert.
Andrea! wouldst thou kill me with unkindness?

Andrea.
Gad! he sheds tears! . . Now at him!
. . Yes, I would.

Fra Rupert.
And bring down these grey hairs . .

Andrea.
Which hairs are they?
The skull's are shaven, and the beard's are dirty;
They may be grey though.

Fra Rupert.
Shame upon thy mirth!
I am a poor old man.

Andrea.
'Tis your vocation.
Beside, I have heard say that poverty
Is the best bargain for the best place yonder
In Paradise. All prick their feet before
They clamber upward into that inclosure:
'Tis well worth while.

Fra Rupert.
Age too (alas how heavy!)
To serve my loving ward, my prince's son,
I would support still longer, willingly.

Andrea.
Frate! 'tis more than I can say for it. [Rupert creeps supplicatingly toward him.

Out of my sight! crawl back again . . I loathe thee.

SCENE VI.

Fra Rupert
(alone).
I have no malice in me: if I know
My secret heart, no heart so pure of malice:
But all my cares and vigils, hopes and dreams,
Blown by a boy, spurn'd by a brute, away!
So ends it? Blessed Stephen! not so ends it.
It ends with him, and with him only: me
No sword can touch. Why are not come those fools?
I thought the other would have kept them off.
I will have power without him, and not thro' him.
They must have clean forgotten. 'Tis the hour . .
'Tis past it . . no, not past it . . just the hour;
The bell now strikes for noon.
[A knocking.
One comes at last.

[Opens the door: Caraffa enters.
Fra Rupert.
Exactly to the moment.

Caraffa.
I was walking
About the cloister till I heard the bell,
For Father Rupert's hours are golden ones.

Fra Rupert.
May my friends spend them profitably for me!
Caraffa! thine are number'd.

Caraffa.
All men's are.

Fra Rupert.
But some are not notcht off like schoolboy's days
Anxious to see his parent. Thou may'st see
Thy parent too.

Caraffa.
I left him but just now.

Fra Rupert.
We all have one, one whom we all have left
Too often. Hast thou not some sins for me?

Caraffa.
As many as a man could wish to have.

Fra Rupert.
Are there none dangerous? none involving life?
Hast thou forgotten our last conference?

Caraffa.
No, nor shall ever. But what danger there?

Fra Rupert.
Need I to say, Francesco, that no breath
Transpired from me? We both were overheard.

Caraffa.
I think you hinted it.

Fra Rupert.
I fear'd it only.
Thou knowest my fond love . . I will not say
For thee . . thou art but second in my breast . .
Poor, poor Andrea!

Caraffa.
Never fear about him.
Giovanna, even tho' she did not love,
(O that she did not!) yet would never wrong him.

Fra Rupert.
Nay, God forbid she should! 'Twas not for me
To mark her looks, her blushes, gestures . . how
Faltered the word “Caraffa” as she spoke it.
Thy father then said nothing?

Caraffa.
Not a word;
What should he?

Fra Rupert.
Not a word. Old men are close:
And yet I doubted . . I am apt to doubt . .
Whether he might not . . for ambition stirs
Most fathers . . just let slip . . Why didst thou falter?
For never faltered child as thou didst falter.
Thou knowest then her mind better than we?

Caraffa.
I know it? I divine it? Would I did!

Fra Rupert.
Nay, rather let the bubble float along
Than break it: the rich colours are outside.
Everything in this world is but a bubble,
The world itself one mighty bubble, we
Mortals, small bubbles round it!

Caraffa.
Frate! Frate!
Thou art a soapy one! No catching thee! [Aside.
[Aloud.]

What hopes thou showest me! If these were solid
As thou, most glorious bubble who reflect'st them,
Then, then indeed, to me from this time forth
The world, and all within the world, were bubbles.

Fra Rupert.
A knight art thou, Caraffa! and no title
(Secular title, mind! secular title)
Save only royalty, surpasses knighthood.
There is no condescension in a queen
Placing her foot within the palm of knight,
And springing from it on her jewel'd saddle:
No condescension is there if she lend
To theirs the sceptre who lent hers the sword.
Knights there have been, and are, where kings are not,
Kings without knights what are they?

Caraffa.
Norman blood
Runs in my veins as in her own: no king
(Savage or tame) shall stand above those knights
Who raised his better to the throne he won:
Of such am I. But what am I before
Giovanna! to adore, to worship her,
Is glory far above the chiselling
Of uncouth kings, or dashing them to earth:
O be it mine!

Fra Rupert.
Perhaps some other Norman
May bear less tamely the new yoke; perhaps
A Filangieri may, this very night . .

Caraffa.
No Filangieri ever stoopt to treachery.
No sword of Norman ever struck by night.
Credulous monk! to me name Filangieri!
Quellers of France and England as we are,
And jealous of precedency, no name
(Offence to none) is higher than Filangieri.

Fra Rupert.
Boaster!

Caraffa.
I boast of others; few do that
Who merit such a title.

Fra Rupert.
Lower thy crest;
Pause! thou art in my hands.

Caraffa.
I am in God's.

Fra Rupert
(mildly, after hesitation).
Who knows but God hath chosen thee, amid
His ministers of wrath, to save thy country
And push oppression from her! Dreams and signs
Miraculous have haunted me.

Caraffa.
Thee, Frate!

Fra Rupert.
Me, even me. My ministry is over:
Marriage ends pupilage, and royalty
Ends friendship. Little is it short of treason
To say that kings have friends.

Caraffa.
How short of treason
I know not, but I know how wide of truth.

Fra Rupert.
Listen! There are designs against the life
Of young Andrea.

Caraffa.
By the saints above!
I hope there are not.

Fra Rupert.
If thy name be found
Among conspirators (and those are call'd
Conspirators who vindicate their country)
Where thy sword is, there must thy safety be.
The night for vengeance is the marriage-night.

Caraffa.
I draw the sword without defiance first?
I draw the sword uninjured? Whom against?
Against a life so young! so innocent
Of any guile! a bridegroom! in his bed!
O! is this horror only at the crime?
Or is it . . No, by heaven! 'tis heaven's own horror
At such unmanly deed. I, Frate! I,
Caraffa, stain with tears Giovanna's cheek!
I sprinkle poison on the flowers she smells!

Fra Rupert
(resolutely).
Hark ye, Caraffa! If the public good . .

Caraffa.
Away with public good! Was never book
Put in my hand? was never story told me?
Show me one villain vile beyond the rest,
Did not that villain talk of public good?

Fra Rupert.
Only at friars are Caraffa's stabs.
Valiant and proud and wealthy as thou art,
Thou may'st have nothing left on earth to-morrow.

Caraffa.
I shall have more to-morrow than to-day.
My honour may shoot up all in one night,
As did some tree we read of.

Fra Rupert.
Thou art rash.

Caraffa.
Rashness may mellow into courage; time
Is left me.

Fra Rupert.
For thy prayers.

Caraffa.
My prayer then is,
Peace, safety, glory, joy, to our Giovanna!

Fra Rupert.
Thou may'st depart.

Caraffa
(indignantly).
For ever.

[Goes.
Fra Rupert.
He says well.

Caraccioli enters.
Fra Rupert
(smiling and embracing him).
Caraccioli! without our friend Caraffa!

Caraccioli.
He should have been here first.

Fra Rupert
(aside).
Perfectly safe!
I did not follow him into the cloister.

Caraccioli.
Father! you seem as pondering to yourself
How that wild fellow kept his word so ill;
Caraffa-like!

Fra Rupert.
I keep mine well with him.

Caraccioli.
He should have thought of that.

Fra Rupert.
He had no time.

Caraccioli.
Always so kind! so ready with your plea
For little imperfections! Our Francesco,
Somewhat hot-headed, is warm-hearted too.

Fra Rupert.
His petty jealousy about the queen
(Were there no sin behind it) we might smile at.
Caraffa stands not with Caraccioli.

Caraccioli.
On the same level . . there particularly.

Fra Rupert.
Ho! ho! you laugh and jeer about each other?

Caraccioli.
We might. How she would laugh at two such ninnies!

Fra Rupert.
At one, most certainly. But laughing girls
Often like grave men best. There's something grand
As well as grave even in the sound “Caraccioli.”

Caraccioli.
I have no hopes.

Fra Rupert.
How I rejoice to hear it!
Hopes are but wishes, wishes are but sin,
And, fed with ranker exhalations, poison.

Caraccioli.
The subtilest consumes me.

Fra Rupert.
What?

Caraccioli.
Despair.

Fra Rupert.
Violets and primroses lie under thorns
Often as asps and adders; and we find
The unexpected often as the expected,
The pleasant as the hideous.

Caraccioli.
That may be,
But what avails your lesson? whither tends it?

Fra Rupert.
My son! I hear from those who know the world
And sweep its noisome litter to my cell,
There are mild days when love calls love abroad
As birds call birds, and even leaves call leaves:
Moments there are, my poor Caraccioli!
Moments in which the labyrinth of the ear
At every turn of its proclivity
Grows warmer, and holds out the clue, itself:
Severity should not beget despair.
I would not much encourage thee, nor yet
Dash all thy hopes, however inconsiderate,
For hopes there may be, though there should not be,
Flickering even upon despondency.
There may be sounds in certain names to smite
The stagnant heart, and swell its billows high
Over wide spaces, over distant years . .
There may; but who would utter them and know it?
Delicate is the female sense, yet strong
In cherishing and resenting; very prompt
At hiding both, and hating the discoverer.
Never, my Paolo! look too deeply in,
Or thou may'st find what thou art looking for.
Not that she ever said one word against thee;
She even lower'd her voice in naming thee,
Seeing her sister and the rest sit giggling,
“Anything else! anything else!” said she,
And snapt the thread she workt with, out of spite.
A friend, who hopes the best, may tell the worst.
Patience will weary; even Giovanna's patience.
I could go farther, and relate . . but why
Why ('tis too light to touch upon) relate
The little hurt she gave Filippa's ancle
With that lark heel of hers, by twitching it
Uneasily? O the impatient sex!
She did shed . . tears I will not say . . a tear . .
Shed it! no, I am wrong: it came, it stayed,
As hangs one star, the first and only one,
Twinkling, upon some vernal evening.

Caraccioli.
I am but clay beneath her feet. Alas!
Clay there would quicken into primal man,
Glorified and immortal once again.

Fra Rupert.
Thou art too hot, my Paolo! One pulse less
In the half-hour might have been rather better.
Lovest thou our Francesco?

Caraccioli.
Like a brother.

Fra Rupert.
He should not then have brought thy life in peril.
Andrea is quite furious: all at court
Are sworn upon thy ruin.

Caraccioli.
Upon mine?
I will then calmly tell them they are wrong.

Fra Rupert.
Will they as calmly hear? Francesco said,
Imprudent youth! you boasted of remembering
Every the lightest mole about Giovanna.

Caraccioli.
I say it?

Fra Rupert.
Those were not your words?

Caraccioli.
My words!

Fra Rupert.
Certainly not . . precisely.

Caraccioli.
Holy Mary!
Is there in Naples, Hungary, or Hell,
The monster who dares utter them?

Fra Rupert.
'Tis hard
Our friend should be the very man.

Caraccioli.
'Tis false,
Frate! 'tis false: my friend is not the man.

[Bursts away.
Fra Rupert
(sneering).
I will not follow him into the cloister.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

IN THE GARDEN OF CAPO DI MONTE. Boccaccio and Fiammetta.
Boccaccio.
(sings).
[Fiammetta comes forward.

Fiammetta.
To come into the air?
I like it. They are all at their merenda.
The smell of melon overpowers me quite;
I could not bear it; therefore I just come
Into the air to be revived a little.
And you too here? Sly as the satyr-head [Affecting surprise.

Under yon seat!

Boccaccio.
Did you not tell me?

Fiammetta.
I?
You dreamt it.

Boccaccio.
Let me dream then on? Without
Such dreams, Fiammetta, dull would be the sleep
Call'd life.

Fiammetta
(looking round timidly).
I must be broad awake.

Boccaccio.
You must.

Fiammetta
(nodding).
And you. All are indulgent to me; most
Of all queen Sancia and Giovanna.

Boccacio.
One
A saint, the other better.

Fiammetta.
Then the grave.
Filippa . .

Boccaccio.
Grave and watchful.

Fiammetta.
Not a word
Against her! I do hold her in my heart,
Although she gives me good advice sometimes.

Boccaccio.
I'm glad to hear it; for the very worthy
Are very rarely general favourites.

Fiammetta.
Some love our friend most cordially; those know her:
Others there are who hate her; those would know her
And can not: for she stands aloof and thanks them:
Remoter, idler, neither love nor hate,
Nor care about her; and the worst and truest
They say of her, is, that her speech is dark.

Boccaccio.
Doubtless, the vulgar eye will take offence
If cedar chambers are unwasht with lime.

Fiammetta.
But why are you come here?

Boccaccio.
To gaze, to sigh,
And, O Fiammetta! tell me if . . to live.

Fiammetta
(laughing).
I never saw more signs of life in any.

Boccaccio.
Cruel!

Fiammetta.
To find the signs of life in you?

Boccaccio.
To scoff them out.

Fiammetta.
I am incapable. [Boccaccio rises, and steps back, gazing fondly.

O now, Giovanni! I am terrified!
Why! you sprang up . . as if you sprang to kiss me!
Did ever creature think of such a thing?

Boccaccio.
The drooping blades of grass beneath your feet
Think of it; the cold runlet thinks of it;
The pure sky (how it smiles upon us!) thinks of it . .
I will no more then think of it.

[Kisses her.
Fiammetta.
Giovanni!
Ah! I shall call you (wretch!) to task for this.

Boccaccio.
Call; and, by heaven! I'll come, tho' from the grave.

Fiammetta.
Any one now would say you thought me handsome.

Boccaccio.
Earth has two beauties; her Bellagio
And Anacapri; earth's inhabitants
Have only one among them.

Fiammetta.
Whom?

Boccaccio.
Fiammetta.

[Going.
Fiammetta.
Where are you running now? Stay! tho' quite angry,
I am not yet so angry as I should be:
But, if you ever take such liberties
Again!

Boccaccio.
O never! . . till we reach Aversa.

Fiammetta.
And will you there? and tell me to my face? [Is departing.

Wait, wait for pardon. Must we part? so soon?
So long a time?

Boccaccio.
Till star-light.

Fiammetta.
Stay a moment.

Boccaccio.
Gladly a life: but my old mule loves walking
And meditation. Now the mask and dress,
And boy to carry them, must all be found.

Fiammetta.
Boy, mask, dress, mule! speed, gallop, to Aversa!

Boccaccio.
So many kisses lie upon this hand,
Mine hardly reach it.

Fiammetta.
Lips there may have been;
Had there been kisses, I must sure have felt them,
As I did yours . . at least I thought I did . .
But go, for I am half afraid of you . .
That is, of your arriving yonder late.
Go, else the crowd may stop you; and perhaps
I might delay you for some sudden fancy,
Or . . go your ways . . not let you go at all.

SCENE II.

FRA RUPERT'S CELL. Fra Rupert, alone.
[Fra. Rupert]
I wisht him power; for what was his was mine;
I wisht him jealousy, distrust, aversion
For his pert bride, that she might have no share.
I never fail'd before this wretched day.
Fail'd! I have not: I will possess my rights,
Spring over him, and never more be spurn'd.
They who had rais'd his seat shall stablish mine,
Without those two vain boys: O! had they done it!
And not been where they are! The fault was theirs.

Maximin enters.
Fra Rupert.
Maximin! since thy services may soon
Be call'd for, satchel on thee my experience,
Then set about thy work. My Maximin!
Mind how thou liest! Know, if lie thou must,
Lies, while they sap their way and hold their tongues,
Are safe enough: when breath gets into them,
They, and the work about them, may explode.
Maximin! there are more lies done than said.
Son! when we hesitate about the right,
We're sure to do the wrong.

Maximin.
I don't much hesitate.

Fra Rupert.
To chain a dog and to unchain a dog
Is hazardous alike, while the deaf beast
Stands barking: he must sleep; then for the cord.

Maximin.
What! are my services in some farm-yard?
I am a soldier.

Fra Rupert.
All great statesmen have been.
How large a portion of the world is each
In his own eyes.

Maximin.
Am I so proud in saying
I am a soldier?

Fra Rupert.
I am proud of thee:
Be that sufficient. Give thou every man
What he requires of thee.

Maximin.
A world to each?

Fra Rupert.
Not so: yet hold not up to him a glass
That shows him less, or but some digits greater.

Maximin.
Honestly now, Fra Rupert, by my cross!
No gull art thou. I knew that trick myself,
And (short the digits) told it word for word.

Fra Rupert.
I will be sworn for thee. Being minister.
(Not that I think it certain just at present,
For when the sage and honest are most wanted,
That is the chink of time they all drop through)
But when thou art so, mind this precept. One
Not wise enough to keep the wiser off
Should never be a minister of state.

Maximin.
Fra Rupert! presto! make me one to-day.
Give fifty precepts, there they go [Blowing]
but this,
I'll kiss the cross and the queen's hand, and keep.

Fra Rupert.
I make thee minister!

Maximin.
You can make kings.

Fra Rupert.
Not even those! I might have made Andrea
What thou and every true Hungarian
Wisht him to be, ere he show'd hoof for claw,
And thought to trample down his countrymen.

Maximin.
Andrea bloody-minded! turtle-doves
Are bloody-minded then, and leave their elm,
The first day's mating, for the scent of gore.

Fra Rupert.
Maximin! here is no guitar for thee,
Else mightest thou sip that pure poetry
Preciously warm and frothy from the udder.

Maximin.
Father! if any in our troop call'd me
A poet, he should sing for it.

Fra Rupert.
Thou'rt brave,
Maximin! and Andrea is not bloody.
But there are princes, or have been within
Our memory, who, when blood gusht forth like water
From their own people, stood upon some bridge
Or island, waving their plumed caps, and drank
The cries of dying men with drunken ears.

Maximin.
Curses, eternal curses, man's and God's,
Upon such heathens!

Fra Rupert.
Nay, they were not heathens;
Happily they were christians, Maximin!
Andrea, though myself instructed him,
Is treacherous. Better were this pasty people
Dissolved, washt down, than brave Hungarians perish.

Maximin.
No truer word prophet or saint e'er spoke.

Fra Rupert
(sighing).
Saint hath not spoken it: O may not prophet!

Maximin.
I, being neither, can not understand you.

Fra Rupert.
The innocent, the helpless, are surrounded.

Maximin.
Andrea?

Fra Rupert.
My Andrea would betray us.

Maximin.
To whom? Are we the helpless? we the innocent?

Fra Rupert.
While he is yonder at Aversa, we
Are yelling thro' these very streets for mercy.

Maximin.
I cry you mercy, father! When I yell,
I'll borrow whistles from some thirty good
Neapolitans, who 'll never want them more.

Fra Rupert.
Be ready then! be ready for Aversa!
Glory stands there before thee; seize the traitor,
Win wealth, win jewels, win . . What have not palaces
For brave young men upon such nights as these?

Maximin.
Would'st bid me stick Andrea?

Fra Rupert.
Hungary,
Not I; our country, not revenge.

Maximin.
Bids murder?
I will proclaim thy treason thro' the camp.

Fra Rupert.
Unhappy son, forbear! By thy sweet mother!
Upon my knees! Upon my knees before
A mortal man! Yea, Rupert! bend thy head;
Thy own son's hand should, and shall, spill thy blood.

[Maximin starts, then hesitates, then rushes at him.
Maximin.
Impudent hound! I'll have thy throat for that.

Fra Rupert
(guards his throat).
Parricide! make me not cry murder . . love
Forbids it . . rather die! My son! my son!
Hide but thy mother's shame; my shame, not hers. [Maximin relaxes his grasp.

Maximin! stand between the world and it?
Oh! what avails it! sinner as I am!
Other worlds witness it. [Maximin looses hold.

My Maximin?

[Rupert embraces him.
Maximin.
Why, how now, Frate! hath some wine-vault burst
And fuddled thee? we know thou never drinkest.

Fra Rupert.
That lighter sin won't save me.

Maximin.
If light sins
Could save us, I have many a bushelful,
And little need your sentry-boxes yonder.

Fra Rupert
(very mildly).
I must reprove (my own dear child!) (Passionately)

. . I must
Reprove, however gently, such irreverence.
Confessionals are sentry-boxes! true!
And woe betide the sentry that naps there!
Woe, if he spare his voice, his prayer, his curse!

Maximin.
Curses we get dog-cheap; the others, reasonable.

Fra Rupert.
Sweet Maximin! whatever my delight
In gazing on those features (for sharp shame,
When love blows over it from lands afar,
Tingles with somewhat too, too like delight!)
We must now part. Thy fortune lies within
My hands. To-night, if thy own officers
Command thee to perform a painful office . .

Maximin.
Good father! what know we of offices?
Let them command a duty, and 'tis done.

Fra Rupert.
Discreet tho'! Maximin! discreet! my marrow!
Let not a word escape thee, not a breath.
Blessings, my tender kid! We must walk on
(I love thee so!) together thro' the cloister.

Maximin.
No, father! no; too much!

Fra Rupert.
Too much for thee!

[Rupert precedes, speaks to three men, who bow and retire; he disappears.
Maximin
(loitering in the cloister).
Incredible! yet friars and cockroaches
Creep thro' all rooms, and like the closet best.
Let me consider! can it be? how can it?
He is bare fifty; I am forty-one.

SCENE III.

THE GARDEN OF FRIAR ANSELM'S CONVENT. Fra Rupert, Klapwrath, Zinga, and Psein.
Fra Rupert.
Ye brave supporters of Hungarian power
And dignity! O Zinga! Klapwrath! Psein!
Becomes it me to praise (we may admire
Those whom to praise were a temerity)
Such men as you.

Psein.
Us? we are only captains.

Zinga.
After hard service we are nothing more.

Klapwrath.
Twenty-three years hath Klapwrath rid and thirsted.

Fra Rupert.
Ingratitude! the worst of human crimes,
Hardly we dare to say; so flat and stale,
So heavy with sick sobs from mouth to mouth,
The ejaculation. To my mind scarce witchery
Comes up to it.

Psein.
Hold! father! For that sin
Either we deal with devils or old women.

Fra Rupert.
Man was created of the dust; to make
The fragile mass cohesive, were employed
The bitter waters of ingratitude.

[Affects to weep.
Klapwrath.
Weeping will never rinse that beaker, Frate!

Fra Rupert.
It is not for myself.

Zinga.
We see it is not.

Fra Rupert.
Ye can not see deep into me.

Psein.
Few can.

Fra Rupert.
Ye can not see the havoc made within
By ever-dear Andrea.

Zinga.
Havoc?

Fra Rupert.
Havoc!

Klapwrath.
I like the word: purses and rings hang round it,
Necklaces, brooches, and indented armlets.

Psein.
But, ere we reach 'em, ugly things enough,
Beside the broken swords that lie below
And brave men brandisht in the morning light.

Klapwrath.
Brave men then should not cross us; wise men don't.

Fra Rupert.
Your spirit all attest; but those the least
Whose safety hangs upon your saddle-skirts.
Men are not valued for their worth in Italy:
Of the same price the apple and the peach,
The service and the fig.

Zinga.
Well, there they beat us.

Psein.
Whatever they may be, we can not help it.

Fra Rupert.
Help it, I say, ye can; and ye shall help it,
Altho' I perish for ye.

Klapwrath.
Then indeed,
Frate! some good might come of it; but wilt thou?

Fra Rupert.
Abandon to his fate my poor Andrea!
Has he not slept upon this bosom?

Klapwrath.
Has he?
He must have had some scratches on his face.

Fra Rupert.
Has he not eaten from this hand?

Klapwrath.
Why then,
He'll never die for want of appetite.

Fra Rupert.
Have we not drunk our water from one bowl?

Klapwrath.
Father! you were not very liberal;
He might have drunk the whole of mine, and welcome.

Fra Rupert.
How light ye make of life!

Zinga.
Faith! not so light;
I think it worth a tug, for my part of it;
Nor would I leave our quarters willingly.

Psein.
O the delight of floating in a bath,
One hand athwart an orange-bough, the other
Flat on the marble pavement, and our eyes
Wandering among those figures round the arch
That scatter flowers, and laugh at us, and vie
With one another which shall tempt us most!
Nor is it undelightful, in my mind,
To let the curly wave of the warm sea
Climb over me, and languishingly chide
My stopping it, and push me gently away.

Klapwrath.
Water, cold, tepid, hot, is one to me.
The only enemy to honest wine
Is water; plague upon it!

Zinga.
So say I.

Fra Rupert.
Three braver friends ne'er met. Hei! hei! hei! hei!
The very name of friend! You can not know
What love I bear Andrea!

Psein.
All the world
Knows it.

Frate.
The mischief he designs, who guesses?

Psein.
All boys are mischievous.

Fra Rupert.
Alas! but mischief
There might be without treachery.

Psein.
Poor Andrea!
So little fit for it!

Fra Rupert.
Frank generous souls
Always are first to suffer from it, last
To know it when they meet it.

Klapwrath.
Who shall harm
Our own king's colt? Who moves, speaks, looks, against him,
Why! that man's shroud is woven, and spread out.

Fra Rupert.
Let mine then be! would it had been so ere
I saw this day!

Psein.
What has he done?

Fra Rupert.
To me
All kindness ever. Why such mad resolves
Against the lives of his most sure defenders?
Against his countrymen, his guards, his father's
Most chosen friends?

Zinga.
Against your life?

Fra Rupert.
No! no!
Heaven protects me; he sees it; nor indeed
(To do him justice) has he such a heart.
But why ask me to aid him? Why ask me
Whether he was as strong at heart as Zinga,
Dexterous at sword as Klapwrath, such a fool . .
Pardon! your pardon, gentlemen!

[Looking at Psein.
Psein.
As Psein.

Fra Rupert.
The very word! Who else dared utter it?
I give him up! I almost give him up!

Klapwrath.
He shall not rule us. The best blood of Hungary
Shall not be pour'd this night upon the wine.

Fra Rupert.
If you must leave the country . . and perhaps
No worse may reach the greater part of you . .

Psein.
I have no mind to leave it.

Zinga.
None shall drive us.

Klapwrath.
The wines of Hungary strive hard with these,
Yet Klapwrath is contented; he hates change.

Zinga.
Let us drink these out first, and then try those.

Fra Rupert.
Never will come the day when pine-root fire
And heavy cones puff fragrance round the room,
And two bluff healthy children drag along
(One by the ear, the other by the scut)
A bulging hare for supper; where each greyhound
Knows his own master, leaps up, hangs a foot
Inward, and whimpers piteously to see
Flagons go round, then off for bread and lard.
Those were your happy times; unless when foray
Stirr'd ye to wrath, and beeves and swine and trulls
(Tempting ye from propriety) heapt up
A mount of sins to strive against; abduction
Of linen-chests, and those who wove the linen;
And shocking oaths obscene, and well-nigh acts;
Fracture of cellar-doors, and spinning-wheels;
And (who can answer for you) worse, worse, worse!

Klapwrath.
'Sblood! Frate! runs no vine-juice in our arteries?
Psein's forehead starts wry veins upon each side;
His nostrils blow so hot they'll crack my boots.

Zinga.
Must we move hence?

Fra Rupert.
To die like sheep? like conies?
Ye shall not die alone; I will die with you.
There have been kings who sacrificed their sons.
Abraham would have done it; Pagans have;
But guardians such as I am! . .

Klapwrath.
Frate! Frate!
Don't tear those tindery rags, or they will quit thee
With only horse-hair under, and some stiffer.

Fra Rupert.
You conquer me, you conquer me, I yield.
He was not bloody. Could it end with one!
And we knew which . . or two, or three.

Zinga.
But us?

Fra Rupert.
“If once the captains of the companies,”
Said he . . and then, I own, he said no more:
He saw me shudder, and he sped away.

Klapwrath.
Are we to hold our throats out to the knife?

Fra Rupert.
Patience! dear doubtful Klapwrath! mere suspicion!
He did not say the knife, or sword, or halter,
He might have meant the scaffold; nothing worse;
Deprive you he might not of all distinction,
Nay, might spare one or other of you yet:
Why then prevent what may need no prevention?
Slyer are few; many more sanguinary:
Must we (don't say it) give him up? I hope
He's mischievous through weakness, not malignity.

Zinga.
What matters that? A feather-bed may stifle us
(If we will let it) with a babe to press it.
Is there no other prince in Hungary
Fit to maintain us here?

Fra Rupert.
The very thought
That came into my head!

Psein.
But when ours fall,
What matters it who leaps upon his horse
To overlook our maintenance? A fool
I may be; can his wisdom answer that?

Zinga.
He doubts my courage, bringing thus his own
Against it. He's a boy: were he a man,
No injury, no insult, no affront . .
Every man is as brave as I . . Stop there!
By all my saints! (He shows several about him)
by all my services!
This hilt shall smash his teeth who dares say, “braver.”

Klapwrath.
What I am you know best, at battling it;
Nothing is easier: but I've swum two nights
And days together upon Baian wine,
And so have ye: 'twould swamp that leaky nump-skull.
Behead us; good! but underrate us; never!

Fra Rupert.
Having thus clear'd our consciences, and shown
Our purity in face of day, we swear . .

[Hesitates.
Zinga.
Frate, if you don't grudge an oath or two . .

Fra Rupert.
Death to Andrea! loyalty to Lewis!

All.
Hurrah!

Fra Rupert.
Sweet friends! profane not thus the cloister!
Leave me to weep for him! the cruel boy!

SCENE IV.

PALACE OF AVERSA; SALOON OVERLOOKING THE GARDEN. Sancia, Filippa, Maria, Fiammetta.
Maria.
Ha! here they come again. See! lady Sancia
Leaning upon Filippa. They are grown
Wiser, and will not barter songs for griefs.

Boccaccio
sings.

Fiammetta
(to Filippa).
I wish he would come nearer, just to see
How my hair shines, powder'd with dust of gold:
I think he then would call me . .

Maria.
What?

Fiammetta.
Fiammetta.

Filippa.
He hardly . . poet as he seems to be . .
Such as he is . . could feign a better name.
He does not seem to be cut out for singing.

Fiammetta.
I would not have his voice one tittle altered.
The poetry is pretty . . She says nothing.
The poetry is charming . . Now she hears me.
The most delightful poetry! . . O lady
Filippa! not one praise for it! not one!
I never dreamt you were yourself a poet.

Filippa.
These summer apples may be palatable,
But will not last for winter; the austere
And wrinkle-rinded have a better chance.
Throw a whole honeycomb into a haystalk,
It may draw flies, but never will feed horses.
From these same cogs (eternally one tune)
The mill has floured us with such dust all over
As we must shake off, or die apoplectic.
Your gentle silken-vested swains may wish
All poetry one sheepfold.

Maria.
Sheep are well,
Like men and most things, in their proper places,
But when some prancing knight would entertain us,
Some gallant, brightening every gem about him,
I would not have upon the palace-steps
A hind cry out, “Make way there for my sheep.”
They say (not speaking of this woolsy race)
They say that poets make us live for ever.

Filippa.
Sometimes the life they lend is worse than none,
Shorn of its glory, shrivel'd up for want
Of the fresh air of virtue.

Fiammetta.
Yet, to live!
O! and to live by those we love so well!

Filippa.
If such irregularities continue
After to-night, when freedoms are allowed,
We must lock up the gardens, rigorously
Forbidding all the inmates of the palace.
To use the keys they have.

Fiammetta.
The good king Robert
Sooner had driven out the nightingales
Than the poor timid poets.

Filippa.
Timid poets!
What breed are they of?

Fiammetta.
Such as sing of love.

Filippa.
The very worst of all; the boldest men!

Maria.
Nay; not the boldest; very quarrelsome,
Tragic and comic, hot and cold, are so;
And so are nightingales; the gardener
Has told me; and the poets do no worse
Than they do. Here and there they pluck a feather
From one another, here and there a crumb;
But, for hard fighting, fair straightforward fighting,
With this one nosegay I could beat them all.
In good king Robert's day were lute and lyre;
Nor hardly dare we hang them on the nail,
But run away and throw them down before
The boisterous drum and trumpet hoarse with rage.
Let poetry and music, dear Filippa,
Gush forth unfrozen and uncheckt!

Filippa.
Ah child!
Thy fancy to some poet hath inflamed:
Believe me they are dangerous men.

Maria.
No men
Are dangerous.

Filippa.
O my child!

Maria.
The very creatures
Whom God has given us for our protection.

Filippa.
But against whom?

Maria.
I never thought of that.

Fiammetta.
Somebody told me once that good king Robert
Gave keys to three or four, who neither were
Nor would be constant inmates of the court.

Maria.
Who might and would not! This is an enigma.
They must have felt then very low indeed.
Among our glass-house jewels newly set,
I have seen vile ones, and have laught to think
How nicely would my slipper pat their faces;
They never felt thus low.

Sancia.
We feel it for them.
Prescriptively, we leave to our assayers
To stamp the currency of gold and brass.

Fiammetta
(to Filippa).
Have you not prais'd the king your very self
For saying to Petrarca, as he did,
“Letters are dearer to me than my crown,
And, were I forced to throw up one or other,
Away should go the diadem, by Jove!”

Sancia.
Thou art thy very father. Kiss me, child!
His father said it, and thy father would.
When shall such kings adorn the throne again!

Fiammetta.
When the same love of what Heaven made most lovely
Enters their hearts; when genius shines above them,
And not beneath their feet.

[Goes up to Giovanni.
Sancia
(to Filippa).
Rapturous girl!
Warmth ripens years and wisdom. She discourses
Idly as other girls on other things.

Filippa.
That ripening warmth fear I.

Sancia.
Portending what?

Filippa.
Ah, gracious lady! sweetest fruits fall soonest . .

Sancia.
(Who sweeter?)

Filippa.
And are bruised the most by falling.

Maria
(joining them).
Sicily and myself are disagreed.
Surely the man who sang must have thick fingers.
He play'd so badly: but his voice is sweet,
For all its trembling.

Fiammetta.
Now I think the trembling
Makes it no worse. I wish he would go on.

Maria.
Evidently the song should finish there.

Fiammetta.
Evidently it should go on . . (aside)
for ever.

Maria.
Ho! ho! you are not cruel to the knight?

Fiammetta.
It is no knight at all.

Sancia.
How know you that?

Maria.
You would be frightened . .

Fiammetta.
He could never frighten.

Maria.
If tilting. .

Fiammetta.
Nobody would hurt Giovanni.

SCENE V.

Andrea, Maria, and Fiammetta.
Andrea.
So! you too have been listening, every soul,
I warrant ye.

Maria.
And have you too, Andrea?

Andrea.
From that snug little watch-tower: 'twas too high;
I only lookt upon the tops of trees.
See! him there! maskt! under the mulberry!

Fiammetta.
I do not see him . . Look for him elsewhere:
That is a shadow.

Andrea.
Think you so? It may be.
And the guitar?

Fiammetta.
What! that great yellow toad-stool?

Andrea.
How like is everything we see by starlight!

Fiammetta
(aside).
If there were not a star in all the sky,
Every one upon earth would know Giovanni!

Andrea.
I wish the mulberries were not past, that dozens
Might drop upon him, and might speckle over
His doublet: we should see it like a trout
To-morrow, white and crimson, and discover
The singer of this nonsense about light.

Fiammetta.
If you don't like it, pray don't listen to it.

Maria
(maliciously).
Then let us come away.

Fiammetta.
Pray do.

Maria
(taking her arm).
Come.

Fiammetta
(peevishly).
No.

Maria.
Listen! another song!

Fiammetta.
Hush! for Heaven's sake!
O! will you never listen? All this noise!

Maria.
Laughter might make some; smiles are much too silent.

Fiammetta.
Well; you have stopt him; are you now content?

Maria.
Quite, quite; if you are.

Fiammetta.
He begins again!
Hush! for the hope of Paradise! O hush!

Boccaccio
sings.
List! list ye to another tale!

Fiammetta.
No; he who dares tell one
To other ears than one's shall fail.

Boccaccio.
I sing for her alone.

Andrea.
I have a mind to be . .

Maria.
What? prince!

Andrea.
What? angry.

Maria.
Not you.

Andrea.
Not I? Why, who should hinder me?

Maria
(coaxing).
No, no; you won't be angry, prince!

Andrea.
I said
Half-angry, and resolve to keep my word.

Maria.
Anger is better, as pomegranates are,
Split into halves, and losing no small part.

Andrea.
I never heard such truth about pomegranates!
What was the other thing we reason'd on?
Ho! now I recollect, as you shall see.

[Goes: all follow.

SCENE VI.

GARDEN. Andrea, Maria, Fiammetta, and Boccaccio.
Andrea.
Keep back: where thieves may be, leave men alone.
Now for drawn swords! Where are they; slipt behind
The mulberry: wisely schemed! 'twon't do! come forth!
Yield! tremble like a poplar-leaf! Who art thou?

[Seizing Boccaccio.
Boccaccio.
King Robert, sir, respected me.

Andrea.
Did he?
Did he? Then far more highly should Andrea.
Sicily! treat him kindly. We may all,
Even you and I, commit an indiscretion.
How the stars twinkle! how the light leaves titter!
And there are secret quiverings in the herbs,
As if they all knew something of the matter,
And wisht it undisturb'd. To-night no harm
Shall happen to the worst man in Aversa.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

PALACE OF AVERSA. Andrea and Giovanna.
Giovanna.
How gracefully thou sattest on thy horse,
Andrea!

Andrea.
Did I?

Giovanna.
He curveted so,
Sidled and pranced and croucht and plunged again,
I almost was afraid, but dared not say it.

Andrea.
Castagno is a sad curvetting rogue.

Giovanna.
'Twas not Castagno; 'twas Polluce.

Andrea.
Was it?
How canst thou tell, Giovanna?

Giovanna.
I can tell.

Andrea.
All at hap-hazard: I am very sure
'Twas not the horse you lookt at; nor did I
Think about riding, or about the palfrey,
Crimson and gold, half palfrey and half ostrich.
But thou too ridest like a queen, my dove!

Giovanna.
So very like one? Would you make me proud?

Andrea.
God forbid that! I love thee more for beauty.
Ne'er put on pride, my heart! thou dost not want it;
Many there are who do; cast it to them
Who can not do without it, empty souls!
Ha! how you look! is it surprise or pleasure?

Giovanna.
Pleasure, my love! I will obey with pleasure
This your first order. But indeed, my husband,
You must not look so fondly when the masks come,
For you and I, you know, shall not be masked.

Andrea.
A pretty reason for not looking fond!
Must people then wear masks for that?

Giovanna.
Most do.
I never saw such fondness as some masks
Presented.

Andrea.
Thou hast never seen half mine;
Thou shalt; and then shalt thou sit judge between us.
We have not spoken more to-day, my chuck,
Than many other days, yet thou appearest
Wiser than ever. I have gain'd from thee
More than I gave.

Giovanna.
And, without flattery,
I am more pleas'd with your discourse than ever.

Andrea
(fondly).
No, not than ever. In this very room
Didst thou not give to me this very hand
Because I talked so well?

Giovanna.
We foolish girls
Are always caught so.

Andrea.
Always kept so, too?
Well, we must see about it then, in earnest.

Giovanna.
Andrea! one thing see to: pray inquire
If, in the crowd that rushed so thro' the gates,
No accident has happen'd. Some cried out,
Some quarrell'd; many horses started off,
And bore amid them.

Andrea.
Never fear.

Giovanna.
But ask.

[He goes.

SCENE II.

Fiammetta, Maria, Filippa, and Sancia, enter.
Maria.
The bridegroom is among the other grooms,
Asking odd questions: what man's horse broke loose,
Who was knockt down, what fruit-stall overturn'd,
Who quarrell'd, who cried out, struck, ran away.

Giovanna.
Maria! this is pleasantry.

Andrea
(returning hastily).
They say,
Caraffa and Caraccioli are dead.

Giovanna.
It can not be: they were both well this morning.

Filippa.
The west-wind blew this morning . . no air now.

Giovanna.
O but, Filippa! they both came together.
Did not queen Sancia tell you?

Filippa.
I have seen
Two barks together enter the port yonder,
And part together.

Giovanna.
But to die at once!

Filippa.
Happy the friends whom that one fate befalls!

Giovanna.
So soon!

Filippa.
Perhaps so soon.

Giovanna.
It may be happy.
It must be strange; awfully strange indeed!

[Fiammetta goes out.
Andrea.
My darling! how you pity those two youths!
I like you for it.

Giovanna.
Both have fathers living:
What must they suffer! Each . . I never heard,
But may well fancy . . loved some girl who loves him.
I could shed tears for her.

Maria.
My dear Giovanna!
Do queens shed tears? and on the wedding-day?

Sancia.
I see no reason why they should not.

Filippa
(aside).
I,
Alas! see far too many why they should.

Andrea.
What did Filippa say? that brides should cry?

Filippa
(to Giovanna and Maria).
Not idly has the genial breath of song
Turn'd into pearls the tears that women shed;
They are what they are call'd: some may be brighter
Among your gems, none purer, none become
The youthful and the beautiful so well.

Andrea
(as Fiammetta enters).
Here enters one you never will teach that,
She is too light for grief, too gay for love,
And neither salt nor mistleto can catch her,
Nor springe nor net: she laughs at all of them
Like any woodpecker, and wings away.
I know you women; I'm a married man:

Fiammetta.
They will not give the story up: they draw
All different ways, but death they all will have.

Andrea.
Ay, and one only will not satisfy them. [An Officer enters, and confers apart with him.

Certain?

Giovanna.
Some other accident less heavy,
Heaven! let us hope!

Andrea.
Strangled! O what a death!
One of them . . one (no matter now which of them)
Disliked me, shunn'd me; if we met, lookt at me
Straighter and taller and athwart the shoulder,
And dug his knuckles deep into his thigh.
I gave him no offence . . yet, he is gone . .
Without a word of hearing, he is gone!
To think of this! to think how he has fallen
Amid his pranks and joyances, amid
His wild heath myrtle-blossoms, one might say,
It quite unmans me.

Sancia.
Speak not so, my son!
Let others, when their nature has been changed
To such unwonted state, when they are call'd
To do what angels do and brutes do not,
Sob at their shame, and say they are unmann'd:
Unmann'd they can not be; they are not men.
At glorious deeds, at sufferings well endured,
Yea, at life's thread snapt with its gloss upon it,
Be it man's pride and privilege to weep.

SCENE III.

GRAND SALOON. Masks passing. Andrea, Giovanna, Maria, Fiammetta, Filippa.
Filippa.
It may be right, my lady, that you know
What masks are here.

Giovanna.
I have found out already
A few of them. Several waived ceremony
(Desirably at masks) and past unnoticed. .
The room fills rapidly.

Filippa.
Not to detain
My queen (for hundreds anxiously approach),
Pardon! I recognised the Prince Luigi.

Giovanna.
Taranto? Tell our cousin to keep on
His mask all evening. Hither! uninvited!

Maria
(out of breath).
Think you the dais will keep the masks from hearing?

Giovanna.
Why should it?

Maria.
Oh! why should it? He is here
Even Filippa could distinguish him.
Every one upon earth must know Taranto.

Giovanna.
Descend we then: beside the statue there
We may converse some moments privately.

Maria.
Radiant I saw him as the sun . . a name
We always gave him . . rapid as his beams.
I should have known him by his neck alone
Among ten thousand. While I gazed upon it,
He gazed at three mysterious masks: then rose
That graceful column, ampler, and more wreathed
With its marmoreal thews and dimmer veins.
The three masks hurried thro' the hall; Taranto
After them (fierce disdain upon his brow)
Darted as Mercury at Jove's command.
No doubt, three traitors who dared never face him
In his own country, are courageous here.

Giovanna.
Taranto then, Taranto was unmaskt
Against my orders!

Maria.
Rather say, before.
Luigi never disobeyed Giovanna.

Giovanna.
Filippa carried them.

Maria.
I know his answer.

Giovanna.
Repeat it then, for she may not to-night.

Maria.
“Tell her I come the cousin, not the prince,
Nor with pretension, nor design, nor hope;
I come the loyal, not the fond, Taranto.”
Why look you round?

Giovanna.
The voice is surely his.

Maria.
The thoughts are . .

Giovanna
(pressing her hand).
May, O Heaven! the speaker be!

[Both walk away.
Fra Rupert
(masked and disguised, to one next).
I heard our gracious queen, espoused to-day,
Give orders that Taranto keep well maskt.

Next Mask
(to another).
Ho then! Taranto here!

Second Mask.
What treachery!

Fra Rupert
(masked).
He could not keep away. Tempestuous love
Has tost him hither. Let him but abstain
From violence, nor play the jealous husband,
As some men do when husbands cross their road.

Second Mask.
Taranto is a swordsman to the proof.

First Mask
Where is he?

Fra Rupert.
He stood yonder, in sky-blue,
With pearls about the sleeves.

Second Mask.
Well call him Phœbus!
I would give something for a glimpse at what
That mask conceals.

Fra Rupert.
Oh! could we catch a glimpse
Of what all masks conceal, 'twould break our hearts.
Far better hidden from us! Woman! woman!

[Goes off.
First Mask
(to second).
A friar Rupert! only that his voice
Breathes flute-like whisperings, rather than reproofs.

Second Mask.
Beside, he stands three inches higher; his girth
Slenderer by much.

First Mask.
Who thought 'twas really he?
I only meant he talkt as morally.

Third Mask
(coming up to Fourth).
I am quite certain there is Frate Rupert.

Fourth Mask.
Where is he not? The Devil's ubiquity!
But, like the Devil, not well known when met.
How found you him so readily? What mark?

Third Mask.
Stout is he, nor ill-built, tho' the left shoulder
Is half a finger's breadth above the right.

Fourth Mask.
But that man's . . let me look . . That man's right shoulder
Stands two good inches highest.

Third Mask.
Doubt is past . .
We catch him! over-sedulous disguise!

SCENE IV.

Andrea.
We have a cousin in the house, my queen!
What dost thou blush at? why art troubled? sure
We are quite grand enough for him: our supper
(I trust) will answer all his expectations.

Maria.
So you have lookt then at the supper-table?

Andrea.
'Twould mortify me if Giovanna's guests
Were disappointed.

Giovanna.
Mine! and not yours too?

Andrea.
Ah sly one! you have sent then for Taranto
And would not tell me! Cousin to us both,
To both he should be welcome as to one.
Another little blush! Why, thou art mine,
And never shalt, if love's worth love, repent it.

Giovanna.
Never, my own Andrea! for such trust
Is far more precious than the wealthiest realms,
Or all that ever did adorn or win them.

Andrea.
I must not wait to hear its value told,
We shall have time to count it out together.
I now must go to greet our cousin yonder,
He waits me in the balcony; the guards
Have sent away the loiterers that stood round,
And only two or three of his own friends
Remain with him. To tarry were uncourteous.

Maria
(earnestly).
I do believe Luigi is below.

Andrea.
Do not detain me: we have never met
Since your proud sister spoke unkindly to him,
And, vaulting on his horse, he hurried home.

[Goes.
Maria.
The soldiers there do well to guard the balcony,
And close the folding-doors against intrusion.

[Cry is heard.
Fiammetta.
Ha! some inquisitive young chamber-lady,
Who watcht Luigi enter, pays for it.
Those frolicsome young princes are demanding
A fine for trespass.

Giovanna.
Nay, they are too rude,
Permitting any rudeness. Struggles! sobs!
Andrea never caused them.

Maria.
Shame, Taranto!

Giovanna.
Stifling of screams! Those nearer are alarmed;
Those farther off are running for the staircase;
And many come this way! What can they mean?
See, they look angry as they run, and dash
Their hands against their foreheads! [Very alarmed.

Where's a page?

[A page stands masked in the doorway; crowds of unmasked behind him.
Maria.
A page! a page!

Page
(to himself).
I am one; and discovered!

[Advances.
Giovanna.
Run; see what those young courtiers round the princes
Are doing in the balcony. Below;
Not there.

Page.
I might mistake the Prince Andrea,
Not having ever seen him.

Maria.
Who then are you.

Page.
The Prince Luigi's page, whom I awaited,
To say his groom and horse are near at hand.

Maria.
He goes then?

Page.
Ere it dawn.

Giovanna.
O! hasten! hasten
Below, and instantly run back again,
Reporting me what you can discover there.

Page
(returns).
Lady! the lamps about the balcony
Are all extinguisht.

Giovanna.
Is the wind so high?
What didst thou hear, what didst thou note, beside?

Page
(hesitating).
Against the gentlest, the most virtuous queen,
Opprobrious speech, threats, imprecations . .

Giovanna.
Pass it.

Page.
Upon the stairs; none from the gardens.

Giovanna.
There
What sawest thou?

Page.
Over the balcony
Downward some burden swang.

Giovanna.
Some festive wreath
Perhaps.

Page.
Too heavy; almost motionless.

Maria.
Several damask draperies thrown across.

Page.
May-be. The wind just stirr'd the bottom of them:
I had no time to look: I saw my prince
Fighting.

Maria.
O heaven! was ever night like this . .

Page.
For gallant sword! it left two proofs behind:
The third man, seeing me (poor help for arm
So valiant!) fled.

Maria.
O! we are safe then, all.

[Very joyous.
Page.
No cap lost they, nor did the one who fled:
Whose in the world of Naples, can be this? [He takes from under his richly embroidered cloak the cap of Andrea. Giovanna clasps it to her face, and falls with a stifled scream.
[Another Page brings in Andrea's ermine cloak.

This cloak fell near me from the balusters.

Maria.
His own! Ha! this dark speck is not the ermine's.

Filippa.
See! she revives! Hide it away! O guests
Of our unhappy festival, retire.