University of Virginia Library

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.