University of Virginia Library

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.