University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

Scene I.

A Street in the Capital.
Enter Borini and Zorasi, meeting.
BORINI.
Zorasi! 'Tis yourself! Three years fly fast.

ZORASI.
You never counted days in banishment,
Or you would know, Borini, how time creeps
When soul and body dwell on opposite shores.

BORINI.
With you they 've met again, happier herein
Than many of your friends, for whom the breach
Will last till doomsday.

ZORASI.
That dread term is gone,
When death waited on maniacs, whose hot thirst
Was quenched in daily blood, while good men crouched,
And in Heaven's face the bad shook their red fists.
Our country smiles once more.

BORINI.
There is some change.

ZORASI.
Some! why, when last I saw her, pale she was
From self-consumption, hacked with foreign steel,
And her whole function threatened with arrest.
Now, ruddily life laugheth in her veins,
And flames her eye toward worsted adversaries.

BORINI.
Aye, Death has moved his court, and now his craft
Plies through the cannoneer 'stead of the headsman.

ZORASI.
You speak as though of man's prosperity
The sharpest foe were death, and foremost actor
On the world's stage, playing the tyrant's part.
Not with rude willful terrors armed is Death:
No tyrant he, but gentle servitor
To Nature, when forth from his viewless couch
She summons him to crop her pendent harvest.
But when confusion mocks the forms of order,
Drunk Wrath, steadying himself on Reason's throne
The better to impel his ravenous shafts,
And man, grasping God's awful attribute,—
A token this of his enfranchisements,—
From Justice' seat rains death; then general dread
O'ercomes the world, and hearts of iron quail,
Trembling to feel heaven closed above their heads,
And earth given o'er to godless solitude;
For even then 't is not to die men fear,
But 't is to hold their life on mortal sufferance.
[Ordnance shot off at a distance.
What may this be?

BORINI.
The voice of Brangonar,
Who almost weekly to the capital
Sends greeting thus.

ZORASI.
Another victory?

BORINI.
Another and another. 'T is a sound
So common grown, men's ears have ceased to gape.

ZORASI.
Th' astounded world talks but of Brangonar.
Even in that wild corner of the globe
Where I have sighed, men spell his name with wonder.
Fame is his captive, and, proud of her bonds,
With her unresting trump keeps earth awake
By repetition of his cannon's roar.

BORINI.
Here comes her loudest trumpeter: you'll hear
How he will blow this news into our ears.

ZORASI.
Is 't not Alardo?

BORINI.
Aye, that is his name.
The man,—such as he was,—hath ceased to be.
What 's called Alardo, is of Brangonar
The leg or tongue, or any other part
Whereof great Brangonar may need the service.
He has it here of proper nimbleness,
Dissevered from himself, and thus can send
A kick or kiss by post where'er he list.

ZORASI.
How men do change! I recollect Alardo:
He seemed a man of honorable motions.

BORINI.
Men never change: they merely grow.

Enter Alardo.
ALARDO.
Zorasi
Welcome—a hearty welcome.

ZORASI.
Thanks, Alardo.

ALARDO.
Fortune would make amends, choosing to-day
To reinstall you in your forfeit rights.
Borini, you have heard the news?

BORINI.
Not yet.
What prisoners? How many thousands slain?

ALARDO.
Men have no breath to-day to count the means,
The end so busies them with wonderment.
A total rout, millions of tribute, peace,
Three provinces new-gathered in our bounds,
And the first fruit and instant benefaction
Of these our latest, loftiest achievements,
Is the return unto his Capital
Of the achiever and high benefactor,
Renownèd Brangonar. He comes to-night.
My greetings to you both. Pardon my haste,
I must go share and feed the general joy.
You 're young, Zorasi, and the times are bounteous:
Farewell.
[Exit Alardo.

BORINI.
You look amazed: you are yet green.
You must learn faster, if you 'd overtake
The brazen meaning of the headlong time.
Know where you are, and waste no thought in wonder.
This metal-tongued Alardo has the tune:
Set you your will to his loud pitch, and thrive.
For me, who have no ear for martial din,
I'll go and read the faces of the crowd.

[Exit.
ZORASI,
alone.
Is this my greeting to my long-lost home?
Doubts flood upon my heart and drown its joy.
Is Brangonar a fear-fraught conqueror?
Oh, woe! when dread is leashed to triumph's car.
Is this he whom I 've wrestled with at school?
Whom I 've seen glow at talk of liberty?
Borini is a satirist: belike.
He sees askant. But this glib-tongued Alardo;
His speech is ominous.—Dearest Evoya,
My happy thoughts had blazoned thee in smiles
For this day's meeting. Now my heart is sad
To think of fears that visit thine. But thou
Being troubled, the more timely is my coming.

[Exit.

Scene II.

A Room in the House of Riordo.
Riordo, Carlan, Tesafo, Catalba.
RIORDO.
Strike we not now, and he 's beyond our reach.
Already is the future darkened by his bulk,
He grows each minute, and his magnitude
Belittles us. Let we the hour go by,
And our hereafter is a hopeless void,
And we, or slavish instruments or naught;
For, stride he one step higher, and he stands
So close begirt he'll baffle all assailment.
And then, farewell to manhood's privilege,
Th' inspiring joys of liberty farewell:
Farewell to generous hope that lavishes
Honors and might to who will boldly mount:
Farewell the shaping thoughts that make the bliss
Of busy man who builds his morrows freely;
For despots snatch each morrow from the heart,
Sternly predestining the daily life,
That men cease bounding towards the coming day,
But draggle in their pre-doomed nothingness.

TESAFO.
Were it but sure, that having overleapt
His prostrate corpse, we could then repossess
Our lost dominion, 't were not much, to brave
Th' immediate danger of the enterprise.

RIORDO.
Who can be certain even of a day?
Could foresight pierce so keenly into time,
No land would gasp beneath tight tyranny;
For brisk abuses, manifest at birth,
To grossness ne'er could swell; and such as we,
Who now deliberate the dangerous means
To do our country service, would not need
In her behalf to pawn our heads, but spend
Contented lives, through wisdom's vigilance.
We 're born to dangers and uncertainties,
Which only resolution can disarm.
Courage plucks from the future its worst fears,
And turns hard doubts to ductile certainties.

TESAFO.
He being cut off, in these hot times ensues
Fiery contention for th' inheritance,
Wherein courage, that is not backed by strength,
Were a rash friend more perilous than gainful,
Thrusting us on a stormful ocean, where,
Being ballast-light, we should make helpless wreck.
What are the means to breast the foaming surge
The bloody fall of Brangonar will lift?

RIORDO.
We strike at usurpation, which being down,
Each shall be free to repossess his own.
If still each man must quarrel for his right,
Would you not rather so, than have no rights
To quarrel for? For me, I 'd rather spend
My life in fighting for my rights than live
Berobbed of them a month. We 're near that now.
The wills of many are absorbed in one:
Men are again fast learning how to kneel:
The free in thought are pressed for room to act:
A soldier's sword glitters above our heads.
And we who 've given our treasure and our blood
To have no King, are threatened with a tyrant.

TESAFO.
An enterprise so big with consequence
Would be well pondered. We partake your fears,
And will anon confer with you again.

[Exeunt Tesafo and Catalba.
RIORDO.
Impertinent nobility! How well
Its shallow thoughts befit its foolish hopes.
I'm almost sorry that I broke to him
The hardy project. With what fluency,—
As though the current of his mind upbore them,—
The words, dominion and inheritance,
Rolled from his tongue. These empty people live
On dreams begotten by an ancient surfeit.
They are the cinders of authority:
To hear them, one might think they were its blaze.
For though, so soon as power herself had cleansed,
Drenching with blood, the plague-spots of corruption,
She cast th' incestuous weaklings from her bed,
Yet can they not believe themselves divorced,
But walk as brim with scorn,—such force hath custom
Upon the imaginations of the weak,—
As though they still paced o'er the breasts of men.

CARLAN.
And yet, they'll stoop so low, the despot's foot
Besmears their curvéd backs to reach the throne.
They'll serve a master to be lords themselves,
And sell their freedom to enjoy dominion;
Bearing the yoke, so they may smack the whip.
Mark how these two will soon be noted slaves,
High prominent in Brangonar's new gang.
Out of our fears they fashion hopes.

RIORDO.
Well, let them:
More sudden than their rise shall be their fall.

[Exeunt.

Scene III.

A Room in the House of Brangonar.
Evoya, Zorasi.
ZORASI.
I comprehend too well your current fears.

EVOYA.
I try to think them false, and to persuade me
They are but shadows which the backward time,
So black to all, casts on a woman's heart.
'T is vain: the thoughts I send in quest of hope
Never return, and thus,—like a sieg'd town
Whose desperate foragers are always ta'en,—
Each effort for relief but leaves me weaker.
I will be strong to-day, if not in hope,
At least in joy; and should be strong in hope,
For thou art here, with whom I 've scarcely dared
To trust a thought that peered into the future.
Methinks I was not wont to be despondent,
And thou being come I will be so no more.

ZORASI.
When I am near to thee I have two strengths.
To-day I feel as I could dare the worst,
And outface danger in his hottest rage.
And thou, I 've seen thee brave thy brother's mood;
With accents wrought of love and fearlessness
Hushing the billows of his willful wrath.

EVOYA.
The wrath I would again as freely front.
What drew those billows from their haughty height
Was the strong charm of love. That spell is broken:
Poor Brangonar now loves naught but himself.
That 't is that daunts and makes me dread the worst.
We have had scenes: this unto you alone.
The gentle Jesola, his wife, hath wept.

ZORASI.
Her brother, loved Lovéro, how doth he?

EVOYA.
Lovéro hopes too much: his nobleness
Would throw its sunshine in the darkest breast.
But here he is.

Enter Lovéro.
LOVÉRO.
Zorasi! (embraces him)
welcome home!
Most welcome. Much we need our better men,
To seize, among the possibilities
That press them on th' impassioned reeking day,
Those most enheartened with humanity.
Time hath been long in travail with a brood
Of men so fiery new, they make events
Of such far drift, these rouse old History
From a late bed to dress her laggard self
In prodigies.

EVOYA.
A spawn of tainted Time
Are they who late have ruled, or rather, wrecked us.
They undid but to be themselves undone.

LOVÉRO.
They did far more than they undid; and when
They were themselves undone, this was the work
Of what had first by them been done. They taught,—
And 't was a manful lesson,—how to cut
The rot away that had for centuries
Gnawed at a sorrowing Nation's core. Themselves
Grew quickly foul; and then they fell as swift
As they had struck. But first they did a work
That cannot be undone, a mighty work.
Their death gave life. Their death was forwardness,
It was not retrogression.

EVOYA.
Would it had been!

LOVÉRO.
The past comes never back. Can you refold
The apple in its blossom? or unbuild
The majesty of manhood's puissant frame,
And shrink it to an infant's littleness?
You can as easily re-live the past
As make your food of mouldiness.

ZORASI.
But still,
Events and men repeat themselves at times.

LOVÉRO.
To those who only read their surfaces
They seem to do so. History,—to Peoples
Within whose blood ripens the finer juice
Whence are distilled life's higher essences,—
Is an unfolding—

Enter abruptly Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Max is come, Lovéro.
I 've bid him speak with you. Let this affair
Be closed. We will not have these petty strokes
Thrust from the bygone to deflect our gait.
The past be done with: 't is not in our reach:
'T is dead. We live, and 'bout us howleth life.
'T is much that by the present we are stayed,
We whose far swoop at the great future strikes,
The burnished, fair, the undistainéd future.—
Let this be done at once: he waits to see you.

[Exit Lovéro.
ZORASI.
General, hath exile so deformed my face,
You know it not?

EVOYA.
Brother, this is Zorasi.

BRANGONAR.
Ha! I remember—yes—Captain Zorasi?
You were deported for the affair of Sarnec.
It might have been much worse: you had strong friends.
The Colonel of your regiment—a brave
And loyal soldier—died but yesterday.
Take you his post, and be as true as he.
I know your courage and your skill.—No thanks:
Thanks should be kept for things unmerited.
Evoya, I would have some speech with you.
[Exit Zorasi.
I do not have, Evoya, from my kin
That kindly aidance which should grace the ascent
They all are mounting on my single leap.
Greatness and power and the reluctant gaze
Of th' envious world, that veils its stealthy sight
At the first swing of genius' flashing sceptre,—
All this is close to their upstretching grasp.
'T is little that I ask. Concert I ask
With my prophetic plans, and furtherance meet,
For them and me, on the steep rifted road
I swiftly build with th' engines of my invention.
Something to me they may be: I to them
Am all. I lift them to the stately heights
Of circumstance, whence they, enfreed, shall wonder
At the lean belt where they now grope unknown.
My dreams are worth more than their noon-day senses.
To you, my chosen sister, I impart
Some of my soaring mind. You can conceive
What they cannot. Help them to see the greatness
That hovers near them. Happy words from you
Will be a light to them.—No answer now.
To-morrow I will speak with you again.
[Kisses her forehead. Exit Evoya.
I must have tools. Most men are dull or false;
And if you win one competent to seize
A nimble onward thought, and drive it home
Through shattering act straight to a sure success,
This ableness undoes his agency:
He plies to make of you a tool for him.
Of my own blood there is not one I can
Entirely trust. This one has too much will;
This not enough; another is not swift;
One is too scrupulous; too venal one.
The women all by love are ruled. Evoya
Is most like me; but she hath women's whims.
Her brain is not yet dry of girlish fumes,
Vapors, with the dear self sweet-scented soft,
That in dim incense steep th' unchastened eye.
So long hath boiled within her swollen veins
This passion for Zorasi, 't is herself:
Her blood is all of his one color dyed.
Capable he is, and brave, and resolute;
But troublesome with supersubtleties,
And poor. E'en could I break this foolish bond,
'T were certain loss of her. That were a loss
I ill can bear; for she will serve me if,—
And 't is a burly if,—if I serve her.
I'd serve them all, would they but help me serve them.
If they could bask, but for an hour, with me
In the hot lustre of my noontide hopes!
But no: the big-eyed brood that quickens there
They would not know, they could not even see.
Daily I hug them closer to my soul,—
Which feeds them and by them in turn is fed,—
These secret nurselings in my breeding brain,
Vast progeny of thought, to which my will
Must be the midwife, startling this old world
With a new history.
Enter in haste a courier, booted and spurred.
Ha! Sesto! what news?

SESTO
(handing a despatch)
Rulesti has retreated.

BRANGONAR.
In good order?

SESTO.
Unbroken order, without loss.

BRANGONAR.
'T is well.
I looked for this. Sesto, go take your rest.
I'll talk with you anon.
[Exit Sesto.
This is the bane
Of power: its instruments have not its soul.
Retreated! An advance and victory
Lay couched within the circuits of the ground
For one who had the vision to espy them.
He asks more cohorts, and wants wit to wield
Those that he has.
Enter Alardo.
How now? Is the pear ripe?

ALARDO.
And ready to be pluckt. The Council Six
Are met for business, and will swift resolve
Your deposition. This from Tesafo
I 've learnt, who, with his friend Catalba, will
Absent him from the meeting. Can you count
Upon Lovéro?

BRANGONAR.
As on you.

ALARDO.
I doubt him.
It matters not: he is alone. The rest,
Riordo, Carlan, and Trifone, are
Compact against you, and in special pay
They hold two legions sure.

BRANGONAR.
Whose chiefs are mine.
The Council, then, of Six is shrunk to three.
Of this triumvirate Riordo rash
Would be the Cæsar. I could let them rise,
Then bring them down. The wisest way is here
The quickest:—clutch them ere they spring.

[Exeunt.