University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

—A ROAD NEAR MANTUA, MANTUA SEEN IN THE DISTANCE.
Enter Hippolito and Giulio.
HIPPOLITO.
I am indebted to thee, sir, beyond
All power of mine to pay—past all expression;
To save a stranger's life thou hast risked thine own,
Indeed, most gallantly, and hast enhanced
With gracefulness of deprecation still,
Of this my weak and wordy gratitude,
The solemn service thou'st so nobly done me;
I pray thee let my brave deliverer's name
Be known to me, for my best prayers and blessings.

GIULIO.
You have exaggerated much my service:
A simple duty I but thus perform'd,
Which, leaving unperform'd, had left me less—
Aye, than immortal soul or mortal man!—
A duty—nay, an impulse—I obeyed;—
Such preservation of a perill'd life
Seems but a natural instinct.

HIPPOLITO.
Of our own!
Self-preservation is, indeed, the rule;
But thus delivering others, at self-risk,
Is ever the exception.

GIULIO.
I would fain
Not think 'tis so. But, pray you, now resolve me:
What seem'd the villains' object in the attack?

HIPPOLITO.
Fair sir! my question yet remains unanswer'd;
Give me to know thine honour'd name—beseech thee!

GIULIO.
Giulio di Castagnola is the name
Of one who is thy debtor made to-day,
For that which Providence empower'd his doing,
Which Providence accomplish'd in his person,
The which he richly is rewarded for
By hints of self-congratulating conscience!—
I pray thee, tell me what the miscreants sought—
Thy life or gold, or both?

HIPPOLITO.
Strange seems it!—neither;
At least, I deem so now, on after thoughts.
Until my fierce resistance drove them on
To strive to slay me, or, at least, disable,
The seizure of my person sought they merely,
When first they intercepted me, and threaten'd,
If I may judge by words that 'scaped their chief,
As by the tenour of their acts throughout.

GIULIO.
Most strange, in sooth! And do you none suspect
Of urging on these freebooters? Themselves
Would hardly think of being satisfied
With but your person's custody;—indeed,
A strange incumbrance such must prove, methinks,
To these, in their wild life of stealth and peril.
This must be malice of some private foe—
Some hidden hater's vile revenge!

HIPPOLITO.
I doubt it!
At least, I none have reason to suspect;
Though, well you say, 'tis difficult to guess
What motives can have prompted to such act
These desperate robbers! Sir, I grieve to say,
'Tis here I leave my generous, brave preserver;
Business of grave importance calls me forward,—
Though grave, yet pleasurable too, and welcome.
Not far from hence there stands an hostelrie,
Where I may yet replace my slaughter'd horse:
Yourself, I think you said, had ordered steeds
To meet you near this spot?

GIULIO.
Nay! I had despatched
Mine forward with my servant, being bent
On feasting on this glowing morning's charms
At lingering leisure, independently;
This the pedestrian can most fully do:
And I look forward to my farther walk
As one might to a banquet!—'Tis one, too,—
Since, oh! how doubly dear to those who long
Have bent in study over musty tomes—
I'the schoolsman's cell, held back from thy great world,—
Are all thy treasures—all thy lights and lives,—
School of the soul for ever!—glorious Nature!—
Forgive me, sir! th' enthusiastic sense
I have of all the beauty that surrounds me,
And quick imagination I possess,
Have led me on to talk like what I am—
A very dreamer!—Ere we part, I pray,
Suffer me know my new friend's name; thyself
Did'st claim as much from me!—Yet would I more—
Learn, too, the place of thine abode in Mantua,
That this acquaintance, though commenced in truth
Unpleasantly enough, be well continued!—

HIPPOLITO.
Hippolito Colonna, men do call me;
Your deepest debtor, sworn unto your service—
Your true vowed beadsman, and your friend henceforward!
For mine abode in Mantua, 'tis hard by
The Ducal Palace, at the right-hand corner
I' the main street, where, pr'ythee, haste to see me!

GIULIO.
Best thanks, Colonna, for thy frank replies.
Heaven speed thee in the business thou hast embark'd in!
To-morrow I will pass thy friendly threshold.

HIPPOLITO.
Preserve for me, till then, thy kind esteem!

[Exit Hippolito.
GIULIO.
[A pause.

EMMANUEL.
Welcome back to Mantua!
I just encounter'd Pietro in the street—
Remember'd well his worthy, honest face—
Heard of your near approach, and sped me here.

GIULIO.
All thanks for such kind speed! But how, my friend,
What means that cloud unwonted on thy brow?
I do remember me, 'twas ever clear
As cloudless summer—or the stainless chrystal.

EMMANUEL.
I fear that I have tidings that may cast
An answering gloom o'er thine, in deeper shadow:
Yet do I hope thy boyhood's phantasy
With mellowing manhood may have disappear'd,
And now given place—

GIULIO.
Torment me not! Alas!
My soaring heart hath sunk below the seas—
A thousand fluttering fears distress it sore;
Where played the wings of Hope, Fear's weights instead
Hang heavily, and drag it darkly down!—
Aye! crushing weights instead of conquering wings
That made the sky their own! Speak out!

EMMANUEL.
Thus, then;
First say, rememberest thou fair Angiolina?

GIULIO.
Do I remember to exist—to breathe—
To see—to utter speech—to move—sleep—wake?
Do I remember life—thought—sense—soul—self?
Proceed! and mock me not with such a question!

EMMANUEL.
She is about to wed a certain youth—

GIULIO.
Hold! Do not pour destruction on my soul
With such rapidity of readiness—
Such hurrying torrents of heart-whirling terror!
Dole out the anguish in less liberal portions:
I tell that I cannot bear it,—no!
I cannot bear it—will not! I will hence—
Dash myself at her feet—pray—groan for mercy
As some poor wretch outstretch'd, with quiv'ring limbs,
Between the creaking winches of the rack!

EMMANUEL.
Be not unmann'd!—

GIULIO.
Yes—yes! 'tis better thus!
Why should I grapple with the unpitying grief
That must be conqueror? Better, like a child,
To yield at once an unresisting prey!
For He who blesseth little children, yet
Beholding the instant-humbled heart, may pity—
May bless—that helplessness of suffering then!
'Tis best, I tell thee—yes, Emmanuel, best—
To be a child where man may nothing do,
But strive, in still more hideous helplessness,
Against the power—the paramount power of pain!
What were griefs sent for but to change us so,
From men—proud rebels, even to trembling children?
I did rebuke thee for thy hasty tidings,
Now could I chide that thou'st left aught unsaid!
Rain down the wretchedness in drowning torrents!
Aye! drowning, blinding, whelming torrents, thick
On this yet too-uplifted head!—To whom?
Oh! guess my meaning and prevent my thought!

EMMANUEL.
To young Hippolito Colonna.

GIULIO
(starting).
No!
Say not that name again! 'Tis not so! No!

EMMANUEL.
Indeed, but 'tis! sore 'gainst her father's wish.

GIULIO.
Annihilation! Must I bear this, too?
Oh! never wretch, weigh'd down with thousand crimes,
E'er felt such torture of a vain remorse
As I at memory of a deed of good!

EMMANUEL.
Thou speak'st in riddles.

GIULIO.
Let my tongue expound them,
Though, cleaving to my mouth's clamm'd roof, it hangs
A very icicle! Heavens!—pity me!
This morn, from a ferocious band of brigands
Hippolito Colonna's life I saved!

EMMANUEL.
What! didst thou so? But let thy conscience soothe thee.

GIULIO.
Let my heart crush me! Oh! that any hand
Save mine had brought deliverance for my foe,—
He—the everlasting foe of all my peace!
His business! ha!—the business that I bade
Heaven speed him in!—Hell speed him rather! yea,
And give him half my pangs to die with now,—
Or all to live with—if he dares live!—

EMMANUEL.
Cease!
Thou ravest,—recall thy better judgments to thee.
Colonna knew not of thy heart's devotion—
Hath not supplanted thee advisedly—
Is yet unconscious—

GIULIO.
True, if aught is true,
Now she is false: no, no!—not so!—she is not!
She never loved me! I have dream'd,—and dream'd,—
Until I did believe in mine own wish—
Made mine own hope Reality—Religion!—
Leave me, Emmanuel!

EMMANUEL.
Not in thy despair.

GIULIO.
Ev'n, therefore, leave me! Friendship can do nought:
Nought sympathy—nor counsel—reason—truth—
While the first transport of such anguish lasts,
'Tis solitude alone can medicine us!—
There seems a boundary in another's soul
(That is not made thus infinite with suffering)
Which chafes our own, and maddens it the more:
That, once removed, great Solitude consoles!—
The Immense of agony seems flowing off
Into the Illimitable, round us spread;
The Immeasurable receives it from our hands,—
To the unimaginable worlds it travels,
And all its unimaginable self
Doth mix with them and half relieves our souls,
O' the horrible burthen! 'Tis in such an hour
All Nature's oracles become, at once,
Our counsellors and comforters.

EMMANUEL.
I go!
Some two hours hence I will again be with thee.

[Exit Emmanuel.
GIULIO.
Now, miserable heart! cold house of death!
Heart!—Heart! that I did somewhile proudly charge
To ope the flood-gates of thy mighty joy!
I bid thee ope the flood-gates of thy pain,
And revel in the deluge of despair!
This love was more than life within my life!
And now 'tis death, more dreadful than all deaths!
Oh! madness of its Memory!—Memory, spare me!—
Erewhile thou didst present unto my soul
Th' image of Angiolina, smiling mercy,
And looking love upon me;—each sweet feature
Clearly glass'd back in thy adorable mirror.
Then wert thou like the sun enlightening all—
Enlightening fairest worlds of endless beauty.
Now, Memory, thou dost change thy favour sternly;—
The cold moon, show'ring down on colder ice
Thy strengthless beams, thou seem'st—while thus thou pour'st
Thy scarce-illuminating looks adown
Upon my petrified and silenced soul!
'Tis all a moveless madness now! Nought stirs—
Within—without, is silence and obstruction.
Life is struck blacker far than death at once!
Nought stirs within my spirit! Thoughts are Deaths!—
Feelings, so many Deaths! And yet, as though
His agonies—the worst—with them thus bearing,—
(His battle-agonies ere yet he is conqueror)
They still are conscious of a giant anguish!
Into their graves they bear this consciousness!—
Their graves?—the earth's grave! Creation seems one charnel!
Once its great life and inexhaustible
Was throbbing in its heat—and at its height
Through these, the electrically-kindling veins!—
Home! I must hence!—must seek my Mantuan home.
But Oh! henceforward! what a house of heart,
That habitation of all human kind!
Wherein their comforts, as their counsels live,
Their every day and every hour companions,
Their secrets, and their treasures, and their tortures,
Crown'd exultations, sovereign miseries, too—
The unreck'd of, mysteries, and the unstoried victories!
Mine is an universe of agonies,—
Whose scatter'd worlds wear all one night of shadow,
Whose atoms all seem immortalities!

[Exit Giulio.