 | Plays and Poems |  |
SCENE I.
Rimini. A Room in the Castle. Lanciotto discovered reading.Lanciotto.
O! fie, philosophy! This Seneca
Revels in wealth, and whines about the poor!
Talks of starvation while his banquet waits,
And fancies that a two hours' appetite
Throws light on famine! Doubtless he can tell,
As he skips nimbly through his dancing-girls,
How sad it is to limp about the world
A sightless cripple! Let him feel the crutch
Wearing against his heart, and then I 'd hear
This sage talk glibly; or provide a pad,
Stuffed with his soft philosophy, to ease
His aching shoulder. Pshaw! he never felt,
Or pain would choke his frothy utterance.
'T is easy for the doctor to compound
His nauseous simples for a sick man's health;
But let him swallow them, for his disease,
Without wry faces. Ah! the tug is there.
Show me philosophy in rags, in want,
Sick of a fever, with a back like mine,
Creeping to wisdom on these legs, and I
Will drink its comforts. Out! away with you!
There 's no such thing as real philosophy!
[Throws down the book.]
(Enter Pepe.)
Here is a sage who'll teach a courtier
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A soldier discipline, a poet verse,
And each mechanic his distinctive trade;
Yet bring him to his motley, and how wide
He shoots from reason! We can understand
All business but our own, and thrust advice
In every gaping cranny of the world;
While habit shapes us to our own dull work,
And reason nods above his proper task.
Just so philosophy would rectify
All things abroad, and be a jade at home.
Pepe, what think you of the Emperor's aim
Towards Hungary?
Pepe.
A most unwise design;
For mark, my lord—
Lan.
Why, there! the fact cries out.
Here 's motley thinking for a diadem!—
Ay, and more wisely in his own regard.
Pepe.
You flout me, cousin.
Lan.
Have you aught that 's new?—
Some witty trifle, some absurd conceit?
Pepe.
Troth, no.
Lan.
Why not give up the Emperor,
And bend your wisdom on your duties, Pepe?
Pepe.
Because the Emperor has more need of wisdom
Than the most barren fool of wit.
Lan.
Well said!
Mere habit brings the fool back to his art.
This jester is a rare philosopher.
Teach me philosophy, good fool.
Pepe.
No need.
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If she do not instruct you in more arts
Than Aristotle ever thought upon,
The good old race of woman has declined
Into a sort of male stupidity.
I had a sweetheart once, she lectured grandly;
No matter on what subject she might hit,
'T was all the same, she could talk and she would.
She had no silly modesty; she dashed
Straight in the teeth of any argument,
And talked you deaf, dumb, blind. Whatever struck
Upon her ear, by some machinery,
Set her tongue wagging. Thank the Lord, she died!—
Dropped in the middle of a fierce harangue,
Like a spent horse. It was an even thing,
Whether she talked herself or me to death.
The latest sign of life was in her tongue;
It wagged till sundown, like a serpent's tail,
Long after all the rest of her was cold.
Alas! poor Zippa!
Lan.
Were you married, fool?
Pepe.
Married! Have I the scars upon me? No;
I fell in love; and that was bad enough,
And far enough for a mere fool to go.
Married! why, marriage is love's purgatory,
Without a heaven beyond.
Lan.
Fie, atheist!
Would you abolish marriage?
Pepe.
Yes.
Lan.
What?
Pepe.
Yes.
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Depopulate the world?
Pepe.
No fear of that.
I 'd have no families, no Malatesti,
Strutting about the land, with pedigrees
And claims bequeathed them by their ancestors;
No fellows vaporing of their royal blood;
No one to seize a whole inheritance,
And rob the other children of the earth.
By Jove! you should not know your fathers, even!
I 'd have you spring, like toadstools, from the soil—
Mere sons of women—nothing more nor less—
All base-born, and all equal. There, my lord,
There is a simple commonwealth for you!
In which aspiring merit takes the lead,
And birth goes begging.
Lan.
It is so, in truth;
And by the simplest means I ever heard.
Pepe.
Think of it, cousin. Tell it to your friends,
The statesmen, soldiers, and philosophers;
Noise it about the earth, and let it stir
The sluggish spirits of the multitudes.
Pursue the thought, scan it, from end to end,
Through all its latent possibilities.
It is a great seed dropped, I promise you,
And it must sprout. Thought never wholly dies;
It only wants a name—a hard Greek name—
Some few apostles, who may live on it—
A crowd of listeners, with the average dulness
That man possesses—and we organize;
Spread our new doctrine, like a general plague;
Talk of man's progress and development,
Wrongs of society, the march of mind,
The Devil, Doctor Faustus, and what not;
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All with a fool's idea!
Lan.
By Jupiter,
You hit our modern teachers to a hair!
I knew this fool was a philosopher.
Pepe is right. Mechanic means advance;
Nature bows down to science' haughty tread,
And turns the wheel of smutty artifice;
New governments arise, dilate, decay,
And foster creeds and churches to their tastes:
At each advance, we cry, “Behold, the end!”
Till some fresh wonder breaks upon the age.
But man, the moral creature, midst it all
Stands still unchanged; nor moves towards virtue more,
Nor comprehends the mysteries in himself,
More than when Plato taught academies,
Or Zeno thundered from his Attic porch.
Pepe.
I know not that; I only want my scheme
Tried for a while. I am a politician,
A wrongs-of-man man. Hang philosophy!
Let metaphysics swallow, at a gulp,
Its last two syllables, and purge itself
Clean of its filthy humors! I am one
Ready for martyrdom, for stake and fire,
If I can make my great idea take root!
Zounds! cousin, if I had an audience,
I 'd make you shudder at my eloquence!
I have an itching to reform the world.
Lan.
Begin at home, then.
Pepe.
Home is not my sphere;
Heaven picked me out to teach my fellow-men.
I am a very firebrand of truth—
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That burn to ashes while I light the world!
I feel it in me. I am moved, inspired,
Stirred into utterance, by some mystic power
Of which I am the humble instrument.
Lan.
A bad digestion, sage, a bilious turn,
A gnawing stomach, or a pinching shoe.
Pepe.
O! hear, but spare the scoffer! Spare the wretch
Who sneers at the anointed man of truth!
When we reached that, I and my followers
Would rend you limb from limb. There!—ha! ha! ha!
[Laughing.]
Have I not caught the slang these fellows preach;
A grand, original idea, to back it;
And all the stock in trade of a reformer?
Lan.
You have indeed; nor do I wonder, Pepe.
Fool as you are, I promise you success
In your new calling, if you'll set it up.
The thing is far too simple.
[Trumpet sounds within.]
Pepe.
Hist! my lord.
Lan.
That calls me to myself.
Pepe.
At that alarm,
All Rimini leaped up upon its feet.
Cousin, your bridal-train. You groan! 'Ods wounds!
Here is the bridegroom sorely malcontent—
The sole sad face in Rimini. Since morn,
A quiet man could hardly walk the streets,
For flowers and streamers. All the town is gay.
Perhaps 't is merry o'er your misery.
Lan.
Perhaps; but that it knows not.
Pepe.
Yes, it does:
It knows that when a man 's about to wed,
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Why is Paolo on the way so long?
Ravenna 's but eight leagues from Rimini—
Lan.
That 's just the measure of your tongue, good fool.
You trouble me. I 've had enough of you—
Begone!
Pepe.
I 'm going; but you see I limp.
Have pity on a cripple, gentle Count.
[Limps.]
Lan.
Pepe!
Pepe.
A miracle, a miracle!
See, see, my lord, at Pepe's saintly name
The lame jog on.
Malatesta.
(Without.)
Come, Lanciotto!
Lan.
Hark!
My father calls.
Pepe.
If he were mine, I 'd go—
That 's a good boy!
[Pats Lanciotto's back.]
Lan.
(Starting.)
Hands off! you'll rue it else!
[Exit.]
Pepe.
(Laughing.)
Ha! ha! I laid my hand upon his hump!
Heavens, how he squirmed! And what a wish I had
To cry, Ho! camel! leap upon his back,
And ride him to the devil! So, we 've had
A pleasant flitting round philosophy!
The Count and Fool bumped heads, and struck ideas
Out by the contact! Quite a pleasant talk—
A friendly conversation, nothing more—
'Twixt nobleman and jester. Ho! my bird,
I can toss lures as high as any man.
So, I amuse you with my harmless wit?
Pepe 's your friend now—you can trust in him—
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You ugly, misbegotten clod of dirt!
Ay, but the hump—the touch upon the hump—
The start and wriggle—that was rare! Ha! ha!
[Exit, laughing.]
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