University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

(Dressing-room of Ferdinand the Catholic, at Valladolid.)
Ferdinand.
Hand me my dagger and my chain of gold;
And now my rings. I can recall the time
When my white bony fingers were so plump
That I could scarcely force these same rings on,
Or force them off; and now they trickle off
Each moment of themselves.

Villarica.
Your grace has thinned
From overmuch of thought, and not from years.
Believe me, 'tis not age, but care and study;
Your grace needs but repose to gain in flesh.

Ferdinand.
I would my ribs and fingers had remained
As plump as hath thy flattery; that continues
In all its fat exuberance. But now tell me
Who stands the first inscribed for private audience
Upon this morning's list?

Villarica.
He whom your grace
Vouchsafes to see to please the Duke of Arcos.

Ferdinand.
That Ponce de Leon? Save that I have given
Arcos my word, I would not waste my patience
In listening to his plan; and, as it is,
I mean he shall not have ten minutes' audience.
Another of those swindlers of the West!
As if I had not wasted thought enough,
And ships and money, on the irksome rogues
Who promise all such wonders: to begin
With that arch-knave Columbus, in whose dreams
My good lamented queen put such sweet faith.
Oh, we were so persuaded of the gains;
It was so clear and easy: you had only
To find the East by sailing to the West,
And reach the sun by flying to the moon,
And all the treasures of auriferous Ind
Would flow into your lap in streams of ingots.
We were to reach the ruby-rolling rivers
Beyond Bagdad, the porcelain-towered cities
Of the great Khan of Tartary, and what not,
In which the streets were paved with slabs of silver,
The houses roofed with tiles of solid gold,
The very beggars dressed in yellow silk,
With pearls upon the bonnets they extended
To beg for diamond pence. Much gold we got!
A little less than thou wouldst find to-day
In any goldsmith's shop in any street
Of Cordova or Burgos.

Villarica.
Yet, sweet lord,
That Genoese set up your royal standard
In many an island where it flutters still;
And I can keenly recollect the day
When he returned from his first venturous voyage,
Amid the wild ovations of the throng,
Bringing back Indians with him.

Ferdinand.
Bringing Indians?
A dozen red-skinned savages, wild scoundrels,
With nothing but a nose-ring for attire—
Fit raiment for the isles of swamp and ague
From which they came!—And while we lost our time
In crazy Western plans, the Portuguese,
By creeping patiently toward the East,
Round Taprobana and the Cape of Storms,
Have reached to Muscat and to Calicut,
Made treaties with the sultans, plundered cities,
And filled their ships with gold. No, no, my friend;
Talk not to me of farther Western schemes.

Villarica.
Will your grace see him?

Ferdinand.
Let the knave come in,
Since I have pledged my word to give him audience;
But bid him to be prudent in his speech.

(Enter Ponce de Leon.)
Ponce de Leon.
I bow in awestruck silence and obedience
Before the ample splendour of your grace.

Ferdinand.
And so thou, too, hast framed a wondrous scheme,
A Western expedition that shall pour
More red and virgin gold into my coffers
Than all the ships of Christendom can carry?

Ponce de Leon.
I crave the humblest pardon of my liege:
My liege is misinformed. I am not come
To offer to your grace new mines of gold,
But, with your gentle and most royal license,
To rid you of your silver.

Ferdinand.
Of my silver?
My friends and courtly flatterers do that
Most perfectly already.

Ponce de Leon.
I am come
To offer to your sovereignty the means
By which the clear white silver on your brow
Shall be transmuted back to youth's dark locks.

Ferdinand.
Art thou a merchant of Venetian hair-dye?

Ponce de Leon.
Your sovereignty hath made me bite my lip;
But could I have for half a score of minutes
The perfect patience of your royal ear,
Methinks that I could fetter your attention.

Ferdinand.
Speak on; but not in riddles. I will listen.

Ponce de Leon.
I know as well as any that the West,
The Indies of Columbus, have belied
Our dreams of gold and gems; but they contain
Another treasure of such wondrous value,
Of such extreme ineffable price to him
Who first shall make it his, that all the gold
Which men have clutched at in their wildest dreams
Would be but dross beside it.

Ferdinand.
What is that?

Ponce de Leon.
The Fount of Youth. We know from informations
Most certain and undoubtable that the spring
Which man has panted for through countless ages,
In every clime, with wistful, infinite thirst,
Lies in the Western Indies, in a realm
North of Hispaniola, named Bimini,
Whose king, the sole possessor of the secret,
And named the Ever-Beautiful, hath reigned
Six hundred years.

Villarica
(to himself)
Bad for the heir-apparent!

Ponce de Leon.
No shapes of magic guard the potent spring;
No circling dragons watch it night and day;
No evil angels sit beside its brink,
To mirror their dark wings within its waves.
It hath nor spell nor supernatural essence,
But is mere natural water, one slight rill,
Which in its bright limpidity hath flowed
Through subterranean channels, over beds
Of mineral ore, and salts unknown to man,
Or through a filter of medicinal mosses
Of such high potency and healing virtue
That they can stop the onward march of age,
Create anew the tissues of the body,
And fill with sap the withered roots of life.

Ferdinand.
What guards it, then?

Ponce de Leon.
The dreadful guard of Nature:
Inextricable forests and morasses,
Haunts of the panther and all clawed assassins,
In whose pestiferous depths and clueless tangle
No white man yet has ventured; where the twilight
In every tree awakes a vampire bat,
Who fans the sleeper with his leathery wings
Of monstrous span, and sucks his blood at night;
Where there are trees whose dark and silent leaves
Distil a subtle vapour that converts
Sleep into death, and strange and treacherous flowers,
Whose scent breeds madness, till the forest rings
With crazy laughter; where among the grasses
Lurk porcupines that shoot a venomed quill,
The wound whereof turns black like flesh of mushroom;
Where there are snakes that make a running noose
Around your throat and strangle you in sleep,
Ere you can feel their twist. Man-eating Indians,
Whose poisoned arrows, shot by unseen hand,
In every vein change blood to liquid fire,
Infest the dreadful zone.

Ferdinand.
And thou proposest
To ransack such a region for a rill,
A hidden trickling thread?

Ponce de Leon.
Were that my thought,
Your sovereign's splendour well might call me mad.
My plan is this: to land a small picked force,
Armed with three falconets and ample powder,
On the Biminian coast, and with the help
Of disaffected tribes to boldly march
Upon the capital and seize the king,
And then extort the secret as his ransom.
Part of the expedition I could pay
Out of my private fortune, if your grace
Would furnish me three caravels and sailors.
The conquest would be fruitful to the Church;
For, having made the monarch's body ours,
We should attack his soul, and win it back
From his unholy Gods. The Holy Office
Would find the means of teaching to his people
The greater sweetness of our kinder faith.

Ferdinand.
If he has reigned for these six hundred years,
I fear his errors must be deeply rooted.
What is the name of thy Biminian king?

Ponce de Leon.
Atalpa Ever-young, so please your grace.

Ferdinand.
North of Hispaniola didst thou say?
How far to north?

Ponce de Leon.
Three hundred leagues of water
Is what I reckon, but it is uncertain.

Ferdinand.
I cannot grant thee longer speech to-day,
But I will give thee in the coming week
Another ampler audience; and meanwhile
Write out thy scheme more fully. Kiss my hand.
[Exit Ponce de Leon.
Strange, strange, most strange. Is this a madman's dream,
Based on mere air, or hath it weight and substance?
What think'st thou, Villarica?

Villarica.
Like your grace,
I chew the cud of my perplexity.
It seems to me unnatural that the fount
Be natural water: supernatural liquid
Would be more natural far.

Ferdinand.
The fount exists,—
That much is certain and unquestioned fact,—
Upon some point or other of the world:
Then why not in the Indies? 'Twould be strange
Were I to live to bless that rogue Columbus
For finding those unprofitable islands.
Whether the draught would keep me as I am,
And merely keep all further years at bay,
Or place me back in manhood's strongest moment,
Such as I was on that triumphant morning,
When Isabel and I rode side by side
Into the trembling alleys of Granada,
At last made ours!—The wide and general use
Of such a cordial would be full of peril,
And soon would over-populate the earth.
'Twould have to be confined to my own self,
And to the finder, by most strict engagement,
Or all would drink and live: a pretty thing
If Gaffer Maximilian or the Pope
Were made eternal each upon his throne!
An endless King of France would never do:
But were the King of Aragon immortal
The case were somewhat different.—How time flies!
How white my hair has grown in this last year;
And my old hands, how thin and white and veiny!
A little more—and I shall have to bid
The goldsmith come to tighten all my rings.