University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—A garden: the villa seen in the back-ground. Lara stretched on the grass with a copy of Boccaccio's ‘Decameron’ in his hand. Sunset.
LARA.
[Closing the book.]
A book for sunset—if for any time.
Right spicy tongues and pleasant wit had they,
The merry Ladies of Boccaccio!
What tales they told of love-in-idleness,
(Love old as earth, and yet forever new!)
Of monks who worshipped Venus—not in vain;
Of unsuspecting husbands, and gay dames
Who held their vows but lightly—by my faith,
Too much of the latter! 'T is a sweet, bad book.
I would not have my sister or my wife
Caught by its cunning. In its golden words
Sin is so draped with beauty, speaks so fair,
That naught seems wrong but virtue! Yet, for all,
It is a sprightly volume, and kills care.
I need such sweet physicians. I have grown
Sick in the mind—at swords' points with myself.
I am mine own worst enemy!
And wherefore? wherefore? Beatrice is kind,
Less fanciful, and loves me, I would swear,
Albeit she will not kiss me till the month
Which ends our foolish wager shall have passed.
An hundred years, and not a single kiss
To sweeten time with! What a freakish dame!
A Page crosses the garden.
That page again! 'T is twice within the week
That slender-waisted, pretty-ankled knave
Has crossed my garden at this self-same hour,
Trolling a canzonetta with an air
As if he owned the villa. Why the fop!
He might have doffed his bonnet as he passed.
I'll teach him better if he comes again.
What does he at the villa? Oh! perchance
He comes in the evening when his master's out,
To lisp soft romance in the ready ear
Of Beatrice's dressing-maid; but then
She has one lover. Now I think she's two:
This gaudy popinjay would make the third,
And that's too many for an honest girl!
If he's not Florian's, he's Jacinta's, then?
I'll ask the Countess—no, I'll not do that;
She'd laugh at me, and vow by the Madonna
This varlet was some noble in disguise,
Seeking her favor. Then I'd crack his skull—
That is, I would, were I a jealous man:
But then I'm not. So he may come and go
To Florian—or the devil! I'll not care.
I would not build around my lemon-trees,
Though every lemon were a sphere of gold,
A lattice-fence, for fear the very birds
Should sing, You're jealous, you are jealous, Sir!