University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

[The same as in Scene I., at Careggi; but a curtain is drawn across the stage, cutting off the interior of the apartment. Enter (left) Pico della Mirandola and Luigi Pulci. At the same time enter (right) Leoni.]
PULCI.
What news, physician?

LEONI.
News most ominous.
Lorenzo, not contented to be shriven
By his own confessor, Matteo Bossi,
Nor by Frà Mariano, hath besought
That Frà Girolamo will hither come,
And ere he journey to the other world,
Arrange his soul.

PICO.
The Prior of Saint Mark's,
Savonarola!

LEONI.
Even he in sooth.
He will be here anon.

PULCI.
You stagger me.
But often so it is: the steadiest souls
Seem to lose equilibrium when they stand
Upon the narrow edge that doth divide
This life from the deep precipice of death.
I had not thought it.

PICO.
Doth he suffer much?

LEONI.
He must, though his brave visage still belies
The stomach's agonies, to which the gout,
Routed from limbs, hath sulkily retired.
He gleans no comfort from our tepid baths
Nor Bono Avogradi's heliotrope.

PULCI.
Are we to lose him then? Alas! alas!
The loftiest leaves are blown away the first,
While lowlier foliage melancholy hangs
Through half the winter!

[Poliziano appears from behind the curtain, and draws it back. Lorenzo is seen reclining on a couch at the back of the stage, near the window overlooking Florence.]
POLIZIANO.
Lorenzo craves his dear familiars
To come as near him as they are in thought.
Will you approach?

LORENZO.
Come close, Mirandola!
I could not die contented save I had
With thy young aspect first refreshed myself.
Learning and loveliness in thee have paired,
And seeing thee once more, I take farewell
Of all I lived for.

PICO.
You are ruddier now.
Dismiss death's far too early messenger,
And bid him come again at stroke of age:
Give him not audience yet.

LORENZO.
Death hath no hours,
But makes his own appointments. Better so:
For, Pico, I am out of heart and breath,
And could not breast the hill of life again.

POLIZIANO.
But what a height, my master, you have climbed!
And if the moment to descend have come,
Survey once more the conquered territory,
And die believing that no mountain soars
So loftily as that aspiring name
That you will leave behind.

LORENZO.
Consoling thought!
But, O Politian! if our labours live,
It will but be as tablets on a tomb
For sake of those that they commemorate,
Our names no more than speaking monument
To tell the world where a great spirit lies;
And we shall borrow from dead Plato's dust
What pinch of immortality we keep.

PULCI.
To Plato generous, why be thus unjust
To his posterity? Lorenzo's age,
Poised on its own broad pinions, shall defy
The downward gusts of time, while weaker wings
Are whirled beneath the horizon. Tongues unborn
Shall lisp the sweet survival of your deeds,
As children practise with a father's name
To learn a larger utterance.

LORENZO.
Spoken well,
And worthy of my poet. But this vein
Of forward-reaching vanity infects
Each generation, this one most of all.
Nought new is said, but only newly thought:
And these pretentious novelties wherein
The upstart age struts proudly, are but gems
Carefully carven by an older time,
Now furnished with fresh setting.

POLIZIANO.
[Aside to pico and Leoni.]
Hark how he talks!
Too equably for one that is to live.
Only when death over our shoulder leans
And guides our childish fingers through life's page,
Write we in such well-balanced characters.

LORENZO.
[Raising himself on his elbow.]
I want you all to hold in tenderness
Hieronymo Donato, Barbaro,
And Paolo Cortese, for my sake.
You know how they have traversed land and sea
To help me bridge the present with the past,
And open out for penetrating minds
Unexplored lands of learning. See you too
That Giovanni Lascaris, whose freight
Of twice one hundred volumes, ransacked fresh
From cloisters of Mount Athos, hath been sucked
Down by the ignorant waves, doth not receive
Less than the promised guerdon had he brought
That argosy to shore.

PICO.
It shall be done.
Myself will see to it.

LORENZO.
Pulci, to you
I do commit my poesies that have
Enjoyed obscurity.

PULCI.
They quick shall greet
The light that waits for them.

LORENZO.
No, Pulci, no!
Consume them utterly. I would recall
Much that is now on every Tuscan tongue,
If that were possible. Our Plato held
The Muse should sing but praises of the Gods
And hymns to virtue.

PULCI.
You on me put a far more murderous task
Than I have heart for.

LORENZO.
Friendship orders you.
Hark to the thrush gurgling in yonder tree!
He hath inhaled the liquid air whilst flying,
And, now he chooses him another perch,
Gives it us back in notes intangible;
Which is the very music that we want,
Did we but know it. For your spoken song,
Too full of meaning, lacks significance.
Hark how again he sings celestially,
The very heaven of music meaningless!
He is a better poet than us all.

[An attendant enters (left), and whispers to Pico, who is joined by the rest. They confer silently, while Lorenzo gazes out towards Florence.]
LORENZO.
Does your debate concern me, gentlemen?

POLIZIANO.
The Prior of Saint Mark is now without.

LORENZO.
Then let him come within. He is a guest
That I have need of. Go, divert yourselves.
With him I must hold dialogue of death
Before life's curtain falls.

[They take tender leave of him. Exeunt (right).]
LORENZO.
[Alone.]
My intimates!
The best men ever had, but helpless now
To hold me here or cheer me thitherward.
Of all the company of hearts that sit
Round our existence smiling, that not one
Should be told off to see us to the land,
The road of which we know not! That seems hard.
To be alone in the full glare of life
Lulls fear to sleep. But loneliness in death
Might make the most intrepid spirit take
Shadows for substance.

[The door (left) opens, and Savonarola appears. He stands pausing in the doorway. Lorenzo motions to him to approach.]