University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Atrium in the house of Vivia Perpetua.
Vivia
alone.
It cannot be, that I, whose heart was wont
To live upon my lips like any child's,
Should now begin a life externe, untrue,
Now that this great Reality hath come
To wake renewing life within, that gives
A fuller impulse to my every thought—
A growth so sensible that days seem years
To pass me onward. Yesterday, scarce woman,
Weak, poor, unknowing God, save in my fear—
To-day, a soul adoring him with love.
Yet what to do? This silence grows too great;
Hath it not even now press'd on the sense
To find a speech in phantoms? Fearful, too,
My father's face between me and my child!
The never-failing sweetest peace, that once
Would sit and watch in fellowship with me
Beside his rosy sleep, hath vanish'd all
Before that pallid shadow! Whence?—O Heaven!
Is it thy mute reproach unto my silence?
To break it—how? To say unto my father,
I am a Christian! Oh, 'twere easier far
To speak those words unto assembled Carthage
Than one should even raise a doubt in him!
I cannot, while he stands full in the sun,
A child for hopefulness, a man for strength,
I cannot play the tempest to his joy,
And smite him to the earth. Who comes? Forbid!
Not thou to say 'tis he.

Enter Felicitas.
FELICITAS.
Madam, be wary;
The daughter and the ward of Statius. Nay,
I would have staid them, but they were impatient—
I dar'd not rouse suspicion; they are here.

Enter Nola and Cæcilius.
VIVIA.
Stir not, Felicitas; remain by me.

NOLA.
Vivia, what have I done? why barr'd the entrance,
Was ever open to me on the wish?
Why parley'd by yon slave, and bade to wait?

CÆCILIUS.
How pale you are! Nola, I pray thee peace!

NOLA.
No peace until she answers me in this.
There is a change—the very house is changed—
'Tis like a prison, you lock'd up within it,
Your thoughts in you from me. It is not just
Unto the many days that we have shared
Our bosomsful of counsel with each other.

CÆCILIUS.
More just unto those days to trust, not doubt.

NOLA.
'Tis Vivia I would hear.

VIVIA.
Sit thee, dear Nola—
Thou, Cæcilius:—for a while wilt leave me
Questionless?

NOLA.
Why press thy brow?—is't aching?
Well, to thy wish; I will not question thee;
But something one must do. Where is thy frame?
'Tis long, I dare to say, since it has seen
Those taper fingers; though so much extoll'd,
They're sadly idle ones!—where?

VIVIA.
Where?

NOLA.
“Where?”—Echo!

VIVIA.
There, good Felicitas, by yonder pillar.

NOLA.
Ah! well do I remember that same time
This was begun, though long enough ago
To earn one's memory riddance. Here they are,
Or should be, those same flowers you fain would fix,
Because I liked them not and cast them off.
You look'd as though they had been living things,
And lifted them, and kiss'd them—how I laughed!
And something like a lecture gave to me,
That things, how mean soe'er we reckon'd them,
Had each a beauty of their own. I now
Shall lecture you, that you are idle, Vivia;
You mope too much at home—'tis time you rous'd—
All Carthage wants to see you once again.
And now the festival, that trims us all
In welcome, with our gayest, loveliest looks,
Why let it pass as though it were a time
Like any other?—Watch her now, Cæcilius;
What thought is't holds her thus? look! she shall tell!

CÆCILIUS.
Oh, speak not!—how you have the heart, I wonder,
To rob her of her choice of such rare stillness.

NOLA.
Strange that she hears us not, and we so near.

CÆCILIUS.
And yet how far!

NOLA.
Vivia! say, what is it?
Have all our Carthage matrons given their cares
Into your hands?—why else so fix your eyes,
And sit for hours like a thing of stone?
There's the Antigone that stands behind you,
You're liker her than any living woman!

VIVIA.
I would I were.

CÆCILIUS.
Often you look like her,—
She like to you, I mean,—her brow, her lip,
Could marble smile.

VIVIA.
Her fine courageous breath,—
Oh, where is that? And yet to Œdipus,
Her poor, blind father—could she?—blind indeed!

NOLA.
So, leave Antigone, and come to you.
What was your thought?—silent to me?—Cæcilius,
You will speak truth, though it may vex e'en her;
Didst ever see a change like this?—to me!

CÆCILIUS.
Where is true faith all change comes graciously.
When the sun shines on me I am well pleas'd;
When the cloud comes, I do not blame the sun,
But feel the while that there he is behind it.

VIVIA.
Nola, 'tis true. New thoughts, urgent and strange,
Have so beset me round, they wilder me.
Let me but think them through, 'twill be my joy
Some day to tell them all. Art thou content?

NOLA.
No, not a whit! Why should thoughts come to you,
And not to me? Plague! there's another knot;
All things go cross to-day. Oh, what a mesh!

VIVIA.
Felicitas hath ready fingers.

NOLA.
Ah!
She was your father's slave; he has given her to you?

VIVIA.
O that slave!

NOLA.
What slave?—who is't you mean?

VIVIA.
I would not take her, save her freedom with her!

NOLA.
He will not give you that; he says so oft,
Slaves should be slaves, and keep their proper place.

VIVIA.
Cæcilius, sing!

NOLA.
Ay, do; a warming war-song.

VIVIA.
Call you a war-song warm? 'Tis deathly cold,
And makes one shiver at the thought of blood.

NOLA.
Vivia, how tam'd you are! Do you forget,
How once we watch'd the legions as they pass'd,
And plann'd the different garlands we would weave
To grace their conquest?

VIVIA.
Years on years ago,
That ages seem, now I look back on them.

NOLA.
May be; but 'tis not years ago that we
Did sit together on the shore, and you—
I see you now—look'd dreamily o'er the water,
Speaking the while of Dido;—you were fain
To invoke a god to bid her galley float
Again upon that sea, as once it did,
To bear her to your sight and to your love;
And then you said your heart was big as hers,
And could, like hers, pour out its dearest blood,
Give you a cause: and when I minded you,
That deeds like hers beseemed men, or matrons,
And not us maidens, straight you look'd away,
As you would rather have, instead of me,
The long blue line of ocean for a friend:—
And you to shrink from listening to a war-song!
But so you always were—so inconsistent!
That very time, although the sun had set
His great gold seal upon your valorous boast,
At dark I dared you cross unto the fountain,
The spouting dragon, near the steep ascent
In your father's garden, and you would not do it.

VIVIA.
Queen of my childhood! how, through all the gloom
Of ages rising up 'twixt then and now,
How pure and white she stands! as one might see
Down a long cypress-grove a marble statue.
'Twas not the letting out of Dido's life;—
I ne'er did see the might of such an act,
Although my father oft hath vaunted it
In some great name, whose history might end,
“He knew not what to do with life, and died!”
Why, Nola, it was Peace—this very Peace
She would secure her people—kiss'd the steel
Ere Dido struck it home; while truest love,
That sav'd its own from wrong, look'd on and smiled.
That perfect deed of death it was that seal'd
Her people's safety and her soul's dear honour.
Oh, fond and faithful blood!—might not that stream
Be chronicled in heaven for baptism?

NOLA.
I have made you speak; and now to make you listen.—
Cæcilius, war! The Battle of the Pass!

CÆCILIUS
(sings.)
The olive-boughs are sighing—

NOLA.
Ah, traitor!—that the song? I'll sleep; good night.

CÆCILIUS
(sings).

VIVIA.
Are sighing yet!—O, whence that song, Cæcilius?

CÆCILIUS.
My mother taught it me; and since you came
So tenderly to raise me from her ashes,
Looking upon me like her eyes again,
I sit and think she listens as I sing.
Sooth, but not I, 'tis music sings itself,
As easily as did the wind i' the tree
Over the dying warrior.

VIVIA.
Would you be
A soldier?

CÆCILIUS.
Would you have me? No; you sigh,
As she did ever when the song was done;
A sigh was always followed by a prayer
Unto the gods to keep me from the wars.

NOLA.
Vivia, you make a coward of the boy,
And so you will of Thascius;—as for me,
I would have fifty sons to make a front
Should grace a legion.

VIVIA.
And, 'tis like, my one
May be a soldier yet.

NOLA.
Yours!

VIVIA.
For a fight
Harder than any you would put him to.

Enter Attilius.
NOLA.
Good welcome! I enlist you on my side.

ATTILIUS.
How! warfare here?

NOLA.
Aught for a little life;
We are as dull as mourners at a feast.

ATTILIUS.
I come for life, not bring it. Standing chill'd
Under a portico, 'mongst muttering clients,
Is not the way to quicken up the blood.
Ah, this is well!—there is no home like this
In all our Carthage. Vivia, wert thou not
My sister, I could praise thee for a goddess.
But why so grave? You must wear brighter looks,—
Our father comes to you to smooth his plumes.

VIVIA.
What, then, has happen'd?

ATTILIUS.
Nothing that should bring
Such terror in thy face. The wretched breath
Of those poor miserables fann'd him;—'tis
Blow cold, blow hot; for, oh! that præfect-hate
Burns like a fever in his veins. Would he
But take one lesson from Hilarianus,
Who loves his ease too well to have a hate
For him, or any! That he would love thee—
And who would not?—my father should account
Fame to his blood.

NOLA.
What! from a fat plebeian?

ATTILIUS.
For the plebeian—Was he so? Perhaps!
I like the fat—it makes him more complete:
To see him at a feast! His eyes brimm'd o'er
With mirth—or wine, that, mounting to his head,
Look'd out again—his kindly face ashine
With all the unctuous treasure he hath stored;
The flesh of stalled beeves—their butcher (rogue!)
Did promise them they ne'er should see their deaths—
For why? their eyes were buried ere they died;
Of Trojan boars, who, for their loss i' the chase,
Came stuff'd with other meats in full revenge;
Fat fish, that toil'd with ineffectual fin;
The honey borne of bees, so heavy laden
That they broke down, and had to be unpack'd;
The oil of olive-gardens, where the sun
Did seem himself to melt, and yet the while
Did melt most dexterously each luscious drop
From the crude green into the mellow gold;
Rich fruits, so ripe upon the bending boughs,
That, scarcely touch'd, they dropp'd into the hand.
You would not have a man ungrateful? No;
He doth repay in kind the bounteous gifts;
No ingrate he! His very laugh is fat.
“Ha, ha!”—it almost smothers whom 'twould cheer.

Enter Vivius.
VIVIUS.
Brave picture for a butcher in the shambles!
For a proconsul—likeness of a beast!
Proconsul, said I? no, nor like to be.
Take his name hence, nor ever bring it more
Within these walls. We do not suffer swine
To come in gardens 'mongst our flowers and fountains.
How does my girl? See how fond custom still
Doth give a license to the saucy tongue;
We must keep compact with our dignities;
Or these impostors of the Roman name,
And offices—aye jealous of the birth
They lack—will drive a wedge into the tree,
The old patrician oak. Long shall it stand,
And stretch its arms in grand protection o'er us;
Ages shall come to find us still enthron'd
Beneath the shadow of the might we grew.
Truce to this voice—'tis for my portico,
And not thy atrium. I have been vex'd—
No more—no more—I come to thee for peace;
And all the thoughts that seek to part us, lo!
I put them off, as now I do this robe.
Greeting to thee, fair Nola; thee, Cæcilius:
Vivia, why, what's amiss—the boy is well?

VIVIA.
Well, and asleep; you would not have me wake him?

VIVIUS.
Wake him! Not I; Sleep is so good a nurse,
Right welcome is she to him. She ne'er stints,
But feedeth liberally the hidden fount
Whence leaps the torrent of our energies.
He should be strong, well nourished, and thou for him:
To-day thou lookest pale, and ill adapt.
There is a playmate for him waits without,
A bold one, and a strong one!—nay, no fear—
The infant Hercules, when first the god
Did stir within him, and he played a match
Against the necks of Juno's angry serpents.
'Tis finely done; the cunning chisel wrought
Like life upon the marble it hath fashioned.

ATTILIUS.
'Tis something worth to see; wilt come and look?

[Exit Nola with Attilius.
VIVIUS.
Thou, too, Cæcilius; for thou hast an eye,
For which thank Nature and the bounteous gods,
Hath an integrity doth guide aright
In matters of proportion; let it deal
With our fine playfellow, and bring the sum.
[Exit Cæcilius.
Take Thascius to it oft, teach him to clench
His hands like it, and so to knit his brows;
'Twill lesson him to strangle snakes betimes.

VIVIA.
I would that thou hadst seen him yesterday;
He stood upon my knees, and grasp'd in his hands
Yon shell—his little hands!—'twas no light burden;
And when I asked for sport what he would with it,
He stretch'd his arms towards Felicitas,
Who stood where now she stands, his eager face
All radiant with the light of giving love.
Of all the myriad kisses he hath had,
Of all the claspings that have held him here,
As though he grew to me, and ne'er could part,
Never was one for joy like yesterday's:
A new-born rapture sprung into our love,
Unknown before: we were in heaven together.

VIVIUS.
Seek, slave, for help to bear the marble hither.

VIVIA.
Wilt go, Felicitas, and see it done,
And if the boy still sleeps? And stay,—note well
The course of the sun.

[Exit Felicitas.
VIVIUS.
Vivia! say, why is this?
I lend thee slaves, to have them fawn'd upon,
As thou wert they, and they were empresses!
She must return.

VIVIA.
Nay, nay; she doth require
More gentle treatment than your custom warrants:
Death hath bereft her of a husband's care.
You would not have me lesser than my heart;—
And there are other reasons.

VIVIUS.
I would have
The mistress of the mansion seen in thee;
Thou wert the wife of one of noble blood;
Thou art the daughter of a noble house;
And shalt be mother to the noblest man
In Carthage! Ay, and a shall beyond. Be proud!
Thy bearing is too lax, too suppliant.
A slave should have the treatment of a slave.

VIVIA.
Give me her freedom.

VIVIUS.
No; hers least of all.
Beneath that skin, although it tell no tales,
There's blood needs curbing. I have mark'd of late
A dangerous sturdiness within her eyes;
Though not defiance quite, 'tis near upon it.

Re-enter Felicitas.
FELICITAS.
Lady, the shadow long hath left the dial,
The sun looks low aslant upon the sea.

VIVIUS.
So, is it? I must give the boy a kiss.

VIVIA.
Is he awake?

FELICITAS.
Wide-open eyes, and smiling.

VIVIA.
Ah, let us go.

VIVIUS.
Now you look like yourself—
More like. What cloud is this doth lour to-day?
I must have brightness—brightness, like my hopes,
My hopes in thee, the very sun of them!
Thou and the boy, who is a part of thee,
So part of them. Come, let us quickly to him.

[Exeunt.