 | Stephania |  |
35
ACT II La Luxure
—Ma colère vaut la tienne.
Scene—The same hall of the old palace. To the right a table strewn with scientific instruments: to the left an altar: at the foot of the crucifix skulls, jewels, broidered vestments, fragments of bones, and part of a skeleton propped against a reliquary, burning with gems.Stephania enters, simply dressed, with a basket and pruning knife in her hand. She gives a hasty glance toward Gerbert, who is reclining asleep in a chair richly wrought; then opens a shutter: the sun strikes across the shrine.
Stephania
Science, and learning, and the crucifix!
The Emperor hath been here upon his knees,
Unlocking coffers, or with duteous lip
Kissing the dusty jewels of the dead.
No speech has passed between us; as I served
In silence by the altar, laid a skull
Beside this burning topaz, wrapt the jaws
Of eloquent S. Just in folds of silk—
36
Of the mosaic circles on the floor,
Until I moved away. It is not gold
That is omnipotent, nor holiness
That gives its gold: I am omnipotent;
And if I still am busy with my herbs,
And watch the blowing of untoward flowers
Ere I express my poisons, I abandon
No tittle of my purpose. The old Pope
Is sleeping in the heat of afternoon;
But I may break his privacy—this hour
He gave me for confession. If I ring
His heavy crosier sharp against the stones,
The shock may startle him to consciousness.
(She lays down her basket and knife in the shadow. She advances as she throws the crosier to the ground)
Gerbert
(Waking of a sudden)
The stars are adverse . . . from some evil dream
I am aroused. Can Romuald read the stars,
And thrust his sickle into destiny?
Hath Romuald learning?
(Perceiving Stephania)
What, from Babylon
You come—I cannot recollect the dream—
And such confusion from the golden light.
It was the treasure dancing in the sun
That scared and dizzied me, for I perceive
You are—
Stephania
Stephania,—and I must believe
37
Their common lair, or men less fearfully
Would eye me as I pass; but you will count
The list of my transgressions, will assign
My fitting penance, and procure me peace.
Gerbert
Ay, presently; yet I am much to blame
That I delay the hearing of your griefs.
Come to me . . . but that hour the catacomb
Of Severus is unsealed.
Stephania
The Emperor
O'er-tasks you. He is young.
Gerbert
Hour after hour
I have stood by apportioning his gifts,
Lauding his zeal; at sight of all these gems
His face filled with a lovely joyousness.
He sees not what I suffer.
Stephania
Holy Pope,
I kneel and make avowal that I share
Your sorrow: as I waited in this hall
Last evening, with no courage to advance,
Yet stubborn with despair, I heard a secret
Pass between him and you. I may not speak
Of what I suffered—women use their pain
To find the pain of others. As I listened,
Crescentius died once more, and once again
Hope left my pulse; then steadily I fathomed
The trouble in your heart. Such youth, such glory
Shut in a wasteful dungeon, and the world
38
And yet I cannot doubt your friend will live
If he have joy and freedom, if you foster
In him all seeds of royalty.
Gerbert
By arts
I know not of he must be weaned from him
Who hath estranged us, from the cursed monk.
Stephania
From Romuald of S. Emmeran?
Gerbert
You divine—
A creature skilled to blemish and deflower.
Ravenna's piny rock is as the mouth
Of hell to me.
Stephania
And as a demon thence
I have been chased with execration. When
The Germans, trooping to the northern war,
Left me to die in a deserted camp,
I found myself beneath the hermit's knoll
By penitents and pilgrims wound about,
And in my great forlornness drew one day
Close to his feet and kissed them.
With sharp cries,
As he were bitten by a serpent's fang,
He scourged, he tore me—but my speech offends.
How different from you who give me help,
Who suffer me in sight of holy things.
Gerbert
There is no chastity in solitude,
No pity where the footsteps are not thick,
No hope that is not selfishness conceived
39
Your story moves my anger. From your knees
Rise! (He lifts her)
You have borne great woe: I would not judge you
Without prolonged, excessive mindfulness
Of all the evil chances of the lot
That wove your actions.
Let the Emperor know
That Romuald shamed you thus.
Stephania
Till he abhor
As I the miscreant. You have set your love,
I fear, on one of little gratitude,
If it be possible he so can doubt
Your power to bind and loose, he constitutes
A freakish monk disposer of his fate.
The world rings with the story of your zeal
For Otho's house—yet, pardon, holy father,
Your handmaid in her waiting misery
Alone hath comprehended with what passion
It urges, it consumes you. I believed
The man you love my foe; but he is young,
And would repair the past. The man you hate
I have firm heart to injure: if he triumph,
The lovely, royal head on which you dote—
Gerbert
O woman, hush! You have surprised my love
By fine intelligence of what it is,
The reach of its desire, its nether depths
Of insatiety.
40
(Settling her raiment)
And from a child
You fixed your heart on him?
Gerbert
Although the boy
Would leave me for a falcon or a dog;
Though on the day he started, scarce fifteen,
To travel southward for his holy crown,
He chafed at my embrace. When we were severed,
My soldier in the camp, I in the schools,
What messages, what tokens, what remorse
Pursued me! It is insupportable
To breathe beside him with the consciousness
That he is growing alien—whom I love
With such constriction of the heart my prayers
Grow ruddy as with life-blood at his name,
Who is my dream incarnate, half my God.
Stephania
You shall not lose him. We must bind his soul
By some great vow that in solemnity
Outweighs the trembling promise to the monk.
Exert your full authority, assume
S. Peter's very style, and summon him
To arms as a crusader.
Gerbert
It is said
I cannot die till in Jerusalem
I celebrate the mass. Does that portend
We shall combine one day in battle fields,
With glittering armies to exterminate,
Such as he dreamed of when he used to push
41
They met in a clenched band about his brow,
When I bent down to tell of Lucifer,
And all the spotted splendour of that field
Where pride was in dishonour?
Stephania
From his cave
The foul recluse will peer. A troop of kings,
Young warriors in their prime, shall pass him by
With laughter on their lips and insolence
Of faith in uncontrolled prosperity;
The hermit shall retire to private prayer
Among his vermin, and the world be saved.
Gerbert
(Nervously beginning to handle his papers)
S. Peter's very style! There have been letters
Of this great quality before—
Stephania
(Wiping her brows with a richly-perfumed handkerchief)
And think
Of all the East would be to him, the warm,
Sweet women in their veils? But you are sick.
Gerbert
Leave me awhile. Stephania, I am old
And fevered, at the very end of life;
And the long journey, all the blazing track
About the desert, where the sun stands still,
Affright me: I shall faint upon the road;
And yet he never must set forth alone.
Stephania
(Scanning him more narrowly)
Your eyes are as numb sentinels that keep
42
Will end soon in vacuity and death.
You have too heavy cares. Would you but drink
A potion I could press from certain herbs,
You were secure until the century,
The new-born century itself were old.
I know Campagna's countless fields of flowers,
When they will bud, when drop—what juicy stalks
Will lift men up from languishment. Refused
The comfort of the cloister, I am fain
To rove, and joy to seek in loneliness
For balsams on the hills. The ranker air
Of the low, burning marshes I can breathe
Unhurt; I have no scruple and no fear,
Therefore my knowledge is of quality
At once most secret and most terrible.
Gerbert
You move me—
Stephania
To a curiosity
Perchance, but to no credence.
(Flinging herself round Gerbert's knees)
Holy Pope,
You came not to my Italy to crush
And trample; you would raise my Romans up,
And under your dominion, should you live,
The Emperor, coldly worshipped yesterday,
Will be beloved, beneficent. Consent
To let me be your leech, and, while you mock
And disregard me, you will feel your powers
Press to expansion as the buds in spring.
43
Go, fetch your cordial.
(Exit Stephania)
For I cannot die,
And leave him to be sucked up by the fiend.
Ah, could this woman—with what sway of grace
She moved—revive in me the mysteries
Of youth, revive my spirit's sunken fires;
As sometime hath been seen by unforetold
And sudden inrush of some energy
The mazy goings of the world are broken
And thrown into new issues: if I might
Endure on earth for the next hundred years,
Who have divined so deeply, who have still
So much to proffer; for to be the thing
One dreams, a man, a parent, or a Pope,
Is but to find oneself at last in ken
Of a beginning, feeble from the birth,
And full of strange, initiatory pangs:
If in the future one could win the right
Of learning that wide way that draws its secret
From every science, as its property
Is drawn from herb and rock! These ornaments
Would purchase a whole text of Cicero
From far Scriptoria: but the boy I love
Is still a rank barbarian, and for him
There must be magic, there must be the East.
(Otho enters, wearing his coronation cloak)
Otho
How beautiful are gifts, how beautiful
Is reparation! I am full of joy,
44
Are mixing with the cypresses; S. Paul's,
The cloisters of S. John of Lateran
Are rising from the ground with marble shafts
In banded couples: and the reliquaries
Are richer than the churches; from the rock
Of the obscurest catacombs and from
The hot sides of Soracte, holy bones
Are parted by my zealous ministers.
Gerbert, it surely is a better way
Of doing penance to enrich the world
Than to make poor one's spirit and deform
One's span of life. I will not for myself
Keep any wealth, not even this glorious cloak
Traced with the whole Apocalypse in gold
On blue, 'mid sprinkled stars, where I can count,
For they are on my breast, the jewelled stones
Of the great city, New Jerusalem—
Jasper, and sapphire, and chalcedony,
Green chrysoprase, and every gate a pearl;
Or where in sombre dyes I find the place
Of the seven woes, one hidden in the clasp,
One disappearing in this silken fold.
The angels stand superb of stature, here
Low fiends revolt, and here the Woman rides
Triumphantly in scarlet. Let us take
My coronation chlamys in our hands,
And lay it on the tomb of Adalbert,
45
And cover my transgression.
(Coming closer)
You are busied
With many papers. Is there anything
Among them from Ravenna?
Gerbert
Nothing.
Otho
Once
I cut away the strings so hurriedly,
Knowing a scroll brought comfort from my well-
Beloved Archbishop; but I dread the sight
Of Romuald's hand. If I could only rest
From thought of him!
Gerbert
He shall not trouble you.
Otho
In this wide, burning sunshine I forget
My doom as if it were an exhalation
Of last night's dusk, an insubstantial thing;
But when I sleep I see Crescentius' face
With Romuald's habit, and the two are one
I cannot disentangle, though I strive
Till daybreak in an agony.
(Glancing at the cloak)
But if
I do not hug my treasure, if I show
The hermit that I am not covetous,
Is there not hope he may grow placable?
(Gerbert, with clouded brow, continues writing as he replies)
Gerbert
It is to me a cause of private grief
Otho should be unmanned—of heavier moment
My knowledge that the Turk defiles His tomb
46
A mandate from S. Peter summoning
All Christian princes to the Holy War.
Otho
O stormy Paradise, O sacred lust
Of battle—and you know I cannot join,
I dare not mingle with you.
Gerbert
In your stead
I have another pupil.
Otho
Ah, you mean
The son of Capet, whom you never loved
As you have loved me, who is dull in war,
Who cannot press his prayers into a blow;
Yet should God choose him to confound the strong,
And take Jerusalem by miracle,
Think how my heart was broken and forbid;
Let me be buried there!
Gerbert
You would bespeak
A sacred sepulchre within the land
That you have never travailed to redeem.
Nay, but Christ's soldiers shall alone have part
In Jewry's blessed soil. How deep so e'er
The sin of the Crusader, his offence
Is cast behind God's back. They who received
News from the starry messengers of great
Goodwill on earth to men returned not home
With hearts more bland and musical than theirs
Who shall respond God wills it to the word
Of my poor invocation.
47
On the plains
Of Palestine there will be misery,
Hunger and thirst and bitter weariness,
Such as the hermit with his stinted crust
And formal patch of labour wots not of.
Return to Romuald, play at keeping fast,
Suffer through senseless vigil, while at siege
Of the great Eastern cities men keep watch
Under a leaden roof of sun, or drag
Through deserts where the fountain is mirage.
Die at Ravenna in the piny grot
'Mid prayers and sacraments; while, with the howl
Of jackals on his scent, with Saracens
In tramp across the field, more fearlessly
The young crusader gives his soul to God.
No need to him of priest, no need to him
Of absolution; deep within his breast
Is peace, the manna, and the hidden name
Inscribed by his Redeemer.
(He advances and stretches forth his hands towards the Emperor)
Otho, come!
(Folding him in his arms)
O my beloved, you shall not be discrowned,
You must not; Heaven hath made this royal path
For penitents (Pointing to the Crucifix)
. Turn to your Glorious King
So patient in His bonds, who cannot stoop
To save Himself.
48
(Bowing before the Crucifix)
Doth not the Gracious Form
Bend down to bless? I am at last beloved,
Accepted, and of Thee! Thou deignest thus
To make me Captain of Thy Holy Wars,
To choose the very service I can give
With strength and joy. Tears rush into my eyes,
Great sorrows are appeased, and hope once more
Springs inexhaustible as light itself.
God, I obey Thy summons!
(Stephania re-enters with a phial; she lays a letter on the table. At a motion from Gerbert she withdraws into the shadow on the further side of the altar, where she stoops to take up her basket and knife. Otho rises; he turns abruptly and fixes his eyes on the letter)
Who has laid
This packet on the table with its seal?
I stand before it sealed; I have no power
To touch or understand it, but I know
Profoundly what is written.
It shall burn,
It shall be hacked to pieces.
(He is about to snatch it, when he recoils, white and trembling, then moves into the deep window-seat, where he stands absorbed as if in a trance)
Gerbert
(In a low voice to Stephania, who steps softly up to him)
What is this,
Woman, that you have brought to him?
49
It bears
The seal of the Camaldoli; a monk
Bade me deliver it.
Gerbert
(Observing Otho)
He has no sight,
No consciousness, his attitude is hard.
What obloquy of sorrow to behold
His lost and trembling face! I am too shaken
To speak with him again; it were dishonour
Too deep to make him iterate the promise
That he has sworn to me and to his God.
Stephania, you have beauty, dedicate
Yourself to his deliverance; use the famed
And unexpressive powers of womanhood.
I leave him in your hands; when you approach
His lips are crisp, his blue eyes scintillate
With metal flash, and that low brow of his
Clears of untoward thoughts.
Stephania
Pursue your plans,
Build up the Empire; I will entertain
My lord and keep him from Ravenna's snares.
(Holding out the phial)
But, as the sun drops, you will deign to taste
Of my poor housewife's wizardries?
Gerbert
(Heedlessly gripping the phial, with his eyes on Otho as he retires)
Farewell!
(Exit)
(Stephania remains in an attitude of submission; from the distance she acutely watches the Emperor)
50
I see my failure certain if I speak,
Or touch him, for inapprehensiveness
Is round him as a cloud, for beauties now
Would be unranged above their opposites,
And take a level place. The very air
That rippled up to my averted eyes
Brought messages from his when he descended
This morning from his chamber. Afterward
He sang a German ballad, but I came
Like silence to his voice: each time I heave
My bosom something of his manhood falls;
I have no fear, if I am opportune,
That virtue will defeat me or religion,
Beyond these blunted moments.
(Stephania passes out, with her basket and pruning-knife. The sound of the door, as it closes after her, awakes the Emperor from lethargy; with a deep breath he starts up and turns to the table)
Otho
Terror comes
Like a white sea upon me! I must read
The hateful letter; there is no escape,
For Romuald loves my soul as Gerbert loves
The nature I was born with, and I perish
Between them, yearning for such unity
As they proclaim impossible. So safe
This parchment lies, as if it surely held
The will of heaven, that while I turn away
My heart is growing hot for it. One glance
51
(He reads)
Your gifts
Are useless, for you will not give yourself.
You lose what you would keep. And here he says,
I pray vain prayers that when you come to die
You may be quiet in hell, and know its pains
To be your portion of eternal love.
(Otho's hands grow stiff as he grasps the parchment; he remains for a long while rigid and silent. Then a softness comes into his face, and the scroll drops from his hand)
God cannot be entreated. I return
To the unbroken cloud! He takes no bribes;
How like a king He is! And I am glad
At heart that He has flung away my dross,
And made all true betwixt us.
(He goes up to the altar, strips it of the jewels, and kneels before the crucifix)
Here at last
I kneel, with no petition, and adore.
How vain it is to hope, how vain to love,
To suffer and to bleed!—
(He rises and turns from the crucifix, looking back on it with lingering eyes: then he stares drearily at the dalmatica, and the treasure dashed down from the altar)
Or to enjoy!
I must just wait and watch; I cannot mingle
With any project more.
(Suddenly turning toward the loggia with a despairing cry)
52
Have interest for my senses or go mad.
(He looks out; in the distance are the rising churches, the fortifications. Under the grassy columns of an ancient temple a woman glides, and then pauses.)
My soldiers and my workmen! So they reared
The Tower of Babel, built it brick by brick.
I would I had been there to see it fall,
Or to be buried in the masonry
Where none could dig. That figure by the arch
At least is not concerned with me, fulfils
No dream of my begetting. With a touch
How delicate she snaps the twigs, and chooses
So slowly as if wise, for leaf by leaf
She thins her plant. The woman interests me
By that unusual grace of plucking herbs
Above her head. She sees a larger growth
High on the very key-stone of the arch,
And grapples with the cluster as a prize.
She hangs upon its branches, all her clothes
Fall back; the strain of her endeavour brings
The tuft, the block of sculptured marble down
In ruin, and reveals her face. It is
Stephania's! From the Temple of the Moon
She hurls a noble fragment, and remains
Contemptuous of its downfall as she plaits
A basket with her leaves. How solitary
She looks, and yet how strong! I keep aloof,
53
Are roused in me, temptations that arrest,
That fill me with a curiosity
To prove their magic promises, that stand
About, and wait as if with harnessed steeds.
I wonder why she gathered herbs at eve
From Dian's fane, and yet so wantonly
Has shattered it; she lures and irritates
Within the shade; but, as she moves along,
She calms by merely walking.
(Stephania passes out of sight. After a while servants move about the hall with lights and golden dishes)
I despair
Of finding happiness at all 'mong men;
They cast it out with arguments; like nature,
Like poetry is a woman, and like them
She stirs an agitation as of waves,
A trouble that is ecstasy. The night
Falls from its lonesome distances, the stars
Still vacillate and do not shine. I hear
The glad cries of the city and its songs;
There is a light behind me. (He turns)
What a blaze,
As if my servants meant to make a feast!
One enters bearing wine, and with the flask
Two cups. Ah, I remember, one is mine,
And one is set for Gerbert. I could laugh
That this illumination should be made
For him, a bent, old man, who holds discourse
54
As candle after candle springs and burns,
I could not listen. (To a servant)
It is not our will
You summon the most reverend Pope to-night;
We have a matter we would lay before
The lady called Stephania, and we beg
That she will visit us.
(The servants go out)
What have I done?
It is a trifle! I shall ask the name
She gives her sombre garland; and perchance
The useless, festive look about the room
Will cease to haunt me if she enter it.
We shall be both indifferent; for she was
Crescentius' wife, and she will understand
I sent for her from courtesy. These tapers
Seem to accomplish some great rite and dance
As if before a Power! I am myself
Impatient and responsive to—I cannot
Conceive what hidden joy, for there is nothing
To come, except an easeful hour, the pleasure
Of speaking with a woman, and of seeing
The answers of her face. I hope my servants
Will say no word to Gerbert; he might find
Some disrespect in what I do, or blame it
As levity. Is that unruffled sound
Her coming?
(He sees her in the distance)
She has altered her attire!
I hate her for the change that she has made;
55
Within her hair bewilder me. I turn
Cold as in snow; my forehead damps my hand;
I have no more a wish to speak to her.
(He walks back to the window as Stephania enters)
How even the twilight is implacable,
For it is drawing round as if to shut
The candelabra closer in their glow!
It does not bring concealment, it expresses
The spirit out of fire, until the room
Is terrible in splendour.
Stephania
I am here:
What would my lord impart to me?
Otho
How quickly
You have responded!
Stephania
It displeases you?
Your servants bade me hasten; but, as Cæsar
Is unprepared, I shall at leisure wait
His second summons.
Otho
Stay.
Stephania
If I am here
It is to serve your will, for I was told
I should be honoured with some confidence.
Otho
On nothing that concerns the commonwealth,
Nor anyone in Rome save you and us—
(Facing her)
Stephania, you avoid me in the Court,
You move remote as if dissatisfied,
You watch me, yet I never meet your glance;
56
You find in my behaviour, for I seek
To change your fortunes, to persuade your anger
To condonation of the past? . . . And yet
I cannot think of anything gone by,
While thus you stand before me, thus renewed,
So actual in your beauty.
Stephania
Of old times
Few care to think in chambers bright as this,
With wine upon the table. You are tired,
Your eyes are troubled; do not question me:
My grievous moods I put away the moment
I crossed your threshold; yea, when 'mid my hair
I laced the perfumed roses. You forget
That I am learned in pleasure. On your brows
Since you return to Rome there is no joy.
Otho
For I have no forgiveness.
Stephania
Whom, my lord,
Have you offended, if it be not I?
Whom else would you appease?
Otho
Why, there is God.
Stephania
And He is pitiless?
Otho
Here lies a scroll
From Romuald, the great saint, who sentenced me
To take the vows of the Camaldoli,
And expiate my sin. I could not yield
My boundless youth to walls, and to the circle
Of daily liturgies, of lonesome prayers,
57
I could not be discrowned, even before God;
My royalty revolted, though my sins
Must stay across the cover of the Book
Of Life, undimmed by penitence: instead,
I forced the gates of Rome, I flashed the splendour
Of Greece across the Court, I heaped the shrines
With carbuncles, with ouches; and for this,
So Romuald writes, God has me in such hate
He has appointed me my heritage
Within the everlasting fire.
Stephania
Make certain
Then of your condemnation, do not tarry
Between your good and evil, take all earth
Can offer, ere you play your part in hell.
My lord, how pale you turn?
Otho
Such Roman valour
Is in your words—all that the earth can give!
Stephania, you must yield what else in vain
I should entreat the universe to grant,
If you would have me reckless as the blood
Is in my frame to-night. That cruel saint
I knelt to at Ravenna sent me forth
To Rome with the prediction I should die,
Because I would not cowl my helmèd brows
For sake of sin committed when a boy,
Before I knew that mercy must attend
Even the establishing of mighty aims,
58
The beauty of your presence. O forgive!
No more remember my abhorrèd deed,
Nor my abhorred indifference to yourself.
Wipe the past clean, for if we laugh at judgment
We must have naught behind us we can see.
Stephania
(Aside)
Crescentius, turn away; forgive your wife!
He made me an adulteress.
(To Otho)
You are mad.
You join me to your destiny?
Otho
I know
At last that woman is the guardian form
Above life's secret treasures. Do not close
Your lips as if in pain. Ah, now you smile;
You let your eyes rest full upon my eyes,
A breath breaks from you and you stoop. O love,
I kneel before this kiss. Condemned to death
For ever, let me die within your arms;
Let them encompass me as Phlegethon
Binds the last doom with fire.
Stephania
You kneel to one
Whose pride is broken, round about whose beauty
No limit now is set that admiration
Or longing can transgress; one who is freed
From reticence, who frees from all restraint
As nature doth, who gives and who receives
With the mere general temper of the earth;
59
Nor heeds it for endowments that delight,
And that men always praise.
Otho
There is no pride
In this confession that necessity
Is on me to adore you? Let it seem
But passion for your touch or for your smile,
This mouth exactly formed, these wondrous tresses
Of filbert-yellow to your ear, and thence
More orient in their curve: it is enough
To praise you for these things: yet in my joy
There is a love so piercing that it reaches
Beyond what I can see, or ever speak,
Beyond my senses, and beyond my will,
Since I am lost beyond my conscience too.
Stephania
You still reprove yourself, you have not chosen
Quite to renounce the cloister; you are yet
But half-determined—miserable pause!
Otho
You know I cannot quit the rule of men,
The conduct of my armies, the protection
Of my elected pope, a spirit linked
With mine to force achievement; and for this
I shall be damned. Then let me have the pleasure
For which you have illuminated all
Capacities within me. I demand
What every youth about me long ago
Has cried for and obtained. I do not think—
60
I do not see you as Crescentius' wife.
Stephania
Why should you?
Otho
All offences are related,
Are of a kin; it matters not how one
Deals with another, for between the brood
Shame is a thing unknown. I almost fear
That I am mad with these appalling weeks
Of struggle and recoil. You, you alone
Have brought me splendid sorrows; all the rest
Were dark as night and hapless as the grave;
You tortured me with glory, with the fire
Prometheus lit in man. I am a Greek,—
Born Greek: I worship beauty as they worshipped
In that old land of cities. I have loved
The light of learning; it was but the moon
Against the sun when loveliness appeared
Bright on your brow and bosom. I have loved
My shining crowns, but in your voice there is
That which deposes sovereigns. More than Greece—
For she is half a fable—I have loved
My Rome, creator of my visions, destined
To be fulfilment's prize, but in your flesh
Rome is more living than in stately walls,
As mystic, though less changed.
Stephania
I am descended
From purest Roman stock; before Augustus
Was made, like you, an Emperor, my forefathers
61
Otho
But your brows
Are conscious and imperial, they belong
To ages of dominion and of pleasure
Unequalled in Olympus when the Gods
Were satisfied with sacrifice, and Hebe
Brought them the heavenly cup. I have forgotten
The drear religion that I loved, the folly
Of seeking unseen hopes. You stand supreme,
As blonde as honey, soft to look on, softer
To touch, with glittering robe, and roses fallen
Red-coloured down your hair: I see in you
All that I want.
Stephania
And I in Cæsar find
Desire fulfilled.
Otho
Stephania, O my life,
I shudder at avowal from your heart
You long to bless me. It is terrible
As birth or death to feel one is beloved:
To meet with beauty in untried embrace
Is anguish like first meeting with the air,
Or losing it again in final dust
When what was born must die; and yet the joy
Is past the limit of existence, needing
A paradise to breathe in.
Stephania
You are mine,
Though ignorant as yet of what I say
When I proclaim you mine. Experience
62
Of gain and triumph to our intercourse.
Yet I shall ease your senses with a sudden
Initiation into liberty;
And you will stay a craving of my spirit,
A need of you that actuates each thought.
My arms are empty—Come!
Otho
O exultation
To meet you as your captive in our love!
The cressets do not burn—you burn, until
All else is darkness. Your blown roses mingle
Their vivid petals, and a fire of gold
Leaps from your robe. I cannot drink the wine:
It is too weak: but I desire your beauty
As Hades' ghosts craved blood, for I have been
A phantom of myself since Romuald's curse.
The taste of life, its nourishment, its truth
Are mine to-night, and in your deep embrace
Forgiveness is accorded. Nothing more
Has the ungenerous heaven to do with us,
Who pardon and are pardoned, who attain
Hope by each other, who from very guilt
Have drawn a perfect issue.
Stephania
(Suddenly flinging him back)
O my prize,
My great reward for unimagined pains,
Will you, whose head shall rest where fate is joy,
Dare in to-morrow's sun to cast me off,
63
And leaving kisses like a crowd of leaves
Under the nipt acacias for a sign
And memory of to-night?
Otho
You catch my hands,
You have an aspect fierce and like a corpse;
Change back to splendour, for you damp my mood.
O love, my glory, I am hurrying on,
On, past you to the tomb. It is for you
To breathe on me, to let your resonant,
Firm voice strike through me, to keep sharp and clear
The outline of my life, for all is fading
Around me and must fade. What, cast you off
Who love me, who forgive! But I will rather
Cleave to you till I die of your embrace.
I must be yours for ever!
Stephania
Ay, till death.
| Stephania | |