University of Virginia Library

SCENE II

The Vatican; Sala dei Pontifici.
A secret Consistory. The Lord Alexander VI. surrounded by his Cardinals in their purple. Don Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish Ambassador, and other Ambassadors.
The Lord Cardinal Cesare Borgia is in the midst of an appeal to the Cardinals. The Pope is watching him, breathless.
CESARE.
...From my most early years
I have been secular. Not the least vocation
Is found in me, not in my secret thoughts,
Not in my will, not anywhere within me.
Therefore I sit apostate in your midst,
And therefore do you wrong; therefore I taint you,
Beside you, and no more your peer. Most humbly
I pray you to release me from my vow.

[There is a guttural murmur.
CARDINAL BORGIA.
As you have urged
Both eloquently and without offence
Ere this dispute grew hot, His Blessèdness
Constrained you in this matter: trust his wisdom.
So Heaven puts shackles on us in our youth,
That in our years we may walk free, Heaven's choice
Become our privilege.

CESARE.
I have received
Rich benefices; I resign them all.

DON GARCILASO.
For league with France, for favours from a foe,
For contract with your country's enemies.
Most hotly I protest.
[To the Cardinals.]
This renegade,
If you will yield him to such infamy,
Will still go on from false to false, forswearing
His worldly obligations, as through you
He would forswear his pledges to his God.
The old alliances that prop this Chair—
Naples and Spain—are mute, and all the parley
With France. Take heed, take heed, my good lord Cardinals,
How you raise up a Princedom.

CESARE.
[Turning his back on Garcilaso.]
But more humbly
I make petition. How the world esteems me,
How slander rates me, when I am once unfrocked
I will answer to the world. You were my peers,
You are my judges, and from you I ask
Simply for mercy. Of too great indulgence.
I was admitted to your fair assemblage.
Open the door!

DON GARCILASO.
He blazes as a god.
Look, he is trembling! This humility
Is nothing. He who says he cannot play
The hypocrite is hypocrite in full,
And plotting for his patron.

CESARE.
That is very truth:
There, my Lord Cardinals, the word is just.
I am plotting for my patron, for my sole,
My unique benefactor.
[Raising and kissing the hem of the Pope's robe.
In this habit
I cannot serve His Holiness, whose creature
I am, and all my faculties acute,
Conjoined to serve him. I was born a soldier,
Beckoned to war, and pointed to redemption—
By steel, not holy water—of those lands
Bedevilled, once the Church's heritage.
'Tis as a Captain
I speak and of my nature. Give me freedom,
A little time ... the rest His Holiness
Shall publish to you of my wars and fortune.

CARDINAL LOPEZ
(Spanish).
Stay!
The Scriptures tell us there are many gods
And lords as many ....

DON GARCILASO.
True! Lord Lucifer
Is one of them, and he is kept in bonds
By God's divine discretion.

CARDINAL BORGIA.
Gently!

DON GARCILASO.
Why set him up aloft—why, why? Such eagles
Have dropped down tortoises on shining pates.
Look to your safety!

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Yet we need not shear
Our Samson of his martial strength: Delilah,
And not the Lord, put tonsure on that head.

[The Pope laughs in his robe.
CARDINAL OF LISBON.
But all this jesting
Is little to the point, and the point is grave.
Release him—but we cannot. He is bound,
As we, by vows that irk and must be borne.

ALEXANDER.
[Softly.]
We do not speak it by the Holy Ghost,
But to your private ear and as a Spaniard;
Such benefices as are vacant now,
And such as shall be vacant by your leave,
We shall dispose ....
Ambassador, your monarch
Will own us friendly as we fill those Sees.
But, look, we tax too much this youthful patience!
Give your decision, as the Heavenly Dove
Whispers you, fluttering on from head to head.
[There is murmured discussion for awhile.
[Very softly.]
Thirty-five thousand florins are renounced,
Are in our hands for gift.
O mercy, mercy, mercy!
[Pointing to Cesare.]
Do you not know
Such guilt is clung about him he must perish
If still he live in blasphemy. I plead,
I am pleading for his soul. Think, there are frocks in Hell;
Think of the scandal
His licence breeds if we deny him marriage:
While he is in the Church no reformation
Can spread against his check.
It is as if you all—each one of you—
Sealed with your sapphires his eternal ruin.
I forced him to this habit, and behold him!
He has never crooked the knee. Look there, my Lords,
Look there—Achilles peering from disguise ....
[Chuckling.]
Pardon, my Lords, as from his maiden dress.
Mine is the fault, the error. Shall he sulk
Useless among his tents?

CESARE.
[Kneeling.]
Before you
I plead for liberty—and, being released,
Whom should I serve save him who honours me,
Fixing on me his love, on me who have no merit,
Nor any place nor office in the world
Except to love him back?

[There is low discussion for a space. Don Garcilaso's voice is heard—“Bought; I protest, I will protest till death.” Cardinal Segovia advances.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Be comforted, O Blessèdness!
[To Cesare.]
Farewell, farewell,
Lord Cardinal; excel, as in our ranks you cannot.
Though often bitter to us in your mood,
Our skies will miss the lightning and the light
Without you, and our skies are colourless.

FRENCH AMBASSADOR.
The Duke of Valentinois—so my king
Greets you with patents disembarked to-day.

[The Cardinals and Ambassadors press round Cesare to congratulate; he smiles and bows. Then they break into groups and disperse.
CESARE.
[Between his teeth.]
Our obstacles
No more in our condition! Solitary!
No longer of a flock!
[He turns towards the Pope, who, unnoticed, has remained sitting on his throne, his hands stretched on his knees. Cesare steals quietly to his father.
I shall not leave you,
Not ever, not like Joffré, for a wife.
You shall not sit there looking lone—beside you,
Father, a power we have not measured yet,
That we shall measure. After all my wars,
And all my wars will be to draw you peace,
I shall return.
Kiss me.

ALEXANDER.
My heart,
No blessing—oh, a kiss!