 | Borgia |  |
SCENE I
The Vatican—Sala dei Pontifici.The Lord Alexander VI. and Monsignore Gaspare Poto.
ALEXANDER.
How high the storm is rumbling! Crack! What fell?
Look through the window.
POTO.
'Tis an old ilex-bough,
That sails along like a black, ruffled swan
A space above the ground.
ALEXANDER.
Draw in, draw in, draw in,
My light of service, Gaspare—the wind
Would, if it could, extinguish you.
Go yonder!
Set further in upon the table there
That vase ... enamel with the whirl-blast round it,
And the enamel matchless! Did you tell me
My lord Antoniotto Pallavicini
Waits for an audience? Of a truth, the tempest
Drove not His peace from Christ within the ship.
Well—introduce the Cardinal St. Praxede.
[Exit Poto.
Vespers will sound directly; but the bell
Of the old, dying day will shape a tinkle
In this mad, hammering gale, and no one hear.
[Re-enter Monsignore Gaspare Poto with the Lord Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini.]
Good even, lord Antoniotto.
65
Holiness,
What wind!
ALEXANDER.
Santi, it wrenches everything it handles—
No touching, but possession. Lord Antoniotto,
You come to seek the dispensation. Poto
Will tell you when I reached my bed last night;
Yet with all industry your business lingered
Still far beyond my goal. I crave your patience.
So many festivals this jubilee,
Processions, triumphs! O my Lord Cardinal,
Think—and the great rejoicing yesterday
When our young Duke received from Holy Church
The Order of the Mystic Rose that blossoms
Upon the banks of the abundant rivers—
Crown of the Church triumphant, militant.
My lord, the pity you were held at sea,
Delayed at Ostia too! Our Duke knelt down;
He took the emblem, kissed the hand, and kissed
The foot of Christ's vicegerent; then together
We stood erect, and he advanced; for once
He went before me—that was joy!—before me,
The Rose in his right hand, the hovering Dove
On his beretta, with its fretted rays,
A nimbus round him from the monster pearls,
And he before me like a star of heaven!
You have heard the Sacred College makes him Vicar,
Duke of Romagna, Count of Imola,
Forli? There were some seventeen Cardinals
Signed, when I signed the Bull.
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
And I away from Rome!
ALEXANDER.
Poto, shut down that casement.
Hoo! I shiver—shiver!
A cold so keen and violent.
66
I will aid him.
Your Holiness is prudent.
[At the window.]
What a shock
And surge among the roofs.
[With a crash the ceiling falls in over the Pope.
O God!
What is it? What has happened?
Is he dead?
POTO.
Oh, oh, oh! The Pope is dead.
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
The Pope
Is dead, is dead.
[They rush out to the Guard—a cry down the galleries “The Pope is dead!”
POTO.
[Re-entering.]
What horror!
His Blessèdness, where is he? Jammed behind
Those ribs of vaulting—but the throne still stands,
Veiled by a dais-curtain.
Re-enter the Lord Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini and the Papal Guard. The vesper bell begins to ring.
O my lord, look there!
[They discover the Pope.
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
Ah, God on earth, he keeps his throne! Not dead;
See, see, he moves the ruin from his hands.
POTO.
His brow bleeds .... [to Guard.]
Gently, the great daïs-nails
Will harrow up his arm.
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
But he is still as death!
Now pass him through the crevice the dropped vaultings
A-tilt have made.
[They bring the Pope out and raise him slowly on his feet.
67
Yes ... to my room,
[He is helped into the next chamber.
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
Thank God!
Enter Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna.
CESARE.
My father . . .
The Lord Lorenzo Chigi is stone-dead
Above .... My father!
CARDINAL PALLAVICINI.
Excellency, safe;
But hurt, but bleeding.
CESARE.
Publish wide the news;
Shout his escape! Send doctors, send the best—
The Bishop of Venosa.
[Exit into the Pope's chamber.
[Cardinal Pallavicini goes out, as Cardinals and Physicians pass in.
After a while Donna Lucrezia Borgia d'Aragon enters and stands waiting till some one passes out of the bed-chamber.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
[Passing out.]
Your Excellency, the Pope's Holiness
Has at the very edge of death been spared.
LUCREZIA.
I am so thankful!
[Physicians come out.
BISHOP OF VENOSA.
Nothing of danger! He is torn, he is shaken.
He asked for you.
LUCREZIA.
I will go straight.
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No, no, Madonna,
He is asleep, and even your steps would rouse him!
He will demand you later as his nurse,
His cook, his smiling comfort. God be thanked!
[They pass out.
LUCREZIA.
I am so thankful . . .
That chasm—the marbles in their deadly blocks,
I feel them as their falling were on me.
Cesare!
[He comes out of the chamber.
CESARE.
Pearl, how white!
LUCREZIA.
But you are whiter far. You are not hurt?
Cesare, are you reeling? Take my hand.
CESARE.
Nothing—a chasm .... As from the pit of hell,
When I look up through this destruction, up!
I will not look. It is all over now;
That snatch of Chaos is an empty mouth.
The tower fell—four were killed above this room;
No matter there, nor who .... But have you thought,
Lucrezia, how brief our dazzled hours?
This tower a'crumble, had it buried him,
Instead of bruising! Diva, we are gods,
But all Olympus perishes with Jove,
And Jove we know must perish. Come away!
I will conduct you.
LUCREZIA.
No, no, Cesare.
There will be need to swiftly publish forth
A Brief to calm the people from their fear.
CESARE.
Lucrezia, but you lay
The cool of softest snow to my hot brain.
Our Queen of Beauty love you!
69
Take some wine—
The light, white wine .... To-morrow we shall laugh
At this big rent.
CESARE.
Avernus, we shall laugh!
[They go out, the wind blowing on them from the gap.
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