University of Virginia Library

ACT V

SCENE I

A very squalid, little street, giving on to the Tiber. It is low tide; some few stars are coming out. A masked figure seats itself on the remains of an old barge, tilted up.
Children peep from their play: then one of them whispers to his companions: they flee.
A few Bargemen come up and observe the Mask; one shakes his head.
BARGEMAN.

Better be absent! No, no! Do not observe him, Bernardo.
If you hear nothing, see nothing, contain nothing,
you cannot be hanged.

ANOTHER.
Do not cringe; haul in those nets. 'Tis safer so.

[They set to work; an oar drops with noise. One or two salute the Mask, but, at the slow turning of his head, they go away.
[Two Cardinals land from the opposite bank; they pause, then shuffle into the night.
[The Mask shifts his posture.
THE MASK.
My lusts are heavy in me,
Heavy and idle. I have poisoned Rome;
It gasps and wriggles: not an ounce of flesh
In all this Rome but quivers in my shadow.
And what is next to do? And who will fall?
They dream all fixed
Within this brain—and I am but an eagle
Moving subservient to the ranker air.
[Another masked figure advances stealthily.
Eigh, Michelotto!

MICHELOTTO.
[In a whisper.]
Caught, gagged—those false Albanians!

CESARE.
Shall I sentence
A troop of tetchy mercenaries? Ho,
Boon fellow, have I brought you here to-night,
By this dim waterside, to give me tidings
Of a few minnows trapped, that should be landed
Unconscious in the haul?
I have seen burthen
Of princes on this back; I have seen their jewels
Dangling from belt and chains. What sights
I have beheld ....

MICHELOTTO.
And shall, if you will trust me with your hopes.

CESARE.
Uncertain!
[They are silent.
Hopes—a hollow!
Slaughter the flocks of Ajax!

MICHELOTTO.
Stay!
God's health, you have your plans, or I am palsied!

CESARE.
[Pulling Michelotto's ear-ring.
Fondling, I have my plans: but not as God
Hovers His hand among the elements
To pick His missile; rather as Olympus,
Blustering and fickle, backs the game at Troy.
[After a pause.]
I am tense and weary;
I dream too much—the fever of my dreaming
Strikes me at head of hosts,
And some in Spanish armour, some in French,
Innumerable hosts ....

[Michelotto scans him anxiously; then rises, shaking himself.
MICHELOTTO.
Come with me, come eaves-dropping! Ho, my wits
Were never nimbler; to each blood-caprice
I will give satisfaction, as a mistress
Stirs to appease her lord's carnality.

CESARE.
[In the same tone.]
I watched you strangling Trocchio ... but my father
Wept with shut eyes his trusted secretary
Fled from his table to betray our dealings
With Spain to France. The Vatican is dull!
Scruples are there and injuries and age ....
[On his feet.]
Why, like a hawk in ringing flight, I harassed
The creature for an hour to find if secret
From France we had cut off his treachery:
And in the Papagallo
My father wept! Ho, Trocchio swings out now
Where all can see him from Sant' Angelo—
His master and the Curia and the people.
My father wept .... At noon was he not merry
When Cardinal Michele's death assured us
One hundred fifty thousand ducats? Ecco!
I did not sing my cantarella's praise.
Dull at the Vatican!
And what to do?
Join Spain and join Gonsalvo, a commander
Even of my wing, the conqueror of Naples;
Or hold obsequious in my tethered hand
The Gallic fleur-de-luce?
Unpleasant gulfs,
Shoals! ... And to poise before the Balances
Watching their poise!

MICHELOTTO.
But you regret no action?

CESARE.
[Stalking to the edge of the water.]
I do not weep by graves! . . .
Looking across the cities that I love,
Across the sheepfolds and the little cities ....
[His voice trembles and he laughs.]
Pastoral! And for cause Vicarius sum
Sanctae Ecclesiae! ... Good Michelotto,
Hire me a boat, and row me down the stream.

SCENE II

The Garden of the Vatican, toward sunset.
The Lord Alexander VI., the Lord Cardinal Bartolomeo of Segovia, the Lord Bishop of Venosa and Monsignore Gaspare Poto.
BISHOP OF VENOSA.
The sun eats as a canker.

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Rome
Is festering with this fever like a pest.
I move and speak with strange uneasiness,
As if the motions of my life had fear.

ALEXANDER.
Sol in Leone! There is nothing pleasant
When the year fills that tract ... rage, rage, and sandy,
Consuming light!
I live a damp, old horse,
O'er-ridden by the ardour of the air:
No neatness round my throat, the cope flung off,
And all the passion of my flesh for shade.
Here there are shady grottoes from the darkness
Of trees; the heat is here unpressed by walls;
[Little Don Rodrigo and Don Giovanni come from behind a shrubbery.
Here children at their play
Show us their lissome bodies and red faces
Sol in Leone cannot agitate.
My lords, you see we sink on holiday,
And, fearful, take much care to keep our person
From danger—so persuaded by these deaths
Of daily happening: under ilex-trees
We ply our statecraft.
France has bidden us
Prove our fidelity and help her king
To oust from Naples Spain. Our holy troops
And gonfalon will be in readiness
Within six days, and we must part awhile
From our Duke Cesare.

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Wise sacrifice!
You know the Church has all to gain from France.

ALEXANDER.
So it is thought, my lord.
...Well, mite, Giovanni!
You run across the gravel with a shell,
A little, empty house, and hot as lead
Fired from a cannon?
Nestle all your curls
Under a few, large vine-leaves. Tell Rodrigo
He must not dip his head within the fountain—
The cold will make him break out of a plague.
Run, run and pull him from the brim .... Yes, baby,
Leave me your shell.
My lords, go in awhile.
Poto shall serve cooled wine.

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!
To drink increases thirst. I will not drink.

ALEXANDER.
Cooled wine—

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!

[The Pope laughs deprecatingly.
ALEXANDER.
I have not poisoned it.

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!

[They bow deeply to each other, and Poto takes the Cardinal and Bishop within.
ALEXANDER.
[To one of the children, as he perceives his son.
Roble, play further off!
[Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna comes to his side.
Just up and had your meal?
There is some sense in your strange hours when Sol
Is in Leone—night for day!
But, though your room be marble, what Inferno
Of flame to sleep through the bare hotness.

CESARE.
Father,
If you enjoy the fresher feel of night,
I bring an invitation you will welcome
From the Lord Adrian of Cornuto.

ALEXANDER.
Ah,
He has a vineyard under broad-leaved shadow,
Where gods could sup.

CESARE.
Where you will sup,
To-morrow evening.

ALEXANDER.
Baccho!
It will be cool. The country is a blessing
To think of when it darkens and revives.

CESARE.
You will not heat with riding at that hour.

ALEXANDER.
And I am careful now ... a little anxious
To see you start.

CESARE.
Too hot and still
For camps or marches ... like a painful dream!

[He sits by his father.
ALEXANDER.
Ay, so, so!
Cesare, if this strong heat
Struck me with apoplexy, pest, or fever,
You would be struck with peril .... O my heart,
My prince, could you endure from your own root,
And bear the shock of onset?

CESARE.
Always
I built broad the foundations of my power.
The kindred
Of all I dispossessed are gone from earth,
Where no successor of your Holiness
Could raise them my opponents: half my train
Is filled with high-born nobles, once the servants
Of Colonnesi and Orsini, now
My gentlemen and hung upon my fortune
As it were hope itself: the Sacred College,
You know, is more than half subservient to me ....
But—are you ailing?

ALEXANDER.
No, no—hot and dull,
Not ailing.

CESARE.
There are dancers, courtesans,
Who will in movements of the long-lost breeze
Fan the dead air—if you will visit me
To-night: to-morrow in the vineyard-garden
We sup .... 'Tis hard to get the dancers now:
The women shut their doors and strike their bodies
In terror at the fever that can kill.
They need await no other—lust is dead.
...You will announce at the next Consistory
I join the French?

Alexander.
Ay—with the treaties
Between us and the Spaniards and Gonsalvo
Safe in my coffers: for the French will fail;
And, though they raised you up, they hold you back
From Florence and your clutch on Tuscany.
You have Romagna firm.

CESARE.
O father,
Live a few years and I shall be your king!
As you love me, live till Tuscany is mine.
Live, live!

ALEXANDER.
For you
I have done harder things than conquer death.
[They are silent.
What are the great eyes dreaming of?

CESARE.
The heat,
And something dreadful in it—of the places,
Corneto, Piombino, yet ungirdled
By one domain.
[Rising impetuously.]
Oh, to desert the French!
Although I march
As of their army, at their first reverse
We close the northern passages.

ALEXANDER.
Ha, ha, ha! ha!
A trap for Louis ....
—Cardinal Michele
Was suddenly distempered by this ill,
Dying as swiftly as if venom wrought:
So fatal is the weather to stout frames!
Son, I incline to fat .... I would I owned
Your think and agile limbs.

CESARE.
I would that half the years
Of my short life—for, like Achilles', short
My life will be, if glorious—I might give
To build yours over four score years and ten!

ALEXANDER.
Ah, God! Such wishes weigh on me unkindly,
...Nay, not unkindly! But your eyes are swept
So wide across the breadths of Italy,
You call up years for me as if you were
A necromancer, not my very son
Whose proud, hot Spanish blood, whose fire and courage
Have given my flesh its youth again so often.
Your mother's land is changing you, beloved—
All schemes, all plots ... and where now is the smile
That flashed along your lips and made me sing
Ave Maria plena gratia—where?

[Cesare moves impatiently.
CESARE.
I am grown anxious, as my foemen's watch
When one of my huge pieces takes its station
For ruin's work .... This pestilential heat!
...Well, Roble, what an orange you have snatched,
Round as your eyes!
[To Alexander.]
Lucrece!—Oh, have you seen her
Look at you from the child?
[With a bitter laugh.]
I shall begin
To talk of years ago, like an old man.
Farewell!
They need me at the Mola.
[With a smile.]
Then to night
The dance! To-morrow the al fresco feast!

[Exit.
ALEXANDER.
I'm envious of Lucrezia, and weary,
More weary than with August—all my passion
Hard on my heart at last! My Cesare,
—Beautiful and cold as steel, his mind
Shining and shallow as the moon—for certain,
If he had been Medea, he had simmered
My ageing body in the cauldron's flood,
Like Æson's, for his purpose .... Solitary!
Age, age! And when the young are still,
The young who should be noisy, it is vacant.
I shall see Lucrezia in the spring: and yet
I know I shall not see her.
There, I am glad
The children have been captured by their nurse.
Buona notte, little ones!
[The Children are taken away.
Ah, but I would
I were as other fathers, and could make him
My heritor, and aid him by my death.
It is so good the old should die;
It is very good to die, but I must live;
I must subserve, must give my hand
In signature to any of his dreams,
Taking, in caritate,
A lovely eye-glance from him .... And Lucrece
Gone too, her husband's prisoner! Where my Pearl
And my great royal Diamond have been set
Here in my bosom—hollows!
And this twilight
Is filling them ....
[With a sudden, terrified cry.]
Lucrezia, Cesare!
Lucrece!

SCENE III

The Pope's bedchamber in the Borgia Apartments.
Monsignore Burchard at the bed's head watching: two card-players at a little table by the bedside. The Lord Alexander VI. is sitting up in bed, his glazed eyes fixed on the game. A crowd of Physicians, Surgeons, Apothecaries. The Cardinals consulting anxiously with the Pope's Chief Physician, the Lord Bishop of Venosa.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Does he see?
Does he attend?

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
He sees; but if the dying
Attend, or how to construe their attention,
Whether their eyes are purged, or focus fresh
We scarce may reckon. These illumined eyes
Are abstract, steady in their fever-light:
My lords, ere morning we shall see them fade,
Or soften into life. A child-like nature,
That may just slip away, or, fronting death,
As at a play, leave the grim stage behind,
And join us unsuspicious in the street.

Enter Bonafede, Lord Bishop of Chiusi, hurriedly.
BONAFEDE.
Physician!

VENOSA.
Ay, lord Bonafede—you
Come from a bed of even graver sickness,
More tragic, youth contending.

BONAFEDE.
Hush! Duke Cesare
Has but one thought—His Holiness.

VENOSA.
[Taking the Bishop by the shoulders to the bed.]
That message,
Repeat it .... Then the trance
May lighten or remove.

BONAFEDE.
[To the Pope.]
Most well-beloved,
Duke Cesare asks from his bed of sickness
For tidings of you. Every hour he sends,
And every hour
I droop him with despair. Speak of him, bless him;
Assure him of your energy to live.

ALEXANDER.
[Smiling from his dark eyes.]
Lord Bonafede, you are temporal.
Look there .... I watch the game.
I do not care
Now who is playing or who wins: I watch.

BONAFEDE.
The Duke is very sick.

ALEXANDER.
Look there! The Chance,
And how it tosses to and fro!

BURCHARD.
My lord
Takes interest in the fortunes of the game?

[The Pope nods.
ALEXANDER.
I rally—
Ay, honest Burchard, set it down—I rally.

CARDINALS.
Then speak your last requests.
—How can we serve you?
—What of Duke Cesare? Your benediction!
—What of your soul?

ALEXANDER.
I am too busy dying. Bonafede—
This dying is itself a little house,
And one within
That cherishes soft as a nurse, indulgent,
And lets one wake or sleep.
[To one of the Card-Players.]
How foolish of you!
You have lost your chances, listening to my talk.
You have no meaning
Unless you are intent upon the game.
Kiss me, good Bonafede, and your prayers.
[Exit Bonafede weeping.
Now leave me to the air.

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
He will fall asleep.

ALEXANDER.
I promise you
That I will make no noise .... I ever
Slept as a child, and wallowed in the feathers
Seven times at waking ... ha! And do you sleep
Till time for the next Office. Burchard dozes;
Put by the cards, and I will watch his face.

[The Crowd withdraws from the bed: the Pope chuckles, after fixing his eyes on Burchard; then his eyes close.
CARDINALS.
How wanton of his end!
—What of his soul?
—The noontide
To me is full of strange attentiveness.
Angels, or fiends?

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
Has he not made confession?

CARDINALS.
Ay, of concupiscence and simony,
If one may dare surmise—his open sins.
But of his secret sins! Think how they hide
And loom where fear is with them in men's thoughts!
—They say he sold his soul to Lucifer
For full eleven years; and all are told.
[A wind stirs the curtains.
—He comes, he comes!
—An apparition like a monkey! Horror!
A straggling darkness ....
—Are you sure? A monkey?
—And sounds!
Far more than seven devils are watching us.

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
He has received Viaticum, Last Unction.

CARDINALS.
Ah, but he cannot die until his Master
Rise from below to take him, cannot die
As sinners do accepted by their God.
—He sleeps when he should die.
—Closed up in sin,
A sullen Viper of the woods!
—Remember . . .
Think of the death of Cardinal Michele,
Think of the Cardinal Orsini, think
Of Don Alfonso, Duke Astorre!
—Ay,
Think of the Lady Daughter.

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
Tales and bibble-babble!
Go, chatter with your monkey, fraternise!
He will not tickle this last sleep, my lords;
Give him your company.

A CARDINAL.
But tell us, Doctor,
Low in the ear, have not this son and father
Drunk of the cup Orsini and Michele
Drank at their hands? Have they not been envenomed?

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
Yea, by the hand of God, but not of man—
The venom of His secret pestilence,
The fever walking in this August air.

THE SAME CARDINAL.
Both struck together—is not that the singing
Of cantarella?

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
By my faith, lords—no.
The hand of God hath struck, and who shall tell
How far His mercy or His wrath is set?
Physicians cure by hope.

Re-enter Lord Bonafede.
BONAFEDE.
The lord Duke Cesare
Is worse. Physician!

CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
[To the Bishop of Venosa.]
Can you leave this bedside?
You cannot!

BISHOP OF VENOSA.
[Rising.]
Youth!
Youth and desire of life!
[To attendants.]
Fetch me a mule,
And from its hollowed entrails we will tear
Our Cesar reconceived, regenerate:
Or, should the live heat fail, fetch me an oil-jar,
Brimming with vault-drawn water. Haste for life!
The Duke is worse. He shall survive.
[The Pope has opened his eyes.
Dear Father,
I will bring you in an hour word that your Duke
Makes speed to visit you.

[The Doctor and the other Surgeons and Apothecaries, with the Cardinals and Attendants, pass in an excited company from the room.
ALEXANDER.
[To himself.]
But Burchard
Alters no muscle: nothing of importance
Therefore has passed ....
My Chronicler,
And I have never looked into your books!
[Glancing round, pleased.
Ah, they have left me lonely! How delicious
It is to be neglected when one dies.
[Mischievously tickling Burchard's nose with a fan that lies on the bed.
Burchard, good-night!

BURCHARD.
[Yawning.]
O Holiness!

ALEXANDER.
You are napping at your post!
It does not matter.
You looked so ugly when you lay asleep,
I waked you: comely
You are when stiff and handsome in your clothes.
[Burchard stands formal before his master, who looks up at him, appealingly.
Bright eyes,
Take no more record of me: do not publish
These stains, these swollen limbs.
Give me the mirror
That my last breath shall soil—that is its use!
But I will snatch it as in youth .... Vanozza,
Giulia, and a little earlier one—
Well, well, I gave them happiness.
[Burchard, scandalised, seeks a crucifix.
Good Master
Of the Ceremonies, did you take account
Of my beauty when you chronicled my dress?
I have been very handsome . . .
He is gone,
Stolen off in horror at my vanity.
And yet this beauty is not vanity;
The vanity is when it falls away,
And crumbles into nothingness.
Even our Lady
Keeps power of intercession for us all
By loveliness that in simplicity
Draws God to will its pleasure as His will
And perfect pleasure.
[Folding his hands.
Rosa Mystica,
O Flower of God, O Rose, O Spotless one,
Thou dost unfold to us thy sweet—in showers
Thy fragrancy, thy dews are shed on me;
Thou droppest on my darkness as soft leaves.
[He lies back, his eyelids softly stirring.
And there are scents—delicious—violets
And roses—unexpected—dropping down,
And running through the air. So unexpected,
So secret to me ... Violets, a gift,
As women give fresh from the hand . . .
The flowers!

[He lifts himself, rounding his arms to garner the vision.
[Burchard advances with Lord Bonafede and several Cardinals.
BURCHARD.
The Lord Duke is revived.

ALEXANDER.
No matter now;
I am dying, I am safe.
[Rolling on his side away from them.
There, do not crowd me—
My heart is offered. Ite, missa est.

SCENE IV

The Palace at Ferrara.
The Duchess Lucrezia Borgia d'Este, dressed in mourning, in a small room. She is feeding birds.
LUCREZIA.
My doves,
My little, gladsome ones .... Rodrigo! . . .
My little Roman dove, my young, a softness
Still to my bosom ....
And this father—
His love to me, and all the streams of pearls!
They have not honourably buried him;
They are not sorry.
[She weeps.
I have prayed so long:
I have been angry. In my dreams I prayed;
And then he broke it, for he came to me,
His lips bulged out for kisses: “Dance, Lucrece,
Dance to me, child; it is that grace prevails!”
[After a pause—to the doves.
There, there! Fly out! There! Flutter on my shoulder,
And let me catch you.
Father, do you mark,
I am not weeping?—See, how they all settle
About me, on my head, and on my bosom—
See, how I rise and flutter them!
[She rises and the doves disperse from her in troops.
How lightsome
They come back to their roost! Dear Blessèdness,
And this will give you peace ....

[Suddenly she bows her golden head; the doves flutter down on it in a halo.

SCENE V

Nepi: a sullen evening over the volcanic country. Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna lies stretched on a black litter along the terrace of the castle, under a clump of pomegranate-trees covered with blood-red apples.
A beautiful Mute sits on the ground and watches his every look or gesture.
CESARE.
Banished from all the passion of events,
While, like a sisterhood of Fates, at Rome,
The Conclave sits—
While hot night compasses these empty hills
That once had fire and action!
[To the girl at his feet.
O my Silence,
What health in you, what pleasantness! A refuge,
A sepulchre, yet not of death!
They call Love blind: the finer love is dumb—
Our horses' love, our dogs', our falcons', thine.

[She rises by him to be caressed. As Madonna de' Catanei comes to him, with a cup in her hand, the girl draws back and curls herself up in the roots of a cypress-tree.
VANOZZA.
It is the hour: forgive me, I have brought you
The draught, my Duke .... But let me take your hand,
And guide it to your lips.
[He drinks: suddenly she kisses the blond hair over his forehead.
You have been very near
To death!

CESARE.
Its grey sea-bank that almost beached me
Were bliss to this denuded country.
Mother,
You loved my father fierily?

VANOZZA.
God knows I mourn him;
But as my very god I worshipped him.

CESARE.
I am no Prince .... My lands
Are almost gone; only the citadels
Keep pledge of my old force. You and your Pope
Gave me no tenure on the earth. I curse you,
I curse you both. What was there left but ashes
For me, he being extinguished?

VANOZZA.
Excellence, you brought me
Along with you, and from our enemies,
For safety.

CESARE.
—It is blood,
The fascination of deep heritage,
Compels the old race back to every city
I vaunted mine ....
I do not want you near,
I brought you out of danger. Openly
You are my mother, openly I drew you
Behind my litter to a refuge: always,
Till I am powerless, you will feel my power,
Protecting you ....
Enter Messer Agapito da Amalia.
And is Giovanni Sforza
Restored to Pesaro?

AGAPITO
My lord, he is.

[Cesare makes a hissing groan.
CESARE.
Is Guidobaldo in Urbino yet?

AGAPITO.
My lord, he is.

CESARE.
And all the Duchy lost?

AGAPITO.
All the fair Umbrian Duchy has relapsed
From your control.

[A silence.
CESARE.
Pandolfo Malatesta
Has entered Rimini?

AGAPITO.
Oh, cease to question
More of your fortune, with the purple
Of pestilence across your lips, the trembling
Of fever in your hands of war, beloved.

CESARE.
Giacomo d'Appiano has returned
To Piombino?

AGAPITO.
Yes.

CESARE.
Ah, to my Piombino,
Messer da Vinci
Has re-erected for defence, a jewel
Wrought by a cunning jeweller, a threat
To Florence, a towered joy! So d'Appiano
Calls it his own again?

AGAPITO.
Yes, and it called him back.

CESARE.
Agapito, there still is worse behind.
Something not said is in you—publish it!

AGAPITO.
Don Michelotto by the Florentines
With his whole troop is captured.

CESARE.
Michelotto!
My curse on Florence! Messer Macchiavelli
Promised safe-conduct to him ... and delayed,
Playing me false .... What, Michelotto lost!
All of my army, but these failing troops
Camped on this sultry marl. Revolted dogs,
That fawned about my chase!
...Agapito,
Faithful, my pen, my representative
As signature is of oneself, go yonder,
Beside the cypress, gaze along the verge,
Where the great plateaux bow down to its base
From the Tiber valley: see if the Lord Vera
Is riding hither
With news of our new Pontiff.
My suspense—
Forced by the Sacred College to withdraw,
When ill almost to death, my troops and cannon
Ten miles away from Rome!
Agapito!
[He lays his hand on his Secretary's.
—Hot?

AGAPITO.
[Kissing his hand.]
Still the cruel sickness, empire's canker?
[Turning to the cypress-mound.]
I will look out.

[He stands by the trees. The Mute half-rears herself up, her face to the horizon.
CESARE.
[To Vanozza.]
You gave me
No rights: then why not happy chance? Of chance
Has been my life, fortune my reeling glory.
Why did you bear me under stars conspired
Against the hour when fortune was supreme
For gain or loss? I am a thing of hazard ....
You could not breed even luck in me, or give me
The moment that is power.

[Vanozza looks at him a long time in silence: then she falls on her knees at his side, and presses her lips against the ruby ring on his thumb.
VANOZZA.
But I affirm
You are more wonderful than all the stars;
You are immortal for great fame, for greater
Than I can give the wording of. I bore you—
You are sacred, sacred. All the saints of heaven
Hold you in virtue! I had many dreams
When you were born. My Prince, though I could give you
No rights, and fortune is not in our hands
To give it where we love, I give you faith,
A mother's, simple as the faith I give
To the High God—though He were poor, and nowhere
Had place to lay His head.

CESARE.
No marvel
My father, God's own Sovereign-Vicar, loved you
For over twenty years and with deep fire,
As Jove loved mortals, as he took Europa
On broad bull-shoulders, over many seas,
To the quiet cave where she should bear a king.
No marvel that this beauty,
Proud even to rudeness in its provocation,
Was as his hearth! Rodrigo Borgia's son
Asks your forgiveness.

VANOZZA.
Excellence! ... But loose me!
Are you so strong?
Your breath beats at the nostrils as his beat.
Loose! ... Let me meet Messer Agapito ....

[The Mute has pointed toward the horizon, touching Agapito's sleeve; he has watched intently for some time, and now advances.
AGAPITO.
News, news, Signore!
I did not tell you till these travellers
Were at our very gates.

CESARE.
[Shivering.]
The dew comes down.
Mother, the cloak with ermine!

[She goes out.
[The Mute creeps under the bushes to the further side of the litter and takes Cesare's hand that falls that way.
Lord Cardinal Giovanni Vera of Perugia enters attended.
VERA.
Della Rovere,
Since you packed cards with him to save your Duchy,
Vicariate and Gonfaloniership,
Selling him all your Spanish votes, has triumphed,
Yea, of your making, is Pope Julius now,
Julius the Second.

CESARE.
Julius—Cesar
Must be allies.

VERA.
I knelt down at his feet,
I told his Holiness you lay in peril,
Close on your death, and longed to die in Rome.

CESARE.
[With a laugh.]
Well, he was touched?

VERA.
He welcomes you,
Gives you your old apartments in the Palace,
And only dwarfs your escort to a hundred
And fifty men.

CESARE.
[Touching Vera's wrist.]
Lord Vera,
He told me, in hot pleading of his cause,
Perchance I was his son. Conceive it, Vera—
Twice of St. Peter's line! We are complaisant,
For we can take all glory at its worth.
[Madonna de' Catanei returns with the cloak of crimson and ermine. She and the Mute wrap it round Cesare's shoulders.
O mother, hear!
[Breaking into merry laughter.
The Vatican receives us as before;
The Vatican!
[Vanozza brushes tears from her eyes.
And shortly
We shall recover all our own again,
Rimini, Piombino, Imola,
The duchies and the principalities.
Even now each fortress in Romagna keeps
As a locked coffer proof against our foes.
The Vatican! The Stanze!
The Gonfalon! We hold our very course.

SCENE VI

The Papagallo in the Borgia Apartments.
The Lord Julius II. meeting Don Garcilaso de la Vega, Spanish Ambassador.
JULIUS.
No, Don Garcilaso, I am resolved.
Here you will be received no more. Look round,
And bid farewell;
For in these tainted rooms I will not live:
The reek of blood, the breath of heathendom
Hang on them, and old perfumes of old orgies
Float, if one wrings the velvets. Antichrist!
Marranô! Devil!
His whelp, this Valentino—sorry schemer—
Is caged, but only
By promises of freedom can we wrench
The castles of the Holy Church away
From the hooked talons. Mark me!
Never must Valentino slip us, never
Must he have range .... Jove placed all Ætna over
The lawless powers of Earth ... I pass him on
To Naples, to Gonsalvo, when he yields
His castles up, as hostage that they yield:
But, since your lord King Ferdinand, nor I,
Nor true Gonsalvo can break word of faith,
Not even to Perfidy's own Sovereign Prince,
Persuade your lord the king, and from my lips,
To have this murderer of his brother seized
At instance of the Duke of Gandia's widow,
Then shipped to Spain, to the Hesperides,
And to his last accompt.

DON GARCILASO.
Laudabilis
Perfidia! ... On my faith!
The Carthaginian faith—yet I applaud.
[Meditating.]
Arrested for the murder of his brother,
So old a sin, and blotted out so clear
By fresher stains ....

JULIUS.
[Pointing to a picture by Pintoricchio on an easel.
Behold the family—
I will erase these images, these vile,
Contaminating forms: posterity
Shall have no pleasure of these mingled snakes;
For one by one these chambers shall be sealed
In their pollution, as a sepulchre.

DON GARCILASO.
Good, good! You will erase their pictures—good!
But the arch-hypocrite himself, this flower
Of the fiend-brood, can you erase him?

JULIUS.
Wait!

[They part, and the Pope passes on to the Borgia Tower. The Papal Guard marches in and files behind him.

SCENE VII

The Borgia Tower in the Vatican.
Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna is facing the Lord Julius II.
In the prison with him are Monsignore Gaspare Torella, Messer Agapito da Amalia, the Lord Cardinal Giovanni Vera of San Balbine, and some Spanish Cardinals.
JULIUS.
Your Castellan has hanged my messenger.

CESARE.
Faithful!

JULIUS.
You promised
Cesena should surrender.

CESARE.
Ha, it knows
The false word of command; it will not answer
Its lord in treason to himself, controlled
By force and the malignity of Fate.

JULIUS.
Spawn of a harlot, if you brave the Church,
Reserving her possessions, you descend
Into the Mola's deepest cells to perish
Of darkness and the phantoms through the dark
Your serpent eyes will follow. This same hour
You will descend in night unless you render
The watchword of your castles. Render it!

CESARE.
[Retreating as if from a blow.
Your promise! You instated me; I gave you
My Spanish votes for the Vicariate
Of my Romagnole cities. I am still
Your Gonfalonier; and you press me thus . . .
Fool, I believed your pledge!

JULIUS.
—To hand
Our Papal fiefs and lordships to the Wolf?
We gave you but your own and your own life.
Cur of the Devil!
And you can speak of oath or pledge! How simple
Such plea from you! Could Sinigaglia hear!
I'll not be tricked. Dog in a doublet, villain!
Unbosom!

[He strikes his staff on the ground and grasps Cesare's vest.
CESARE.
[Suddenly slipping down to Julius' feet.
Holiness,
Secure your castles from the grasp of Venice!
While they are ruled by me, impregnable
They stand about the country; they remain
The castles of the Church. But publish me
A traitor to these walls my sword has won,
The strongholds lapse to Venice. For a Pope
I won them, let me hold them for a Pope—
[With a faint smile.
Under the shadow of your wings.

JULIUS.
The watchword!

CESARE.
Let me hold them in their strength
For Rome, the Church!

JULIUS.
Your watchword!

CESARE.
[Rising with flame in his eyes.
It will storm my heart ... I cannot.

JULIUS.
Then you have chosen
A lifetime in the dens your victims haunt.
Mule! And the Guard is waiting . . .
Son of Hell!

[He makes a sign to summon the Papal Guard.
CESARE.
[With a wide gesture.]
Freedom!

JULIUS.
...Speak out,
Or write your watchword, and Lord Santa Croce
Shall wait with you at Naples, till I hear
Cesena makes submission: then you pass
Free, where you will.

The Papal Guard enters.
CESARE.
My freedom!

AGAPITO.
Excellence, dear lord,
As you have pity on our love, unbury
The word that makes you free.

CESARE.
Agapito!
You are as I ....
[In a whisper.]
Write it.
[Agapito turns to the desk.
O my Cesena,
A word to soil you!—Overthrown,
Forli, Cesena, and my guardian Rocca,
Proof against every hazard, save your lord's
Betrayal of your honour! Fallen—O fallen!
The walls—the walls before me!

[Julius has moved to the table to receive the writing. Cesare throws himself prone on his couch and does not move.
A Chamberlain enters.
CHAMBERLAIN.
Holiness,
Messer Buonarotti, waits command.
He brings a drawing of ten Victories
Niched in your monument.

JULIUS.
Ah, the winged Victories,
Each triumphing above a subject province,
Disarmed beneath her feet. How terribly
This chafing Florentine achieves my future!
Ten times a victor, yet no war declared:
The Church triumphant—ay, since militant!

AGAPITO.
[As the pen falls from his hand and he gives the writing to Julius.
All that my lord can do
Is done: if still the fortresses maintain
Their loyalty to their effective Duke,
He takes no fault and he demands his freedom.

JULIUS.
[With a burst of laughter, as he reads the watchword.
The forts must yield:
If they resist our sovereign voice they ruin
Themselves and their usurper.
[Pointing to Cesare.
He is lost.

AGAPITO.
Then let me further write.
[Turning to the others with the paper Julius has returned.
Be witnesses, you, you ....
Now countersign my words! His liberty
Derives but from his castellans—that conquers!
They will ride forth beneath his banneroles,
Crying their Duca, Duca!

Julius.
They shall dislodge, cast down
His scutcheon on the ground and hoist the Keys.

[Exit with the Papal Guard.
[Lord Cardinal Vera approaches Cesare's couch, then shakes his head and joins the others.
VERA.
It is too sore! When he was but my scholar,
As if the son of a great potentate
He breathed to rule, his glance made heritage.

TORELLA.
This pestilential fever
Has worked down to the scath, the sunken rock,
His taint of blood: he is involved, uncertain;
The level brain has sprung at accident,
And scattered loose the logic of his dreams—
Broken and lost.

BONAFEDE.
Had he but drawn his army
Clear of this Rome and leapt on Pisa, had he
Refused to sell his votes he had been saved.

CESARE.
[Suddenly lifting his head.]
You were throwing dice .... Continue! Play the game.

[Silently two Spanish Gentlemen seat themselves near his couch and play. He turns on his elbow and watches them, passing his ball of perfume from hand to hand.
AGAPITO.
[In a murmur to Torella.
For hours, long hours, impassible he fixes
His eyes upon the board, as if the secret
Of Destiny were secret of a Sphinx
He could divine by watching.

CESARE.
[Still fixed on the game, but speaking to all.]
Without doubt
Our fortune is unchained against us, friends:
But there are chances—let us reckon them!
My captain Scipione is of ours
Till death; he joins me in my liberty.
The bankers guard three hundred thousand ducats
At Genoa and at Florence: from such nurture
Springs a live army. Volpe and Michelotto
Refuse for any bribe to quit my service.
I do not even accuse my fate, still less
The ingratitude of men, for I have found
In all, save one I trusted, loyalty.
Bring me my poignard with the little mirror—
That peasant's hand ruffled my chemisette ....
[The poignard being brought, he looks in its glass at his tear-stained face.
What ruin! Damage!
...And yet my enemies are frightened, Vera.
These giants of power still fear a fettered man,
Ill, shaking in a tertian, and with life
Itself unwarranted from hour to hour.
Stir up the hearth and spread the juniper's
Cloud of ripe resin ....
Enter Messer Niccolo Macchiavelli.
Messer Niccolo!
[He gives his hand.
Why are you come? You scarcely fear me now.
Welcome!

MACCHIAVELLI.
Your Excellence, to bid farewell.
To-morrow I depart.

CESARE.
Why are you come? . . .
Ah, I am cheap! All use me as the poor
Burn forest—ecco!
No diplomacy!
Why should you bid farewell to me you ruined,
Delaying your safe-conduct to my troops?
You triumph?

MACCHIAVELLI.
I am curious, Excellence!
And I must watch you, if I will or not.

CESARE.
A prodigy, a monster!

MACCHIAVELLI.
[With vibrating voice.]
No, but a Prince
Unequalled.

CESARE.
[Springing up.]
You behold? Have you the eyes—
Keen, cutting crystals that have shot out joy
To see me totter?
Messer Niccolo,
If we are comprehended, we are greater
Than Fate or any chance. I am a prince.
Set down my kingdom that shall ever be
While dreams are portents. Oh, set down
The perfect scheming of the miracle!
Each part of action in my brain was solved,
And flowed on to its end. You recognised,
When, in the greatness of effective truth,
Last year I awed Romagna, and exacted
Sharp vengeance on my injurers, my kingdom
Was as the genesis of stars? With fire
Of primal force I founded it, secure
Against all future shocks, save this assault
Of sickness unto death at the steep moment
When death struck down my father.
...Yet it crumbles
It grows a shadow round me. Macchiavelli,
Restore it, by the word embody it;
Let it not perish! I shall ever wonder
That such perfection fell to nothingness
In its astute, swift likelihood. O Fortune!
The gulf ....
[Breaking off with a gesture of menace.
You start for Florence?

MACCHIAVELLI.
Ay, for Florence,
To-morrow morning, close upon the dawn.

CESARE.
Take back to Florence this: if I but capture
Occasion once again, I sign a treaty,
Even if I needs must sign it with the Devil,
Gather my treasure, play my last resources,
Assemble all my friends, and, once at Pisa,
Use every power of my extremity
To render Florence evil, hour for hour
Of her despite ....
[With a low laugh.]
You think me slipping down
Into my tomb .... Ah, Messer Niccolo,
If I were you, this Cesar who is nothing
Would be contemptible. You ought to crush me,
You ought to make your mirth that I am flat:
It is my law that you fulfil; and justice
Is linked so with my judgment, even my passion
Conceives cold rage alone, or utter scorn
Of those who cannot end me. I look often
With still eyes on my end.
Farewell, farewell! You listen,
And all your face is speaking to my words.
We love each other, my best enemy.
Farewell.
All I have been is with you. Fortune
Out of her giddy air will arbitrate
Between my past and future.

[He gives his hand again. Macchiavelli quickly stoops and kisses it.
MACCHIAVELLI.
Prince!