University of Virginia Library

ACT VI

SCENE I

Three years later.
A small Tower-prison of the Castle of La Mota del Medina in Spain.
Against one wall, hung with a canvas, four or five gyr-falcons sit leashed on a perch.
Don Cesare Borgia leans out of the narrow window, watching the pitch of his gyr-falcon. The Governor Don Pedro de Tapia and a squire, Juanito Grasica, stand behind him.
CESARE.
She rows the air, she towers ... now makes her point,
Now waits—she waits up the free air.
Magnificent! ... A kite that she would vanquish ....
Quarry—and she upon her tower ... free to drink blood.
[He looks back and laughs.
Ha! Like a loosened thunderbolt she stoops!
...Could you but see! Amazing!
Who-whoop! She flies too hard ... who-whoop!—and cannot hold:
'Tis death, but so impetuous in the dealing
Her quarry is struck down.
[Turning again.
Señor Don Pedro,
My vehement gyr-falcon loses me
Her quarry in your ditch ....

DON PEDRO.
It shall be sought.

CESARE.
No, leave it—that were tame!
[With a profound sigh he holds out the lure to which at last the falcon comes; then he gives the bird to Juanito, who ties her on the screen-perch.
Is the sun setting?—Vespers from the Church
Of San Lorenzo!
[To Don Pedro.]
We are gratified
By this long visit, for the course of things
Is brought by you in current to our eyrie,
Clear up from life upon your voice.
We may not
Detain you longer.

DON PEDRO.
But I exult, Don Cesar
De Borjà, in the converse of a man
Who held the crown of Mars in Italy.
There is lifting of the heart and joy of blood
When you recount ....

CESARE.
Don Pedro,
My chaplain will confess me presently;
The soul must reach that vein.

DON PEDRO.
Forgive! No further moment!
Adieu.

[Exit.
CESARE.
[With a snarling yawn, like a caged animal's.
Begone!—He wearied me a year.
When will his servant, black Magona, bring us
The coil of rope?

JUANITO.
At sunset, Excellence.

CESARE.
Now the king-star
Is falling down below the rocks—and blue
As a sea-deep is the hollow we must tempt;
It is blue: one venturing bird
Makes it gigantic with a little shake,
An arietta .... We must drop down lower
Than the bird's song—it is not from the ground.
Look, my Juanito!
Aside I hitch my shoulders through this narrow
And windy crevice of the barbican.
I am as agile and as thin as you,
I feel as young—
Case-hardened from that pestilence, a tower
Among my race; strong as La Mota;
A creature that but needs to touch the earth
To be Antaeus and invincible.
You shall descend first—death for you or freedom.
Then welcome death or freedom! Could I, Juan,
Leave you behind—
We who sailed out together, desolate,
And for three years have tasted unenjoyed
Sleep, and the vigil that has been our lives?
We do not on a peradventure part:
You have the lighter bones, the cord will bear you
Down to the grass so featly, it will signal
Its eagerness to me .... Juanito,
How full a man you come from these three years!
Will everything be changed as you?

JUANITO.
Oh, no!
Those who have loved you cannot love you more;
They cannot grow in that. Her Excellence
Your sister will be happy
Beyond the last hope of her weariness
At the free news.

CESARE.
Lucrezia! I can watch her—
How at Ferrara all her life goes by;
How, from her sun-red towers, across the plain
She is looking out, and cannot see the prison
That stifles me: her eyes as they look out
Turn Amor into stone.
When will the rope be brought?
How soon? This Garcia de Magona will not
Betray me as Gonsalvo at the last?

JUANITO.
Garcia is safe; he burns to furnish you.

CESARE.
How wider
The steepness stretches, the tranquillity!
What does it promise? It is Fortune's Pit,
That gapes in Spain, that swallowed me awhile
In Rome and Naples, and then cast me out
Alive upon this pinnacle. And now ....
The world will be my chess-board, I survey
Until occasion hail me. There is Louis
Of France would set his horse to tread with mine;
The Emperor hates as Pope the Rovere;
Gonzaga lord of Mantua will espouse
My fellowship, Ferrara is fraternal;
My brother of Navarre, to whom I fly,
Strangely accordant ....

[He gazes out in concentrated reverie. A key is turned softly at the door; Garcia de Magona enters, bringing ropes.
JUANITO.
[In a whisper to himself.]
But my lord is rapt!
How still the Spanish boy,
His black hair shining and his ears with edges
Of the clear ruddiness of pomegranates,
The light of sunset is so shed on him.

[He waits till Garcia has locked the door on the inside, then steals towards him.
GARCIA.
Be swift!
Hush, lay them in the chest beneath your clothes.
They are good—they will be faithful to the Duke ....
Christ grant his other means be safe as these!
Will he not turn?
Though of a different race,
This lord, who is so reverend and so dreadful,
Is homely and most courteous to the poor.
I would not have you trouble him.

JUANITO.
Garcia, I dare not
Utter your coming since he misses it.
With widely-open nostrils and great eyes,
He hangs above the gulf.

GARCIA.
Tell him, Juanito,
One night when he is out of Spain in safety,
I went to San Lorenzo, for his sake,
To pray the Saints would bear him in their hands.
Cover the rope!
A trumpet will be blown
Down in the fosse, when Don Rodrigo's men
Are ready with the horses. All my life
Is in to-night if he is saved. Farewell!
[Exit.
[Juanito hides the rope and sits on the chest in the last red of the sunset, singing to himself.

CESARE.
[As if waking.]
Why, that is what they sing at my Cesena,
'Mid the snow-marbled Apennine. My shepherds
Hailed me the Shepherd's son—their simpleness
Could so attune the distant Vatican
With their cool valleys ... and I cannot laugh.

JUANITO.
I have the rope: soon you will hear a call
Hummed up upon a trumpet.

CESARE.
O royal Italy!
O my Romagna ... but I cannot breathe!
The sun is fallen, the air of the abyss
Blows like blue fields of waving flax. Look down!
The little stream Zapadiel disappears,
And the wild brushwood and the flock of goats;
Even the East has faded ....
Did you tell me
They play up from the fosse a trumpet-note
When the horses wait? Once more to touch a bridle,
Once more astride to feel the rocking flanks!
Ha, ha! And then my sudden apparition,
As if I were the devil. Hark, a sound!
Listen!
[He trembles all over.
A snake-note darting up ... a bugle!

JUANITO.
No, no, no!
The bleating of a goat.

CESARE.
How closely darkening
The shadows favour us ... and there are rumours
The wind takes from the ground of horses' hoofs ....
[A trumpet is lightly blown.
Fortune, my war-cry once again!
[Juanito rushes for the rope.]
Aut Cesar,
Aut nihil! But to-day I take the plunge,
I dare the pit, the downfall.
[To Juanito.]
Knot it here more firmly,
Round this crenelle—steady! It must not jag ....
Now my light ball, I throw you to the breezes,
Ding-dangle—thus!
[He lets Juanito down.]
Your odds, Juanito,
Against the wheel of Fortune!
...He keeps hold—
O boy! the rope is taut. It holds ....
This cumbers me.
[Throwing off his cloak.
Our Lord God, in His infinite clemency,
And for His greater glory against Fate's
Vicissitudes ....
A jerk!—the final die is cast!
Cesar—or nothing!

[He climbs down the rope into the ravine, as voices are heard on the stairs. The door opens and Don Pedro rushes in with soldiers.
DON PEDRO.
What horn-call was that?
Gone, gone! Our peril,
Our loss! I reel ... He shall not so escape.
Death, or our re-possession of him!
Down,
Traitor, blasphemer, down! Down!
[He cuts the rope, motioning some of the soldiers to descend.
[After awhile.
Guards, are you there?

A VOICE.
[Just heard from below.
They dragged him to their horses—all are fled.

SCENE II

The Camp of the King of Navarre at Viana. A March tempest is blowing.
Enter Messer Agapito meeting Juanito Grasica in front of a tent that beats in the wind. Their torches are almost extinguished.
AGAPITO.
Juanito, have they drawn in the posts?

JUANITO.
All are retired to shelter, Secretary.
These Navarrais received my lord's command
With manifest bewilderment.

AGAPITO.
Our Captain
Has ever saved his troops fatigue and tempest:
These men are rude in habit, and the lashing
Of mountain-storms familiar. O my lad,
We are not now in Italy.

JUANITO.
Ah, would we were!
Señor Agapito, we have one breath:
Our lives are for his use. What are your tidings?

AGAPITO.
His every hope miscarries—everywhere
Hostility, abandon or suspicion:
The Pope has drawn his treasure from the banks,
Dried up the fountain of his polity,
The means of gathering troops, the hope of calling
His ancient captains to his side.

JUANITO.
O Señor,
That letter from the King of France, withdrawing
All revenues and honour from our lord,
Joining his Dukedom and his French domains
To Dauphiné and Berry, as they were
Before the royal gift—did you consider . . .
Yes, but I see you did ... his look that day?
It was a face of hell: and ever since
His eyes throw flame out.

AGAPITO.
Think! He has engrossed
The world's resources from his earliest years,
Marshal, as San Michele, of God's hosts,
And born Vicegerent .... Think! He now has nothing
But his invincible, rejected sword.
A pauper, and a hireling to his brother—
This Navarrais, this kinglet—yet with sweep,
A great glance on a little verge, he conquers
These rebels of Viana and their chief
Louis de Beaumont, that the petty realm
Being consolidate and set between
His foes of France and Spain, he may have option
To hold o'er each the sword of Damocles.
The brain that wrought at Sinigaglia once
Works still among barbarians. But his lips,
Like famished wolf-fangs, and his thwarted youth,
His darkened joy in freedom!—I have wept . . .
Go in, go in!

JUANITO.
Such clouds of wind discharge,
I do not feel the rain.

[King Don Juan of Navarre and Duke Cesare de Valentinois della Romagna advance towards the tent with torch-bearers.
DON JUAN.
Our confidence
Is strict in your direction—not a word
From us to the great Captain, to the Son
Of War: our trust is blind.
You show distress
At this rude blowing, and your velvet cloak
Might well have been afloat upon a river.
Good night; good sleep, my brother César. Scarcely
In Italy the air rolls thus.

CESARE.
Good-night,
Don Juan. Such a fan exasperates,
Entering all senses.
[They shake hands. Don Juan goes out. Cesare motions his torch-bearer to withdraw.
Come, Juanito;
Unarm me. To your tent, Agapito;
You will have rheum to-morrow.
[Exit Agapito.
God!—the stroke
Of wing this tempest has: there is no shield.
Lift up the tent-skirt, Juan.
[They go in, and the sound is heard of armour flung on the floor. Then Cesare's voice is heard.
[Within.]
Take a cloak,
A dry one from the press, and bear this message
Back to Don Juan; I forgot.
Look round!
See that my stallion
Is dry, and, fresh-caparisoned, waits ready
In the next tent.
[Juanito comes from the tent and passes into the night.
The tramp, the cavalcade
Of these cursed whirlwinds, of the secret legions—
The hauntings of an army I shall never
Command—
[His voice rises.]
shall never summon. I am void;
I cannot buy the forces that I love;
I cannot as a Suzerain compel . . .
I have no place, no rank, no furniture.
This march, this freight of cannon—all were mine;
I struck them on the air, cried Halt or On . . .
My patrimony! Deep where dreams outspread,
A phantom army, Cesar's army, rambles
Ungeneralled.
O fury of the night!
This France that has rejected me, this Spain
That bound me hand and foot, this Papacy
That locks me from Romagna with its keys,
From all my captains and my army calling
Across the Alps—I have one lust, one cry
For blood within me ....
Ha, to plunge my sword
In vengeance to the heart of France, the throat
Of Spain, the entrails of the Vatican!
To murder countries—not the flesh and blood
Of just a man here, there, but states and kingdoms—
Draw out their life! Has not all checking life
Flowed forth in darkness to my sovereignty?
If I have lost the land that I could rule,
And if my army is a host of winds,
I still can thirst for blood .... I have my sword,
And, sword in hand, the last breath that I breathe
Will be a breath of appetite and hate.
I have my sword—
[He sweeps back the tent-skirts, and stands face to the storm, the torch behind him.
O shifting elements,
Chaos is on me—I am not of Chaos!
I could ride forth
A single horseman riding forth to conquer
The day, the night; I could confine these winds
Had I the watchword .... Beaten back, destroyed!
—Close in!

[He wraps the folds of the tent together. There is no sound in the tent.
A SENTRY'S VOICE.
Who passes? Pampeluna! Do you hear?
I give you Pampeluna! . . .
[In a whisper.]
No, Saint Jaques!
Then it must be the wind.

A SUDDEN GREAT CRY.
Beaumont, a Beaumont!

ALARUM FROM ANOTHER POST.
The enemy! Ho, ho! The enemy!
Awake, wake!

ANOTHER CRY CLOSE AT HAND.
Beaumont!

CESARE'S VOICE.
[Within.]
Duca! Blood of God!
What is their war-cry? Beaumont?
[He throws open the doors of the tent, struggling into his armour. Juanito rushes up.
Ambushed by Fate! Juanito, the torch
Is falling: light another. Do you see,
I cannot find the buckles .... I must ride ....
Fetch out my horse .... The corselet—that will serve.

[Juanito goes for the horse.
CRIES RENEWED.
Beaumont, a Beaumont!

CESARE.
[Snatching up his sword.]
Curse the renegades!
What is my war-cry?
[He comes out of the tent bareheaded.
It confuses me ....
The tramp, the tramp! Ah, if I led an army!
Ah, I could lead—on, on!

[The horse is brought.
JUANITO.
[With one look at his master, as he mounts.
Unarmed!

[He runs into the tent.
CESARE.
[Laughing.]
Unarmed! ... The sweep, the rush, the hungry onset
Sweep me along, cry round ... the engines crash!
Banners of Hell, my banners on the wind!

JUANITO.
[Running out of the tent.]
Stay—your celada!

CESARE.
Fling it! Duca! On!

[He dashes out of the courtyard. His escort has gathered and waits stupidly the word of command.
JUANITO.
He gave us no command. His horse has stumbled.
Curses across the wind—

CESARE'S VOICE.
[Suddenly distinct, though far away.]
On, Duca, on!

JUANITO.
He flies down the Solana in the wind.
Mount, mount! God's Love! But we must follow him.

SCENE III

The Abbess' room at the Convent of Corpus Domini at Ferrara. At the back there is a little shrine and a crucifix.
The Lord Cardinal Ippolito d'Este converses with Messer Cristofero.
CRISTOFERO.
It will not be her death; she has such safety
As quiet pinions give to birds in storm.

IPPOLITO.
I dared not tell her till her husband wrote;
His letter trembles in my hand ....

CRISTOFERO.
For days
She has been pacing, fasting, full of terrors
Worse far than any term! The air has quickened
To prophet's divination—noise and silence
Was in it of great woe.
She comes .... God's mercy!

Enter Duchess Lucrezia Borgia d'Este, in the dress of a penitent, her hair unbound.
LUCREZIA.
He is dead, Ippolito!

IPPOLITO.
Read—from your husband.

LUCREZIA.
Tell me ... the parchment rocks .... You see
My hands, my eyes are helpless; but my soul
Is firmer. Tell me ....

CRISTOFERO.
He is dead, Madonna!

LUCREZIA.
God told me—and I only hear it now!
Cesare!—and so far, so far ....
Oh, tell me,
Save me in nothing: I shall lose all refuge
Of credence if you do not make me sure
As death that he is dead.

IPPOLITO.
The letter—

LUCREZIA.
Some voice to tell me!

IPPOLITO.
[To Cristofero.]
Call Juanito.
[Exit Cristofero.
Sister, if you would learn, the King Don Juan
Has sent the faithful squire whose feet have followed
Your soldier to his grave.

LUCREZIA.
Whose feet have followed,
Among the foreigners ....

IPPOLITO.
O Light of Arms!
His wife, his sister will lament for him,
As round the dead Achilles wept Cassandra,
And wept Polyxena,
That in the world none lived redoubtable
As he who everywhere brought peace or war.
He drew his doom as lightnings ever strike
The mountain-heights Acroceraunian,
While lesser mountains stretch along, unflamed.
We leave him to God's judgment, in the glory
And terror of those strokes.

Re-enter Cristofero with Juanito Grasica.
LUCREZIA.
By your own eyes,
By your own lips, vow you will tell me truth.
[Juanito lays his forehead on her hand.
Where?

JUANITO.
At Viana in Navarre.

LUCREZIA.
Viana! . . .
It is as distant as the grave.

JUANITO.
He challenged
The outposts of the Count of Lérin ....

LUCREZIA.
That
Is nothing now—foregone! Speak but of him;
The moment, my extremity.

JUANITO.
We lost him;
His horse affrighted galloped on the blast;
He disappeared beneath us where the lea
Broke to ravine: we heard the hoofs beneath us,
And cries of fierce pursuit ... but all was darkness.

[He weeps bitterly.
LUCREZIA.
Yes, weep, weep—it is well!
Now speak of him.

JUANITO.
Dawn found me tangled by the night, and crying
In the alien, stone wilderness, a captive.
They brought his arms,
His sparkling arms; they questioned of the Prince
Who wore them.

LUCREZIA.
But the moment . . .

JUANITO.
Of a sudden
The foe retreated, leaving me: I reached
The rough-hewn gorge ....
[Near to her and in a changed voice.
He lay there, naked
He lay . . .
[Lucrezia folds her arms over her breast as with a close embrace.
—his face under the sky: his wounds
A hero's—twenty-three; across his loins
A bloodied stone, his life-blood round the rocks,
His hair a weft of red. How beautiful,
And wild and out of memory was his face!
The great wind swept him and the sun rose up . . .

LUCREZIA.
They buried him?

JUANITO.
Beside the lectern of St. Mary's church
Within Viana, and the pomp was great,
For he had thought to bind a crown on once:
They gave him kingly honours.

LUCREZIA.
Oh, pray for him,
That he may rest in peace! There must be peace.
Great, agitated Spirit! Oh, let prayers,
Reverend Ippolito, let prayers be said
In every church, at every altar-stone,
By all the quiet lips that wait on God.
Leave me .... The prayers, the prayers, dear Cardinal,
That he may rest in everlasting peace!
Cristofero and the poor Squire—all go.
All pray for us.
[They leave her and she kneels before the crucifix of the little shrine.
Cesare, O my eagle! . . .
The stony tract! . . .
I am but for thy use
To pray thee into peace, to win a crown
Even now for thee, where the vast Majesty
Gives each his destined aim made bright by prayers.
Maria, aid! It is his heritage.
Spare him and aid me! Every day, at night,
On through the years while I must see the sun
Who have lost my sun fallen in that dire west—
On to the silence of the hour of death,
Let me not cease my voice! It is my love
Sole to him, as I am. O Cesare,
My body evermore, till sepulture,
Shall bind the hair-shirt to its flesh as barbs,
Never forgetful how thou wert cast forth
Stripped to the sky, with nothing in the world
To plead to God with but thy valiant blood,
Thy regal front below Him.
I could almost
Swoon into prayer, but for the intercession
Of the great, peaceful companies on earth,
And bowing through the heavens and round God's Throne.

[She sinks into a still ecstasy. Silently Suor Lucia enters and kneels beside her.

SCENE IV

The Château of La Motte-Feuilly in France.
A balcony hung with black—below it are forest-trees, some in full leaf, others creeping into green. Solemn masses of wild hyacinths clump up against the castle walls.
The Duchess Charlotte de Valentinois in deep black stands in the balcony, a purple purse laid beside her.
CHARLOTTE.
My sables
Hang heavy on the spring; and I myself
Have known a bliss struck cold, a pleasure
So terrible ... he, who attracts such joy
And overcomes such hate,
Is puissant as an infinite lost god ....
The leaves
Are very soft and green and masterful ....
The peasant-folk approach, the humble poor
They say he gave his voice in softness to
Who brought old kings to murmur round his urn,
Rebellious that it held him.
[Some Peasants come through the trees.
O good people,
Pray for Lord César—for his soul!
[She gives alms from the purple purse and they pass out.
They pray,
They will go home and pray:
I love to watch them homeward, simple folk,
With hunger I can feed.
[She leans forward, supporting her arms on the balcony.
I cannot pray: my Aves
And all the beads of all my rosary,
Would be for access to him, for his favour.
They will pray,
And bring him peace far from me. But to me
It is the many leaves bring peace, the forest,
The wrapping and the murmur of the wind;
For when I wake at night, wake in my forest,
I am glad to wake: I hear the accusation
Of the great Kings they carved about his tomb,
Who pass around it, weeping—Saul and David
And Solomon, the Scripture Kings, all lost
And wandering as ghosts and desolate,
With cry to the four royal winds, to Heaven,
And to the swerving roll of the great forest,
That César has no crown ....
[A Nurse passes under the balcony leading a young child.
...No crown, no race—I have not borne a son.

[She bows her face over her arms.