University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

An apartment in the Palace.
Duchess, Cicilia, and Prince of Andria.
DUCHESS.
We talk, and wisely—politic both—nay one
Can mingle with his speech a traveller's tales
Of winds and seas; while tired and idly by,
Cicilia muses till these grave words end—
Say something of the duke.

CICILIA.
Prince Andria brings
His earliest offerings to your Grace, the last
He keeps for me.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
His highness, when he comes,
Shall make soft vows for both.

DUCHESS.
O! use does much;
Cicilia, tell him he hath practised long:
Prince Andria whispered in thy mother's ear
Vows, ere the duke was born—his lips were there
As constant as her ear-rings.

CICILIA.
They appear
A kind of heir-loom, common to the house,
Hereditary things which once were precious:
Their fashion suits the setting of the times,
And shall become your Grace.

DUCHESS.
Well, now my brother,
How were his looks at last?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Even such they were
As suited better with his mind than fortune—
Kind, gracious, but not happy.

DUCHESS.
He has left
His happier thoughts with us, but Heaven, which gave him
So much of honor here, will bless his days
With larger glory on a loftier throne,
And raise him friends in Spain.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
He loved us well;
Naples was what he made it: but in Spain
Things rest on custom, and he will be there
Greater, indeed, not happier.

DUCHESS.
Tell me next,
What day it was you left him?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Our Lady's Eve;
Till then the winds, which bore him forth toward Spain,
Seemed loth to speed his passage, yet ashamed
To leave his fluttering sails unfilled—by fits
They lingered and returned, pursued, then tarried,
And did their office sorrowing. Here, at length,
Sardinia lay before us, with her hills
Higher than the sun declined. O'er the glazed sea
Some long blue streaks stretched darkening in the breeze,
All else was motionless. The fleet lay close—
Shadowing its burnished image in the deep—
So that we saw the pomp, and heard the sounds—
Mistress of many nations. Each thronged ship—
As well as that we sailed in with the king—
Had lowered its standard till the mass was said,
And while they sang the vespers. Never yet
Has music seemed so holy! We were there,
Who jointly in this world should hear no more
What we had heard so oft. At last the king
Said something good to each; embraced his son;
And bade us, if indeed we were his friends,
To honor whom he left us. For myself—
He placed me next the duke, and spoke at large
Of faith long tried, and services approved,
Which, though they pleased me, shamed me. While we knelt,
The tear was in his eye, and when the barge
Bore us in sorrow from his side, he said
“Commend me to my sister.”

DUCHESS.
Ah! I feared
That he might hold him doubtful if I loved,
And so himself love less. It seemed unkind
To let him part without me, and to chuse—
Though suffered freely as I was—my home,
Here from his own thus far.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Not so, believe me;
He did not think it so, but twice he said,
“Now that the pang is past, the choice ends well;
“I leave my son, my friends.”

DUCHESS.
Generous still!
The same Don Carlos ever. And the duke
Returns a sovereign to his father's throne,
In all but name, a king?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
He is, toward Spain,
A son, and not a subject. We but wait
Awhile in policy, he then will bear
The name and sceptre of a king.

DUCHESS.
It is
As I have wished indeed. The good shall see
Dominion well conferred, and well divided:
Spain has outgrown her strength; the trunk, though large,
Hath stretched its giant arms too far, and now
It sickens with their weight.

[Enter the Duke.
PRINCE ANDRIA.
Behold! the Duke.

DUKE.
Health to my gracious Aunt, and what beside
Is fairest, holiest.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Hath she not beside her,
That which is fair and holy?

DUKE.
Both indeed
Forgive me, dear Cicilia—I mistook,
Forget, I never could.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Mistaken twice—
Your highness' rights are twofold now—as prince,
And kinsman too—so why not twofold kisses?
In this the king was wiser.

DUCHESS.
It bodes ill
To stumble at the threshold of a reign—
Prince Andria counsels prudently, for kings
Should show their power at first.

CICILIA.
Then let his Grace
Begin with some hard enterprise, and close
Prince Andria's mouth.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
This counsel is the same
I gave myself, save that the mouth is not.—
His highness made long prayers.

DUKE.
My aunt will pardon.
It was as she has taught me: I should gain
Rebukes, not smiles, if what I owed to her
Were paid the first, while slowly, out of place,
My debts to Heaven came next.

DUCHESS.
Even from the shore
The younger hastened to his prayers, and blessed
Good guidance hence and home—the elder ran
To gossip here with women! now pass on.

[Exeunt.