University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Monastery.
SAVELLI
(alone.)
The time for that is gone—Gerardo knows it,
Arezzi too: these creditors bark round me,
And every hour risks all. Who knocks?—come in.

[Enter Ludovico, attended by Gerardo, and other Monks.
GERARDO.
We wait upon the abbot—good—my brother.

SAVELLI.
The duke has made his choice then?

GERARDO.
He has filled
Our souls with thankfulness in that!

LUDOVICO.
Alas!
Mine still finds room for care: his highness joins
Ungracious duties to the power he lends me,
And makes its outset irksome—he requires
The clearance of our dealings; that we sum
Our debts and dues; and bids me take in charge
Our brother's office of the bursery here,
Till this be done.

SAVELLI.
So soon? with all my heart!
He lifts a burden from my neck—I leave
A barren and unthankful task, and wipe
Much scandal off.

MONK.
Pray God you may do so;
Its foulness spreads to us. The men we met with—
Who shamed our last night's obsequies—took home
Some from the gravest of the standers by,
To shew the vouchers for these debts, and turned
The city's wrath this way.—

SAVELLI.
We soon will quench it.
I have been working long—to gather up
The shreds and rovings of my trust, and make
Its selvage perfect—leave a seven years charge
Compactly rounded to a school-boy's ciphering—
I will require two days.

LUDOVICO.
'Tis less than just.
Brother, good night.

SAVELLI.
There are about us here
Ill-whispering tongues, beside the knaves we speak of—
Ay, some more near than these—in three days hence
I will requite their hissing.

LUDOVICO.
Would to Heaven
Nothing were here but love!—good brother, patience!
Do not say so.—

MONK.
If I am marked as such
I wish the three were one.

SAVELLI.
They may be found
As brief as you would have them be.

LUDOVICO.
Peace—peace!

[Exit with Monks.
Savelli and Gerardo.
GERARDO.
We are upon the coals at last.

SAVELLI.
Ay, these
Ply with their bellows fiercely! shall we change
To lead and melt, or ere the heat prevail,
Burst from their shatter'd crucible in flames
And blow them to the moon? this crier of peace,
Who takes the office that I hold, to patch
The one I covet, though they chuse and name him,
Is not our abbot yet.

GERARDO.
You might have asked
A little longer time to break his neck.

SAVELLI.
But then I do not need it. Two days more
Will serve for that. Two days! this world has changed
Its Lord in less than one: yet myriads live
Whose seventy years are ended ere they know
If what they think, they are. How many walk
With joints no steadier than a maid's at school,
That equal Mars in thought! As fancy goads them,
They conquer provinces, set free the enslaved,
Burn fleets, sack cities, perish in the breach,
Mock emperors from the scaffold—and conclude
That fate hath stolen some patriot from the skies,
To make him, it may be, a friar, a weaver,
A darner of mens' hose! are we like these?
If wine alone have moved our tongues so oft,
Let us be wiser now—stop where we are.

GERARDO.
Gooth sooth! and so in two days more be hanged!

SAVELLI.
We climb upon the ladder's top—one step
Will scale the ramparts—if we rest or turn,
A breath will send us down.

GERARDO.
Your ladder ends
Where many take the trouble for their pains
To mount, and straight come down another way,
Yet never reach the ground. Well—boldly on,
And see which stops the first.

SAVELLI.
A match—take these
And give Francisco two, the rest disperse
As those of yesterday. (Giving letters.)
The Mole and Castle
Are safely ours, and some about the Fleet:
Our strength is greater than our need.

GERARDO.
Remember
That which I spoke of Andria.

SAVELLI.
Prithee be gone—
So, we shall lose Arezzi—wait, a little.

[Exeunt.