University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

Night.—A Room in the Prison.
Cimbelli chained and reading.—Duchess and Prince of Andria enter.
PRINCE ANDRIA.
(To the Guards.)
Stand at the door, outside—wait till we call.—
We hope the book you study teaches wisdom.

CIMBELLI.
It does—grant me but time enough and health,
I mean to pay it back, and write another.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
A book! good sooth—it must be short.—On what?

CIMBELLI.
We have ill usages in Spain and Naples—
Gentile, unscriptural, barbarous, impious, devilish—
Customs abhorr'd, abjured, and quite swept out
From lands less Christian than our own. In Spain
Ye burn the living man, and here in Naples
Torment him, rack him, rend him!—I have thoughts
To show the manifold sin of what ye do—
Open your eyes, warn you against this evil,
And serve you with my brains.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
We are much beholden!
Hast ever pondered this before to-night?

CIMBELLI.
Believe me that I have, but lacked the leisure
Which now your Grace has given me. I will ask
The judgment of her highness too.

DUCHESS.
Yourself
Will try, in part, the grievance that you treat of,
And so be credited the more—for me,
I did not make the laws, and must obey them—
Yet think of these with you—they are what you say.

CIMBELLI.
Your Grace has mercy in your eyes—I saw
Compassion toward the Count; and once you promised
To love both him and me.

DUCHESS.
I did, Cimbelli.

CIMBELLI.
Now we will put it to the proof.

DUCHESS.
Talk wisely—
Error is not rebellion.

CIMBELLI.
What I ask
Squares well enough with both.

DUCHESS.
What is it then?

CIMBELLI.
Let me be hanged forthwith—'tis no such matter
For one so great as you to beg. The prince
Designs me for the spit—he loves old forms:
I, as a soldier would be shot: the gibbet
Is built in neutral ground 'twixt him and me;
Adjust our difference, reconciles extremes;
Stands like a guide-post where our wishes meet,
And points a rough but speedy road to death—
Confronts mine own ambition and his thoughts
About midway—it arbitrates for both,
A honest sort of mediator, to make
The compromise a fair one. If your Grace
Has more than so much love, and would spare one—
Arezzi is the youngest—he may mend;
I give my share to him.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
It is too late.

DUCHESS.
You should have thought upon his youth last night.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
He is beyond your power to help or harm.

CIMBELLI.
What, is he dead?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Would that he had been so,
When death were sad, not shameful!

CIMBELLI.
Murdered so soon?
Most provident guardian of the young and desperate!
You do your business suddenly, prince Andria—
And now his lands are yours. Thou merciless butcher!
Bind him, and cut his throat! The duke might find
His pity by to-morrow—he is young,
Nor is his heart grown hard. The Count Arezzi
Was his companion once—his play-fellow—
So you have lost no time!—May God requite you.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Peace, fool, I say.

CIMBELLI.
I wish my hands were loose,
And then the fool would let his tongue be idle—
But now get out, or hear me to the end.
Thou bloody, barbarous villain!—in prison and chains!
Cruel, unnatural, treacherous, pitiless fiend—
I will not hold my peace. Beware this leopard—
You had compassion on the Count—so mark—
Prince Andria is a traitor—warn the duke;
Tell him to keep a collar round his neck!—
I know the savage better than ye both—
He will devour you too.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Blockhead—be quiet!

DUCHESS.
These tears are signs of love—

CIMBELLI.
The south wind blind him!
No eyes but his have ever seen my tears—
Now let him light his fagots; if he force
Another from my lids, or hear a prayer,
It shall be for his sins.

DUCHESS.
Hush! hush!—Cimbelli—
Remember what we are.

CIMBELLI.
I do remember
What poor Arezzi was; and nothing else.
'Twas I that pushed and spurr'd him where he fell!
His fault was too much love toward that thin wolf—
He would not let me send your devil below.—
For you—I hope you keep your soul from blood—
Else God forbid! I trust you knew not of it?—
Tell me not what you are! Arezzi loved you—
He made us swear upon our knees to save you—
Preserve your honors—guard and heal your peace—
And while our conscience smote us for our folly,
Faultered and boggled at an oath so vain—
He would take no part with us—but abjured
Our work and fellowship.

DUCHESS.
Dost speak the truth?

CIMBELLI.
You had no hand in this? I saw him weep
At what he fancied would be grief to you—
Yet he could find no mercy!

DUCHESS.
Poor lost Arezzi!
Unhappy as thou art! we drove thee out—
Our cold hard hearts were shut against our child!
Nay—Andria—I will speak.—O! shame upon us!
This stranger found and loved him—we destroyed him!
Now by my hopes of peace, I will be more
Than thou canst dream for this. Speak out, Cimbelli—
Excuse his frailties with the truth, and tell
His sufferings through the world—so God shall judge me,
The hand which lifts a finger to thy harm
Had better grasp my throat!—to thee I will be
All that I should have been to him—a mother!

CIMBELLI.
Then take that basilisk away—his looks
Are death to Charity.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Provost come in—
Unbind your prisoner there—and when he bids it,
Set the doors wide—he is as free as we are—
Let no man question where he goes.
[Cimbelli is unchained—the Guards retire.
You wished
Your hands were loose, Cimbelli, and now they are so.
Go walk in Naples as ourselves. Last night
Your sword was lost—take this, (gives his sword)
—behold! young man,
The father of Arezzi—not his murderer.

CIMBELLI.
His what?—his father?—art sure thou art his father?—
And not the father of lies?—who killed him then?

DUCHESS.
He is not killed—be wise.

CIMBELLI.
You say so too?
This is some train to set my fire a blazing.—

DUCHESS.
We love him as his parents—both.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Thou saidst
That when thy hands were free, thy tongue should rest.
So keep it mute a minute, and hear me speak.
Her highness and myself would gather up—
From that which once was whole—some rags of honor,
And clothe against the bleak and pitiless world
Arezzi's shame with these. He must go hence
Where men may count his errors with his years,
And sum the gross of both—think him a boy
Ill-taught, ill-counselled, blinded, ignorant, desperate.

DUCHESS.
Speak what you know, Cimbelli,—what even now
You told, with tears, to us.

CIMBELLI.
I ask two things—
Must I turn heathen first, and hang the rest
In last night's buffet?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
When I gave my sword,
It was to show my faith—not buy your treachery.

CIMBELLI.
The other I will forego.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Let us have both.

CIMBELLI.
That message to the king then—come, 'twas wicked?
Why wouldest thou have me burnt?

PRINCE ANDRIA.
What drunkard's dream
Is this of burning?

CIMBELLI.
Faith! I walk in fogs,
And may go wrong again!—the brother I know—
He is confessed and proved—as black as Erebus—
This ever was reputed good—I see
What makes me trust your Grace, and will do all
Which leaves mine honor uncorrupt.

PRINCE ANDRIA.
Then haste,
The duke by this expects us. Let us hear
What some who think thee dead, may say about thee.
I would not have thee seen at first—be hidden
Till we shall bid thee speak. Come in— (Guards enter)
Here Marco—
Lend us your cloak and cap—stand close about him.

CIMBELLI.
Your staff too, friend—and button me to the nose.—
Now we are fellows, brothers, guards to the duke—
Strange mutabilities in mundane things!
This masking had ill luck last night.—March on.

[Exeunt.