 | Self's the Man |  |
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ACT III
The Conspiracy
Scene.—The Presence-room in the Royal Palace, Pavia. A throne stands near the centre. There are windows at the back overlooking a garden, and large doors right and left. Lamps are lit. The new moon, at first golden in the light of the fading sunset, shines over the city. As the act proceeds the stars come out, and the moon goes down.
On the rising of the curtain Saturnia is discovered in her robe and crown, seated on the throne.
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Shall I have courage? Lofty and cold he seemed.
[rises, and listens at the door on the right.]
He comes—and comes alone! A challenge! Oh,
I know him! He would prove his self-command.
[returns to the throne, but remains standing.]
What shall I do? How shall I conquer him?
With my true love! Only with my true love!
Enter Urban. He sits at once on the throne.
Urb.
Why have you come?
Sat.
To hear you speak to me.
I see you every day when you ride forth;
I watch you in the evening riding home.
Last night the sun behind you set in pomp;
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A silver bride, gold-stained, the pageant's queen—
Close to the sun, a token, richly lit
With triumph and intolerable joy.
And all the night I wept: I wept all night,
Because I never may ride out with you.
Then in the morning I began to know
Unless I heard your voice that I should die.—
Oh! speak to me.
Urb.
You have soiled the name of queen,
Tarnished the crown, and forfeited your life.
Sat.
Tarnished the crown? I have not tarnished it.
I crowned myself upon your wedding-day,
And bade my people call me queen, to know
In fancy the embroidery of love
That should be mine.
Urb.
That should be yours?
Sat.
Mine! mine!
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Such love as ours!—Remember . . .
[Urban rises, impatient with himself, as he feels his resolution shaken.]
But remember!
I was Saturnia, the golden age
Incarnate; one inspired by innocence
And beauty to annul the use and wont
Of musty centuries. They were your words!
[Urban sinks down on the throne.]
Urb.
I set you free and made of you a friend;
Taught you to know, and watched your loveliness
Increase and deepen as your spirit grew
In apprehension and accomplishment.
Then I . . .
(hesitates).
Sat.
What then? Why, when our lives had knit
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In frenzies cut and hew their limbs; and all
To please the Lombard nobles, to exalt
Your glory as a self-denying king!
Urb.
All that was dearest I severed from my heart:
The votary of empire dare not spend
His idlest moment on a passionate love.
Sat.
Empire! What is empire? Where is Rome
That sat above the nations? Power and state
Are dust and ashes to a love like mine!
[takes off her crown, and drops it on the floor.]
Fall, shadow of a shadow! Foolish gown!
[unfastens her robe. It slips from her shoulders, and she appears as in the first act.]
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As I have lived. Take back the queenly wealth
You gave me. I am Urban's slave, and happy.
I have thrown the burden off.
[kneels at his feet.]
What will you do?
Urb.
(looks at her long; rises irresolutely. At last, standing beside her, he replies).
I will go on with what I have decreed.
[is about to leave her; but she seizes his hand and rises, drawing closer to him as she speaks, until she has her hands in his hair, and her cheek on his breast.]
Sat.
And I from woe to woe! I bleed to death,
Cut off from you. I am a part of you:
Kill me outright, if that will help; if not,
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To fade alone, but make me your delight,
And bid me crown your glory with my love.
Urb.
(taking her fingers from his hair.)
My fate is in my hands! Were I to make
You mine again, the conduct of my life
Would pass from my control. I will go on
King of myself. I tore you from my heart:
That sacrifice accomplished, is there a deed
Between me and my aim to make me shrink?
Sat.
But why—why tear me from your heart?
Urb.
(angrily).
Is that
A mystery still? My love for you engulfed
My blood and thought: I had to be
Your lover only, or a king of men;
And to be king is greater than to love!
Sat.
But I could be contented with a look,
A word between your triumphs.
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I love myself
Too well to overthrow the edifice
And fair proportion of my youth; and you
Too well to change the soul that opened heaven
For me, and made me man, into the stale
And fashionable mistress of a king.
Power is my chosen bride!
Voices
(from the Council-room).
The king! the king!
[He draws his sword, and holding Saturnia behind him with his left hand, crosses to the door on the left. This bursts open as he reaches it, and Thrasimund, Ludolf, Adalbert, and Soldiers enter armed. Urban leaps back with Saturnia, making for the other door; but by it Pasqual, Almeric, and Ulric are driven in, fighting with Hildebrand
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Bish.
Take him alive!
[Urban is seized from behind and his hands tied. Pasqual, Almeric, and Ulric are driven out fighting.]
Thra.
(fiercely, pointing to Saturnia).
Truss up this wanton here!
[Soldiers tie Saturnia's hands.]
Now, madam queen, that would have me for fool!
Hild.
(to the Bishop).
For whom are you?
Bish.
For justice!
Hild.
So am I!
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So are we all!
Hild.
Urban, you are deposed.
Urb.
For what offence?
Hild.
The crimes that kings commit
When power corrupts them into enemies
Of law and of their country. You must die.
Thra.
(raising his sword).
And I shall be his executioner!
Urb.
You will not mend the laws you say I broke
By killing me off-hand. My peers must hear
Me speak in my defence.
Bish.
It is most just.
Hild.
Time pinches us, my lord. He has many friends.
Bish.
He must have justice, though he be unjust.
Hild.
Brief justice, then! Here in the presence-room.
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(to Thrasimund, indicating Saturnia).
What has this gentle prisoner done, my lord?
Thra.
I have both hands full of my vengeance, now!
Urb.
(smiling).
It ill becomes your juvenility
To cherish hate, so rapidly matured,
Against Saturnia, the golden age.
Thra.
Lewd mocker!—Take her hence!
Her turn will come.
[Saturnia is led out.]
Lud.
Let Thrasimund preside.
Adal.
The wisest head
In Lombardy, the true-divining brain
That first unmasked this subtle tyrant.
Thra.
No,
Too partial friends; I play another rôle.
It is the bishop's place. Sit here, my lord.
[The Bishop takes the throne.]
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Now, Urban, your defence.
Bish.
Let him first know
Of what he stands accused.
Hild.
(to the Bishop).
You shall preside;
But we, my lord, who risk our lives and lands,
Stealing what is the world's due, justice, mean
Our purpose to achieve with all despatch.—
(to Urban).]
Speak.
Urb.
Give me matter; formulate a charge.
Discourses hung on nothing squander time,
Of which you seem so chary.
Thra.
Answer me, then!
Why are Duke Hildebrand and my good friends,
Ludolf and Adalbert, and every mind
Grounded in policy and capable of rule,
Dismissed from office, power, emolument?
Voices.
Ay! ay!
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Power, privilege, and fortune gone!
Thra.
Why do you levy war without advice
And secretly?—To sum up all, my lords,
The King of Lombardy, a judge in peace,
In war a leader, has deposed himself
By heedless usurpation of the powers
That rest in law alone. Let him show cause
Why he should not be haled to instant death.
Hild.
What need? Why should he speak? It maddens me
To see him standing there, a felon, bound,
Mature for death, disdaining all of us!
I will not hear him! Death, and no word more!
Voices.
Death! death!
Bish.
It must not be. You may undo
Injustice by injustice, but the right
Can be established only by the right.—
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Your pleasure.
Urb.
Most reverend, and my lords,
My pleasure is to bid you think.—With man
Abides an instinct unsubduable
To utter and make good what in him lies
Of power and greatness.
Hild.
Oh! we know this plea!
So reasoned Lucifer when he rebelled.
Urb.
Lucifer claimed a place which was not his.
How, if I have, as I believe I have,
A natural right to do as I have done?
Hild.
Shall we hear more?
Lud.
The man's a nincompoop!
Urb.
Your anger vindicates my secret way.
No hero publishes what he intends,
Because to tell of deeds that are undone
Is to distemper them in paltry minds,
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Thra.
A hero! you! It was heroic—yes!—
To give an old man in a cup of wine
A sleep like death that ribald mountebanks
And mocking boys might load him with contempt!
It is a sort of parricide for youth
To bring age to derision: that alone
Deserves an instant, ignominious death!
Voices.
Death! instant death!
Bish.
Urban, if you can show
How in your hidden counsel the commonweal
Might reap peculiar benefit, the law
May yet be set aside.
Urb.
Is that my choice?
Death or to tell my purpose?
Bish.
No, my lord;
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Unless your purpose and its secrecy
Receive our sanction.
Urb.
I am too young to die—
To reach the welcome threshold of renown,
Then step into an unremembered grave!
Here's for my life!—The empire of the world,
No less, is my ambition. Marauding hordes
Have made the earth a byword. Without a head,
The peoples now become each other's prey;
And the imperial throne awaits the king
Who knows himself its destined occupant.
My passion and my dream replenished me
With self-faith absolute. Of Lombardy
I had forged a blade to reap the nations with.
The centred might of all humanity
I meant to grasp, as Cæsar did before,
And hear the astonished world hail me divine.
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(laughing scornfully).
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Bish.
You have condemned yourself.
Hild.
A cut-throat king, who of his countrymen
Would make a knife to rob upon the highway!
Urb.
My lords, it is with nations as with men:
One must be first. We are the mightiest,
The heirs of Rome; and with the power there lies
A ruthless obligation on our souls
To be despotic for the world's behoof.
Ruthless, I say; because the destinies
Admit no compromise: we must be first,
Though everlasting war cement each course
Of empire with our blood; or cease to be,
Our very name and language in dispute.
I am your king. Untie my bonds, and say,
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Hild.
We'll have no wars!
Adal.
There are our lands to till, our towns to build.
Bish.
God grant us peace in our time! You must die.
The empire of the sword has passed away;
The world is now the City of God; in Rome
His great vicegerent reigns.
Hild.
Strike off his head!
Lud.
Who shall behead him?
Bish.
True; we have no headsman.
Hild.
That strange, half-crazy fellow Philadelphus,
Give him the place he seeks.
[Philadelphus comes forward, rubbing his hands.]
Urb.
No headsman—
Hild.
No;
Thanks to your imbecile humanity!
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No king to make one either, I being deposed!
But it is common law in Lombardy
That, if there be no headsman, one condemned
To death may take the office—which, indeed,
Is civil death. Even at so great a cost
I'll save my life, loving it as I do.
[Incredulous murmurs.]
Bish.
You will be headsman!
Adal.
You, the pardoner,
The ape of mercy!
Urb.
Life is sweet, my lords.
Bish.
How pitiful a thing a tyrant is!
Hild.
He punishes himself more terribly
Than our just sentence.
Bish.
But it is the law,
Which you are here in arms to vindicate.
Phil.
Your cowardice, my lord, your tragic-farce
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Almost.—Well, I shall be your acolyte.
Hild.
Off with him! Clad him in the headsman's dress,
And bring him quickly back.
Phil.
Come, master mine.
I know where all is kept.
Thra.
The emperor
Of the world!
Urb.
Emperor? Viceroy, the headsman is—
Death's deputy.
Bish.
Though such a bloodless change
Is not ungrateful, yet it grieves my soul
To find you out a craven at the core.
[Urban is about to retort, but refrains; bows gravely, and is led out, followed officiously by Philadelphus.]
Bish.
To-morrow we shall meet to choose a king.
[goes out.]
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Our king is chosen: Lucian!
All.
Lucian! Lucian!
Thra.
Resource is coiled in Urban's brain, a swarm
Of snakes; he'll dupe us yet.
Adal.
Impossible!
Lud.
Nothing can make atonement for the shame
He volunteers to suffer.
Hild.
Who can tell?
Should he by chance or craft return to power,
The foolish folk may weave it in his legend,
And idolize the king who chose disgrace
To save them from a batch of oligarchs.
Thra.
So will it work, unless . . .
[chuckles.]
Hild.
Unless . . . Go on!
Thra.
Unless he were to dip his hands in blood.
If once he wields the headsman's axe!
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By heaven!
That puts him out of court! This very day
He shall be notified to do his office.
There is a famous robber now condemned—
Thra.
Yes, but a craftier way were to require
Our princely headsman's duty on a friend,
That he might show in full his loyalty
To his new masters.
Hild.
Make him execute
A friend of his? There he will halt, I think.
Thra.
And forfeit so his life.
Hild.
Which is our aim.
Thra.
Let me bring this to pass. A moment, friends.
[goes out.]
Lud.
What will he do?
Hild.
Doubtless he means to yoke
A private purpose with his patriotism.
Lud.
So statesmen work; an interest in the crop
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Adal.
That's where the bishop fails:
He takes a superficial artless view
Of what's apparent.
Hild.
The complex heart of things
Is never understood, till one is led
To do wrong cheerfully that good may come.
Re-enter Thrasimund with Saturnia, bound, and a Soldier carrying Saturnia's robe and crown.
Thra.
This is a woman who has lived too long.
[places the crown on Saturnia's head, while the Soldier throws the robe round her.]
You saw they were together when we came:
I saw her seated in the scorner's chair,
A Roman slave, a creature calling herself
Queen of the Lombards.
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She it was who sowed
Licence and levity in Urban's mind:
It is as though I were beaten on the mouth
To think she should be chosen before my daughter!
Thra.
Her most presumptuous treason and her life
Of sin condemn her.
Hild.
And the law says death.
Thra.
God's law and man's!
Hild.
Are we agreed?
Voices.
Death! death!
Thra.
Hail, Queen of the Lombards! How do you like the fool?
Sat.
What have you done with Urban?
Thra.
He is dead.
Sat.
O cruel men! Did he not on his knees
Entreat to see me?
Thra.
No; he killed himself.
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(straining her bonds).
My hands are tied, or I would follow him!
And did he leave no word?
Thra.
No; but be sure
You'll see him when you come to die.
Sat.
May be;
For love is stronger than the gates of death;
And this I know, he loved me.
Thra.
(opening the door on her right).
But his ghost,
Remember, will be quaintly dressed in black,
[Re-enter Urban in the headsman's dress, followed by Philadelphus.]
Just like this apparition!
Urb.
Saturnia!
[He has a premonition of what is coming.]
Sat.
It is my lord! They tortured me with lies!
And I shall hear you say you love me!
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Headsman,
Saturnia, mistress of the king dethroned,
Queen of the Lombards by her own decree,
To-day will expiate her spotted life;
And you shall flesh your maiden axe in blood
That beat with guilty passion for a fool.
Get ready.
Urb.
(looks steadily at Hildebrand, then turns to Saturnia).
They are subtler than I thought.
This is the end, Saturnia. We must die.
Sat.
Together?
Urb.
Together.
Hild.
So, your headsmanship
Was but a sorry ruse to purchase time.
Urb.
(to Saturnia).
A desperate hope. This is the headsman's dress.
Sat.
Oh, my dear love!
[closes her eyes and leans her head on his shoulder. The robe falls from her.]
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(to Philadelphus).
You have your heart's desire,
Philosopher.
Hild.
Will you be headsman?
Phil.
Yes,
Since I may not be king.
Hild.
About it, then.
Phil.
The handsomest heads in Lombardy! A pair!
He has my dress, though!
Hild.
No more toilets now!
The dress is yours when you have earned it. Quick!
[Philadelphus goes out.]
Adalbert, come with me. We must in haste
To the army and displace the Duke of Garda.
(to Urban).
No last appeal? No high reproof? No taunt?
Thra.
(to Urban and Saturnia).
You keep your countenances still; but death
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By torchlight too! Some dozen heart-beats hence—
Count it in blood!—you shall be lopped and spilt
Upon the stones, as dead as carrion.
I shall be there to mark your tears, your pallor.
[All go out except Urban, Saturnia and Junipert.]
Juni.
Madam, if I could die for you!
Sat.
Alas!
Urb.
Your knife.
Juni.
Not that way!
Urb.
Fool! To cut her bonds.
Juni.
Ah, fool indeed, dreaming impossibles
While this is in my power!
[cuts Saturnia's bonds.]
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How can I thank you!
I loved your poems, sir. I think of one
Beginning, “Death, the sweetest friend of man,
Redeems the world.” . . . Yes, but I have my crown!
[gives her crown to Junipert.]
And if I had a kingdom it were yours
For this rich freedom.
[embraces Urban.]
Juni.
Madam, what must . . .
[Urban presses Junipert's hand, and takes his dagger.]
But . . .
[Soldiers enter and Junipert is led out.]
Sat.
Say that you love me. Say it till they come.
[As Urban speaks, Saturnia is gradually overpowered by fear.]
Urb.
I love you only. Empire, power, renown,
Have passed away; time and the world are stripped
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Let us not hope, not dream, but only live
In this new ecstasy; or think how soon
Together, undismayed, we two shall ford
The shrouded stream that every soul must cross:
[clasping her close.]
And measure thus the moments, pulse by pulse,
Till death shall make us one eternally.
Sat.
Yes, yes! But it is sickening to die
With all our life unlived, our love unloved!
Urb.
Not all! not all! Remember purple hours
When eager stars hung low to reach the earth;
When through our open casement robber winds
With pillage of the roses blew all night,
And in your hair the scented spoil was caught.
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(frantically).
Oh, Urban, save me! save me!
Urb.
Death will save us!
A thousand lives rebel within me, bent
On liberty and happiness—
Sat.
My heart cries out for life and love.
Urb.
This travail means
A world beyond the world; it heralds heaven;
Establishes our immortality.
Sat.
But I am mad with fear—the axe, the block,
The hideous blow!
[she breaks from him.]
Oh! it is dark already!
[shrilly.]
Ah! I am falling, down below the grave
Where devils writhe!
Urb.
(clasping her again).
Hush! we shall fall asleep
As soon as death has spread our bridal couch.
How will you greet me when the morning comes?
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The morning?
Urb.
Yes; the morning after death.
What will you say to me?
Sat.
Do you believe
That we shall be together after death?
Urb.
For ever after death.
Sat.
And I shall be
Your bride?
Urb.
My bride. What will you say to me?
How will Saturnia greet me when we wake?
Sat.
Oh, I will greet you with a kiss, and say
Good morning in the land beyond the grave!
[A distant noise of arms is heard; then rapid footsteps.]
Sat.
Death comes!
Urb.
To open wide the door of life!
[The noise becomes a tumult. Enter Hildebrand, running with his sword drawn; Thrasimund with
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Hild.
(as he goes out).
To-day the dice have fallen awry for me;
But from Ravenna I will come in arms,
And drag you from the throne you desecrate.
Thra.
(stabbing Urban).
I'll jag him from it now!
[runs out after Hildebrand.]
Urb.
Only a glance.
[places Saturnia behind the open door.]
Stand here, Saturnia. Here you will be safe
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Gard.
(calling from the Council-room).
Urban! My lord!
Urb.
The Duke of Garda! I am king again!
[Enter the Duke of Garda. Soldiers fill up the doorway.]
The glorious world that death had swallowed up
Rises about me like a thronging tide.
I stand upon the summit: life begins
Anew, heroic deeds and high renown!
Gard.
And your deliverer—
[The Soldiers open a passage, and Osmunda enters, dishevelled and pale.]
This heroine!
Urb.
(pressing his wound and speaking with difficulty).
Osmunda!
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(to Garda).
No, my lord! 'tis you have saved
My husband's life.
Sat.
(stepping from behind the door).
This is my husband; death united us.
[Urban looks from Osmunda to Saturnia, from Saturnia to Osmunda; seems about to speak; staggers and falls.]
Sat.
(kneeling beside Urban).
He is wounded! Thrasimund
Poniarded him. Help me!
[As the curtain falls Osmunda is staring at Saturnia, who supports Urban's head on her bosom.]
THREE WEEKS ELAPSE.
| Self's the Man | |