University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

—A garden behind Lorenzo's house.
Julian and Frederick.
Fred.
—Come, come, you manufacture and invent your cares,
And fancied griefs are worse than actual woes;
What is opinion man, to you or me?

Jul.
—We all pretend to bid defiance to
The world's opinion, with patrician scorn—
Yet, Frederick, there's not one of us but would
Demean himself a prouder man, upborne
Upon the shoulders of its approbation.

Fred.
—Pshaw, man! opinion is the breath of fools!
If man must crouch beneath the yoke of man,
The creatures whom we should despise, become
Our tyrants—nay, our very gods, and bind
Us slaves to Superstition's chariot wheel.
Opinion, pooh! it is the veriest trick
Of juggling knavery to over-reach
His neighbour's purse. For he, who dares be great,
Must smash this looking-glass of conscience, or
Be outstared by the ghosts of his own fears.

Jul.
—You estimate too lightly what we should
Revere—

Fred.
You fear what fortitude should spurn.
When Julias Cæsar bursts his marble shroud,
And thunders forth that Cæsar fear'd a world's
Opinion, more than as a slave's rebuke,
Then I'll fall down and worship—not 'till then!

Jul.
—Alas! my father will not hear me reason.

Fred.
—Sdeath! if a parent have the privilege
To stifle reason in his child, your mother
Might just as usefully bring idiots forth,
As creatures to be made such monsters of.

Jul.
—I might reproach, but should forgive a father.

Fred.
—Forgiveness for the gods! Men built of clay,
And modell'd strangely weak and helpless, with
A thousand passions, lawless as the winds,
May preach, but do they practise this forgiveness?

Jul.
—It is not what we do, but what we should do,
Men think of, when they judge us.

Fred.
O, the devil
Take all such thinkers! There was a time when I
Could thwart desire, repress my passions, wring
The blood-drops from my very heart, with striving
T'appease this Cerberus, opinion. But,
Julian, there is a period in our fortunes,
Beyond which we cannot strain our energies
To catch the smile of the still sneering world.
After that we exchange our love for hate,
Our suffering for revenge—our sympathy
For utter scorn of all abuse or praise.
Love fits a maiden's lips, as doth a glove
Her lily hand; but, on the armed breast,
Sheath'd in the mail, experience gives us, link
By link, from batt'ling with the world, it sits
As lightly as a feather on the helm.

Jul.
—Then we outlive the feelings which, like rainbows
Arch'd o'er the skies, redeem life's cloudy way?

Fred.
—No, there's ambition's light'ning glory left;
The thunder of revenge; the storm of hate;
A thousand godlike passions after all
Our worldly dreams have perish'd!

Jul.
Meteors to
Mislead us to our ruin.

Fred.
Who nobly dares
Is next to him who wins a glorious fame.
The carrion cannot fancy heavenly splendours
He has not courage to aspire to; but
The eagle, stricken from his lofty height,
Falls to the lowly earth an eagle still!

Jul.
—But, Frederick, they who soar, should plume their wings
With buoyant approbation, and not load
Their struggling pinions with a people's curse.

Fred.
—A curse upon the people! Well, well, come,
Truce to such cares as blanch the cheek of youth.
Who gives his spring-time to the fears of autumn,
Deserves an early winter on his head.
You sup with us to-night? I'll seat you with
Some weather-beaten spirits that will laugh
Through the barr'd dungeon windows of their hopes,
As merrily as in the open day
Of fortune's sunshine.

Jul.
I am not of these.
The world's disapprobation withers up
The laughter on my lip, as tempests sear
The drooping leaf.

Fred.
O, we can spunge these schoolboy
Apprehensions from your slumbers. Come,
You sup with us to-night?

Jul.
In truth, I cannot.

Fred.
—That cannot be a truth. Pray, give't the lie.

Jul.
—I lie to-night upon the road to Padua.

Fred.
—Do so. Declare you go, and stay away.

Jul.
—Ay, but my going is a certainty.

Fred.
—Then certainly I would not go to night.

Jul.
—Sadly I must depart for Padua.

Fred.
—You shall depart in sadness when you go;
As sad as sorrow—but remain to-night.

Jul.
—It will not be.

Fred.
It may be if you will.

Jul.
—I am most willing it should be so, if—

Enter Giacomo suddenly.
Gia.
—My mistress, sir, your mother, bids me say,
She has induc'd my master to consent,
That you postpone your travel till to-morrow,
And, as the Senator Lodoro holds
A masquerade to-night, she doth entreat
Your company—

Jul.
Enough! these varlets grow
Loquacious in their duties now-a-days,
The world is fashion'd to such vanity.

Fred.
—Julian, we number you our servant?

Jul.
No!
These revels please me not: my soul is strung
To such a pitch of fever'd hope and fear,
That every cup lights frenzy in my eye.
Excuse me, Frederick, I will not drink.

Fred.
—Drink!—You shall drink, and crown your cups with myrtle!

Jul.
—Why?

Fred.
Why, your fortune being desperate,
Your state is happiest.

Jul.
Prove it—

Fred.
Thus, I hold
Men's fortunes are the best, when grown so bad
They suffer by no earthly chance, but may
Be mended by whatever change betides.

Jul.
—God send him succour who is fallen so low!

Fred.
—What god? Dan Cupid, sir?

Jul.
You trifle.

Fred.
Ay!
So do we all, only our vanity
Invests our favourite trifle with importance.
Well, well, I fret the magnanimity
Of thy yet virgin love—Adieu! To-night
We sup together in the tavern, where
The doors are open to all guests but care.

Exit.
Jul.
—What wretched creatures are we thus to waste
Existence in an abject slavery
To lust and passion, though we gild them with
The fashionable epithet of pleasure!
Ambition, gold, fanaticism, wine,
All visions of distemper'd minds, or longings
Of the diseas'd and heated body—yet,
We go, like martyrs, smiling to our doom!
Gods! Ye have made us wonderful, strange beings!
I half deride, and yet a destiny
Seems to impel me to the poet's lot—
Albeit, it is stamp'd with ignominy;
Instead of, as it should be, honourable
And manly daring for an honor'd rank.

Enter Giacomo.
Gia.
—My mistress waits for you.

Jul.
I come directly.

Exeunt.