University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

Scene I.

—Palace of Fazio.
Bianca.
Not all the night, not all the long, long night,
Not come to me! not send to me! not think on me!
Like an unrighteous and unburied ghost,
I wander up and down these long arcades.
Oh, in our old poor narrow home, if haply
He linger'd late abroad, domestic things
Close and familiar crowded all around me;
The ticking of the clock, the flapping motion
Of the green lattice, the grey curtains' folds,
The hangings of the bed myself had wrought,
Yea e'en his black and iron crucibles,
Were to me as my friends. But here, oh here,
Where all is coldly, comfortlessly costly,
All strange, all new in uncouth gorgeousness,
Lofty and long, a wider space for misery—
E'en my own footsteps on these marble floors
Are unaccustom'd, unfamiliar sounds.—
Oh, I am here so wearily miserable,
That I should welcome my apostate Fazio,
Though he were hot from Aldabella's arms.
Her arms!—her viper coil!—I had forsworn
That thought; lest he should come, and find me mad,
And so go back again, and I not know it.
Oh that I were a child to play with toys,
Fix my whole soul upon a cup and ball—
Oh any pitiful poor subterfuge,
A moment to distract my busy spirit
From its dark dalliance with that cursed image!
I have tried all: all vainly—Now, but now
I went in to my children. The first sounds
They murmur'd in their evil-dreaming sleep
Was a faint mimicry of the name of father.
I could not kiss them, my lips were so hot.
The very household slaves are leagued against me,
And do beset me with their wicked floutings,
“Comes my lord home to night?”—and when I say,
“I know not,” their coarse pity makes my heartstrings
Throb with the agony.— (Enter Piero.)
—Well, what of my lord?
Nay, tell it with thy lips, not with thy visage.
Thou raven, croak it out if it be evil:
If it be good, I'll fall and worship thee;
'Tis the office and the ministry of gods
To speak good tidings to distracted spirits.

Piero.
Last night my lord did feast—

Bianca.
Speak it at once—
Where? where?—I'll wring it from thy lips.—Where? where?

Piero.
Lady, at the Marchesa Aldabella's.

Bianca.
Thou liest, false slave: 'twas at the Ducal Palace,
'Twas at the arsenal with the officers,
'Twas with the old rich senator—him—him—him—
The man with a brief name; 'twas gaming, dicing,
Riotously drinking.—Oh it was not there;
'Twas any where but there—or if it was,
Why like a sly and creeping adder sting me
With thy black tidings?—Nay, nay: good my friend;
Here's money for those harsh intemperate words.—
But he's not there: 'twas some one of the gallants,
With dress and stature like my Fazio.
Thou wert mistaken:—no, no; 'twas not Fazio.

Piero.
It grieves me much; but, lady, 'tis my fear
Thou'lt find it but too true.

Bianca.
Hence! hence!—Avaunt,
With thy cold courteous face! Thou seest I'm wretched:
Doth it content thee?—Gaze—gaze—gaze!—perchance
Ye would behold the bare and bleeding heart,
With all its throbs, its agonies.—Oh Fazio!
Oh Fazio! Are her arms more fond than mine?
Her bosom softer?—Fazio, my lord Fazio!
Before the face of man mine own, mine only;
Before the face of Heaven Bianca's Fazio,
Not Aldabella's.—Ah, that I should live
To question it!—Now henceforth all our joys,
Our delicate endearments, all are poison'd.
Aye! if he speak my name with his fond voice,
It will be with the same tone that to her
He murmur'd her's:—it will be, or 'twill seem so.
If he embrace me, 'twill be with those arms
In which he folded her: and if he kiss me,
He'll pause, and think which of the two is sweeter.

Piero.
Nay, good my lady, give not entertainment
To such sick fancies: think on lighter matters.
I heard strange news abroad: the Duke's in council,
Debating on the death of old Bartolo,
The grey lean usurer. He's been long abroad,
And died, they think.

Bianca.
Well, sir, and what of that?
And have I not the privilege of sorrow,
Without a menial's staring eye upon me?
Who sent thee thus to charter my free thoughts,
And tell them where to shrink, and where to pause?
Officious slave, away!— (Exit.)
—Ha, what saidst thou?
Bartolo's death! and the Duke in his council!—
I'll rend him from her, though she wind around him,
Like the vine round the elm. I'll pluck him off,
Though the life crack at parting.—No, no pause;
For if there is, I shall be tame and timorous:
That milk-faced mercy will come whimpering to me,
And I shall sit and meekly, miserably
Weep o'er my wrongs.—Ha! that her soul were fond
And fervent as mine own! I would give worlds
To see her as he's rent from out her arms.
Oh, but she's cold; she cannot, will not feel.
It is but half revenge: her whole of sorrow
Will be a drop to my consummate agony.—
Yet do I linger—yet, when I might dash
At least two minutes of their unchaste raptures.—
Away, away: oh had I wings to fly to it!

Scene II.

—Duke and his Council.
Duke.
'Tis passing strange, a man of such lean habits,
Wealth flowing to him in a steady current,
Winds wafting it unto him from all quarters,
Through all his seventy toilsome years of life,
And yet his treasury so spare and meagre;
Signior Gonsalvo, were the voice that told us
Less tried and trusty than thine own, our faith
Would be a rebel to such marvellous fact.

Gonsalvo.
Well may your Highness misdoubt me, myself
Almost misdoubting mine own positive senses.
No sign was there of outward violence,
All in a state of orderly misery,
No trace of secret inroad; yet, my liege,
The mountains of his wealth were puny molehills,
A few stray ducats; piles indeed of parchments,
Mortgages, deeds, and lawsuits heaped to the roof,
Enough to serve the armies of all Tuscany
At least for half a century with new drumheads.

Aurio.
Haply, my liege, he may have gone abroad,
And borne his riches with him.

Duke.
Signior Aurio,
That surmise flavours not of your known wisdom.
His argosies encumber all our ports,
His unsold bales rot in the crowded wharfs;
The interest of a hundred usuries
Lieth unclaim'd.—Besides, he hath not left
Our city for this twenty years:—a flight
So unprepared and wanton suits not well
Your slow and heavy laden usurer.
Enter Antonio.
My liege, a lady in the antechamber
Boasts knowledge that concerns your this day's council.

Duke.
Admit her.— (Enter Bianca.)
—How! what know'st thou of the death
Of old Bartolo?—be he dead in sooth?
Or of his riches?

Bianca.
The east side o' the fountain,
In the small garden of a lowly house,
By the Franciscan convent, the green herbs
Grow boon and freely, the manure is rich
Around their roots: dig there, and you'll be wiser.

Duke.
Who tenanted this house?

Bianca.
Giraldi Fazio.

Duke.
What of his wealth?

Bianca.
There's one in Florence knows
More secrets than beseems an honest man.

Duke.
And who is he?

Bianca.
Giraldi Fazio.

Gonsalvo.
My liege, I know him: 'tis the new sprung signior,
This great philosopher. I ever doubted
His vaunted manufactory of gold,
Work'd by some strange machinery.

Duke.
Theodore,
Search thou the garden that this woman speaks of.
Captain Antonio, be't thy charge to attach
With speed the person of this Fazio.

Bianca
(rushing forward to Antonio).
You'll find him at the Marchesa Aldabella's:
Bring him away—no mercy—no delay—
Nay, not an instant—not time for a kiss,
A parting kiss. (Aside)
Now have I widow'd her,
As she has widow'd me! Now come what will,
Their curst entwining arms are riven asunder.

Duke.
And thou, thou peremptory summoner!
Most thirsty after justice! speak—Thy name?

Bianca.
Bianca.

Duke.
Thy estate wedded or single?

Bianca.
My lord—

Duke.
Give instant answer to the court.

Bianca.
Oh, wedded, but most miserably single.

Duke.
Woman, thou palterest with our dignity.
Thy husband's name and quality?—Why shakest thou,
And draw'st the veil along thy moody brow,
As thou too wert a murderess?—Speak, and quickly.

Bianca
(faltering).
Giraldi Fazio.

Duke.
'Tis thy husband then—
Woman, take heed, if, petulant and rash,
Thou would'st abuse the righteous sword of law,
That brightest in the armoury of man,
To a peevish instrument of thy light passions,
Or furtherance of some close and secret guilt:
Take heed, 'tis in the heaven-stamp'd roll of sins,
To bear false witness—Oh, but 'gainst thy husband,
Thy bosom's lord, flesh of thy flesh!—To set
The bloodhounds of the law upon his track!
If thou speak'st true, stern justice will but blush
To be so cheer'd upon her guilty prey.
If it be false, thou givest to flagrant sin
A heinous immortality. This deed
Will chronicle thee, woman, to all ages,
In human guilt a portent and an era:
'Tis of those crimes, whose eminent fame Hell joys at;
And the celestial angels, that look on it,
Wish their keen airy vision dim and narrow.
Enter Theodore.
My liege, e'en where she said, an unstripp'd corpse
Lay carelessly inearth'd, old weeds hung on it,
Like those that old Bartolo wont to wear;
And under the left rib a small stiletto,
Rusted within the pale and creeping flesh.
Enter Antonio with Fazio.
My liege, the prisoner.

Duke.
Thou'rt Giraldi Fazio.
Giraldi Fazio, thou stand'st here arraign'd,
That, with presumption impious and accurst,
Thou hast usurp'd God's high prerogative,
Making thy fellow mortal's life and death
Wait on thy moody and diseased passions;
That with a violent and untimely steel
Hast set abroach the blood, that should have ebb'd
In calm and natural current: to sum all
In one wild name—a name the pale air freezes at,
And every cheek of man sinks in with horror—
Thou art a cold and midnight murderer.

Fazio.
My liege, I do beseech thee, argue not,
From the thick clogging of my clammy breath,
Ought but a natural and instinctive dread
Of such a bloody and ill-sounding title.
My liege, I do beseech thee, whate'er reptile
Hath cast this filthy slime of slander on me,
Set him before me face to face: the fire
Of my just anger shall burn up his heart,
Make his lip drop, and powerless shuddering
Creep o'er his noisome and corrupted limbs,
Till the coarse lie choke in his wretched throat.

Duke.
Thou'rt bold.—But know ye ought of old Bartolo?
Methinks, for innocence, thou'rt pale and tremulous—
That name is to thee as a thunderclap;
But thou shalt have thy wish.—Woman, stand forth:
Nay, cast away thy veil.—Look on her, Fazio.

Fazio.
Bianca!—No, it is a horrid vision!
And, if I struggle, I shall wake, and find it
A miscreated mockery of the brain.
If thou'rt a fiend, what hellish right hast thou
To shroud thy leprous and fire-seam'd visage
In lovely lineaments, like my Bianca's?
If thou'rt indeed Bianca, thou wilt wear
A ring I gave thee at our wedding time.
In God's name do I bid thee hold it up;
And, if thou dost, I'll be a murderer,
A slaughterer of whole hecatombs of men,
So ye will rid me of the hideous sight.

Duke.
Giraldi Fazio, hear the court's award:
First, on thy evil-gotten wealth the State
Setteth her solemn seal of confiscation;
And for thyself—

Bianca
(rushing forward).
Oh, we'll be poor again!
Oh, I forgive thee!—We'll be poor and happy!
So happy, the dull day shall be too short for us.
She lov'd thee, that proud woman, for thy riches;
But thou canst tell why I love Fazio.

Duke.
And for thyself—'Tis in the code of Heaven,
Blood will have blood—the slayer for the slain.
Death is thy doom—the public, daylight death.
Thy body do we give unto the wheel:
The lord have mercy on thy sinful soul!

Bianca.
Death!—Death!—I meant not that!—Ye mean not that!
What's all this waste and idle talk of murther?
He slay a man—with tender hands like his?—
With delicate mild soul?—Why, his own blood
Had startled him! I've seen him pale and shuddering
At the sad writhings of a trampled worm:
I've seen him brush off with a dainty hand
A bee that stung him. Oh, why wear ye thus
The garb and outward sanctity of law?
What means that snow upon your reverend brows,
If that ye have no subtler apprehension
Of some inherent harmony in the nature
Of bloody criminal and bloody crime?
'Twere wise t' arraign the soft and silly lamb
Of slaughtering his butcher: ye might make it
As proper a murderer as my Fazio.

Duke.
Woman, th' irrevocable breath of justice
Wavers not: he must die.

Bianca.
Die! Fazio die!—
Ye grey and solemn murderers by charter!
Ye ermined manslayers! when the tale is rife
With blood and guilt, and deep and damning, oh,
Ye suck it in with cold insatiate thirst:
But to the plea of mercy ye are stones,
As deaf and hollow as the unbowell'd winds.
Oh, ye smooth Christians in your tones and looks,
But in your hearts as savage as the tawny
And misbelieving African! ye profane,
Who say, “God bless him! God deliver him!”
While ye are beckoning for the bloody axe,
To smite the unoffending head!—His head!—
My Fazio's head!—the head this wretched bosom
Heaved on its virgin tremors.

Duke.
Fazio, hear.
To-morrow's morning sun shall dawn upon thee:
But when he setteth in his western couch,
He finds thy place in this world void and vacant.

Bianca.
To-morrow morning!—Not to-morrow morning!
The damning devils give a forced faint pause,
If the bad soul but feebly catch at heaven.
But ye, but ye, unshriven, unreconciled,
With all its ponderous mass of sins, hurl down
The bare and shivering spirit.—Oh, not to-morrow!

Duke.
Woman, thou dost outstep all modesty:
But for strong circumstance, that leagues with thee,
We should contemn thee for a wild mad woman,
Raving her wayward and unsettled fancies.

Bianca.
Mad! mad!—aye, that it is!—aye, that it is!
Is't to be mad to speak, to move, to gaze,
But not know how, or why, or whence, or where?
To see that there are faces all around me,
Floating within a dim discolour'd haze,
Yet have distinction, vision, but for one?
To speak with rapid and continuous flow,
Yet know not how the unthought words start from me?—
Oh, I am mad, wildly, intensely mad.
'Twas but last night the moon was at the full;
And ye, and ye, the sovereign and the sage,
The wisdom and the reverence of all Florence,
E'en from a maniac's dim disjointed tale,
Do calmly judge away the innocent life,
The holy human life, the life God gave him.

Duke.
Giraldi Fazio, hast thou ought to plead
Against the law, that with imperious hand
Grasps at thy forfeit life?

Fazio.
My liege, this soul
Rebels not, nay, repines not at thy sentence:
Yet, oh! by all on earth, by all hereafter,
All that hath cognizance o'er unseen deeds,
Blood is a colour stranger to these hands.
But there are crimes within me, deep and black,
That with their clamorous and tumultuous voices
Shout at me, “Thou should'st die, thy sins are deadly:”
Nor dare my oppressed heart return, “'Tis false.”

Bianca.
But I, I say, 'tis false: he is not guilty:
Not guilty unto death: I say he is not.
God gave ye hearing, but ye will not hear;
God gave ye feeling, but ye will not feel;
God gave ye judgment, but ye falsely judge.

Duke.
Captain Antonio, guard thy prisoner.
If it be true, blood is not on thy soul,
Yet thou object'st not to the charge of robbery?
[Fazio bows.
Thou dost not. Robbery, by the laws of Florence,
Is sternly coded as a deadly crime:
Therefore, I say again, Giraldi Fazio,
The Lord have mercy on thy sinful soul!

[They follow the Duke.
Bianca
(seizing and detaining Aurio).
My lord! my lord! we have two babes at home—
They cannot speak yet; but, your name, my lord,
And they shall lisp it, ere they lisp mine own—
Ere that poor culprit's yonder, their own father's.
Befriend us, oh, befriend us! 'Tis a title
Heaven joys at, and the hard and savage earth
Doth break its sullen nature to delight in—
The destitute's sole friend—And thou pass too!
Why, what a common liar was thy face,
That said the milk of mercy flow'd within thee!—
Ye're all alike.—Off! off!—Ye're all alike.

[Exeunt all but Fazio, the Officer, and Bianca.
Bianca
(creeping to Fazio).
Thou wilt not spurn me, wilt not trample on me,
Wilt let me touch thee—I, whose lips have slain thee.
Oh, look not on me thus with that fond look—
Pamper me not, for long and living grief
To prey upon—Oh, curse me, Fazio—
Kill me with cursing: I am thin and feeble—
A word will crush me—anything but kindness.

Fazio.
Mine own Bianca! I shall need too much mercy
Or ere to-morrow, to be merciless.
It was not well, Bianca, in my guilt
To cut me off—thus early—thus unripe:
It will be bitter, when the axe falls on me,
To think whose voice did summon it to its office.—
No more—no more of that: we all must die.
Bianca, thou wilt love me when I'm dead:
I wrong'd thee, but thou'lt love me when I'm dead.

Bianca.
What, kiss me, kiss me, Fazio!—'tis too much:
And these warm lips must be cold clay to-morrow.

Antonio.
Signior, we must part hence.

Bianca.
What! tear me from him,
When he has but a few short hours to give me!
Rob me of them!—He hath lain delicately:
Thou wilt not envy me the wretched office
Of strewing the last pillow he shall lie on—
Thou wilt not—nay, there's moisture in thine eye—
Thou wilt not.

Antonio.
Lady, far as is the warrant
Of my stern orders—

Bianca.
Excellent youth! Heaven thank thee!
There's not another heart like thine in Florence.
We shall not part, we shall not part, my Fazio!
Oh, never, never, never—till to-morrow.

Fazio
(as he leads her out).
It was not with this cold and shaking hand
I led thee virgin to the bridal altar.

[Exeunt.