University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

—Palace of Aldabella.
Aldabella.
Fazio in prison! Fazio doom'd to die!—
I was too hasty; should have fled, and bashfully
Beckon'd him after; lured him, not seized on him.
Proud Aldabella a poor robber's paramour!
Oh it sounds dismal! Florence must not hear it:—
And sooth his time is brief to descant on it.—
(To Bianca, who enters.)
And who art thou thus usherless and unbidden
Scarest my privacy?

Bianca
(aside).
I must not speak yet;
For if I do, a curse will clog my utterance.

Aldabella.
Nay, stand not with thy pale lips quivering nothings—
Speak out, and freely.

Bianca.
Lady, there is one—
Fie, fie upon this choking in my throat—
One thou didst love, Giraldi Fazio;
One who loved thee, Giraldi Fazio.—
He's doom'd to die, to die to-morrow morning;
And lo 'tis eve already!—

Aldabella.
He is doom'd?—
Why then the man must die.—

Bianca.
Nay, gentle lady,
Thou'rt high-born, rich, and beautiful: the princes,
The prime of Florence wait upon thy smiles,
Like sunflowers on the golden light they love.
Thy lips have such sweet melody, 'tis hung upon
Till silence is an agony. Did it plead
For one condemn'd, but oh most innocent,
'Twould be a music th' air would fall in love with,
And never let it die, till it had won
Its honest purpose.

Aldabella.
What a wanton waste
Of idle praise is here!

Bianca.
Nay think, oh think,
What 'tis to give again a forfeit life:
Aye, such a life as Fazio's!—Frown not on me:
Thou think'st that he's a murderer—'tis all false;
A trick of Fortune, fancifully cruel,
To cheat the world of such a life as Fazio's.

Aldabella.
Frivolous and weak: I could not if I would.

Bianca.
Nay, but I'll lure thee with so rich a boon—
Hear—hear, and thou art won. If thou dost save him,
It is but just he should be saved for thee.
I give him thee—Bianca—I his wife:—
I pardon all that has been, all that may be—
Oh I will be the handmaid to thy pleasures;
Trim up the pillow for ye; be so patient—
Calmly, contentedly, and sadly patient—
And if ye see a pale or envious motion
Upon my cheek, a quivering on my lips,
Like to complaint—then strike him dead before me.
Thou shalt enjoy all—all that I enjoy'd:—
His love, his life, his sense, his soul be thine;
And I will bless thee, in my misery bless thee.

Aldabella.
What mist is on thy wild and wandering eyes?
Know'st thou to whom and where thou play'st the raver?
I, Aldabella, whom the amorous homage
Of rival lords and princes stirs no more,
Than the light passing of the common air—
I, Aldabella, when my voice might make
Thrones render up their stateliest to my service—
Stoop to the sordid sweepings of a prison?
I—

Bianca.
Proud-lipp'd woman, earth's most gorgeous sovereigns
Were worthless of my Fazio! Foolish woman,
Thou cast'st a jewel off! The proudest lord
That ever revell'd in thy unchaste arms,
Was a swarth galley-slave to Fazio.
Ah me! me! me! e'en I his lawful wife
Know't not more truly, certainly than thou.—
Hadst thou lov'd him, I had pardon'd, pitied thee:
We two had sate, all coldly, palely sad;
Dropping, like statues on a fountain side,
A pure, a silent, and eternal dew.
Hadst thou outwept me, I had loved thee for't—
And that were easy, for I'm stony here. (Putting her hand to her eyes.)


Aldabella.
Ho there! to th' hospital for the lunatics
Fetch succour for this poor distrest—

Bianca.
What said I?
Oh pardon me, I came not to upbraid thee.—
Think, think—I'll whisper it, I'll not betray thee;
The air's a tell-tale, and the walls are listeners:—
Think what a change! Last night within thy chamber;
(I'll not say in thy arms; for that displeases thee,
And sickens me to utter,) and to night
Upon a prison pallet, straw, hard straw;
For eastern perfumes, the rank noisome air;
For gentle harpings, shrilly clanking chains:—
Nay, turn not off: the worst is yet to come.
To-morrow at his waking, for thy face
Languidly, lovingly down drooping o'er him,
The scarr'd and haggard executioner.

Aldabella
(turning away).
There is a dizzy trembling in mine eye;
But I must dry the foolish dew for shame.
Well, what is it to me? I slew him not;
Nay, nor denounced him to the judgment seat.
I but debase myself to lend free hearing
To such coarse fancies.—I must hence: to-night
I feast the lords of Florence.

[Exit.
Bianca.
They're all lies:
Things done within some far and distant planet,
Or offscum of some dreamy poet's brain,
All tales of human goodness. Or they're legends
Left us of some good old forgotten time,
Ere harlotry became a queenly sin,
And housed in palaces. Oh, earth's so crowded
With Vice, that if strange Virtue stray abroad,
They hoot it from them like a thing accurst.
Fazio, my Fazio!—but we'll laugh at them:
We will not stay upon their wicked soil,
E'en though they sue us, not to die and leave them.