University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—A Room with Crucibles and Apparatus of Alchymy.
Enter Fazio and Bianca.
Fazio.
Why what a peevish envious fabulist
Was he, that vow'd cold wedlock's atmosphere
Wearies the thin and dainty plumes of love;
That a fond husband's holy appetite,
Like the gross surfeit of intemperate joy,
Grows sickly and fastidious at the sweets
Of its own chosen flower!—My own Bianca,
With what delicious scorn we laugh away
Such sorry satire!

Bianca.
Which of thy smooth looks
Teacheth this harmony of bland deceit?
Oh, my own Fazio! if a serpent told me
That it was stingless in a tone like thine,
I should believe it. Oh, thou sweetly false!
That at cold midnight quitt'st my side to pore
O'er musty tomes, dark sign'd and character'd,
O'er boiling skellets, crucibles and stills,
Drugs and elixirs.

Fazio.
Aye, chide on, my love;
The nightingale's complaining is more sweet,
Than half the dull unvarying birds that pipe
Perpetual amorous joy.—Tell me, Bianca,
How long is't since we wedded?

Bianca.
Would'st thou know
Thy right and title to thy weariness?—
Beyond two years.

Fazio.
Days, days, Bianca! Love
Hath in its calendar no tedious time,
So long as what cold lifeless souls call years.
Oh, with my books, my sage philosophy,
My infants, and their mother, time slides on
So smoothly, as 'twere fall'n asleep, forgetting
Its heaven-ordained motion. We are poor;
But in the wealth of love, in that, Bianca,
In that we are eastern sultans. I have thought,
If that my wondrous alchymy should win
That precious liquor, whose transmuting dew
Makes the black iron start forth brilliant gold,
Were it not wise to cast it back again
Into its native darkness?

Bianca.
Out upon it!—
Oh, leave it there, my Fazio!—Leave it there!—
I hate it!—'Tis my rival, 'tis thy mistress.—
Aye, this it is that makes thee strange and restless,
A truant to thine own Bianca's arms,
This wondrous secret.

Fazio.
Dost thou know, Bianca,
Our neighbour, old Bartolo?

Bianca.
O yes, yes—
That yellow wretch, that looks as he were stain'd
With watching his own gold; every one knows him
Enough to loathe him. Not a friend hath he,
Nor kindred nor familiar; not a slave,
Not a lean serving wench: nothing e'er enter'd
But his spare self within his jealous doors,
Except a wand'ring rat; and that, they say,
Was famine-struck, and died there.—What of him?

Fazio.
Yet he, Bianca, he is of our rich ones.
There's not a galliot on the sea, but bears
A venture of Bartolo's; not an acre,
Nay, not a villa of our proudest princes,
But he hath cramp'd it with a mortgage; he,
He only stocks our prisons with his debtors.
I saw him creeping home last night; he shudder'd
As he unlock'd his door, and look'd around,
As if he thought that every breath of wind
Were some keen thief; and when he lock'd him in,
I heard the grating key turn twenty times,
To try if all were safe. I look'd again
From our high window by mere chance, and saw
The motion of his scanty moping lantern;
And, where his wind-rent lattice was ill stuff'd
With tatter'd remnants of a money-bag,
Through cobwebs and thick dust I spied his face,
Like some dry wither-boned anatomy,
Through a huge chestlid, jealously and scantily
Uplifted, peering upon coin and jewels,
Ingots and wedges, and broad bars of gold,
Upon whose lustre the wan light shone muddily,
As though the New World had outrun the Spaniard,
And emptied all its mines in that coarse hovel.
His ferret eyes gloated as wanton o'er them,
As a gross Satyr on a naked Nymph;
And then, as he heard something like a sound,
He clapp'd the lid to, and blew out the lantern.
But I, Bianca, hurried to thy arms,
And thank'd my God that I had braver riches.

Bianca.
Oh then, let that black furnace burst: dash down
Those ugly and mishapen jars and vials.
Nay, nay, most sage philosopher, to night,
At least to night, be only thy Bianca's.

[She clings to him.
Fazio.
(Looking fondly at her.)
Why e'en the Prince of Bards was false and slanderous,
Who girt Jove's bride in that voluptuous zone,
Ere she could win her weary lord to love;
While my earth-born Bianca bears by nature
An ever-blooming cæstus of delight!

Bianca.
So courtly and so fanciful, my Fazio!
Which of our dukes hath lent thee his cast poesies?
Why, such a musical and learned phrase
Had soften'd the marchesa, Aldabella,
That high signora, that once pamper'd thee
Almost to madness with her rosy smiles;
And then my lady queen put on her winter,
And froze thee till thou wert a very icicle,
Had not the lowly and despised Bianca
Ta'en pity on't, and thaw'd it in her arms.

Fazio.
Nay, taunt not her, Bianca, taunt not her!
Thy Fazio loved her once. Who, who would blame
Heaven's moon, because a maniac hath adored it,
And died in his dotage? E'en a saint might wear
Proud Aldabella's scorn, nor look less heavenly.
Oh, it dropt balm upon the wounds it gave,
The soul was pleased to be so sweetly wrong'd,
And misery grew rapturous. Aldabella!
The gracious! the melodious! Oh, the words
Laugh'd on her lips; the motion of her smiles
Shower'd beauty, as the air-caressed spray
The dews of morning; and her stately steps
Were light as though a winged angel trod
Over earth's flowers, and fear'd to brush away
Their delicate hues; aye, e'en her very robes
Were animate and breathing, as they felt
The presence of her loveliness, spread around
Their thin and gauzy clouds, ministering freely
Officious duty on the shrine where Nature
Hath lavish'd all her skill.

Bianca.
A proud loose wanton!

Fazio.
She wanton!—Aldabella loose!—Then, then
Are the pure lilies black as soot within,
The stainless virgin snow is hot and rancid,
And chastity—aye, it may be in heaven,
But all beneath the moon is wild and haggard.
If she be spotted, oh, unholiness
Hath never been so delicately lodged
Since that bad devil walk'd fair Paradise.

Bianca.
Already silent? Hath your idol quaff'd
Enough of your soft incense? Fazio! Fazio!
But that her gaudy bark would aye disdain
The quiet stream whereon we glide so smooth,
I should be fearful of ye.

Fazio.
Nay, unjust!
Ungenerous Bianca! who foregoes,
For the gay revel of a golden harp,
Its ecstasies and rich enchanting falls,
His own domestic lute's familiar pleasing?
But thou, thou vain and wanton in thy power,
Thou know'st canst make e'en jealousy look lovely,
And all thy punishment for that bad passion
Be this— [kisses her]
—Good night!—I will but snatch a look
How the great crucible doth its slow work,
And be with thee; unless thou fanciest, sweet,
That Aldabella lurks behind the furnace;
And then, heaven knows how long I may be truant.

[Exit Bianca.
Fazio
(solus.)
Oh, what a star of the first magnitude
Were poor young Fazio, if his skill should work
The wondrous secret your deep-closetted sages
Grow grey in dreaming of! Why all our Florence
Would be too narrow for his branching glories;
It would o'erleap the Alps, and all the north
Troop here to see the great philosopher.
He would be wealthy too—wealthy in fame;
And that's more golden than the richest gold.
[A groan without.
Holy St. Francis! what a groan was there!
Voice without.
Within there!—Oh! within there, neighbour!—Death,
Murder, and merciless robbery!

Fazio
opens the Door.
What! Bartolo!

Bartolo.
Thank ye, my friend! Ha! ha! ha! my old limbs!
I did not think them half so tough and sinewy.
St. Dominic! but their pins prick'd close and keen.
Six of 'em, strong and sturdy, with their daggers,
Tickling the old man to let loose his ducats.

Fazio.
Who, neighbour, who?

Bartolo.
Robbers, black crape-faced robbers,
Your only blood-suckers, that drain your veins,
And yet their meagre bodies aye grow sparer.
They knew that I had monies from the Duke,
But I o'erreach'd them, neighbour: not a ducat,
Nay, not a doit, to cross themselves withal,
Got they from old Bartolo.—Oh, I bleed!
And my old heart beats minutes like a clock.

Fazio.
A surgeon, friend!

Bartolo.
Aye, one of your kind butchers,
Who cut and slash your flesh for their own pastime,
And then, God bless the mark! they must have money!
Gold, gold, or nothing! Silver is grown coarse,
And rings unhandsomely. Have I scaped robbing,
Only to give?—Oh there! there! there! Cold, cold,
Cold as December.

Fazio.
Nay, then, a confessor!

Bartolo.
A confessor! one of your black smooth talkers,
That drone the name of God incessantly,
Like the drear burthen of a doleful ballad!
That sing to one of bounteous codicils
To the Franciscans or some hospital!
Oh! there's a shooting!—Oozing here!—Aye me!
My ducats and my ingots scarcely cold
From the hot Indies!—Oh! and I forgot
To seal those jewels from the Milan Duke!
Oh! misery, misery!—Just this very day,
And that mad spendthrift Angelo hath not sign'd
The mortgage on those meadows by the Arno.
Oh! misery, misery!—Yet I scaped them bravely,
And brought my ducats off!—

[Dies.
Fazio.
Why e'en lie there, as foul a mass of earth
As ever loaded it. 'Twere sin to charity
To wring one drop of brine upon thy corpse.
In sooth, Death's not nice-stomach'd, to be cramm'd
With such unsavoury offal. What a God
'Mong men might this dead wither'd thing have been,
That now must rot beneath the earth, as once
He rotted on it! Why his wealth had won
In better hands an atmosphere around him,
Musical ever with the voice of blessing,
Nations around his tomb, like marble mourners,
Vied for their pedestals.—In better hands?
Methinks these fingers are nor coarse nor clumsy.
Philosophy! Philosophy! thou'rt lame
And tortoise-paced to my fleet desires!
I scent a shorter path to fame and riches.
The Hesperian trees nod their rich clusters at me,
Tickling my timorous and withdrawing grasp;—
I would, yet dare not:—that's a coward's reckoning.
Half of the sin lies in “I would.” To-morrow,
If that it find me poor, will write me fool,
And myself be a mock unto myself.
Aye, and the body murder'd in my house!
Your carrion breeds most strange and loathsome insects—
Suspicion's of the quickest and the keenest—
So, neighbour, by your leave, your keys! In sooth,
Thou hadst no desperate love for holy church;
Long-knolled bell were no sweet music to thee.
A “God be with thee” shall be all thy mass;
Thou never lovedst those dry and droning priests.
Thou'lt rot most cool and quiet in my garden;
Your gay and gilded vault would be too costly.

[Exit with the body of Bartolo.