University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

Scene I.

—Camp of Cardinal Albernoz at Monte Fiascone. Rienzi seated before his tent, at a table, with wine. Distant view of Lake Bolsena.
Rien.
Well, if whom God best loves He chastens most,
I might have saints for enviers. Seven long years
I have lain among the abortions of the world,
Like Nebuchadnezzar's stump; yet I bud greenly,
And deep in Rome my roots push boldly still.
Enter Rambault.
What news, fratello?

Ramb.
You shall go back to Rome.

Rien.
When?

Ramb.
Any day
You please to stir the jealous Cardinal's spleen.

Rien.
That's news indeed. The bilious Spaniard hates me,
The more since I have helped to take Viterbo,
As I did Toscanella. All this year
With dull campaigning in the Patrimony,
Chief of his Roman swords, not Senator
Of Rome, he fobs me off. O for this gold
To jaundice the dry olive of his cheek!

Ramb.
I have gained your suit. You ask three thousand florins,
You shall have four, out of my brother's chest,
To fee the pick of Malatesta's spears.

Rien.
Your love has crowned my life! Pope Innocent
Loves me, no doubt. When Rome, turned Ghibelline,
To gangrene runs, he takes off Clement's curse,
And sends me back a Senator, forsooth,
In this sly Cardinal's train—a bait to fish with
For Roman suffrages; but no spare florins.
The Romans love me well, and in my name
Have cast out devils—

Ramb.
Ay, poor Baroncelli,
Riding the clouds upon your Tribune's gown,
Fell, at your advent, prone as Simon Magus.

Rien.
He was a strutting daw, brave in my plumes.
Well, his vile back's plucked bare. I say the Romans
Love me, but still no florins.
You are my friend, sworn brother of my dreams,
My fortune's bedfellow—methinks I see
My youth rise up a phœnix in your mind,
As I burn out. Doctor, we twain will build
Ambitious eyries in the Capitol,
Like eagles of old Rome, flown back, to make
A renovating tempest with their wings.

Ramb.
Too proud a dream—it flatters bitterly.

Rien.
Orsino's death—my sane, strong captain's death—
Leaves me but wing-clipt now. I am alone;
How lone, heaven knows.

Ramb.
Your wife is dead, I think?

Rien.
Dead of the plague in Naples; and my son,
My son Lorenzo's dead—dead of the plague.
He was but young; but I saw hopes in him
Bud thick as grape-flowers on Vesuvian vines
Plagues are for nations' sins; but this smote mine—
Sorely too. You're still young. I think no fool
In the world's lore, yet capable of thoughts
That make the world a babe. If deeds but tally,
You were an heir to take my mantle fallen,
And smite with it a passage to new shores.

Ramb.
You make my heart too mighty for my breast.
But forty's ripe, not grey—your words' sad tune
Rings older than your years: though your great name's
Immortal youth makes them look venerable.
Why, in this hour of triumph, are you sad?

Rien.
What is more sad than triumph—save defeat?
It means success too late—the bloom of hope
Rubbed from the grape of life. We are time's fools!
I am most near to weeping when I laugh,
To laughter when I weep. Come, drink to me,
And to the ironic dæmon of the world.
[They drink.
Monte Fiascone!—On yon sunned lakeside,
The cool-juiced clusters in their musky globes
Cellared for us this nectar of the sun.
These grovelling years have left a fever here
Which wine allays. Friend, such a past as mine
Ages a man. My memory builds me halls
Wherein my soul, a minstrel old and grey,
Chaunts epics of my deeds; yet shrewdly too
It still can scan the future, and with eyes
That hold some flash of my aspiring youth.

Ramb.
Your soul's more young than mine in vigorous life.

Rien.
But this poor body is not what it was.

Ramb.
You have grown stout, methinks, since first I saw you.

Rien.
Heavy, not healthy, brain and body both,
And somewhat galled in the wind. My tongue's in chains—
This pleurisy's a chain of Clement's forging,
Which Innocent, who knocked my irons off,
Could not remove.

Ramb.
'Tis true they chained you, then,
In Avignon?

Rien.
Ay, gyved me by the leg,
A year, in prison.

Ramb.
Clement belied his name
To treat you in such sort.

Rien.
Oh, by your leave!
'Twas mildness for a heretic unheard;
Though, when the need of me cried for my hearing,
I proved the Church's well-beloved son.
When from the Court of Charles, the Emperor,
Who would not give me up, I freely went
To make submission to the Pope, my way
Was like a conqueror's progress. Why, from Prague
To Avignon I stroked my liegemen tame,
Lest all the world in arms should come, by force
To make me King, Pope, Emperor—what I would.
Yet I was clapt in prison.

Ramb.
Chained too—shame!

Rien.
Bah! I have supt worse broth than that, for Rome.
The Emperor stood my brother, in his love,
As by the flesh I am; and in my cell
I dwelt in scholar's ease, the holy prophets
For reverend counsellors, and for my friend
The Roman Livius. Of my seven exiled years,
Wasted in wandering, like its murdered ghost,
About the corpse of Rome—brooding, unlaid—
Seeking to move in her corrupted heart
Some pulse of resurrection; and, anon,
When I could stir but crawling worms, in Prague,
A sudden apparition at the feet
Of Charles, the Emperor—I say, of all
These years, I feel the quiet of my cell
Green in their weary waste of stretched-out sand.

Ramb.
What drives you, then, back to the bustling world
You love so little?

Rien.
What? Have you ne'er felt
That warrior lust which rages in a man
To wreak himself in deeds? Oh, I come forth
A barb-galled lion from the sheltering brake,
Wily and terrible; and now, 'ware hunters!
Erewhile I stalked gaunt in the noonday sun,
And thought I had but to show myself and roar,
To master meaner things; but now I'll make
Darkness the scabbard for victorious light.
But 'tis about the hour when waits on me
The deputation from expectant Rome.
Your brother's gold has girt me with such power,
That I'll assume, with pomp and circumstance,
The Senator at last. My gown's within—
All men revere fine robes, but Romans most.

[Exit into his tent.
Ramb.
There goes the age's brain, whose ranging thoughts
Make other men seem merely babes at play,
With baubles for ambitions. To my brother
I am but a spy—a mining-tool, to force
The treasure-house of power; and yet my needs
Must court him, cap in hand, while my desires,
Rienzi's homagers, look off in shame.
With two cross winds I sail, and I must charm
These dangerous opposites to make fair weather.

Re-enter Rienzi, robed in scarlet and vair.
Rien.
Behold the Pope's new Senator!

Ramb.
You look bravely.

Rien.
As any two-legged thing in Fortune's smile.
Some makes she naked, and some vests in vair—
The why's her mystery. Well, I'll welcome back
Without a nose too keen, my country's love,
Now it smells sweet again.

Ramb.
I'll cite your subjects
To your long-injured presence.

Rien.
When they please.
[Exit Rambault.
This man should be a sorcerer's famulus,
To raise the devil with. I have raised him now,
And must beware his claws. Fra Moreale
Would buy my soul with his unhallowed hoard,
Tainted with blood of murdered harvesters,
With tears of virgins sold to the lewd Turk,
With groans of cities marketed to Tyrants
By their own Priors. O God, what cursed tools
Thou doomest our hands to! Gold! The life I deemed
A battle turns a game. Gold! Must I stoop
To enter Rome, so harlot-like she sprawls,
Gold for my sword—bought robbers for my guards?
Faugh! 'tis the scum of hell—'twould blast my fingers,
Like hell's foul clinging fire, did patriot dreams
Asperse it not with dew of heavenly hope.
Re-enter Rambault, ushering in a Deputation of Roman Citizens, with olive-branches in their hands, and bearing Rienzi's banner and a laurel crown; the Guilds led by Pandolfo di Guido, the Crafts by Cecco del Vecchio.
Fair welcome to you, friends; your faces shine
Bright as the beacon lights of Ithaca
To the long-tossed Ulysses. Welcome all!

Pand.
(kneeling).
We hail our saviour! You're desired in Rome
Like healing medicines by dying lips—
More than the Blessed Bread.

Rien.
To medicine Rome
I'd give the richest drops that feed my heart
For vigorous cullises.

Cecco
(aside).
Ay, ay—fine words!
Give us our trade again, and keep your blood—
That's our best cure. The Senator, I see,
Forgets the Tribune's friends. He knows me not.
Well, well, I note you, Senator, I note you.

Pand.
(presenting banner).
O bid our hopes revive, delay no more,
But give your glorious banner to the winds,
And say, Rome lives again! (Presenting crown of laurel.)
Take, with this crown,
Our reverent homage, and enduring love.

Rien.
Thus do I give my banner to the winds.
[Waves banner.
Who is the youngest here?
[A Young Man steps forward. Rienzi gives him the banner.
Bear this for me.
Old Rome should march to youth on young men's feet.
[He crowns the banner.
Thus with the crown you bring me I crown Rome,
So doubly crown myself. I'll thank your loves
In the Capitol more fitly. Now, zeal's fire
Burns up mere wordy stubble. To the tent
Of this cold Cardinal, who interlopes
Betwixt the Pope and us, not you and me;
And we'll demand my quittance in such sort
As will quite daunt his cautelous delays.
And then, to Rome!

All.
To Rome! Long live Rienzi!

[Exeunt.

Scene II.

—Palestrina.—A Room in Colonna's Fortress.
Enter Stefano and Vittoria Colonna.
Vitt. C.
But is this true?

Stef. C.
Is what true?

Vitt. C.
That my brother
So used Rienzi's herald?

Stef. C.
Sent the varlet
Back to the bragging knave from whom he came,
His two cur's ears clipt off, and, with the whip
That flogged him, neatly casketed? 'Tis true.

Vitt. C.
I say, 'tis infamous. Oh, has our pride,
Colonna's boast, stooped, like a vulgar kite,
Upon the carrion of a mean revenge!
I am but woman, yet the pride I know
Soars in self-reverence out of sight of yours.

Stef. C.
Tut, girl! What else should Stefanello do?

Vitt. C.
A noble foe claims honourable war.

Stef. C.
A noble foe? A prating mountebank,
Spawned in a washtub! Honourable war?
The honourable war of times like these
Is cut-throat against cut-throat. Rottenness
Peoples the world with creatures of its own,
And Rome's acrawl with them. Let me but see
This ape, whose itching paw has grasped at greatness,
Tumble, unpitied as the gibbet's fruit,
Into corruption's pit, and to the tomb
I'll take my age's outspun weariness,
Blither than to my bed.

Vitt. C.
Must he so fall?
He comes the chartered agent of the Pope,
May not his second day outshine the first?

Stef. C.
There dawns no second day for charlatans
Who fool the first away. His tricks are stale.
Will he spit forth more fire, toss up more balls,
Bring forth more eggs from sleeves, as Senator
Than e'er he did as Tribune? Catch more pence?
'Tis not to do. I thank Almighty God
The Devil has lured this blustering Herod back
To diet all the maggots he has bred.

Vitt. C.
The people love him.

Stef. C.
The mob think they do,
Loving the empty bellies they would fill,
With lazy ease, from some one else's store.
The people's but a dream—what mortal skill
Can charm the scythe of Time its swath to unmow,
Till to-day's dust grow proud to find itself
Marble of yesterday? Old Rome lies dead,
And who would build his fortress on her grave
Must have an iron hand. My life ebbs low;
My bright ambition's flower is fruitless shed;
My glory's sun is bloodily gone down;
This war-worn frame sits heavy on my soul
As armour on a battle-wearied knight,
And I would doff it soon, and rest. Were 't not so,
The prey that jackals chase should feel the gripe
Of roused Colonna's lion. O girl, the rage
To live, and yet be toothless! We're grown old
When honour's wine spoils on revenge's lees;
And I'm as dull and flavourless as death.
This jester knave outgibed, let Montréal,
Who holds him in his clutch, confirm himself
The Podestà of Rome—I'll smile and die.

[Exit.
Vitt. C.
Alas! that noble souls, which should, like stars,
Divine contagion flame, some jaundice moves
To mutual bale, until Christ's temple falls
To Babel as we build! Our House's blood,
Swoln to a hungry sea, crying for blood,
Will gulf at last the ruined hope of Rome.

[Exit.

Scene III.

—Rome.—A Room in the Capitol.
Enter Rienzi.
Rien.
So, like a grey, world-wandered prodigal,
I am come home, to find my father's house
An hostelry for change. Where is my Rome?
Where, rather, is her Tribune? Mighty dreams,
Go back once more into the world of dreams,
Regretted, not forgotten, but with love
Buried. The King is dead, long live the King!
Shut to the brazen gates that sepulchre
The glorious past, fling wide the golden doors
That on the future's field unconquered gaze.
Now, what's to do? I stand this day more baited
By dangers than a spendthrift by his duns—
Dangers most vile, since to be shunned, not faced,
Outwitted and not fought with. 'Tis our curse
That we who scavenge this most filthy world
Must soil our fingers. Miracles are done,
We work with tools, and, scorning what we need,
Perish our folly's martyrs, nothing won.
[Rings a handbell.
Enter a Secretary.
Your abstract of the news?

Secretary.
Our troops, my lord,
Beleaguer Palestrina. The Orsini
Still hold aloof.

Rien.
'Tis well. What of the town?

Sec.
The jealousies between the crafts and guilds,
Which smoulder hotly, would in faction burn,
But your authority makes faction dumb;
Yet you are coldly scanned in several quarters,
As you'll see here. (Hands papers.)
The taxes are all paid,
Though grumblingly. Your speech and proclamation,
Both well received, have solved some discontent.

Rien.
(aside).
This tallies with my private informations.
(Aloud.)
You may retire.
[Exit Sec.
The Barons' day is past—I fear them not;
But currish faction must be muzzled strait.
But how? I ring my Rome with foreign swords,
Making her foes her fence, till she be grown,
And may defy her foes. There's danger too—
These Germans are a fire, which in due bounds
Will cook our food and warm us, but once free
Will burn us out of house. There is much danger.
O for the flame that once I stole from heaven,
To make my country live! There were no need
Of any earthly, dangerous, purchased fire,
To tinker with. I should have souls for arms,
Romans for hireling legions, zeal for gold.
Prometheus mounts not twice—perchance can ne'er
The flickering spark he kindled once relume;
Yet in my breast, a beacon lone, it burns,
And while Rienzi lives can die not Rome.

[Exit.