University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

A street in Ferrara.
Michele and Battista meeting: Marcello at the side.
Michele.
Fair shine this evening's stars upon your pleasures,
Battista Sorbi!

Batt.
Sir, well met to-night:
Methinks our path is one.

Mich.
And all Ferrara's.
There's not a candle lit to-night at home;
And for the cups,—they'll be less wet with wine
Than is the inmost grain of all this earth
With the now-falling dew. None sit in doors,
Except the babe, and his forgotten grandsire,
And such as, out of life, each side do lie
Against the shutter of the grave or womb.
The rest that build up the great hill of life,
From the crutch-riding boy to his sweet mother,
The deer-eyed girl, and the brown fellow of war,
To the grey head and grandest sire of all
That's half in heaven,—all these are forth to-night;
And there they throng upon both sides the river,
Which, guessing at its hidden banks, flows on,
A water-stream betwixt two tides of flesh:—
And still the streets pour on.

Batt.
And where go they?
To the feast, the wine, the lady-footed dance—
Where you, and I, and every citizen
That has a feathered and a jewelled cap,
And youthful curls to hang beside it brownly,—
To the Duke's brother, Lord Orazio's palace.

Marc.
(aside).
Orazio! what of him?

Mich.
Ay, that's a man
After the heart of Bacchus! By my life,
There is no mortal stuff, that foots the earth,
Able to wear the shape of man, like him,
And fill it with the carriage of a god.
We're but the tools and scaffolding of men,
The lines, the sketch, and he the very thing:
And, if we share the name of manhood with him,
Thus in the woods the tattered, wool-hung briar,
And the base, bowing poplar, the winds' slave,
Are trees,—and so's the great and kingly oak,
Within whose branches, like a soul, does dwell
The sun's bold eagle:—as the villain fox,
The weazel, and the sneaking cur are beasts,—
While he, whose wine is in a giant's heart,
The royal lion has no bigger name.
Let men be trees, why then he is the oak;
Let men be beasts, he is their lion-master;
Let them be stars, and then he is a sun,
A sun whose beams are gold, the night his noon,
His summer-field a marble hall of banquets,
With jasper, onyx, amber-leaved cups
On golden straws for flowers, and, for the dew,
Wine of the richest grape. So let's not talk
And breathe away the time, whose sands are thawed
Into such purple tears, but drink it off.

Batt.
Why then, away! let's fit our velvet arms,
And on together.—

Marc.
(advancing.)
Nobles of Ferrara,
My gentle lords, have pity for a man,
Whom fortune and the roundness of the world
Have, from his feeble footing on its top,
Flung to deep poverty. When I was born,
They hid my helplessness in purple wraps,
And cradled me within a jewelled crown.
But now—O bitter now!—what name of woe,
Beyond the knowledge of the lips of hell,
Is fitted to my poor and withering soul,
And its old, wretched dwelling?

Batt.
What is this?
Methinks that a præ-adamite skeleton,
Burst from the grave in a stolen cloak of flesh,
Ragged and threadbare, from a witch's back,
Who lived an hundred years, would scarcely seem
More miserably old.

Mich.
Enter a Gentleman.

Gent.
He's coming through this street,
Orazio, wrapt, like Bacchus, in the hide
Of a specked panther, with his dancing nymphs,
And torches bright and many, as his slaves
Had gathered up the fragments of the sun
That fell just now. Hark! here his music comes.

(Enter Orazio, between Armida and Rosaura, attended.)
Oraz.
Thrice to the moon, and thrice unto the sun,
And thrice unto the lesser stars of night,
From tower and hill, by trump and cannon's voice,
Have I proclaimed myself a deity's son:
Not Alexander's father, Ammon old,
But ivied Bacchus, do I call my sire.
Hymn it once more.


Song.

Oraz.
Now break that kiss, and answer me, my Hebe;
Has our great sire a planet in the sky,—
One of these lights?

Rosau.
Not yet, I think, my lord.

Oraz.
My lord? my love! I am the Lord of Love;
So call me by my dukedom.—He has not?
We'll make him one, my nymph: when those bright eyes
Are closed, and that they shall not be, I swear,
'Till I have loved them many thousand hours,—
But when they are, their blue enchanted fire
Cupid shall take upon a torch of heaven,
And light the woody sides of some dim world,
Which shall be Bacchus' godson-star.

Rosau.
Alas!
Their fire is but unsteady, weak, and watery,
To guess by your love's wavering.

Oraz.
Wine in a ruby!
I'll solemnize their beauty in a draught,
Pressed from the summer of an hundred vines.
Look on't, my sweet. Rosaura, this same night
I will immortalize those lips of thine,
That make a kiss so spicy. Touch the cup:
Ruby to ruby! Slave, let it be thrown,
At midnight, from a boat into mid-sea:
Rosaura's kiss shall rest unravished there,
While sea and land lie in each other's arms,
And curl the world.

Batt.
Beggar, stand back, I say.

Marc.
No; I will shadow your adored mortal,
And shake my rags at him. Dost fear the plague?
Musk-fingered boy, aside!

Oraz.
What madman's this?

Rosau.
Keep him away from me!
His hideous raggedness tears the soft sight,
Where it is pictured.

Marc.
Your clutch is like the grasping of a wave:
Off from my shoulder!—Now, my velvet fellow,
Let's measure limbs. Well, is your flesh to mine
As gold to lead, or but the common plaister
That wraps up bones? Your skin is not of silk;
Your face not painted with an angel's feather
With tints from morning's lip, but the daubed clay;
These veiny pipes hold a dog's lap of blood.
Let us shake hands; I tell thee, brother skeleton,
We're but a pair of puddings for the dinner
Of Lady worm; you served in silks and gems,
I garnished with plain rags. Have I unlocked thee?

Oraz.
Insolent beggar!

Marc.
Prince! but we must shake hands.
Look you, the round earth's sleeping like a serpent,
Who drops her dusty tail upon her crown
Just here. Oh, we are like two mountain peaks,
Of two close planets, catching in the air:
You, King Olympus, a great pile of summer,
Wearing a crown of gods; I, the vast top
Of the ghosts' deadly world, naked and dark,
With nothing reigning on my desolate head
But one old spirit of a murdered god,
Palaced within the corpse of Saturn's father.
Then let's come near and hug. There's nothing like thee
But I thy contrast.—Thou'rt a prince, they say?

Oraz.
That you shall learn. You knaves, that wear my livery,
Will you permit me still to be defiled
By this worm's venom? Tread upon his neck,
And let's walk over him.

Marc.
Forbear, my lord!
I am a king of that most mighty empire,
That's built o'er all the earth, upon kings' crowns;
And poverty's its name; whose every hut
Stands on a coronet, or star, or mitre,
The glorious corner-stones.—But you are weary,
And would be playing with a woman's cheek:
Give me a purse then, prince.

Oraz.
No, not a doit:
The metal, I bestow, shall come in chains.

Marc.
Well, I can curse. Ay, prince, you have a brother—

Oraz.
The Duke,—he'll scourge you.

Marc.
Nay, the second, sir,
Who, like an envious river, flows between
Your footsteps and Ferrara's throne.

Oraz.
He's gone:
Asia, and Africa, the sea he went on,
Have many mouths,—and in a dozen years,
(His absence' time,) no tidings or return,
Tell me We are but two.

Marc.
If he were in Ferrara—

Oraz.
Stood he before me there,
By you, in you,—as like as you're unlike,
Straight as you're bowed, young as you are old
And many years nearer than him to death,
The falling brilliancy of whose white sword
Your ancient locks so silverly reflect,—
I would deny, outswear, and overreach,
And pass him with contempt, as I do you.—
Jove! how we waste the stars: set on, my friends.

Batt.
But the old ruffian?

Oraz.
Think of him to-morrow.
See, Venus rises in the softening heaven:
Let not your eyes abuse her sacred beams,
By looking through their gentleness on ought
But lips, and eyes, and blushes of dear love.
Song.

[Exit Orazio with his retinue.
Marc.
(solus.)
Then who hath solitude, like mine, that is not
The last survivor of a city's plague,
Eating the mess he cooked for his dead father?
Who is alone but I? there's fellowship
In churchyards and in hell: but I!—no lady's ghost
Did ever cling with such a grasp of love
Unto its soft dear body, as I hung
Rooted upon this brother. I went forth
Joyfully, as the soul of one who closes
His pillowed eyes beside an unseen murderer,
And like its horrible return was mine,
To find the heart, wherein I breathed and beat,
Cold, gashed, and dead. Let me forget to love,
And take a heart of venom: let me make
A stair-case of the frightened breasts of men,
And climb into a lonely happiness!
And thou, who only art alone as I,
Great solitary god of that one sun,
I charge thee, by the likeness of our state,
Undo these human veins that tie me close
To other men, and let your servant griefs
Unmilk me of my mother, and pour in
Salt scorn and steaming hate!

Enter Ezril.
Ezr.
How now, my lord?

Marc.
Much better, my kind Jew. They've weeded out
A troublesome wild plant that grew upon me,
My heart: I've trampled it to dust, and wept it
Wetter than Nilus' side. Out of the sun!
And let him bake it to a winged snake.
—Well, you've been shouldered from the palace steps,
And spurned as I?—No matter.

Ezr.
Nay, my lord!
Come with me: lay aside these squalid wrappings:
Prepare that honoured head to fit a crown,
For 'twill be empty of your brother soon.

Marc.
What starry chance has dropped out of the skies?
What's this? Oh! now if it should but be so,
I'll build a bridge to heaven. Tell me, good Jew;
Excellent Ezril, speak.

Ezr.
At your command
I sought the ducal palace, and, when there,
Found all the wild-eyed servants in the courts
Running about on some dismaying errand,
In the wild manner of a market crowd,
Waked, from the sunny dozing at their stalls,
By one who cries “the city is on fire;”
Just so they crossed, and turned, and came again.
I asked of an old man, what this might mean;
And he, yet grappling with the great disaster
As if he would have killed it, like a fable,
By unbelief, coldly, as if he spoke
Of something gone a century before,
Told me, the Duke in hunting had been thrown,
And lay on his last bed.

Marc.
Ha! well! what next?
You are the cup-bearer of richest joy.—
But it was a report, a lie.—Have done—
I read it on your lip.

Ezr.
It was too true.
I went to his bedside, and there made trial
Of my best skill in physic, with the zeal
Due to my sovereign.

Marc.
Impious, meddling fool!
To thrust yourself 'twixt heaven and its victim!

Ezr.
My lord, I think you would not have said so
In the sad chamber of the writhing man.
He lay in a red fever's quenchless flames,
Burning to dust: despairing of my skill,
I sat myself beside his heart, and spoke
Of his next brother. When he heard of you,
He bade be summoned all his counsellors,
To witness his bequeathing his dominion
Wholly to you.

Marc.
Why did you let me wait?
Come, let's be quick: he keeps beneath his pillow
A kingdom, which they'll steal if we're too late.
We must o'ertake his death.

[Exeunt.