 | Torrismond |  |
Scene I.
An apartment in the ducal palace.Enter the Duke, Courtiers, and attendants.
Duke.
Who has seen Torrismond, my son, tonight?
Garcia.
My lord, he has not crossed me, all the day.
(To Gomez aside.)
You need not say we saw him pass the terrace,
All red and hot with wine. The duke is angry:
Mark how he plucks his robe.
Duke.
Gomez, nor you?
Gomez.
Your Grace, in Garcia's answer
Beheld the face of mine. I have not lent him
A word to-day.
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Nor you? none of you, sirs?—
No answer! have ye sold yourselves to silence?
Is there not breath, or tongue, or mouth among you,
Enough to croak a curse?—Nay: there's no wonder.
Why do I ask? that know you are his curs,
His echo-birds, the mirrors of his tongue.
He has locked up this answer in your throats,
And scratched it on your leaden memories.
What do I ask for? well: go on, go on;
Be his sop-oracles, and suck yellow truth
Out of the nipple of his jingling pouch.
But tell me this, dogs, that do wag your tails
Round this dwarf Mercury, this gilded Lie-god,
Will you set out and beg with him to-morrow?
Garcia.
Why, my good lord?
Duke.
Because, my evil slave,—
Because unless he can these sunbeams coin,
Or, like a bee in metals, suck me out
The golden honey from their marly core,
He's like to board with the cameleon:
Because I will untie him from my heart,
And drop him to the bottom of the world:—
Because I'll melt his wings.—Enough!
Garcia.
With pardon,
You are too rough.—
Duke.
Too rough! were I as loud
As shaggy Boreas in his bearish mood,—
Did I roll wheels of thunder o'er your souls,
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And kneel beneath my storming. Worms ye are,
Born in the fat sides of my pouring wealth:—
Lie there and stir not, or I dash you off.
Garcia.
My lord—
Duke.
I am no lord, sir, but a father:
My son has stuck sharp injuries in my heart,
And flies to hide in your obscurity.
Cover him not with falsehoods; shield him not;
Or, by my father's ashes,—but no matter.
You said I was a duke: I will be one,
Though graves should bark for it. You've heard me speak:
Now go not to your beds until my son
(—It is a word that cases not a meaning,—)
Come from his riots: send him then to me:
And hark! ye fill him not, as ye are wont,
To the lip's brim with oily subterfuges.—
I sit this evening in the library.
An attend.
Lights, lights there for the duke!
Duke.
For the duke's soul I would there were a light!
Well; on thy flinty resolution strike,
Benighted man! The sun has laid his hair
Up in that stone, as I have treasured love
In a cold heart;—but it begins to boil,
And, if it breaks its casket, will be out.
Find me a book of fables: he, whose world
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So now good-night; and do as I have said.
Garcia.
We shall.—Good dreams, your grace!
Duke.
Good acts, you mean.
He who does ill, awake, and turns to night
For lovely-painted shades,
Is like a satyr grinning in a brook
To find Narcissus' round and downy cheek.
(Exit with attendants: manent Garcia and Gomez.
Gomez.
I never saw my lord so sad and angry:
His blood foamed, white with wrath, beneath his face,
Rising and falling like a sea-shore wave.
What boils him thus?
Garcia.
Perhaps some further outrage,
Reported of his son; for the young lord,
Whose veins are stretched by passion's hottest wine,
Tied to no law except his lawless will,
Ranges and riots headlong through the world;—
Like a young dragon, on Hesperian berries
Purplely fed, who dashes through the air,
Tossing his wings in gambols of desire,
And breaking rain-clouds with his bulging breast.
Thus has he been from boy to youth and manhood,
Reproved, then favoured; threatened, next forgiven;
Renounced, to be embraced: but, till this hour,
Never has indignation like to this,
With lightning looks, black thoughts, and stony words,
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From heart to heart.
Gomez.
I fear that both will shake;
And that fair union, built by interchange
Of leaning kindnesses, in the recoil
May fall between, and leave no bridge for pardon.
Garcia.
The little that we can, then let us strive
To hold them in the lock of amity:
For which our thoughts let us compare within.
[Exeunt.
| Torrismond | |