University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

A hall in the house of Polemius.
Enter Claudius and Escarpin.
Claudius.
Has he not returned? Can no one
Guess in the remotest manner
Where he is?

Escarpin.
Sir, since the day
That you left me with my master
In Diana's grove, and I
Had with that divinest charmer
To leave him, no eye has seen him.
Love alone knows how it mads me.

Claudius.
Of your loyalty I doubt not.

Escarpin.
Loyalty's a different matter,
'T is not wholly that.

Claudius.
What then?

Escarpin.
Dark suspicions, dismal fancies.
That perhaps to live with her
He lies hid within those gardens.

Claudius.
If I could imagine that,
I, Escarpin, would be gladdened
Rather than depressed.

Escarpin.
I'm not:—
I am filled, like a full barrel,
With depressions.

Claudius.
And for what?

Escarpin.
Certain wild chimeras haunt me,
Jealousy doth tear my heart,
And despairing love distracts me.

Claudius.
You in love and jealous?

Escarpin.
I
Jealous and in love. Why marvel?
Am I such a monster?

Claudius.
What!
With Daria?

Escarpin.
'T is no matter
What her name is, or Daria
Or Maria, I would have her
Both subjective and subjunctive,
She verb passive, I verb active.

Claudius.
You to love so rare a beauty?

Escarpin.
Yes, her beauty, though uncommon,
Would lack something, if it had not
My devotion.

Claudius.
How? explain:—

Escarpin.
Well, I prove it in this manner:—
Mr. Dullard fell in love
(I don't tell where all this happened,
Or the time, for of the Dullards
Every age and time give samples)
With a very lovely lady:
At her coach-door as he chattered
One fine evening, he such nonsense
Talked, that one who heard his clatter,
Asked the lady in amazement
If this simpleton's advances
Did not make her doubt her beauty?—
But she quite gallantly answered,
Never until now have I
Felt so proud of my attractions,
For no beauty can be perfect
That all sorts of men don't flatter.

Claudius.
What a feeble jest!

Escarpin.
This feeble?—

Claudius.
Yes, the very type of flatness:—
Cease buffooning, for my uncle
Here is coming.

Escarpin.
Of his sadness
Plainly is his face the mirror.

Enter Polemius and servants.
Claudius.
Jupiter doth know the anguish,
My good lord, with which I venture
To approach thee since this happened.

Polemius
Claudius, as thine own, I'm sure,
Thou dost feel this great disaster.

Claudius.
I my promise gave thee that
To Chrysanthus ...

Polemius.
Cease; I ask thee
Not to proffer these excuses,
Since I do not care to have them.

Claudius.
Then it seems that all thy efforts
Have been useless to unravel
The strange mystery of his fate?

Polemius.
With these questions do not rack me;
For, though I would rather not
Give the answer, still the answer
Rises with such ready aptness
To my lips from out my heart,
That I scarcely can withstand it.

Claudius.
Why conceal it then from me,
Knowing that thy blood meanders
Through my veins, and that my life
Owns thee as its lord and master?—
Oh! my lord, confide in me,
Let thy tongue speak once the language
That thine eyes so oft have spoken.

Polemius.
Let the servants leave the apartment.

Escarpin
(aside).
Ah! if beautiful Daria
Would but favour my attachment,
Though I have no house to give her,
Lots of stories I can grant her:—

[Exeunt Escarpin and servants.
Claudius.
Now, my lord, we are alone.

Polemius.
Listen then; for though to baffle
Thy desire were my intention,
By my miseries overmastered,
I am forced to tell my secret;
Not so much have I been granted
License to avow my sufferings,
But I am, as 'twere commanded
Thus to break my painful silence,
Doing honestly, though sadly,
Willingly the fact disclosing,
Which by force had been extracted.
Hear it, Claudius: my Chrysanthus,
My Chrysanthus is not absent:
In this very house he's living!—
Would the gods, ah! me, had rather
Made a tomb and not a prison
Of his present locked apartment!
Which is in this house, within it
Is he prisoned, chained, made captive.
This surprises thee, no wonder:
More surprised thou'lt be hereafter,
When thou com'st to know the reason
Of a fact so strange and startling.
On that fatal day, when I
Sought the mount and thou the garden,
Him I found where thou didst lose him,
Near the wood where he had rambled:
He was taken by my soldiers
At the entrance of a cavern,
With Carpophorus:—oh! here
Patience, patience may heaven grant me!—
It was lucky that they did not
See his face, for thus it happened
That the front of my dishonour
Was not in his face made patent:
Him they captured without knowing
Who he was, it being commanded
That the faces of the prisoners
Should be covered, but ere captured
This effectually was done
By themselves, they flying backward
With averted faces; he
Thus was taken, but his partner,
That strange prodigy of Rome—
Man in mind, wild beast in manners,
Doubly thus a prodigy—
Saved himself by power of magic.
Thus Chrysanthus was sole prisoner,
While the Christian crowd, disheartened,
Fled for safety to the mountains
From their grottoes and their caverns.
These the soldiers quickly followed,
And behind in that abandoned
Savage place remained but two—
Two, oh! think, a son and father.—
One a judge, too, in a cause
Wicked, bad, beyond example,
In a cause that outraged Cæsar,
And the gods themselves disparaged.
There with a delinquent son
Stood I, therefore this should happen,
That both clemency and rigour
In my heart waged fearful battle—
Clemency in fine had won,
I would have removed the bandage
From his eyes and let him fly,
But that instant, ah! unhappy!
Came the soldiers back, and then
It were but more misery added,
If they knew of my connivance:
All that then my care could manage
To protect him was the secret
Of his name to keep well guarded.
Thus to Rome I brought him prisoner,
Where pretending great exactness,
That his friends should not discover
Where this Christian malefactor
Was imprisoned, to this house,
To my own house, I commanded
That he should be brought; there hidden
And unknown, a few days after
I in his place substituted ...
Ah! what will not the untrammelled
Strength of arbitrary power
Dare attempt? what law not trample?
Substituted, I repeat,
For my son a slave, whose strangled,
Headless corse thus paid the debt
Which from me were else exacted.
You will say, “Since fortune thus
Has the debt so happily cancelled,
Why imprison or conceal him?”—
And, thus, full of doubts, I answer
That though it is true I wished not,
Woe is me! the common scaffold
Should his punishment make public,
I as little wished his hardened
Heart should know my love and pity
Since it did not fear my anger:
Ah! believe me, Claudius,
'Twixt the chastisement a father
And an executioner gives,
A great difference must be granted:
One hand honours what it striketh,
One disgraces, blights, and blackens.
Soon my rigour ceased, for truly,
In a father's heart it lasteth
Seldom long: but then what wonder,
If the hand that in its anger
Smites his son, in his own breast
Leaves a wound that ever rankles—
I one day his prison entered
With the wish (I own it frankly)
To forgive him, and when I
Thought he would have even thanked me
For receiving a reproof,
Not severe, too lenient rather,
He began to praise the Christians
With such earnestness and ardour,
In defence of their new law,
That my clemency departed,
And my angrier mood returned.
I his doors and windows fastened.
In the room where he is lying,
Well secured by gyves and shackles,
Sparingly his food is given him,
Through my hands alone it passes,
For I dare not to another
Trust the care his state demandeth.
You will think in this I reached to
The extreme of my disasters—
The full limits of misfortune,
But not so, and if you hearken,
You'll perceive they're but beginning,
And not ended, as you fancied.
All these strange events so much
Have unnerved him and unmanned him,
That, forgetful of himself,
Of himself he is regardless.
Nothing to the purpose speaks he.
In his incoherent language
Frenzy shows itself, delusion
In his thoughts and in his fancies:—
Many times I've listened to him,
Since so high-strung and abstracted
Is his mind, he takes no note of
Who goes in or who departeth.
Once I heard him deprecating
Some despotic beauty's hardness,
Saying, “Since I die for thee,
Thou thy favour sure wilt grant me”.
At another time he said,
“Three in one, oh! how can that be?”
Things which these same Christian people
In their law hold quite established.
Thus it is my life is troubled,
Lost in doubts, emeshed, and tangled.
If to freedom I restore him,
I have little doubt that, darkened
By the Christian treachery, he
Will declare himself instanter
Openly a Christian, which
Would to me be such a scandal,
That my blood henceforth were tainted,
And my noble name were branded.
If I leave him here in prison,
So excessive is his sadness,
So extreme his melancholy,
That I fear 'twill end in madness.
In a word, I hold, my nephew,
Hold it as a certain axiom,
That these dark magician Christians
Keep him bound by their enchantments;
Who through hatred of my house,
And my office to disparage,
Now revenge themselves on me
Through my only son Chrysanthus.
Tell me, then, what shall I do;
But before you give the answer
Which your subtle wit may dictate,
I would with your own eyes have thee
See him first, you'll then know better
What my urgent need demandeth.
Come, he's not far off, his quarter
Is adjoining this apartment;
When you see him, I am certain
You will think it a disaster
Far less evil he should die,
Than that in this cruel manner
He should outrage his own blood,
And my bright escutcheon blacken.

[He opens a door, and Chrysanthus is seen seated in a chair, with his hands and feet in irons.]
Claudius.
Thus to see my friend, o'erwhelms me
With a grief I cannot master.

Polemius.
Stay, do not approach him nearer;
For I would not he remarked thee,
I would save him the disgrace
Of being seen by thee thus shackled.

Claudius.
What his misery may dictate
We can hear, nor yet attract him.

Chrysanthus.
Was ever human fate so strange as mine?
Were unmatched wishes ever mated so?
Is it not enough to feel one form of woe,
Without being forced 'neath opposite forms to pine?
A triune God's mysterious power divine,
From heaven I ask for life, that I may know,
From heaven I ask for death, life's grisly foe,
A fair one's favour in my heart to shrine:
But how can death and life so well agree,
That I can ask of heaven to end their strife,
And grant them both in pitying love to me?
Yet I will ask, though both with risks are rife,
Neither shall hinder me, for heaven must be
The arbiter of death as well as life.

Polemius.
See now if I spoke the truth.

Claudius.
I am utterly distracted.

(The door closes.
Polemius.
Lest perhaps he should perceive us,
Let us move a little further.
Now advise me how to act,
Since you see the grief that racks me.

Claudius.
Though it savours of presumption
To white hairs like yours, to hazard
Words of council, yet at times
Even a young man may impart them:
Well-proportioned punishment
Grave defects oft counteracteth.
But when carried to extremes,
It but irritates and hardens.
Any instrument of music
Of this truth is an example.
Lightly touched, it breathes but sweetness,
Discord, when 't is roughly handled.
'T is not well to send an arrow
To such heights, that in discharging
The strong tension breaks the bowstring,
Or the bow itself is fractured.
These two simple illustrations
Are sufficiently adapted
To my purpose, of advising
Means of cure both mild and ample.
You must take a middle course,
All extremes must be abandoned.
Gentle but judicious treatment
Is the method for Chrysanthus.
For severer methods end in
Disappointment and disaster.
Take him, then, from out his prison,
Leave him free, unchecked, untrammelled,
For the danger is an infant
Without strength to hurt or harm him.
Be it that those wretched Christians
Have bewitched him, disenchant him,
Since you have the power; for Nature
With such careful forethought acteth,
That an antidotal herb
She for every poison planteth.
And if, finally, your wish
Is that he this fatal sadness
Should forget, and wholly change it
To a happier state and gladder,
Get him married: for remember
Nothing is so well adapted
To restrain discursive fancies
As the care and the attachment
Centered in a wife and children;
Taking care that in this matter
Mere convenience should not weigh
More than his own taste and fancy:
Let him choose his wife himself.
Pleased in that, to rove or ramble
Then will be beyond his power,
Even were he so attracted,
For a happy married lover
Thinks of naught except his rapture.

Polemius.
I with nothing such good counsel
Can repay, except the frankness
Of accepting it, which is
The reward yourself would ask for.
And since I a mean must choose
Between two extremes of action,
From his cell, to-day, my son
Shall go forth, but in a manner
That will leave his seeming freedom
Circumscribed and safely guarded.
Let that hall which looketh over
Great Apollo's beauteous garden
Be made gay by flowing curtains,
Be festooned by flowery garlands;
Costly robes for him get ready;
Then invite the loveliest damsels
Rome can boast of, to come hither
To the feasts and to the dances.
Bring musicians, and in fine
Let it be proclaimed that any
Woman of illustrious blood
Who from his delusive passions
Can divert him, by her charms
Curing him of all his sadness,
Shall become his wife, how humble
Her estate, her wealth how scanty.
And if this be not sufficient,
I will give a golden talent
Yearly to the leech who cures him
By some happy stroke of practice.

[Exit.
Claudius.
Oh! a father's pitying love,
What will it not do, what marvel
Not attempt for a son's welfare,
For his life?

Enter Escarpin.
Escarpin.
My lord por Baco!
(That's the god I like to swear by,
Jolly god of all good rascals)
May I ask you what's the secret?

Claudius.
You gain little when you ask me
For a secret all may know.
After his mysterious absence
Your young lord's returned home ill.

Escarpin.
In what way?

Claudius.
That none can fathom,
Since he does not tell his ailment
Save by signs and by his manner.

Escarpin.
Then he's wrong, sir, not to tell it
Clearly: with extreme exactness
Should our griefs, our pains be mentioned.
A back tooth a man once maddened,
And a barber came to draw it.
As he sat with jaws expanded,
“Which tooth is it, sir, that pains you?”
Asked of him the honest barber,
And the patient in affected
Language grandly thus made answer,
“The penultimate”; the dentist
Not being used to such pedantic
Talk as this, with ready forceps
Soon the last of all extracted.
The poor patient to be certain,
With his tongue the spot examined,
And exclaimed, his mouth all bleeding,
“Why, that's not the right tooth, master”.
“Is it not the ultimate molar?”
Said the barber quite as grandly.
“Yes” (he answered), “but I said
The penultimate, and I'd have you
Know, your worship, that it means
Simply that that's next the farthest”.
Thus instructed, he returned
To the attack once more, remarking
“In effect then the bad tooth
Is the one that's next the last one?”
“Yes”, he said, “then here it is”,
Spoke the barber with great smartness,
Plucking out the tooth that then
Was the last but one; it happened
From not speaking plain, he lost
Two good teeth, and kept his bad one.

Claudius.
Come and something newer learn
In the stratagem his father
Has arranged to cure the illness
Of Chrysanthus, whom he fancies ...

Escarpin.
What?

Claudius.
Is spell-bound by the Christians
Through the power of their enchantments:—
(Since to-day I cannot see thee,
[aside.
Cynthia fair, forgive my absence).

[Exit.
Escarpin.
While these matters thus proceed,
I shall try, let what will happen,
Thee to see, divine Daria:—
At my love, oh! be not angered,
Since the penalty of beauty
Is to be beloved: then pardon.

[Exit.