ACT TWO

Charles: The princess Fulvia. Servant: She comes, sir, now. (Goes.

Fulvia: My lord, flowers and vines upon these walls That seem always in dismal memory And mist of grief? What means it? Charles: That sprung up, A greedy multitude upon the fields, Citron and olive were left hungry, so I quelled them! Fulvia: Magic ever dwells in flowers To waft me back to childhood. (Taking some.) Poor pluckt buds If they could speak like children torn from the breast. Charles: You're full of sighs and pity then? Fulvia: Yes, and— Of doubt. Charles: What so divides you? Fulvia: Helena— This Greek—I do not understand. Charles: Nor guess? You have not seen nor spoken to her? Fulvia: No. Charles: We'll have her. (Motions servant.) Go. Say that we wait her here, The lady Helena. (Servant goes. She's frighted—thinks 'Tmay be her father found too deep a rest Within our care: yet has a hope that holds The tears still from her lids. I've smiled on her, Smiled, Fulvia, and she—Why do you cloud? Fulvia: I would this were undone. Charles: Undone? Undone? You would it were——?

Ah, Greek! Our Fulvia, Who is as heart and health about our doors, Has speech for you. And polities Untended groan for me. (He goes. Fulvia (looking sadly at her): Girl—child— Helena: Why do You call me so with struggle on your breast? Fulvia: You're very fair. Helena: And was so free I thought The world brimmed up with my full happiness. Fulvia: But find it is a sieve to all but grief? Helena: Is it then grief? I have not any tears, Yet seem girt by an emptiness that aches, Surrounds and whispers, what I dare not think Or, shapened, see. Fulvia: It stains too as a shroud The morrow's face? Helena: You look at me—I think You look at me, as if——? Fulvia: No child. Helena: Why am I in this place? You fear for me? Fulvia: Fear? Helena: Yes! A dumb dread trembles from you sufferingly. Fulvia: It is not fear. Or—no!—has vanished quite, Ashamed of its too naked idleness. Helena (shuddering): He cannot, will not!—Yet you feared! Fulvia: Be calm: Beauty is better so. Helena: Ah, you are cold! See a great shadow reach and wrap at me, Yet lend no light! By gentleness I pray you, What said he? Fulvia: Child—— Helena: Child!—Ah, a moment's dread Brings age on us!—If not by gentleness, Then by that love that women bear to men, By happiness too fleeting to tread earth, I pray you tell the fear your heart so hides! Fulvia: You are the guest of Charles di Tocca. Helena: Guest? Ah, guests are bidden, not commanded.—Where, Where can Antonio be gone. All day No token, quieting! Fulvia: Antonio, girl? Antonio?—Is it true?

Charles: So eager?—Truth Has brewed more tears than lies. But, Fulvia, Why doth it mated with Antonio's name Wring thus your troubled hands? Fulvia: My lord—— Charles: You falter? No matter—now. (To Helena.) But you, my fair one, put More merriment upon your lips and lids, And this (giving pearls) upon the lustre of your throat. Hither our guests come soon. Be with us then, And at your beauty's best. Now; trembling so?— Yet is the lily lovelier in the wind! (He looks after, musingly, as she goes. Fulvia: My lord—— Charles: True, Fulvia—as titles go. Fulvia: My lord—— Charles: Twice—but I'm not two lords. Fulvia: To-night I think you are. But quench your jests. Charles: In tears? And groans? Where borrow them? Fulvia (turning away): So let it be. Charles: Why do you say so be it and sigh as Nought could again be well? Fulvia: O—— Charles: Now you frown? Fulvia: The hope you nurse, then, if it prove a pang Of serpent bitterness—— Charles: Prove pang? I then But for an "if" must pluck it from me? Fulvia: So I must believe. Charles: Pluck it from me! Will you— Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh The quiet in me to a maelstrom! This Is mine, this joy; and still is mine, though I To keep it must bring on me bitterness And bleeding and—I rage! Fulvia: Then shall I cease, And say no more? No, you are on a flood Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror. And she—this girl! It has been long since you Gave license rein upon your will, and spur. Do not so now. Charles: License? Fulvia: She is all morn And dream and dew: make her not dark! Charles: You think—! Fulvia: Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on terror! Charles: On terror! (Laughing.) Fulvia: You've laughed nobler. Charles: Fulvia, Friend of my unrepaying years, dream you I who in empire youth too soon forgot, Who on my brow surprise the wafted dew, The presages of age and death, shake not? Fulvia: I knew not, but have waited oft such words. Charles: Ah what! this hope, this leaping in me, this White dawn across my turbulence and night, From license?—Hear me. I have sudden found A door to let in heaven on my heart. Had I not laughed to see your dread upon it Write "license," perilous had been my frown. Fulvia: You will——? Charles: Yes—yes! About her brow shall curl The coronet! Her wishes shall be sceptres Waving a swift fulfilment to her feet! Her pity shall leave ready graves unfilled, Her anger open earth for all who offend! She shall—— Fulvia: Ah cease, infatuate man! Will you Build kingdoms on the wind, and empires on A girl's ungiven heart? Charles (slowly): Unto such love As mine all things are given. Fulvia: All things but love. Charles: Stood she not as in pleading? Yes—and to Her cheeks came hurried roses from her heart. And her large eyes, did they not drift to mine Caressing?—yet as if in them they found The likeness of some visitant dear dream. Fulvia: The likeness of some dream? Charles: Question no more. She is set in the centre of my need As youth and fiercest passion could not set her. Supernally as May she has burst on My barren age. Pain, envious decay, And doubt that mystery wounds us with, and wrong, Flee from the gleam and whisper of her name. Fulvia: And if your coronet and heat avail Not with her as might charm of equal years And beauty? Charles: Then—why then—why there may slip An avalanche of raging and despair Out of me! Hope of her once taken, all The thwarted thunders of my want would rush Into the void with lightnings for revenge!

Antonio: Sir, I'm returned. Charles: With lightnings that shall—(Sees him.) You? Antonio? My eyes had other thought. Open your news—but mind 'tis not of failure. Antonio: We seized the murderous robbers in their cove And o'er the cliff, as our just law commands, To death flung them. Charles: So with all traitors be it. Antonio: So should it. Charles: Well, 'twas swift. In you there is More than your mother's gentleness. Antonio: Else were My name di Tocca, sir, and not myself. Charles: You have my love.—But as you came met you The cardinal? Antonio: So close he should by this Be at our gates. Charles: He'll miss no welcome, and— Perhaps—we shall— (Smiles on them.) Give me that cross you wear, My Fulvia. It may—— Antonio: Sir, this is good! We earnestly beseech of you to hear The Pope's embassador with yielding. Charles: Ah?— But you, boy, draw out of this solitude And musing moodiness. You should think but On silly sighs and kisses, rhymes and trysts! Must I yet teach your coldness youth? (A trumpet, and sound of opening gates.) Draw out! Antonio: I have to-day desired some words of this.

Charles: Well, who——? Cecco: The Cardinal, your grace. Charles: Then go, And bid our guests. Bring too Diogenes, Our most amusing raveller of all Philosophies. Say that the duke, his brother, Humbly desires it! (Cecco goes. Fulvia: And Helena? Charles (to Antonio): Why do You start, sir?—Fulvia, we must look to This callow god our son. Yet, had our court Two eyes of loveliness to drown his heart, I'd think on oath 'twere done.

Fulvia (low to Antonio): Listen. No word Of Helena! Charles: Now! is it secrets? Fulvia: Sir, He scorns to spill a drop of confidence On my too thirsty questions. Charles: Does he so Tightly seal up his spirits? Fulvia: Put the rogue To prison on stale bread, my lord: I half Believe he's full of treasons. Charles (laughing): Do you hear! Because you are the son and scout our foes Justice is not impossible upon you!

Cardinal: Peace, worthy duke! Charles: And more, lord Cardinal, We would to-day enlarge our worthiness With you and with great Rome. Cardinal: Firmly I crave It may be so. Charles: Here unto all our guests We then do disavow our heresies—— For faith's as air, as ease to life—and seek At your absolving lips release from our Rough disobedience. Nor shall we shun The lash and needed weight of penitence.

Julian: These words, great lord, fall wise and soothing well. Who so confesses, plants beneath his foot A step to scale all impotence and wrong. Our royal Pope's conditions shall be told, Pledge them consenting seal and you shall be Briefly and fully free. (Motions his secretary.) Secretary (opens and reads): "Whereas the duke Di Tocca has offended——" Cardinal: Pass the offence. Be it oblivion's. On, the penalty. Secretary: "Therefore the duke di Tocca humbling himself Must pay into our vaults two hundred ducats—" Charles: It shall be three. Secretary: "And send a hundred men Armed 'gainst the foes that threaten Italy." Charles: See to it, yes, Antonio, ere a dawn. Secretary: "He must also yield up the princess Fulvia Who's fled her father's house and rightful marriage." Fulvia (to Julian): You told me not of this—no word, my lord! Cardinal: My silence as my speech is not my own. Charles: We'll more of it—a measure more. Read on. Secretary: "And for the better amity and weal Of Italy and Christ's most Holy Church, He is enjoined to wed with Beatrice Of Florence. If his wilful boldness grants Obedience, his sins shall melt to rest Under the calm of full forgiveness. He——" Charles: A mild, a courteous, O a modest Pope! I must tear from my happiness a friend Who fled a father's searing cruelty, And cast her back in the flames! And I must bind My crippled years that fare toward the grave In the cold clasp of an unloving hand! No! No! Then, sir, and Cardinal, 'tis not enough! I pray you swift again to Rome and plead Most suppliantly that I for penance may Swear my true son is shame-begot, or lend My kin to drink clean of its fouling damp Some pestilent prison! And 'tis impious too That any still should trust my love. Beseech His Holiness' command for death upon them! Cardinal: This is your answer? Charles (rises): A mite! a mite of it! The rest is I will wed where I will wed Though every hill of earth raise up its pope To bellow at me thunderous damnation! I will—I will— (Falls back convulsed.) Fulvia (hastening to him): Charles, ah! Wine for him, wine! (It is brought.) Antonio: Lord Cardinal, spare yourself more and go. You shall learn if a change may loose this strain.

Charles (struggling): I will—this frenzy—off my throat—! I— (Recovering.) Ah, Thou, Fulvia? 'Twas as a fiend swung on me. And shame! fear oozes out upon my brow, And I——. (Rises and calms himself.) Forgive, friends, this so sudden wrench Upon your pleasure. One too quick made saint, Stands feebly: but at once wilt I atone. Where is Diogenes—where is he? His Tangled fantastic wisdom shall divert us.

Ah, peer of Socrates and perfect Plato, Leave your unseeing silence now and tell us——

Who's this? Agabus (hoarsely): Where went he—the Shadow?—whither? Charles: Who's this broke from his grave upon us? Agabus (searching still): Where? I followed him—he sped and there was cold! Behind him blows a horror! (Stops in fascinated awe before Helena.) Ah, on her head! His touch! his earthless finger!—and she rots To dust! to dust! Antonio: Ill monk! are there no men That you must wring a woman so with fear? Agabus: Ha, men? Christ save all men but lovers! all! (Crosses himself.) Charles: Antonio, how speaks he? Antonio: Sir, most mad With the pestilence of evil prophecy. (To guards.) Forth with him! Charles: Stay. Antonio: Let him not, for he will Beguile you to some ravening belief. Agabus (going up to Charles, staring at him in suppressed excitement): A lover! a lover! and he loves in vain! Wilt go? There is a cave—(taking his hand), we'll curse her—come! Charles: Out! out! (Throws him from the dais.) Agabus: Christ save all men but— (Seeking vacantly.) Ah, the Shadow! Has no one seen him? none?—the Shadow? none? (Goes dazed. Guests whisper, awed. Charles: He is obsessed—vile utterly! A Guest: O duke, I pray, good-night. Another: And I, my lord. Another: And I—— Another: And—— Charles: Friends, you shall not—no. This pall will pass, My hospitality is up, you shall not! Another: Pardon, O duke, we—— Charles: Though some grudging wind Blows us away from mirth, 'tis still in view, We've lute and dance that yet shall bring us in. 1st Lady: O, dance! Charles: Cecco, our Circes from the Nile. (Cecco goes. 2d Lady: The Nile! Ah, Cleopatra's Nile? Charles: Her own; And sinuous as Nile water is their grace.

Guests (applauding): Bravely!—O, brave! Charles: Do they not whirl it lithe? With limbs like swallow wings upon the blue? 1st Lady: 'Twas witchery! 3d Lady: Such eyes! such hair! 2d Lady: And thus, Did Cleopatra thus steal Antony? Wrap him about with motion that would seize His senses to an ecstasy? O, oh, To dance so! Charles: And so steal an Antony? We'll frame a law on thieving of men's heart's! 2d Lady: Then, vainly! 'tis a theft men like the most. Charles: When in its stead the thief has left her own— But shall we woo no boon of mirth save dance? A lute! a lute! (One is gone for.) Some new lay, Hæmon, come! And every word must dip its syllables In Pindar's spring to trip so lightly forth. Hæmon: I have no lay. Charles: The lute! (It is offered Hæmon.) Sing us of love That builds a Paradise of kisses, thinks The Infinite bound up in an embrace. Whose sighs seem to it hurricanes of pain, Whose tears as seas of molten misery. Hæmon: I have none—cannot. Charles: Now will you fright off Again our timid cheer? Hæmon: While she, my sister—! (The lute is offered again.) I cannot, will not! Charles: Will not? will not? Look! I had an honor pluckt to laurel it, A wreath of noble worth, a thing to tell—— Hæmon: Honor upon dishonor sits not well. Charles (not hearing): Heat me not with denial. Is new bliss Raised from the dead in me but to fall back As stone ere it has breathed? Have I so frequent Drained you? Be slow to tempt me—In me moves Peril that has a passion to leap forth! Hæmon: Antonio, speak! Where's innocence and where Begins deceit? Fulvia (to Hæmon aside): Ask it not, or you step On waiting hazard and calamity. Charles: New fret? and new confusion? In the blind Power and passing of this night is there Conspiracy?—plot of some here? or of That One whose necromancy wields the world? I care not!—I care not! We must have mirth! Have mirth! though it be laughter at damned souls. Hæmon: And I must wake it? I with laugh and lay, Doting upon dishonor? Charles: What means he? Hæmon: Give me again my sister from these walls, Since might is yours, strip from me wealth and life And more, and all—but let her not, no, no, Meet here the touch and leprosy of shame! Charles (laughing): Said I not, said I, friends, we should have mirth? You shall laugh with me laughter bright as wine. Antonio: But, sir, this is not good for laughter! Sir! Hæmon (to Antonio): Ah, put the lamb on—bleat mock sympathy! Charles (still laughing): Fulvia, O, he foots it in the tracks Of your own fear! and wanders to delusion! Hæmon: Will you laugh at me, fiend! Charles: Boy! Hæmon: Had I but Omnipotence a moment and could dash Annihilation on you and your race!

Helena: Hæmon! Fulvia (restraining her): No, Helena. Charles: Omnipotence? And could Omnipotence make such a fool? There must be two Gods in the world to do it. Hæmon: She shall not——!

Antonio (preventing): Fury!—Ah! what would you do? Charles: Such things can be? A sister, yet he strikes? (Hæmon is seized.) Helena: O let me speak with him, sir, let me speak! Charles: Not now, girl, no, not now—lest in his breath Be venom for thee! (To soldiers.) Shut him from our gates Till he repent this fever. (Hæmon goes quietly out.) (To guests who are suspicious and undetermined.) If you stare so Will the skies stop! Have I not arm in arm Friended this youth and meant him honor still? Leave me. I had a thing to tell; but it Must wait more seasonable festivity. (To Paula.) See to thy mistress, child. Antonio, stay.

Antonio: Father—— Charles (unheeding): Did I not humble me? Antonio: Father——? Charles: Or ask more than a brevity of joy To bud on my life's withering close? Antonio: But, sir——! Charles: If it bud not——! Antonio: What thought impels and wrings These angers from your eyes? Charles (slowly, gazing at him): You're like your mother. Antonio: In trouble for your peace, more than in feature. Charles: Peace—peace? Antonio, a dream has come: To stir—to wake—to learn it is a dream— I must not, will not look on such abyss. You love me, boy? Antonio: Sir, well: you cannot doubt it. Charles: There has been darkness in me—and it seems Such night as would put out a heaven of hope, Quench an eternity of flaming joy! I have sunk down under the world and hit On nethermost despair: flown blind across An infinite unrest! Antonio: Forget it, now. Charles: Had I drunk Lethe's all 'twould not have stilled The crying of my desolation's want. Within me tenderness to iron turned, Gladness to worm and gloom.—But 'tis o'erpast. A rift, a smile, a breath has come—blown me From torture to an ecstasy. Antonio: To——? Charles: Ecstasy! Such as surrounds Hyperion on his sun, Or Pleiads sweeping seven-fold the night. Antonio: And you—this breath——? Charles: Is—you are pale! And press your lips from trembling! Antonio: No—yes—well— This ecstasy? Charles: Is love! is love that— How? You feign! distress and groaning tear in you! Antonio: No. She you love—— Charles: O, Eve new-burst on Eden, All pure with the prime beauty of God's breath, Was not so! Antonio: She is Helena?—the Greek? Charles: She—Still you do not ail?—Yes, Helena, Who—But you are not well and cannot share This ravishment!—I will not ask it—now. This ravishment!—Ah, she has stayed the tread And stilled the whispering of death: has called Echoes of youth from me! and all I feared.... I think—you are not well. Shall we go in?