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!
_Enter ANTONIO._
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.
_Enter CECCO._
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.
(_Goes to the throne._)
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!
_The guests enter, among them HAEMON and BARDAS, following the CARDINAL
JULIAN and his suite, and last HELENA, whom FULVIA leads aside._
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.
(_A murmur of approval._)
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.
(_The CARDINAL goes with his suite amid timid reverence._)
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.
(_DIOGENES, who has stood unconscious of all that has
passed, is pushed forward._)
Ah, peer of Socrates and perfect Plato,
Leave your unseeing silence now and tell us----
_Enter AGABUS gazing anxiously and wildly before him._
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!