SCENE: The Piazza.
TIME: A few minutes anterior to close of preceding Act.
The Piazza is filled from end to end with a vast seething crowd that
is drawn entirely from the lower orders. There is a sprinkling of
wild-eyed and dishevelled women in it. The men are lantern-jawed,
with several days’ growth of beard. Most of them carry rude weapons--
staves, bill-hooks, crow-bars, and the like--and are in as excited a
condition as the women. Some of them are bare-headed, others affect a
kind of Phrygian cap. Cobblers predominate.
Enter LORENZO DE MEDICI and COSIMO DE MEDICI. They wear cloaks of scarlet
brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks to their faces.
COS.
What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs
Ensue to-day here?
LOR.
I nor know nor care.
COS.
How thrall’d thou art to the philosophy
Of Epicurus! Naught that’s human I
Deem alien from myself. [To a COBBLER.] Make answer, fellow!
What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread
Forth from the OBscene hovel where thou starvest?
COB.
No empty hope, your Honour, but the full
Assurance that to-day, as yesterday,
Savonarola will let loose his thunder
Against the vices of the idle rich
And from the brimming cornucopia
Of his immense vocabulary pour
Scorn on the lamentable heresies
Of the New Learning and on all the art
Later than Giotto.
COS.
Mark how absolute
The knave is!
LOR.
Then are parrots rational
When they regurgitate the thing they hear!
This fool is but an unit of the crowd,
And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates.
I know these crowds, and know that any man
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye
Can as he willeth with them.
[Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia.]
Citizens!
[Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd.]
Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo
Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent.
[Further terrific yells, shakings of fists, brandishings of bill-
hooks, insistent cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ ‘Down with the
Magnificent!’ Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially
all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.]
You love not me.
[The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be dragged down
and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and
continues:]
Yet I deserve your love.
[The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c.
thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a
hoarse interrogative whisper, ‘Deserves our love?’]
Not for the sundry boons I have bestow’d
And benefactions I have lavished
Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers,
But for the love that in this rugged breast
I bear you.
[The yells have now died away, and there is a sharp fall in dubious
murmurs. The cobbler down c. says, in an ear-piercing whisper, ‘The
love he bears us,’ drops his lower jaw, nods his head repeatedly, and
awaits in an intolerable state of suspense the orator’s next words.]
I am not a blameless man,
[Some dubious murmurs.]
Yet for that I have lov’d you passing much,
Shall some things be forgiven me.
[Noises of cordial assent.]
There dwells
In this our city, known unto you all,
A man more virtuous than I am, and
A thousand times more intellectual;
Yet envy not I him, for--shall I name him?--
He loves not you. His name? I will not cut
Your hearts by speaking it. Here let it stay
On tip o’ tongue.
[Insistent clamour.]
Then steel you to the shock!--
Savonarola.
[For a moment or so the crowd reels silently under the shock. Cobbler
down c. is the first to recover himself and cry ‘Death to Savonarola!’
The cry instantly becomes general. LOR. holds up his hand and
gradually imposes silence.]
His twin bug-bears are
Yourselves and that New Learning which I hold
Less dear than only you.
[Profound sensation. Everybody whispers ‘Than only you’ to everybody
else. A woman near steps of Loggia attempts to kiss hem of LOR.’s
garment.]
Would you but con
With me the old philosophers of Hellas,
Her fervent bards and calm historians,
You would arise and say ‘We will not hear
Another word against them!’
[The crowd already says this, repeatedly, with great emphasis.]
Take the Dialogues
Of Plato, for example. You will find
A spirit far more truly Christian
In them than in the ravings of the sour-soul’d
Savonarola.
[Prolonged cries of ‘Death to the Sour-Souled Savonarola!’ Several
cobblers detach themselves from the crowd and rush away to read the
Platonic Dialogues. Enter SAVONAROLA. The crowd, as he makes his way
through it, gives up all further control of its feelings, and makes a
noise for which even the best zoologists might not find a good
comparison. The staves and bill-hooks wave like twigs in a storm.
One would say that SAV. must have died a thousand deaths already. He
is, however, unharmed and unruffled as he reaches the upper step of
the Loggia. LOR. meanwhile has rejoined COS. in the Piazza.]
SAV.
Pax vobiscum, brothers!
[This does but exacerbate the crowd’s frenzy.]
VOICE OF A COBBLER
Hear his false lips cry Peace when there is no
Peace!
SAV.
Are not you ashamed, O Florentines,
[Renewed yells, but also some symptoms of manly shame.]
That hearken’d to Lorenzo and now reel
Inebriate with the exuberance
Of his verbosity?
[The crowd makes an obvious effort to pull itself together.]
A man can fool
Some of the people all the time, and can
Fool all the people sometimes, but he cannot
Fool ALL the people ALL the time.
[Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the back. Cries
of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ The meeting is now well in hand.]
To-day
I must adopt a somewhat novel course
In dealing with the awful wickedness
At present noticeable in this city.
I do so with reluctance. Hitherto
I have avoided personalities.
But now my sense of duty forces me
To a departure from my custom of
Naming no names. One name I must and shall
Name.
[All eyes are turned on LOR., who smiles uncomfortably.]
No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He
Is ‘neath contempt.
[Loud and prolonged laughter, accompanied with hideous grimaces at LOR.
Exeunt LOR. and COS.]
I name a woman’s name,
[The women in the crowd eye one another suspiciously.]
A name known to you all--four-syllabled,
Beginning with an L.
[Pause. Enter hurriedly LUC., carrying the ring. She stands,
unobserved by any one, on outskirt of crowd. SAV. utters the name:]
Lucrezia!
LUC. [With equal intensity.]
Savonarola!
[SAV. starts violently and stares in direction of her voice.]
Yes, I come, I come!
[Forces her way to steps of Loggia. The crowd is much bewildered, and
the cries of ‘Death to Lucrezia Borgia!’ are few and sporadic.]
Why didst thou call me?
[SAV. looks somewhat embarrassed.]
What is thy distress?
I see it all! The sanguinary mob
Clusters to rend thee! As the antler’d stag,
With fine eyes glazed from the too-long chase,
Turns to defy the foam-fleck’d pack, and thinks,
In his last moment, of some graceful hind
Seen once afar upon a mountain-top,
E’en so, Savonarola, didst thou think,
In thy most dire extremity, of me.
And here I am! Courage! The horrid hounds
Droop tail at sight of me and fawn away
Innocuous.
[The crowd does indeed seem to have fallen completely under the sway
of LUC.’s magnetism, and is evidently convinced that it had been about
to make an end of the monk.]
Take thou, and wear henceforth,
As a sure talisman ‘gainst future perils,
This little, little ring.
[SAV. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs from the crowd.
Cries of ‘Take thou the ring!’ ‘Churl!’ ‘Put it on!’ etc.
Enter the Borgias’ FOOL and stands unnoticed on fringe of crowd.]
I hoped you ‘ld like it--
Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault?
I’d so look’d forward to--
[Sob.] No, I’m not crying,
But just a little hurt.
[Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarlings
indicative that SAV.’s life is again not worth a moment’s purchase.
SAV. makes awkward gesture of acceptance, but just as he is about to
put ring on finger, the FOOL touches his lute and sings:--]
Wear not the ring,
It hath an unkind sting,
Ding, dong, ding.
Bide a minute,
There’s poison in it,
Poison in it,
Ding-a-dong, dong, ding.
LUC.
The fellow lies.
[The crowd is torn with conflicting opinions. Mingled cries of ‘Wear
not the ring!’ ‘The fellow lies!’ ‘Bide a minute!’ ‘Death to the
Fool!’ ‘Silence for the Fool!’ ‘Ding-a-dong, dong, ding!’ etc.]
FOOL [Sings.]
Wear not the ring,
For Death’s a robber-king,
Ding, [etc.]
There’s no trinket
Is what you think it,
What you think it,
Ding-a-dong, [etc.]
[SAV. throws ring in LUC.’s face. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with Papal
army.]
POPE
Arrest that man and woman!
[Re-enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting. SAV. and LUC. are arrested
by Papal officers. Enter MICHAEL ANGELO. ANDREA DEL SARTO appears for a
moment at a window. PIPPA passes. Brothers of the Misericordia go by,
singing a Requiem for Francesca da Rimini. Enter BOCCACCIO, BENVENUTO
CELLINI, and many others, making remarks highly characteristic of
themselves but scarcely audible through the terrific thunderstorm
which now bursts over Florence and is at its loudest and darkest
crisis as the Curtain falls.]