_The Garden of the Vatican, toward sunset._
_The_ LORD ALEXANDER VI., _the_ LORD CARDINAL BARTOLOMEO OF
SEGOVIA, _the_ LORD BISHOP OF VENOSA _and_ MONSIGNORE GASPARE POTO.
BISHOP OF VENOSA.
The sun eats as a canker.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Rome
Is festering with this fever like a pest.
I move and speak with strange uneasiness,
As if the motions of my life had fear.
ALEXANDER.
_Sol in Leone!_ There is nothing pleasant
When the year fills that tract ... rage, rage, and sandy,
Consuming light!
I live a damp, old horse,
O’er-ridden by the ardour of the air:
No neatness round my throat, the cope flung off,
And all the passion of my flesh for shade.
Here there are shady grottoes from the darkness
Of trees; the heat is here unpressed by walls;
[_Little_ DON RODRIGO _and_ DON GIOVANNI _come from behind a
shrubbery_.
Here children at their play
Show us their lissome bodies and red faces
_Sol in Leone_ cannot agitate.
My lords, you see we sink on holiday,
And, fearful, take much care to keep our person
From danger--so persuaded by these deaths
Of daily happening: under ilex-trees
We ply our statecraft.
France has bidden us
Prove our fidelity and help her king
To oust from Naples Spain. Our holy troops
And gonfalon will be in readiness
Within six days, and we must part awhile
From our Duke Cesare.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
Wise sacrifice!
You know the Church has all to gain from France.
ALEXANDER.
So it is thought, my lord.
... Well, mite, Giovanni!
You run across the gravel with a shell,
A little, empty house, and hot as lead
Fired from a cannon?
Nestle all your curls
Under a few, large vine-leaves. Tell Rodrigo
He must not dip his head within the fountain--
The cold will make him break out of a plague.
Run, run and pull him from the brim.... Yes, baby,
Leave me your shell.
My lords, go in awhile.
Poto shall serve cooled wine.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!
To drink increases thirst. I will not drink.
ALEXANDER.
Cooled wine--
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!
[_The_ POPE _laughs deprecatingly_.
ALEXANDER.
I have not poisoned it.
CARDINAL SEGOVIA.
No, no!
[_They bow deeply to each other, and_ POTO _takes the_ CARDINAL
_and_ BISHOP _within_.
ALEXANDER.
[_To one of the children, as he perceives his son._
Roble, play further off!
[DUKE CESARE DE VALENTINOIS DELLA ROMAGNA _comes to his side_.
Just up and had your meal?
There is some sense in your strange hours when _Sol_
Is _in Leone_--night for day!
But, though your room be marble, what Inferno
Of flame to sleep through the bare hotness.
CESARE.
Father,
If you enjoy the fresher feel of night,
I bring an invitation you will welcome
From the Lord Adrian of Cornuto.
ALEXANDER.
Ah,
He has a vineyard under broad-leaved shadow,
Where gods could sup.
CESARE.
Where you will sup,
To-morrow evening.
ALEXANDER.
_Baccho!_
It will be cool. The country is a blessing
To think of when it darkens and revives.
CESARE.
You will not heat with riding at that hour.
ALEXANDER.
And I am careful now ... a little anxious
To see you start.
CESARE.
Too hot and still
For camps or marches ... like a painful dream!
[_He sits by his father._
ALEXANDER.
Ay, so, so!
Cesare, if this strong heat
Struck me with apoplexy, pest, or fever,
You would be struck with peril.... O my heart,
My prince, could you endure from your own root,
And bear the shock of onset?
CESARE.
Always
I built broad the foundations of my power.
The kindred
Of all I dispossessed are gone from earth,
Where no successor of your Holiness
Could raise them my opponents: half my train
Is filled with high-born nobles, once the servants
Of Colonnesi and Orsini, now
My gentlemen and hung upon my fortune
As it were hope itself: the Sacred College,
You know, is more than half subservient to me....
But--are you ailing?
ALEXANDER.
No, no--hot and dull,
Not ailing.
CESARE.
There are dancers, courtesans,
Who will in movements of the long-lost breeze
Fan the dead air--if you will visit me
To-night: to-morrow in the vineyard-garden
We sup.... ’Tis hard to get the dancers now:
The women shut their doors and strike their bodies
In terror at the fever that can kill.
They need await no other--lust is dead.
... You will announce at the next Consistory
I join the French?
ALEXANDER.
Ay--with the treaties
Between us and the Spaniards and Gonsalvo
Safe in my coffers: for the French will fail;
And, though they raised you up, they hold you back
From Florence and your clutch on Tuscany.
You have Romagna firm.
CESARE.
O father,
Live a few years and I shall be your king!
As you love me, live till Tuscany is mine.
Live, live!
ALEXANDER.
For you
I have done harder things than conquer death.
[_They are silent._
What are the great eyes dreaming of?
CESARE.
The heat,
And something dreadful in it--of the places,
Corneto, Piombino, yet ungirdled
By one domain.
[_Rising impetuously._] Oh, to desert the French!
Although I march
As of their army, at their first reverse
We close the northern passages.
ALEXANDER.
Ha, ha, ha! ha!
A trap for Louis....
--Cardinal Michele
Was suddenly distempered by this ill,
Dying as swiftly as if venom wrought:
So fatal is the weather to stout frames!
Son, I incline to fat.... I would I owned
Your thin and agile limbs.
CESARE.
I would that half the years
Of my short life--for, like Achilles’, short
My life will be, if glorious--I might give
To build yours over four score years and ten!
ALEXANDER.
Ah, God! Such wishes weigh on me unkindly,
... Nay, not unkindly! But your eyes are swept
So wide across the breadths of Italy,
You call up years for me as if you were
A necromancer, not my very son
Whose proud, hot Spanish blood, whose fire and courage
Have given my flesh its youth again so often.
Your mother’s land is changing you, beloved--
All schemes, all plots ... and where now is the smile
That flashed along your lips and made me sing
_Ave Maria plena gratia_--where?
[CESARE _moves impatiently_.
CESARE.
I am grown anxious, as my foemen’s watch
When one of my huge pieces takes its station
For ruin’s work.... This pestilential heat!...
Well, Roble, what an orange you have snatched,
Round as your eyes!
[_To_ ALEXANDER.] Lucrece!--Oh, have you seen her
Look at you from the child?
[_With a bitter laugh._] I shall begin
To talk of years ago, like an old man.
Farewell!
They need me at the Mola.
[_With a smile._] Then to night
The dance! To-morrow the _al fresco_ feast! [_Exit._
ALEXANDER.
I’m envious of Lucrezia, and weary,
More weary than with August--all my passion
Hard on my heart at last! My Cesare,
--Beautiful and cold as steel, his mind
Shining and shallow as the moon--for certain,
If he had been Medea, he had simmered
My ageing body in the cauldron’s flood,
Like Æson’s, for his purpose.... Solitary!
Age, age! And when the young are still,
The young who should be noisy, it is vacant.
I shall see Lucrezia in the spring: and yet
I know I shall not see her.
There, I am glad
The children have been captured by their nurse.
_Buona notte_, little ones! [_The_ CHILDREN _are taken away_.
Ah, but I would
I were as other fathers, and could make him
My heritor, and aid him by my death.
It is so good the old should die;
It is very good to die, but I must live;
I must subserve, must give my hand
In signature to any of his dreams,
Taking, _in caritate_,
A lovely eye-glance from him.... And Lucrece
Gone too, her husband’s prisoner! Where my Pearl
And my great royal Diamond have been set
Here in my bosom--hollows!
And this twilight
Is filling them....
[_With a sudden, terrified cry._] Lucrezia, Cesare!
Lucrece!