_The Papagallo in the Borgia Apartments._
_The_ LORD JULIUS II. _meeting_ DON GARCILASO DE LA VEGA, _Spanish
Ambassador_.
JULIUS.
No, Don Garcilaso, I am resolved.
Here you will be received no more. Look round,
And bid farewell;
For in these tainted rooms I will not live:
The reek of blood, the breath of heathendom
Hang on them, and old perfumes of old orgies
Float, if one wrings the velvets. Antichrist!
Marranô! Devil!
His whelp, this Valentino--sorry schemer--
Is caged, but only
By promises of freedom can we wrench
The castles of the Holy Church away
From the hooked talons. Mark me!
Never must Valentino slip us, never
Must he have range.... Jove placed all Ætna over
The lawless powers of Earth ... I pass him on
To Naples, to Gonsalvo, when he yields
His castles up, as hostage that they yield:
But, since your lord King Ferdinand, nor I,
Nor true Gonsalvo can break word of faith,
Not even to Perfidy’s own Sovereign Prince,
Persuade your lord the king, and from my lips,
To have this murderer of his brother seized
At instance of the Duke of Gandia’s widow,
Then shipped to Spain, to the Hesperides,
And to his last accompt.
DON GARCILASO.
_Laudabilis
Perfidia!_ ... On my faith!
The Carthaginian faith--yet I applaud.
[_Meditating._] Arrested for the murder of his brother,
So old a sin, and blotted out so clear
By fresher stains....
JULIUS.
[_Pointing to a picture by_ PINTORICCHIO _on an easel_.
Behold the family--
I will erase these images, these vile,
Contaminating forms: posterity
Shall have no pleasure of these mingled snakes;
For one by one these chambers shall be sealed
In their pollution, as a sepulchre.
DON GARCILASO.
Good, good! You will erase their pictures--good!
But the arch-hypocrite himself, this flower
Of the fiend-brood, can you erase him?
JULIUS.
Wait!
[_They part, and the_ POPE _passes on to the Borgia Tower. The_
PAPAL GUARD _marches in and files behind him_.