It came to pass that Naboth had a vineyard
Hard by the palace of the King called Ahab.
And Ahab, King of Israel, spake to Naboth,
And said to him, Give unto me thy vineyard,
That I may have it for a garden of herbs,
And I will give a better vineyard for it,
Or, if it seemeth good to thee, its worth
In money. And then Naboth said to Ahab,
The Lord forbid it me that I should give
The inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
And Ahab came into his house displeased
And heavy at the words which Naboth spake,
And laid him down upon his bed, and turned
His face away; and he would eat no bread.
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, came
And said to him, Why is thy spirit sad?
And he said unto her, Because I spake
To Naboth, to the Jezreelite, and said,
Give me thy vineyard; and he answered, saying,
I will not give my vineyard unto thee.
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, said,
Dost thou not rule the realm of Israel?
Arise, eat bread, and let thy heart be merry;
I will give Naboth's vineyard unto thee.
So she wrote letters in King Ahab's name,
And sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters
Unto the elders that were in his city
Dwelling with Naboth, and unto the nobles;
And in the letters wrote, Proclaim a fast;
And set this Naboth high among the people,
And set two men, the sons of Belial,
Before him, to bear witness and to say,
Thou didst blaspheme against God and the King;
And carry him out and stone him, that he die!
And the elders and the nobles in the city
Did even as Jezebel, the wife of Ahab,
Had sent to them and written in the letters.
And then it came to pass, when Ahab heard
Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose to go
Down unto Naboth's vineyard, and to take
Possession of it. And the word of God
Came to Elijah, saying to him, Arise,
Go down to meet the King of Israel
In Naboth's vineyard, whither he hath gone
To take possession. Thou shalt speak to him,
Saying, Thus saith the Lord! What! hast thou killed
And also taken possession? In the place
Wherein the dogs have licked the blood of Naboth
Shall the dogs lick thy blood,--ay, even thine!
Both of the Deacons start from their seats.
And Ahab then, the King of Israel,
Said, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?
Elijah the Prophet answered, I have found thee!
So will it be with those who have stirred up
The Sons of Belial here to bear false witness
And swear away the lives of innocent people;
Their enemy will find them out at last,
The Prophet's voice will thunder, I have found thee!
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. -- Meadows on Ipswich River, COREY and his men mowing;
COREY in advance.
COREY.
Well done, my men. You see, I lead the field!
I'm an old man, but I can swing a scythe
Better than most of you, though you be younger.
Hangs his scythe upon a tree.
GLOYD (aside to the others).
How strong he is! It's supernatural.
No man so old as he is has such strength.
The Devil helps him!
COREY (wiping his forehead).
Now we'll rest awhile,
And take our nooning. What's the matter with you?
You are not angry with me,--are you, Gloyd?
Come, come, we will not quarrel. Let's be friends.
It's an old story, that the Raven said,
"Read the Third of Colossians and fifteenth."
GLOYD.
You're handier at the scythe, but I can beat you
At wrestling.
COREY.
Well, perhaps so. I don't know.
I never wrestled with you. Why, you're vexed!
Come, come, don't bear a grudge.
GLOYD.
You are afraid.
COREY.
What should I be afraid of? All bear witness
The challenge comes from him. Now, then, my man.
They wrestle, and GLOYD is thrown.
ONE OF THE MEN.
That's a fair fall.
ANOTHER.
'T was nothing but a foil!
OTHERS.
You've hurt him!
COREY (helping GLOYD rise).
No; this meadow-land is soft.
You're not hurt,--are you, Gloyd?
GLOYD (rising).
No, not much hurt.
COREY.
Well, then, shake hands; and there's an end of it.
How do you like that Cornish hug, my lad?
And now we'll see what's in our basket here.
GLOYD (aside).
The Devil and all his imps are in that man!
The clutch of his ten fingers burns like fire!
COREY (reverentially taking off his hat).
God bless the food He hath provided for us,
And make us thankful for it, for Christ's sake!
He lifts up a keg of cider, and drinks from it.
GLOYD.
Do you see that? Don't tell me it's not Witchcraft
Two of us could not lift that cask as he does!
COREY puts down the keg, and opens a basket. A voice is heard
calling.
VOICE.
Ho! Corey, Corey!
COREY.
What is that? I surely
Heard some one calling me by name!
VOICE.
Giles Corey!
Enter a boy, running, and out of breath.
BOY.
Is Master Corey here?
COREY.
Yes, here I am.
BOY.
O Master Corey!
COREY.
Well?
BOY.
Your wife--your wife--
COREY.
What's happened to my wife?
BOY.
She's sent to prison!
COREY.
The dream! the dream! O God, be merciful!
BOY.
She sent me here to tell you.
COREY (putting on his jacket).
Where's my horse?
Don't stand there staring, fellows.
Where's my horse?
[Exit COREY.
GLOYD.
Under the trees there. Run, old man, run, run!
You've got some one to wrestle with you now
Who'll trip your heels up, with your Cornish hug.
If there's a Devil, he has got you now.
Ah, there he goes! His horse is snorting fire!
ONE OF THE MEN.
John Gloyd, don't talk so! It's a shame to talk so!
He's a good master, though you quarrel with him.
GLOYD.
If hard work and low wages make good masters,
Then he is one. But I think otherwise.
Come, let us have our dinner and be merry,
And talk about the old man and the Witches.
I know some stories that will make you laugh.
They sit down on the grass, and eat.
Now there are Goody Cloyse and Goody Good,
Who have not got a decent tooth between them,
And yet these children--the Afflicted Children--
Say that they bite them, and show marks of teeth
Upon their arms!
ONE OF THE MEN.
That makes the wonder greater.
That's Witchcraft. Why, if they had teeth like yours,
'T would be no wonder if the girls were bitten!
GLOYD.
And then those ghosts that come out of their graves
And cry, "You murdered us! you murdered us!"
ONE OF THE MEN.
And all those Apparitions that stick pins
Into the flesh of the Afflicted Children!
GLOYD.
Oh those Afflicted Children! They know well
Where the pins come from. I can tell you that.
And there's old Corey, he has got a horseshoe
Nailed on his doorstep to keep off the Witches,
And all the same his wife has gone to prison.
ONE OF THE MEN.
Oh, she's no Witch. I'll swear that Goodwife Corey
Never did harm to any living creature.
She's a good woman, if there ever was one.
GLOYD.
Well, we shall see. As for that Bridget Bishop,
She has been tried before; some years ago
A negro testified he saw her shape
Sitting upon the rafters in a barn,
And holding in its hand an egg; and while
He went to fetch his pitchfork, she had vanished.
And now be quiet, will you? I am tired,
And want to sleep here on the grass a little.
They stretch themselves on the grass.
ONE OF THE MEN.
There may be Witches riding through the air
Over our heads on broomsticks at this moment,
Bound for some Satan's Sabbath in the woods
To be baptized.
GLOYD.
I wish they'd take you with them,
And hold you under water, head and ears,
Till you were drowned; and that would stop your talking,
If nothing else will. Let me sleep, I say.
ACT IV
SCENE I. -- The Green in front of the village Meeting-house. An
excited crowd gathering. Enter JOHN GLOYD.
A FARMER.
Who will be tried to-day?
A SECOND.
I do not know.
Here is John Gloyd. Ask him; he knows.
FARMER.
John Gloyd,
Whose turn is it to-day?
GLOYD.
It's Goodwife Corey's.
FARMER.
Giles Corey's wife?
GLOYD.
The same. She is not mine.
It will go hard with her with all her praying.
The hypocrite! She's always on her knees;
But she prays to the Devil when she prays.
Let us go in.
A trumpet blows.
FARMER.
Here come the Magistrates.
SECOND FARMER.
Who's the tall man in front?
GLOYD.
Oh, that is Hathorne,
A Justice of the Court, and a Quarter-master
In the Three County Troop. He'll sift the matter.
That's Corwin with him; and the man in black
Is Cotton Mather, Minister of Boston.
Enter HATHORNE and other Magistrates on horseback, followed by
the Sheriff, constables, and attendants on foot. The Magistrates
dismount, and enter the Meeting-house, with the rest.
FARMER.
The Meeting-house is full. I never saw
So great a crowd before.
GLOYD.
No matter. Come.
We shall find room enough by elbowing
Our way among them. Put your shoulder to it.
FARMER.
There were not half so many at the trial
Of Goodwife Bishop.
GLOYD.
Keep close after me.
I'll find a place for you. They'll want me there.
I am a friend of Corey's, as you know,
And he can't do without me just at present.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. -- Interior of the Meeting-house. MATHER and the
Magistrates seated in front of the pulpit. Before them a raised
platform. MARTHA in chains. COREY near her. MARY WALCOT in a
chair. A crowd of spectators, among them GLOYD. Confusion and
murmurs during the scene.
HATHORNE.
Call Martha Corey.
MARTHA.
I am here.
HATHORNE.
Come forward.
She ascends the platform.
The Jurors of our Sovereign Lord and Lady
The King and Queen, here present, do accuse you
Of having on the tenth of June last past,
And divers other times before and after,
Wickedly used and practised certain arts
Called Witchcrafts, Sorceries, and Incantations,
Against one Mary Walcot, single woman,
Of Salem Village; by which wicked arts
The aforesaid Mary Walcot was tormented,
Tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, and wasted,
Against the peace of our Sovereign Lord and Lady
The King and Queen, as well as of the Statute
Made and provided in that case. What say you?
MARTHA.
Before I answer, give me leave to pray.
HATHORNE.
We have not sent for you, nor are we here,
To hear you pray, but to examine you
In whatsoever is alleged against you.
Why do you hurt this person?
MARTHA.
I do not.
I am not guilty of the charge against me.
MARY.
Avoid, she-devil! You may torment me now!
Avoid, avoid, Witch!
MARTHA.
I am innocent.
I never had to do with any Witchcraft
Since I was born. I am a gospel woman.
MARY.
You are a gospel Witch!
MARTHA (clasping her hands).
Ah me! ah me!
Oh, give me leave to pray!
MARY (stretching out her hands).
She hurts me now.
See, she has pinched my hands!
HATHORNE.
Who made these marks
Upon her hands?
MARTHA.
I do not know. I stand
Apart from her. I did not touch her hands.
HATHORNE.
Who hurt her then?
MARTHA.
I know not.
HATHORNE.
Do you think
She is bewitched?
MARTHA.
Indeed I do not think so.
I am no Witch, and have no faith in Witches.
HATHORNE.
Then answer me: When certain persons came
To see you yesterday, how did you know
Beforehand why they came?
MARTHA.
I had had speech;
The children said I hurt them, and I thought
These people came to question me about it.
HATHORNE.
How did you know the children had been told
To note the clothes you wore?
MARTHA.
My husband told me
What others said about it.
HATHORNE.
Goodman Corey,
Say, did you tell her?
COREY.
I must speak the truth;
I did not tell her. It was some one else.
HATHORNE.
Did you not say your husband told you so?
How dare you tell a lie in this assembly?
Who told you of the clothes? Confess the truth.
MARTHA bites her lips, and is silent.
You bite your lips, but do not answer me!
MARY.
Ah, she is biting me! Avoid, avoid!
HATHORNE.
You said your husband told you.
MARTHA.
Yes, he told me
The children said I troubled them.
HATHORNE.
Then tell me,
Why do you trouble them?
MARTHA.
I have denied it.
MARY.
She threatened me; stabbed at me with her spindle;
And, when my brother thrust her with his sword,
He tore her gown, and cut a piece away.
Here are they both, the spindle and the cloth.
Shows them.
HATHORNE.
And there are persons here who know the truth
Of what has now been said. What answer make you?
MARTHA.
I make no answer. Give me leave to pray.
HATHORNE.
Whom would you pray to?
MARTHA.
To my God and Father.
HATHORNE.
Who is your God and Father?
MARTHA.
The Almighty!
HATHORNE.
Doth he you pray to say that he is God?
It is the Prince of Darkness, and not God.
MARY.
There is a dark shape whispering in her ear.
HATHORNE.
What does it say to you?
MARTHA.
I see no shape.
HATHORNE.
Did you not hear it whisper?
MARTHA.
I heard nothing.
MARY.
What torture! Ah, what agony I suffer!
Falls into a swoon.
HATHORNE.
You see this woman cannot stand before you.
If you would look for mercy, you must look
In God's way, by confession of your guilt.
Why does your spectre haunt and hurt this person?
MARTHA.
I do not know. He who appeared of old
In Samuel's shape, a saint and glorified,
May come in whatsoever shape he chooses.
I cannot help it. I am sick at heart!
COREY.
O Martha, Martha! let me hold your hand.
HATHORNE.
No; stand aside, old man.
MARY (starting up).
Look there! Look there!
I see a little bird, a yellow bird
Perched on her finger; and it pecks at me.
Ah, it will tear mine eyes out!
MARTHA.
I see nothing.
HATHORNE.
'T is the Familiar Spirit that attends her.
MARY.
Now it has flown away. It sits up there
Upon the rafters. It is gone; is vanished.
MARTHA.
Giles, wipe these tears of anger from mine eyes.
Wipe the sweat from my forehead. I am faint.
She leans against the railing.
MARY.
Oh, she is crushing me with all her weight!
HATHORNE.
Did you not carry once the Devil's Book
To this young woman?
MARTHA.
Never.
HATHORNE.
Have you signed it,
Or touched it?
MARTHA.
No; I never saw it.
HATHORNE.
Did you not scourge her with an iron rod?
MARTHA.
No, I did not. If any Evil Spirit
Has taken my shape to do these evil deeds,
I cannot help it. I am innocent.
HATHORNE.
Did you not say the Magistrates were blind?
That you would open their eyes?
MARTHA (with a scornful laugh).
Yes, I said that;
If you call me a sorceress, you are blind!
If you accuse the innocent, you are blind!
Can the innocent be guilty?
HATHORNE.
Did you not
On one occasion hide your husband's saddle
To hinder him from coming to the sessions?
MARTHA.
I thought it was a folly in a farmer
To waste his time pursuing such illusions.
HATHORNE.
What was the bird that this young woman saw
Just now upon your hand?
MARTHA.
I know no bird.
HATHORNE.
Have you not dealt with a Familiar Spirit?
MARTHA.
No, never, never!
HATHORNE.
What then was the Book
You showed to this young woman, and besought her
To write in it?
MARTHA.
Where should I have a book?
I showed her none, nor have none.
MARY.
The next Sabbath
Is the Communion Day, but Martha Corey
Will not be there!
MARTHA.
Ah, you are all against me.
What can I do or say?
HATHORNE.
You can confess.
MARTHA.
No, I cannot, for I am innocent.
HATHORNE.
We have the proof of many witnesses
That you are guilty.
MARTHA.
Give me leave to speak.
Will you condemn me on such evidence,--
You who have known me for so many years?
Will you condemn me in this house of God,
Where I so long have worshipped with you all?
Where I have eaten the bread and drunk the wine
So many times at our Lord's Table with you?
Bear witness, you that hear me; you all know
That I have led a blameless life among you,
That never any whisper of suspicion
Was breathed against me till this accusation.
And shall this count for nothing? Will you take
My life away from me, because this girl,
Who is distraught, and not in her right mind,
Accuses me of things I blush to name?
HATHORNE.
What! is it not enough? Would you hear more?
Giles Corey!
COREY.
I am here.
HATHORNE.
Come forward, then.
COREY ascends the platform.
Is it not true, that on a certain night
You were impeded strangely in your prayers?
That something hindered you? and that you left
This woman here, your wife, kneeling alone
Upon the hearth?
COREY.
Yes; I cannot deny it.
HATHORNE.
Did you not say the Devil hindered you?
COREY.
I think I said some words to that effect.
HATHORNE.
Is it not true, that fourteen head of cattle,
To you belonging, broke from their enclosure
And leaped into the river, and were drowned?
COREY.
It is most true.
HATHORNE.
And did you not then say
That they were overlooked?
COREY.
So much I said.
I see; they're drawing round me closer, closer,
A net I cannot break, cannot escape from! (Aside).
HATHORNE.
Who did these things?
COREY.
I do not know who did them.
HATHORNE.
Then I will tell you. It is some one near you;
You see her now; this woman, your own wife.
COREY.
I call the heavens to witness, it is false!
She never harmed me, never hindered me
In anything but what I should not do.
And I bear witness in the sight of heaven,
And in God's house here, that I never knew her
As otherwise than patient, brave, and true,
Faithful, forgiving, full of charity,
A virtuous and industrious and good wife!
HATHORNE.
Tut, tut, man; do not rant so in your speech;
You are a witness, not an advocate!
Here, Sheriff, take this woman back to prison.
MARTHA.
O Giles, this day you've sworn away my life!
MARY.
Go, go and join the Witches at the door.
Do you not hear the drum? Do you not see them?
Go quick. They're waiting for you. You are late.
[Exit MARTHA; COREY following.
COREY.
The dream! the dream! the dream!
HATHORNE.
What does he say?
Giles Corey, go not hence. You are yourself
Accused of Witchcraft and of Sorcery
By many witnesses. Say, are you guilty?
COREY.
I know my death is foreordained by you,
Mine and my wife's. Therefore I will not answer.
During the rest of the scene he remains silent.
HATHORNE.
Do you refuse to plead?--'T were better for you
To make confession, or to plead Not Guilty.--
Do you not hear me?--Answer, are you guilty?
Do you not know a heavier doom awaits you,
If you refuse to plead, than if found guilty?
Where is John Gloyd?
GLOYD (coming forward).
Here am I.
HATHORNE.
Tell the Court
Have you not seen the supernatural power
Of this old man? Have you not seen him do
Strange feats of strength?
GLOYD.
I've seen him lead the field,
On a hot day, in mowing, and against
Us younger men; and I have wrestled with him.
He threw me like a feather. I have seen him
Lift up a barrel with his single hands,
Which two strong men could hardly lift together,
And, holding it above his head, drink from it.
HATHORNE.
That is enough; we need not question further.
What answer do you make to this, Giles Corey?
MARY.
See there! See there!
HATHORNE.
What is it? I see nothing.
MARY.
Look! Look! It is the ghost of Robert Goodell,
Whom fifteen years ago this man did murder
By stamping on his body! In his shroud
He comes here to bear witness to the crime!
The crowd shrinks back from COREY in horror.
HATHORNE.
Ghosts of the dead and voices of the living
Bear witness to your guilt, and you must die!
It might have been an easier death. Your doom
Will be on your own head, and not on ours.
Twice more will you be questioned of these things;
Twice more have room to plead or to confess.
If you are contumacious to the Court,
And if, when questioned, you refuse to answer,
Then by the Statute you will be condemned
To the peine forte et dure! To have your body
Pressed by great weights until you shall be dead!
And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!
ACT V.
SCENE I. -- COREy's farm as in Act II., Scene I. Enter RICHARD
GARDNER, looking round him.
GARDNER.
Here stands the house as I remember it.
The four tall poplar-trees before the door;
The house, the barn, the orchard, and the well,
With its moss-covered bucket and its trough;
The garden, with its hedge of currant-bushes;
The woods, the harvest-fields; and, far beyond,
The pleasant landscape stretching to the sea.
But everything is silent and deserted!
No bleat of flocks, no bellowing of herds,
No sound of flails, that should be beating now;
Nor man nor beast astir. What can this mean?
Knocks at the door.
What ho! Giles Corey! Hillo-ho! Giles Corey!--
No answer but the echo from the barn,
And the ill-omened cawing of the crow,
That yonder wings his flight across the fields,
As if he scented carrion in the air.
Enter TITUBA with a basket.
What woman's this, that, like an apparition,
Haunts this deserted homestead in broad day?
Woman, who are you?
TITUBA.
I'm Tituba.
I am John Indian's wife. I am a Witch.
GARDNER.
What are you doing here?
TITUBA.
I am gathering herbs,--
Cinquefoil, and saxifrage, and pennyroyal.
GARDNER (looking at the herbs).
This is not cinquefoil, it is deadly nightshade!
This is not saxifrage, but hellebore!
This is not pennyroyal, it is henbane!
Do you come here to poison these good people?
TITUBA.
I get these for the Doctor in the Village.
Beware of Tituba. I pinch the children;
Make little poppets and stick pins in them,
And then the children cry out they are pricked.
The Black Dog came to me and said, "Serve me!"
I was afraid. He made me hurt the children.
GARDNER.
Poor soul! She's crazed, with all these Devil's doings.
TITUBA.
Will you, sir, sign the book?
GARDNER.
No, I'll not sign it.
Where is Giles Corey? Do you know Giles Corey!
TITUBA.
He's safe enough. He's down there in the prison.
GARDNER.
Corey in prison? What is he accused of?
TITURA.
Giles Corey and Martha Corey are in prison
Down there in Salem Village. Both are witches.
She came to me and whispered, "Kill the children!"
Both signed the Book!
GARDNER.
Begone, you imp of darkness!
You Devil's dam!
TITUBA.
Beware of Tituba!
[Exit.
GARDNER.
How often out at sea on stormy nights,
When the waves thundered round me, and the wind
Bellowed, and beat the canvas, and my ship
Clove through the solid darkness, like a wedge,
I've thought of him upon his pleasant farm,
Living in quiet with his thrifty housewife,
And envied him, and wished his fate were mine!
And now I find him shipwrecked utterly,
Drifting upon this sea of sorceries,
And lost, perhaps, beyond all aid of man!
[Exit.
SCENE II.. -- The prison. GILES COREY at a table on which are
some papers.
COREY.
Now I have done with earth and all its cares;
I give my worldly goods to my dear children;
My body I bequeath to my tormentors,
And my immortal soul to Him who made it.
O God! who in thy wisdom dost afflict me
With an affliction greater than most men
Have ever yet endured or shall endure,
Suffer me not in this last bitter hour
For any pains of death to fall from Thee!
MARTHA is heard singing.
Arise, O righteous Lord!
And disappoint my foes;
They are but thine avenging sword,
Whose wounds are swift to close.
COREY.
Hark, hark! it is her voice! She is not dead!
She lives! I am not utterly forsaken!
MARTHA, singing.
By thine abounding grace,
And mercies multiplied,
I shall awake, and see thy face;
I shall be satisfied.
COREY hides his face in his hands. Enter the JAILER, followed by
RICHARD GARDNER.
JAILER.
Here's a seafaring man, one Richard Gardner,
A friend of yours, who asks to speak with you.
COREY rises. They embrace.
COREY.
I'm glad to see you, ay, right glad to see you.
GARDNER.
And I am most sorely grieved to see you thus.
COREY.
Of all the friends I had in happier days,
You are the first, ay, and the only one,
That comes to seek me out in my disgrace!
And you but come in time to say farewell,
They've dug my grave already in the field.
I thank you. There is something in your presence,
I know not what it is, that gives me strength.
Perhaps it is the bearing of a man
Familiar with all dangers of the deep,
Familiar with the cries of drowning men,
With fire, and wreck, and foundering ships at sea!
GARDNER.
Ah, I have never known a wreck like yours!
Would I could save you!
COREY.
Do not speak of that.
It is too late. I am resolved to die.
GARDNER.
Why would you die who have so much to live for?--
Your daughters, and--
COREY.
You cannot say the word.
My daughters have gone from me. They are married;
They have their homes, their thoughts, apart from me;
I will not say their hearts,--that were too cruel.
What would you have me do?
GARDNER.
Confess and live.
COREY.
That's what they said who came here yesterday
To lay a heavy weight upon my conscience
By telling me that I was driven forth
As an unworthy member of their church.
GARDNER.
It is an awful death.
COREY.
'T is but to drown,
And have the weight of all the seas upon you.
GARDNER.
Say something; say enough to fend off death
Till this tornado of fanaticism
Blows itself out. Let me come in between you
And your severer self, with my plain sense;
Do not be obstinate.
COREY.
I will not plead.
If I deny, I am condemned already,
In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses,
And swear men's lives away. If I confess,
Then I confess a lie, to buy a life
Which is not life, but only death in life.
I will not bear false witness against any,
Not even against myself, whom I count least.
GARDNER (aside).
Ah, what a noble character is this!
COREY.
I pray you, do not urge me to do that
You would not do yourself. I have already
The bitter taste of death upon my lips;
I feel the pressure of the heavy weight
That will crush out my life within this hour;
But if a word could save me, and that word
Were not the Truth; nay, if it did but swerve
A hair's-breadth from the Truth, I would not say it!
GARDNER (aside).
How mean I seem beside a man like this!
COREY.
As for my wife, my Martha and my Martyr,--
Whose virtues, like the stars, unseen by day,
Though numberless, do but await the dark
To manifest themselves unto all eyes,--
She who first won me from my evil ways,
And taught me how to live by her example,
By her example teaches me to die,
And leads me onward to the better life!
SHERIFF (without).
Giles Corey! Come! The hour has struck!
COREY.
I come!
Here is my body; ye may torture it,
But the immortal soul ye cannot crush!
[Exeunt.
SCENE III-- A street in the Village. Enter GLOYD and others.
GLOYD.
Quick, or we shall be late!
A MAN.
That's not the way.
Come here; come up this lane.
GLOYD.
I wonder now
If the old man will die, and will not speak?
He's obstinate enough and tough enough
For anything on earth.
A bell tolls.
Hark! What is that?
A MAN.
The passing bell. He's dead!
GLOYD.
We are too late.
[Exeunt in haste.
SCENE IV. -- A field near the graveyard, GILES COREY lying dead,
with a great stone on his breast. The Sheriff at his head,
RICHARD GARDNER at his feet. A crowd behind. The bell tolling.
Enter HATHORNE and MATHER.
HATHORNE.
This is the Potter's Field. Behold the fate
Of those who deal in Witchcrafts, and, when questioned,
Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence,
And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.
MATHER.
O sight most horrible! In a land like this,
Spangled with Churches Evangelical,
Inwrapped in our salvations, must we seek
In mouldering statute-books of English Courts
Some old forgotten Law, to do such deeds?
Those who lie buried in the Potter's Field
Will rise again, as surely as ourselves
That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs;
And this poor man, whom we have made a victim,
Hereafter will be counted as a martyr!
FINALE
SAINT JOHN
SAINT JOHN wandering over the face of the Earth.
SAINT JOHN.
The Ages come and go,
The Centuries pass as Years;
My hair is white as the snow,
My feet are weary and slow,
The earth is wet with my tears
The kingdoms crumble, and fall
Apart, like a ruined wall,
Or a bank that is undermined
By a river's ceaseless flow,
And leave no trace behind!
The world itself is old;
The portals of Time unfold
On hinges of iron, that grate
And groan with the rust and the weight,
Like the hinges of a gate
That hath fallen to decay;
But the evil doth not cease;
There is war instead of peace,
Instead of Love there is hate;
And still I must wander and wait,
Still I must watch and pray,
Not forgetting in whose sight,
A thousand years in their flight
Are as a single day.
The life of man is a gleam
Of light, that comes and goes
Like the course of the Holy Stream.
The cityless river, that flows
From fountains no one knows,
Through the Lake of Galilee,
Through forests and level lands,
Over rocks, and shallows, and sands
Of a wilderness wild and vast,
Till it findeth its rest at last
In the desolate Dead Sea!
But alas! alas for me
Not yet this rest shall be!
What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man's heart and brain,
Are naught but the rustle of leaves,
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!
And Him evermore I behold
Walking in Galilee,
Through the cornfield's waving gold,
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.
He toucheth the sightless eyes;
Before Him the demons flee;
To the dead He sayeth: Arise!
To the living: Follow me!
And that voice still soundeth on
From the centuries that are gone,
To the centuries that shall be!
From all vain pomps and shows,
From the pride that overflows,
And the false conceits of men;
From all the narrow rules
And subtleties of Schools,
And the craft of tongue and pen;
Bewildered in its search,
Bewildered with the cry,
Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the great Master taught,
And that remaineth still:
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!
********
JUDAS MACCABAEUS.
ACT I.
The Citadel of Antiochus at Jerusalem.
SCENE I. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON.
ANTIOCHUS.
O Antioch, my Antioch, my city!
Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!
The dowry of my sister Cleopatra
When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now
Won back and made more wonderful by me!
I love thee, and I long to be once more
Among the players and the dancing women
Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes,
Thy river and mine. O Jason, my High-Priest,
For I have made thee so, and thou art mine,
Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful?
JASON.
Never, my Lord.
ANTIOCHUS.
Then hast thou never seen
The wonder of the world. This city of David
Compared with Antioch is but a village,
And its inhabitants compared with Greeks
Are mannerless boors.
JASON.
They are barbarians,
And mannerless.
ANTIOCHUS.
They must be civilized.
They must be made to have more gods than one;
And goddesses besides.
JASON.
They shall have more.
ANTIOCHUS.
They must have hippodromes, and games, and baths,
Stage-plays and festivals, and most of all
The Dionysia.
JASON.
They shall have them all.
ANTIOCHUS.
By Heracles! but I should like to see
These Hebrews crowned with ivy, and arrayed
In skins of fawns, with drums and flutes and thyrsi,
Revel and riot through the solemn streets
Of their old town. Ha, ha! It makes me merry
Only to think of it!--Thou dost not laugh.
JASON.
Yea, I laugh inwardly.
ANTIOCHUS.
The new Greek leaven
Works slowly in this Israelitish dough!
Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altar
Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus
To Hellenize it?
JASON.
Thou hast done all this.
ANTIOCHUS.
As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason,
And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek,
So shall this Hebrew nation be translated,
Their very natures and their names be changed,
And all be Hellenized.
JASON.
It shall be done.
ANTIOCHUS.
Their manners and their laws and way of living
Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language,
And learn the lovely speech of Antioch.
Where hast thou been to-day? Thou comest late.
JASON.
Playing at discus with the other priests
In the Gymnasium.
ANTIOCHUS.
Thou hast done well.
There's nothing better for you lazy priests
Than discus-playing with the common people.
Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews call me
When they converse together at their games.
JASON.
Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord;
Antiochus the Illustrious.
ANTIOCHUS.
O, not that;
That is the public cry; I mean the name
They give me when they talk among themselves,
And think that no one listens; what is that?
JASON.
Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord!
ANTIOCHUS.
Antiochus the Mad! Ay, that is it.
And who hath said it? Who hath set in motion
That sorry jest?
JASON.
The Seven Sons insane
Of a weird woman, like themselves insane.
ANTIOCHUS.
I like their courage, but it shall not save them.
They shall be made to eat the flesh of swine,
Or they shall die. Where are they?
JASON.
In the dungeons
Beneath this tower.
ANTIOCHUS.
There let them stay and starve,
Till I am ready to make Greeks of them,
After my fashion.
JASON.
They shall stay and starve.--
My Lord, the Ambassadors of Samaria
Await thy pleasure.
ANTIOCHUS.
Why not my displeasure?
Ambassadors are tedious. They are men
Who work for their own ends, and not for mine
There is no furtherance in them. Let them go
To Apollonius, my governor
There in Samaria, and not trouble me.
What do they want?
JASON.
Only the royal sanction
To give a name unto a nameless temple
Upon Mount Gerizim.
ANTIOCHUS.
Then bid them enter.
This pleases me, and furthers my designs.
The occasion is auspicious. Bid them enter.
SCENE II. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON; THE SAMARITAN AMBASSADORS.
ANTIOCHUS.
Approach. Come forward; stand not at the door
Wagging your long beards, but demean yourselves
As doth become Ambassadors. What seek ye?
AN AMBASSADOR.
An audience from the King.
ANTIOCHUS.
Speak, and be brief.
Waste not the time in useless rhetoric.
Words are not things.
AMBASSADOR (reading). "To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes; a Memorial
From the Sidonians, who live at Sichem."
ANTIOCHUS.
Sidonians?
AMBASSADOR.
Ay, my Lord.
ANTIOCHUS.
Go on, go on!
And do not tire thyself and me with bowing!
AMBASSADOR (reading).
"We are a colony of Medes and Persians."
ANTIOCHUS.
No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten Tribes;
Whether Sidonians or Samaritans
Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me;
Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews.
When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred with them;
When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians:
I know that in the days of Alexander
Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute
In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said,
Your fields had not been planted in that year.
AMBASSADOR (reading).
"Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues,
And following an ancient superstition,
Were long accustomed to observe that day
Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath,
And in a temple on Mount Gerizim
Without a name, they offered sacrifice.
Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee,
Who art our benefactor and our savior,
Not to confound us with these wicked Jews,
But to give royal order and injunction
To Apollonius in Samaria.
Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor,
Thy procurator, no more to molest us;
And let our nameless temple now be named
The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius."
ANTIOCHUS.
This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth me
Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews,
But Greeks; if not by birth, yet Greeks by custom.
Your nameless temple shall receive the name
Of Jupiter Hellenius. Ye may go!
SCENE III. -- ANTIOCHUS; JASON.
ANTIOCHUS.
My task is easier than I dreamed. These people
Meet me half-way. Jason, didst thou take note
How these Samaritans of Sichem said
They were not Jews? that they were Medes and Persians,
They were Sidonians, anything but Jews?
'T is of good augury. The rest will follow
Till the whole land is Hellenized.
JASON.
My Lord,
These are Samaritans. The tribe of Judah
Is of a different temper, and the task
Will be more difficult.
ANTIOCHUS.
Dost thou gainsay me?
JASON.
I know the stubborn nature of the Jew.
Yesterday, Eleazer, an old man,
Being fourscore years and ten, chose rather death
By torture than to eat the flesh of swine.
ANTIOCHUS.
The life is in the blood, and the whole nation
Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its faith!
JASON.
Hundreds have fled already to the mountains
Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabaeus
Hath raised the standard of revolt against thee.
ANTIOCHUS.
I will burn down their city, and will make it
Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares
Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes.
It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is!
This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad
Shall have a broad and blood-red sea upon it,
Stamped with the awful letters of my name,
Antiochus the God, Epiphanes!--
Where are those Seven Sons?
JASON.
My Lord, they wait
Thy royal pleasure.
ANTIOCHUS.
They shall wait no longer!
ACT II.
The Dungeons in the Citadel.
SCENE I. -- THE MOTHER of the SEVEN SONS alone, listening.
THE MOTHER.
Be strong, my heart!
Break not till they are dead,
All, all my Seven Sons; then burst asunder,
And let this tortured and tormented soul
Leap and rush out like water through the shards
Of earthen vessels broken at a well.
O my dear children, mine in life and death,
I know not how ye came into my womb;
I neither gave you breath, nor gave you life,
And neither was it I that formed the members
Of every one of you. But the Creator,
Who made the world, and made the heavens above us,
Who formed the generation of mankind,
And found out the beginning of all things,
He gave you breath and life, and will again
Of his own mercy, as ye now regard
Not your own selves, but his eternal law.
I do not murmur, nay, I thank thee, God,
That I and mine have not been deemed unworthy
To suffer for thy sake, and for thy law,
And for the many sins of Israel.
Hark! I can hear within the sound of scourges!
I feel them more than ye do, O my sons!
But cannot come to you. I, who was wont
To wake at night at the least cry ye made,
To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt,
I cannot take you now into my lap
And soothe your pain, but God will take you all
Into his pitying arms, and comfort you,
And give you rest.
A VOICE (within).
What wouldst thou ask of us?
Ready are we to die, but we will never
Transgress the law and customs of our fathers.
THE MOTHER.
It is the Voice of my first-born! O brave
And noble boy! Thou hast the privilege
Of dying first, as thou wast born the first.
THE SAME VOICE (within).
God looketh on us, and hath comfort in us;
As Moses in his song of old declared,
He in his servants shall be comforted.
THE MOTHER.
I knew thou wouldst not fail!--He speaks no more,
He is beyond all pain!
ANTIOCHUS. (within).
If thou eat not
Thou shalt be tortured throughout all the members
Of thy whole body. Wilt thou eat then?
SECOND VOICE. (within).
No.
THE MOTHER.
It is Adaiah's voice. I tremble for him.
I know his nature, devious as the wind,
And swift to change, gentle and yielding always.
Be steadfast, O my son!
THE SAME VOICE (within).
Thou, like a fury,
Takest us from this present life, but God,
Who rules the world, shall raise us up again
Into life everlasting.
THE MOTHER.
God, I thank thee
That thou hast breathed into that timid heart
Courage to die for thee. O my Adaiah,
Witness of God! if thou for whom I feared
Canst thus encounter death, I need not fear;
The others will not shrink.
THIRD VOICE (within).
Behold these hands
Held out to thee, O King Antiochus,
Not to implore thy mercy, but to show
That I despise them. He who gave them to me
Will give them back again.
THE MOTHER.
O Avilan,
It is thy voice. For the last time I hear it;
For the last time on earth, but not the last.
To death it bids defiance and to torture.
It sounds to me as from another world,
And makes the petty miseries of this
Seem unto me as naught, and less than naught.
Farewell, my Avilan; nay, I should say
Welcome, my Avilan; for I am dead
Before thee. I am waiting for the others.
Why do they linger?
FOURTH VOICE (within).
It is good, O King,
Being put to death by men, to look for hope
From God, to be raised up again by him.
But thou--no resurrection shalt thou have
To life hereafter.
THE MOTHER.
Four! already four!
Three are still living; nay, they all are living,
Half here, half there. Make haste, Antiochus,
To reunite us; for the sword that cleaves
These miserable bodies makes a door
Through which our souls, impatient of release,
Rush to each other's arms.
FIFTH VOICE (within).
Thou hast the power;
Thou doest what thou wilt. Abide awhile,
And thou shalt see the power of God, and how
He will torment thee and thy seed.
THE MOTHER.
O hasten;
Why dost thou pause? Thou who hast slain already
So many Hebrew women, and hast hung
Their murdered infants round their necks, slay me,
For I too am a woman, and these boys
Are mine. Make haste to slay us all,
And hang my lifeless babes about my neck.
SIXTH VOICE (within).
Think not,
Antiochus, that takest in hand
To strive against the God of Israel,
Thou shalt escape unpunished, for his wrath
Shall overtake thee and thy bloody house.
THE MOTHER.
One more, my Sirion, and then all is ended.
Having put all to bed, then in my turn
I will lie down and sleep as sound as they.
My Sirion, my youngest, best beloved!
And those bright golden locks, that I so oft
Have curled about these fingers, even now
Are foul with blood and dust, like a lamb's fleece,
Slain in the shambles.--Not a sound I hear.
This silence is more terrible to me
Than any sound, than any cry of pain,
That might escape the lips of one who dies.
Doth his heart fail him? Doth he fall away
In the last hour from God? O Sirion, Sirion,
Art thou afraid? I do not hear thy voice.
Die as thy brothers died. Thou must not live!
SCENE II. -- THE MOTHER; ANTIOCHUS; SIRION,
THE MOTHER.
Are they all dead?
ANTIOCHUS.
Of all thy Seven Sons
One only lives. Behold them where they lie
How dost thou like this picture?
THE MOTHER.
God in heaven!
Can a man do such deeds, and yet not die
By the recoil of his own wickedness?
Ye murdered, bleeding, mutilated bodies
That were my children once, and still are mine,
I cannot watch o'er you as Rispah watched
In sackcloth o'er the seven sons of Saul,
Till water drop upon you out of heaven
And wash this blood away! I cannot mourn
As she, the daughter of Aiah, mourned the dead,
From the beginning of the barley-harvest
Until the autumn rains, and suffered not
The birds of air to rest on them by day,
Nor the wild beasts by night. For ye have died
A better death, a death so full of life
That I ought rather to rejoice than mourn.--
Wherefore art thou not dead, O Sirion?
Wherefore art thou the only living thing
Among thy brothers dead? Art thou afraid?
ANTIOCHUS.
O woman, I have spared him for thy sake,
For he is fair to look upon and comely;
And I have sworn to him by all the gods
That I would crown his life with joy and honor,
Heap treasures on him, luxuries, delights,
Make him my friend and keeper of my secrets,
If he would turn from your Mosaic Law
And be as we are; but he will not listen.
THE MOTHER.
My noble Sirion!
ANTIOCHUS.
Therefore I beseech thee,
Who art his mother, thou wouldst speak with him,
And wouldst persuade him. I am sick of blood.
THE MOTHER.
Yea, I will speak with him and will persuade him.
O Sirion, my son! have pity on me,
On me that bare thee, and that gave thee suck,
And fed and nourished thee, and brought thee up
With the dear trouble of a mother's care
Unto this age. Look on the heavens above thee,
And on the earth and all that is therein;
Consider that God made them out of things
That were not; and that likewise in this manner
Mankind was made. Then fear not this tormentor
But, being worthy of thy brethren, take
Thy death as they did, that I may receive thee
Again in mercy with them.
ANTIOCHUS.
I am mocked,
Yea, I am laughed to scorn.
SIRION.
Whom wait ye for?
Never will I obey the King's commandment,
But the commandment of the ancient Law,
That was by Moses given unto our fathers.
And thou, O godless man, that of all others
Art the most wicked, be not lifted up,
Nor puffed up with uncertain hopes, uplifting
Thy hand against the servants of the Lord,
For thou hast not escaped the righteous judgment
Of the Almighty God, who seeth all things!
ANTIOCHUS.
He is no God of mine; I fear him not.
SIRION.
My brothers, who have suffered a brief pain,
Are dead; but thou, Antiochus, shalt suffer
The punishment of pride. I offer up
My body and my life, beseeching God
That he would speedily be merciful
Unto our nation, and that thou by plagues
Mysterious and by torments mayest confess
That he alone is God.
ANTIOCHUS.
Ye both shall perish
By torments worse than any that your God,
Here or hereafter, hath in store for me.
THE MOTHER.
My Sirion, I am proud of thee!
ANTIOCHUS.
Be silent!
Go to thy bed of torture in yon chamber,
Where lie so many sleepers, heartless mother!
Thy footsteps will not wake them, nor thy voice,
Nor wilt thou hear, amid thy troubled dreams,
Thy children crying for thee in the night!
THE MOTHER.
O Death, that stretchest thy white hands to me,
I fear them not, but press them to my lips,
That are as white as thine; for I am Death,
Nay, am the Mother of Death, seeing these sons
All lying lifeless.--Kiss me, Sirion.
ACT III.
The Battle-field of Beth-horon.
SCENE I. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS in armor before his tent.
JUDAS.
The trumpets sound; the echoes of the mountains
Answer them, as the Sabbath morning breaks
Over Beth-horon and its battle-field,
Where the great captain of the hosts of God,
A slave brought up in the brick-fields of Egypt,
O'ercame the Amorites. There was no day
Like that, before or after it, nor shall be.
The sun stood still; the hammers of the hail
Beat on their harness; and the captains set
Their weary feet upon the necks of kings,
As I will upon thine, Antiochus,
Thou man of blood!--Behold the rising sun
Strikes on the golden letters of my banner,
Be Elohim Yehovah! Who is like
To thee, O Lord, among the gods!--Alas!
I am not Joshua, I cannot say,
"Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou Moon,
In Ajalon!" Nor am I one who wastes
The fateful time in useless lamentation;
But one who bears his life upon his hand
To lose it or to save it, as may best
Serve the designs of Him who giveth life.
SCENE II -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; JEWISH FUGITIVES.
JUDAS.
Who and what are ye, that with furtive steps
Steal in among our tents?
FUGITIVES.
O Maccabaeus,
Outcasts are we, and fugitives as thou art,
Jews of Jerusalem, that have escaped
From the polluted city, and from death.
JUDAS.
None can escape from death. Say that ye come
To die for Israel, and ye are welcome.
What tidings bring ye?
FUGITIVES.
Tidings of despair.
The Temple is laid waste; the precious vessels,
Censers of gold, vials and veils and crowns,
And golden ornaments, and hidden treasures,
Have all been taken from it, and the Gentiles
With revelling and with riot fill its courts,
And dally with harlots in the holy places.
JUDAS.
All this I knew before.
FUGITIVES.
Upon the altar
Are things profane, things by the law forbidden;
Nor can we keep our Sabbaths or our Feasts,
But on the festivals of Dionysus
Must walk in their processions, bearing ivy
To crown a drunken god.
JUDAS.
This too I know.
But tell me of the Jews. How fare the Jews?
FUGITIVES.
The coming of this mischief hath been sore
And grievous to the people. All the land
Is full of lamentation and of mourning.
The Princes and the Elders weep and wail;
The young men and the maidens are made feeble;
The beauty of the women hath been changed.
JUDAS.
And are there none to die for Israel?
'T is not enough to mourn. Breastplate and harness
Are better things than sackcloth. Let the women
Lament for Israel; the men should die.
FUGITIVES.
Both men and women die; old men and young:
Old Eleazer died: and Mahala
With all her Seven Sons.
JUDAS.
Antiochus,
At every step thou takest there is left
A bloody footprint in the street, by which
The avenging wrath of God will track thee out!
It is enough. Go to the sutler's tents;
Those of you who are men, put on such armor
As ye may find; those of you who are women,
Buckle that armor on; and for a watchword
Whisper, or cry aloud, "The Help of God."
SCENE III. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; NICANOR.
NICANOR.
Hail, Judas Maccabaeus!
JUDAS.
Hail!--Who art thou
That comest here in this mysterious guise
Into our camp unheralded?
NICANOR.
A herald
Sent from Nicanor.
JUDAS.
Heralds come not thus.
Armed with thy shirt of mail from head to heel,
Thou glidest like a serpent silently
Into my presence. Wherefore dost thou turn
Thy face from me? A herald speaks his errand
With forehead unabashed. Thou art a spy sent by Nicanor.
NICANOR.
No disguise avails!
Behold my face; I am Nicanor's self.
JUDAS.
Thou art indeed Nicanor. I salute thee.
What brings thee hither to this hostile camp
Thus unattended?
NICANOR.
Confidence in thee.
Thou hast the nobler virtues of thy race,
Without the failings that attend those virtues.
Thou canst be strong, and yet not tyrannous,
Canst righteous be and not intolerant.
Let there be peace between us.
JUDAS.
What is peace?
Is it to bow in silence to our victors?
Is it to see our cities sacked and pillaged,
Our people slain, or sold as slaves, or fleeing
At night-time by the blaze of burning towns;
Jerusalem laid waste; the Holy Temple
Polluted with strange gods? Are these things peace?
NICANOR.
These are the dire necessities that wait
On war, whose loud and bloody enginery
I seek to stay. Let there be peace between
Antiochus and thee.
JUDAS.
Antiochus?
What is Antiochus, that he should prate
Of peace to me, who am a fugitive?
To-day he shall be lifted up; to-morrow
Shall not be found, because he is returned
Unto his dust; his thought has come to nothing.
There is no peace between us, nor can be,
Until this banner floats upon the walls
Of our Jerusalem.
NICANOR.
Between that city
And thee there lies a waving wall of tents,
Held by a host of forty thousand foot,
And horsemen seven thousand. What hast thou
To bring against all these?
JUDAS.
The power of God,
Whose breath shall scatter your white tents abroad,
As flakes of snow.
NICANOR.
Your Mighty One in heaven
Will not do battle on the Seventh Day;
It is his day of rest.
JUDAS.
Silence, blasphemer.
Go to thy tents.
NICANOR.
Shall it be war or peace?
JUDAS.
War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents
That shall be scattered, as by you were scattered
The torn and trampled pages of the Law,
Blown through the windy streets.
NICANOR.
Farewell, brave foe!
JUDAS.
Ho, there, my captains! Have safe-conduct given
Unto Nicanor's herald through the camp,
And come yourselves to me.--Farewell, Nicanor!
SCENE IV. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS AND SOLDIERS.
JUDAS.
The hour is come. Gather the host together
For battle. Lo, with trumpets and with songs
The army of Nicanor comes against us.
Go forth to meet them, praying in your hearts,
And fighting with your hands.
CAPTAINS.
Look forth and see!
The morning sun is shining on their shields
Of gold and brass; the mountains glisten with them,
And shine like lamps. And we who are so few
And poorly armed, and ready to faint with fasting,
How shall we fight against this multitude?
JUDAS.
The victory of a battle standeth not
In multitudes, but in the strength that cometh
From heaven above. The Lord forbid that I
Should do this thing, and flee away from them.
Nay, if our hour be come, then let us die;
Let us not stain our honor.
CAPTAINS.
'T is the Sabbath.
Wilt thou fight on the Sabbath, Maccabaeus?
JUDAS.
Ay; when I fight the battles of the Lord,
I fight them on his day, as on all others.
Have ye forgotten certain fugitives
That fled once to these hills, and hid themselves
In caves? How their pursuers camped against them
Upon the Seventh Day, and challenged them?
And how they answered not, nor cast a stone,
Nor stopped the places where they lay concealed,
But meekly perished with their wives and children,
Even to the number of a thousand souls?
We who are fighting for our laws and lives
Will not so perish.
CAPTAINS.
Lead us to the battle!
JUDAS.
And let our watchword be, "The Help of God!"
Last night I dreamed a dream; and in my vision
Beheld Onias, our High-Priest of old,
Who holding up his hands prayed for the Jews.
This done, in the like manner there appeared
An old man, and exceeding glorious,
With hoary hair, and of a wonderful
And excellent majesty. And Onias said:
"This is a lover of the Jews, who prayeth
Much for the people and the Holy City,--
God's prophet Jeremias." And the prophet
Held forth his right hand and gave unto me
A sword of gold; and giving it he said:
"Take thou this holy sword, a gift from God,
And with it thou shalt wound thine adversaries."
CAPTAINS.
The Lord is with us!
JUDAS.
Hark! I hear the trumpets
Sound from Beth-horon; from the battle-field
Of Joshua, where he smote the Amorites,
Smote the Five Kings of Eglon and of Jarmuth,
Of Hebron, Lachish, and Jerusalem,
As we to-day will smite Nicanor's hosts
And leave a memory of great deeds behind us.
CAPTAINS and SOLDIERS.
The Help of God!
JUDAS.
Be Elohim Yehovah!
Lord, thou didst send thine Angel in the time
Of Esekias, King of Israel,
And in the armies of Sennacherib
Didst slay a hundred fourscore and five thousand.
Wherefore, O Lord of heaven, now also send
Before us a good angel for a fear,
And through the might of thy right arm let those
Be stricken with terror that have come this day
Against thy holy people to blaspheme!
ACT IV.
The outer Courts of the Temple at Jerusalem.
SCENE I. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS; JEWS.
JUDAS.
Behold, our enemies are discomfited.
Jerusalem is fallen; and our banners
Float from her battlements, and o'er her gates
Nicanor's severed head, a sign of terror,
Blackens in wind and sun.
CAPTAINS.
O Maccabaeus,
The citadel of Antiochus, wherein
The Mother with her Seven Sons was murdered,
Is still defiant.
JUDAS.
Wait.
CAPTAINS.
Its hateful aspect
Insults us with the bitter memories
Of other days.
JUDAS.
Wait; it shall disappear
And vanish as a cloud. First let us cleanse
The Sanctuary. See, it is become
Waste like a wilderness. Its golden gates
Wrenched from their hinges and consumed by fire;
Shrubs growing in its courts as in a forest;
Upon its altars hideous and strange idols;
And strewn about its pavement at my feet
Its Sacred Books, half burned and painted o'er
With images of heathen gods.
JEWS.
Woe! woe!
Our beauty and our glory are laid waste!
The Gentiles have profaned our holy places!
(Lamentation and alarm of trumpets.)
JUDAS.
This sound of trumpets, and this lamentation,
The heart-cry of a people toward the heavens,
Stir me to wrath and vengeance. Go, my captains;
I hold you back no longer. Batter down
The citadel of Antiochus, while here
We sweep away his altars and his gods.
SCENE II. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; JASON; JEWS,
JEWS.
Lurking among the ruins of the Temple,
Deep in its inner courts, we found this man,
Clad as High-Priest.
JUDAS.
I ask not who thou art.
I know thy face, writ over with deceit
As are these tattered volumes of the Law
With heathen images. A priest of God
Wast thou in other days, but thou art now
A priest of Satan. Traitor, thou art Jason.
JASON.
I am thy prisoner, Judas Maccabaeus,
And it would ill become me to conceal
My name or office.
JUDAS.
Over yonder gate
There hangs the head of one who was a Greek.
What should prevent me now, thou man of sin,
From hanging at its side the head of one
Who born a Jew hath made himself a Greek?
JASON.
Justice prevents thee.
JUDAS.
Justice? Thou art stained
With every crime against which the Decalogue
Thunders with all its thunder.
JASON.
If not Justice,
Then Mercy, her handmaiden.
JUDAS.
When hast thou
At any time, to any man or woman,
Or even to any little child, shown mercy?
JASON.
I have but done what King Antiochus
Commanded me.
JUDAS.
True, thou hast been the weapon
With which he struck; but hast been such a weapon,
So flexible, so fitted to his hand,
It tempted him to strike. So thou hast urged him
To double wickedness, thine own and his.
Where is this King? Is he in Antioch
Among his women still, and from his windows
Throwing down gold by handfuls, for the rabble
To scramble for?
JASON.
Nay, he is gone from there,
Gone with an army into the far East.
JUDAS.
And wherefore gone?
JASON.
I know not. For the space
Of forty days almost were horsemen seen
Running in air, in cloth of gold, and armed
With lances, like a band of soldiery;
It was a sign of triumph.
JUDAS.
Or of death.
Wherefore art thou not with him?
JASON.
I was left
For service in the Temple.
JUDAS.
To pollute it,
And to corrupt the Jews; for there are men
Whose presence is corruption; to be with them
Degrades us and deforms the things we do.
JASON.
I never made a boast, as some men do,
Of my superior virtue, nor denied
The weakness of my nature, that hath made me
Subservient to the will of other men.
JUDAS.
Upon this day, the five and twentieth day
Of the month Caslan, was the Temple here
Profaned by strangers,--by Antiochus
And thee, his instrument. Upon this day
Shall it be cleansed. Thou, who didst lend thyself
Unto this profanation, canst not be
A witness of these solemn services.
There can be nothing clean where thou art present.
The people put to death Callisthenes,
Who burned the Temple gates; and if they find thee
Will surely slay thee. I will spare thy life
To punish thee the longer. Thou shalt wander
Among strange nations. Thou, that hast cast out
So many from their native land, shalt perish
In a strange land. Thou, that hast left so many
Unburied, shalt have none to mourn for thee,
Nor any solemn funerals at all,
Nor sepulchre with thy fathers.--Get thee hence!
(Music. Procession of Priests and people,
with citherns, harps, and cymbals. JUDAS
MACCABAEUS puts himself at their
head, and they go into the inner courts.)
SCENE III. -- JASON, alone.
JASON.
Through the Gate Beautiful I see them come
With branches and green boughs and leaves of palm,
And pass into the inner courts. Alas!
I should be with them, should be one of them,
But in an evil hour, an hour of weakness,
That cometh unto all, I fell away
From the old faith, and did not clutch the new,
Only an outward semblance of belief;
For the new faith I cannot make mine own,
Not being born to it. It hath no root
Within me. I am neither Jew nor Greek,
But stand between them both, a renegade
To each in turn; having no longer faith
In gods or men. Then what mysterious charm,
What fascination is it chains my feet,
And keeps me gazing like a curious child
Into the holy places, where the priests
Have raised their altar?--Striking stones together,
They take fire out of them, and light the lamps
In the great candlestick. They spread the veils,
And set the loaves of showbread on the table.
The incense burns; the well-remembered odor
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back
To other days. I see myself among them
As I was then; and the old superstition
Creeps over me again!--A childish fancy!--
And hark! they sing with citherns and with cymbals,
And all the people fall upon their faces,
Praying and worshipping!--I will away
Into the East, to meet Antiochus
Upon his homeward journey, crowned with triumph.
Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it!
ACT V.
The Mountains of Ecbatana.
SCENE I. -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; ATTENDANTS.
ANTIOCHUS.
Here let us rest awhile. Where are we, Philip?
What place is this?
PHILIP.
Ecbatana, my Lord;
And yonder mountain range is the Orontes.
ANTIOCHUS.
The Orontes is my river at Antioch.
Why did I leave it? Why have I been tempted
By coverings of gold and shields and breastplates
To plunder Elymais, and be driven
From out its gates, as by a fiery blast
Out of a furnace?
PHILIP.
These are fortune's changes.
ANTIOCHUS.
What a defeat it was! The Persian horsemen
Came like a mighty wind, the wind Khamaseen,
And melted us away, and scattered us
As if we were dead leaves, or desert sand.
PHILIP.
Be comforted, my Lord; for thou hast lost
But what thou hadst not.
ANTIOCHUS.
I, who made the Jews
Skip like the grasshoppers, am made myself
To skip among these stones.
PHILIP.
Be not discouraged.
Thy realm of Syria remains to thee;
That is not lost nor marred.
ANTIOCHUS.
O, where are now
The splendors of my court, my baths and banquets?
Where are my players and my dancing women?
Where are my sweet musicians with their pipes,
That made me merry in the olden time?
I am a laughing-stock to man and brute.
The very camels, with their ugly faces,
Mock me and laugh at me.
PHILIP.
Alas! my Lord,
It is not so. If thou wouldst sleep awhile,
All would be well.
ANTIOCHUS.
Sleep from mine eyes is gone,
And my heart faileth me for very care.
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable
Told us when we were boys, in which the bear
Going for honey overturns the hive,
And is stung blind by bees? I am that beast,
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais.
PHILIP.
When thou art come again to Antioch
These thoughts will be as covered and forgotten
As are the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels
In the Egyptian sands.
ANTIOCHUS.
Ah! when I come
Again to Antioch! When will that be?
Alas! alas!
SCENE II -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; A MESSENGER
MESSENGER.
May the King live forever!
ANTIOCHUS.
Who art thou, and whence comest thou?
MESSENGER.
My Lord,
I am a messenger from Antioch,
Sent here by Lysias.
ANTIOCHUS.
A strange foreboding
Of something evil overshadows me.
I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures;
I know not Hebrew; but my High-Priest Jason,
As I remember, told me of a Prophet
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea
Like a man's hand and soon the heaven was black
With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read; I cannot;
I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim
Before mine eyes.
PHILIP (reading).
"To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes."
ANTIOCHUS.
O mockery!
Even Lysias laughs at me!--Go on, go on.
PHILIP (reading).
"We pray thee hasten thy return. The realm
Is falling from thee. Since thou hast gone from us
The victories of Judas Maccabaeus
Form all our annals. First he overthrew
Thy forces at Beth-horon, and passed on,
And took Jerusalem, the Holy City.
And then Emmaus fell; and then Bethsura;
Ephron and all the towns of Galaad,
And Maccabaeus marched to Carnion."
ANTIOCHUS.
Enough, enough! Go call my chariot-men;
We will drive forward, forward, without ceasing,
Until we come to Antioch. My captains,
My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor,
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown.
My elephants shall trample him to dust;
I will wipe out his nation, and will make
Jerusalem a common burying-place,
And every home within its walls a tomb!
(Throws up his hands, and sinks into the
arms of attendants, who lay him upon
a bank.)
PHILIP.
Antiochus! Antiochus! Alas,
The King is ill! What is it, O my Lord?
ANTIOCHUS.
Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of pain,
As if the lightning struck me, or the knife
Of an assassin smote me to the heart.
'T is passed, even as it came. Let us set forward.
PHILIP.
See that the chariots be in readiness
We will depart forthwith.
ANTIOCHUS.
A moment more.
I cannot stand. I am become at once
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead me.
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name
Thou wouldst be named,--it is alike to me,--
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat
To live a little longer.
PHILIP.
O my Lord,
Thou shalt not die; we will not let thee die!
ANTIOCHUS.
How canst thou help it, Philip? O the pain!
Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against
This unseen weapon. God of Israel,
Since all the other gods abandon me,
Help me. I will release the Holy City.
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple.
Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy
To be so much as buried, shall be equal
Unto the citizens of Antioch.
I will become a Jew, and will declare
Through all the world that is inhabited
The power of God!
PHILIP.
He faints. It is like death.
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear him
In to the camp, while yet he lives.
ANTIOCHUS.
O Philip,
Into what tribulation am I come!
Alas! I now remember all the evil
That I have done the Jews; and for this cause
These troubles are upon me, and behold
I perish through great grief in a strange land.
PHILIP.
Antiochus! my King!
ANTIOCHUS.
Nay, King no longer.
Take thou my royal robes, my signet-ring,
My crown and sceptre, and deliver them
Unto my son, Antiochus Eupator;
And unto the good Jews, my citizens,
In all my towns, say that their dying monarch
Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health.
I who, puffed up with pride and arrogance,
Thought all the kingdoms of the earth mine own,
If I would but outstretch my hand and take them,
Meet face to face a greater potentate,
King Death--Epiphanes--the Illustrious!
[Dies.
*****
MICHAEL ANGELO
Michel, piu che mortal, Angel divino. -- ARIOSTO.
Similamente operando all' artista
ch' a l'abito dell' arte e man che trema. -- DANTE, Par. xiii.,
st. 77.
DEDICATION.
Nothing that is shall perish utterly,
But perish only to revive again
In other forms, as clouds restore in rain
The exhalations of the land and sea.
Men build their houses from the masonry
Of ruined tombs; the passion and the pain
Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, remain
To throb in hearts that are, or are to be.
So from old chronicles, where sleep in dust
Names that once filled the world with trumpet tones,
I build this verse; and flowers of song have thrust
Their roots among the loose disjointed stones,
Which to this end I fashion as I must.
Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones.
PART FIRST.
I.
PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA
The Castle Terrace. VITTORIA COLONNA, and JULIA GONZAGA.
VITTORIA.
Will you then leave me, Julia, and so soon,
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost?
JULIA.
To-morrow, dearest.
VITTORIA.
Do not say to-morrow.
A whole month of to-morrows were too soon.
You must not go. You are a part of me.
JULIA.
I must return to Fondi.
VITTORIA.
The old castle
Needs not your presence. No one waits for you.
Stay one day longer with me. They who go
Feel not the pain of parting; it is they
Who stay behind that suffer. I was thinking
But yesterday how like and how unlike
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your husband,
The good Vespasian, an old man, who seemed
A father to you rather than a husband,
Died in your arms; but mine, in all the flower
And promise of his youth, was taken from me
As by a rushing wind. The breath of battle
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no more,
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our love
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for them.
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its tears;
But mine the grief of an impassioned woman,
Who drank her life up in one draught of love.
JULIA.
Behold this locket. This is the white hair
Of my Vespasian. This is the flower-of-love,
This amaranth, and beneath it the device
Non moritura. Thus my heart remains
True to his memory; and the ancient castle,
Where we have lived together, where he died,
Is dear to me as Ischia is to you.
VITTORIA.
I did not mean to chide you.
JULIA.
Let your heart
Find, if it can, some poor apology
For one who is too young, and feels too keenly
The joy of life, to give up all her days
To sorrow for the dead. While I am true
To the remembrance of the man I loved
And mourn for still, I do not make a show
Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded
And, like Veronica da Gambara,
Drape my whole house in mourning, and drive forth
In coach of sable drawn by sable horses,
As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day
Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays.
VITTORIA.
Dear Julia! Friendship has its jealousies
As well as love. Who waits for you at Fondi?
JULIA.
A friend of mine and yours; a friend and friar.
You have at Naples your Fra Bernadino;
And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano,
The famous artist, who has come from Rome
To paint my portrait. That is not a sin.
VITTORIA.
Only a vanity.
JULIA.
He painted yours.
VITTORIA.
Do not call up to me those days departed
When I was young, and all was bright about me,
And the vicissitudes of life were things
But to be read of in old histories,
Though as pertaining unto me or mine
Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your dreams,
And now, grown older, I look back and see
They were illusions.
JULIA.
Yet without illusions
What would our lives become, what we ourselves?
Dreams or illusions, call them what you will,
They lift us from the commonplace of life
To better things.
VITTORIA.
Are there no brighter dreams,
No higher aspirations, than the wish
To please and to be pleased?
JULIA.
For you there are;
I am no saint; I feel the world we live in
Comes before that which is to be here after,
And must be dealt with first.
VITTORIA.
But in what way?
JULIA.
Let the soft wind that wafts to us the odor
Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea
And the bright sunshine bathing all the world,
Answer the question.
VITTORIA.
And for whom is meant
This portrait that you speak of?
JULIA.
For my friend
The Cardinal Ippolito.
VITTORIA.
For him?
JULIA
Yes, for Ippolito the Magnificent.
'T is always flattering to a woman's pride
To be admired by one whom all admire.
VITTORIA.
Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove
Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard,
He is a Cardinal; and his adoration
Should be elsewhere directed.
JULIA.
You forget
The horror of that night, when Barbarossa,
The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast
To seize me for the Sultan Soliman;
How in the dead of night, when all were sleeping,
He scaled the castle wall; how I escaped,
And in my night-dress, mounting a swift steed,
Fled to the mountains, and took refuge there
Among the brigands. Then of all my friends
The Cardinal Ippolito was first
To come with his retainers to my rescue.
Could I refuse the only boon he asked
At such a time, my portrait?
VITTORIA.
I have heard
Strange stories of the splendors of his palace,
And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince,
He rides through Rome with a long retinue
Of Ethiopians and Numidians
And Turks and Tartars, in fantastic dresses,
Making a gallant show. Is this the way
A Cardinal should live?
JULIA.
He is so young;
Hardly of age, or little more than that;
Beautiful, generous, fond of arts and letters,
A poet, a musician, and a scholar;
Master of many languages, and a player
On many instruments. In Rome, his palace
Is the asylum of all men distinguished
In art or science, and all Florentines
Escaping from the tyranny of his cousin,
Duke Alessandro.
VITTORIA.
I have seen his portrait,
Painted by Titian. You have painted it
In brighter colors.
JULIA.
And my Cardinal,
At Itri, in the courtyard of his palace,
Keeps a tame lion!
VITTORIA.
And so counterfeits
St. Mark, the Evangelist!
JULIA.
Ah, your tame lion
Is Michael Angelo.
VITTORIA.
You speak a name
That always thrills me with a noble sound,
As of a trumpet! Michael Angelo!
A lion all men fear and none can tame;
A man that all men honor, and the model
That all should follow; one who works and prays,
For work is prayer, and consecrates his life
To the sublime ideal of his art,
Till art and life are one; a man who holds
Such place in all men's thoughts, that when they speak
Of great things done, or to be done, his name
Is ever on their lips.
JULIA.
You too can paint
The portrait of your hero, and in colors
Brighter than Titian's; I might warn you also
Against the dangers that beset your path;
But I forbear.
VITTORIA.
If I were made of marble,
Of Fior di Persico or Pavonazzo,
He might admire me: being but flesh and blood,
I am no more to him than other women;
That is, am nothing.
JULIA.
Does he ride through Rome
Upon his little mule, as he was wont,
With his slouched hat, and boots of Cordovan,
As when I saw him last?
VITTORIA.
Pray do not jest.
I cannot couple with his noble name
A trivial word! Look, how the setting sun
Lights up Castel-a-mare and Sorrento,
And changes Capri to a purple cloud!
And there Vesuvius with its plume of smoke,
And the great city stretched upon the shore
As in a dream!
JULIA.
Parthenope the Siren!
VITTORIA.
And yon long line of lights, those sunlit windows
Blaze like the torches carried in procession
To do her honor! It is beautiful!
JULIA.
I have no heart to feel the beauty of it!
My feet are weary, pacing up and down
These level flags, and wearier still my thoughts
Treading the broken pavement of the Past,
It is too sad. I will go in and rest,
And make me ready for to-morrow's journey.
VITTORIA.
I will go with you; for I would not lose
One hour of your dear presence. 'T is enough
Only to be in the same room with you.
I need not speak to you, nor hear you speak;
If I but see you, I am satisfied.
[They go in.
MONOLOGUE: THE LAST JUDGMENT
MICHAEL ANGELO's Studio. He is at work on the cartoon of the
Last Judgment.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals
Come here to lay this heavy task upon me?
Were not the paintings on the Sistine ceiling
Enough for them? They saw the Hebrew leader
Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous beard,
But heeded not. The bones of Julius
Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the sound;
They only heard the sound of their own voices.
Are there no other artists here in Rome
To do this work, that they must needs seek me?
Fra Bastian, my Era Bastian, might have done it;
But he is lost to art. The Papal Seals,
Like leaden weights upon a dead man's eyes,
Press down his lids; and so the burden falls
On Michael Angelo, Chief Architect
And Painter of the Apostolic Palace.
That is the title they cajole me with,
To make me do their work and leave my own;
But having once begun, I turn not back.
Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden trumpets
To the four corners of the earth, and wake
The dead to judgment! Ye recording angels,
Open your books and read? Ye dead awake!
Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged with death,
As men who suddenly aroused from sleep
Look round amazed, and know not where they are!
In happy hours, when the imagination
Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the soul
Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy
To be uplifted on its wings, and listen
To the prophetic voices in the air
That call us onward. Then the work we do
Is a delight, and the obedient hand
Never grows weary. But how different is it
En the disconsolate, discouraged hours,
When all the wisdom of the world appears
As trivial as the gossip of a nurse
In a sick-room, and all our work seems useless,
What is it guides my hand, what thoughts possess me,
That I have drawn her face among the angels,
Where she will be hereafter? O sweet dreams,
That through the vacant chambers of my heart
Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms
Frequent an ancient house, what will ye with me?
'T is said that Emperors write their names in green
When under age, but when of age in purple.
So Love, the greatest Emperor of them all,
Writes his in green at first, but afterwards
In the imperial purple of our blood.
First love or last love,--which of these two passions
Is more omnipotent? Which is more fair,
The star of morning or the evening star?
The sunrise or the sunset of the heart?
The hour when we look forth to the unknown,
And the advancing day consumes the shadows,
Or that when all the landscape of our lives
Lies stretched behind us, and familiar places
Gleam in the distance, and sweet memories
Rise like a tender haze, and magnify
The objects we behold, that soon must vanish?
What matters it to me, whose countenance
Is like the Laocoon's, full of pain; whose forehead
Is a ploughed harvest-field, where three-score years
Have sown in sorrow and have reaped in anguish;
To me, the artisan, to whom all women
Have been as if they were not, or at most
A sudden rush of pigeons in the air,
A flutter of wings, a sound, and then a silence?
I am too old for love; I am too old
To flatter and delude myself with visions
Of never-ending friendship with fair women,
Imaginations, fantasies, illusions,
In which the things that cannot be take shape,
And seem to be, and for the moment are.
[Convent bells ring.
Distant and near and low and loud the bells,
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan,
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers,
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves
In their dim cloisters. The descending sun
Seems to caress the city that he loves,
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint.
I will go forth and breathe the air a while.
II.
SAN SILVESTRO
A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestra on Monte Cavallo.
VITTORIA COLONNA, CLAUDIO TOLOMMEI, and others.
VITTORIA.
Here let us rest a while, until the crowd
Has left the church. I have already sent
For Michael Angelo to join us here.
MESSER CLAUDIO.
After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth.
MICHAEL ANGELO, at the door.
How like a Saint or Goddess she appears;
Diana or Madonna, which I know not!
In attitude and aspect formed to be
At once the artist's worship and despair!
VITTORIA.
Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for you.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
I met your messenger upon the way,
And hastened hither.
VITTORIA.
It is kind of you
To come to us, who linger here like gossips
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk.
These are all friends of mine and friends of yours.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
If friends of yours, then are they friends of mine.
Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I entered
I saw but the Marchesa.
VITTORIA.
Take this seat
Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei,
Who still maintains that our Italian tongue
Should be called Tuscan. But for that offence
We will not quarrel with him.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Eccellenza--
VITTORIA.
Ser Claudio has banished Eccellenza
And all such titles from the Tuscan tongue.
MESSER CLAUDIO.
'T is the abuse of them and not the use
I deprecate.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
The use or the abuse
It matters not. Let them all go together,
As empty phrases and frivolities,
And common as gold-lace upon the collar
Of an obsequious lackey.
VITTORIA.
That may be,
But something of politeness would go with them;
We should lose something of the stately manners
Of the old school.
MESSER CLAUDIO.
Undoubtedly.
VITTORlA.
But that
Is not what occupies my thoughts at present,
Nor why I sent for you, Messer Michele.
It was to counsel me. His Holiness
Has granted me permission, long desired,
To build a convent in this neighborhood,
Where the old tower is standing, from whose top
Nero looked down upon the burning city.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
It is an inspiration!
VITTORIA.
I am doubtful
How I shall build; how large to make the convent,
And which way fronting.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest art of all the arts.
Painting and sculpture are but images,
Are merely shadows cast by outward things
On stone or canvas, having in themselves
No separate existence. Architecture,
Existing in itself, and not in seeming
A something it is not, surpasses them
As substance shadow. Long, long years ago,
Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus,
I saw the statue of Laocoon
Rise from its grave of centuries, like a ghost
Writhing in pain; and as it tore away
The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard,
Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony
From its white, parted lips. And still I marvel
At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands
This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds
Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins
Of temples in the Forum here in Rome.
If God should give me power in my old age
To build for Him a temple half as grand
As those were in their glory, I should count
My age more excellent than youth itself,
And all that I have hitherto accomplished
As only vanity.
VITTORIA.
I understand you.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used
Unto His glory. That in art is highest
Which aims at this. When St. Hilarion blessed
The horses of Italicus, they won
The race at Gaza, for his benediction
O'erpowered all magic; and the people shouted
That Christ had conquered Marnas. So that art
Which bears the consecration and the seal
Of holiness upon it will prevail
Over all others. Those few words of yours
Inspire me with new confidence to build.
What think you? The old walls might serve, perhaps,
Some purpose still. The tower can hold the bells.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
If strong enough.
VITTORIA.
If not, it can be strengthened.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
I see no bar nor drawback to this building,
And on our homeward way, if it shall please you,
We may together view the site.
VITTORIA.
I thank you.
I did not venture to request so much.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Let us now go to the old walls you spake of,
Vossignoria--
VITTORIA.
What, again, Maestro?
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Pardon me, Messer Claudio, if once more
I use the ancient courtesies of speech.
I am too old to change.
III.
CARDINAL IPPOLITO.
A richly furnished apartment in the Palace of CARDINAL IPPOLITO.
Night.
JACOPO NARDI, an old man, alone.
NARDI.
I am bewildered. These Numidian slaves,
In strange attire; these endless ante-chambers;
This lighted hall, with all its golden splendors,
Pictures, and statues! Can this be the dwelling
Of a disciple of that lowly Man
Who had not where to lay his head? These statues
Are not of Saints; nor is this a Madonna,
This lovely face, that with such tender eyes
Looks down upon me from the painted canvas.
My heart begins to fail me. What can he
Who lives in boundless luxury at Rome
Care for the imperilled liberties of Florence,
Her people, her Republic? Ah, the rich
Feel not the pangs of banishment. All doors
Are open to them, and all hands extended,
The poor alone are outcasts; they who risked
All they possessed for liberty, and lost;
And wander through the world without a friend,
Sick, comfortless, distressed, unknown, uncared for.
Enter CARDINAL HIPPOLITO, in Spanish cloak and slouched hat.
IPPOLITO.
I pray you pardon me that I have kept you
Waiting so long alone.
NARDI.
I wait to see
The Cardinal.
IPPOLITO.
I am the Cardinal.
And you?
NARDI.
Jacopo Nardi.
IPPOLITO.
You are welcome
I was expecting you. Philippo Strozzi
Had told me of your coming.
NARDI.
'T was his son
That brought me to your door.
IPPOLITO.
Pray you, be seated.
You seem astonished at the garb I wear,
But at my time of life, and with my habits,
The petticoats of a Cardinal would be--
Troublesome; I could neither ride nor walk,
Nor do a thousand things, if I were dressed
Like an old dowager. It were putting wine
Young as the young Astyanax into goblets
As old as Priam.
NARDI.
Oh, your Eminence
Knows best what you should wear.
IPPOLITO.
Dear Messer Nardi,
You are no stranger to me. I have read
Your excellent translation of the books
Of Titus Livius, the historian
Of Rome, and model of all historians
That shall come after him. It does you honor;
But greater honor still the love you bear
To Florence, our dear country, and whose annals
I hope your hand will write, in happier days
Than we now see.
NARDI.
Your Eminence will pardon
The lateness of the hour.
IPPOLITO.
The hours I count not
As a sun-dial; but am like a clock,
That tells the time as well by night as day.
So no excuse. I know what brings you here.
You come to speak of Florence.
NARDI.
And her woes.
IPPOLITO.
The Duke, my cousin, the black Alessandro,
Whose mother was a Moorish slave, that fed
The sheep upon Lorenzo's farm, still lives
And reigns.
NARDI.
Alas, that such a scourge
Should fall on such a city!
IPPOLITO.
When he dies,
The Wild Boar in the gardens of Lorenzo,
The beast obscene, should be the monument
Of this bad man.
NARDI.
He walks the streets at night
With revellers, insulting honest men.
No house is sacred from his lusts. The convents
Are turned by him to brothels, and the honor
Of women and all ancient pious customs
Are quite forgotten now. The offices
Of the Priori and Gonfalonieri
Have been abolished. All the magistrates
Are now his creatures. Liberty is dead.
The very memory of all honest living
Is wiped away, and even our Tuscan tongue
Corrupted to a Lombard dialect.
IPPOLITO.
And worst of all his impious hand has broken
The Martinella,--our great battle bell,
That, sounding through three centuries, has led
The Florentines to victory,--lest its voice
Should waken in their souls some memory
Of far-off times of glory.
NARDI.
What a change
Ten little years have made! We all remember
Those better days, when Niccola Capponi,
The Gonfaloniere, from the windows
Of the Old Palace, with the blast of trumpets,
Proclaimed to the inhabitants that Christ
Was chosen King of Florence; and already
Christ is dethroned, and slain, and in his stead
Reigns Lucifer! Alas, alas, for Florence!
IPPOLITO.
Lilies with lilies, said Savonarola;
Florence and France! But I say Florence only,
Or only with the Emperor's hand to help us
In sweeping out the rubbish.
NARDI.
Little hope
Of help is there from him. He has betrothed
His daughter Margaret to this shameless Duke.
What hope have we from such an Emperor?
IPPOLITO.
Baccio Valori and Philippo Strozzi,
Once the Duke's friends and intimates are with us,
And Cardinals Salvati and Ridolfi.
We shall soon see, then, as Valori says,
Whether the Duke can best spare honest men,
Or honest men the Duke.
NARDI.
We have determined
To send ambassadors to Spain, and lay
Our griefs before the Emperor, though I fear
More than I hope.
IPPOLITO.
The Emperor is busy
With this new war against the Algerines,
And has no time to listen to complaints
From our ambassadors; nor will I trust them,
But go myself. All is in readiness
For my departure, and to-morrow morning
I shall go down to Itri, where I meet
Dante da Castiglione and some others,
Republicans and fugitives from Florence,
And then take ship at Gaeta, and go
To join the Emperor in his new crusade
Against the Turk. I shall have time enough
And opportunity to plead our cause.
NARDI, rising.
It is an inspiration, and I hail it
As of good omen. May the power that sends it
Bless our beloved country, and restore
Its banished citizens. The soul of Florence
Is now outside its gates. What lies within
Is but a corpse, corrupted and corrupting.
Heaven help us all, I will not tarry longer,
For you have need of rest. Good-night.
IPPOLITO.
Good-night.
Enter FRA SEBASTIANO; Turkish attendants.
IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastiano, how your portly presence
Contrasts with that of the spare Florentine
Who has just left me!
FRA SEBASTIANO.
As we passed each other,
I saw that he was weeping.
IPPOLITO.
Poor old man!
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Who is he?
IPPOLITO.
Jacopo Nardi. A brave soul;
One of the Fuoruseiti, and the best
And noblest of them all; but he has made me
Sad with his sadness. As I look on you
My heart grows lighter. I behold a man
Who lives in an ideal world, apart
From all the rude collisions of our life,
In a calm atmosphere.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Your Eminence
Is surely jesting. If you knew the life
Of artists as I know it, you might think
Far otherwise.
IPPOLITO.
But wherefore should I jest?
The world of art is an ideal world,--
The world I love, and that I fain would live in;
So speak to me of artists and of art,
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians
That now illustrate Rome.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Of the musicians,
I know but Goudimel, the brave maestro
And chapel-master of his Holiness,
Who trains the Papal choir.
IPPOLITO.
In church this morning,
I listened to a mass of Goudimel,
Divinely chanted. In the Incarnatus,
In lieu of Latin words, the tenor sang
With infinite tenderness, in plain Italian,
A Neapolitan love-song.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
You amaze me.
Was it a wanton song?
IPPOLITO.
Not a divine one.
I am not over-scrupulous, as you know,
In word or deed, yet such a song as that.
Sung by the tenor of the Papal choir,
And in a Papal mass, seemed out of place;
There's something wrong in it.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
There's something wrong
In everything. We cannot make the world
Go right. 'T is not my business to reform
The Papal choir.
IPPOLITO.
Nor mine, thank Heaven.
Then tell me of the artists.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Naming one
I name them all; for there is only one.
His name is Messer Michael Angelo.
All art and artists of the present day
Centre in him.
IPPOLITO.
You count yourself as nothing!
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Or less than nothing, since I am at best
Only a portrait-painter; one who draws
With greater or less skill, as best he may,
The features of a face.
IPPOLITO.
And you have had
The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying
Julia Gonzaga! Do you count as nothing
A privilege like that? See there the portrait
Rebuking you with its divine expression.
Are you not penitent? He whose skilful hand
Painted that lovely picture has not right
To vilipend the art of portrait-painting.
But what of Michael Angelo?
FRA SEBASTIANO.
But lately
Strolling together down the crowded Corso,
We stopped, well pleased, to see your Eminence
Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature,
Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover
Of all things beautiful, especially
When they are Arab horses, much admired,
And could not praise enough.
IPPOLITO, to an attendant.
Hassan, to-morrow,
When I am gone, but not till I am gone,--
Be careful about that,--take Barbarossa
To Messer Michael Angelo, the sculptor,
Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi,
Near to the Capitol; and take besides
Some ten mule-loads of provender, and say
Your master sends them to him as a present.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
A princely gift. Though Michael Angelo
Refuses presents from his Holiness,
Yours he will not refuse.
IPPOLITO.
You think him like
Thymoetes, who received the wooden horse
Into the walls of Troy. That book of Virgil
Have I translated in Italian verse,
And shall, some day, when we have leisure for it,
Be pleased to read you. When I speak of Troy
I am reminded of another town
And of a lovelier Helen, our dear Countess
Julia Gonzaga. You remember, surely,
The adventure with the corsair Barbarossa,
And all that followed?
FRA SEBASTIANO.
A most strange adventure;
A tale as marvellous and full of wonder
As any in Boccaccio or Sacchetti;
Almost incredible!
IPPOLITO.
Were I a painter
I should not want a better theme than that:
The lovely lady fleeing through the night
In wild disorder; and the brigands' camp
With the red fire-light on their swarthy faces.
Could you not paint it for me?
FRA SEBASTIANO.
No, not I.
It is not in my line.
IPPOLITO.
Then you shall paint
The portrait of the corsair, when we bring him
A prisoner chained to Naples: for I feel
Something like admiration for a man
Who dared this strange adventure.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
I will do it.
But catch the corsair first.
IPPOLITO.
You may begin
To-morrow with the sword. Hassan, come hither;
Bring me the Turkish scimitar that hangs
Beneath the picture yonder. Now unsheathe it.
'T is a Damascus blade; you see the inscription
In Arabic: La Allah illa Allah,--
There is no God but God.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
How beautiful
In fashion and in finish! It is perfect.
The Arsenal of Venice can not boast
A finer sword.
IPPOLITO.
You like it? It is yours.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
You do not mean it.
IPPOLITO.
I am not a Spaniard,
To say that it is yours and not to mean it.
I have at Itri a whole armory
Full of such weapons. When you paint the portrait
Of Barbarossa, it will be of use.
You have not been rewarded as you should be
For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this bauble
Into the scale, and make the balance equal.
Till then suspend it in your studio;
You artists like such trifles.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
I will keep it
In memory of the donor. Many thanks.
IPPOLITO.
Fra Bastian, I am growing tired of Rome,
The old dead city, with the old dead people;
Priests everywhere, like shadows on a wall,
And morning, noon, and night the ceaseless sound
Of convent bells. I must be gone from here;
Though Ovid somewhere says that Rome is worthy
To be the dwelling-place of all the Gods,
I must be gone from here. To-morrow morning
I start for Itri, and go thence by sea
To join the Emperor, who is making war
Upon the Algerines; perhaps to sink
Some Turkish galleys, and bring back in chains
The famous corsair. Thus would I avenge
The beautiful Gonzaga.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
An achievement
Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando.
Berni and Ariosto both shall add
A canto to their poems, and describe you
As Furioso and Innamorato.
Now I must say good-night.
IPPOLITO.
You must not go;
First you shall sup with me. My seneschal
Giovan Andrea dal Borgo a San Sepolcro,--
I like to give the whole sonorous name,
It sounds so like a verse of the Aeneid,--
Has brought me eels fresh from the Lake of Fondi,
And Lucrine oysters cradled in their shells:
These, with red Fondi wine, the Caecu ban
That Horace speaks of, under a hundred keys
Kept safe, until the heir of Posthumus
Shall stain the pavement with it, make a feast
Fit for Lucullus, or Fra Bastian even;
So we will go to supper, and be merry.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Beware! I Remember that Bolsena's eels
And Vernage wine once killed a Pope of Rome!
IPPOLITO.
'T was a French Pope; and then so long ago;
Who knows?--perhaps the story is not true.
IV.
BORGO DELLE VERGINE AT NAPLES
Room in the Palace of JULIA GONZAGA. Night.
JULIA GONZAGA, GIOVANNI VALDESSO.
JULIA.
Do not go yet.
VALDESSO.
The night is far advanced;
I fear to stay too late, and weary you
With these discussions.
JULIA.
I have much to say.
I speak to you, Valdesso, with that frankness
Which is the greatest privilege of friendship.--
Speak as I hardly would to my confessor,
Such is my confidence in you.
VALDESSO.
Dear Countess
If loyalty to friendship be a claim
Upon your confidence, then I may claim it.
JULIA.
Then sit again, and listen unto things
That nearer are to me than life itself.
VALDESSO.
In all things I am happy to obey you,
And happiest then when you command me most.
JULIA.
Laying aside all useless rhetoric,
That is superfluous between us two,
I come at once unto the point and say,
You know my outward life, my rank and fortune;
Countess of Fondi, Duchess of Trajetto,
A widow rich and flattered, for whose hand
In marriage princes ask, and ask it only
To be rejected. All the world can offer
Lies at my feet. If I remind you of it,
It is not in the way of idle boasting,
But only to the better understanding
Of what comes after.
VALDESSO.
God hath given you also
Beauty and intellect; and the signal grace
To lead a spotless life amid temptations,
That others yield to.
JULIA.
But the inward life,--
That you know not; 't is known but to myself,
And is to me a mystery and a pain.
A soul disquieted, and ill at ease,
A mind perplexed with doubts and apprehensions,
A heart dissatisfied with all around me,
And with myself, so that sometimes I weep,
Discouraged and disgusted with the world.
VALDESSO.
Whene'er we cross a river at a ford,
If we would pass in safety, we must keep
Our eyes fixed steadfast on the shore beyond,
For if we cast them on the flowing stream,
The head swims with it; so if we would cross
The running flood of things here in the world,
Our souls must not look down, but fix their sight
On the firm land beyond.
JULIA.
I comprehend you.
You think I am too worldly; that my head
Swims with the giddying whirl of life about me.
Is that your meaning?
VALDESSO.
Yes; your meditations
Are more of this world and its vanities
Than of the world to come.
JULIA.
Between the two
I am confused.
VALDESSO.
Yet have I seen you listen
Enraptured when Fra Bernardino preached
Of faith and hope and charity.
JULIA.
I listen,
But only as to music without meaning.
It moves me for the moment, and I think
How beautiful it is to be a saint,
As dear Vittoria is; but I am weak
And wayward, and I soon fall back again
To my old ways, so very easily.
There are too many week-days for one Sunday.
VALDESSO.
Then take the Sunday with you through the week,
And sweeten with it all the other days.
JULIA.
In part I do so; for to put a stop
To idle tongues, what men might say of me
If I lived all alone here in my palace,
And not from a vocation that I feel
For the monastic life, I now am living
With Sister Caterina at the convent
Of Santa Chiara, and I come here only
On certain days, for my affairs, or visits
Of ceremony, or to be with friends.
For I confess, to live among my friends
Is Paradise to me; my Purgatory
Is living among people I dislike.
And so I pass my life in these two worlds,
This palace and the convent.
VALDESSO.
It was then
The fear of man, and not the love of God,
That led you to this step. Why will you not
Give all your heart to God?
JULIA.
If God commands it,
Wherefore hath He not made me capable
Of doing for Him what I wish to do
As easily as I could offer Him
This jewel from my hand, this gown I wear,
Or aught else that is mine?
VALDESSO.
The hindrance lies
In that original sin, by which all fell.
JULIA.
Ah me, I cannot bring my troubled mind
To wish well to that Adam, our first parent,
Who by his sin lost Paradise for us,
And brought such ills upon us.
VALDESSO.
We ourselves,
When we commit a sin, lose Paradise,
As much as he did. Let us think of this,
And how we may regain it.
JULIA.
Teach me, then,
To harmonize the discord of my life,
And stop the painful jangle of these wires.
VALDESSO.
That is a task impossible, until
You tune your heart-strings to a higher key
Than earthly melodies.
JULIA.
How shall I do it?
Point out to me the way of this perfection,
And I will follow you; for you have made
My soul enamored with it, and I cannot
Rest satisfied until I find it out.
But lead me privately, so that the world
Hear not my steps; I would not give occasion
For talk among the people.
VALDESSO.
Now at last
I understand you fully. Then, what need
Is there for us to beat about the bush?
I know what you desire of me.
JULIA.
What rudeness!
If you already know it, why not tell me?
VALDESSO.
Because I rather wait for you to ask it
With your own lips.
JULIA.
Do me the kindness, then,
To speak without reserve; and with all frankness,
If you divine the truth, will I confess it.
VALDESSO.
I am content.
JULIA.
Then speak.
VALDESSO.
You would be free
From the vexatious thoughts that come and go
Through your imagination, and would have me
Point out some royal road and lady-like
Which you may walk in, and not wound your feet;
You would attain to the divine perfection,
And yet not turn your back upon the world;
You would possess humility within,
But not reveal it in your outward actions;
You would have patience, but without the rude
Occasions that require its exercise;
You would despise the world, but in such fashion
The world should not despise you in return;
Would clothe the soul with all the Christian graces,
Yet not despoil the body of its gauds;
Would feed the soul with spiritual food,
Yet not deprive the body of its feasts;
Would seem angelic in the sight of God,
Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men;
In short, would lead a holy Christian life
In such a way that even your nearest friend
Would not detect therein one circumstance
To show a change from what it was before.
Have I divined your secret?
JULIA.
You have drawn
The portrait of my inner self as truly
As the most skilful painter ever painted
A human face.
VALDESSO.
This warrants me in saying
You think you can win heaven by compromise,
And not by verdict.
JULIA
You have often told me
That a bad compromise was better even
Than a good verdict.
VALDESSO.
Yes, in suits at law;
Not in religion. With the human soul
There is no compromise. By faith alone
Can man be justified.
JULIA.
Hush, dear Valdesso;
That is a heresy. Do not, I pray you,
Proclaim it from the house-top, but preserve it
As something precious, hidden in your heart,
As I, who half believe and tremble at it.
VALDESSO.
I must proclaim the truth.
JULIA.
Enthusiast!
Why must you? You imperil both yourself
And friends by your imprudence. Pray, be patient.
You have occasion now to show that virtue
Which you lay stress upon. Let us return
To our lost pathway. Show me by what steps
I shall walk in it.
[Convent bells are heard.
VALDESSO.
Hark! the convent bells
Are ringing; it is midnight; I must leave you.
And yet I linger. Pardon me, dear Countess,
Since you to-night have made me your confessor,
If I so far may venture, I will warn you
Upon one point.
JULIA.
What is it? Speak, I pray you,
For I have no concealments in my conduct;
All is as open as the light of day.
What is it you would warn me of?
VALDESSO.
Your friendship
With Cardinal Ippolito.
JULIA.
What is there
To cause suspicion or alarm in that,
More than in friendships that I entertain
With you and others? I ne'er sat with him
Alone at night, as I am sitting now
With you, Valdesso.
VALDESSO.
Pardon me; the portrait
That Fra Bastiano painted was for him.
Is that quite prudent?
JULIA.
That is the same question
Vittoria put to me, when I last saw her.
I make you the same answer. That was not
A pledge of love, but of pure gratitude.
Recall the adventure of that dreadful night
When Barbarossa with two thousand Moors
Landed upon the coast, and in the darkness
Attacked my castle. Then, without delay,
The Cardinal came hurrying down from Rome
To rescue and protect me. Was it wrong
That in an hour like that I did not weigh
Too nicely this or that, but granted him
A boon that pleased him, and that flattered me?
VALDESSO.
Only beware lest, in disguise of friendship
Another corsair, worse than Barbarossa,
Steal in and seize the castle, not by storm
But strategy. And now I take my leave.
JULIA.
Farewell; but ere you go look forth and see
How night hath hushed the clamor and the stir
Of the tumultuous streets. The cloudless moon
Roofs the whole city as with tiles of silver;
The dim, mysterious sea in silence sleeps;
And straight into the air Vesuvius lifts
His plume of smoke. How beautiful it is!
[Voices in the street.
GIOVAN ANDREA.
Poisoned at Itri.
ANOTHER VOICE.
Poisoned? Who is poisoned?
GIOVAN ANDREA.
The Cardinal Ippolito, my master.
Call it malaria. It was sudden.
[Julia swoons.
V.
VITTORIA COLONNA
A room in the Torre Argentina.
VITTORIA COLONNA and JULIA GONZAGA.
VITTORIA.
Come to my arms and to my heart once more;
My soul goes out to meet you and embrace you,
For we are of the sisterhood of sorrow.
I know what you have suffered.
JULIA.
Name it not.
Let me forget it.
VITTORIA.
I will say no more.
Let me look at you. What a joy it is
To see your face, to hear your voice again!
You bring with you a breath as of the morn,
A memory of the far-off happy days
When we were young. When did you come from Fondi?
JULIA.
I have not been at Fondi since--
VITTORIA.
Ah me!
You need not speak the word; I understand you.
JULIA.
I came from Naples by the lovely valley
The Terra di Lavoro.
VITTORIA.
And you find me
But just returned from a long journey northward.
I have been staying with that noble woman
Renee of France, the Duchess of Ferrara.
JULIA.
Oh, tell me of the Duchess. I have heard
Flaminio speak her praises with such warmth
That I am eager to hear more of her
And of her brilliant court.
VITTORIA.
You shall hear all
But first sit down and listen patiently
While I confess myself.
JULIA.
What deadly sin
Have you committed?
VITTORIA.
Not a sin; a folly
I chid you once at Ischia, when you told me
That brave Fra Bastian was to paint your portrait.
JULIA
Well I remember it.
VITTORIA.
Then chide me now,
For I confess to something still more strange.
Old as I am, I have at last consented
To the entreaties and the supplications
Of Michael Angelo--
JULIA
To marry him?
VITTORIA.
I pray you, do not jest with me! You now,
Or you should know, that never such a thought
Entered my breast. I am already married.
The Marquis of Pescara is my husband,
And death has not divorced us.
JULIA.
Pardon me.
Have I offended you?
VITTORIA.
No, but have hurt me.
Unto my buried lord I give myself,
Unto my friend the shadow of myself,
My portrait. It is not from vanity,
But for the love I bear him.
JULIA.
I rejoice
To hear these words. Oh, this will be a portrait
Worthy of both of you! [A knock.
VITTORIA.
Hark! He is coming.
JULIA.
And shall I go or stay?
VITTORIA.
By all means, stay.
The drawing will be better for your presence;
You will enliven me.
JULIA.
I shall not speak;
The presence of great men doth take from me
All power of speech. I only gaze at them
In silent wonder, as if they were gods,
Or the inhabitants of some other planet.
Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.
VITTORIA.
Come in.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
I fear my visit is ill-timed;
I interrupt you.
VITTORIA.
No; this is a friend
Of yours as well as mine,--the Lady Julia,
The Duchess of Trajetto.
MICHAEL ANGELO to JULIA.
I salute you.
'T is long since I have seen your face, my lady;
Pardon me if I say that having seen it,
One never can forget it.
JULIA.
You are kind
To keep me in your memory.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
It is
The privilege of age to speak with frankness.
You will not be offended when I say
That never was your beauty more divine.
JULIA.
When Michael Angelo condescends to flatter
Or praise me, I am proud, and not offended.
VITTORIA.
Now this is gallantry enough for one;
Show me a little.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Ah, my gracious lady,
You know I have not words to speak your praise.
I think of you in silence. You conceal
Your manifold perfections from all eyes,
And make yourself more saint-like day by day.
And day by day men worship you the wore.
But now your hour of martyrdom has come.
You know why I am here.
VITTORIA.
Ah yes, I know it,
And meet my fate with fortitude. You find me
Surrounded by the labors of your hands:
The Woman of Samaria at the Well,
The Mater Dolorosa, and the Christ
Upon the Cross, beneath which you have written
Those memorable words of Alighieri,
"Men have forgotten how much blood it costs."
MICHAEL ANGELO.
And now I come to add one labor more,
If you will call that labor which is pleasure,
And only pleasure.
VITTORIA.
How shall I be seated?
MICHAEL ANGELO, opening his portfolio.
Just as you are. The light falls well upon you.
VITTORIA.
I am ashamed to steal the time from you
That should be given to the Sistine Chapel.
How does that work go on?
MICHAEL ANGELO, drawing.
But tardily.
Old men work slowly. Brain and hand alike
Are dull and torpid. To die young is best,
And not to be remembered as old men
Tottering about in their decrepitude.